The Ragged Edge of Night(62)

Leaning against the doorframe, he breathes in the scent of morning. Dew hangs heavy in the air, and the irrigation ditches are thick and fragrant with water. The earth is wet and weeping. The ground exhales the moisture of sleeping children’s breath; memory of the ones he lost hangs between Heaven and Earth, an unseen mist he can feel brushing his cheek, as he once felt their small hands, patting, holding to his habit, slipping into his own large, protective grasp. He is too tired to cry, too far surrendered to his grief.

He turns a page in the workbook; the lines unblur. The words assert themselves with brutal clarity. In his own handwriting, he reads: Church burned at Riga. And the vision is still there, beyond the page—flames leaping up the side of the spire, black smoke billowing, the road straight as truth, never bending, never changing.

Anton’s hand trembles as he turns another page. This one is blank. The pages after are blank, too, all the way to the end of the book. They had intended him to fill this book with accounts of his doings, his brave service to the Party. But he never set his pen to the workbook again.

We are troubled on every side yet not distressed. We are perplexed but not in despair. Persecuted but not forsaken; cast down but not destroyed. Not yet. And until they do destroy me, I can fight on. I can always fight, even knowing it is futile. Always bearing in my body the dying of Lord Jesus, that the life, also, of Jesus might be made manifest.

Anton cannot win, but they haven’t destroyed him yet. What is he now, if not a resister? If not a father and a husband, protector of widows and children? God’s command is the only one he will obey, the only voice he will hear, until they take him, too, and redistribute him to his grave.

He closes the workbook. There is a coin in his pocket, a five-reichsmark piece, with the worn-down face of von Hindenburg, all disappointment and jowls. Coin in one hand, he stares for a moment at the book’s cover, chestnut brown against military gray. The eagle, hard-eyed and angular, spreads its wings below the words “Deutsches Reich.” In its talons, it holds the oak wreath and the swastika, symbol of Hitler’s ascendancy.

Anton touches the swastika, traces its clawed, broken arms with the tip of a finger. The paper is dry and ordinary. It whispers beneath his touch. This book is a small and simple thing. Why should it hold power over him or his family? He presses the edge of the coin against the cover. The fibers yield. A hiss of paper, a rasp of metal, and the swastika is gone, scratched away as if it had never existed.

A high, thin scream erupts from the house, from somewhere just outside it. For a moment, he believes he has been found out already, that some demon from Hell has come to seize him in this moment of rebellion, to drag him off to Dachau. But then he knows it’s Maria crying. He drops book and coin on a dusty shelf beside the door and runs. The girl has tumbled down the stairs; her nose is bleeding, and her face is red from her screams. He scoops her up in his arms, kissing her, talking close to her ear so she can hear him over the sound of her own cries. “What’s wrong, Maria? Where are you hurt?”

Elisabeth comes running down the stairs, her mouth round with panic. Her nightdress billows behind her legs. The boys are just behind, still in their pajamas; they hug themselves against the chill.

“For goodness’ sake, Anton, what has happened?” Elisabeth cries. She dabs at Maria’s bloody nose with the sleeve of her nightdress.

Maria chokes on her sobs. “I thought Vati went out to get the eggs, and I came to help. I fell down the stairs.”

“How far did she fall? How many stairs? Is she badly hurt?” Elisabeth pats her small daughter, prodding her little bones, but Maria’s tears are already dissipating. She wipes her face against Anton’s shoulder, leaving a smear of blood.

“She’s more frightened than hurt, I think.” He kisses her cheek again. “There, you see? Her nose has already stopped bleeding. You’re all right, aren’t you?”

Maria nods, sniffling.

Elisabeth heaves a deep sigh, a mother’s shuddering relief. Then she begins to scold. “You are the most careless girl I’ve ever seen! And naughty, to go running outside before you’ve had breakfast. Before you’re properly dressed!”

Maria whimpers, “You aren’t properly dressed, either.”

“No back talk. I won’t put up with it, not today. Not from you.”

Albert and Paul, assured that their sister will survive, scuttle down to the old shed, drawn by its open door. Boys are always ready for adventure, even first thing in the morning. Since they are already up, they may as well have some fun before school begins.

“Put her down, Anton. If she’s not hurt, then she doesn’t need any coddling. She needs a good swat on her backside, that’s what.”

Maria, on her own two feet now, hides her face against Anton’s leg. She mutters, “I don’t need a swat. It’s bad enough, falling down the stairs.”

“Then go up to your room and get dressed.”

Maria goes, climbing the stairs with assiduous care, both hands clinging to the rail. Elisabeth watches her for a moment, tense, like a horse ready to shy at any rustle in the grass. When Maria is safely inside, she turns to Anton with a frown. “What were you doing up so early?”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

The nature of her frown changes, from annoyance to concern. She tilts her head one way, then the other, examining his complexion, eyeing his brow for beads of sweat.