The Ragged Edge of Night(85)

“When I first began my work, there were few people, even in my order, who thought those children were capable of learning. But music is a kind of magic, a miracle. It can reach into a person’s mind, even into his soul, and touch the places words never can. Music is the great key; it can open any lock. My students took to their lessons readily. They embraced learning as wholly as any other children would. And the music—my teaching—gave voice to the voiceless.”

Mute with sympathy, Elisabeth takes his hand. Anton draws an unsteady breath, reluctant to continue. But the story must be told. He presses on, no matter how it pains him.

“As the war came on and Hitler’s actions grew more despicable, many in the order told themselves it couldn’t really happen. Not to us.”

“What couldn’t happen?” Elisabeth’s voice is dull, low. She knows how he will answer, but she must hear it for herself, to be sure.

“The T4 Program.”

She covers her face with her hands. “Dear God.”

Who can choose the worst of our government’s crimes? If you point to any execution, any plan of extermination, and you say, This is the worst, the vilest thing we have ever done, then you excuse, in part, all the rest. There is no darkest deed for Adolf Hitler and the wolves who follow him. He is one deep pit of foul black evil, and day by day, we sink farther below the surface. There is no act more terrible than the rest.

In the T4 Program, they called the broken ones, the imperfect, life unworthy of life. Little children, even infants, were torn from their mothers. When families protested, they took the rest of their children, too, even the healthy and whole. Or they sent the fathers off to war, to the front lines in the east, to be ripped apart by machine-gun fire. Bishop von Galen, in Münster, called the program plain murder. And when his loyal priests distributed his sermon, the SS took three of those good men into the public square and cut off their heads, like rabbits ready for the spit. The summer of ’41 was dark. The sky reeked of oily smoke, black with the stench of burning bodies.

“I knew…” Anton goes on; God alone can say where he finds the strength to continue. “I knew they would come for our children someday. Some of my brothers denied it could really happen, but somewhere in my soul, I knew. I also knew there was nothing I could do to stop the SS when they came. So I went on with my life, teaching my little ones as best I could, giving them all the love the world could not. And I prayed; I begged God, night and day, to spare my students—and me.”

He falls silent. After a long, trembling pause, Elisabeth says, “Did you oppose them? When they finally did come?”

“We did, every way we could think to do it. We pleaded, we threatened, we made barriers with our own bodies, even knowing what they would do to men of the cloth who crossed the Führer. But they were armed, when they came… and the brothers, of course, were not.” He shuts his eyes, grappling with the pain, the terrible, sharp rebuke of memory. “But what haunts me, Elisabeth—what I can never forgive—is this: I did not fight as hard as I might have. When my time came to face judgment—when the gun was pointed at my chest—I chose my own life over theirs. I saved myself, instead of the innocent.”

She says nothing. Her hand twitches in his grip.

“But I knew, Elisabeth—I know what they did, what they still do to the men who wear the uniforms. Those men are victims, too—some of them, anyway. Not all are consumed by evil. Some do only what they must, to spare their own children from death. Knowing that, I stepped aside. I didn’t resist as forcefully as I could have done, because in that moment, I couldn’t choose between the soldier’s pain and my own. But I made the wrong decision. I know that now; I have known it every moment I’ve lived since then. I should have forced that man to kill me. I should have made his every move an agony; I should have plagued him with guilt. It wasn’t his choice, to take the children, and he took no pleasure in his work. But who suffered? Who died that day? The little ones. The ones I was meant to protect. God may forgive me someday, but I will never forgive myself.”

Elisabeth seems to know there is more to his story. She squeezes his hand gently, a gesture that says, Go on.

“After they took the children, my order was disbanded, of course. I went back home to Stuttgart and lived with my sister for a time. She had been a nun, and her order, too, was dissolved. We were a comfort to each other, but we were both grieving for what we had lost.

“Then I was drafted into the Wehrmacht. You know about that, I suppose; you’ve heard me tell the boys. There isn’t much to report, beyond that one jump over Riga. My injured back got me out of the service, and once I was free, I swore I’d never go back.”

“Your back isn’t injured. You’re fit as can be.”

Despite his sadness, Anton smiles. “I suppose that was my first act of resistance. I felt a coward, leaving the Wehrmacht when so many other good men, conscripted like me, remained. But my entire soul, my whole being, revolted at the thought of aiding the Party in any way. They had taken everything I’d loved. I would never serve them again. They could kill me for it, but I wouldn’t serve.”

He has talked this well of memory dry. He sags back against the sofa, his chin falling toward his chest, crumpling in despair. Elisabeth takes his arm; she braces him. “Let’s go out for a walk. It’s a lovely day.”