The Ragged Edge of Night(40)

The fist of this family unclenches. They sit up and move apart, just enough so that each can breathe, and Maria’s sobs taper off to whimpers.

And then the bombs fall. The impacts come first as vibrations through the earth, low, dull thuds like the distant tread of giants. They are followed moments later by the sound waves, a tin-can crash of faraway explosions.

“Stuttgart,” Anton says, both saddened and relieved.

Elisabeth murmurs, “Again,” and crosses herself.

Father Emil pats Maria’s back until she sits up, sucking her thumb. “One would think poor Stuttgart has had enough by now.” Then he prays for the souls who will lose everything tonight. “Lord, extend your mercy. Let no one suffer; take those who must die quickly, and comfort those who must go on alone.” The family murmur as one, “Amen.”

After a silence, a pause to honor the newly made dead, Anton says to the priest, “Back there in the nave, I thought you were going to take us outside.”

“Outside?”

“To the door set in that wall, all covered with ivy. When I first saw the door, I thought it was a bomb shelter.”

“No.” Father Emil’s face darkens, and he turns his eyes down to the hard earth. “It’s not a shelter.”

Al says, “What is it, then?”

“An old, old tunnel, dating back to the age of kings.”

The boys rustle on the bench, intrigued, already forgetting the bombs—the resilience of youth.

Emil brightens, settling into the story. “The tunnel was used by messengers. There are other tunnels, too, running from one town to the next. The messengers could go from one village to another without being seen, and warn their friends if danger was approaching.”

Paul says, “But it’s dark in a tunnel. How could they see?”

“The same way we see now.” He indicates the candle, burning with a light that seems too cheery, forced and false.

Watching the candle’s flame, Anton sees suddenly beyond it, past the jars that line the shelves. There are deep, square shadows back there, set behind Father Emil’s prudent supplies. The walls of this pit are lined with recesses, all of a size, reaching back into the stone foundation of St. Kolumban. The candle’s flame jumps for a moment, stirred by a child’s breath, and in that brighter flash, light just illuminates the gray curve of a skull, the black of an eye socket peering out from behind a tin of potted meat. St. Kolumban has an ossuary—the final resting place for generations of priests who have served here, long before Father Emil’s time. And someday, Emil’s bones will lie here, too, sleeping among his predecessors.

Unsettled, prickling with chill, Anton looks away from the skull. He doesn’t want to bring the thing to the children’s attention. Let them be comforted, distracted by Emil’s stories of times long past, the age of kings. But he can feel the relentless gaze of that dark socket. He can feel its set gray grin. Death has one eye on him.

Maria has recovered herself enough to talk. “Can’t we go up now?”

“Not just yet,” Emil says. “We should make certain there are no more planes coming.”

“Then you must tell us everything about the old kings!”

The boys agree; they pepper Father Emil with questions, and the priest has an inexhaustible supply of answers. Elisabeth sighs to see Maria restored to her old ways, as if she can finally release a mother’s fear—as if she believes that one day, the planes will steal away her children’s spirits, leaving them as dry husks, empty shells. Today is not that day, thank God. Anton has seen children like that, their souls ripped away by horrors even a grown man can’t contemplate. He would rather see these children—his children—dead than broken. He wonders how many empty husks will be made tonight, and how many orphans. How many children of Stuttgart will go dull-eyed and quiet, with all the anticipation of Christmas forgotten, and tainted forever?

“Tell us about the knights,” Paul says, “in the time of kings.”

“Yes,” says Al. “Let’s have a story about knights with swords!”

“It’s Christmas,” Elisabeth says suddenly.

“Not yet,” Maria says, sulking. “I want a story about knights!”

“Let’s hear about the Nativity instead.”

“That’s a fit tale for Christmastime,” Emil agrees. “Long, long ago, in a land far away, the Lord chose Mary to be the Holy Mother, for she was better than all other women—the kindest and most caring, the most faithful and good.”

The children resign themselves to the familiar story. They settle back against the shelves, and Maria snuggles against Emil’s shoulder, listening as he tells of the Annunciation, the Mother’s long journey on the back of a donkey, her travail in Bethlehem. Emil makes the great star shine brightly in their imaginations; he decks the roof of the humble stable with a choir of angels.

“And do you know what song the angels sang when the Christ Child was born?”

The children shake their heads. The night is still and quiet, Stuttgart settling into dust.

Father Emil sings:

Break forth, O beauteous heavenly light,

And usher in the morning:

Ye shepherds shrink not with affright

But hear the angels’ warning;

The child now born in infancy,