The Ragged Edge of Night(59)

When night’s chill has settled over the wood, Anton rises reluctantly. He stretches his stiff back. How he feels the cold, these days. It’s getting late; Elisabeth will be wondering what has kept him so long.

He says, “You must teach me how to hunt. Refresh me. You know more about it now than I do.”

“So we’re forgiven for the potatoes?”

“You should probably confess the theft to Father Emil and do your Hail Marys, just to be on the safe side. But I think God will look the other way. You had good intentions, after all, and you are helping your mother and sister.”

Paul says insistently, “But will you forgive us?”

A bright pang of adoration stalls him for a moment, cripples his heart. It’s his pardon the boys want, not God’s. A father’s acceptance means more to them now than any religious absolution. Anton lays a hand on each boy’s head. The unexpected flash of warmth has stolen his speech away, but a touch says what his voice cannot.





21

Twilight is fast approaching. Hurrying through town, Anton passes the bakery. It’s closed for the night, black shutters drawn over its windows and the shade pulled down to hide the front door’s glass. But the wrought-iron table is still sitting outside with its two simple chairs. He remembers the first time he saw Elisabeth there. He remembers the way she held her teacup and watched him without drinking, wary and speculative. He sees again the way her forehead furrowed as she picked up the newspaper and read her own advertisement. Who would have thought, on that day, that he would fall in love with the woman in the blue dress, the woman who never sipped her tea until it had gone cold?

He stops beside the iron table and drops his hand on its rusted surface, as if he might find in the spaces between the iron some remedy to his confusion. His own thoughts are puzzling him. What is this sudden lump in his throat, the pounding in his chest? Does he love Elisabeth, after all? And how strange, that any husband must ask himself whether he loves his wife! If he were less patient and less committed to God, he might shake his fist at Heaven for leading him here, to this strange place. But he is determined to forebear, to persist, even though there is an ache below his heart, a sweetly hollow pain, this realization that he loves her—or thinks he does—while she feels no affection for him. They have never exchanged more than the most cursory of kisses, the briefest touch. Why should it pain him? All is in accordance with their agreement, the bargain he foolishly offered more than a year ago, here at this cold table. He had still been a friar, then—in his heart if not in practice—and had wanted no more of her than she’d been willing to give. But now he is something more. Elisabeth’s husband.

“Herr Starzmann.” A thick voice, calling from across the street, pulls Anton from his thoughts. He turns away from the bakery table, quickly, swallowing hard, as if he has some reason to feel guilty.

It’s Bruno Franke—M?belbauer. The man lifts an imperious hand—in greeting, or as an order? Stay where you are.

M?belbauer comes toward him, scuttling across the empty road. Anton grips the lapels of his jacket, resisting the urge to hunker down in his coat, to hide from this man. It’s a ridiculous thought: tall, lanky Anton Starzmann can’t hide from anyone. Instead, he makes himself release his grip. He waves to Franke, giving the man his most disarming smile. And all the while, as Franke lumbers toward him, Anton thinks, You swine of a man. You’re lucky I’m an instrument in the Red Orchestra, lucky I can’t risk smashing in your smug face for what you’ve put Elisabeth through—and all the other women of our town.

When M?belbauer reaches Anton, he folds his arms across his chest and smiles in a satisfied manner, a cat with a mouse pinned beneath its paw. “I’ve been meaning to speak to you,” he says.

Anton slides his hand into his pocket. He has already delivered the day’s message, over in Kirchheim. If M?belbauer jumps him, manages to overpower him, he will find nothing on Anton but Anita’s letter, a pocketknife, and a pipe. And his rosary, of course. His fingers tangle in the beads for a moment, but he soon abandons them and takes the knife instead. The tortoiseshell handle is cool and smooth, reassuring even if it is small. Should he pull his only small weapon now, or keep it snug in his palm? No, there’s no reason for that—not yet. Anton draws his pipe from his pocket instead. He upends its bowl and taps it, though it is clean, nothing inside to fall out. He smiles at M?belbauer again, patient, disarming, waiting for his doom to come.

“A fine evening,” Anton says, as if nothing in the world is wrong. He puts the pipe in his teeth, just for something to do. He doesn’t pack it or light it—somehow, it seems unwise to occupy both his hands, to let down his guard in this man’s presence. But at least he has something to bite down on, something other than M?belbauer’s face.

M?belbauer does not return the greeting. He says brusquely, as if presenting a delinquent customer with an unpaid bill, “You’ve got two boys, now that you’ve married the widow.”

“Albert and Paul. Yes.” The heat of fear suffuses Anton’s spine. He feels first weak, weak enough to collapse—and then, with a mad rush, he is a tower of anger, a bulwark of rage. He bites down harder on the stem of his pipe. The smile fades; in another moment, M?belbauer will see the resistance in Anton’s eyes. Does the gauleiter plan to use the boys against him? Is this the start of it, the first whispered threat? He should have kept the knife in his hand. You won’t take them. You won’t harm a hair on my children’s heads. I’ll kill you first, I swear it. Anton doesn’t bother to repent of the terrible thought. God will understand; and if He doesn’t, then Anton has no use for Him.