The Ragged Edge of Night(55)

“You can’t be serious.” He wants to say, Why do the women permit it? Franke is not so handsome or charming that he would catch most ladies’ attention and tempt them to infidelity. But as soon as the thought enters his head, he understands. He says, “It’s because he’s the…” He almost can’t make himself say the word. “Gauleiter.” The eyes that watch for disloyalty, the ears that strain to hear the smallest whisper of resistance.

“Yes,” Elisabeth says. “That. The women all go along with him, and give in to his advances, because they’re afraid. What might Bruno Franke say about them, or about their husbands, if they don’t? Unless they comply, he will write one of his letters to his contacts in Berlin. He’s a disgusting man—disgusting.”

Anton has seen village women with haunted looks and distant eyes. He had assumed it was only the war that affected them—only the war, as if it is a small thing. But now he understands there is something else at work here, a greater darkness moving. The sharp ear of the Devil has turned toward their safe little town. In the cities, they force men to run out their bayonets, and herd children off to their deaths. The women, they force to break their marriage vows and dirty themselves with shame. There is no remorse, no care for the consequences. And no thought for what it says about us, as a nation and a people, that we turn our eyes away from our neighbors’ suffering. But of course, the pride and reputation of Germany mean nothing to the Party, or the dogs who lick their boots. They care only for what they may gain. The powerful take ever more power. They will remake the world as they see fit.

“If Franke ever comes after you,” Anton says, “tell me.”

Elisabeth flares up suddenly. For the first time that night, she looks directly at him. Her eyes are two points of anger, glowing in the dusk. “I’ll never break my vow. I said holy words before God; that means something to me.”

It means something to all the women Herr Franke approaches, Anton is sure—but these matters are never as simple as one thinks when one is on the outside, looking in. It’s only when they come to your door—when the gray bus arrives—that you know for certain what you will do. When they present you with the choice that is no choice at all—in the moment of truth, when the lives of the people you love hang in the balance, will it be easier to break a vow made before God, or condemn your children to the gas chambers?

“Tell me if he tries anything. I’ll sort it out with him, so you won’t have to.” And God help me if he has already noticed my comings and goings.

Troubled, sleepless through the night, Anton goes to Father Emil the next day. Did he already know about the town’s gauleiter—what M?belbauer does with the women, married women, mothers of the village?

Yes. Emil knows. “Ambition makes the best of men dangerous,” the priest says, “but I’m afraid Herr Franke was never the best of men.”

“Elisabeth seemed quite upset by him, when I spoke to her last night.”

“That’s no wonder to me. You know this is a small town, Anton.” He says it apologetically. “We know everything about each other.”

Anton takes his meaning, but he has to hear the words before he will believe. “Tell me.”

Emil pauses and sighs. He doesn’t like to say it. “Herr Franke has already approached Elisabeth with the same foul proposal he has made to most of the other women in Unterboihingen.”

Anton’s mind is a flash of whiteness, blankness. He freezes on the church pew, motionless, stunned.

Emil says, “I am not breaking the sanctity of confessional by telling you this. I never would do such a thing. Elisabeth hasn’t brought me this news herself, but a few of her friends have told me. They were troubled by it and sought my advice—wondering what they ought to do, how they could help her. I’m glad you came to see me about this matter, my friend. I have considered going to you and Elisabeth and offering my counsel. I know your marriage is unusual, and not especially warm. But for the sake of the children you both love, it must hold together.”

“Poor Elisabeth. To face such a thing…”

Emil chuckles. “Poor Elisabeth? She sent Franke packing! Her friends all agreed on that point. They were proud of her, awed by her—doing what few other women have had the fortitude to do.”

She would send M?belbauer packing, and with a kick to his stout behind. Elisabeth’s faith is a tower, a monolith. Woe betide the man who expects her to violate vows made at the altar.

“But now Franke will be angry with her,” Anton says.

“Yes.” It’s clear from Emil’s sober expression that he understands what Anton has left unspoken. How much does Herr Franke know? Is he even now scratching out a letter to whichever Nazi dog he reports to, implicating Anton as an instrument of the Red Orchestra—purely for vengeance against the only woman who has dared to spurn him?

He says quietly, “Father Emil, what do we do about this?”

Emil lifts his hands in a gesture of surrender. “We keep on, my friend. Is there anything else you would do?”

No. There is nothing else.





PART 4

DEATH HAS ONE EYE

OCTOBER 1943–APRIL 1944





19

Fall crisps the air again, leading in the winter. How has a year passed so swiftly? Woodsmoke hangs in the orchard, a blue haze caught among the dry, rattling leaves that still cling to the branches. It’s almost too cool now to dry the washing outdoors, but Elisabeth persists. She likes it when the scent of autumn smoke works itself into her dresses and old, threadbare jumpers. She has told Anton so, and now he has come to associate the smell of the season with his wife. The autumn is like Elisabeth—solemn, austere, a touch chilly, but not without its flashes of brilliant color.