An Elephant In The Garden Part 4

So there were days, like it or not, when we would find ourselves having to share a barn or shed with other refugees, mostly families like us. But once or twice there were soldiers with us too, whole units of them. Those meetings were awkward at first. No one trusted anyone in those days, you see. You never could, not to begin with. It was having Marlene with us that helped break the ice, helped dispel suspicion. They would only have to see Marlene, and Mutti would only have to tell our story about the zoo, and how we had looked after Marlene at home in the garden, and soon they would be telling their own stories, of how they had escaped the bombing and the firestorm. All of us knew we were lucky to be alive. Strange to say, considering what we were all living through, there was often more laughter than tears, though I do remember there were many refugees who just sat there staring into nothing, rocking back and forth, and murmuring in their misery.

If there were other children there, then Karli loved it all the more. Not only did he have an audience for his juggling and all his party tricks, but he had Marlene to show off with as well. Somehow he had taught Marlene to kneel down and to lift her trunk at his command, and the children loved this. In front of them he always claimed absolute ownership of Marlene. He referred to her as "my elephant" or "my Marlene." He just loved playacting, and he was good at it too.

He had slipped easily into the part of being a younger brother to Peter-mostly, I think, because he genuinely liked having an older brother of his own, a proper pal. He would tell everyone proudly that he was the only one who could handle the elephant, that his older brother could not manage her at all, and certainly not his sister. He played the clown wonderfully, and people laughed. I found that once we had laughed together for a while, we all began to feel there was a kind of refugee solidarity among us, a camaraderie, sometimes so much so that we did not just swap stories, but food and drink as well.

But on Mutti's advice, Peter kept himself to himself, and did not talk too much when there were other people about, and that was just as well. The more we got to know him, the more we noticed that he did have a noticeable accent. Canadian or Swiss, it did not matter. All that mattered was that he spoke differently enough for other people to notice it, and if we noticed it, then they might too.

Time and again people would ask Mutti why her son was not in uniform like all the other young men. Mutti stuck always to the asthma story Karli had first made up in front of the policeman that day. It was a good cover story because, of course, she knew all the symptoms rather well. We all did, except for Peter himself that is, but at Mutti's suggestion, Karli had made sure that Peter knew exactly what it felt like to suffer from asthma. He even taught Peter how to cough and wheeze the right way. Nonetheless, it still made me very nervous every time the subject came up. I was fearful too because, after living through the horror of the bombing of Dresden, everyone we came across was full of anger and bitterness against the Americans and the British. Until now, much of this hatred had been reserved more for the Russians. Not now, not anymore. So Peter, if he was to be discovered, would be in real danger. And so would we.

Most of the other refugees we met were from Dresden, like us, though a few had come from farther east. For them in particular, fear of the Russians still far outweighed any anger against the Americans and the British. There were many stories of dreadful atrocities committed by the Red Army on civilians as they advanced deeper and deeper into Germany. I did not know then, and I do not know now, what was true and what was not, but I do know that many of our fellow refugees were terrified of the Russians. I only know that there is always atrocity in war. We heard too that the Red Army was closer now than we had thought, only a few miles on the other side of Dresden. So despite all the Allied bombing, everyone thought it was better to be at the mercy of the Americans and the British, rather than to wait for the Russians to arrive.

Whenever we found ourselves hiding away in the company of other refugees, Peter would make himself scarce, to avoid suspicious looks and searching questions, he told me. Sometimes he said he was off to look for food, but often he would excuse himself by saying that he had to see to Marlene. And whenever I could, I would go with him, not of course to help with Marlene at all, but just because I wanted to be with him. We wanted to be together now all we could, and alone too. The two of us would spend long hours sitting there beside Marlene, out in some barn or shed, as she munched her hay or straw-whatever we had found for her. Or we would be watching her from a riverbank, drinking and sluicing herself down.

It was during these times together that Peter began to tell me about his home in Canada, in Toronto, of the parts he had played in the theater, mostly walk-on parts: a spear carrier, a servant, a policeman, a butler. He would tell me about the cabin deep in the forest-he called it his "cottage"-where he and his mother and father used to go for weekends all through his childhood, about the cycling and the canoeing they did, and the salmon fishing, and the moose and the black bears they saw. And I told him about Papi, about Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti, and all the good times we had had down on the farm, and about the argument that had split the family.

But we tried all we could not to talk about the war. Both of us knew it was the grim shadow that hung over us, that threatened to separate us, and we both wanted to live for a while away from all of that, in the warm sunlight of shared memories and hopes. We found we had so much in common-bicycling, boating and fishing. He was an only child, he told me, and had never been part of a large family, until now, that is. He knew he was only playing the part of the elder brother, but the longer he was with us the more he felt easy in the part, just one of the family, and he loved that, he said.

How we talked, but even in our silences I felt a togetherness with him that I had never felt with anyone else.

Then came the time-well, I suppose it had to happen, didn't it?-that Karli came upon us one day and surprised us. I remember we were sitting there on the riverbank, with Marlene wafting her trunk over our heads.

"You two, you are canoodling, aren't you?" he said, with a mischievous twinkle in his eye. "I know you are. You are always going off together. I have been watching you."

"None of your business," I snapped. I was furious with him and embarra.s.sed too. But Peter handled it much better. He sat him down between us and put his arm around him.

"We were just talking, Karli, getting to know one another. I am her brother, remember? Your brother too. You and me, we talk, don't we? The thing is, that if I want to play a part right, I have to get right into it. That is why you told me all about your asthma attacks, remember? I need to know all there is to know about the new me, and my new family. I have to know the backstories of everyone in the play. See what I'm saying? It is what actors do. You understand that, don't you, Karli? I mean, people might ask me questions, about Papi, for instance, about where we lived in Dresden, about the zoo, about the farm, about Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti. I've got to know these things, right? Elizabeth, she is just telling me all she can, to help me."

Karli seemed happy enough with that, but there were many times after that when I could feel he was keeping an eye on us, and that worried me. I certainly did not want Mutti to have any idea how I really felt about Peter. Not because of what she might think about it, but because it was private, very personal, and I wanted to keep it that way.

The food we had brought with us from the farm lasted as long as we could make it, but in the end of course there was none left. After that, finding something to eat became our greatest problem. Not for Marlene. She would only have to brush the snow aside with her trunk or her foot, to be able to find something edible underneath. And once the snow had gone, Marlene simply grazed as she went. She was on a constant scrounge, her trunk searching ahead of her. For much of our journey we kept to the valleys, so there was always plenty of water for us to drink, from the rivers and streams. And there were many days when Peter found us a hay barn to hide in where Marlene could gorge herself all day long.

But food for us was much harder to find. Again, it was Peter who saved our bacon, so to speak. In the air force he had done some training in living off the land-it was something they all had to do, in case they got shot down. And anyway, luckily for us, back home in Canada he was used to finding food in the wild, scavenging for it, fishing for it, hunting for it. He had done this all his life, but, as he said, until now scavenging had not included stealing.

Early every morning we would settle into our new shelter for the day, make ourselves and Marlene as comfortable as we could, and then sooner or later Peter would disappear. He would be back an hour or so later with something: eggs from a hen house maybe, or a sausage, "liberated" he called it, from someone's larder. There were carrots sometimes, even apples once or twice. It turned out that there were many homes and farms lying empty and deserted in the countryside. So many people, like Uncle Manfred and Aunt Lotti, had abandoned their houses and fled.

And Peter scavenged for more than food. Once he came back with a fishing rod, and after that we quite often had grilled fish for our breakfast. But there were times when he came back with very little: a few nuts and some half-rotten root vegetables. Several times he returned empty-handed altogether. Then we just went hungry, and those were the days, with no food inside us, when it was hardest to keep ourselves warm, even if we could manage to make a fire.

Those were the worst times during our whole long trek, the days of hunger. The endless walking I got used to. I even got used to my blisters, to my freezing hands and ears, and my numb feet. The snow went away, but the cold never did. Sometimes, when I felt I could not take another step, I would feel Mutti's arm around me, and she would say always the same thing, "Just put one foot in front of the other, Elizabeth, and we'll get there." It was her constant mantra. When I was at my lowest ebb, I would keep saying that to myself, trying my very hardest to believe it. There were so many times when I came close to giving up altogether.

Thinking back, though, it was Marlene as much as Mutti's mantra that kept me going. Through wind and rain, mud and frost, Marlene just plodded on. She was our pacemaker, and we kept with her. When I was walking anywhere near her I could hear the hollow rumblings of contentment from inside her. And that for some reason always made me smile, and so lifted my spirits. We all envied her ability to find food on the move, snuffling up dead leaves, tugging at what little gra.s.s there was. We took great comfort and courage from her endless patience and perseverance. And she treated us all now, Peter included, with great affection, as if we were her family. We certainly felt she was part of ours. She was forever touching us with the soft tip of her trunk, rea.s.suring us, and rea.s.suring herself maybe. If Peter was our guide and provider, and Mutti was our strength, then Marlene was our inspiration.

Sometimes, after the long hours of walking through the darkness of the countryside, when we were all hungry and cold and tired, and the night seemed never-ending, Mutti would get us singing. We would sing her beloved Marlene Dietrich songs, or Christmas carols, or the nursery rhymes and folk songs Karli and I had grown up with. Peter knew some of these from his Swiss mother, so he would join in then too. Of course Karli would sing out louder than any of us, conducting everyone from high up on Marlene. These were the moments, as we were singing our way through the night, that I felt all my fears fly away. I felt suddenly light-headed, and full of hope, hope that all would be well. I cannot imagine why just singing together should be able to do this, but it did. It did not only pa.s.s the time. Somehow it lifted my heart, gave me new strength, and fresh determination just to keep going. It was the same for all of us, I think.

I suppose we must have been three weeks or so into our journey across Germany, and we were making much slower progress than Peter had expected. It was the streams and rivers that were holding us up. Streams we could have forded easily enough-Marlene seemed quite happy to go back and forth carrying two of us at a time. But to cross the rivers we had to find a bridge, and a bridge that was not guarded, as many of them were. So whenever we came to a bridge, Peter had to scout ahead to find out if there were sentries. And if there were, it meant a long diversion along the river until we found an unguarded bridge. This made our journey a lot longer, and so we lost a lot of time that way.

We knew that anyone and everyone who saw us or met up with us was a danger to us, but we could not avoid them altogether, however hard we tried. Even at night we did meet a few people, some walking home to their village after dark, or sometimes shepherds out in their fields checking their sheep; and once a farmer, I remember, who we came upon suddenly behind a hedge. He was trying to help one of his cows give birth, and he needed a hand, he said. So Peter got down on his knees at once, and pulled alongside the farmer. It took a while, but the calf came out alive and kicking. The farmer was delighted, and shook all our hands energetically. It was only after it was all over that he seemed to pay any attention to Marlene. Mutti told him our story, and he seemed quite happy with that. We had a night in his barn and his wife brought us some hot soup. They asked no questions, but kept bringing more and more of their family in to see Marlene. Far from attracting unwelcome attention to us, as Peter had thought, Marlene was turning out to be a kind of talisman. She seemed to divert attention away from us, and away from Peter in particular, which was of course just what we wanted.

Hidden away during the daytime, huddled together inside some shed or barn, we had heard and sometimes seen fighter planes flying low overhead, but we were safe from them, always well out of sight. Day and night we had heard too the drone of bombers overhead, but like the fighters, they pa.s.sed us by, and left us in peace. Had it not been for the ever more distant thunder of Russian guns we might almost have been able to forget that there was a war going on at all. The deeper we went into the countryside, the quieter it became and the safer we felt. There were some days and nights so still and silent now, that it really seemed to me sometimes as if the war might have ended already, and we just had not heard about it.

I remember Karli became ill quite quickly.

Weakened by his asthma, he had never been a strong child. It began one evening with a little cough that would not leave him. Mutti swathed him in blankets, and for the best part of that night he rode up on Marlene as usual, but it was becoming obvious after a while that he just did not have the strength to stay up there, that he could fall off at any time. Much against his will Mutti persuaded him down, and carried him the rest of the way in her arms.

Peter and I were scouting ahead, looking urgently now for a place to shelter-anywhere would do, just so long as we could get Karli out of the cold. There were no lights in the houses, of course, because of the blackout. But it was a moonlit night, which was why I caught sight of the dark looming shape of a huge building in the distance, and then the ribbon of a tree-lined drive curving through the fields towards it. From the sound of his cough and his wheezing, we could tell that Karli was getting worse all the time. He needed more than just a shelter for the night, he needed a doctor. We had no choice. We knew it was a risk, but we walked straight up the gravel drive and knocked loudly on the huge front door. It was a while before anyone came, and Peter was beginning to think that the house had been abandoned like so many others. But then the door opened. We saw the light of a lantern. Holding it was an old man in pajamas and nightcap.

He did not look at all friendly.

Two.

"It is the middle of the night," growled the old man. "What is it that you want?"

"Please. We need a doctor," Mutti told him. "My son, he is very sick. Please."

Then from farther inside the house came another voice, a woman's voice. "Who is it, Hans? Is it more of them? Let them in."

The door opened wider, and we saw then a lady in a dressing gown, coming down a huge wide staircase, and then hurrying towards us across the hallway.

"She says they need a doctor, Countess," the old man said. They were both peering at us now, from behind the lamplight.

"We are from Dresden," Mutti told them.

"Am I seeing things?" the lady asked. "Or is that an elephant?"

"I can explain about that later," Mutti replied. "But my son is ill, seriously ill, and I have to find a doctor. Please. It is urgent."

The lady did not hesitate. She took Mutti by the arm and led her into the hallway. "Come in, come in," she said. "I shall send for the doctor from the village right away. And Hans, you will find a place for that animal in the stables."

I had no idea that night who these people were, and neither did I care. We would soon have a doctor for Karli, and we had found shelter for him too. That was all that mattered. And it would be warm too. I could even smell food. But I did not get to go in right away. Mutti asked me to take care of Marlene, and to make sure that she had something to eat and drink. So, led by Hans, the old man in the nightcap, who muttered angrily to himself the whole time, I took her 'round the side of the house, through a great archway and into a stable yard. I saw to it that she had all she needed, hay and water both, and left her to it. She seemed quite happy, happier certainly than the horses across the yard from her, who were becoming increasingly unsettled at the appearance of this strange intruder.

As we walked back towards the house-the place seemed immense to me, more like a castle than a house-Hans was still grumbling on, but less to himself and rather more to me, about how he could never get a good night's sleep anymore, how it was bad enough that the countess had opened her doors to all and sundry, but now she was turning the stable yard into a zoo. It was all too much, he said, too much.

It was not until he was leading me back into the house and up the grand staircase that I began to see for myself what he was complaining about. Everywhere I looked, every centimeter of floor s.p.a.ce, was occupied. People were lying fast asleep, in the corridors, on the landings, and, I presumed, in every room. And those that were not asleep were sitting there on straw-filled sacks looking up at me blankly as I pa.s.sed by. There was bewilderment on every face I saw. Hans took me up to the top of the house, to the attic, where I saw Karli lying stretched out on a mattress by a fire with Mutti kneeling over him, bathing his forehead. Peter was busy piling more wood on the fire.

"He has a fever, Elizabeth," Mutti said, looking up at me, her eyes full of tears. "He's burning up. Where is that doctor? Where is he?"

For the rest of that night Karli lay there tossing and turning, sometimes delirious, and all three of us took turns to try to cool him. None of us slept, we just sat there watching him, hoping the fever would leave him, longing for the doctor to come. When he did come at long last, the lady came with him, dressed now rather grandly, and all in black. The doctor examined him, and said that Karli should be kept warm at all costs, and that the more water we could get him to drink the better. The doctor gave us some medicine for Karli and told us that on no account was he to go out in the cold, or travel, until he was completely well again.

It was only now, once he had gone, that the lady in black introduced herself. "Everyone just calls me Countess," she said, shaking each of us rather formally by the hand. "We do not bother much with names here-it is safer that way. I think we have about seventy refugees now in the house-all sorts, mostly families from the east resting up for a few days. Everyone is pa.s.sing through. It seems as if the whole world is in flight. We have soldiers on their way home on leave, or returning to their regiments at the front, some deserters no doubt, and we have a few vagrants too. I ask no questions. We have a hot meal only once a day, at midday, and then soup and bread in the evening. It is not much, but it is the best we can manage, I'm afraid. As you know, food is becoming very scarce everywhere now. You may stay as long as you like, certainly until the young boy is better, but I would not advise you to stay on much longer after that. The Russians are not so far away now, maybe a few weeks away, no more. The Americans are closer, by all accounts, but who knows who will get here first?"

Mutti thanked her from the bottom of her heart for all her kindness towards us.

"Having said I ask no questions," the countess went on, with a smile, "I have to say that I am rather curious about the elephant."

As Mutti told her the story about working in the zoo, about Papi being away fighting in Russia, and about our escape with Marlene from Dresden, the countess listened intently.

Then she said, "I too had a husband in the army once, but he is dead now. And like you I also have a son. Like your husband, he is fighting the Russians in the east. Maybe they know one another, you never know." She was looking very directly at Peter now. "My son is just about your age, I think," she said. "And he has brown eyes, deep-set like yours. It is my greatest wish to see him again, alive and well. We can only hope."

We stayed on with the countess for several days. It took Karli three or four of those days to recover. Peter gave him the compa.s.s to look after, and that made Karli so happy. He would go to sleep clutching it in his fist. I remember he told Peter once, that it was better than any teddy bear. And he said afterwards, when he was well again, that he was sure it was Peter's compa.s.s that had made him better in the end, and not the doctor's medicine.

Mutti did not want to risk setting out again on our travels until she was quite sure Karli was strong enough. The trouble was that the longer we stayed and the more comfortable we became, the more we did not want to leave. We would sit down at midday with all the other refugees in the great dining hall and eat good hot food. It was the countess who was responsible for creating a feeling of great fellowship among us. She made us all so welcome. She took time and trouble with everyone. She was generous too, and thoughtful. When Karli told her he was good at juggling one day, she gave him two tennis b.a.l.l.s-if he was happy, it would help him to get better, she said.

As the countess had told us, all sorts of people were there, coming and going, and everyone had a story to tell-and as it turned out, a song to sing as well. There was a group of twenty or so schoolchildren that arrived just a day or so after we did. These were the children we got to know best, and of course that was because of Marlene, and Karli too. Once Karli told them-and naturally he wasted no time in doing this-that we had had an elephant living in the garden back at home, that we had brought her with us, that she was living out in the stable yard right now, we could not keep them away.

With Karli getting stronger every day now, it was impossible to keep him inside for long. Mutti tried to make him stay on his mattress up in the attic, but he was forever going missing. We always knew where to find him, of course. He would be down there with Marlene, both of them surrounded by a large audience of admirers. The schoolchildren were utterly amazed by the elephant, and they loved to watch Karli doing his juggling tricks too. But what they loved best of all was when Karli decided he would perform his juggling act high up there astride Marlene's neck! And that was how Karli, quite unintentionally, landed us all in very great danger.

One afternoon, I came into the stable yard with Peter and Mutti, looking for Karli, who had disappeared, yet again. We saw him sitting up there on Marlene, and juggling away. There was a whole crowd around him-Hans, the countess's manservant, was there, and forty, maybe fifty of our fellow refugees, and the schoolchildren-and Karli was showing off even more than usual. As he juggled, he was telling everyone about how he had ridden Marlene all the way from Dresden. I shall never know what made him do it. But suddenly he just stopped his juggling, plunged his hand into his pocket, and held up the compa.s.s. "You know what this is?" he said proudly. "This is my big brother Peter's magic compa.s.s. He just follows where the arrow points, and we follow him. It is how we got here. Simple."

"Juggle with it!" one of the schoolchildren called out. "I bet you cannot do it with three!" Then they were all clamoring for him to dare to do it. "Go on, Karli! Go on!"

I shouted at him not to, but I knew even then that it was no use, that he would be unable to resist the temptation to show off even more. I pushed my way through the crowd to try to stop him, but I was too late. He was already juggling by the time I got there, with the two b.a.l.l.s and the compa.s.s.

For a while it looked fine. He was juggling brilliantly. I had seen him juggling as many as four b.a.l.l.s before, many a time, and he had hardly ever dropped one. I am sure it was because of all the hullabaloo the crowd was making that Marlene was becoming a little unsettled. She was wafting her ears, and swaying from side to side, a sure sign she was agitated. Then she lifted her trunk and shifted forward suddenly, throwing Karli off balance. I saw the compa.s.s flying high into the air. I dashed forward to try to catch it. I think I knew it was hopeless, that it was way out of my reach, that there was no way I could make it. I tripped then and fell heavily.

When I looked up I saw that Hans had caught the compa.s.s and was holding it in his cupped hands. I was just relieved it was not broken. The children were all clapping and cheering. I had noticed before that Hans never smiled. And he was not smiling now either, despite all the applause. He was turning the compa.s.s over in his hands, examining it carefully. He flicked it open, and then looked up at Karli.

"Where did you get this?" he demanded. "It is not German. This looks to me like a British compa.s.s, or American. A German compa.s.s would have O for ost, and this has an E. Ost in English is 'east.' And there is English writing on it too. Where did you get it?"

A sudden silence had descended on the stable yard. Karli for once had nothing to say. His eyes met mine. He was begging for help. But I couldn't think of anything to say either.

"I asked you where you got it from?" Hans said again.

"From me." It was Mutti's voice from behind me. She had Peter with her as she came through the crowd towards me. She put her arm around my shoulder. "My husband gave it to me. A gift. He is fighting the Russians now, but at the beginning of the war he was in France, in Normandy. He told me he got it off a British pilot who had been shot down. It was his, and now it is mine," she said. I admired her so much at that moment. I knew she was brave, but had no idea she could be this inventive.

Hans hesitated for a long time. I could see he had his doubts, that he still was not sure he believed her.

"Thank you," Mutti went on, "for catching it, I mean. I would hate to have seen it lying there smashed on the ground. It was the last gift I had from my husband. It has brought us all the way from Dresden, you know. So, for lots of reasons, you can see it is very precious to me, to my whole family. Thank you."

Hans seemed more satisfied now. He thought for a while, then nodded slowly, before handing it over to her at last. "It is not a toy," he said. "I do not think little children should be playing with such a thing."

"I quite agree," Mutti replied, with a shrug and a smile. "But you know how children are. Don't you worry. I will see to it that he does not do it again, I promise you."

She looked up at Karli. She did not have to pretend to be angry with him. Karli knew it. He was looking quite shamefaced and sheepish.

"Karli, you will get down off that elephant this minute, and come with me."

Peter went to help him down, and once we had seen Marlene safely back in her stable, we all walked away. But I could feel Hans's eyes on us all the time.

After supper that same evening the countess got up and clapped her hands to quiet everyone down. "What many of you do not know," she began, "is that the schoolchildren we have with us are from a chapel choir in Dresden. I have asked them if they would sing something for us. In these terrible times I think it is only music that can bring us some joy and peace of mind. Only last Christmas, they told me, they sang The Christmas Oratorio by Johann Sebastian Bach, who is for me the greatest German who ever lived. They have very kindly agreed to sing some of it for us now."

As they were singing, I found I could lose myself completely in the music, that I could forget all the dreadful things that were going on in the world. I felt coc.o.o.ned in this heavenly music. It seemed to warm me all through. It was a glow that lingered long after the singing had finished. I was still hearing it again in my head when we were back upstairs in our attic room that night, huddled under our blankets. The music had affected us all just as deeply, I think. We could talk about nothing else. Even Mutti had stopped being angry with Karli about the compa.s.s incident.

"I only wish Papi could have been there with us to hear his beloved Bach," she said. "He would have loved it so much."

We were almost asleep when the door opened, and the light of a lantern danced into the room. It was the countess. She crouched down to speak to us, talking in a hushed voice.

"I am afraid there is trouble," she said. "Hans is a good man. He has been with me for over forty years now. He was in the last war and is a loyal German, as I am. But he and I, we have different loyalties, different ideas. I have learned that he intends to go to the police, about the compa.s.s-yes, he has told me everything that happened. I tried to persuade him not to, but he insisted that it was his patriotic duty. I am afraid he did not believe your story, and I have to say, neither do I. But I have another reason to doubt you. Your son." She was looking directly at Peter now. "How you speak, this has been troubling me for quite a while now. When you talk, you sound to me like an American. You see, I have relatives in America, and when they speak German, they speak just like you. My American nephew would have been about your age. It is so sad, so ironic, so stupid. He was my sister's son, half American, half German. He joined the American army, and now lies dead in Normandy, killed by a German bullet."

She turned to Mutti. "There is something else I do not quite believe about this son of yours. I hear that he has asthma, and that is why he has been excused military service. But I have been watching him, and I have seen no sign of this asthma. In fact he looks to me to be as strong as an ox. Hans believes he may be an enemy pilot, a bomber pilot, and I think he may be right. If he is, and you are caught, then we all know what will happen, not just to him, but to you also, all of you. I would not want to see that happen."

Mutti tried to interrupt, but the countess would not let her. "I think it is best that you should leave, and right away. You will have your reasons for doing what you are doing, and I am sure they are good reasons. But I do not want to know them. The less I know, the better. Your little boy looks to me as if he is quite well enough to travel now. Once Hans has alerted the police, they will not take long to get here, that is for sure. So I think you should go tonight, now, before it is too late. I shall of course tell the police that I am sure Hans's suspicions are quite groundless. But when you go, if you do not mind, I should like you to do something for me, something that is very important. I want you to take those children with you, the choir. They have no one to look after them anymore. Their choir-master was killed, and several of the children too, on their way here. I want you to let them travel with you, to look after them. Would you do that? I know it is a lot to ask. But I have seen how much they love that elephant of yours. They will go willingly with you. They will go where she goes. I cannot keep them here forever. I should like to, but I just do not have the room. As you can see, I am overcrowded as it is, and more come every day. I will give you enough food, for you and for them, to get you on your way."

She spoke in English now, to Peter, and looking him in the eye. "Tell me the truth now, young man. Am I right? Are you what I think you are? American?"

"Canadian," Peter replied. "RAF."

"I was close enough then," she said, in German again. "This war is coming to an end very soon. I think the Americans must be very close now. It will all be over, but too late for my husband, sadly. And since I know your truth, I will tell you mine. A few months ago my husband took part in a plot to a.s.sa.s.sinate Hitler. My husband was a good German, a good officer who believed we had been led down the wrong road, a terrible road into this war, and he just wanted it to stop. The only way to do it, he thought, was to kill Hitler. So he and his friends tried to do it, tried to end the suffering. They failed, and he died for what he believed in. I believe what he believed, that the suffering must end. This is why I am doing what I do now. This is why your secret will be my secret. So gather your things and come downstairs, but hurry. I have already a.s.sembled the children, and have given each one of them enough food for a few days. It is all I can spare. Be quick now. The farther you are gone from here before dawn the better."

She left us then, before Mutti or any of us could say a word of thanks.

We dressed quickly, gathered our things, and made our way downstairs. The children were all waiting in the hall, the countess too. We were saying our goodbyes when the front door opened, and Hans came in. He was not alone. He had an army officer with him, and several soldiers, their rifles pointing right at us.

Three.

The officer saluted. "Countess, please forgive this intrusion, but I have come-"

"Major Klug," the countess said, advancing towards him and proffering her hand. "How good to see you again. I know why you have come. I think perhaps we should talk privately, don't you? But first, perhaps...your soldiers, their rifles, they are frightening the children."

The major hesitated. He seemed at a loss for a moment as to how to deal with the situation. But he recovered quickly enough. "Very well, Countess, if you insist." He ordered the soldiers to lower their weapons, told us all to stay right where we were, then followed the countess into her study.

I do not know how long we stood there in the hallway, waiting, but it seemed like a lifetime. No one spoke. All the while I held Peter's hand, knowing these might be the last moments we would have together. Karli kept looking up at Mutti, his eyes filled with tears. But Mutti did not notice. Like all of us, she was straining to listen, to make some sense out of the murmur of voices we could all hear on the other side of that door.

When at last the door opened the major came out on his own. Without a glance at any of us, without a word, he strode swiftly across the hall towards the front door. He waited for a moment for a bewildered Hans to open it for him, and then left, his soldiers following him. The countess came out moments later, a gla.s.s in her hand. She was breathing quite heavily. "I am afraid I had to have a little drink," she said, "to stop myself shaking." She smiled at us then. "Do not look so worried. Actually I think it all went quite well, better than I could have hoped for. It was lucky for us that it was Major Klug who came. He served with my husband in the same regiment. They knew each other quite well. Anyway, it is all over now. In the sense in which we needed him to be, he is, I am sure, an honorable man. He will keep his word. You are safe to go."

"What do you mean?" Mutti asked her. "What did he say? What did you tell him?"

"You have heard of the stick and the carrot?" the countess went on. "When you want to persuade someone to do something they do not wish to do, you need both, don't you? Stick and carrot. First, I used the stick. I reminded him that the Americans are maybe no more than a week or two away, that if anything happened to any of you, I personally would see to it that when they come the Americans would know Major Klug was responsible, and that I would make quite sure he was shot. As for the carrot, I keep some money in my safe, not much, but it helped. And just to be sure, I read him a few words from my husband's last letter from prison before they executed him-Major Klug had great respect for my husband. My husband wrote-and I know the words by heart- It makes me happy to know that out of the ashes of this horror, a new Germany must grow, and that you, and our friends and family will be a part of it. Remember always the words of Goethe that I love: "Whatever you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic. Begin it now." So, begin the new Germany, my darling, help it grow. I know you will. I am sad I will not be there to see it in person, but I shall always be with you in spirit.

"Major Klug seemed to take this very much to heart, as I hoped he would."

When the time came to leave later that same night, the countess kissed Karli and told him to behave himself, and then we were walking away from the house. By the time I turned to look she had gone inside. Following along behind us were the choir schoolchildren, in pairs, a sack on every back, and as silent as we were, Mutti walking with them. Peter went on ahead, our pathfinder as usual, while I led Marlene, with Karli riding up on her, all of us knowing we owed our lives to that extraordinary and wonderful lady.

It was hard to leave the warmth and comfort of the house behind us, and be out there again, walking through the cold of the night. It took me a while to get used to the discomfort, and the tiredness. In a way, the schoolchildren must have helped. They were a diversion, I suppose. I had little time now to worry about myself. Traveling was slower with them, of course.