The Ragged Edge of Night(11)

“I like your house.”

Elisabeth says briskly, “The animals below are great for heat in the wintertime. I suppose that’s why they did it this way, in the days before coal stoves.”

“It’s an ingenious system.”

“We only have to burn our coal on the chilliest nights. That leaves enough left over to trade. God makes every kind of unexpected blessing.” A smile; Anton can’t say whether it is bitter. Elisabeth cups her hands around her mouth and calls, “Children, I’m home! Come down!”

A moment later, their footsteps clatter down an unseen stairway. That graceless, eager, joyful thunder shakes Anton to his soul. The last time he heard children running for the pure fun of it, he was a teacher at St. Josefsheim, enjoying his pipe in the shade. The boys chased each other around and around, breathless and laughing. A ball rolled slowly in the dust, forgotten, along with the rules of the game young Bruder Matthias had tried to teach the children. “Don’t take it personally,” Anton told Matthias. “Some of these boys—they understand very little, except for love. But love is all they need.”

The children—the living ones—come bounding around the corner of the house. They move with a freedom and gladness that belong to all children by right, but there is something restrained in their smiles. Is it only the war, which subdues us all, or are they still haunted by the loss of their father? As yet, he knows nothing of their grief—how fresh it may be, how long they have suffered.

The little girl, Maria, bears a smear of red marmalade across her cheek, and her yellow hair is tangled. She runs toward her mother, but the eldest boy catches her hand and stops her. He wipes her face with his kerchief while Maria whines and struggles. Albert’s face is as serious as his mother’s. He bends over his sister with a furrow in his brow. Paul hangs back, kicking pebbles in the grass, watching Anton with equal parts curiosity and caution. His knees are skinned and pink, his short pants too short to keep up with a nine-year-old’s coltish growth.

“This is my Albert,” Elisabeth says formally, “and Paul, there behind him. And my girl, Maria.”

Albert turns Maria around to face her mother and Anton. The girl twists petulantly in her brother’s grip until he lets go of her shoulders, but then she spins impulsively, throws her arms around his neck, and rises on her toes to kiss his cheek. Albert’s smile is shy but pleased.

“This is Herr Starzmann,” Elisabeth tells her children. She hesitates. How to explain? “My… my new friend.”

Anton sinks to his heels. He opens the box of cookies. “Look what I have here. Do you want some?”

Maria runs to the cookies at once; she takes one in each hand and crunches. In an instant, chocolate replaces the marmalade her brother cleaned away. The boys are slower to react—polite, or wary?—but the sight of Hausfreunde brightens their eyes. Paul backs away once he has his cookie, but his grin is wide and unrestrained.

“I’m very glad to meet all of you,” Anton says.

“Pleased to meet you, too, Herr Starzmann.” Albert offers a hand to shake, well trained by his mother.

“You may call me Anton, if you like.”

Albert glances at his mother. Such a quiet intelligence in his eyes, in the tensing of his freckled cheeks. He takes a meditative bite of his cookie, then says, “But you aren’t from Unterboihingen, Herr Anton.”

“You haven’t seen me around, is that it?”

Paul shouts, “We know everybody in Unterboihingen! May I have another cookie? Maria got two.”

Anton opens the box again. “You’re correct: I am new here. I grew up in Stuttgart, but I worked in Munich for many years, so that city was my home, too, as much as Stuttgart ever was.”

“But why have you come here?” Albert says.

Elisabeth tuts quietly. The question is not exactly rude; perhaps she is afraid of how Anton might answer.

He considers carefully before he speaks. “I have come to help people in need. There are so many people in need, just now.”

“Because of the war,” Albert says, sagely.

“That’s exactly it.”

Fists on hips, Maria shouts up at Anton, “Let me put on your glasses, Herr!”

“No.” Elisabeth grabs her daughter by the hand. There is an air of victory in the moment; it seems Maria is not one to stand still for long.

Albert goes to his mother automatically and takes charge of the little girl. He slides his own hand into Elisabeth’s grip, then nods up at her once, as if he has understood from the start what is happening here—what must happen, if they hope to keep on until the war finally ends.

It’s not until Albert has approved that Elisabeth faces Anton squarely. “All right.” Her voice is low, as if she is afraid the children will hear—afraid of what the younger ones might say, once they understand. “If you are still agreed, I will marry you, Herr Starzmann.”

Anton lays his hand gently on Paul’s sun-warmed hair as the boy edges closer to the cookie box. Of course he is still agreed.





4

Anton removes his hat as he enters Franke’s Fine Furniture. The shop’s bell chimes behind him, bouncing on its coiled spring. The interior glows with afternoon light, flooding in at the window, bouncing in all directions from the polished curves of chair backs and table legs. Franke looks up from a sideboard; the rag in his hand is brown with wax, and the room holds the smell of it, mineral warmth mingled with the caustic bite of chemical spirits. Franke’s round face is pink, damp, flushed with the effort of his work.