The Ragged Edge of Night(73)

“And I.”

“Be safe, mein Herr.”



By the time Anton finally reaches home, long after sunset, a spring drizzle has set in, soaking his coat and chilling him to the core. But rain and hours have cooled Elisabeth’s anger. She looks up from the stove as he enters, and when he bends to kiss her cheek, she doesn’t pull away. Whatever she is cooking smells delicious: savory, yet lightened with a pinch of the cinnamon she guards with such jealous attention. The children have gone to bed.

Anton takes the sewing catalogs from inside his coat. He stacks them on the table, neatly, the way Elisabeth likes.

“How did Communion go?”

Faintly, Elisabeth smiles. “Maria did well. She took the matter seriously, thank the Lord. She treated the ceremony with reverence. You would have been proud of her, if you’d seen it.”

“I am always proud of my Maria.” He hangs his wet coat on a hook beside the door, then pages through one of the catalogs. “She can cut these up to her heart’s content.”

“She’ll like that. Sit down; I’ve reheated the stew. When I noticed the rain, I thought you’d be terribly cold by the time you came home.”

The stew is delicious, and the cinnamon has been added just for him—Anton feels certain of that. Between bites, he says, “I regret missing Maria’s big day. If it had been any other work, you know I would have let it rest until Monday.”

“I know.” She sighs, ever weary, and sinks onto the chair closest to Anton. “I’m glad Maria wasn’t hurt by your not being there.”

“I’m sorry you were hurt, though. It wasn’t an easy decision to make.”

For a moment, she blinks down at the table in silence. “I worry, Anton—how often will you choose this work over your family? Where will you draw the line? When will we be more important than this?”

How can he make her understand? He can’t disentangle his commitment to the resistance from his commitment to the family. They are two edifices in his heart, each built from the same stone. He fights because he loves his family, because he needs to believe that they will see better days. There is nothing he can say, where the children might hear. He can only hold her hand, briefly—all she will permit—and pat her shoulder, a silent promise of unity.

“I heard news from Egerland while I was away. The Czechs have retaken the place. They’ve turned all the Germans they could find out of their homes. So many have been displaced—women, children—it turns my stomach to think of it.”

Elisabeth’s face lengthens with pity. “Those poor people. We have so little here, in the country, but imagine being cast out from your home—imagine having nothing.”

“The NSDAP plans to bring the refugees here, you know.”

“What, to Unterboihingen?”

“Not precisely. They’re being carried by train to Württemberg.”

“And then?”

Anton shrugs. “Then left to fend for themselves again, I suppose—left to scratch out some bare existence in the fields and forests.”

“How can the Party do such a thing? It isn’t as if these refugees are impure.” She weights that word with all the scorn it deserves. Only Party wolves could think any person impure—and those like Bruno Franke, who quiver with a base eagerness to lick Hitler’s jowls. “They are Germans, full citizens, with every right to the Reich’s protection, according to the Reich’s own decrees. It disgusts me, how anyone can support these devils—even now, when they plan to drop German mothers and children like trash on a refuse heap. I feel ill.”

“I suppose they justify it—the Party and their supporters—by saying, ‘We’re at war now. Where will we find the money to care for refugees?’”

“Money shouldn’t matter. It’s the right thing to do, to care for them. And so it should be done, no matter the cost, no matter who must make the sacrifice.”

He takes her hand again. “When, mein Schatz, has this regime done what is right?”

“Never.” Tears spring to her eyes. She turns her face, ashamed, and tugs her hand free from Anton’s grip. She wipes her eyes before the tears may fall. “Never, Anton; from the start, they have done only evil. And we have gone along with it—all of us, the whole country. We could have stopped them long ago, but we didn’t. We hid our faces behind our hands. We told ourselves, ‘This won’t continue. It won’t be allowed. Someone will stop them; someone must. The Reichstag, or an assassin, or the Tommies. Or God Himself. It won’t be allowed to continue.’ But it has continued, and now it seems there is no end in sight. We can’t go back to the time when we might have stopped this all; we let that chance pass us by. What does that make us? What will God think, when we stand before His judgment?”

There is nothing Anton can say, no comfort he can offer. The chance has passed; a hundred chances more lie in the dust behind us. The miles we might have marched in protest, the votes we might have cast. The mercy we might have shown but withheld, fearful of what our neighbors would think. There is nothing left for any of us but to stand firm on what little ground remains. To say to the Party, You have gone far enough already. Now you will go no further. We will stand, and we will know that we’ll be ground beneath their heels. We’ll be like grains to a millstone. But until the moment when we fall, we will stand.