Daisies Are Forever (28 page)

“What on earth are you doing?” Audra shouted at Gisela, but she chose to ignore Audra. She couldn’t close her eyes to the boy with the face of trust and innocence.

So much like the faces of her cousins.

The threesome ran through the streets of Berlin, around the wreckage, over heaps of rubble, Gisela clutching a package of food in one hand and with the other pulling Jorgen behind her. When she turned to him, he held to that menacing-looking weapon.

“Drop it. Drop the gun.”

He shook his head.

She had to make him obey her. “Get rid of it or we’ll get shot.”

Again he shook his head.

Gisela’s heart pounded in her chest, her lungs ready to explode. “Drop it.”

At last he flung it away. They continued to run. She pulled
harder on Jorgen’s arm to keep him going. “We are almost there.” Another round of artillery fire crackled not far from them.

Audra pulled ahead of them. “Keep going. Come on.”

Nothing had ever looked as beautiful as the war-scarred building where seven frightened people huddled in the lower level. Counting Audra and herself and now Jorgen, that brought their total to ten.

Gisela pushed Jorgen up the steps. Once inside, they paused, hands on their knees. Her breathing and heart rate refused to slow.

Mitch clattered up the stairs to greet them. “Who is he?”

“This boy, a mere thirteen-year-old child, stands guard on the corner by the grocer, ready to shoot the Russians when they arrive.”

“Tell me you didn’t.”

“I did. I had to. He faced certain death there. At least here, he has a chance.”

Mitch touched her face and her cheek burned where his fingertips rested. She wanted to kiss his palm. Then she heard Audra harrumph and remembered her earlier words.

“You are beautiful. Exasperating, but beautiful.” Mitch touched the small of her back. “We had better get downstairs.”

The shriek of bombs falling drove them forward. The Russians were shelling them while the Allies conducted an air raid. In America, they would call this “double trouble.”

She got Jorgen settled on the bench that ran along one wall. He hadn’t said a word to them since they took off. He wrung his hands together, looking more like a playmate for Annelies than a warrior.

“Any word about Mutti?”

Mitch shook his head. He needed a bath and a shave. “Nein. No one has come.”

“Is the message still there?”

He nodded. “I checked this morning. No one has posted anything else.”

“Why can’t we find her? Why has no one come to us with information? Where is she?”

Mitch rubbed her arm. She backed away. “I don’t need comfort. I need Mutti.”

A bomb burst nearby, so close that limestone from the ceiling rained on them. “I wish I knew what to say to you.”

“Say you have found her.”

“What about the boy?”

“He’s staying here.” She switched to English so Jorgen wouldn’t know what she said. “If the SS comes, we will have to hide him. Maybe dress him like a little girl. Keep him safe. He was going to die out there. I can’t leave a child to die.”

“If they discover Jorgen here, the SS will kill every one of us.”

“You pose as much of a threat. You could be hung or shot as a deserter. Every one of us in here stands in peril. We have to make sure neither the SS nor the Soviets find any of us.”

That task would be harder than climbing the Alps.

Mitch flicked a glance at Jorgen. The boy sat on the hard wood bench, his shoulders slumped, his eyes closed. “I’m not unsympathetic to his plight, but I’ve a responsibility to you and the others in the house. I need to protect you. My job just got a lot tougher.”

“I couldn’t leave him there. I couldn’t.”

He understood. Gisela collected waifs like other people collected porcelain figurines.

“Are you angry with me?” Hurt and disappointment radiated from her eyes.

“No. I can’t blame you. I’m not sure I’d have had your courage. It was risky.”

“You won’t send him away?”

That would sign the boy’s death sentence. “No, I won’t. But you had better get working on a disguise for him. And burn the uniform. His, Kurt’s, anything that would link us to Hitler, the Nazis, the army.” Good thing Herr Cramer’s books had all been destroyed along with their flat. The Soviets would have no mercy on any Nazi sympathizers. “And bury anything of value. Get rid of it. The Russians will take whatever they can lay their hands on.”

Bettina clucked. “What are we burying, dearies? Hidden treasure? Could we search for it? What a fun game that would be.”

Katya bounced Renate on her knee. “Oh my, ja. Is there a treasure map? We have to have clues where to look.”

Gisela ignored them. “What if they find us? Then what?”

He refused to think about the possibility.
Lord, protect them. I can’t do it.

Then the loudest whistle he ever heard headed straight for them.

Audra screamed and clutched his arm.

His breathing ceased, and he couldn’t feel his heart beating. He locked his knees and braced for impact. For the explosion and searing heat.

For death.

THIRTY

M
itch closed his eyes. The whistle of the approaching bomb pierced his eardrums. The others in the shelter screamed.

The ground shook and the upstairs windows rattled.

God, save us!

Then silence.

He counted to ten and started to breathe, then dared to open his eyes. He wrenched his arm from Audra’s embrace. She resisted. The pressure of her touch reassured him that he wasn’t dreaming.

Or dead.

He wilted in relief, his arms and legs going weak.

The others lifted their heads. A little at a time, they began to speak. They laughed and patted each other on the back. “We’re alive.”

Audra leaned against his chest. “We almost died.” Her green eyes filled with tears.

“Almost.”

Annelies whimpered in the background.

Audra batted her just-about-white eyelashes. “You protected us.”

He sat back from her, steadying her with his hand, which he released as soon as she straightened. “Nein. Only God did.”

“Where did it land?” Gisela, sitting on the bed across from him with the girls, spoke in his direction but didn’t look into his eyes.

“Very close. In the garden, perhaps. Stay here. I’m going to check it out.”

Gisela leaned toward him. “Nein. Don’t you go out there. If it was a bomb, it could explode at any time.”

He switched to English, not knowing the German for what he needed to say. “If it made it from the plane to the ground without going off, it’s not likely to do so anytime soon. Just as a precaution, let me see what landed next to us.”

She shot nervous glances at the girls and at him. Hurt and uncertainty colored her face.

“Stay here. I will be fine, I promise.”

Kurt commandeered the spot next to her. “Ja, stay here with me and you will be safe.”

Mitch’s shoulders tensed. He turned and took the stairs two at a time and was soon blinking in the sunlight. The day was warm and calm.

He climbed over piles of rubble. He crept around the corner of the building, staying low, ready to hit the ground at any instant if the bomb should explode. Not that he would have a chance to react. And there, in the garden, a giant crater gaped where potatoes and cabbages had grown. Stepping lightly, going a few paces closer, he saw the tail fins of the bomb. The body of it was as large as a man’s torso.

The real deal.

Thank You, Lord.

If this shell had detonated as intended, there would be ten dead people in the building’s shelter.

His knees wavered and he sank to the ground, trembling.

Images of the carnage this bomb could have delivered slashed through his mind like a picture show. The blood in his veins turned to ice.

He hadn’t stopped it like Audra gave him credit for. Nothing he did prevented the tragedy. He sat helpless in the basement, awaiting the end.

But it hadn’t come.

“Why?” The word echoed in the soft breeze.

No sooner had the thought escaped his lips than he knew the answer.

God.

Only God.

Only Him.

He spared their lives. He watched over them all the way from the POW camp in East Prussia, through Danzig, and their days in Berlin. In fact, God had allowed the Germans to capture Mitch so he would spend the bulk of the war far from harm.

The warmth of God’s presence flooded him and he shrugged off his jacket, looking to the heavens. “You are here, Lord, aren’t You?”

A breeze tickled the back of his neck and a ray of sun warmed his face.

On his own, he was as useless as a puff of air against a brick building. It didn’t matter what he did or where he went. God had his life under His control.

Even if this bomb in front of him had discharged, God would have kept him safe and delivered Mitch to his heavenly home.

In the recesses of his mind, he heard his father’s voice reading the Bible the night before he left home.
Hear my cry, O God; attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I cry unto thee, when my heart is overwhelmed: lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For thou hast been a shelter for me, and a strong tower from the enemy.

He could hear the pop of the fire on the hearth and smell his father’s cigar.
I learned these verses from Psalm 61 when I fought in the
Great War.”
His large hand caressed the Bible page.
“You would do well to remember them, no matter what happens in your life.”

These words from his father were wise. Whether or not they agreed about the course Mitch’s life should take, his father had Mitch’s best interest at heart. He didn’t want his son to experience the hardships of war. He knew them well enough. All too well.

Mitch sat on the ground, head in his hands, for a long while, enjoying the feeling of peace and contentment. He had done the best he could under the worst of conditions in Belgium and France. No one knew where to go. No one saw the panzers coming.

And in the heat of battle, God had kept most of his chums alive. Captured, facing hardship, but breathing. If they had been able to return to England and then back to the battlefield, how many of them would be alive today? Perhaps not any of them.

An object blocked out the sun, cooling Mitch’s back. He turned and Gisela stood behind him. He hadn’t heard her coming.

“What are you doing?”

He stood, his legs cramped. He stretched his muscles. “That is a bomb, no doubt, but it never exploded.”

“A dud.”

“Yes, a dud. God sent us a dud.”

Gisela stared at the rusty-looking metal bomb. “Wow.” That was the only word her tumultuous brain could conjure.

“That’s a good word for it.”

“We came so close to dying.” Dying. She should be dead now. A tremor passed through her body.

“Very close. But God took care of us. He is the one who delivered us.”

“A poor bomb maker in the Soviet Union delivered us.”

“No, God did. What could you and I have done to prevent this shell from detonating?”

She studied the small crater. Mitch had a point. “Nothing. We were helpless.”

“Don’t you see? God is the one who, as the hymn says, brought us safely thus far.” In the midst of the battle, the heartbreak and sorrow, he lifted his beautiful tenor voice.

Amazing grace! How sweet the sound
that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found;
was blind, but now I see.

’Twas grace that taught my heart to fear,
and grace my fears relieved;
how precious did that grace appear
the hour I first believed.

She joined him, adding her alto harmony.

Through many dangers, toils, and snares,
I have already come;
’tis grace hath brought me safe thus far,
and grace will lead me home.

The Lord has promised good to me,
his word my hope secures;
he will my shield and portion be,
as long as life endures.

Yea, when this flesh and heart shall fail,
and mortal life shall cease,
I shall possess, within the veil,
a life of joy and peace.

They had come a long way. A very long way, through many trials and peril. “He has, hasn’t He?”

“Do you know this in your head or in your heart?”

She didn’t have an answer for that question. “We have no guarantee that we will live to see our liberation. No promise that you will ever see England again, or that I will see America. No assurance that you and Audra will get married.”

He scrunched his dark eyebrows. “What? Married?”

She dismissed him with a wave of her hand. “It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me. I don’t understand what you just said.”

“You do.”

“I really don’t.”

“Listen, we need to let the rest of the people in the cellar know about your discovery. We can finish talking about this later.” Much, much later.

Although Mitch continued looking puzzled, they went inside together. He stopped her in the front hall. “Think about what I said. You and I have been so busy trying to make up for past wrongs, but we can’t. God forgives. He protects. He gives life and takes it away.”

It sounded so simple, to absolve herself of her guilt that way.

But she couldn’t shake the truth that she had abandoned her cousins when they needed her most. And Opa and Ella and Herr Holtzmann. And Mutti. She had failed so many.

The next three days passed in a haze. The shelling in the nearby suburbs was constant.

The Soviets had the city surrounded.

The noose tightened.

The battle for Berlin raged.

The basement filled with people grew stuffy and confining. They had moved the couch, the kitchen table and chairs, and another bed downstairs. They lived here, ate here, slept here. Gisela was boxed in. The old women chatted about Paris and London and New York without ceasing. Where in the world they went on holiday changed on any given day. Any given moment.

Audra clung to Mitch. Kurt continued to sidle up to Gisela. With Mitch ensnared in Audra’s clutches, perhaps she should turn her attention to the German soldier. He had never been unkind to her and had always been attentive.