The Children's War (95 page)

25

I
N THE EARLY AFTERNOON,
once they had all settled into their rooms and relaxed a bit, Peter ventured out to find Zosia. She was not in her room, but he quickly located her with the elderly couple in the little sitting room they kept at the back of the pension for their private use. Peter interrupted apologetically, then called Zosia aside to ask her if the car was already arranged.

“Yes. It’s on the street.”

“Give me the keys. I want to check it out.”

“Check it out?”

“Yes, it’s a long trip—we should make sure everything is running smoothly.”

Zosia furrowed her brow as though she thought she was being deceived. “Don’t you think it would be a little inappropriate for you—in that uniform—to go poking around a car?”

“No, not at all. Give me the keys and show me which one it is.”

She excused herself from her godparents—for that’s who they were—and walked to the front of the pension with Peter to show him the car. They paused
there, on the stoop, and he looked into her eyes, willing her to trust him. He needed to go alone—unobserved—and he needed her to let him go.

“Wait here,” she said. “I’ll get the keys.” It took her some minutes to return. When she did, she handed him the keys and said, “Whatever you do, don’t take too long. Otherwise, we might worry.”

Peter kissed her on the cheek and said, “I’ve just got to check it out. I’m sure you understand.”

She nodded and left.

Normally, he would have confided in Zosia, but he knew that while they were on a mission, they were bound by their military procedures and ranks. Tadek outranked him, and Zosia outranked them both, and though it was not usually relevant, in this context, when he was going to do something that was so foolhardy, he could hardly ask her permission. She would have had to refuse him. Better Zosia could plead ignorance, even if, as she so clearly indicated, that was not the case.

As any high-level official would do, he quickly scanned the underside of the car. Satisfied that he was not a terrorist target, he then slid into the driver’s seat. Despite the cold it was a bright day, and he put on his sunglasses. He had memorized the map in his room, and without further hesitation he started the car and drove away confidently. Forty minutes later, he turned onto the familiar suburban street and parked the car two houses down from the Vogels’ house. Although he would raise suspicions by his presence, nobody would harass him. The uniform, the quality of the car, the military license plate—it would all keep him out of danger. The neighbors and the Vogels alike would assume that he was observing somebody on the street, but they would not dare to wonder more than that.

He lit a cigarette and began to smoke, but the reflection of the smoke off the windshield reminded him of all the times Karl had blown smoke in his face, and within a few seconds he extinguished the cigarette. He tapped his fingers on the edge of the ashtray pensively, wondering what it was he had come here for. What did he hope to achieve? What demons could he dispel just by looking at the house? As he watched, the front door opened and Frau Vogel and a woman emerged. The woman was obviously his replacement, and he felt a surge of pity and guilt. Doubtless her life would be a lot more miserable because of what he had done—they would feel that they had been too lenient with him and would take out their vengeance and frustrations on her. He almost felt like going over to her and apologizing, and perhaps if she had been alone, he might have done so—though, wearing the uniform that he was, he would probably have provoked only uncomprehending terror in her.

He shook his head to dispel the thought and imagined a different scenario: he could walk up to Frau Vogel and demand to see her papers and harass her mercilessly about their being out of order. Even if she thought she recognized him— and how could she not?—she would not dare to disobey him, not while he was wearing this uniform. He imagined her stunned face, imagined her thinking,
How can this be? He smiled at the ludicrous image, suppressing a childish urge to actually do it, since it would be pointless and dangerous, but he allowed himself to enjoy the brief fantasy.

He sat for a bit longer, watching the house. Frau Vogel and her servant returned. The children came home from their various activities. It was a Wednesday, so that would mean that Rudi and Gisela were returning from school, Teresa would be returning from attending her Bund Deutsche Mädel meeting—or more likely, from not attending her BDM meeting—Ulrike would by now be enrolled in the N.S. Frauenschaften and would doubtless be busy with a training program and a schedule that he would be unfamiliar with. He wondered if she had passed her school exams, wondered if her modern history results were as poor as his had always been. Probably not, she had apparently learned her lessons and would fit well into her place in society. And Horst would not come home until late—if at all. Perhaps he had moved out permanently. Uwe, Geerd, then Horst. They all seemed to run away, but there was nowhere for them to run—they were, in some ways, more trapped than he had ever been.

He realized that whatever he was looking for—the cure for his dreams, the peace of mind that still eluded him—it was not here. He could take no revenge, could not even gloat that he had managed to survive. He had to remain silently missing from their lives, and though Karl and Elspeth had scarred him terribly, probably permanently, he had to live with the fact that he would never influence them in the same way that they had warped his life. He had been a tangential concern of theirs, a thorn in their side occasionally, a commodity to be used; whereas they had been the very definition of his life for three long years. They had held life or death over him; pain, sustenance, even sleep, had been at their will. The balance was unfair and could never be redressed.

He started the car and drove back to the center of Berlin, deciding en route that there was one small thing he could do. He parked the car near the pension and walked about until he found a shop that sold note cards and stamps. He purchased the local postage and wrote a brief note to Teresa, making it so obscure that even she might not guess what it meant. He did not sign his name, and no one in the house had ever seen his handwriting, so he figured it was safe letting Teresa know he was alive and well in this manner. He wrote:
Enjoying my new location, but miss seeing you at school. Hope all is well with you. All is well here. Change the world! F.

He chose to sign an initial on the assumption it would make the note look less suspicious, say from some rather shy boy, and he used the letter
F
for “Freedom.” The last line would probably cause Elspeth to interrogate Teresa, but he was sure she could handle it. He smiled as he dropped the card in the postbox and hoped that there was no unforeseen danger associated with such a whimsical gesture.

As he walked back, he noticed a jeweler’s and on an impulse decided to go in. It was already shop-closing time, but when he rapped on the window, the owner
came and opened the door for him. He looked into his wallet to see how much he had with him. It was a reasonable amount, and since this would be the last evening he could carry money, he decided it would not be unreasonable to spend it all. He perused the display cases. Most of the jewelry was gaudy and unappealing, but a fine silver chain with a solitary diamond centered in a setting of filigree shaped like a delicate and distant star caught his eye. It cost rather less than he had planned to spend, but it was the only piece of jewelry that he liked, and he imagined it would look beautiful on Zosia.

He gave the clerk the six thousand marks and asked if he would wrap it. The clerk asked to see his papers so he could note the transaction in his books. Peter frowned with annoyance—he had forgotten that expensive purchases were recorded for tax purposes. He handed over the papers and the clerk perused them; noting that he was married, the clerk asked, “Shall I send the invoice to your home or, uh, your office?”

Neither, of course, would do. Glancing nervously back at the other customer the clerk had let into the shop, Peter placed five hundred marks on the counter and said, “Just store it here for me.”

The note disappeared and the clerk agreed, “Of course,
mein Herr.”

Just as well, Peter thought, that so many Party officials have mistresses. Once outside the shop, he placed the small packet in his pocket. He would send it back with the uniform and pick it up later to give Zosia the gift at a more appropriate time. Then, realizing that he might not return, he decided to scribble a note on the wrapping paper to make sure Zosia knew it was for her, and if neither of them returned, that Marysia would save it to give to Joanna. There wasn’t much room on the small package to write what was in essence a last will and testament, but he found space enough to tell them he loved them both.

When he returned to the pension, Zosia, her godparents, and Tadek were in the sitting room. Zosia greeted him warmly. She asked in German,“So does it run well?”

“No better than one might expect.”

“Ah, I’m sorry you didn’t discover anything useful.”

“So am I. But what can one expect from a car? Certainly not miracles.”

Tadek scowled. “Cut the crap. You were AWOL.”

Peter shrugged. “When’s dinner?” he asked in Polish, picking up a biscuit and chewing it thoughtfully.

“Now,” Zosia’s godmother said. “We were waiting for you.”

“Sorry. I did not intend to take so long.”

She smiled at him and shook her head at the suggestion that he had caused any problem at all. Clearly she and her husband had decided that he was Adam reincarnated, and they were quite willing to forgive the dead-returned-to-life almost any discourtesy. Peter wondered how Adam managed to be so well loved by so many people. Was it just a side effect of being dead? His question, at least in the case of Zosia’s godparents, was answered later in the evening when the old woman drew him aside and said, “Zosia thinks highly of you and that’s all that
matters to us. I just thought you might want to know, she said many kind things about you. Take care of her—she trusts you, and she is very precious to us.”

Peter, stunned, took a moment before he could construct an appropriate reply. Finally he managed to stammer, “I’ll do my best.”

26

I
T WAS A WINDY
and bitterly cold morning in Berlin. They had finished their preparations and now it was time to go. It was getting late, he should have been dressed long ago, but still Peter had trouble pulling the uniform on. Once he put it on, he was stuck—there would be no alternative for at least three days. His military uniform and the papers that went with it would be sent back separately to Neu Sandez, and until then he would be obliged to wear the uniform and carry the papers of a slave. And in a society that defined a person by their documents, that is what he would be. Again.

It was only an act, he told himself; just a role. It should be simple; all the difficult things had been done already. He had the metal band on his wrist, designed to look as solid as the real thing but more easily removed, and his numbers had been changed, but only with ink.

The familiar blue uniform lay on the bed waiting for him. He stared at it as though it were alive and he expected it to attack at any moment. The uniform was certainly in better shape than what he used to wear, but no more appealing. He remembered how much fuss it had taken to get Elspeth to replace his worn clothes. His old uniform had grown stained—mostly with his own blood—and torn and thin. He had tried to soak out the stains, had repaired the seams and patched the tears, but when the threadbare material of his shirt had worn so thin that nearly every move caused another rip, he had finally been forced to approach Elspeth with a request for new clothes. Of course she had grumbled that he had not taken enough care with his uniform, of course she moaned about the expense, and of course she told him to wait. So wait he did. Only when Frau Schindler made a rather snide comment about his unkempt appearance did Elspeth finally relent. So, even Frau Schindler had her uses.

The new uniforms were purchased from a supplier in the city—and, oh, how that had triggered yet another torrent of complaints about how much trouble and expense he caused! Then Peter had to carefully remove the shoulder patches from his original uniform and sew them securely onto his new. He remembered how Elspeth had inspected his work, carefully pulling at the edges to make sure they would not easily come off. Once that was done, the old clothes were returned to the supplier for recycling.

He shrugged off his thoughts, pulled on the uniform, and surveyed himself in
the mirror. He no longer had that malnourished, terminally tired appearance, but otherwise he looked fairly convincing. Well, if anyone knew how to play this part, he did. He put on the jacket, stuck his papers in his pocket, and left the room. As he descended the steps of the pension, a young man and his girlfriend began to ascend. Without giving it even a thought, he backed out of their way. Once they were past, giggling at some private joke, he made his way to join the others waiting in the private dining room. They looked him up and down, Zosia’s godparents with curiosity, Zosia with a smile of commiseration in her eyes, Tadek with a satisfied smirk.

Zosia took affectionate leave of her godparents, Tadek said his brief goodbyes, but Peter found himself completely at a loss for words. Somehow, the old woman understood. She came up to him, took his hands in hers, and said, “You are one of us and our prayers will be with you. Go with God.” She made the sign of the cross before him, then standing on tiptoe, she kissed him on the cheek.

The three of them made their way outside, Zosia and Tadek leading, Peter following, carrying the luggage. As they stepped onto the street, the January wind cut through the thin fabric of his jacket, and he looked with envy at the thick wool coats that the other two wore. Wordlessly, he opened the doors for them, loaded the luggage, and then lowered himself to inspect the undercarriage as he had done numerous times for Karl. Satisfied that there was no obvious danger, he climbed into the driver’s seat to chauffeur them to their destination. Tadek, only half-jokingly, suggested he follow regulations and chain himself to the steering wheel. At that Peter allowed himself to step out of character, and military discipline, long enough to tell Tadek, in three different languages, to fuck himself, then he started the car and drove off.

As he drove, he glanced in the rearview mirror at Zosia and Tadek. Zosia had lightened her hair to the appropriate platinum blond and had pinned it back into a bun with two braids running along the side. She had also done something to make her hair smoother and the usual halo of frizz and disorganized curls were missing, making her look very tidy, very organized, very proper. They sat in stony silence, each staring out his or her respective window. Tadek’s briefcase sat on the seat between them with Peter’s computer safely tucked inside: Tadek would use it for transferring the data that Herr Móller was bringing and for other simple uses. To acquaint him with the basics of its use, Peter had tutored him for hours. Zosia had assured him that Tadek would never let personal animosity jeopardize any mission, but still Peter had been surprised by Tadek’s attentiveness and cooperation.

The drive was slow. The roads were slippery, and a number of accidents brought traffic to a standstill. Once they were clear of Berlin’s endless sprawl, they drove into a turnout, and Tadek and Zosia walked a few meters into the woods as if to get a breath of fresh air. As soon as they were out of sight of the road and the parked traffic, they were met by the group that had intercepted Herr Móller and were given the data that he had been carrying. They returned to
the car, and sitting in the back, Tadek and Zosia spent some time looking it over while Peter waited outside, keeping a watch for any police or suspicious civilians. It was another bright day, and he sorely missed his sunglasses, but it was impossible for him to wear them at his present social rank. He breathed on his hands to try to warm them, then rubbed his eyes wearily, hoping to coax them into maintaining their focus for the rest of the drive, while wishing profoundly that his head would stop aching.

Zosia had already cooked up false data on Peter’s computer in case there had been any complications with Herr Móller, but once she had a chance to peruse the real data, she decided they should dump theirs. “It’s just too different,” she stated despondently.

“Let’s alter what you put on the computer to look more like this stuff,” Tadek suggested.

“That’ll take too long.”

“But we shouldn’t miss this chance to ruin their experiment.”

“I don’t think one set of cooked data is going to ruin their experiment, and it’s just too risky to throw any old crap at them. Let’s give them the real stuff— it’ll make it easier for us to pass as legit.”

“Why can’t you alter your faked data?” Tadek asked.

“We just don’t have that sort of time!”

“Then why don’t you introduce spurious results into the real data?”

“I don’t want to risk that—I can’t tell if they’ve built in any checks. If they know we’ve tampered with this stuff, then we’ll be screwed,” Zosia explained.

“Surely you can do something?” Tadek insisted.

“Hey, if you want to be the expert, then you do it! Otherwise, keep your fuckingcomputer illiterate mouth shut and let me make the decisions!”

Peter had listened to the debate from outside the car, and Zosia’s voice had risen considerably during the interchange. He decided it was time to stop the argument, and besides, he was freezing. He went around to the driver’s side, got in, and lied matter-of-factly, “We’ve got to push on. I’ve spotted trouble.” The debate ended; Zosia deleted the false data as they headed west while Tadek sulked.