Although he’d been able to reach the beam to hide their belongings, it was harder for Bill now to get enough of a grip to pull himself up. Halfway up his hand slipped, and he fell back onto his feet.
Herr Weber said something excitedly and moved toward the ladder to the hayloft. Captain Meier remained below.
Bill leaped into the air, grabbed the rafter and yanked his body up. Slowly Herr Weber ascended the ladder, and Bill lay flat just as the other man’s helmet appeared in the hayloft. Bill pressed his face to the timber beam, saw the streams of light from Herr Weber’s torch playing around the space. His heart was banging so loud, he thought Herr Weber would be able to hear it.
Herr Weber stuck his bayonet a few times into the pile of straw where they’d been lying. Bill looked over and could see the skirt of Izzy’s greatcoat hanging below the rafter she was lying on. He felt sure Herr Weber would spot it, so he prepared to let himself down to distract attention from Izzy. But the beam of the torch swept around the hayloft one more time, and Herr Weber called down, “Nein, nicht hier,” to Captain Meier. Finally Herr Weber swung his bayonet back over his shoulder, and felt for the first rung of the ladder with his foot.
There was another conversation in the barn below, before Herr Weber called in English once more, “If you are here, Bombardier King, please know this was your last chance. Now we must report you as missing, and soon the SS will find you with their dog patrols. Then we can’t help you. And, Izabela, if you are here, think of all you are throwing away. You are such a good student. I could still help you to be a translator or go to university.”
The two soldiers waited, listening, for several minutes before they agreed, “Nein, nicht hier,” and left the barn. A few more moments passed before Bill heard the distinctive limping gait of Captain Meier as he came back alone and said something in German. Something, apparently, to Izzy. Her name was all Bill understood. He held his breath and waited, thinking perhaps she ought to go with them now, but she didn’t move. Then Captain Meier left, the doors clanged shut and a heavy wooden beam was slid down from outside, shutting Bill and Izzy into the barn. Bill thought they’d die of thirst in here in just a few days if the SS didn’t find them first.
They heard Captain Meier and Herr Weber banging on the farmhouse door and an old-sounding woman speaking to them.
Bill raised his head and looked at Izzy across the gloomy barn. He signaled to her to tuck her coat under her legs. They might still come back. He pressed his face to the rafter. “Be calm, be calm,” he told himself. “Listen now.”
It seemed the soldiers had gone into the house. “Wait,” Bill told himself. “Wait and be calm.”
Eventually they came back into the yard, and there was further discussion before the doors of their armored car banged. Bill listened as it drove away into the night. He and Izzy waited in silence.
After about twenty minutes, footsteps quietly crossed the yard. Someone was struggling to lift the locking beam. Bill heard it swish down and bang slightly as it came to rest.
In the barn beneath them, two elderly voices were whispering in Czech. The people scuffled about like rats and then pulled the door closed behind them, but they didn’t lock it.
The dim light in the barn faded more as the day ended. Bill and Izzy waited a long time. A long, long time. They didn’t speak. Bill’s leg developed pins and needles from being too long in one position. They waited until it was completely dark outside.
Finally, Bill whispered, “I think it must be safe now,” and swung himself down from the rafter. But even as he said it, he was thinking, Izzy will never be safe again, and it’s all my fault.
He moved under the beam where Izzy was hiding. “Izzy, are you all right? Let yourself down. I’ll catch you.”
She lowered herself into his arms.
“What did the captain say?” he asked. “How did they find us?”
“He promised my mother he’d try to find us first and bring me back safely. He knows all the farms in the district, and they are trying all the barns and outbuildings. He’ll have to report you missing, but won’t say I might be with you. The story will be that I’ve gone to help my aunt.”
They both fell silent, and Bill wondered why Captain Meier would want to help them. Surely it was a risk for him, and for Herr Weber. Perhaps they had both developed a soft spot for Izzy; he could understand that. Or maybe Captain Meier loved her mother. Or perhaps, perhaps they were simply good men, a teacher and a farmer, caught up in horrors beyond their imagining and trying to do what little they could to make it right, by rescuing one foolish girl.
“You should have gone with them,” Bill said.
She wrapped her arms around him. “I’ll never leave you.”
He kissed her forehead, and they held on to each other like two frightened children. This felt like the only place of safety now, flimsy as a tent in an avalanche.
Ten
On our tenth night of walking, everything was quiet and still, apart from the light crunch of our boots on the stony country road. The sliver of moon disappeared behind a cloud, and we slowed our pace, barely able to make out the way ahead. The road and the hedges were dark as soot, and I couldn’t see where one ended and the other began. The ground was uneven, with tufty hummocks of grass running down the middle of the road, and I put out each foot tentatively, in case I twisted my ankle in a pothole or tumbled into a ditch, gripping Bill’s hand to keep myself from falling. I reminded myself, if we could hardly see the road, nobody could see us either. That was a small comfort.
Out of the darkness, the sidewalls of houses reared up on each side of the road.
“Here we go,” said Bill, “nice hayloft maybe to snuggle down in,” and I knew desire leaped in both of us at the thought. A blush warmed my throat and face, and I was glad he couldn’t see me and make fun of it.
But as we got close, we realized this was the start of a village street. We hesitated and then crept forward. The front doors opened directly onto the road, and as we passed each one, I tensed myself in case it flew open and we were discovered. My pulse beat as loud as rain on a barn roof.
Bill adjusted his stride in time with mine so we only made one set of footsteps, which echoed slightly off the buildings. He squeezed my hand tightly, and I wondered if he was afraid too. We walked on up the street, ready to turn and run at any moment back into the enveloping dark.
At first I tried to tell myself that the houses were just a hamlet—somewhere whose name I’d forgotten—that might offer the possibility of food and shelter, a disused henhouse or garage where we could hide. I imagined a pie left to cool on a windowsill and forgotten at bedtime, apples stored in a shed. But as we walked on, it became obvious that this place was larger than a village.
A cat’s tail flicked, and my stomach lurched. Figures seemed to lurk in the deep shadows of every doorway, and I strained my eyes in the hope that it would be my father or my brother or one of their band of partisans sent to gather me up, to hide us. I pleaded with him silently, Find me, Daddy, tatinku. Please find me now. But as we passed each house, the imaginary figures dissolved into deeper blackness, and hope faded that they’d ever find us. I told myself I was a fool. How had I expected my father to know where we were and carry us to safety? Had I just been trying to prove to him that he ought to have taken me with him? Did I think I could show him I was as brave as Jan?