The stomps retreated down the steps and out.
“We’ll deal with the Jew,” said Kremer behind her. “You and your family are under house arrest.”
She turned then, “But you said.”
Julius stood under Kremer’s grip, his cherub face bloated red.
“There’s never one rat in a nest.” Kremer came close and pushed a disheveled lock back into her braid. “Besides, I’m not sure I’m ready to kill you. Your sister was more beautiful and quite skillful in her trade, but you—you’ve got a healthy German spirit. We were interrupted on Christmas Eve.” He grabbed the back of her neck and jerked her onto the bed. “And I always finish what I start.”
Julius bleated softly and shrunk down in the corner.
Kremer’s hand was thick and hot around Elsie’s throat. She stared at the cotton sheets, each thread distinctly linked to the next. Her body was as numb as the stiff pines against the windowpanes. The hem of her dress fluttered over her ears, Mutti’s stitching so neat and even. Kremer’s skin pressed coarse against her thighs. What came next was separate from her. Her spirit hovered at the threshold. No tears. Those were too much of the living. Only darkness.
Then, a shot rang out. Two more followed by the rat-tat-tat of machine guns.
“Major!” A soldier burst into the room. “He got away!”
Kremer’s nostrils flared. “What?!” he seethed, and in one fluid motion, he slapped the soldier and did up his trousers. “How could a child get away from four SiPo?”
The guard tucked his chin, his jaw rosy. He flushed at the sight of Elsie prostrate on the bed. “He bit Lieutenant Loringhoven and ran.” He kept his eyes to the floor as he spoke. “We went after, but then I thought I saw—I couldn’t say for certain, but it looked as though—he vanished, sir.”
“Vanished?”
“Ja.” The young guard was visibly shaken both by the slap and all he’d witnessed. “A sudden fog came, a storm, and then there was a sound unlike any I’ve heard in my life and … he vanished.” His breath caught. “A poltergeist,” he whispered.
“I heard nothing. Which way did he go?” Kremer cocked his pistol.
“East. Toward the forest of Kramer Mountain.”
“Fools! Done in by the Brothers Grimm!” He raced down the stairs with the guard at his heels.
Minutes passed; street shouting trickled in through the windowpanes; Julius sniffled in the corner; a train whistle blew somewhere far; rain started to fall then stopped; the world outside pressed on.
There was a sharp pain in Elsie’s legs, and she realized the metal edging of her bed had grated both her knees. Her sheets were stained with smears of blood.
“Elsie! Julius!” called Papa and Mutti from below.
Julius stood and ran to them.
Papa and Mutti gasped when they entered.
“Oh, Elsie … Elsie!” Mutti sobbed. “What have they done to you, child?” She held her palms above the bloody sheets like a priest above the sacrament. “Not my daughter.”
Papa turned away with Julius. Mutti swaddled Elsie in her arms and rocked her.
“It’s my fault. I betrayed us all,” said Elsie. She remained in Mutti’s steadfast clutch and felt like a child again, safe and protected.
“Shh—I’m here.” She rocked and smoothed the sweat from Elsie’s forehead. “We came home as soon as we heard the news,” explained Mutti. “Everyone is leaving the city.”
Papa picked up the broken ledge of the nightstand, turned the splintered wood over, then set it down again. Julius hid in the hemline of his coat, covering his face and moaning.
“It’s the end of the world,” said Mutti. “The Americans have taken Dachau. They could be here any hour.”
Josef, Elsie thought, then curled herself into the buttery smell of her mother’s embrace.
“Every SS soldier has been ordered to evacuate and meet the enemy en route,” Papa continued.
“They’re abandoning us,” said Mutti.
Only then did Elsie’s eyes sting hot.
“Don’t cry, dear,” Mutti soothed.
“Thank you, God,” whispered Elsie.
Mutti stopped rocking.
“We’re saved!” said Elsie, unable to contain her tears any longer. “All of us! It’s over.”
Papa studied her sternly. “God is not responsible for the end of the Fatherland. That is man’s doing.” His eyes were sorrowful dark.
“ ‘Whatsoever man soweth, that shall he reap,’ ” quoted Elsie.
Papa lifted his chin to her.
“She’s in shock, Max,” Mutti reminded.
“Who did this to you?” demanded Papa.
Nazi countrymen; an officer friend of Josef; men capable of atrocities she could not say in front of her papa—because she concealed a Jewish child, because she didn’t believe in the man Papa quoted, because she didn’t agree with this land anymore. Elsie wasn’t sure how to begin or if it was wise to at all. She tucked her knees to her chest and turned away from him.
“Are we to leave, too?” Mutti asked.
Papa gave a heavy exhale. “This is our bakery, our home. I won’t leave it to be looted and destroyed. We’ll lock the doors and pray for God’s mercy.”
Mutti squeezed Elsie’s hand in short, nervous bursts. “I best bring in a bucket of water. We need to tend to your wounds as soon as possible.” She turned to Papa. “The stove is cold. Light a fire, Max.”
“Come, Julius,” said Papa.
Julius looked up then, tracing over Elsie and Mutti to the bloody bedsheets. His pants were still damp with urine, his eyes shot red as cordial cherries. His shoulders bowed inward with shame. Papa put his arm around him and ushered him out quietly.
Perhaps he would tell her secret, but not today. Today, he finally saw that the world was not contained in the delusion of his perfect reflection. Today, he bore witness to the end of his childhood.
A hard rain fell through the night and next day, washing the cobblestone streets as clean as the stream floors. By the first of May, the whole town smelled of thawed dirt and wet pine needles swept down the valley from the melting mountain peaks.
Though Elsie had searched the alleyways and roads around the bakery there was no sign of Tobias. It was as the soldier had claimed: he’d simply vanished. In the haze of morning when mist rose from the streets like awakening ghosts, she almost convinced herself he had done exactly that—been spirited to heaven on horses of fire like the biblical Elijah.
From the bakery storefront, she watched the American tanks roll into the city. Brandishing flags of colorful stars and candy cane stripes, it looked almost like a holiday parade if not for the gigantic chain-link wheels that grumbled and screeched over rubble and cars and anything else that got in the way. Helpless to stop them or find Tobias, she could do no more than pray—not for peace and understanding, though. Such things she knew would only be found in the afterlife. She prayed simply for a reprieve.
Hitler was dead. It took less than a day for word to spread from one corner of the German Empire to the other. Shot through the head with a Walther pistol. With defeat undeniable and Nazi authority extinguished, public reaction was divided. Half the town cried for him and thought his end noble. The other half called him a coward and deserter. After all, they’d stayed to face his adversaries; and though the Americans entered with pointed guns and grim expressions, Elsie quickly discovered they were far less terrifying than Nazi propaganda portrayed, far less terrifying than her own Gestapo.