Franka unlocked the door to the man’s room, listening for any noise before pushing it open. The room was dark, the curtains still closed. The hole in the floor remained. The man was lying asleep on the bed. He didn’t seem like he’d moved since last night. She wondered if she should wake him but then decided against it. She went to the desk in the living room and took a piece of paper and a pen.
I’m going into town for the supplies we spoke about last night. I shouldn’t be more than a few hours. Please stay in bed until I get back.
Franka Gerber
She wondered if she should have signed it Fr?ulein Gerber but didn’t want to bother writing the note all over again. He was still asleep when she returned to his room. What if this man was a prisoner of war? What then? Could she keep him up here for the remainder of the war? With the Allied landings in Italy a few months before, and the calamity of Stalingrad, the eventual defeat of the Reich finally seemed possible. But it wasn’t close. The National Socialists still maintained an iron grip on most of Europe, not to mention Germany herself. Could she hide him up here for months, or even years?
“One thing at a time, Franka,” she whispered. “Get the man some painkillers, and some food to keep you both alive; then worry about what comes next.”
She placed the note and a glass of water on the bedside table. The bottle of aspirin was empty, the last of them taken in the night. The full weight of his pain was lying in wait for him as soon as he awoke. She closed her eyes as she took the empty bottle in her hand, letting a breath out through her nostrils. There was nothing more to be done. Franka locked the door behind her.
The bright sunlight through the windows hadn’t lulled her into any false hopes of warmth, and she put on her winter coat, hat, and gloves. She slipped her arms into her backpack, took the skis, and stepped out into the morning. Her sunglasses shielded her eyes from the burning sun. She slipped her feet into the skis, which still fit perfectly. Having them on felt like stepping into the past.
The horizon was clear, broken only by the carpet of snow-peaked trees climbing the surrounding hills. The snow was flawless, innocent white and would have lent a beauty to any landscape, let alone one as inherently spectacular as this. When was the last time she’d truly observed it? Had the darkness that had overtaken her obscured all else? She picked up speed, feeling a giddiness she thought she’d lost. The cabin faded into the distance.
The ground hurtled toward him, the rushing of the air rendering all his senses useless. He reached for a parachute that wasn’t there. The ground below him stopped, changed into the field behind his parents’ house. He was suddenly on the ground, rolling in the softness of the grass, and as he tried to move, the pain struck. He shook awake to the sound of the front door closing. He bit down on his lip, balling his fists together as a tsunami of agony rolled over him. He struggled against it, taking a deep breath in through his nose. He opened his eyes again. Several minutes had passed, and his brow was damp with sweat. He saw the note on the table. Questions came faster than he could process them. His mind was wobbly, charred at the edges by pain. Who was this person? Was this some Gestapo plot to gain his confidence, to get him to reveal the true nature of his mission? The woman had said they were ten miles outside Freiburg. He tried to remember exactly where that was, and how far it was to his target. The Black Forest—he had landed in the Black Forest. They must have seen his parachute. The woman was a Gestapo agent. How could she have gotten him back here by herself? It didn’t seem possible. She must have had help. Her story didn’t check out. Her face appeared in his mind. She was pretty as a pearl-handled dagger. He checked his torso for wounds. His head ached, but apart from that, and of course his legs, he seemed okay. She must have gone for help. They’d probably be here in minutes.
He reached down to touch the wooden splints along his legs. They seemed flimsy enough to confine him to this bed, but perhaps that was her plan. He was wearing pajamas, his backpack was missing, and his Luftwaffe uniform was thrown into the corner of the room. He propped himself up in the bed, trying to peer out the window through a chink in the curtains. He saw nothing but white. He needed a plan. Step one: get out of here. But how? The bed had been pushed all the way to one side of the bedroom. The window was about eight feet away across the room but might as well have been a mile. He took another sip of water before the hard part. The avalanche of pain that struck him as his legs dipped down the side of the bed was like nothing he’d ever experienced. He had to cover his mouth to stifle his own screams. It was cold in the room, but he could feel slick sweat on his back. He lay back and took a few ragged breaths. The house was quiet.
A cuckoo clock sounded, the bell chiming nine times. The noise brought him back into the moment, and he found the strength to sit up once more. Gently, he continued lowering his legs down the edge of the bed, carrying the weight of his body in his arms and pushing out deep breaths through pursed lips.
“Control the pain,” he said in German. He made sure he did. Any slip now would be fatal. Maintain your cover. “You can do this.” His useless legs dangled off the side of the bed, and he was sitting now, facing the window. He looked down at the missing floorboards that the young woman had pried up. What had she been doing? Was she trying to make it as hard as possible for him to get to the window? He surveyed the room. There was nothing between him and the window, nothing to prop himself up on once he got there. Perhaps crawling to the door might be the better option.
He twisted his body around toward the doorway and let himself drop to the floor. He brought his hand down. Pain burned through him, but he gritted his teeth, taking as much weight as he could on the palm of his hand. He used his arms to pull himself along, dragging his legs behind him as he made it around to the door. He reached up to the handle. It was locked, but then, he’d known that already. It took him two endless minutes to drag his broken body to where she’d tossed his Luftwaffe blazer. He smiled as he reached into the breast pocket for the paper clips he’d put there after his final briefing.
The keyhole was set in a tarnished plate on the wooden door. He tried to peer through but could only make out the glow of the fire burning. Picking locks hadn’t been a specific part of his training. It was more of an extracurricular lesson his instructor had taught him. And he had excelled at it. He propped himself up, one hand on the knob, the other pushing the bent pin into the keyhole to turn over the tumbler. He missed it the first time. Seconds later he heard the click as the tumbler came off. With a turn of the knob, the door fell open.
The fire blazed. A stack of wood stood beside it, and above sat a mantelpiece with porcelain trinkets and a radio. A spot of wallpaper was less faded than the rest, signifying a missing picture. As he looked around the room, he realized that several pictures had been taken down. An empty rocking chair lay still beside the fire, with an old threadbare couch alongside it. The entrance to the kitchen was on his left, and the flickering light told of another fire she’d set in there. His backpack was sitting in the corner next to a bookshelf, and he wondered why she hadn’t tried to hide it. Maybe there was no reason to hide it if the Gestapo men were probably on their way here right now. The cabin was silent, no sounds at all apart from the popping wood in the fireplace.
He dragged himself over to his backpack on his forearms, reached into it, and pulled out a change of clothes, maps, and a flashlight. Both his pistols were gone, but he didn’t waste time wondering where she’d stashed them. Instead, he sat up against the wall and reached back inside. His papers were intact; his Luftwaffe paybook, his leave papers, and his travel orders were all properly rubber-stamped, signed, and countersigned. And in front of him, not thirty feet away, was the front door.