White Rose Black Forest(70)

A dog barked in the distance as they reached the bottom of the hill. John crouched as he moved forward. Mimicking his movements, Franka lead them down the hill to Uncle Hermann’s house. Aunt Lotte had died back in the 1920s. Franka’s father had said it was from a broken heart, from mourning the deaths of her sons lost in the Great War.

Franka held a finger to her mouth and reached under a flowerpot to the right of the wooden front door. John nodded to her, and she slipped the key into the lock. The door opened with a gentle creak. Franka stopped for a few seconds to listen. The house was exactly as she remembered it, worn down and old. Franka led him up the stairs. A portrait of Aunt Lotte stared down at them. The carpet on the stairs was threadbare, graying in the middle from a thousand footsteps. They kept to the side, but still it creaked. The door to Hermann’s bedroom stood at the top of the stairs. They could hear the unmistakable sound of the old man snoring. She led John past the bedroom and down to a door at the end of the hallway. She placed her hand on the doorknob as if it might shatter under her touch and turned it with the same care. The room was dusty but otherwise clean, the bed still made.

“This was my uncle Otto’s bedroom,” Franka whispered. “We can rest here a few hours.”

“What about your great-uncle?”

“I doubt he’s been in this room for fifteen years. I’ll deal with him. We’re safe here.”

John took the bag off his back and placed it on a chair in the corner. The curtains were drawn, the light of the morning not yet drifting through. He pushed the curtains back a chink and surveyed the houses below. This wasn’t what he’d wanted, but they had to rest. Nowhere would be safer. The long hike to the border was just a few hours away. Weeks of lying in bed had rendered him weakened, and exhaustion was spreading through him. He motioned for Franka to take the bed and got down on the floor.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said.

“It wouldn’t be proper. I’m fine on the floor.”

“We need sleep. The bed is the best place to get it.”

She took off her boots and lay on the bed.

“Come on,” she said, turning away. She felt the weight of him shift the mattress, and lay with her eyes open for several seconds before the hushed sound of his breath soothed her to sleep.

Berkel came in her dreams, his fingers coiling around her throat, the weight of him on her, the fury in his eyes as she forced herself awake. John was still sleeping beside her. The day had broken. The sky outside was concrete gray. Franka heard the sound of her great-uncle shuffling around the house downstairs. The clock on the wall told her it was just after noon. They had slept for seven hours—longer than they’d wanted. The light of day would fade in a few hours, and while traveling through the forest at night would be more discreet, it would also be more dangerous. First she needed to see Hermann—not only because it would have been disrespectful not to, but also because he no doubt still had that shotgun he brandished at the first sign of trouble. Intruders in his house would be prime targets.

John was going to need all the sleep he could get. Sheer stubbornness was only going to get him so far. She left him sleeping as she made for the bedroom door. Hermann was at the kitchen table, eating a lunch of soup and bread as she came in. His face was wrinkled and worn like balled paper flattened out. His mustache was white, his full head of hair the same. He dropped his spoon as he saw her.

“Franka? What are you doing here?”

“I’m sorry, Uncle. I was hiking and got lost. I needed somewhere to rest for a few hours, and I knew you wouldn’t mind if I laid my head down.”

“Of course not,” he said, struggling to get out of his seat.

“Please, don’t get up for me.”

Franka sat down beside him. He offered her food and ignored any attempt she made to refuse it. Two minutes later she was sitting at the table, eating the thin turnip soup that he told her he ate most days of the week.

“I hope you don’t mind my resting here a few hours.”

“Of course not. It’s been too long since I last saw you.”

The old man shuffled over to the pot, drained out enough for a full bowl, and sat down at the table once more.

“I was so sorry to hear about your father,” Hermann said. “This war gets more and more horrific every day. This Nazi madness has poisoned our nation and led to the deaths of countless innocents. It was said that the insanity thirty years ago was the war to end all wars, but it’s happening all over again, except even worse this time.”

“It doesn’t seem you’re too severely affected by the war here.”

“Perhaps not.”

“Do your neighbors feel the way you do? About the Nazis?”

Hermann shrugged. “Who knows? We wouldn’t discuss it. I have nice neighbors, though. The woman next door, Karoline, calls in every day to check up on me. She lost both her sons on the front.” He shook his head. “There’s no real escape from the war. Not even here.” He took a mouthful of soup before speaking again. “What year were you born? Remind me.”

“Nineteen seventeen.”

“I remember holding you as a baby. You had those same beautiful blond curls back then.” He put his spoon down and stared into the space in front of him. “That was the year the great hunger took hold—the great hunger caused by the Allied blockade of Germany.”