For Such a Time (27 page)

 30 

Haman went out that day happy and in high spirits. But when he saw Mordecai . . . and observed that he neither rose nor showed fear in his presence, he was filled with rage. . . .

Esther 5:9

H
ermann locked his fingers behind his head, tipped back in his chair, and smiled. The general’s praise of the previous two nights made him almost giddy; he imagined himself one day an SS-Sturmbannführer in the Berlin Chancellery.

The new transport lists he’d retrieved earlier that morning lay spread across his desk. He’d barely given them a glance. Nor did he pay attention to the icy wind howling through the cracks inside his poorly insulated office.

He chided himself over his hasty first impression of General Feldman. Yes, the fat man drank as much as his father ever did, but the general countered that weakness with an ambition that frankly impressed Hermann—and seemed to irritate the commandant.

He lowered his hands and chuckled. What a surprise the Wehrmacht general must have been to Schmidt, who normally dragged his feet when dealing with the Jews. The general held
no such qualms. Hermann had also sensed there was more to the animosity between the two men last night. Like the stench of the Krematorium at the onset of a hot day, it grew steadily stronger, to the point of being openly offensive. They fought over the woman, the commandant’s wife-to-be.

Rising from his chair, Hermann began to pace. The announcement still amazed him. A man of Schmidt’s distinction planned to shackle himself to the cow giving him free milk?

And how ironic the commandant had bested him for Stella, only to have the general toss his rank into the fray. Hermann had seen the envy burning in the general’s eyes and understood that kind of yearning, wanting something so badly when the prize was just out of reach.

Still, their hostile tug-of-war made little difference to his own situation; the general would soon depart from Theresienstadt forever, while Aric von Schmidt remained in the warm house, bedding his warm woman, and eating warm food.

Hermann would continue as he had his whole life—standing out in the cold.

The room’s chill finally registered, and he rubbed his hands together, nursing his old outrage. Himmler had tossed him over for an icon. Hermann had more experience in the SS and with the running of a concentration camp. Yet he’d failed to measure up to Colonel Aric von Schmidt, war hero, blue blood. A perfect decoration to set atop the SS-Reichsführer’s prized cake.

A single, sharp rap at the door brought him up short. Corporal Sonntag entered, still wearing his parade black from the general’s earlier inspection. He looked very smart, except for the white bandage across his chin. Hermann felt a moment’s remorse for his earlier rashness.

“The Jew, Benjamin, has returned, Herr Captain.”

Sonntag stepped back to let the prisoner enter. Walking now with a steady gait, the old Jew wore the silk suit he’d been issued. He appeared healthy and unblemished, despite his sunken
eyes. Hermann had to admit the woman had done an excellent job with him.

“Have you rehearsed your lines for the Red Cross? Will you tell them how much you Jews flourish in this creative Paradiesghetto?” Hermann flung his arms wide.

The prisoner stared at the floor. “Jawohl
,
Herr Captain.”

The Jew’s unruffled response annoyed him. He returned to his desk and began arranging the scattered pages of the train’s manifest. “Have all the transports been notified?”

“I’ve issued their numbered tags, Herr Captain. They make ready to leave for the platform at Bohusovice.”

“And the potato thief? He is ready, as well?” Hermann waited for the moment the old goat’s cool insolence crumbled. It didn’t come; only contempt ignited the sunken eyes, a look that had taunted Hermann in childhood, reminding him that he was no more than the miserable offspring of a drunken Stabsgefreiter and his laundress.

He exploded from his chair, his fury like a blast of frigid wind outside. “You can still board that train!” he bellowed. Then he rammed a fist into the old man’s face.

The sunken eyes rolled before his body crumpled to the floor.

Hermann leaned across the desk, chest heaving, unable to stall the old memories . . . the Gasthaus owned by the Christ-killers where his mother lived and died scrubbing other people’s soiled sheets . . . he and his snot-nosed siblings begging barrel scraps in the alley just outside the kitchens . . . the soles of his shoes tied together with string because the Jew cobbler, Mehrstein, refused to give his father credit . . .

Always they had treated his poverty like a stain against his skin, dirt that would never wash off or let him rise up to become a star like Aric von Schmidt.

“Get up,” he demanded.

The prisoner grunted and rose to his feet. Hermann felt a spasm of satisfaction, seeing his bloodied nose mar the carefully
applied cosmetics. So much for Jew arrogance now. “I will not ask again.”

The Jew’s silk suit hung askew on his scrawny frame like a warped coat hanger. “The boy is . . . ready.”

“I want them leaving to board at one o’clock. Now get out.”

The Jew hobbled toward the door. “And work on that limp,” Hermann called out.

He turned his attention back to the manifest, the lists that
she
had put together for him. He imagined he caught the faint scent of cloves as he sifted among the neatly typed pages.

How easy it must be for a woman, he thought. He’d worked hard to ensure his position in the brick house after Kommandant Rahm’s departure. Who wouldn’t prefer eating delicious food and sleeping in a soft bed to the cot and tin rations reserved for soldiers? Yet despite all of his efforts, he still wasn’t good enough.

Stella had only to exercise her charms on the right man to have anything she desired. Except for the boy. A smile touched his lips as he scanned the typed sheets for the potato thief’s name. Like the commandant, she’d grown especially fond of him. Using the general had been the perfect plan; even Schmidt would not dare to override his decision. As for her other cause—the old man—he would get a one-way trip back to the Kleine Festung.

The mistake jumped out at him on the third page.

Hermann straightened. Number twenty-eight had been skipped. He counted off down the list.

Seven more numbers were omitted on the same sheet. He felt a tingling of comprehension. Sabotage?

He flipped back to the first sheet, then the second. More missing numbers! Excitement warred with his rage as he found dozens of discrepancies throughout the twenty-five pages.

“Sonntag!”

With thoughts of the Berlin Chancellery foremost in his mind, Hermann leaped from his chair, impatient for his corporal. He
grabbed the manifest and charged into Sonntag’s tiny office across the hall. “Who oversaw the transport loading for Auschwitz last Friday?”

Sonntag launched from his seat and saluted. “Sergeant Koch, Herr Captain.”

“I want that train manifest. Schnell!”

Sonntag opened a gray filing cabinet and shuffled through countless folders before he found the sheets. He stood at attention while Hermann took the corporal’s seat behind the desk and surveyed the pages.

“Hah!” He waved the sheets in the air. “We have a traitor in the camp, Sonntag. Over one hundred fifty Jews have been omitted from this list—even more from this one.” He snatched up the morning’s manifest. “Prisoners hiding within the ghetto walls.”

He turned to his awestruck corporal. “I want four men—you, Martin, Zeissen, and Burke—to ferret out these Jews who missed the last train.”

“Jawohl!” Sonntag began hauling out stacks of old cards from the filing cabinet.

“Never mind those,” Hermann said. “It will take too much time to figure out whose names are missing. Besides, I’m certain our traitor already thought of that and destroyed the evidence.” He paused to rub his chin, then said, “Which makes your task more difficult, but not impossible.”

“How will we discover them, Herr Captain?”

Hermann checked his watch. “They’ll be lining up to feed right about now. Take your patrol and go to the ghetto kitchen. Put out the word that we have the names. Those who come forward voluntarily will not be punished. Tell them if we must search them out, it will mean a trip to the Kleine Festung. That should collect most of them.”

“Herr Captain?”

Hermann saw his corporal’s confusion. “Jews are like cattle, Sonntag,” he explained. “Easily led when you’re good with the
prod. They’ll have no idea we’re bluffing and will be too afraid to risk punishment. Visit the infirmary first. I suspect you’ll get several confessions.”

He rose from the chair. “Speak nothing of this to anyone. For now, we shall call it a ‘mistake’—at least until I get all the facts. We cannot afford a scandal the day before the Red Cross arrives.” He eyed Sonntag sharply. “Verstehen?”

“Of course, Herr Captain.” Sonntag flashed a salute. “Who do you suspect as the traitor?”

Hermann grinned. Perhaps the real traitor was Schmidt. He’d allowed passion to do his thinking while she wooed him and made a laughingstock of the Reich. What’s more, Sergeant Koch had likely been right about her. A Jewess, through and through.

“Soon enough, Corporal,” he replied. “You will know soon enough.”

 31 

“For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter.”

Esther 7:4

W
olkenbrand
.

Stella glimpsed the strange phrase once more before she folded the general’s letter to the Chancellery and stuffed it inside the addressed envelope. What did it mean, this Firecloud? And why had the general written that it would occur on Friday? The day after the Red Cross inspection . . .

Uneasiness stirred in her like snow flurries announcing a storm. The letter’s contents revealed nothing specific. Still, she couldn’t help feeling a chill of impending doom.

After sealing the letter, Stella rose from the desk. Where was Martin? It seemed forever since he’d left for the ghetto with her uncle. She felt inside the pocket of her jacket, reassured that Morty’s unread note still rested there. Once the corporal returned for the post, she could slip upstairs . . .

The distant screech of a train’s whistle made her jump. Captain Hermann had already taken back the burlap sack of cards, along with her typed lists. Her people must be starting to board the train. Had her deception worked, or would Joseph still be among them?

In a nervous burst she dropped the general’s letter and rushed back to the kitchen.

Rand Grossman stood in pajamas and robe, blocking her exit out the back door.

“Why aren’t you in bed?” she demanded.

He merely stared at her in equal surprise.

“I . . . I need fresh air,” she muttered. Then, without bothering to grab her coat, she ducked beneath his arm and went outside.

Stella heard him call after her as she slogged up the snowy hill. Reaching the top of the rise, she hugged herself as she tried to fend off the brutal wind.

Beyond the ghetto’s bastioned walls stood the one-room station of Bohusovice. Beside it, a train thirty cars long sat on tracks. Dirty coils of smoke blew from its stack.

The train wasn’t moving. From her viewpoint, Stella couldn’t tell if the cattle cars were loaded. Anxiety—or was it the frigid air?—threatened to cut off her breath. How could she know if Joseph was safe?

“Fräulein!”

Rand struggled up the hill toward her. He wore a greatcoat over his pajamas and used his machine gun like a walking staff. Guilt pricked her and she made her way toward him. “You shouldn’t be out here!” she shouted above the wind.

“I think you . . . try to . . . kill me, Fräulein,” he wheezed when they caught up with each other. He leaned on his gun and tried to catch his breath. Stella hefted his free arm across her shoulders. The steel hook loomed in front of her face.

“Let’s get you back to the house.” She helped him down the hill and fell twice in the snow when he collapsed against her in half-conscious exhaustion.

Stella finally managed to get Rand into Joseph’s room. She wrestled the dazed sergeant out of his boots, then straddled his knees, working to extract his feeble limbs from the sleeves of the dampened greatcoat.

“Care to explain yourself?”

Stella jerked around. Aric stood at the door, jackboots braced apart, arms folded against his chest. She froze—before indignation scalded her cheeks. “It’s not what you think . . .”

“Oh? Suddenly you know what I’m thinking?” His green eyes glittered. “Tell me.”

Carefully she eased off the bed to face him. “You assumed we were”—her gaze darted to the barely conscious pajama-clad soldier on the bed—“that I was . . .”

“Seducing my sergeant?” He raised a brow beneath his cap.

She nodded.

“But I distinctly recall explaining to you the consequences of betrayal.” His voice took on a dangerously calm tone. “Only a fool would dare test me. And there was a time when I thought you were hardly that.”

Stella looked away. Snow had melted through her clothes, her silk stockings. Even the abominable red wig clung in wet strands to the sides of her face. She clenched her jaw to keep her teeth from chattering.

“Look at you,” Aric said irritably. “Cold, wet, shivering. You’re mad to be out in this weather without a coat.”

“I . . . sorry, Herr Kommandant, tried to get to her sooner . . .” Rand’s weak voice rose from the bed.

“Rest easy, my friend.” Aric grabbed Stella by the arm and pulled her out into the hall. “As I was saying”—his finger jabbed back toward the room—“you nearly killed my man in there, making him chase you down in this weather. And what if
you
become sick and jeopardize my plan to get you out of here tomorrow? Wouldn’t you call that foolish?”

Feeling the chill of her own clothes, Stella thought of the man lying wounded inside on the bed. “Very foolish, Herr Kommandant,” she said, realizing she meant it.

“So it’s back to ‘Herr Kommandant’?” Yet his anger had eased somewhat. “Why were you outside . . . without proper clothes?”

She flashed him some of her own anger. “I heard the train. I wanted to see Joseph.”

Aric’s face hardened. “I told you the boy is a closed issue.”

“You knew he was being sent to Auschwitz, didn’t you?”

Stella braced herself for another blast; she was surprised when instead his granite features collapsed. “I tried to convince the general that it was a mistake. He wouldn’t listen.” He grasped her by the shoulders, his tone almost desperate. “Please, Stella, I told you I can’t—”

“Save Joseph? Save any of them?” She pulled away from him. “Yet you’ll rescue me from Herr General by marrying me today and showing him proof tomorrow. Then I’m to be sent off to Switzerland . . .”

Her voice faltered with a sudden, horrifying thought. Aric’s outlandish plan to remove her from Theresienstadt had something to do with Wolkenbrand.

Vaguely she recalled a letter he’d written weeks before—to Eichmann, postponing some project until after the Red Cross inspection. And then words he’d spoken to her the other night flashed in her mind:
“By
saving that old Jew one more day, you made a
deal with the devil.”

“This has nothing to do with the general, does it?” she whispered. “You’re making me leave because of what happens on Friday.”

Aric’s mouth tightened. So did Stella’s insides.

“Tell me about Wolkenbrand,” she said.

Their eyes locked for several seconds. “The war is going badly for us,” he said at last. “The Red Army is gaining ground at an alarming rate. They’ve recaptured Odessa, and the city of Lemberg in the Ukraine. Rumor has it the Russians will soon take Hungary.

“It’s only a matter of time before the battlefield reaches us. I want you far away when that happens. With the Swiss arriving here tomorrow, it will be my only opportunity to get you safely out of the country.”

He’d told her nothing. “What is this . . . Firecloud, Aric?” she demanded.

He ignored her question. “We leave for Litomerice in an hour. Go upstairs and get into dry clothes.” His voice softened as he added, “It would please me very much if you’d wear the blue dress and your pearls.” He smiled wryly. “As my wife, you must shine like a ‘beacon on a mountain.’”

She started to object when he reached for her again. Pulling her into his arms, he brushed away the wet strands and laid a cheek against hers. “Please don’t argue, my dove,” he whispered urgently. “I’ll tell you this much. I do not marry you simply to save you from the general. I . . . the truth is . . . I am a starving man who desires you with a hunger that defies mortal appetite.” He pulled away to search her face. “The general will never have you. You are mine.”

“I’m not some country to be fought over.” Yet she mocked her own objection by leaning into his embrace.

“But you are, Süsse. You are Austria, my home.”

When she gazed up at him questioningly, he merely smiled and then lowered his head to kiss her deeply, passionately. Stella surrendered to his desire, unable to think or catch a breath. Even her guilt failed to dampen the longing in her heart or compose her trembling limbs. Only when the kiss ended did she remember her anger . . . far safer to her peace of mind.

“You make me forget myself.” She hated the sudden emptiness she felt as she withdrew from his embrace. “And you haven’t answered my question.”

He hesitated, then said, “
Wolkenbrand
is a code word. It means to ready ourselves for possible confrontation with the enemy.”

She felt his continued evasion, yet understood enough. The end was in sight, and with it more bloodshed. Only one side could win. Either way she lost, because impossibly, irrationally, she loved this man. “I want to stay, Aric.”

“You’re going with the Red Cross tomorrow evening.”

His tone brooked no argument. “I don’t want to leave you here,” she said.

His features relaxed, though his eyes held their familiar sadness. “Believe me, Stella, I’ll fare much better knowing you’re safe.” He took her hands in his and kissed her fingers. “Now, you should go upstairs and get ready to be my bride.”