The Last Green Valley Page 13

  When Haussmann turned to hand back the Martels’ documents, Emil felt a wave of relief. The SS officer would drive on, never realizing their paths had crossed before. And Nikolas would leave and not give him another thought.

  But then the major cocked his head and kept the papers just out of Emil’s grasp.

  “Do I know you, Herr Martel?” he asked, training his dead eyes on Emil again.

  Emil’s terror was complete, but he forced himself again to gaze at the man. “No, Major. I do not believe so.”

  Haussmann stood there, glanced at the papers. “Pervomaisk. No, I was never there. And where is this Friedenstal?”

  “Sixty kilometers southeast of Birsula. A small village established from the Glückstal colony.”

  The major thought about that and then shrugged, shook his head, and said, “I must be mistaken, Herr Martel.”

  Emil’s emotions had swung back the other way so fast after hearing the word “mistaken” that it took a beat for him to realize Haussmann was handing him his papers.

  He took them, nodded shallowly, and said, “Thank you, Major.”

  “You were not taken into the army when we invaded, Herr Martel?” Haussmann said, studying him again.

  “My wife’s brother was. If I had gone, there would have been no man in our family left to farm our fields. The VoMi decided they’d rather have me produce food than fight.”

  The SS major considered that a moment, glanced at Nikolas, and then said, “You were not a member of the Selbstschutz in your area?”

  “We lived in a tiny place in a sea of grain fields,” Emil replied. “I know of only one crime there in three years, and that was a Romanian soldier who raped a widow. He was caught.”

  “Hmm,” Haussmann said. “Did you know that all men of ethnic German descent over the age of thirty were supposed to be members of the Selbstschutz? And required to take an oath of allegiance?”

  “No,” Emil said. “I did not know that. As I said, we lived—”

  Haussmann barked, “Raise your right hand in a proper salute, Herr Martel, as if you were greeting the führer right here and now!”

  Emil felt as if he were being both tested and humiliated in front of his family but threw his arm up and out in the Nazi salute.

  “Repeat after me, Herr Martel: ‘As a carrier of pure German blood, I swear to Adolf Hitler, the führer of all Germans, to be true unto death, to do my best, and to be absolutely obedient to all of my superiors. Heil Hitler!’”

  Swallowing his pride, telling himself to do whatever it took to be rid of this man, Emil recited the oath for the second time in his life and for the second time at Haussmann’s command. As he did so, he was seeing the SS major not as he was now but as he’d been nearly three years before, a younger captain shouting at him beside a remote ravine outside Dubossary.

  When Emil finished, he stood there with his arm raised, gazing at Haussmann, who finally allowed the wisp of a smile to cross his face.

  “You may lower your arm, Herr Martel. Be safe on your journey today.”

  “Thank you, Cap—Major,” he said.

  If Haussmann caught him addressing him as Captain, he did not show it. Instead, he nodded to Adeline, and then to Emil’s mother before moving toward the vehicle with Nikolas trudging after him. They got in, and as Nikolas drove off, he could hear the two men arguing, though he could not tell about what.

  Emil’s knees turned to rubber when they were finally out of sight. He walked to a tree and leaned against it, aware that the boys were thirty meters away, Will by the wagon, Walt in it, both somber and watching him closely. He was also as sweaty as if he’d been working hard for hours and as sick in his gut as he’d been the other night talking to Nikolas. Took us eighteen days to shoot them all.

  Adeline came over, put her arms around him, as the rest of the family joined them.

  Emil said, “I didn’t want to say that.”

  “I know.”

  “I had to. For you and the boys.”

  “And for you.”

  “I feel sick.”

  “Don’t,” his mother said. “You did what you had to, Emil.”

  His father nodded sadly, and then said, “We all do what we have to, son.”

  Emil wanted to argue with his father, tell him that there were lines a man just could not cross, but instead, he said, “Thank you, Papa.”

  He realized that Rese, Lydia, and Malia were all looking to him for direction. “Let’s forget this, please, pack now, and get across the border and away from here as fast as we can.”

  They listened to him and moved off quickly to pack. Adeline held on to him.

  “You’re shaking,” she said quietly.

  “Am I? It doesn’t matter. We’re okay now.”

  Adeline pulled back a bit, gazed at him. “Do you know him, Emil? Haussmann?”

  He would not meet her gaze.

  “Emil?”

  “Papa, when are we leaving?” Walt called from the wagon.

  “In a few minutes,” Emil said, and made it clear he wanted to leave her embrace.

  Adeline held on to him, whispered, “I am your wife. Do you keep secrets from me?”

  “Of course I keep secrets from you. Some secrets are not to be shared. Some memories are meant to be forgotten. You know that’s true.”

  In her heart, Adeline did know that was true. She had seen profound suffering and hardship herself. Though she tried not to, she could summon the brutal emotions at will. Yet many of the cutting details of losing her father, of starvation, and of watching her firstborn die in her arms had gradually disappeared from her daily thoughts, like dead leaves crumbling on the wind.

  “I do,” she said, softening. “But will you answer just that one question? Do you know him, Emil? Major Haussmann?”

  Emil’s cheeks sagged before he sighed and said, “Haussmann was one of the captains with the SS group that held me in Dubossary when I went to buy supplies for the roof the September after we returned to Friedenstal.”

  Adeline remembered Emil coming home that night, how weakened and defeated he’d been. How he’d cried for the second time in their marriage. Her heart broke all over again. “What did Haussmann do to you?”

  “You said one question.”

  Adeline’s emotions slashed and sawed until the dominant one took over.

  “You don’t have to tell me what you went through that night,” she said. “Just tell me if Haussmann and that other man are a danger to our boys. To us.”

  After several moments, Emil said, “They’re a danger to everyone on the face of the earth. They kill innocent people and steal good men’s souls. And please, Adeline, let’s leave it at that. I’ve been through enough just having to see Haussmann again.”

  Adeline did not want to leave it at that, but she could see how upset Emil was.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “And thank you.”

  “You’re welcome,” he said, and started toward the horses.

  “I love you, Emil Martel,” she called after him.

  He looked back at her and smiled a little bittersweetly, she thought, before he said, “I love you, too, Adeline Losing.”

  Artillery roared to the east, closer than before, so close, she heard the hard edges of the blasts, which turned everyone camped around them frantic to leave.

  “In you go,” she said, scooping up Will and helping him into the rear of the wagon. “Crawl up there with Walt.”

  She got up on the bench, took the reins, and watched Emil untie the horses from the tree.

  “Release the lever,” he said.

  Adeline eased off the brake, felt the horses and the wagon retreat enough that they could clear the tree. Emil got up beside her, took the reins, and clucked up the horses even as a new salvo of cannon fire sounded to the west.

  “They’re getting close again,” she said as they started to roll.

  “I don’t care,” he said. “Nothing is going to stop us from going west from now on. We’ll go d
ay and night if we have to.”

  An hour later, they rolled across the border into Romania on the road to the small city of Barlad. The crossing was heavily fortified and defended by more than two hundred Romanian soldiers, all of them looking anxiously east past the caravan, toward oncoming combat. To get her mind off the morning and the threat of Major Haussmann, Adeline scanned the Romanian soldiers, some of them so very young, but did not recognize any as Corporal Gheorghe from two nights before.

  “Didn’t Corporal Gheorghe say he was from this town?” she said once they’d passed completely through the checkpoint.

  Emil shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

  “He was strange and interesting to listen to, wasn’t he?”

  Emil’s brows knitted. “You haven’t given up on him yet? The man’s head was hit with a bomb, Adella.”

  “And Malia was kicked in the head, and even though it’s made her special and interesting in her own way, Corporal Gheorghe, well, he was very different. He was . . .”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know the right word. Touched? In a good way?”

  “Touched?”

  “I said, I didn’t know the exact word, but I just can’t get his story off my mind, how after the bomb hit his head, he walked for days through the battle unharmed, as if an angel or a spirit were right there with him, clearing the way, protecting him.”

  “Protecting him so he could become a beekeeper?”

  “Maybe. And why not? It’s his dream, isn’t it?”

  Emil’s face tightened. “Who knows if any of that’s even true? He could have been making it all up. Or because he got hit in the head, that’s just the way he thinks. Who knows? He was crazy, and that’s it.”

  Adeline studied her husband without judgment, then looked away from him when the wagon bounced through a rut in the road. She gazed out over the plateau they crossed, seeing Corporal Gheorghe in her mind.

  “I think it was true,” she said at last. “When he talked about waking up in the ditch, covered in snow, then walking through the bullets, I don’t know, didn’t he seem to kind of glow, Emil? Didn’t he seem happy? Like really happy?”

  Emil turned, exasperated, and said, “If I’d had as much honey wine as he did, I’d have been glowing, too. And I don’t want to talk about him anymore. Corporal Gheorghe is behind us, Adeline. For good.”

  She wondered why Emil had reacted so negatively to the beekeeper and his story. But then she set that aside, remembering how the corporal had been flirting with Malia. He was, wasn’t he?

  Adeline had not had the chance to talk to her older sister more about Corporal Gheorghe, what with the disturbing visit from Haussmann, but she smiled when she recalled how Malia herself had glowed in the beekeeper’s presence, as if they were connected somehow. Wasn’t that interesting? Wasn’t that . . . well, miraculous? She decided that if what she’d seen was the spark and first flame of love, then she had indeed seen a small wonder with her own two eyes.

  Adeline bowed her head and gave thanks. Although the Lutheran religion and all other religions were banned and the churches shuttered or converted under Stalin, her parents had imbued her at a young age with a strong Christian faith that she’d relied on repeatedly in her life. Her faith had certainly wavered at times but never once left her. She had never stopped believing that God had a greater plan for her and for her family.

  She looked over at her husband, rock-steady, strong-as-an-ox Emil, and remembered how he’d trembled in her arms after Haussmann left their campground. She closed her eyes and prayed that her husband still had his faith.

  We can’t do this alone, she thought. There’s no way to do this without help.

  For hours on end, like an inchworm crossing a twig, the caravan stretched out and then squeezed to a stop, stretched, and squeezed through Barlad and into rolling grasslands that reminded Adeline of the country around Friedenstal. Even though there had been no weather to speak of in several days, the creek bottoms remained boggy. Wagons were getting stuck or sliding off the wood planking the SS put down across the worst of the muck.

  Whenever the caravan halted, Adeline could still hear the distant rumor of war behind them. And every now and then, German or Soviet fighter planes would cross overhead, reminding her that danger was never far and could be lurking just ahead, around the corner, or over the next rise.

  At the same time, she realized that in some ways she was more frightened of what lay ahead of her than of the war catching up to her. Wasn’t that strange? She could not figure out why that was true, only that it was.

  To get her mind off their uncertain future, Adeline worked with the boys on their alphabets and their math. She made it a game that they enjoyed rather than a chore. She even had Emil laughing at one point, though she could see he remained moody and upset about his encounter with Major Haussmann.

  The farther they got from the Romanian-Moldovan border, however, the less Adeline could hear the war. The sky cleared in the early afternoon, and the April sun shone down on them. The boys were napping behind her. Adeline thought about Emil and how upset he’d been earlier. But she also felt proud that he’d swallowed his stubborn pride and repeated that loyalty oath to Haussmann for the sake of her and their sons.

  Emil would always protect them. He’d do what he had to do, and so would she, whatever it took to find their green valley and build a new life. Gradually, in the heat, she grew foggy and tired. Her eyes drifted shut, and she tried to remember when she’d been in such a state before, frightened to death by someone like Haussmann and then so relieved, she needed to sleep.

  August 10, 1941

  Pervomaisk, Ukraine

  Emil finished buttoning his shirt in their spartan bedroom. In an irritated tone, he said, “I may only have a fifth-grade education, but you should have at least asked me if it was a good idea to help your friend.”

  “If she’s my friend, it’s a good idea to help her,” Adeline said. “We went through this last night. I am going to get those documents for her.”

  “What if you’re caught?”

  “Why would I be? I’ll be carrying the baby.”

  He got angry. “You’ll put Will in danger, too? Do you know what these Germans do? My friend at the brewery said he saw a man’s head bashed in with a rifle butt for refusing to cooperate with the new regime.”

  “And Jews like Esther are being killed just because they’re Jews. You said the Germans would be good for us. They’re no better than Stalin.”

  “If we get back our land, they are better than Stalin,” he snapped as he went to the sink and picked up his razor.

  “You just shaved,” she said. “What are you doing?”

  “Cutting my mustache to look like Hitler’s.”

  “You are not!”

  “Watch me,” he said. “And then I’m going with my mother and all our family papers and the Bible to ask the Germans for our land back.”

  A minute later, he turned to look at her with the postage-stamp mustache on his upper lip. He smiled, crossed to her, and tried to kiss her.

  “Not with that on your face,” she said. “Not even if you get the land back.”

  Emil gazed at her then, his eyes flickering over the features of her face, while his own showed both tenderness and fear.

  “Why are you looking at me like that?” Adeline asked.

  “I’m memorizing your face. In case this is the last time I see it.”

  “Emil!”

  “You need to understand the penalty for the game you are playing.”

  “I’m not playing a game. I’m running an errand for an old friend.”

  “Good luck with that,” he said, left the room, and slammed the door behind him.

  She heard muffled voices, Emil’s and Esther’s, before the apartment door opened and slammed shut. Adeline took a deep breath, believing that she was about to do the right thing helping Esther, and praying that she would be protected while doing it.

  After she finished
dressing, Adeline went out into the main room, finding it empty except for baby Will sleeping in the cradle Emil built. In the kitchen, Walt was eating breakfast while Esther watched with obvious enjoyment.

  “He really eats!” Esther said. “Mrs. Kantor would have loved him.”

  Adeline smiled as she folded clothes in the main room. “How could she not?”

  Esther’s face sank toward concern, and she came out to her, saying quietly, “Your husband is not happy, I think, Adeline. And the mustache?”

  “He’s thinking of what’s best for our family and trying to get our farm back.”

  Her expression sank farther. “I understand.”

  “But I am doing what’s best for you and for me,” Adeline said. “I could not live with myself if I did not try to help you.”

  Esther broke into tears and hugged Adeline. “Bless you.”

  The threat of blistering heat was already in the air when Adeline left the flat shortly after feeding and changing Will. She carried him in a sling she’d tied from two scarves. He rode against her belly and lower ribs and laughed and burped as she started the long walk to Bogopol, east of the Golta district where the Martels lived, and across the Bug River.

  At that point, less than eight days after the Nazis took the city of Pervomaisk, negotiations had already taken place between the Germans and the Romanians. The Bug River turned out to be the dividing line. Those in Golta were technically part of the new Protectorate of Transnistria under Romanian control while Bogopol and increasingly the lands to the east lay in German hands. The bridge across the Bug River to Bogopol had already become a major checkpoint when Adeline got in line. She had her papers and Will’s papers with her, showed them to a surly Wehrmacht sentry, and spoke to him in German, which improved his mood considerably.

  “What is his name?” he asked.

  “Wilhelm,” she said. “We call him Will.”

  “I am Willy, too,” he said, and waved her through.

  As she walked through the central streets, following Esther’s directions, Adeline saw buildings being fortified with fences and barbed wire. German soldiers occupied nearly every corner. There were fewer of them the farther she got from the bridge and none on the street of old warehouses where she found the address Esther had given her. She knocked on the door and got no reply. Will began to fuss. She knocked again, louder this time. Still no answer.