The Ragged Edge of Night(79)

M?belbauer vanishes behind his shop door, taking his fellows with him. The moment the gauleiter has disappeared, the crowd relaxes, sighs, buzzes with conversation. Shielded by the sound, Anton rounds on Elisabeth.

“What were you thinking, confronting M?belbauer that way? You know he’s dangerous.”

Elisabeth has gone pale. He can see the faint trembling of her shoulders. He takes them in his hands and presses, trying to hold her together.

“I know he’s dangerous,” she says. “But someone had to stop him.”

“Leave it to someone else, then—anyone else. Not you.”

“Why not me?”

“Because I love you.” The words are out of his mouth before he can think better.

Elisabeth turns away at once. She will not meet his eye, nor speak to him, as she calls for Frau Hornik. She counts the children as they assemble around her. Then she points them all in the direction of home.

But late that night, after Elisabeth has seen to supper and tucked the children into bed, she finds her words. The house is quiet, soft with shadow. She carries a candle to Frau Hornik. Anton and Elisabeth have given their bed to the widow; the twins take turns, sharing the bed with their mother and sleeping on a straw-stuffed mat beside the dresser. Elisabeth steps from the bedroom, only one candle in her hand now. By its simple light, she glows in her humble white nightdress. Candlelight surrounds her with gold; it gleams in her hair, it makes fine shadows of the lines at the corners of her eyes. Once Anton had thought those lines were carved by weariness. Now he knows they are traces of her rare but luminous smile. She checks the curtains, pulls them more tightly closed. Then she sets the candle on the floor beside the pallet near the stove—their bed, since the Egerlanders came—and slides beneath the blankets. Cool air comes with her; it raises the hairs on Anton’s arms and on the back of his neck. Elisabeth blows out the light, but she doesn’t settle at the edge of the pallet, far from his touch. Instead, she presses herself against his shoulder.

“I also love you,” she whispers.

He finds her mouth in the darkness. His kiss is long; she allows it to linger.





PART 5

BELL SONG

JULY 1944–MAY 1945





29

Summer has unleashed a punishing heat on Germany. It is only the twenty-first of July, yet already the fields are wilting, going brown around the edges, and the scent of hay hangs over dusty roads and irrigation ditches run dry. The barley has begun to lean, weeks too soon. The first harvest will be poor, and with this heat, there is little hope for a second reaping.

Anton and the boys labor in the shade beneath the cottage, mucking out the pen where the animals sleep. A pile of new straw is waiting nearby, sweet and deep, ready to be spread across the floor. Stink rises from the Misthaufen, clinging to the workers’ damp shirts. The shade is a mercy, but even so, the day is hot. Anton has rolled his sleeves as high as he can manage; the boys have stripped off their shirts entirely. Sweat trickles down their backs as they wrestle with pitchforks and reeking loads of soiled straw.

“Can’t we have sheep?” Paul asks, not for the first time.

“Where would we get sheep?” Al rejoins. “What would we trade for them?”

“I don’t know, and I don’t care. But their dung isn’t as hard to clean up as cow’s dung.”

Anton says, “Sheep don’t give as much milk as a cow.”

“I don’t like milk, anyway,” Paul says sulkily.

“Of course you do. You drink more than anyone else in this family.”

“Well, I’d give it all up if it meant I never had to shovel cow’s shit again.”

“Language,” Anton says, with a warning tone.

Paul is too hot and irritable to apologize. He stabs the tines of his pitchfork into a newly uncovered cow patty. Flies buzz around him.

“Herr Starzmann!”

The boys throw down their pitchforks and run to see who has called from the lane—any excuse to shirk this unpleasant task. Anton straightens, peering over the stone wall, and finds one of the Gei?ler brothers shouting and waving as he hurries through the orchard.

“It’s an Egerlander,” Al says. “One of the fellows who lives at the church. What do you suppose he wants?”

Anton goes out to meet him. The young man is panting, his shirt every bit as soaked as Anton’s.

“Father Emil has sent me,” he says, “to fetch you. It’s urgent; you must come at once.”

“Is the father well?”

Gei?ler nods, blotting sweat from his brow with a kerchief. “He said you must come quickly.”

Anton glances at his sons, wary now. “Has… anyone come for Father Emil?” If the SS had arrested the priest, they wouldn’t have permitted Emil to send for Anton. But might they have forced a confession? Have the SS set a snare for Anton?

Gei?ler shakes his head. “No one. He only told me to fetch you, as quickly as I could.”

Anton can read no fear in the man’s face. No slyness, either. He must take him at his word.

“Al, Paul—you’ll have to finish the work without me.”

Paul groans.

“Come, now; it’s nearly done. And when you’ve finished, you can go swimming in the river.”