The Voyage (36 page)

Chapter 132

Viktor sat in the living room staring blankly out of the large picture window, watching the children across the street play tag.  His mother was baking and the fragrance filled the air. He couldn’t hear what they were saying, but his brother and his father were laughing about something. It felt good to be home, even if the conversations between his father and Axel were sometimes difficult to endure. He was glad that they loved his wife, his precious Edda, and he could see how much his son fulfilled a need for his aging parents. Sometimes, as hard as he tried not to, he still thought of her as his Elke.

“Come and taste this sauce. Tell me if it needs some more salt,” Viktor’s mother called to him.

He got up, and as he did he heard the most unnerving sound. It was the blaring horn of the
Gestapo
. It rang like a death bell and pierced his heart like a dagger. And for some reason it was getting louder, coming closer, then closer. Suddenly he wanted to break out, to run, but he felt as if he were locked in a cage.

“Come on, Viktor. Taste this for me, please.”

Had Olof told them something? Had they been waiting for him to come back to Germany? His heart pounded so hard he was afraid it might explode.

My God, where was Elke? He prayed that she would stay away. If she weren’t there, maybe they would take only him. But what if they told his family that she was a Jew? Axel could very well turn on her and report her as soon as she returned.

“Viktor…I keep calling you to come in the kitchen and taste this for me.” His mother peeked her head around the corner and looked into the living room.

He couldn’t move. The sound moved closer, louder. Closing in on him and then...it was deafening. So loud, it threatened to break his eardrums. His hands covered his ears as he looked out the window dreading what he knew he would see. The black
Gestapo
automobile had stopped right in front of his house. Two agents got out of the car wearing trench coats. One lit a cigarette.

Chapter 133

Elke couldn’t wait to return home to Belgium. Viktor had enjoyed the visit so much and she was glad that she’d come, for his sake.   It had been a good visit. Everyone had welcomed her with warmth and affection, but in truth, sitting across from Viktor’s brother in his SS uniform disturbed her greatly. It brought back the horrific memories of the men who’d come to the apartment she’d shared with her mother. Not only did she have unpleasant thoughts of the past, but she also felt the pain of her fellow Jews. And because she knew how much they suffered, she was overcome with guilt because it seemed to her that by living this lie she had betrayed her people. But the worst part of it all was that she wondered if Viktor’s family would be so accepting of her if they knew the truth.

As she walked along the brown and red cobblestone sidewalk, she thought about what a pretty country Germany was, especially here where Viktor had grown up, the streets so clean, the children so blond and well mannered. But even here, one could not miss the Nazi flags that hung from the windows or the pictures of Adolf Hitler over the storefronts.  She found it hard to believe that a country that had been so filled with culture and knowledge could have turned into a land that forced ignorance upon its people, burning books, committing mass murders and falling under the demonic spell of a madman.

Chapter 134

Viktor’s mother walked over to him and shook him.

“Are you feeling all right?” She asked.

He could not speak. All he could do was nod his head.

“Why can’t you answer me? Viktor what is wrong with you?”

Then she looked out the window.

“That’s the
Gestapo
; they come to the neighborhood often just to investigate this or that. Did the siren upset you? It does sound like an ambulance. But no need to worry…”

Viktor nodded again, but could not turn his face away from the two men standing outside.

After crushing his cigarette, the
Gestapo
agent and his partner began to walk up the walkway to Viktor’s home. The clicking heels of their shoes could be heard through the window. Viktor felt sure he would soon pass out because he couldn’t catch his breath.

Then he saw one of the men look over at the address that was written on the side of the building. 

“This is the wrong address, Rudolf. It’s next door,” the
Gestapo
agent said to his partner who nodded and squinted to read the numbers.

“Yes, you’re right,”Rudolf said. “It is next door.”

They walked across the lawn to the little cottage next door. For a few minutes no sound came from the house, only dead quiet. Then Viktor heard screaming, a commotion. His mother looked at him questioning.

The screams grew louder.

Now his mother bent down to look out the window just as the
Gestapo
agents dragged the woman who lived next door by her arm that looked dislocated. She fell and grabbed onto the
Gestapo
agent’s pants leg, crying and pleading. One of the agents took a pistol out of his pocket and hit her across the face. Then she was silent, lying on the grass as a pool of blood began to form around her head. But even more shocking, the other agent led three people away at gunpoint.

Viktor heard him say something but he couldn’t make out what he said. The only word that was clear to him was “
Juden (
Jew).”

“Oh my God,” Viktor’s mother said. “They were hiding Jews right next door, right under our noses.”

Viktor thought of Elke. He was hiding her right under their noses, wasn’t he?  Suddenly Viktor said a silent prayer of thanks that they he and Edda, he must remember to call her Edda, were leaving for Belgium in the morning.

It had been a wonderful visit, but the time had come to say goodbye.

Chapter 135

Two weeks after Viktor and Edda returned to Belgium, a letter arrived addressed to Viktor, with no return address, only a postmark from Germany.  Viktor had gone off to work when it arrived, so Edda opened it.  It read:

My Brother,

I send this message to you at great risk to myself and to our parents. However, because you are my brother, because we shared the same womb and the blood that runs through our veins is the same, I am forced to take this risk.  Listen to me and please heed my warning. You must never, under any circumstances return to Germany. Your friend Olof was arrested and tortured until he confessed his crime and named everyone involved, you and your wife included. Because of my position in the SS, I was notified, reprimanded also. However, I was fortunate; things could have gone far worse. Apparently, Olof was selling falsified papers. From what I gather, he had several other clients. When you came I already knew all of this, but I did not say anything. I felt that if you were aware that the authorities were looking for you, you might have become nervous and suspicious. If I had known you were coming I would have told you not to come. While you were here, I was on edge every minute, because if you had been caught, mother and father would have been arrested, and I might have been as well. You are probably wondering if I knew that your wife was a Jew when the two of you were here, and the answer is yes.  But again, I did my best to cover for you. That was why I discouraged you from going to the pub that night that you wanted me to accompany you. I told you that I was ill because I knew that you would not go without me. Viktor, your wife is a lovely woman, but you have made a grave mistake and I am afraid it will cost you dearly. You should never have married a Jew. This will cause you a life of misery. Now you cannot come home, and I cannot associate with you. It is far too dangerous.  I am sorry, my brother.  Be well, be safe, and Goodbye. 

Axel.

Edda read the letter over twice. Then she sunk down into a chair. Axel had never let on that he knew. She remembered that night that she and Viktor had wanted to go into town with his brother to have a few beers. Axel had discouraged it. It shocked her that he knew and yet had remained so cool and calm. Her hand went to her throat. She felt terribly guilty for all that she had taken away from Viktor: his family, his home. And now they would never be at peace. Every day for the rest of their lives they would have to be watching and looking behind them. The Nazis, just as the wolf in the story of the three little pigs, would always be just a few steps away from their door, waiting, knocking...

That night when Viktor returned from work, he read the letter. When he finished he laid it on the table. Then he ran his hand through his hair and looked at Edda who sat beside him.

“We must destroy this letter,” he said.

“I know,” Edda answered.

“And to ward off suspicion we must become a very active couple in the Christian community. Even more active than we are right now.”

“Yes,” she said.

Viktor nodded.

There was silence for several minutes. Viktor took her hand and rubbed it with his thumb. Then Viktor got up and took the letter. He lit it on fire and placed it in a metal soup pot.  Then the couple watched as it burned. Neither spoke until the flames had consumed the paper, turning it to black ash.

Then in a very soft voice, barely a whisper, Edda asked, “Viktor…”

“Yes?”

“Are you sorry? Do you regret marrying me?” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hear the answer, but she had to know.

He looked into her eyes. She saw the sadness in his face and guilt came over her.

“I’ve ruined your life,” she said.

He shrugged.

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m not,” he said taking her hand. “I love you. You are my wife, you are the mother of my son, and I don’t regret what I have done.”

She fell into his arms and wept.

Chapter 136

At the beginning of January, Edda found herself pregnant once again and expecting her second child in mid-September.

On the seventeenth of September, Irmgard Hahn was born. She would grow up to have her parents’ blonde hair and light eyes, and would be affectionately known to family and friends as Irma.

In early October of 1940, just a month after the birth of their daughter, Edda and Viktor watched in horror as Hitler’s army invaded Belgium and broke right through the bubble of false security that they had built. 

Viktor thanked God repeatedly that  Edda had papers proclaiming her a Gentile, that they had been living as Gentiles, and that no one in Belgium but he and his wife knew the truth. However that haunting memory of Olof and what had happened in Germany never left the back of his mind, and Viktor prayed every day that the Nazis would be too busy conquering the world to worry about looking for the two of them. They both agreed that children must never hear them discuss their mother’s Jewish ancestry or her real name. They were only babies, and at any time they could repeat something, unaware of the danger it might cause. Best for the children to believe that both of their parents were born Catholics and they, too, were Catholics.

When the Jews in Belgium were rounded up in the streets, Edda watched from the window. She held her back stiff and straight, but her hands gripped the windowsill with white knuckles. Viktor stood beside her. Both he and Edda looked far older than their years. Occasionally they glanced at each other; they said nothing, but their eyes said everything. A Nazi guard beat a man and his wife with his rifle. They lay in a pool of blood on the street. The Hahns didn’t know them, but Edda thought that they looked familiar and that she might have remembered them from the
St. Louis
. Another guard walked by and kicked the woman in the back of the head. She let out a cry, her legs trembled violently, and then she lay silent. Edda ran to the bathroom and vomited.

The commands of the Nazi invaders filled the streets as they roared over their loudspeakers, and although it was a lovely fall day, Edda closed the window in an effort to drown them out. Still, even through the bolted windows she could hear them, harsh angry voices, mingled with the cries of victims. She put her hands to her ears, feeling as if she would go mad.

The baby started crying in her crib. Little Sepp came over and tugged at his mother’s skirt. “Mama, the baby…” he said.

Her son’s face looked worried. ”Mama,” he said again, pulling harder. She had to get herself together for her children.

“Yes, Sepp. I’m sorry, sweetheart,” she said, running her hand over his light brown hair. “Mama is coming.”

As she followed Sepp over to the crib, Viktor still stood at the window, spellbound.  Even thorough the closed window they heard a man begging for the life of his child. “Please, I beg you, leave my son. Take me…not my son.”

Then she heard a shot, and the man let out such a cry of anguish that it reached inside of her and grabbed her very soul. She stopped frozen.

“Mama?” Sepp said again, his voice louder. The baby continued to wail.

Edda looked outside. The man lay on top of the body of a little boy. He was covered in blood, and weeping.  The Nazi officer walked over and kicked the man.

“Get up, you lazy Jew. Get up.”

But the man didn’t move. Edda held her breath.

“Mama…” Sepp called to Edda. “Mama, please, come on…”

She turned her head to look at her son. A shot rang out. Edda turned back to the window to see that the father now lay dead, his body covering his son.

“Mama…” Sepp said even louder and more insistent than before.

Edda forced herself away from the window. She went over to Sepp and picked him up into her arms. Then she buried her face in his neck and took in the innocent, childlike smell of him. She felt tears threaten to fall. The baby was screaming. She carried Sepp and went to the crib. After all she’d done to escape the Nazis, they had followed her here to Belgium. Thank God Viktor had gotten those papers. They had not known it at the time, but if by the grace of God the Nazis had forgotten the business with Olof and what had happened, those documents would save her life.