“Your papa sent a telegram this morning.” His face was tense.
Elsie’s palms grew moist. A telegram was serious. The fact that she hadn’t known about it made it even more significant.
Josef glanced at the ruby ring on her hand. She gave him a shaky grin. Their time apart had made her nervous and unsure of where their relationship and alliances stood.
They know about Tobias, she thought, and she wondered if Josef’s undisclosed business away from Garmisch had something to do with her. She tried to imagine how someone might’ve seen Tobias through her bedroom window. He was so small, and she’d made certain to keep her bedroom door locked, the rouladen shutters closed tightly at an upward angle. Only the birds and clouds could’ve caught a glimpse. Perhaps the Luftwaffe flew over and surveyed her room. She heard they had such technology. Mutti and Papa never went upstairs during the day, and Tobias had been instructed to be as silent as a ghost or risk discovery and death.
Her imagination swelled and with it, her pulse. “Papa?” she called. Though her fever had long passed, her cheeks blazed hot.
Papa came out wiping his hands clean. “Josef, my future son-in-law, it is good to see you. Thank you for coming so quickly.” He patted him on the back and matched Josef’s somber expression.
Elsie cursed herself for putting her family in jeopardy. She’d surely pay the price. Her head spun.
Papa motioned for them to take a seat in the far corner. Pulling her along by the elbow, he whispered, “I don’t want your mutti to know of this yet.”
She sat heavily in the wooden café chair and gripped the table ledge to keep her arms steady. Josef sat close beside. Checking over his shoulder one last time, Papa pulled a letter from his apron pocket.
Unspoken anxiety swayed the room like a ship’s deck. Elsie wondered if the Gestapo had intercepted her letters to Hazel and she was being charged for some flippant remark made therein. She tried to recall everything written but couldn’t. Her mind scrambled back and forth from her pen to her room to the Hebrew ring on her finger and the starched cotton of Josef’s uniform against her arm.
Whatever it was, she’d take responsibility. She’d tell the authorities that her parents had no knowledge of her letters’ contents or Tobias. It was all her.
Suddenly, Mutti leaned her head through the doorway. “You want me to make the pumpernickel, Max?” She lifted her hands, gooey with dough.
“Ja, ja, pumpernickel.” He waited until she’d returned to the kitchen before unfolding the letter.
Elsie immediately recognized Hazel’s script.
“I received this yesterday, and thank God I was the one to get the mail and not Luana.” Papa placed weighted palms on it as if he could knead the words smooth like piecrusts. “Hazel is in trouble. She is not—of her right mind.” His rough fingers, stained with spices, lay in stark contrast to the ivory page. “You must understand, Hazel is a faithful daughter of the Reich despite the things she says here. Please, Josef, I trust that what I share with you will stay between us?” His breath quickened, and he continued before Josef answered. “She is one of Germany’s finest. This is a difficult time for her. If we could find a way to get to Steinhöring, we could help her return to her good nature.”
It was only then that he allowed them to read.
Elsie’s chest tightened. Papa was right. Hazel was in great danger. In all her life, Elsie had never heard her sister speak with such hopelessness, such anger, and with such scorn for authority. If the Gestapo found this letter, Hazel would be arrested or worse. And what of the baby boy? Could it be true that they intended to give away her flesh and blood?
Elsie balled her fists on the table, the selfish fear from minutes before changed to panic. “Papa, it can’t be true. They wouldn’t do such a thing—take a child from its mother.” She looked to Josef, but his gaze remained steadfast on the letter.
Her anger flared, and before she could stop herself, she blurted out, “It’s barbaric!”
Josef’s head jerked high like a puppet by a string.
Elsie covered her mouth, but her eyes burned on.
A customer came in; the snap of the door hinge cracked the air. “Hallo!” the unfamiliar woman called, rapping her mittens on the glass display when no one greeted her.
From the kitchen, Mutti yelled, “Elsie! My hands are kneading! We have a customer.”
Papa stood slightly and bowed to the woman. “I’m sorry, frau, I’ll be with you in a moment.”
The woman sniffled against the cold and perused the tray of marzipans. “Fine.”
Josef cleared his throat. “Night travel is nearly impossible. If you want to get to Steinhöring, you’d have to leave early and you’d need an escort.”
Papa nodded firmly.
Josef leaned back in his chair, scratched his chin. “It won’t be an easy trip. I warn you. You won’t be able to stay away long. It would cause suspicion. But …” He turned to Elsie and his face softened. “Hazel means a great deal to us.”
Elsie nodded. Her eyes welled.
“Tomorrow at dawn,” he told Papa.
“Ja, dawn.”
The woman at the counter clucked her tongue. “I’m ready.”
“Elsie, go,” said Papa.
Though she loathed leaving the conversation, this was not the time for disobedience. So she rose and went to the baskets of bread.
“What would you like?”
“The bauernbrot.” The woman pointed to the farmer’s bread.
Reaching for the loaf, Elsie strained to hear what Papa and Josef were discussing at the table—something to do with their departure route. She was glad she hadn’t refused Josef’s proposal yet. She would use whatever she could to help Hazel. Whatever the cost.
The woman paid with ration coupons and left. Papa called Mutti from the kitchen.
“Ja, ja, what is it now?” she asked, her hands powdery with the SS flour that mixed like concrete and hardened just as fast.
“Luana.” Papa sighed. “We must go to Steinhöring.”
Mutti brought her fists to her chest. Silty flecks of gray dough fell to the floor. “What’s happened? Is it Hazel? Julius?”
Papa took her by the shoulders. “Wash up and pack our bags. Hazel is …”
Mutti’s lower lip trembled.
“She’s ill,” he said.
“Ill?” asked Mutti. Her floured fists left balled imprints on her dirndl. “Is there a fever epidemic?” she asked Josef. He looked away. “The bleigiessen cow,” she murmured. “Dover’s powder and tea is the cure.” She blinked back tears. “What about the bäckerei?”
“Elsie will have to run things while we are gone,” explained Papa.
“But the roads aren’t safe. The reports say—”
Papa put a hand on Mutti’s cheek. “Hazel needs us.”
“I’ll be escorting you, Frau Schmidt,” said Josef. “You’ll be safe with me.”
Chapter Nineteen
ST. SEBASTIAN CHAPEL
CEMETERY
GARMISCH, GERMANY
MAY 23, 1942
Josef had come to the cemetery late in the day. Wild poppies sprung up between slate and granite crosses. The setting sun cast long shadows, giving the flowers height and life. They moved with each passing breeze, reaching their rainbow of petals to some unseen spirit high above.
He was on his way back from an afternoon of Watten cards and raisin kuchen with Herr Schmidt when he saw the sign for St. Sebastian Chapel. Peter’s death still haunted his waking and dreaming, but he’d grown accustomed to the ghostly presence, an aching in his vision that rarely abated. The methamphetamines and weekend holidays to Garmisch helped. The town had become as familiar as his own, but he’d never ventured here before. It seemed illogical when he knew Peter’s ashes had been swept up by the western wind and probably settled in Munich’s Hofgarten’s hemlock and clover. He imagined park visitors walking through the grassy topsoil not knowing their toes gripped the mud of men, not knowing Peter Abend.