Her skin prickled.
“Of course.” Stalling tipped his hat to Anna, and then mingled into the crowd.
“Come with me,” Fleck said.
She swallowed, and then followed him outside.
“I have a problem,” he said, turning to her.
Oh, no.Anna clasped her arms.
“Several veterans will be arriving in Oldenburg for training,” he said. “There’s an issue with a boarding assignment for one of the men.”
“Oh.” Anna’s shoulder muscles relaxed. “Myvaterand I have plenty of room—”
“I wasn’t finished,” he said.
“Sorry, sir.”
“A trainer, whom I will not name, prefers not to have one of the veterans in his home.” Fleck retrieved a cigarette from his pocket but made no effort to light it. “Because he’s a Jew.”
A man fought and sacrificed his eyes for our country, Anna thought,yet he’s not permitted to sleep in a trainer’s home because of his religious faith.A burning bile stirred inside her.
“If the other trainers express a similar reservation, he will stay with me. I have no apprehension of having a Jew in my home. However, before I attempt to realign the boarding arrangements, I wanted to inquire if you would be willing to board him.”
Anna was glad to hear that Fleck, if needed, was willing to house the man, but she was disheartened to know that a trainer was intolerant of Jews. She wondered, although briefly, if Fleck was worried that other trainers, if asked, would express similar concern. Burying her thoughts, she looked at him and said, “Of course. He can stay with me.”
“Do you need to speak with yourvater?”
“Nein,” Anna said. “Like me, he will be honored to have him in our home.”
“I’m glad this is acceptable.” Fleck placed his cigarette back into a silver case, and then rejoined the reception.
Anna entered the barn. With her eyes, she glanced to the trainers and wondered how anyone who nurtured the blind could harbor anti-Semitic beliefs. She hoped that this was an isolated case, and that Fleck would have no tolerance for prejudiced behavior from the trainers. Having lost her desire to celebrate, she slipped away to a stall where Nia was curled on a pile of straw. She kneeled and stroked the dog’s back.
“You wouldn’t treat someone badly because they were different, would you?” Anna whispered.
Nia nuzzled Anna’s leg.
Anna ran her fingers through Nia’s fur.If people were more like dogs, maybe the world would be blind to bigotry.She patted Nia until the congregation dispersed.
CHAPTER12
LILLE, FRANCE—OCTOBER1, 1916
Bruno, his uniform speckled with dried mud and blood, exited the train at the Lille station to begin a two-day leave. On the horizon, a scarlet sunset created the illusion that the western front had been set ablaze. Despite leaving the battlefield, twenty kilometers away, screams and shellfire echoed inside his head.
It had been two months since he’d left Lille to train regiments on the use of the German Empire’s new weapon—gas artillery shells. Under the close supervision of Haber, Bruno schooled artillery units on the use of chlorine and phosgene shells, which looked much like regular explosives, except for the green cross painted on the base of the shell. Because chlorine omitted a detectible green gas, as well as a strong pineapple and pepper odor, phosgene had become the poison of choice. Being a colorless gas with a smell like musty hay, phosgene was less detectable than chlorine. Also, phosgene was far more deadly due to its power to react with proteins in the alveoli of the lungs, destroying the blood-air barrier, leading to suffocation. However, phosgene did have a flaw; it could sometimes take up to two days for symptoms of the poison to manifest. Therefore, an enemy soldier could continue to fight until they drowned from the fluid in their lungs. Haber, who was determined to win the chemical arms race, assured Bruno that chemists would soon be devising deadlier variations of poison gas.
Death is death, regardless of how it is inflicted, Haber’s voice had chimed in Bruno’s head as he watched colossal guns fire gas shells toward enemy lines. It sickened him to think that he had sold his soul to Haber. Equally, he was revolted by the fact that his family’s business was profiting from producing nocuous weapons for the government. There was little he could do, he believed, but fight to survive the war and pray that Anna would never learn of the atrocities he was ordered to commit.
The suicide of Haber’s wife, Clara, weighed heavy on Bruno’s conscience. Like a festering sore that would never heal, Bruno feared that Anna would someday discover what he’d done.When we marry and move to Frankfurt, how will I keep my war duties and my family’s role in supplying the army with poison gas a secret?He was plagued with horrid dreams of Anna—her eyes filled with tears—raising his Imperial German military revolver, and then placing the tip to her breastbone. Each night, he woke with his body trembling and his clothes saturated with cold sweat. He thought that the visions would subside with time, but as each day passed and showers of poison shells rained down on the enemy, his feeling of dread escalated.
Fear of hurting Anna was not the only thing that had shaken Bruno. His new assignment, which led him along the French and Belgium front, often placed him under enemy shellfire. The German artillery guns, which fired both explosive and gas shells, were a prime target of British, French, and Canadian forces. Eight days ago, Allied forces initiated a bombardment while Bruno was training a group of soldiers on the proper handling of phosgene gas shells. As screaming bombs hailed down from the sky, Bruno grabbed a soldier by the arm and leaped into a bunker. An explosion quaked the ground. Bruno, compelled to aid yowling men, emerged from the bunker and discovered a massive crater where a howitzer once stood. Chunks of iron and mutilated bodies covered the ground. He dragged a soldier, who was moaning and clasping his rib cage, into the bunker. Using his hands, Bruno applied pressure to a hole in the man’s chest, where he was missing several ribs. A steaming shard of metal protruded from his hip. Bruno shouted for a medic, but his voice was dwarfed by the bombardment. As minutes passed, the metallic smell of blood grew, and the soldier’s whimpers dwindled. He held the man until he bled out.
Bruno, attempting to shed the macabre images from his mind, made his way through the streets of Lille. As he passed a café, boisterous chatter of drunken German soldiers permeated the air. Most of the soldiers, staying in Lille while on their way to or from the front, sought bars and brothels. But Bruno, weary and hungry, craved the sequestered sanctuary of the bourgeois house that Haber had arranged for him. Although he was required to inspect railway shipments of gas shells during his brief military leave, he planned to spend much of his time in his room.
As he turned a corner, the grand, three-story home came into view. Near the front gate, the woman caretaker, whom he recognized by her svelte stature and auburn hair, was speaking with two soldiers.Celeste.A memory of the woman serving wine to Haber flashed in his head.
