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“Sofie,” Dietger said. He was much closer than I’d realized, and his voice was low. “Go home. Please. Let them handle this.”
“But she’s a little old lady,” I said, and only then did I realize that I was sobbing, and my feet were so cold they were burning. I looked down and realized I was barefoot, standing in the light dusting of snow. I sobbed again and looked at Dietger—the closest thing I could find to a friendly face on that dark street. “She hasn’t done anything wrong.”
“Perhaps she’s suspected of disloyalty to the Reich?” Even he sounded unconvinced. I took another step toward the house. This time, Dietger’s hand caught my elbow. He gripped it firmly.
“Sofie,please,” he said flatly. Then he dropped his voice. “I have to report any suspicious activity and even a hintof suspicious activity from you. Putting yourself right in the middle of a Gestapo operation is the very definition of suspicious activity.” He tugged me toward my own house. “Go back inside, Sofie.Go inside.Please. You can’t help her.”
I tugged at his arm but he was gripping me hard, determined to save me from myself.
“Damn you to hell, Dietger,” I choked out. He propelled me toward my house—not with malice, but with determination.
“Surely it would be more comfortable for you in the warm...” It was so cold that when he spoke, his breath escaped as mist. I shook my head, craning my neck toward Adele’s building. Would they drag her out? And Mayim too? Would the two of them go kicking and screaming? Would they go silently defiant?
I wanted to go inside to get some shoes...some socks...somethingto protect my feet, but I didn’t dare in case I missed something, and I was too anxious to even sit down, to take the pressure off the burning skin of my ice-cold feet. But minutes began to pass, and the street and the building fell completely silent. Time was elastic. In a city that had been on fire for days, the whole world seemed to have fallen asleep.
“How long has it been?” I asked Dietger eventually. My teeth were chattering so violently it was hard to speak. He looked at his watch, then shifted awkwardly.
“Uh...close to fifteen minutes...?”
Just then, we heard boots on the ground, and I looked up to see the Gestapo filing out of Adele’s house—empty-handed. Had she won? For just a moment, I felt a flare of pride and hope—maybe she’d convinced them to leave her be. Maybe she’d even talked them into leaving without searching her house. Maybe...
Dietger held up a hand to me to indicate I should stay on my front porch. Then he jogged quickly over to one of the cars at the curb. He spoke quietly with one of the men. Then his shoulders slumped as if he’d suddenly exhaled. The streetlight above his head brought the shock and the sadness on his face into sharp relief. A feeling of dread hit me so hard, my knees almost buckled.
I ran past Dietger. Past the Gestapo officers, who were sliding back into their black cars. I ran through Adele’s lobby and through the smashed interior door into her apartment.
I found her on the floor in her bedroom, lying on her back by the window. Had the Gestapo seen her collapse? Had they even tried to help her?
“Adele,” I choked out, dropping to my knees beside her. I took her shoulders in my hands and I shook her limp body. “Adele, please. Please wake up.” My breath caught on a sob. “Adele.Oma.I can’t do this without you.”
Should I call an ambulance? A doctor? Should I try to resuscitate her? I didn’t even know how to start, and besides...somewhere deep inside, I knew it was too late. Shaking her body only reminded me how frail she had become in recent times.
I brushed the wispy hair around her face back into place. I touched my shaking fingers to her cheeks and I let my tears rain down over her, anointing her body with my grief and love.
“Sofie?” Dietger was at the door, hovering and uncertain. “Is there someone I can call? Maybe Jürgen? Lydia?”
It took me a few seconds to compose myself enough to speak.
“Did they tell you what happened?”
“They said she’d already collapsed by the time they got inside.”
“And was her alleged crime punishable by death?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.
“She was suspected of disloyalty to the Reich,” Dietger said, his expression hardening. “She would have been taken to a camp anyway.” He took a step back from the door, shaking his head sadly, then said, so quietly I had to strain to hear the words, “Perhaps this is a blessing.” His footsteps retreated.
I looked from Adele’s face, relaxed and peaceful in death, to her bed, and the photo of Alfred and her sons that she kept beside it. I started to cry again. I couldn’t stay with her body and leave my children alone in the house, but I couldn’t bear to leave it.
“Mrs. von Meyer Rhodes?” Two of Adele’s tenants were in the doorway. The quiet Bavarian couple who lived in that tiny front room in the front of the ground floor. They kept to themselves mostly, and in the shock of the moment, I couldn’t even remember their names. The man walked into the room and extended a hand toward me. I let him help me to my feet.
“Let us take care of her for you tonight,” his wife said gently from the doorway. “In the morning, we will call the mortuary.”
“She was always so good to us,” the husband said gruffly. “When I lost my job, she let us stay anyway, even though it took me months to find work again. It will be an honor for us to sit with her. We will pray over her soul and keep her company until the undertaker comes in the morning.”
When I nodded, the man crouched beside Adele’s body and whispered, “Let’s get you up on the bed, Mrs. Rheinberg.”
He cradled her gently in his arms as if she were a child. Then he stretched her out on her bed and even pulled the blanket over her, right up to her chin. I started to cry again at the kindness of his gesture.
People could still be good.
