Page 54 of Hell to Pay
Nothing—nothing—was the same. Oh, the streets and sidewalks were still cobbled for the first block or two, untilwe reached the bridge across the river and left the old city behind, and there were still tram lines, too. The Elbe still flowed, dark and quiet as always, but after that? Grass and trees for a bit, then a freeway with sound walls on either side, along which Sebastian drove at great speed, as did everybody else. We would cover the distance in, what? Ten minutes? Fifteen?
Nothing like the same.
By the time we ventured through the tunnel and out of the church again, back on that day in 1945, and stood blinking like moles in the smoky gray daylight, it was nearly noon.
First, Dr. Becker and I had eaten, finishing the remaining scraps of bread and cheese and Wurst with the help of the children. Then he’d said, “We should sleep a bit before leaving. Who knows how far we’ll have to walk after this?” And although I’d suspected that he was, like me, delaying the moment when we’d be out there, homeless and unprotected by anything but our wits, I was glad enough to acquiesce.
When we finally emerged from the church, I got a shock. Turning to ask Dr. Becker which way he thought we should go, I realized that the outline of the star could clearly be seen on his much-faded coat. I gasped, “Back inside! Quickly!”
He looked confused, but followed me, and when I explained, said, “I must have a coat, though. It’s snowing again.”
I blinked in the dimness. “It is? I thought it was more ash.”
“No,” he said. “I felt the cold on my cheek. It’s snow.”
We’d gone possibly five steps, and already, things looked hopeless.They’re not hopeless,I told myself as fiercely as I could manage, and repeated the Robert Louis Stevenson line in myhead.Keep your fears to yourself, but share your courage with others.I asked myself,What would Father do?
“Give me your coat,” I said.
“What?”
“Give me your coat,” I repeated. “We’ll exchange.” I crouched amidst the rubble and pathetic discarded belongings, removed my rucksack, and pulled out a silk scarf. It was my mother’s and had been in her own rucksack, and was done in shades of gold and pale blue, depicting a fanciful scene of rainbows and hot-air balloons. I’d taken it to remember her by, and also to cover my hair if necessary, as my pale blondness was perhaps too recognizable, especially amidst the dark Beckers. It would serve a different purpose now. “I can cover the outline of the star with this,” I said. “It’s very large.”
“It will put you in great danger,” Dr. Becker said, “if anybody sees.”
“Of course it won’t,” I said. “Come. Exchange.”
He did so, but reluctantly, and I tied the scarf around my neck, then pulled the knot around to the back so that the folds of the scarf covered me halfway to my waist. The luxury of Hermès looked rather silly worn over Dr. Becker’s threadbare brown coat, but what did that matter? I would be a stylish refugee. I finished adjusting it and said, “I’ve just realized that I must be your niece and not your daughter. I’m too fair to be believed otherwise.”
“And if the star is seen?” Dr. Becker was wearing my coat now, but he still looked unhappy about it.
“Then I took it from an old Jew,” I said, “who was trying to run for it by illegally taking off the star.”
“Well, that’s true enough.” Dr. Becker was actually smiling a little. “Although now you’ve become a thief.”
“No. He was arrested, and I asked the Gestapo’s permission to take the coat, as I’d lost my own. They granted it, of course, because what did they care about his possessions?Also, look at me! I’m as fair as Frau Goebbels herself, and I have a few freckles on my nose. How could I appear anything but Aryan to these people?”
“The parure, though,” Dr. Becker said.
“As if I think you’d steal it,” I said. “Now come. We need to go.”
The exchange had stiffened my spine somehow. It was easier, it seemed, to be a determined plotter than a rootless victim, so I’d keep on being a dangerous lawbreaker. When we emerged from the church again, I said, “We’ll go around to the right, by Brühl’s Terrace. Look, the others are moving that way, too. We’ll follow the crowd.”
There was indeed a steady stream of pedestrians on the streets. Some had pushcarts or wheelbarrows. Those, probably, would be the refugees. They were the lucky ones now—they had a way to carry their possessions and even their children. Everything was covered with a layer of gray ash, and even now it fell, mixing with the hard little pellets of snow. We saw officials, too—the regular police and the Army both. Many were carrying bodies, which they laid in a row in front of the church. “So they can be identified,” Dr. Becker said, and again, the sight was less distressing to me than it should have been. All my senses seemed oddly dulled. Across the river, on the grassy meadows where Father and I had seen people congregating last night, men were moving in the same way: gathering corpses and carrying them off. I wondered for a moment about the circus horses and hoped they’d survived. Also the elephants. I couldn’t stop thinking about the elephants, caged and helpless.
Andrea uttered a sound of distress, and I realized that I’d grown somewhat accustomed to these terrible sights—how quickly one adjusts to a new reality!—and she hadn’t. I said, “Come, take my hand. You’re my cousin now, after all, and you must call me Daisy.”
“But your name is Princess Marguerite,” Gerhardt objected. Dr. Becker was holding his hand. How much safety there is in a hand.
“No,” I said, “not anymore. Now, I’m merely Daisy. Daisy …” I thought a minute. “Daisy Glücksburg.” It was one of my mother’s titles and would be easy to remember. “Or ‘Cousin Daisy.’ Even better, and your Father will be my Uncle?—"
“Uncle Kurt,” Dr. Becker said.
“No,” I said. “You have a newKennkarte,and you’re Herr Fritz Kolbe now. My Uncle Fritz. We must all memorize our new names. If we keep calling each other by them, it will be easier to answer correctly under pressure.”
We kept hurrying along the terrace. Everybody else was going this way—maybe they’d heard there was help there! And did we have any better plan?
The humming drone came out of the clouds and smoke. I recognized it instantly this time. It was the sound of hundreds of bombers.
