Women Of Courage: Daisies Are Forever Part 25

"She's a mum, so she'll understand. These things happen. She'll thank you for taking such good care of her girls and will be grateful you have brought them this far to safety."

Annelies stirred and muttered, "Mutti, Mutti."

Gisela bent over and kissed the girl on her warm forehead, holding her hand. "She will be here soon. Very soon."

Annelies opened her eyes, the usual sparkle missing. "I wish she would come."

"Me too. But she will be here before you know it."

She prayed her words were true. Reality told her they were false.

An air-raid siren picked that moment to screech.

She glanced at the two sick girls. She couldn't take them to the shelter and risk getting them sicker or infecting one of their other cellar-mates.

How would she protect them now?

TWENTY-THREE.

Audra and Kurt sat beside each other on the hard kitchen chairs in the chilly air-raid shelter, alone for now. He expected the others to clatter down the stairs any moment.

He leaned forward in his seat. While Audra may have blown any chance she had with Josep, her blunder was all the better for him. She created the perfect opening for him to endear himself to Gisela. His missing fingers tingled to touch those smooth, familiar piano keys.

Now he needed to keep Josep and Gisela from reconciling. "What about that little tactical error you made this morning?"

Audra raised her chin. "I made no error, just created a problem between Josep and Gisela. You were supposed to go after her, though, and not let him comfort her."

"But you need to keep Gisela as your friend. Not that it matters to me, but she won't want to take you to America if she is angry with you."

"She won't take me to America at all if she falls in love with you."

A bit of a problem he hadn't thought of when recruiting her. "In exchange for your help breaking them up, I will insist she go to America until am I able to get a job to support her and take you with her."

She gave him a dubious look.

"All is not lost. You keep flirting with Josep, and I will generate doubt about him in her mind. The longer those girls are sick, the worse off we are. Pray they recover soon."

"I disagree. This is the chance you need. The stress of having ill children will wear on her. When she breaks down and cannot handle more trouble, you will be the one to support her, to take care of her when no one else is."

Kurt couldn't help but admire this crafty, wily woman.

The roar of bombers thundered in the distance, rattling Gisela's bones. The sirens' screeches pitched up in intensity.

Gisela studied the two kinder now awake in the bed, their gray eyes large. She couldn't bring the girls to the shelter. And if they were contagious, she didn't want to start an epidemic.

But should they stay here, with bombs whistling to earth around them?

Mitch decided for her, scooping Annelies in his arms. "Can you get Renate?"

She nodded, lifted the girl from the mattress, and carried her downstairs.

Sudden cold, like a Russian winter wind, cloaked her. She rubbed her arms and sat on the edge of the mattress they had brought downstairs so the girls could sleep during the air raids. All around, the Allied planes emptied themselves of their cargo. The chattering of machine guns indicated a dogfight in the skies above them.

Annelies lay back on the pillows. "My head hurts, Tante Gisela."

With a touch she tried to make as tender as Mutti's, Gisela smoothed back her hair. "I know, sweetheart, I know. You will be better very soon."

She gazed at Gisela with pleading eyes. "Promise?"

"I promise."

"I hear the planes."

"Don't worry about them. They won't come here today."

But the droning grew louder. The sirens screeched. The building shook.

Annelies grabbed Gisela's arm and clung to it. Renate opened her eyes, glazed with fever. "Airplanes."

"Ja, I hear them too."

A bomb whistled as it streaked to the earth.

She threw herself over the girls.

An ear-splitting explosion deafened Gisela.

The floor beneath her shook. Or was that her shaking?

Ceiling plaster rained down on them.

When would it be over?

Booms continued to sound around them, at last becoming more distant. Little by little, the rumble of the bombers hushed.

A siren screeched again-all clear. The bombers had turned back toward Britain. For now.

Gisela sat, still trembling all over. That bomb could have struck them.

Mitch adjusted the blanket around Annelies and lifted her into his arms. "That hit nearby. But at least we heard the siren."

"We should inspect the damage." Kurt carried Renate in his single arm. "It might have been just down the block."

"Ja. That's good." Mitch lugged Annelies upstairs and tucked her into bed beside her sister.

Gisela went to the kitchen to rinse out the compresses. One of the cupboard doors had flung open and broken dishes littered the floor. Too much like the large earthquake that had hit California not long before they returned to Germany.

Before she could reach for the broom, Mutti and Audra returned from the shelter. Mutti's mouth fell open when she saw the mess. "Not enough plates to eat off of as it was and now this. Another hards.h.i.+p of the war."

If you weren't matter-of-fact about things these days, you might as well sit down and let a bomb end your misery.

Gisela swept the broom over the floor and Mutti held the dustpan. Every so often, she caught herself peering over Mutti's shoulder, hoping for a glimpse of Mitch in the doorway.

Audra took the pan to bring the shards of gla.s.s to the dustbin. "Who are you looking for?"

Gisela had been attempting to ignore Audra, the sting of her kiss with Mitch too fresh yet. "Where are the men?"

"They went out already to check on the damage."

So close. Like two years ago, when their neighborhood had sustained much damage and Mutti and Vater sent her east.

How long would it be until their apartment building was. .h.i.t?

Audra almost danced out of the room with the dustpan. "I will bring Josep a drink of water when I get back. He is working so hard."

Gisela grabbed the washcloths hanging on the side of the sink where she had left them. She had no claim on Mitch, not now that their secret was out. If he wanted to pursue Audra, fine. He would be leaving soon.

Why, then, did the very thought of Audra with Mitch make her lonely?

Gisela dragged herself to the main bedroom, though she longed to split herself in two and go to Mitch. She gave each girl a drink and laid the compresses on their warm brows.

Renate touched Gisela's face. "You take good care of me, Tante."

"I do?"

Annelies stretched. "You do. Almost as good as Mutti."

"Almost?"

Renate bobbed her head. "Ja. Mutti has a 'sick book.' When you are yucky, you draw pictures."

"Is that so?" She had no paper or pencils. "You sleep for a while and you will see what Tante Gisela has for you when you are better."

Two somber little girls nodded, then lay against the pillows. Just as well, since she had nothing for them.

She sighed and stroked Annelies's hair before moving to the bedside chair. The late afternoon sun cast long shadows across the room. In the quietness, Gisela heard the noise next door as bricks were moved and cast aside. On the street, people shouted. The little clock on the nightstand ticked off the minutes. Each jerk of the minute hand brought liberation ever closer. How many more minutes would pa.s.s before they would be free? Until she could travel home?

The hard, angular kitchen chair provided little comfort. Still she managed to close her eyes and nod off.

The smell of burning gas, burning wood, burning flesh consumed her. Screams rattled in her head. She wanted to run, but her legs refused to move. She couldn't get where she needed to be. Something, someone held her fast. All her kicking and biting did no good.

And the screams faded into silence.

She woke with a start, her heart kicking like a bucking bronco in her chest.

"Gisela, wake up, wake up."

She slid upright and pulled her wrist from Mitch's grasp. His dark eyebrows were knotted.

"What's going on?"

"You had a nightmare. Or a daymare. It must have been a ghastly dream."

Wiping her eyes, she was surprised to find them damp. "It was."

"Care to tell me about it?"

She shook her head. "I'd like to forget it. I'm fine now, thank you." It wasn't until then that she noticed the streak of soot dashed across his cheek and the dirt down the front of his plain green s.h.i.+rt. "What happened to you?"

Mitch stared down at the mark on his s.h.i.+rt. He owned nothing but the clothes on his back, and Frau Cramer had been gracious enough to give him two s.h.i.+rts belonging to her husband. He was a bit shorter and stockier than Mitch, but he was grateful for the gift.

He hesitated, trying in vain to block out the scene he had witnessed a few doors down. "I don't feel much like discussing it."

"You went to the neighbor, that's what Audra said. Did they sustain a direct hit?"

He nodded, his head pounding as he attempted to stop the images of the carnage.

"Are they all . . . ?"

"I haven't any idea. We located a few, um, bodies. Those who perhaps didn't go to the cellar. We're digging now to see if there are survivors in the shelter." If he could shout to the bombers, the ones with the white stars or the ones with the blue circles with red bull's-eyes, he would tell them to stop. Stop bombing innocent women and children.

He clenched his fist and struggled to keep his arm at his side.

Gisela rubbed her bloodshot eyes. The light, the fire, the feistiness had been extinguished. "How much longer?"

"Not much."

"How do you know?"

"I can feel it in my bones. The German government won't be able to hold out much longer. Too much destruction, too much death. I wouldn't be surprised if they are working on terms of surrender behind the scenes."

"The radio keeps talking about German victories."

He stood and wiped the soot from his brown pants. "Propaganda. Don't believe what Hitler tells you."

"I never believed him. Not much, anyway."

"That's good. How are the girls?"

"The same."

He turned to leave the room.