The Ragged Edge of Night(52)

Walking home from his bus stop outside Unterboihingen, Anton considers what Detlef Pohl said. The Red Orchestra, and all the secrets the Nazis think they can keep. Do they know about me yet, or am I still invisible? What name have they given me; what will my voice sound like when they take me, and make me sing?

The bells of St. Kolumban ring out the hour, and the sound carries across the distance, familiar and soothing, a beacon to guide him home. Despite his worries, Anton smiles to hear it. For a moment, that gentle tolling overwhelms the dread that murmurs ceaselessly in his mind. The bells drown out the frantic chorus of his imagination, the blood-red orchestra playing.

He reaches into the pocket of his unbuttoned jacket. The Easter chocolate went over well; he has found more candy to give the children—peppermints, this time—and he feels compelled to check on his small treasure, to be sure it’s still there. Tucked beside the peppermints, he finds the folded letter from his sister, Anita. He received the note two weeks ago, a welcome surprise, but he’d forgotten slipping it into his coat pocket. He pulls it out and unfolds it to reread Anita’s words as he walks.

He’d written to her belatedly, months after the wedding. You will never believe it, he told her. I am a husband and father now. I am sorry it has taken me so long to tell you. I’m kept busier than I’d imagined I could be, caring for the little ones.

Anita’s response is amusing—she was always a funny girl—but between her humorous lines, he can read the sobriety of her thoughts.

My dear little brother,

It is I who must apologize to you. You may have taken three months to tell me you ran off and got married (I would have expected something like this when you were a boy of seventeen, but now that you are practically old . . . !) but it has taken me three more months to write a reply. That’s six months of shame on us both. It’s a good thing neither of us is in our orders any longer; otherwise, we would have to assign penance to one another, and I hear nuns are terribly cruel to their little brothers. I would be obliged to uphold that tradition.

Since we saw each other last, I have found work as a secretary here in Stuttgart. Can you imagine, a nun taking dictation and typing off memos! It’s too ridiculous to think about. I can hardly believe it myself, and yet I get up every morning and put on my city-girl clothes and go off to do my work. But it’s work or starve, for me. I won’t take a husband (not that many men chase after me; I am forty-two now!) for I am still faithful to Christ.

Yes, you read it correctly. We are still estranged, but I am willing to take Him back once He’s ready to reconcile. I am faithful to Him forever.

You mustn’t think I judge you for your decision to marry, Anton. I am sure your wife and children are delightful. I trust your heart to lead you in the right direction. I hope you trust your own heart, too—and God. Someday, when this boring war is over and we can re-form the orders, you will not go back, now that you are a Vati. But I believe you have ended up exactly where the Lord means you to be.

I wonder, is Christ truly divorced from me now, or has some worse fate befallen Him? Am I a woman cast off, or am I a widow, like your Elisabeth?

Your loving sister,

Anita

Anton smiles down at the note, as he did the first time he read it, and a dozen times after. But Anita’s pain strikes him afresh, so evident in the letter’s final lines. Even the most devout have begun to believe that God is dead. He can hardly blame them. What kind of Lord allows this iniquity to taint what He has made? Only a weak God or a nonexistent one—perhaps Herr Pohl is right. Perhaps it’s Anton who is strange, he who is unusual, buoyed by his relentless, unforgiving optimism, pressed ever onward by his conviction that this regime can be overthrown. Even when logic and common sense tell him, Give up, Anton, it’s impossible. Shut your eyes and accept—still he presses on.

He tucks Anita’s letter back in his pocket. He has written her since receiving this note—in fact, they have exchanged several more letters each. But for some reason, it’s this letter in particular that moves him time and again, this one he keeps as a reminder never to accept that God is dead.

He passes the lane to a small cabin, tucked several yards back from the road behind a paling fence with a thick backdrop of tall cottage flowers. The flowers are woefully overgrown, an untended jungle of color and sweet perfume. The little house hasn’t been used for some time—it is, or was, the country home of some wealthy city dweller. Who can say whether the owner is still living? But he hears a voice coming from the cabin, high and thin and small. He pauses, straining to listen, caught by some instinct he can’t yet identify. Then he realizes it’s Maria’s voice. Maria is singing—to herself, as far as he can tell—inside the little house.

Anton checks his pocket watch. It’s barely past the lunch hour; the girl should be in school. A vague yet pressing fear needles him. This is not routine, not right; wary of some half-formed danger and with a sudden, protective energy, Anton hurries through the gate and up the lane, brushing the overgrown flowers from his path. Petals scatter in the uncut grass.

The cabin’s door swings on its hinges, left carelessly ajar. He calls out, “Hello? Who’s there?”

Maria stops singing.

“Maria? Is it you?” No adult answers his call, so he opens the door wider and steps inside.

“I’m here.” Maria sounds annoyed, and disappointed at being found.