For Such a Time (18 page)

“Think to run from me, coward?” Aric said, breathing hard. “Where will you go that I won’t hunt you down?”

Brucker stumbled toward the open section of banister and spit a glob of blood over the side. “Curse you and your Jew harlot.”

He hurled his body over the edge. Aric leaped after him, falling the several feet to land beside his prone, dazed lieutenant.

The discarded Browning lay between them. Both attempted to seize it, rolling across the carpeted floor as they grappled for possession.

A muffled shot rang out, followed by another. Aric froze beneath Brucker, every nerve attuned for the burn from the slugs he was sure had lodged in his gut.

The fire never came; only the butt of his pistol dug painfully into his flesh. He stared into Brucker’s lifeless eyes and realized which direction the gun’s muzzle pointed.

“Aric!”

Stella’s voice. Aric looked up to see her kneeling at the edge of the open banister. Her white nightgown seemed to billow around her.

“Please, God . . . no!” she cried, her arms outstretched.

Something warm and fierce exploded inside of him. Aric shoved Brucker’s corpse aside and rolled to his feet. His body ached. Grinding his teeth against the pain, he bounded up the stairs and grabbed Stella. He held her tightly, desperate for reassurance that she was safe and unharmed.

She was crying. “I thought you were dead.”

“No, Süsse,” he said, then kissed her, tasting the saltiness of her tears while her trembling limbs matched the shaking of his own. He tried to be gentle with her, yet he couldn’t seem to curb his anger or the fear he’d felt when Brucker pressed the weapon to her throat. He’d nearly lost her.

———

Stella weathered his punishing kiss, her fingers brushing over his temples, his cheeks, the back of his neck as she worked to soothe the violence that gripped him. She sensed the moment when he finally calmed; the hard press of his mouth against hers eased into an onslaught of tiny kisses, each butterfly soft as if begging pardon for his roughness.

Afterward she slid her arms around his neck and simply held him. His breathing gradually eased, along with the tremor that shook his limbs. She knew he must be in terrible pain and pressed closer to him, as though her touch could take away his suffering.

She’d told herself she wanted to keep him alive so that Morty had a fair chance at release when the facts came to light. But then she’d seen Aric lying motionless beneath Brucker’s hulking form, and a part of her had wanted to die.

When he rose from the tangled heap—a modern-day Lazarus, to Marta’s way of thinking—Stella knew then that she felt more than simple affection. Crossing the boundaries of war and hatred, and the Jewish blood running in her veins . . . she’d fallen in love.

“You will be
our salvation.”
As she held Aric close, Stella wondered how she would ever save her people.

She couldn’t seem to save herself.

 21 

It was found . . . Bigthana and Teresh, two of the king’s officers . . . had conspired to assassinate King Xerxes.

Esther 6:2

A
ctivity filled the next hour. With the telephone lines down, Aric had sent Joseph into the ghetto to fetch Captain Hermann. The house now swarmed with SS in charge of hauling away the bodies. Several women prisoners had been dragged from their beds to clean the carnage out of the commandant’s expensive carpets.

Joseph returned to find every light in the house on. He wriggled past the throng of soldiers on the stairs and reached the landing where Brucker’s body lay sprawled. Seeing the corpse, Joseph rubbed a hand over the scar where his ear had been. Herr Kommandant had avenged him. Someone else thought his ear worth more than the price of two potatoes.

He dismissed the body and scrambled up the remaining steps. Fear for his pretty Fräulein gnawed at his belly. The sooner he found her and saw she was all right, the better he’d feel.

Reaching the top step, he turned at the sound of angry voices below. Two men stood nose to nose in the foyer; they reminded
Joseph of the rutting red stags his papa once took him to see at a
Naturpark
south of Hamburg.

Herr Kommandant loomed over Captain Hermann. Joseph could tell by the swift hand gestures and shouted words such as
discipline
,
chain of command
, and
loyalty
, that the commandant was very angry.

Joseph felt a rush of perverse pleasure. Maybe Hermann would feel as ashamed as the pretty Fräulein did when she had to kiss him at the party.

He continued padding down the hall toward her room. Alarm outweighed his triumph when he saw two women crouched on the floor at her open door, scrubbing at a bloodstain with stiff broom brushes. The room was empty.

“Where is she?” he demanded of the pair. He thought his heart might be choking him.

Their tired, leathery faces glanced up at him in unison. One woman jerked her head in the direction of Herr Kommandant’s room.

———

Stella paused from pacing long enough to listen to the chaos belowstairs. Oddly the buzz of voices and activity from the soldiers gave her a measure of comfort. Their noise broke the silence of her memories, easing the fear that tore at her outward calm. It seemed like hours since Aric had left her here. He’d promised to return and give her news. And where was Joseph?

“Fräulein?”

A frightened face peered around the half-closed door. “Kaddishel, I was so worried!” Stella rushed to him and pulled him into her arms. His grip made her wince despite her relief.

“I hid in my room, under my cot. Was it bad?”

“Awful.” She still shuddered with the memory of so much blood, the image of Aric lying motionless beneath Brucker’s body. “If it weren’t for Aric . . . Herr Kommandant . . . the killers
would have succeeded.” She pulled away to look at him. “Is Herr Kommandant downstairs?”

Joseph smirked. “He’s yelling at the captain.”

She didn’t share the boy’s obvious pleasure. “He should be more careful of that man.”

“I pray Herr Kommandant will send him away so he can’t ever touch you again.”

Stella gave Joseph’s shoulders a quick squeeze. “Hermann won’t get near me.”
Unless he learns
that I warned Aric about tonight’s events,
she didn’t add. She reached to smooth back his silken locks. “I’m supposed to stay here for now. Would you mind going down and heating water for tea? I’ll meet you in a little while.”

He readily agreed and bolted for the door. Stella was pleased to steer him from the disturbing subject of Captain Hermann.

Joseph paused at the door. “I think Herr Kommandant likes you very much. Will you tell him the truth about the letters?”

She shook her head. “Too dangerous, kaddishel
.
”

His hopeful look vanished. Then he was gone.

Stella sat on the edge of the bed and watched the door for several moments. She hadn’t told Joseph the whole truth—that if she revealed the letters, he and Helen would be implicated in the conspiracy, as well. She couldn’t let that happen, even if it meant Morty’s life.

“What kind of circus are you operating in the ghetto, Captain?” Aric faced off with the man in the foyer. “It’s a disgrace to our Führer when one of his officers cannot control his men.” He raised a bruised fist. “If I hadn’t been forewarned of this treason . . .”

He stopped himself, refusing to repeat Stella’s ludicrous talk of dreams.

“You had . . . knowledge of this attack, Herr Kommandant?” Hermann’s sullen mouth wilted in shock. “But who told you—?”

“Suffice it to say, Captain, it wasn’t you.” Aric forced an end to the topic. “General Feldman will be here on Monday. Herr Reichsführer and Obersturmbannführer Eichmann arrive three days after that. Hardly the time for your ranks to fall apart, wouldn’t you agree?”

“Jawohl, Herr Kommandant!” Hermann’s icy features radiated contempt.

Aric’s jaw clenched while too many memories fueled his rage: the night of the party when Hermann dared to touch Stella with his filthy mouth; and tonight, when Brucker mauled her and threatened to kill her. He thought of Rand, lying on the kitchen floor in a pool of blood, stabbed by whom he now suspected was the late Sergeant Koch. His own men . . .

He fought an urge to plant his fist into Hermann’s obnoxious sneer. “How do you plan to deal with this insurrection, Captain?”

For a moment, Hermann looked startled. “What more can I do? Both men are dead.”

“Years ago in a more primitive world, criminals were executed and their bodies impaled on pikes in the town square,” Aric said, ignoring Hermann’s look of shock. “It served as an effective warning to others. And since I’d hardly classify our present situation as civilized, this weekend you will display Brucker and Koch in much the same manner. Hang their corpses from the old gallows next to the parade grounds inside the ghetto. See that your men march past them twice a day. At dusk on Sunday, you may get rid of the bodies. I don’t want General Feldman reporting this embarrassment to Herr Reichsführer.”

“Heil Hitler, Herr Kommandant!” Hermann flung an arm upward in salute, his murderous eyes fixed on a spot just beyond Aric’s left shoulder.

Perhaps he might also relish a good brawl,
Aric thought. “See to it, Captain,” he said instead, and swung around to head for the stairs.

As he began the climb, his thoughts returned to Stella’s dream . . . and how contrived it all now sounded. Had she lied to him?

Suspicion mounted with each step, and his gut churned at the possibility she knew more than she was telling him. Treacherous thoughts began to prey on him as he thought of his father, then Georg Zimmer, and the old humiliation, the paralyzing sense of madness . . .

The women had finished cleaning the second-story landing. The smell of carbolic stung in his nostrils, flooding his mind with more recent memories.
Stark
white walls and bed sheets. Helen and the other nurses
padding in and out on their rounds. The rise and
fall of shadows, marking endless days of disillusionment, despair . . .

He opened his bedroom door and found Stella perched on the edge of his bed, her slight figure cocooned in his heavy cotton robe. The loose sleeves all but hid her fingertips while she examined his brown bottle of pills.

She glanced up at him and fumbled with the bottle before setting it back on the table. A rose-colored flush stained her cheeks.

Guilt? Aric’s chest felt tight. Even culpable, she was a beautiful woman.

She rose to meet him. “You’ve been gone a long time.”

The mild accusation washed over him. “Did you miss me?”

She hesitated, then nodded.

Closing the door, he turned and opened his arms to her. She rushed to him, and he pulled her close. Aric heard the faint sounds of Hermann downstairs barking orders with his usual éclat of self-importance, and the shuffling of feet as the last of the soldiers and cleaning women filed out of his house. Proof the events of the past hour were real.

He tried to console himself in Stella’s embrace and escape the burden of his own distrust. But sedition, like cancer, had infected his ranks; he didn’t know how far it spread, only that it had come dangerously close to fruition.

The woman in his arms harbored secrets. “Tell me again how you knew those two men planned murder this night,” he whispered against her ear.

She tried to draw away from him, but he held her in place. Aric didn’t want to see her face. He couldn’t bear to look upon the guilt he knew his words inflicted.

“I told you,” she rushed to say. “From my dreams—”

“The truth this time.” He increased his hold on her. “No more lies.”

———

Stella went rigid with apprehension. The ruse she’d concocted now seemed foolish and dangerous. Aric was a logical man. How had she supposed he would believe a ridiculous story about dreams of murder?

Or had he discovered her uncle’s note?

Cold fear coursed through her. “I . . . cannot prove any of it,” she managed in a calm tone. “But what reason would I have to lie to you?”

He pulled back, searching her face. “I’m not certain. Perhaps you protect someone?”

Stella relaxed in his grip. Morty’s letter was still safe. Still, she hated lying to Aric, now more than ever before. “I tried to protect
you.
” She grasped at what truth she could. “I knew you wouldn’t believe my dreams, so I armed myself with the fire poker from the hearth as a precaution. I thought I could save us.”

Her cheeks flared with heat. Brucker had used her own weapon against her, and then she’d been the one needing rescue! “I didn’t do a very good job, did I?”

“Yes, you did.” He sighed, all traces of anger gone. “Thoughts of you kept me awake tonight—so much that I even got out of bed and went to the window. I realized something was wrong when I saw Brucker had taken Martin’s place on watch.”

He raised her chin with the crook of his finger. “Because of that, we’re alive. If I’d gone to sleep, neither of us would be
here, talking about it.” He kissed her lightly. “I shouldn’t have doubted you. Forgive me.”

Could she possibly feel any more wretched? Stella leaned her head against his shoulder. Exhaustion fell upon her like a sodden blanket—from the night’s ordeal and the knowledge her uncle still languished in the Little Fortress. From the lies she must continue to speak, each tasting more bitter and foul on her tongue. She longed for some truth between them, a heartfelt thought left whole and unguarded, never having to be sacrificed in weaker moments.

“I knew you would keep me safe,” she said finally. She then lifted her face, again catching sight of the rust-red cut just above his brow, and realized the veracity of her own words.

Taking his hands in hers, she inspected the bruised knuckles and torn flesh much the way he’d once studied hers. She’d heard his fistfight with Brucker from behind the door; she could now easily imagine the violence, especially as she glimpsed the streaks of blood across his chest, half concealed beneath the hastily donned uniform jacket.

Was he hurt? Alarmed, she pushed the jacket off his shoulders—then relaxed when she realized the blood was not his own. Still, he bore all the other marks of a warrior: muscles like carved stone beneath his bronzed skin; a long scar that ran from his sternum to the right side of his back, while another cut diagonally from his lower left side across his stomach.