Silver Stars (Front Lines #2)(92)

She listens intently. More gunshots. Then trucks. She hears them through the window, which means they are pulling into the courtyard. There comes the tramping of feet. Snatches of conversation in German that is all urgency and bravado.

After an eternity, the trucks drive away.

She continues to lie still, slipping in and out of reality, losing all track of time. When she is lucid she listens, but all of the familiar sounds are gone now. She hears a bird. She hears distant explosions. A rat scrabbles curiously in through the open door, and in earlier times she would have leapt at it, wrung its neck, and eaten it raw. She’s eaten rat before this, and beetles and moths too. But she’s too weak to try to catch this rat.

Hours pass. And her voluntary stillness becomes involuntary: she doubts she can possibly stand. She knows she cannot escape even if she can stand. She is too weak, and the weakness this time feels fatal. Rainy is sure she will never move again.

Is that why Hans did not kill her? Was he leaving her to a longer, more painful death by starvation? Or is it that he appreciates the way she’d managed to make a fool of Hans’s superior? Had her life been spared because a Gestapo thug liked to rhumba?

Time loses all meaning. There is no longer any line between nightmare and reality, between disconnected subconscious fantasy and awareness. So when Rainy hears strange voices, she is not excited. They cannot be real. The phrase “fugging slaughterhouse,” in an indignant Bronx accent, can only be a dream.

“This one’s a woman,” a different voice says. “Fugging Nazi animals. It stinks like a goddamn latrine in here.”

“I guess these Eye-ties are sorry now that they joined up with Hitler.”

From deep within the lurching madness of her shattered mind, Rainy says, “Fug Hitler.”

It’s a mumble, barely a sound, but a voice says, “Hey! This one’s alive!”

There is a rush of activity. She sees boots—GI boots—coming and going, and then a face comes swimming into view. A young woman with her helmet tipped back.

“Hey there, honey, I don’t speak Eye-tie, but you just lie still there till we get a medico.”

Rainy’s eyes focus and from far away comes a tingle of recognition. But it fades as she spies the canteen on the young soldier’s hip.

“Water,” Rainy begs.

“Hey, that’s English. You mean this, right?” the GI asks, pointing to her canteen. She unbuckles it, screws off the top, and dribbles a thin stream into Rainy’s mouth.

Rainy swallows desperately, swallows and swallows until she coughs.

More soldiers, more voices, more blurry, shifting faces.

“Are you real?” Rainy asks in a hoarse whisper.

The soldier flashes a smile. “You do speak English.”

“Are you real?” Rainy insists.

“As real as I can be,” the soldier says. She sits on the floor cross-legged and cradles Rainy’s head with her hand, lifting her just a little to take more water. “Who are you?”

Rainy has been asked the question hundreds of times, each time telling the same not-quite-true answer, the answer that would not identify her as a Jew. Now she has a hard time making herself say her name. She has endured hell for her secrets.

But the soldier, the impossible American soldier, leans down over her and says, “Listen to me, honey. You’re safe. You’re safe.”

Rainy cries without tears and sobs, her body shaking with the emotion of it. The GI is patient, waving off an officer who seems to want her to move on.

At last, after so long that Rainy is certain that the soldier will leave if she doesn’t speak, she quells her sobs long enough to say, “Sergeant Rainy Schulterman. US Army.”





LETTERS SENT


Dear Mother and Father,

A friend is writing this for me since I banged my hand a bit and the fingers are stiff.

I know you must have been very worried since it’s been quite a while since I was able to write. But please don’t worry, I am perfectly fine. In fact, I’ve run into some old friends from Africa, one of whom, Jenou Castain, is writing this down for me.

Someday I will tell you all about my adventures over these last couple of months.

No time for more right now, they have me hopping! Just know that I am all right. And that I miss you terribly and remain your loving daughter,

Rainy

Dear Mom,

I am sending this letter by way of Pastor M’Dale because I don’t want Daddy to read it. You’ll know from the letter I sent addressed to you both that I am in England now, having been slightly wounded. What I did not mention in that letter is that Harder is here working as an orderly.

I don’t quite know how to say what I need to say next. So I guess I’d better just blurt it out: Harder told me what happened during the riots. I understand a lot more now than I did. I understand why Daddy can’t deal with Harder, even though I wish he could. And of course I understand Harder better too.

But most of all I feel I understand for the first time how hard your life has been. Mother, I am so sorry for any time I vexed you. I am so sorry for so many things. I know you forgive me, you always do, and if you would rather we never speak of this again I will honor your wishes.

But since you aren’t here to shush me, I want to say something. You kept us safe from all the pain you’ve felt. You kept all that bottled up, and because of it I got to grow up happy. If I am a mother someday I hope to do half as well.