The Ragged Edge of Night(84)

“Father Emil? They know about him, too?” It’s an absurd question. Of course they do. They must, if they know so much already.

“Lie low,” Pohl says again. “For the sake of your family, take no more risks. Now I must be gone; I’ve stopped here long enough already. May your God keep you safe, Herr Starzmann.”

Pohl vanishes swiftly from the roadside, but Anton remains hidden. He can still smell the pipe smoke, trapped among the leaves of the hedge, but he is utterly alone. He crouches on his heels behind the hedge and prays, though his thoughts are a useless jumble. In all this time, through his months of buoyant hope, he never really understood that this was what he risked, that this might be his consequence.

Yet now the hour has come. Now he must decide what he will do. God give me strength. God give me some clear direction. Do I fight on, or do I yield to the enemy? Have the forces of evil silenced me at last?

When he has mustered strength enough to stand, he rises on trembling legs and takes to the road again. God has provided no answer to his frantic prayer, but there is no question in his mind what he must do next. He goes straight home and climbs the cottage’s staircase in a daze. He finds Elisabeth sewing in her chair.

She looks up, smiling. There is a sheen to her dark hair, a bloom of health and happiness. “Back so soon?” But when she sees the desolation on his face, she drops her sewing in the basket and hurries to his side.

“What’s the matter, Anton? What has happened?”

He won’t keep the truth from her; he can’t any longer. No matter what it costs him, he must come clean.

“Are the children in?”

“They’re outside, playing.”

“Good. I must speak to you alone.”

They sit close together on the sofa, and, holding her hand—her hand which grows colder by the moment—Anton tells Elisabeth everything. Somehow, his voice remains steady. He speaks low and level, with a grim sort of calm, while Elisabeth stares into his eyes, pale-faced and frightened. When he has finished—when he falls silent, waiting for her judgment—she breathes deeply, struggling to summon her voice. She shakes her head slowly, as if trying to clear the fog of terror from her mind.

“You must stop,” she says at last. “You can’t go on defying the Party.”

“Do you mean… stop the band?”

“Of course.”

He had been prepared for her to say, You must stop carrying messages, as Pohl had done. He had even been prepared for her to leap up in fright, to try to flee with the children once more. But he’d never thought she would say this.

“I can’t, Elisabeth. I can’t do that.” Take away the children’s music—take away their joy. Take this town’s voice, when we have only just learned how to sing.

“Why can’t you?” she demands. “Why is it so important that you go on risking your life—your family’s lives, Anton!—for some silly marching band?”

He opens his mouth to speak, but he can find no words—no explanation she will accept. He wrings his fists, a useless expression of despair. He must make her see what it means to teach again, to lead children away from the dark into the pure, sweet light of happiness. But he can’t make her understand unless he tells her the rest—why he is a friar no longer.

Anton has never confessed to anyone what happened at St. Josefsheim—what happened to him, and the children he lost. He never even told his sister. But Elisabeth’s fear is there before him, written on her face. In the trembling of her lips, in the coldness of her hands, he can see that she has reached the end of her courage. She is ready to break from him and run to safety—or to the illusion of safety, a cruel mirage in a world distorted by war. That morning long ago, when she took the children—their little knapsacks stuffed hastily with their belongings—Anton had thought his heart would shatter as he watched his family walking away. Now it would only be worse if she were to leave. The love he bears for his family is greater now, greater than he can comprehend. It has grown until it has consumed him. It is all of him, the full weight and substance of his soul.

He must keep Elisabeth’s trust at all costs. And so he must find the words, despite his fear. He holds nothing back.

This is why I am no longer a friar. This is why I can never be redeemed.

“I was eighteen when I joined the order. I felt so grown-up then, but I look at Albert now, and it shocks me. I was a boy—just a boy, Elisabeth, barely older than Al. But young as I was, I knew I’d heard the call of God. I went where He directed.

“Early on, when I was scarcely out of my novitiate, the leaders of my brotherhood noted my skill with music. I was entirely self-taught”—he smiles feebly—“as I still am. But they were taken with my humble talents. They asked me to devise a program for children, which I gladly agreed to do. But the father took me aside and said, ‘These are not just any children, Bruder Nazarius. They are the most unfortunate innocents God ever made. They are not whole, not capable like so many other little ones. And worse, they have been abandoned—surrendered to our order for care. Some cannot speak. Some have twisted limbs, or little control over their bodies. They suffer from seizures, or blindness and deafness. Most will remain like children forever, no matter how long they live. They are not ordinary children, but I promise you, Brother, once you come to know them, they are extraordinary. And it is our calling to give these little ones everything their own families never could: a sound education, opportunities for happiness… and love.’