All God's Children (19 page)

When he entered the room, the only light was a small reading lamp on the table next to his chair. Ilse was in the other chair, her eyes closed, her mouth softened into a smile as if she might be enjoying a sweet dream. In sleep the stress and strain that had aged her beyond her years disappeared, and Franz stood looking at her for several long minutes.

He thought about the draft of a leaflet that he’d started to work on in hopes that perhaps the others in the White Rose might find it worthy of distribution. He thought about the dozen copies of an earlier leaflet that he’d offered to distribute. Just having those items in the house endangered them all. He must get rid of them, throw them into the fire of the kitchen stove. He was about to retrace his steps when Ilse stirred.

“Franz?” She blinked up at him sleepily. “What time is it?”

“It’s late,” he replied, setting the gramophone arm onto its resting place and switching off the machine.

“Is Beth home?”

“I don’t know. I just came in.”

“How was your meeting?” She smiled at him, one eyebrow cocked in that funny way she had of letting him know that she did not for one minute believe that he had attended a meeting at all.

“My meeting was fine,” he reported. “Why are you so skeptical about where I was this evening?”

She shrugged. “I thought perhaps you had gone Christmas shopping in the market.”

Franz chuckled. “You know full well that I do all my shopping on the twenty-third when I go to get our tree.”

As Quakers they did not hold with many of the more secular trappings of the holiday. But Liesl’s schoolmates were not Quakers, and they were always filled with excitement about the trees they would decorate or the gifts they would receive. For this and other reasons, Franz and Ilse had adopted the tradition of a decorated tree and opening gifts on Christmas Eve.

Ilse stretched her arms high above her head and then covered a yawn. And in that simple gesture, Franz saw the girl he had married— the beauty who had captured his heart.

He turned the gramophone back on and held out his arms to her. “Waltz with me, Ilse.”

“Here? Now?”

“If not here, then where? And if not now, then when?”

With a shy smile she rose from the chair and came to him. She rested her head in the crook of his neck as they moved slowly in time to the music. Only when he felt moisture on the fabric of his shirt collar did he realize she was weeping.

As they walked back to the professor’s apartment, it seemed only natural that Josef should take Beth’s hand. She was wearing wool mittens that she had told him her mother had made for that first winter she’d spent in Munich. The mittens were of thick soft wool that was wearing thin after so many winters. He could feel the shape of her slender fingers nestled inside them.

“So you have decided to stay to care for your aunt and Liesl, have you?”

“That is one reason,” she admitted.

“There is more?”

“I believe that helping people like Anja and her family is the true reason that I was sent here. Oh, at first I’ve no doubt that God’s intention was for me to help my aunt and uncle and be a companion for Liesl. But now—I mean why would God have put me in contact with Siggy and then again with Anja and her family if it were not His plan that I should help others like them?”

“You could help them from America as well.”

“How? The need is immediate. Siggy never would have been allowed to enter the United States without my visa. And Anja and her family had no time to wait for some agency to come to their aid.”

“Sometimes you mystify me, Beth. You would risk your very life for these strangers?”

“We are all children of God, Josef.”

They walked the rest of the block in silence, but as they approached the bakery—closed and shuttered for the night like all the businesses on their street—Josef stopped walking and rested his hands on Beth’s shoulders. “My father cannot protect you, Beth. Even if he succeeds in getting you the extra time you want, you have to know that you will be under even greater scrutiny than you are now—the entire household will be.”

“I know, and that is why you must help me keep them out of it—my aunt and uncle must know nothing of what I did for Anja or what I might be called on to do going forward. Promise me, Josef. Promise me that you will help me protect these good people—good Germans loyal to their country. Please, if you care at all for my uncle, say you will do this.” She rested her gloved hand against his cheek.

Josef cradled her face in his hands and leaned in close. “I will do this not for your uncle, although I admire him a great deal. I will give you this promise, Beth, because when you asked my father to extend your visa and I realized that you had decided to stay, I thought my heart would quite literally take flight.” He grinned at her. “To use an adage of the season, I was filled with great joy.”

“Why should it matter so much to you?”

“My mother is a wise and observant woman, for I am in love with you, Beth. I have tried hard to restrain those feelings for some time now. I have told myself again and again that if I love you I should want you to be safe. But safety also meant that we would have to be an ocean apart—perhaps we would never see each other again. I admit that I am not so noble as to be willing to let that happen.”

“So earlier when you told your father that you had feelings for me…that was not a lie?”

Instead of answering her, he kissed her, wrapping his arms around her and rejoicing in the realization that she was clinging to him as well. When reluctantly he pulled away, he ran his forefinger along the features of her face. “It was not a lie,” he said and kissed her again.
“Ich liebe Dich.”

“I…”

He silenced her by placing his finger against her lips. “You need time,” he told her. “We are from different worlds, you and I, and right now our countries are locked in a bitter war that will have repercussions for decades to come no matter the outcome. So do not speak in haste, Beth. It is sufficient for me to know that you trust me enough to seek my help in keeping your family here safe.”

He pulled out his key to the outer entrance to the building and was surprised when Beth giggled.

“What?”

“Well, you have now kissed me twice, but where is my handshake?”

“I forgot,” he admitted. “I got so caught up in—”

This time she was the one to stop his words with a kiss, and immediately after she held out her hand for him to shake. He opened the door, and they stepped inside the building where they kissed again and then shook hands. They smothered their giggles as they climbed the stairs, stopping at each floor to repeat the ritual until they reached the fourth floor.

Josef unlocked the door to the apartment while Beth admonished him to be quiet. “They might be sleeping,” she whispered, but she was still giggling and did not resist when he shut the apartment door and then pressed against her for one final kiss in the cluttered foyer before they went inside.

Caught off balance, Beth sent a pile of books and her uncle’s briefcase tumbling to the floor. The contents spilled out, and as they both bent to set things right again, Josef spotted the leaflets bearing the distinctive style of the White Rose. As he hurriedly gathered the loose papers and stuffed them back inside the briefcase, he realized that there were pages of writing—several versions of the same topic—a call for all Germans to take a stand and join the White Rose.

If the professor had decided to join forces with the resistance group, how on earth was Josef supposed to keep his promise to watch over Beth?

“You go on inside in case they are still awake,” he told Beth, relieving her of the papers she had retrieved before she noticed what they were. “Your aunt will worry that I am taking unfair advantage of your innocence,” he added, hoping to restore the lightness they had shared on their way up the stairs. “I’ll take care of this,” he added as he stuffed the leaflets and notes back inside the briefcase.

The problem was that between Beth’s determination to seek out more people in need of her help and the professor’s decision to join the group and carry out some of the work despite a tendency toward absentmindedness, Josef had serious doubts that he could take care of anything.

Beth heard the closing strains of a waltz coming from the sitting room and then the scratch of the needle and amazingly her aunt’s girlish laughter. She tapped at the door before opening it. “We’re back.”

Her aunt and uncle turned to her, and Aunt Ilse’s smile faded at once. She stepped away from Uncle Franz, and Beth realized that they had been dancing. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”

“Not at all,” Uncle Franz said as he turned off the gramophone and indicated that they should all sit down. “How was the dinner?”

“Quite…” Beth searched for the best word and finally settled on, “interesting.”

“Who was there?” Aunt Ilse asked.

“Just Josef and his parents.”

“And where is Josef?”

“I am here, Herr Professor,” Josef said quietly as he stepped into the room and handed Uncle Franz the briefcase. “I thought you might want this. You left it in the foyer.”

Suddenly there was a tension between the two men that Beth could not identify. She knew only that all trace of the light-hearted laughter she and Josef had shared had evaporated. And the romantic moment she had obviously interrupted between her aunt and uncle had disappeared as well.

Uncle Franz took the briefcase and briefly fingered the closings before setting it on the floor next to his chair. “I heard the music and discovered this lovely lady waiting for me to ask her to dance,” he said. But his smile was forced, and his gaze remained locked with Josef’s.

“Beth was just about to tell us about the evening she shared with your parents,” Aunt Ilse said.

“Your niece certainly charmed my mother,” Josef replied, turning his attention away from the professor.

“And your father?” Aunt Ilse asked.

Beth could not have been more shocked if her aunt had asked Josef if he had in fact moved in with them to spy on them.

Josef smiled. “My father is not so easily captivated,” he admitted. “Yet I believe that it would be fair to say that he admires Beth and her devotion to you.”

“I have news,” Beth added. “It is not yet official, but I asked Josef’s father if he could help get permission for me to stay in Munich for a little longer.”

“How long?” Uncle Franz asked.

“That’s difficult to say.” Beth shrugged.

“I don’t understand. You have permission to leave—to go home to America—and you have requested…you have asked this man….” Ilse could barely find her voice much less the words to express her shock.

“Tante Ilse, I am worried about you—and Liesl. You have lost weight, and you aren’t sleeping, and—”

“Do you not see that in asking this man for a favor you have—”

Uncle Franz cleared his throat loudly, drawing Aunt Ilse’s attention to the fact that Josef was standing there.

“My father is a good German—a good and decent man, Frau Schneider,” Josef said as he opened the door that led to the front hallway. “I have another appointment, so I will wish you all a good night,” he added just before the door closed behind him and they heard him leave the apartment, the echo of his shoes on the stairs outside fading away.

The silence that followed obliterated any evidence of the rare respite from the strains of life in a war zone that they had all enjoyed earlier.

“Why are you doing this?” Aunt Ilse asked Beth.

“Because you would do the same for me.”

“Still to make such a request of Herr Buch—to do such a thing without first seeking the counsel of a clearness committee…”

“There is no one left to serve on such a committee,” Beth reminded her aunt. “You, Uncle Franz, and me—the others have all gone elsewhere.”

Aunt Ilse chewed on her lower lip as she stared into space. Then she looked up at her husband. “Nevertheless we should consider this in prayer and silence—the three of us. We should seek guidance. After all, even if Josef’s father is successful in getting Beth the extension, that does not mean she cannot change her mind and go, does it?”

“I’m afraid if Herr Buch goes to the trouble of—”

“Herr Buch is not God,” Aunt Ilse interrupted. “We must not allow ourselves to be guided by his decisions.”

“I agree,” Beth replied. Her aunt’s face was splotched red, a sure sign that she was working herself into an episode that might well require medication to control. “Let us consider the matter together and in silence.”

For the next few hours the three of them sat in their separate chairs, their eyes closed, their hands either folded or lying open on their knees. Once Aunt Ilse rose as if to speak, stood for a long moment, and then sat down again. Beside her Beth’s uncle rested his elbows on his knees, his head bowed.

As the hours wore on, Beth was aware that Josef had returned and gone straight up to his room. She could hear the creak of a floorboard as he apparently paced back and forth. The clock on the mantelpiece ticked off the minutes and hours as they waited for clarity in the matter of Beth’s decision to stay or to go.

As the first rays of dawn found their way through a small pinpoint hole in the blackout curtains, Aunt Ilse stood. This time she spoke without any hesitation. “I am considering that, with Beth’s help, over the next few months I might find my strength again—enough so that she could be safely returned to her parents and brothers. It is for me that she has stayed so long. She has practically raised Liesl, and I have allowed this. It is not—as I had first thought—her American rashness that keeps her here. What keeps her here is her kindness and concern— and my weakness.”