Someone Named Eva (15 page)

"Nein!" Mutter snapped. "We don't need it. We are fine. Fine. No one is going hungry." She was spending all her time now hovering over Elsbeth and me, or sitting near the radio, working her needlepoint. Her eyes had grown puffy and tired looking.

Herr Werner stayed at work for days at a time. When he was home, he walked around frowning and mumbling to himself. His clothes were rumpled and dirty, and his mustache and beard went unshaved, growing ever wilder to match the crazed look that had come to rest in his eyes.

Elsbeth's and my lessons were forgotten, and we spent all our time together in either her bedroom or mine. Peter no longer attended school, and he stayed inside all day bothering us. No one, except Mutter and Herr Werner, was allowed to leave the house.

Things in Germany were changing.

I knew that things had changed within myself as well. I walked around aware of the war, and of the tension and fear in the house, but I was unsure what it all meant for me. Would I be taken away again? Would Mama and Papa find me at last? Or were they truly gone, as Fräulein Krüger had said? Were the Werners my only family now? I thought often of the women in the camp, and as I lay in bed at night, tracing Grandmother's pin, I wondered what was going to happen to all of us.

***

I awoke late one night to loud, angry sounds coming from Mutter and Herr Werner's room. Drawers banged open and shut. A glass broke. Harsh, angry words punctured the stillness of the house.

"Absolutely not! Hans! I don't know what you are thinking. Hans! Put your travel bag away."

"Trude, listen. The decision has been made. And not by me. I have no choice. What is important is—"

"What is important, Hans, is your family. You will leave us here alone? How will we know where you are? How will we know what to do? At least take us with you."

"You know that is not possible. Enough of this! You are acting foolish!"

"Hans!"

"Enough! I said enough!" There was the crack of a slap and then only the sound of banging drawers.

Quietly, I got out of bed and pulled my robe around my shoulders, then walked down the hall to Elsbeth's room. Peter was asleep in her bed, and she had her arm wrapped protectively around him. I could hear the sounds of bombs exploding in the distance.

"Did you hear them arguing?" I whispered. She nodded and motioned for me to sit on her bed.

"They are arguing about the war," she whispered back. "Vater has said Berlin may fall to the Americans and the Russians. They will be looking for all Nazis, especially important ones. Vater is afraid he will be arrested ... or worse. That is what they are arguing about." She turned and looked down at Peter, gently smoothing his bangs away from his face. "Go back to bed, Eva. There is nothing you can do." I opened my mouth to say something, but she waved me away.

I tiptoed back to my room and got into bed, but I lay staring up at the ceiling. Only after many hours did I fall into a restless sleep.

The next morning I awoke to find the house quiet. Too quiet. There were no sounds of Peter or Elsbeth or anyone else moving about. I got out of bed and went downstairs, to find Mutter sitting near the kitchen window, sipping tea.

"Mutter?" I touched her arm.

She looked up at me and blinked. A red mark brightened one cheek.

"Mutter? Where is everyone?"

"Elsbeth is still sleeping, so be quiet, Eva. I don't want to wake her. Your vater has gone into hiding. The Russian troops are looking for Nazi officers. When it is safe, he will come for us. He promised."

"Peter?" My stomach lurched as I asked the question. "Where is Peter?"

"He and his dog are with your vater. They will come back for us." She grabbed my wrist, searching my eyes with hers. "He promised."

Elsbeth appeared in the doorway, still wearing her nightdress. Her eyes had dark circles under them, and her hair was uncombed and tangled.

"They are not coming back, Mutter," she said. "They are gone. And we need to leave too. It is not safe. Not safe at all."

"Nein." Mutter stood, knocking her teacup to the floor. "Nein!" She began pacing the floor of the kitchen, screaming. "This is my house. This is my family. We will not leave. Never! Hitler will keep us safe. We will wait until your vater returns for us. Heil Hitler!" She gave a weak Nazi salute.

Elsbeth turned and disappeared upstairs. I stood, unsure what to do and feeling completely helpless.

When Elsbeth came back, she carried the blankets and sheets from her bed. She dropped them into my arms. "Help me, Eva," she said briskly. Her tone with her mother was more gentle. "Sit down, Mutter. Have some tea." Mutter opened her mouth, then sat back down again, ignoring the broken cup that lay on the floor.

Elsbeth and I spent the rest of that day moving things into the shelter. It was much larger than I remembered from when Elsbeth had shown it to me shortly after my arrival. Tucked away in an earthen corner of the basement, the shelter actually had two rooms, one larger than the other, and a small wash
room and toilet off to the side. In the smaller room was a mattress on a wooden platform that folded into the wall when it wasn't being used.

Between the two rooms was a pantry filled with canned fruits and vegetables, along with many sacks of dried meat and dried apples. There were even several dozen bottles of water all the way from Switzerland, in case our well became damaged or destroyed.

An entire wall in the larger room was lined with shelves, one of which held nearly a dozen oil lamps and a few gallons of kerosene, as well as several flashlights. Candles and batteries rested on another. Standing against the opposite wall was a small wood stove with an outside duct for venting. I was glad to see that if we lost electricity, we would still have both light and warmth. On the floor was a stack of blankets, along with a medical kit and a radio.

The rooms of the shelter were quiet. Strong brick walls and the earth around them muffled the sounds of war outside, but it was exactly those sounds that made the existence of this place necessary. The walls also helped block the bitter smell that had seeped into the rest of the house, although the soft, moldy scent of disuse filled the air.

Elsbeth prepared the bed in the small room for her mother. She unhinged the frame from the wall and brought it down to rest gently on the ground. She unfolded the sheets she had brought and tucked them in carefully around the mattress while I shook out the blankets.

At first Mutter refused to leave the kitchen, shaking her head when we tried to pull her out of her chair, and gripping the table so tightly that her knuckles turned white. We tried everything we could think of, until Elsbeth finally told her we needed help moving the ballroom picture of Hitler into the shelter. Reverently, Mutter pulled the huge picture down from the wall and carried it downstairs as if it were a baby. Elsbeth followed with the two red candles that always burned beneath it. Once in the shelter, Mutter placed the picture on the floor, gently propping it against a wall. Elsbeth carefully put one candle on each side. Then, going into the small room Elsbeth and I had prepared, Mutter promptly lay down on top of the bed and fell asleep.

***

With each passing day the sounds of war crept closer. The thick walls of the basement could not completely block out the constant whine of planes overhead or the rapid sound of machine-gun fire that would begin loudly and then fade into silence.

During our second week in the shelter, we lost electricity and set up a system of oil lamps and candles to light each of the small rooms. Flashlights were to be used as little as possible to conserve batteries. There were only two small windows, both toward the top of the wall in the main room. They were lined with thick glass, like any cellar windows, and provided very little light.

Winter's cold soon crept into the basement, and we kept the stove lit during the day as much as possible. I watched the stock of wood dwindle and wondered what we would burn once it was gone.

Elsbeth and I huddled together under a blanket during the day, playing cards or knitting. Mutter sat on the floor in front of the picture of Hitler, talking quietly to herself, almost as if she was praying that he would come and personally rescue us.

The few times we turned the radio on, we heard only static. There was nothing we could do but sit and wait for something to change, either for better or for worse.

Both Elsbeth and I were curious about what was happening outside. "Just a little peek? Can we just go upstairs for a little bit?" Elsbeth asked Mutter once when we had heard no sounds from outside for several hours. I stood next to Elsbeth, nodding, hoping for permission to go upstairs for just a minute or two.

"Nein!" Mutter replied sternly. "It is too dangerous. I won't allow it." Once we had convinced her to come into the shelter, it seemed she didn't want any of us to leave.

There were enough distractions during the day to keep my mind somewhat occupied. But at night I was still haunted by the images of the camp and questions about my family—my real family, which I had all but forgotten.

One night I awoke to gentle shaking.

"Eva. Eva, are you all right?" It was Elsbeth. Al
though I couldn't see her face in the dark, I could hear the concern in her voice. "Eva, you were crying in your sleep. What's wrong?"

"Nothing," I said. "Go back to sleep." How could I explain something to Elsbeth that I didn't even understand myself?

I knew she had noticed a change in me, however subtle it was. We still knitted together and played cards and talked for hours, but I could no longer be the German sister I had been, the one she had come to love.

***

After three weeks in the shelter my body had adopted the routine of the sun, waking as it rose and going to bed shortly after it set. The windows offered some light during the daytime hours, but once darkness fell, it was difficult to do much of anything by the murky light of the candles.

Elsbeth had coaxed Mutter into eating regularly again, and the two of us were talking about venturing upstairs one day for our math lesson books. Boredom was fast becoming our worst enemy.

"It will only be a few minutes, Mutter," Elsbeth tried. "We'll hurry upstairs, get our lesson books, and be back. It's daylight. There haven't been any planes for hours. And we can bring you your needlepoint."

I could tell by the look in Mutter's eyes that Els-beth had almost convinced her to let us go. Mutter was slowly returning to normal, and I knew that she, too, was bored. She had stopped crying for Peter, and the color had returned to her cheeks. Having her needlepoint would give her something to do.

"Well, I suppose—" she began, but was interrupted by a thunderous crash upstairs. There was another loud crash from outside the house, and then the ceiling above us was filled with the sound of heavy boots. There were shouts and barks in a language I had never heard.

"Russians. It's Russians. Oh, dear God." Mutter covered her shoulders with her shawl, and the three of us ran into her small room and huddled together on her bed.

The noises upstairs seemed to last forever. Doors opened and slammed shut. Loud thuds vibrated across the ceiling. Splintering noises cut through the air. Voices shouted back and forth. I was filled with helpless terror, knowing that we were trapped in our small basement shelter.

There was a crash at the entrance to the basement, and then three soldiers appeared in the doorway of our room. They were young but had full beards, and each carried a machine gun. They wore brown uniforms with matching hats and short black boots. Beside me Mutter gasped, and I took her hand. I had a sudden clear memory of the soldiers coming into my house, so long ago in Lidice. Tears sprang to my eyes. Was I going to be taken away again?

One of the soldiers had papers in his hand, and he waved them in Mutter's face. "Frau! Where are papers? Herr Werner? Where are papers?" he screamed in broken German.

Mutter shook her head. "I don't know. I don't—"

The soldier grabbed her roughly by the arm and pulled her off the bed.

"Mutter!" Elsbeth cried and stood, as if to go to her. But another soldier pushed Elsbeth back onto the bed and kept us both there by pointing his gun at us. Then the first soldier led Mutter out of the room and up the stairs. Elsbeth and I held on to each other and waited, trembling, for whatever was going to happen next.

The soldier nearest us smelled sour. I wasn't sure if it was the smell of fear or the smell of someone who had been fighting a long time. He had bright brown eyes that peered out from beneath his hat, eyes that never left us. Looking into those eyes made me wonder if the Russian soldiers were as cruel as the Nazis.

Finally, after what seemed like hours, Mutter came back with the first soldier. He threw her roughly onto the bed, where she lay, pale and shaking. Elsbeth grabbed her mother's hand while the soldiers talked quietly in Russian. They looked us over one more time, then left as abruptly as they had arrived.

From upstairs we could hear several rounds of rifle fire, accompanied by the sounds of things being ripped and broken. There was one final crash so ferocious that it rattled the bed we were sitting on. It was followed by a thousand tiny echoes of glass shatter
ing. There came one last rumble of heavy boots on the ceiling, and finally silence.

Elsbeth went to her mother and gathered her in a hug.

"They are looking for Hans. They wanted all the papers from his office." Mutter spoke in shaky tones. "They took everything from his office. Everything. They tore up the house. They..." And she began to cry while Elsbeth rocked her gently, whispering soothing words to her.

***

"We need a gun." Elsbeth declared before I was fully awake the next morning. We were lying in the bed we had been sharing in the large room. Through the tiny cellar window I could see that the sun was just beginning to rise. The fire in the stove had not been lit yet, so the air held a bitter chill.

"What?" I sat up, shivering and rubbing my eyes.

"A gun. We need to protect ourselves." Elsbeth's voice was determined. "I need to get the gun that's hidden at the target range in the woods. There could be more soldiers, and I will not be taken prisoner."