“Now I’m accused of kidnapping,” Leda said. She seemed fiercely calm. “And they say they found other things, publications, in my room.”
“You mean those newspapers? Those pamphlets?” Karel said, and realized from her face that she thought someone was listening.
“I told them people come and go from my house all the time,” Mrs. Schiele said. “With all the work I do for the Women’s League it’s a shock if I’m home at all. With membership drives and contribution collections they absolutely run us ragged. Who knows what’s where? Who knows how things get in your house?” She shifted in her folding chair, and Karel understood that even she realized they were being listened to.
He crossed to where Leda was standing. She was giving David and Nicholas hard candy from her pockets and they were filling their cheeks like squirrels. Nicholas had figs in one hand as well, and David had between his legs a hat-sized bag with most of his smaller toys in it. It was as if in a modest way she was spoiling them in anticipation of disaster.
While they were working on the candies she showed him a folded piece of paper by lifting it slightly above the top of her breast pocket and tapping it down again. She took him aside. “This is what convinced Mother,” she whispered. “They sent us notification of Nicholas’s death today. A day early. The date’s for Monday. He was on his way home with me when it arrived.”
“You say to yourself, be patient, act responsibly, and one of these days things’ll be quiet again,” Mrs. Schiele said. “And then — one piece of bad luck like this.” She eyed the half-empty suitcase, clearly wondering if she dared repack her things. David was reading a small book from the bag between his legs: Dr. Catchfly: Fantastic Adventures in the World of Insects. “I’m so confused,” she finally added. She seemed to be getting angrier. “You don’t know what to do. After a while you only think of the children. You think, what’ll become of the children?”
“We’re not the first family to be brought here,” Leda said.
“We’re the first family I know,” Mrs. Schiele said. “We didn’t know the other families in those cases.”
Leda turned away.
Karel put his hand on her wrist. Mrs. Schiele sat by herself on the folding chair away from them all and touched her eyes and hair and clothes in small repetitious cycles. He had a momentary sense of how put-upon and abandoned she felt. She’d always been frightened of most things, and now her fear was more comprehensive.
“Nicholas, I need to talk to David a minute,” Leda said quietly. “Can I do that?” She nodded to encourage him. Nicholas stood and walked to the other side of the room. Once there he put his hand on the wall and seemed to be studying its texture.
“David, they’re going to talk to us soon, one by one,” Leda said, her voice low. “And they’re going to want to know about my books. The books I kept in the special place. Now, Nicholas doesn’t know about them and Mom already knows what to say. What are you going to say if they ask?” She was holding him by both arms.
“The books?” David said. He was clinging to his toy boat.
“You know, the books, the secret books,” Leda said. She was keeping her voice calm, but Karel could hear the desperation in it. “Now everything depends on you. Remember what I whispered to you in the truck? What are you going to say?”
“In the truck?” David said.
“David!” she said, and shook him hard, once. He began to cry.
“David, don’t cry, don’t cry,” she said, near despair. Across the room Karel could see Nicholas looking over, unsure what was going on and sad that he had so little he could contribute.
“What will you say, honey?” Leda persisted.
“The man brought them in when you were out,” David half-wailed. She hugged him tightly.
“That’s it, that’s it, honey,” she said. “Did I know him?”
“No,” he wailed.
“Did any of us know him?” she said. She was looking up at Karel.
“No,” David said. He pulled away and rubbed his eyes.
She let him go. He sat down and focused on his boat with fierce concentration. She put her hands over her face and remained where she was, kneeling.
Karel crouched beside her. “They’re going to interrogate you?” he asked. She didn’t respond. She brought her hands down from her face. “Are you scared?” he said.
“Yes I am,” she said, without shame. “Very.”
Kehr opened the door and signaled. Karel leaned forward impulsively and kissed Leda on the cheek. “I’ll get him to help,” he whispered. “It’ll be okay.”
She made her mouth into a tight line and nodded. Mrs. Schiele stood up and gave him a hug. Kehr waited at the door with an easygoing patience.
Outside in the hall he raised a hand when Karel was about to speak. He shut the door and led Karel in silence to a small room a few doors down. The corporal was gone. The room was dark, and Kehr sat him in front of a pane of glass and then left, shutting the door behind him.
The pane glowed with light and Karel realized he was gazing in on another room. There was a bare black table centered in it with a hard-backed chair on either side. It was absolutely quiet.
Kehr interrogated them alone. They came into the room one by one. Karel could hear nothing.
Mrs. Schiele was first. Karel sat in the dark and watched her and heard nothing. She gestured and swung her arms around, leaned back as if to physically avoid certain questions, leaned forward to seem confidential. He imagined her chatter: defenses of Leda mixed in with scraps of old fights and resentments, protests against the injustice of all this, assurances that someone somewhere had made a comic mistake. Toward the end she gave Kehr a sly look and Karel figured she was attempting some sort of maneuver. Kehr looked bored.
Nicholas was next. He was there only a few minutes. He gripped the edge of the table and sat upright, making a visible effort to be alert. When Kehr stood up and dismissed him, Karel could see in his face his sense that he’d failed again to provide something that somebody wanted or would approve of.
Leda followed. He sat right up on top of the glass and he still couldn’t hear anything. She faced Kehr with the same calmness Karel knew and loved from the afternoons in her garden, that expression that was at once open and placid and intelligent. She was questioned a longer time than the first two, but when she got up he knew she was still safe.
He shook with excitement and fear waiting for David. There was some delay. He put his fingertips to the glass and they trembled across it like something dropped into hot oil. When David finally came in, Kehr acted differently, sitting on the floor in the corner as if too shy to confront him. David had his boat and sailed it back and forth across the table.
Karel waited in something that was getting to be like agony. Kehr was still in the corner, and now David was talking to him. He stayed in the corner but finally put his elbows on his knees and his chin on his fists and said something, and the boy instantly looked warier. They talked some more. Kehr stood, still shy, and approached the table. He had his hands in his pockets. He took them out. He swung both down on the table so hard the concussion made David jump and the boat flew into the air. He shouted something, and the boy started crying. Karel was up on his feet, helpless. Kehr shouted again, banged the table again. He shouted. David started to wail, though Karel could still hear nothing. Kehr lifted his end of the table and crashed it down, intent on David. He shouted. David put his hands over his ears and began shouting back.
Karel lunged for the mirror. “Don’t tell him! Don’t tell him!” he called, pounding on the glass with open palms, but he knew he already had.