Chapter 21 In the Land of the Dead #2
The ceiling was half gone, and I could see into the room above. The kitchen table was covered with debris, and so was the floor. Half the chairs lay smashed to splinters.
Once again, we scrambled and climbed. Out the other side of the room to the passage, which looked much as it had when I’d come out of it with my father.
It felt like days ago, but was only … twelve hours?
Ten? Eight? I couldn’t remember. If it was the same, and no damage had been done, they would surely be safe.
The door was blocked by debris, though, much worse than my father had feared. I shouted, “Hello! We’re here! Hello! Do you hear me?”
No answer, but it was a heavy door, and another door down the steps on the other side, sealing off the cellar. Of course they couldn’t hear. I’d been foolish to hope for it.
Dr. Becker and I pulled, shoved, sweated, and finally cleared enough space to view the door.
It had a hole in it where the wood had splintered.
The axe! Father had used it to get out. Had the stone fallen afterwards, then?
I wanted to run into the street again, to look for them there, but surely we should check here first.
Together, we managed to pull the door open and squeeze inside. The stairs were clear. I hurried down them lighting the way with my flashlight, calling again, “I’m here! It’s Daisy! Hello?” And didn’t wait for an answer.
The door at the bottom was open. I didn’t understand why, and then I remembered how I’d failed to lock the door when I’d hurried back from my abortive effort to get through the palace. They’d have been in a hurry. Of course they would!
My flashlight showed me nothing. So they had left already.
Why, then, hadn’t Father come to find me?
I swept its light around the chairs, the table.
All still here, and empty. Rucksacks, baskets of food, pillowcases stuffed with our belongings, buckets of water and sand, the stirrup pump, and nothing else.
I said, “Where have they gone?” My mind was oddly blank, smoothed out, as if this wasn’t me at all.
Dr. Becker said from somewhere ahead of me, “They’re here.”
I knew before I saw, of course. My mind tried to wall off the knowledge, but it didn’t succeed.
I can still feel each step I took as if it were yesterday.
I can still see a crust of bread and one of Frau Heffinger’s good knives on the table, a quilt thrown over a chair, Frau Schultz’s metal-framed eyeglasses on the ground, one lens crushed.
They were in a pile at the back of the cellar. Their bodies looked … normal. Frau Heffinger was sitting to one side, cradling Lotte in her arms like a child. Herr Kolbe leaned against one wall as if he were taking a rest.
Or as if he were standing guard over those below, because Father knelt on the stone floor, his arms around Mother. They looked peaceful, as if they’d fallen asleep.
Except that their eyes were open.
My flashlight swayed and danced. I wondered why—were we having an earthquake?
Could fires of such power cause such a thing?
Then I realized that I was shaking all over.
My mouth was trying to find words. No, I wanted to shout.
This can’t be true. It can’t be! But I couldn’t get breath or strength enough to say the words.
Dr. Becker was holding me now, I realized dimly.
Holding me against him, murmuring something.
“Steady, now,” he was saying. “Steady.” As if he were talking to a horse.
I realized that he was saying that because he couldn’t say the usual things.
It will be all right. It will all be all right. No, he couldn’t say that, could he?
Wait. He was saying something else. “Your mother,” he said. “Her notebook.”
Oh. There was a notebook and pen beside my mother’s body, as if they’d fallen from her hands. Her housekeeping book, where she made notes of things arranged with the housekeeper and cook. A queen, and also a good German Hausfrau, my father had always teased.
My limbs felt as if they belonged to somebody else as I picked up the pen, the open notebook.
My darling Daisy, I read.
I made a noise. Incoherent, like a wounded animal. I didn’t recognize the sound.
Dr. Becker’s hand, steering me to the table, helping me sit.
“It won’t have been painful,” he was saying.
“Lack of oxygen, carbon monoxide building up. Your father got sleepy, I’m guessing, and knew the reason.
Tried to get out, and when he couldn’t, moved them to the other side of the cellar.
They will have fallen asleep there, that’s all. Just fallen asleep.”
I barely heard him. I was looking at the notebook page, my vision blurring with tears.
My darling Daisy,
I don’t know if we shall come through this. Your father says the way is blocked, and there is a great heaviness in our chests. It’s growing hard to breathe. I’m holding to the belief that you’re safe, and that you’ll stay safe. You must do all you can to stay safe. That is your mission now.
Take the parure. Hide it. Take all the money you can find, take everything you can carry, take Dr. Becker and the children, and run. Run west, to the Americans. Don’t wait here, and don’t come back while there are Russians in Saxony. Don’t give in to homesickness. Don’t come back.
I loved you from the moment I held you. I love you still. You are strong and brave, and you
The last word trailed off with a smear of ink.
Dr. Becker handed me his handkerchief—the same filthy one he’d used on me hours ago—and I mopped my face, blew my nose, forced myself to stop the tears.
I felt a sort of ice settle over me, and welcomed it.
I needed that ice now, and I was going to keep needing it.
I said, “We must take what we can from here, and quickly, before the authorities come. Food, money, anything useful. The police will be shooting any looters, so we must do it now, before anybody sees us.”
“Shoes,” Dr. Becker said. “I haven’t been able to get my shoes mended. The cobblers won’t work for Jews.”
“Shoes, then,” I said. “My father’s, or Herr Kolbe’s, or Herr Wolmer’s, whichever ones come closest to fitting.
We must be cool and unsentimental now.” My voice was still shaking, because I was so cold, I was trembling.
I made a mighty effort at control. “My parents wanted me to survive,” I told Dr. Becker.
“They wanted you and your children to survive. We’re going to do that.
We’re going to leave, and we’re going to survive. Whatever it takes.”