Werner is standing a few meters from her, and though surrounded on all sides by a jovial crowd, he’s embroiled in some sort of argument. Two soldiers wearing filthy jackets are waving papers in his face. The taller one, his face scarred and shadowed by dark stubble, seems especially riled up. He jabs at Werner’s chest and shouts into his face. Werner turns his head away, as though repulsed by foul breath. He appears so mild, absolutely harmless; what can he possibly have done to anger these men?
She begins shouldering her way toward the three of them. The soldiers are wearing the Reich’s uniform, but they do not look respectable, and as Bettina approaches, she can smell alcohol—as though they’ve bathed in it, for heaven’s sake. For years now her father has been telling her she needs to hold her tongue, that it is best for her to keep to herself. You cannot survive in times like these unless you put your own safety first, he insists. But this does not sit well with her. He thinks her willful, yet she is merely concerned with justice.
“Well, well, what’s this?” the darker soldier says, sticking a thin piece of wood in his mouth like a cigarette. “A pretty little lady heading our way.”
Werner makes a move toward Bettina, but the soldier will have none of it and grabs him by the arm. “Just a minute there, you cripple. I haven’t decided what I want to do with you yet.” The man, still a boy really, glares at Bettina, and she is aware that she left the house without a hat, like a young girl. Her thick dark hair is coiled in a bun at her neck, and she feels stripped naked by his eyes.
“Excuse me. He, this man, ah—we’re meeting, to watch the ceremony together?” she says, making it up as she goes along. “Is there some sort of problem?”
“I see, well. We’re just making certain he’s not a burden on the system. You understand, of course—now’s the time for us all to be pitching in. We don’t tolerate anyone who doesn’t pull his weight. We must all do the best we can.” The other soldier’s blond hair has been cut so short the ridges of his skull stick out. He raises a bottle of beer to his lips.
Bettina remembers boys like this from school, boys who were bullies and have become men who like wielding their power. How is it that the soldiers’ superiors tolerate this kind of behavior in public? The darker soldier’s accent establishes that he is from Bavaria; here by the Baltic Sea in the north, he’s almost a thousand kilometers from home. She smiles at him, hoping to calm him down. “Yes, I—”
Raucous cheers rise from the crowd, and the soldiers turn simultaneously toward the podium. In that instant Werner grabs her by the elbow and hustles her toward the stairs at the base of the town hall. They don’t stop till they reach the top near the wooden doorway, above the body of the crowd, short of breath and dripping with sweat.
“What do they want with you?” Bettina asks, panting, placing her cumbersome basket on the ground by her feet. “Have you done something?”
Werner’s cheeks are fevered. “Uh, it’s all nonsense. Something about my not fighting.”
Speakers on the podium let out a wavering note, shrill and prolonged. The mayor of Saargen emerges from the crowd, a skinny man with an imposing nose, wearing a uniform with gold epaulets and buttons that flash in the dusky light. The band strikes up a melody, and the crowd begins to sway; people are humming and singing. The harbor is only a few hundred meters away, and a breeze carries with it the pungent smell of the ocean. On the stairs next to them stands a little family: a stout woman and an older man whose arm is held out at a right angle by a dull silver contraption. He must be one of the lucky ones, home on sick leave. On the man’s shoulders sits a boy of six or so, woolen socks pooled at his ankles, suspenders drifting off bony shoulders. They wear expressions of expectation and excitement on their upturned faces.
The crowd begins to part as a large vehicle backs up toward the podium. In the truck bed lies an oak sapling. The foot soldiers tug at the burlap root ball and heave the lanky tree over to a hole in the very center of the square. It is meant to live a thousand years, this oak, but even from this distance Bettina can see the edges of its tiny leaves are curled and brown, its branches sparse and thin as fishing rods.
“I’m a soldier, Mama, a soldier!” cries the little boy, pointing one finger at his mother while clutching a sticky bun in the other hand. His delicate pink lips are covered in jelly. “Pow, pow, pow!”
Everyone nearby laughs.
Seagulls swoop overhead, beady eyes trained below them. There are murmurs of anticipation when the band stops playing. Bettina raises her head to the sky, still cloudless but edged with shadow as evening approaches. There is a hum or a buzz in the air that is getting louder and louder.
But—the sound is not really a humming. No one else appears to notice, and she pulls at Werner’s jacket.
“Do you hear that?” she asks sharply. “That noise?”
They lift their eyes. Just as the sound becomes a low, rumbling growl, as other eyes begin to turn upward, the crowd seems to take in one shallow, collective breath, a surprised ahhhh! For an interminable second, the intake of breath swallows the roar of the planes. The terrible ah! of recognition sucks every sound and movement into its stunned emptiness—then, commotion and screaming.
The air-raid sirens begin their wailing just as the warplanes swoop over Saargen Square. Airplanes coming from the direction of Peenemünde dot the sky like malevolent birds. An earsplitting shriek and a crash of explosive onto wood, stone, earth, bone. Another crash so loud it cuts through the whistling wind and swallows the sudden sound of screaming. Werner and Bettina fall to the ground. The air instantly goes from fresh and salty to acrid, and it burns right through her nostrils.
Bombs are dropping from the pregnant sky. Werner yells something at her, yanking her arm so sharply it hurts, but she is mesmerized: The mother picnicking with her family is crouching over the little boy. He is lying like an object thrown from a great height, and a leg is missing. The panicked crowd pushes the mother this way and that; she falls onto her side and then gets back on her haunches, her mouth open in an imploring scream. She shakes her child’s shoulders, but he does not respond. The child is dead.
Bettina is catapulted down the steps; she lands heavily at the bottom and lies, inert, on the ground. Her basket is gone. People trample over her; a boot kicks her hand. A woman steps onto her torso as though she is a rolled-up rug laid out for the refuse collectors. But Bettina does not move to save herself. All these years into this interminable war, she is struck by the notion that human life is not only fleeting—a mere blink of an eye—but essentially meaningless, snatched away for no reason and given for no reason. It is the end, just as her father predicted, but not in the way he was hoping. She will die here, in Saargen, on a cool day in March.
Does it matter all that much? She thinks not. Her father is lying in their little cottage, alone, with only weeks or months left to live. Her mother is long gone, dead from influenza. Bettina is already alone in the world. The little boy is dead, Germany is dead because of a madman hell bent on destruction, and soon she will be dead too.
Someone pulls at her, and she peels open her eyes. Werner is grasping under her shoulders, dragging her up on her feet. Her wool stockings are torn, and she has lost a shoe. There is blood on her hand, but she cannot tell if it is her own. Her ears are ringing. Werner takes her hand in his, and she rises unsteadily, holding on to him tightly, and puts one foot in front of the other. They head back up the stairs.