The Escape Read online

  “They took my parents away in one of those,” Kat said.

  Max climbed the single high step and held out his hand to help Gerta up. A moment later, Mutti joined them. It was very dark inside the maw of the green minna. A hopeless miasma hung in the air, the atmosphere stained with desperation and fear.

  Kat waited at the edge of the alley.

  “Kat!” Gerta hissed. “Come on!”

  Kat shook her head. “I can’t.”

  Max reached out for her. “We can’t go without you, Kat.”

  “Leave,” she said miserably.

  “No,” Max said. “Families stick together.”

  He leaned out as far as he dared, stretching his arm to offer her his hand. She met his eyes. By the look on her face, Max thought that he’d finally done it—said the right thing to Kat Vogel. She hesitated another second, then let him pull her up into the vehicle. Mutti pulled the doors shut behind her, and they were plunged into complete darkness.

  For a moment, there was silence. Then Albert knocked on the partition that separated the driver’s seat from the holding cell in the back.

  “Sit down, please!” Albert called, his voice muffled by the metal barrier. They took their places on the two iron benches that ran the length of the cell-on-wheels. Max and Gerta sat across from Kat and Mutti. The engine struggled to turn over, and Max quivered in his seat as the whole truck rattled and shook. The heady tang of petrol seeped into the air. Then the engine coughed, rumbled, and caught. Albert eased the vehicle forward.

  Green minnas were not designed with the comfort of their passengers in mind, and Max felt every bump in the road. In a city as torn up and ravaged as Berlin, whose streets were pocked with craters, Max was forced to grip the edge of the bench while his body jolted and bounced.

  Gerta spoke. She was sitting right next to him, yet her words were lost in the roar of the engine and the clanking of the leg irons attached to the bench.

  “What?” Max yelled.

  “I said I think I’m gonna be sick!”

  “Just breathe!” Max said, praying that Gerta could hold down those questionable tomatoes. The stench in the back of the green minna was already bad enough—the thought of it mingling with his sister’s vomit made him gag.

  He closed his eyes and tried to calculate how long it would take to reach Potsdam. Before the war, they could be there in thirty minutes. But now? With the checkpoints and the mangled roadways, there was no telling how long it would take.

  “Breathing’s not working, Maxi!” Gerta said.

  “Okay, okay,” Max said, thinking quickly. He decided that she needed a distraction to take her mind off her cramping stomach. “Remember when you convinced me that the cave troll that lived in our old basement would only leave us in peace if I brought it little offerings of licorice?”

  “Yes!” she said. “You used to leave this little pile of candy at the top of the stairs!”

  “I always wondered about that!” Mutti said.

  “I haven’t had a piece of licorice since nineteen forty-one!” Max said.

  “When we get to Spain,” Mutti said, “you can have all the licorice you want! And Spanish licorice is the best in the world.”

  “Are you making that up?” Kat said.

  “Yes!” Mutti said.

  Suddenly, the green minna slowed and rumbled to a halt. Albert’s voice came through the partition. It took a moment for Max to realize that Albert wasn’t calling back to his passengers; he was talking to someone outside the truck.

  Mutti didn’t have to tell them to be quiet. If they’d just been stopped at a checkpoint, it would be up to Albert to talk his way through. Max wished there was a small vent or some other way to see what was going on outside. He imagined a squad of SS men surrounding the green minna. He tried to assure himself that it didn’t matter—for all the Nazis knew, Albert was just another Gestapo agent on the prowl in the wake of the attempt on Hitler’s life, hunting down suspects for interrogation.

  Max strained to hear. A gruff voice outside said, “Prinz-Albert-Strasse is the other way.”

  “I’m not taking this lot to headquarters,” Albert said. “Got something special planned for them over in Charlottenburg.”

  “I didn’t know the Gestapo occupied such prime real estate.”

  “There’s a lot our friends in the SS don’t know about Gestapo business,” Albert retorted.

  Max remembered his father telling him that in Berlin, the Gestapo and the SS didn’t always get along—in fact, they were sometimes at each other’s throats, jockeying for favor with the Nazi high command. Still, he wondered if it was smart for Albert to antagonize the SS. He supposed he just had to trust that Albert knew what he was doing.

  The SS man said something that Max couldn’t make out.

  “What is this, an interrogation?” Albert said. “Don’t you have anything better to do?”

  “We’re doing our job, same as you. Now let’s see that cargo.”

  “The Führer was almost assassinated today,” Albert said. “And I don’t answer to you or your boss. Now I’m going to start the engine, and you’re going to move aside.”

  There was a loud THUD as the SS man slammed something against the side of the vehicle, right behind Max’s head. The butt of a gun, maybe …

  “Go ahead and scratch the paint,” Albert said. “I’ll be glad to send Reichsführer Himmler the bill.”

  “We can detain our friends in the Gestapo if they refuse to comply, you know.”

  “You’re drunk. Get out of my way.”

  “What’s your hurry?”

  “Gestapo business.”

  “How about I ask our boss to call Prinz-Albert-Strasse to speak to your boss?”

  There was a long pause. “All right,” Albert said at last. “But I’m taking your names. This is going in my report.”

  Max heard the driver’s-side door open and close. Footsteps approached the rear of the truck. A key entered the lock and turned. The back doors swung open. Max could just make out the silhouettes of two helmeted SS men, along with Albert standing just behind them.

  Too late, he realized they should all be chained to the bench. What kind of Gestapo agent would leave his prisoners to move freely about the truck?

  One of the SS men clicked on a small electric torch, and Max squinted into the glare.

  The other SS man laughed. “Women and children! I’m sure our Führer will sleep more soundly knowing these dangerous subversives are off the street.” He turned to Albert. “My apologies! Clearly the Gestapo is doing very important work tonight.”

  The light played along the partition for a moment, then stopped on Mutti’s face. “What’s a lovely lady like you done to get the Gestapo on your back?”

  “That’s classified,” Albert said coldly.

  The SS man snickered. His light roamed the interior and stopped when it illuminated the small pile of knapsacks and bags. “What do we have here, then?”

  Albert was silent. Max tensed. He flashed to a memory of Albert sliding out of the shadows of the ruined opera house. He braced himself for an explosion of quick brutality.

  “Well?” the SS man said.

  At that moment, Gerta doubled over and spattered the floor of the green minna with the contents of her stomach.

  The SS man lowered his torch and took a step back. “Dear God! That’s disgusting.” He turned back to Albert. “They’re all yours, inspector. Get them out of here. And enjoy the rest of your evening.”

  Albert slammed the back doors, and Max was plunged into reeking darkness.

  “Good thinking, Gerta,” he said. Then he pulled his shirt up over his nose and mouth.

  “Don’t thank me, thank those communist tomatoes,” Gerta said.

  The engine sputtered and caught, and the truck lurched forward.

  “I think I’m gonna be sick, too,” Kat said miserably.

  “Save it for the next checkpoint,” Mutti said.

  Max closed his eyes.
>
  Two hours later, the green minna stopped. Max didn’t care where they were—he had to get out of this truck. It crossed his mind that he would rather be back in the cellar of the bakery waiting for Heinrich to come chop off his toes. At least that place had smelled like bread.

  The back doors opened, and Max jumped out into the night, gulping down fresh air. The others climbed out after him.

  “Quickly!” Albert said. “In here.”

  Max hardly had time to get his bearings before Albert herded them all toward the door of a two-story row house. Max’s heart sank. He knew they weren’t on a sightseeing tour of Potsdam, but to be hastily deposited into yet another cramped and dismal flat was depressing.

  They gathered on the small stoop while Albert banged his fist against the door—two quick knocks, a pause, then three more. A moment later the door swung open, and a pair of elderly women quickly ushered them into a dim corridor.

  “I have to get that truck back to Berlin before the sun comes up,” Albert said, with a note of urgency in his voice that Max had never heard before. “I’ll be back to Potsdam as soon as I can get you new papers—hopefully no longer than a few days. In the meantime, Elke and Petra will take very good care of you.” He turned to the two women and gave them a quick bow. “Ladies. Thank you.”

  There was so much that Max wanted to ask Albert. Had he been planning to kill those SS men before Gerta’s sick stomach saved the day? Where on earth did he get a green minna? Was he going to look for Max’s father when he got back to Berlin?

  But after briefly clasping Mutti’s hands in his own, Albert was gone.

  Max turned his attention to their new hosts. Both women were at least Frau Becker’s age. Despite the lateness of the hour, they were elegantly outfitted in long-sleeved collared dresses, one bird’s-egg blue and one lime green, both cinched at the waist with flower-print sashes.

  “My sister and I must apologize for the poor light in here,” the woman in the blue dress said. She was slightly taller and more full-figured than her sister, and her hair was pulled back in a neat bun while her sister’s hung to her shoulders. “Blackout conditions persist here as well as in Berlin.” She smiled, and her face became a map of creases and wrinkles. “I’m sure you’re very tired after your drive. Let me show you to your room, and we can get acquainted in the morning.”

  The woman in the green dress nudged her sister with an elbow.

  “Of course,” the first sister said. “I’m Elke, and this is Petra.”

  Petra stepped forward, took Mutti’s hand, and looked into her eyes. Then she did the same to Gerta, Kat, and Max. The skin of her palm felt odd, like crumpled paper with sharp corners. When Max pulled his hand away, he found that Petra had given him a small star made of meticulously folded paper. He glanced at Gerta. She was studying a small paper bird, holding it with a thumb and forefinger and turning it over. Kat frowned at a squirrel in her palm, while Mutti held what looked like a dog up to an electric light in a sconce on the wall.

  Suddenly, Petra clucked her tongue, snatched the star from Max’s hand, refolded one of its points, and gave it back.

  “Thank you,” Max said politely, unsure what to make of this whole exchange. Exhaustion troubled the edges of his vision, and for a moment he was convinced that he was dreaming.

  “Please,” Elke said, “this way.”

  Max hoisted his knapsack and followed Elke down a hallway decorated with small glass boxes affixed to the walls. Inside each box was another tiny object made from folded paper. The house smelled faintly of cinnamon, bringing him back to Christmases before the war, and coming downstairs to find Mutti in the kitchen baking lebkuchen while Papa lit the candles on the Advent wreath.

  Thoughts of Papa swirled in his head, darkened by Max’s certainty that if he hadn’t gotten himself captured by the Hitler Youth, his father would be with them right now, following Elke down this strange corridor. Instead, they had left him behind in Berlin. What now of Mutti’s insistence that the Hoffmanns were luckier than most? When would she start to believe that their luck was running out?

  Elke led them into a small yet handsomely appointed living room. Shelves held a variety of hourglasses and clocks. On top of the radio was a curious sculpture—twists of braided paper in silver and gold, curling to form a gilded cage around a menagerie of paper animals. Petra shuffled over to the sculpture and used a long skinny piece of wood, like a teacher’s pointer, to slide an elephant slightly closer to a turtle.

  Gerta turned around and caught Max’s eye. He shrugged. The members of the Becker Circle had been passionate, argumentative, devoted to the anti-Nazi cause. And Claus von Stauffenberg had been the epitome of confidence and poise. Elke and Petra seemed like the old ladies you read about in fairy tales who lived in houses made of candy. But if Albert trusted them, then Max supposed they must be committed members of the resistance.

  Elke paused near a bookshelf full of musty old leather-bound volumes. Next to the bookshelf hung a small gilt-framed mirror. She slid the bottom right-hand corner of the mirror to one side, revealing a hollow in the wall. She reached inside the hollow. A moment later there was a soft click, and the bookshelf swung open like a door.

  “You came to us at a good time,” Elke said. “Our last guests moved on down the line, so we have a vacancy.”

  “Down the line?” Kat said.

  “To a safe house closer to the French border,” Elke explained. “The next stop on their journey to Spain. But we can speak of that in the morning. Now in you go.”

  Behind the bookshelf was a single windowless room. There were four narrow beds—army cots, Max thought. The rest of the furnishings consisted of a lamp sitting on a small round table, a dresser, and a mirror. One corner of the room was cordoned off by two thin sheets hanging from rods that protruded from the walls.

  “The toilet is in there,” Elke said, pointing to the hanging sheets.

  “We have to stay in here?” Gerta said. “All of us?”

  Max kept quiet, but he was thinking the same thing.

  “Yes, Gerta,” Mutti said wearily. “All of us.” She turned to Elke. “I’m sorry. It’s been a long night. Thank you for your hospitality.”

  “I regret that we can’t accommodate you in a more comfortable part of our home,” Elke said to Gerta. “But it will be much safer for you in here. Unwanted visitors are quite common in Potsdam these days, and I fear it will only get worse after the attempt on old Adolf’s life. During the day you can come out to the living room, of course. But at night we must tuck you away.”

  Petra entered the room carrying a pitcher of water. She set the pitcher down on the dresser, opened the top drawer, and produced a tin of black-market biscuits—English biscuits, judging by the label.

  “Thank you,” Mutti said. Petra placed the tin next to the pitcher and left the room.

  “Get some sleep,” Elke said. “You’re safe here.”

  With that, she went back out into the living room and shut the bookshelf behind her. The lamp on the table gave off a warm yellow glow, and the atmosphere in the room was cozy rather than oppressive, despite the lack of windows. A thick carpet covered the floor, and the cots were made up with fluffy pillows and tightly tucked sheets.

  Max put his paper star inside his knapsack and set the bag down on the floor next to one of the cots. Then he went to the dresser and poured four glasses of water.

  Kat chose the cot next to his and sat down. She bounced a little, and the springs squeaked. “It’s funny,” she said. “I’m exhausted, but I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep.”

  Gerta sprawled out on the third cot in the row and closed her eyes. “I’m not gonna have that problem.”

  Mutti placed the back of her hand against Gerta’s forehead. “You still feel a little warm. How’s your stomach?”

  “Better,” Gerta said. “I got it all out in the truck.”

  “Drink some water,” Mutti said.

  “Can’t,” Gerta said, turning over onto
her side. “Sleeping.”

  Max handed a glass to Kat and another to Mutti. Then he went back to the dresser and opened the top drawer. There were a stack of folded sheets, another tin of biscuits, and a pair of spools with wooden handles. He reached for one of them and found that the two spools were actually attached. When he tried to pull them apart, he unfurled a long piece of paper crowded with tiny script he recognized as the Hebrew alphabet.

  “Look at this,” he said, holding it up.

  “It’s a miniature Torah scroll,” Mutti said. “Elke and Petra are one of the links in the chain for smuggling Jews out of Germany. That’s why they have this secret room.”

  As he stretched the scroll out on the dresser, poring over its remarkably neat script, he thought of the family that had been secreted away here before moving on “down the line.” It seemed unlikely that they would have left this behind by mistake. He would never know, of course, but he chose to believe that they had left the scroll here on purpose, as a gift for the next family who sheltered at Elke and Petra’s house. Carefully, he wound the paper back up and replaced the scroll in the drawer. Then he drained his water glass and sat down on his bed.

  Next to him, Kat tapped out a skittering rhythm on the metal frame of the cot. Gerta snored lightly, fully clothed, on top of the sheets. Mutti went behind the partition and emerged after a moment wearing a long nightdress.

  “Kat,” she said wearily.

  Kat’s rhythm ceased. “Sorry,” she said. “Didn’t even realize I was doing it.”

  At the round table, Mutti stood with her hand on the lamp’s switch. “Rest well, and sweet dreams, my loves.”

  The room went dark. Max took off his shoes, socks, and trousers, and slipped beneath his sheets. He stared up into the darkness, listening to Kat toss and turn. After a while she went quiet. Max’s head throbbed where Heinrich had bashed him with the gun, sending pulsating waves through the pure blackness of the windowless room.

  As Max drifted toward sleep, the throbbing waves took on the shapes of huddled figures—a whole procession of families displaced by the war, traveling through Elke and Petra’s house, lying in these very beds, staring up into the darkness, obsessed with the details of their own journeys.