Simple Faith (37 page)

No more! Please no more
.

Peter waited for her on the opposite side, his arms outstretched to pull her the last few feet to safety. She was well aware that he thought her tears came from relief that they had both made it. He helped her to the shore behind him and turned to wait for Josef. In the light illuminating the power plant, she saw that he was actually smiling at her as if they had achieved a huge victory. And in that moment, she was filled with an anger that threatened to consume her.

Peter followed Anja and Josef’s steps as they edged their way past the power plant, ran across an open area to the dark side of the barracks, and from there followed a railway track for several minutes until it disappeared into a tunnel. The tunnel was darker than the night and dank, and it was hard to find their footing as they hurried along, skimming their fingers over the rocky wall like someone who was blind and needed to feel the way. Finally, there was a marked difference between the blackness of the tunnel and the charcoal gray of the outside world.

They emerged gasping as if they had run a long race. The three of them crouched in a cluster of trees, listening for footsteps, voices, any sound that would indicate they had been seen and followed. In the distance, they heard the river—behind them now and muffled by the tunnel and trees. Peter realized that they were still in the mountains, but at least now they were on the downhill side and headed in the right direction.

Josef handed him the goatskin, and he drank his fill, then passed it to Anja, who sipped at it distractedly. Something was not right. Instead of feeling the exhilaration that they had succeeded in safely making the crossing and getting past the border patrol, she seemed tense and on edge. True, they were not yet safe, but they were certainly safer than they had been in weeks. He reached to touch her arm, and she jerked away, folding her arms tightly around her knees and refusing to look at him.

Peter glanced at Josef, who seemed unmoved by her behavior. “What’s going on?” he whispered.

Instead of answering him, Josef gently helped Anja to her feet. “Come on,” he said softly. “We need to reach the safe house before it is fully light.” He wrapped his arm around her as if she were an invalid. “Come on,” he urged.

It took them some time to reach the safe house—yet another ramshackle stone structure nesting in the hillside. Given their last experience, Peter’s senses were instantly on alert as they approached the seemingly abandoned house. Josef led them around the fringes of the property, staying close to rocks and trees and shadows as he surveyed the situation. Anja showed no interest in any of this but followed Josef blindly as if in a trance.

“I’ll go first,” Josef whispered as he started across the open yard.

Peter crouched next to Anja. “What’s happened, Anja? Something is terribly wrong and …”

She looked up at him with eyes that were devoid of their usual liveliness and sparkle. “Mikel is dead,” she whispered and then responded to Josef’s signal by breaking away from Peter and running to the house. Peter was so stunned by the news that he fell back onto the ground.
Mikel? Surely not
.

He felt as if he’d been punched in the stomach. He felt as if he might actually throw up. Mikel—a man who seemed to know no bounds when it came to strength and survival—was dead. Mikel—the man who loved Anja so much that Peter had been able to persuade himself that letting her go was the greatest act of love—was gone.

No wonder Anja was acting the way she was. She had just been told that her best friend had died, and because she had chosen duty over love, she had not been there. Peter felt tears sting his eyes and swiped at them with the backs of his filthy hands. What kind of world was this where good men who only wanted to live in peace could be taken while horrible little tyrants lived?

“Peter?”

Josef was standing over him.

“It’s true then—Mikel is dead?” Peter managed to ask. Josef sighed and nodded.

“Come on inside, my friend. There is food and hot water for bathing and clean clothes. Then we will talk.”

“Anja?”

“She is grieving—and not just for Mikel. She will need time, Peter, and it will not help her if you try and take the blame for Mikel’s loss.”

But he was to blame. He was to blame for the fact that Mikel was dead, that Anja was once again separated from those she loved, that Josef and Lisbeth… “Where is your wife?”

Josef smiled. “She is at the monastery with Daniel.”

“You and Anja should go back as soon as she’s up to traveling. I can manage from here.”

“Come inside, Peter. Refresh yourself, and then we will talk of next steps.”

The farmhouse was warm and inviting, nothing at all like the other so-called safe house. An elderly woman smiled at Peter as he and Josef came through the door, and Josef made the introductions. “Rosa … Peter.” In an aside, he told Peter that she spoke only Spanish and the Basque dialect of the region.

Peter nodded and worked up a smile for the woman, all the while searching his surroundings for Anja.

“She’s lying down,” Josef told him, indicating a closed door just off the kitchen. “Come get cleaned up and changed.”

Peter followed Josef into a small bedroom where a copper tub filled with steaming water took center stage. On the lumpy bed lay a stack of frayed towels and a set of clothing—corduroy trousers, a flannel shirt, a heavy knit sweater, and a jacket. There were also underwear, socks, and a pair of heavy hiking boots. Lined up on the dresser was everything he might need to shave and tame his matted and dirty hair. Behind him he heard the door close and realized that Josef had left him alone.

He sat on the floor—not wanting to soil the bed—and took off the espadrilles, then unwound the bandages that Anja had fashioned for him. The extra padding had worked as apparently had the ointment, for the blisters were no longer bleeding or oozing liquid. He knew the hot water would sting, but once he was used to it, he also knew that it was going to be about as close to heaven as he was likely to get on this earth.

He inched his way into the hot water. When he had washed himself, the water was tepid and the color of cement, but he felt better than he had in weeks. He dressed quickly, for the poorly insulated farmhouse was not as warm as the bath had been. He shaved, ridding himself of several days’ growth of a beard and staring in the small hand mirror at a man he no longer recognized. It wasn’t so much how he had changed in outward appearance as how he had changed inside. The way he thought about the world had shifted dramatically. From an airplane it was easy to decide wrong and right. On the ground it was not so cut and dried.

He had volunteered for a duty that he’d been so certain was the right thing to do—go and destroy the enemy. He had even thought he knew exactly who the enemy was, but did he? Some of the German soldiers that he’d seen resembled his friends and classmates back home. Many of them were no more than teenagers. Were they fighting for some grand cause or simply—as he was—to stay alive long enough to get back home and see his family? From his position in the bomber, the people below had been faceless—a unified mass known as the Enemy. But now he understood that they had families, dreams for the future, beliefs that kept them going.

As he combed his wet hair, he stared at his image and thought about Anja and everything she had been through since this war had begun. In his arrogance, he had once thought that he could sweep her and Daniel away to America and everything would magically be all right for them. But now he understood that events and horrors that Anja had faced were indelibly seared onto her soul. Nothing could erase those scars.

When he emerged from the bedroom and Rosa scurried in with a bucket to empty the tub and prepare it for Josef, Anja was standing at a window next to the front door. She was dressed in boys clothing, but her hair was freshly washed and hung in a braid down her back. She didn’t look a day over seventeen. He went to stand with her, trying to imagine what she really saw as she gazed out that window. But her eyes were closed, and her breathing was even and calm, and he understood that she was waiting—as was the way of her faith. She was waiting for God to reveal His plan for her and to show her the Light.

Deciding to leave her in peace, he turned away and saw an older man—a man he assumed to be Rosa’s husband—seated in an armchair near the fire. Peter went and sat in the chair opposite him. “I am Peter Trent,” he said, offering his hand.

“Igan,” the man replied and accepted his handshake.

“You speak English?”

The man shrugged. “Enough. When you and the others have eaten, I will take you to the village to meet the car.”

Peter couldn’t help but wonder if the man had gotten it all wrong. Surely only he was to meet the car from the consulate. He was debating about whether or not to correct Igan when Josef came out of the bedroom, freshly bathed and dressed.

“Shall we eat?” he asked.

They all gathered at the table. “I need to speak with you,” Peter murmured to Josef as the two of them took their places.

“We’ll eat first.”

Anja helped Rosa serve the meager but hearty food but did not sit down with them. Instead, she stood at the kitchen window, staring out. Peter saw Josef watching her as well. After a few moments, Josef got up and went to her. Resting his hands on her shoulders, he spoke softly to her and a moment later guided her to the table, where she took a chair across from Peter. Rosa set a bowl of the root-vegetable soup in front of her.

She stared at it and fingered her spoon.

“Anja, you must eat something,” Josef said as he sat down and resumed eating his soup. “We still have—”

“I am going back,” she said softly. “I will return to the monastery … to be with Daniel and Lisbeth.”

“They are on their way here, Anja,” Josef said, and that statement finally got a reaction from her—and from Peter.

“What are you saying?” Peter asked.

“When Mikel sent for me, he set the meeting place at the monastery. As soon as I realized that we could all travel together, Lisbeth and I came as quickly as we could.”

“Was he alive when you got there?” Anja asked.

“Yes. But, Anja, there was nothing to be done—nothing that could have been done without a hospital and operating theater. I am quite certain that he was bleeding internally and that is what killed him.”

“Did he say anything?”

Josef hesitated.

“Tell her,” Peter urged, not sure what might be coming but knowing that Anja deserved an answer.

“He said to tell you that you should go with your heart—that you know what will be best for you and for Daniel and that the time is for you to do that.”

She closed her eyes. “But my grandparents …”

“You cannot save the world, Anja,” Josef said.

Peter saw the faintest hint of a smile play across her lips. “I can try,” she whispered. He thought that he had never loved her more—or felt more unworthy of her love in return.

   CHAPTER 19   

A
nja could not meet Peter’s gaze. She knew what Mikel’s message meant. He was telling her to save herself and Daniel—to go with Peter. And she so wanted to do just that. She was so very tired—so very lost. She felt as if she had failed everyone she had ever loved. She pushed back from the table and went again to the window. “Someone is out there,” she whispered and instinctively stepped away. Igan went on instant alert as Rosa emerged from the bedroom, the bucket now filled with dirty bathwater. They both glanced nervously at each other and then at the door.