All God's Children (25 page)

By the time she returned to the sitting room, she could hear Josef and her uncle talking in low tones behind the closed door of Franz’s study. Aunt Ilse was standing in the middle of the room, studying the furniture. “Perhaps we should move that chair here and place the—”

“Do you have something in the oven, Tante?”

Aunt Ilse’s hands flew to her mouth as she dashed into the kitchen and threw open the oven door. Black, acrid smoke poured into the room. “Oh, it’s ruined,” she cried as she fanned away smoke with the skirt of her apron.

Beth turned off the oven and grabbed a dishtowel to serve as protection while she reached for the pan inside. Whatever the contents had been, the food was now charred and inedible. “We can make it over again tomorrow.”

“Do you think sugar grows on trees?” Aunt Ilse snapped. “That was to be our dessert. It took me hours to adjust the ingredients so that it would be perfect. Now look at it. And that pan. I need that pan tomorrow, and it will never be clean.”

“We can soak it overnight, and by morning—”

“Ruined,” Aunt Ilse moaned and ran from the kitchen, her sobs echoing down the hall.

“What has happened?” Uncle Franz said, opening the door at the sound of his wife’s distress. “And what’s burning?”

“Go to her,” Beth said wearily. “I can manage this.”

She did not hear Josef come into the kitchen because of the water she was running and the steam rising from the burnt pan. So when he placed his hands gently on her shoulders, she jerked away from his touch.

“Let me help,” he said.

“I can do it. You should get some rest. It’s been a long day.” She could not look at him, the memory of his words still ringing in her ears. She knew that she had foolishly allowed herself to believe that his proposal had been sincere and not simply a ruse to distract the agents on the train. But the fact was that she was in love with Josef, and the next logical step for any woman in love was to imagine a life together.

“For you as well, Beth. Let me scrub the pan for you.”

“It will do no good to scrub it now. It needs to soak overnight,” she snapped. “Now please just go to bed.”

She was relieved when he said nothing and moved away. But instead of hearing his step on the attic stairs as she had expected, she heard him pull out a kitchen chair. When she turned he was seated at the table, his arms folded across his chest. “What’s going on?” he asked.

“It’s nothing. I’m tired, and Aunt Ilse is upset, and a great deal needs to be done before your parents come tomorrow and—” She couldn’t help it. She burst into tears.
And you said you loved me
, she wanted so much to add.

“Beth?” He came to her and wrapped his arms around her as she leaned against the sink, sobbing into the dishtowel. “You’re safe. Those men…it’s over now. Everything will be fine.”

“Will it? Will anything ever be fine again, Josef?”

When he pulled her into his embrace so that his cheek rested against her hair, she understood that he had no answers. They were caught up in a time and place that neither of them had had a hand in creating but nevertheless a time and place that was in complete control of everything they said or did.

Beth had things well in hand by the time Aunt Ilse came to the kitchen the following morning. With Liesl’s help, she had set the table using Aunt Ilse’s best linen tablecloth and napkins and her good china and crystal. She had managed to get the pan clean and had seasoned the special pork roast that Uncle Franz had secured for the meal with the last of their monthly ration coupons.

“Where’s Liesl?” Aunt Ilse asked as she put on her apron and began paring potatoes to boil.

“Josef took her out to see if they could find some evergreens for a centerpiece.”

“We have no dessert to serve.”

“Yes, we do. Marta sent you some gingerbread. She said it’s always been your favorite. If we cut the slices very thin…”

“Josef’s parents will think that we are—”

Beth sighed. “Aunt Ilse, it does not matter what they think of us. It is highly unlikely that we will see any of them again—including Josef— once this war has ended.”

“How can you say that? I thought that you and Josef…”

“We are friends, but once the war ends, how can we possibly sustain such a friendship? One of us—perhaps both of us—will have a price to pay and—”

“Do not speak of such things.”

“I’m sorry. I did not mean to upset you. Did you see the table? Is it as you would want it?”

“It is lovely,” Aunt Ilse replied as she fingered a plate. “These dishes belonged to my great-grandmother, and my mother embroidered the cloth and napkins herself.”

“You should mention that to Frau Buch. She seems to me to be someone who likes to hear such things.”

“Perhaps…” Aunt Ilse murmured. “Perhaps it will be all right after all.”

But it wasn’t.

Just half an hour before the Buchs were scheduled to arrive, Josef’s mother called to say that her husband had been called away for an important meeting and they would not be able to come. Josef had taken the phone from Franz and spoken to his mother in low tones for several minutes. In the end he had announced that he would be back—with his mother—within the hour if Ilse could please hold dinner. He would also send word that his father should join them for dessert if at all possible.

Josef had a dual purpose in going to his parents’ house to escort his mother to the professor’s for Sunday dinner. On the one hand he did not wish to see Ilse any more upset than she already was. On the other, he was curious to learn why his father was suddenly spending so much of his time in secret meetings and why he had been called into headquarters on a Sunday. Such information could be invaluable to his friends in the resistance.

Granted, the more deeply involved Josef became with the activities of the White Rose, the more paranoid he grew. He fully understood that he and his father stood on opposite sides of the political fence. But his first concern had to be for Beth and her safety. He was doing what he did for the love of his country, while she was risking everything to distribute essays that—as much as he prayed and hoped otherwise— admittedly had little chance of getting the citizens of Germany to rise up against Hitler.

He was also well aware that she continued to look for ways to do more. Her concern was for those being persecuted. People whose only crime was that they held beliefs and attitudes that the present government did not like. She did not believe in war—or politics for that matter. To her—and the professor—people were people. “We are all God’s children,” she had once said to him, and for Beth that was the crux of the matter. He was quite sure that for Beth loving someone— anyone—meant that she would move mountains for that fortunate person.

He was completely consumed with thoughts of Beth as the streetcar rolled along, its bell dinging out stops and starts for more passengers to exit or come aboard. Before he knew it, he had left the professor’s neighborhood of shops and apartment buildings crowded close together on narrow streets. Now the streetcar made its way along a snow-covered boulevard lined on either side by impressive homes set on spacious grounds. His parents’neighborhood was only a few miles but worlds away from where Beth lived.

After exiting the streetcar, he walked the half block to the circular drive that marked the entrance to his childhood home. He stood for a long moment, looking at the heavy columns that stood sentry outside the front door, the large stone planters that his mother filled with red geraniums and trailing vines every May, the front lawn where his father had taught him the finer points of navigating a soccer field. They had been so happy then.

Josef headed up the driveway. A large black sedan was parked in front of the entrance to the house, the uniformed driver standing at the ready next to the passenger side of the car. Josef nodded to the man as he entered the house he had once called home.

“Mutti?”

His mother came down the wide staircase, her coat over her arm as she pinned her hat into place. “Your father sent his car and driver,” she said.

“So he will not be joining us?”

“I don’t know, Josef,” she said impatiently. “He was called to headquarters, and you know how these things are. It could be hours before he can get away.”

Josef held her coat for her and could not help but compare the furtrimmed garment that was obviously new to the thin wool coat that Beth wore—had apparently worn for some time given the way it had been mended around the collar and cuffs. “Nice coat,” he murmured as he watched his mother check her appearance in the gilded mirror that filled one wall of the foyer.

She smiled and stroked the fur collar and cuffs. “It was a Christmas present from your father,” she said, and then she frowned. “Do you think it’s too much—I mean for today? For this occasion? I wouldn’t wish to offend or…”

“It’s fine. Shall we go?” He opened the front door, and the driver immediately snapped to attention. “This meeting at headquarters…” Josef began once he and his mother were in the car.

“Please do not ask questions, Josef. You know I could not discuss matters of state with you even if I had any information myself.”

“It just seems to be rather sudden. I don’t ever recall—”

Again his mother interrupted him, but this time she was laughing. “Oh, Josef, as if you have been around enough to know when your father has business he must attend. We barely see you.”

“I do have duties of my own,” Josef reminded her. “Shifts at the hospital, not to mention my classes and research.”

“And of course there is Beth,” his mother said, her voice softening. “Do you make time for her?”

“We live in the same place. I share meals with the family. I—”

“There is no cause for defensiveness, Josef. I am simply attempting to make conversation and find out what is going on in your life.”

“I have asked Beth to marry me.”

As he expected, his mother hid her shock well, but not so thoroughly that she could fully disguise her disapproval at such a notion. “Do you think that wise, Josef? I mean in times like these to make such a decision…”

“I love her,” he replied.

“Romeo loved Juliet, and look how that turned out.” His mother pulled a cigarette from a case in her purse and handed him the lighter.

“That was fiction. This is real.” He lit her cigarette and handed her back the lighter.

“Precisely,” she said as she blew out the first puff of smoke. “You are in love with your enemy.”

“Beth and her family are Quakers—they have no enemies.”

His mother’s laugh was brittle, and he saw the driver cast them a glance in the rearview mirror. “If they believe that—if
you
believe that— then you are all fools.” She turned away from him and stared out the window, and he realized that her eyes had filled with tears.

He took hold of her gloved hand, but she waved him off and took a long drag on the cigarette. Josef did not recall a time when he had seen his mother look so miserable.

“Beth, come see,” Liesl shouted.

Beth and Aunt Ilse both hurried into the front room, where Liesl was perched on the window seat that overlooked the street. Outside sat a large black car—a Mercedes like those used by the Gestapo. Beth heard Aunt Ilse suck in her breath.