WEDNESDAY, JUNE 8, 1938
Ten o’clock sharp. Peter slid the essays into a folder, alphabetized and graded, with the scores entered in his grade book.
He leaned back in his desk chair. Golden lamplight shone around his apartment, on his neat little boxes and folders. Made him want to mess things up to prove Evelyn wrong. Except it wouldn’t convince her.
And it would drive him crazy.
Rain pattered on the window. Peter put the essay folder in his attaché case for Friday’s class, and he added a folder of homework to grade at the café in the morning.
He paused with his thumbs on the brass clasps. Perhaps he shouldn’t go to the café anymore. His pursuit had labeled him a hunter, determined to trap her.
“Cage her,” he said. That was the phrase she’d used.
Who would do such a thing? And why? Independence and drive were what made her Evelyn. What made her beautiful. So beautiful he’d almost kissed her at the Partnach Gorge. For one heady moment, he’d thought she’d welcome a kiss. Now he knew she would have kneed him in the groin.
“Cage her.” He scratched at his scruffy jawline.
He hadn’t asked her out since that day, almost two weeks earlier. For her to see he wasn’t a hunter, he had to call off the hunt.
Of course, for her to see that, she actually had to see him. Tomorrow he’d go to the café. He snapped his briefcase shut and turned off his desk lamp.
The phone jangled, and he frowned at it. Who would call so late?
He picked up the receiver. “Hallo?”
“Otto here. Great news. I’m calling everyone in the league.”
Peter eyed his bed and his nightstand. He liked to read for half an hour before bed. This had better be great news indeed. “What’s happening?”
“You remember how Hitler was in Munich a few days ago? Well, the Führer saw that monstrosity, the so-called Great Synagogue at the corner of Maxburgstrasse and Herzog-Max-strasse, impeding traffic to his beautiful new House of German Art.”
Peter’s fingers curled around the armrest.
“Tomorrow it will be demolished.” Excitement lifted Otto’s voice. “By order of the Führer. Today they told those filthy Jews, to give them time to clear out. More time than I would have given them. Tomorrow morning, down it comes. Soon we will have a new parking lot in its place. A great day for Germany.”
A hard lump filled Peter’s throat. He’d never heard Otto speak like that. How could such vile thoughts live in the head of a man he liked?
Otto groaned. “I want to be there tomorrow, but I teach two classes.”
Peter shoved down that lump. “You must be in class. To teach.”
“Ah well. There will be other days. I must call Klaus now. Good-bye.”
Peter sat like stone, the receiver clamped to his ear. More injustices. It was supposed to stop by now.
How could he have been so blind? Evelyn saw. She saw through them from the start.
Evelyn! She’d want to be there, to write the story, to report the injustice.
He slammed down the receiver, picked it back up, and dialed her number.
“Hallo?” The woman didn’t sound like Evelyn—or Libby.
“I would like to speak to Fräulein Brand.”
“I am the cleaning lady. Fräulein Brand is not here. May I take a message?”
Strange time for a cleaning lady to work. “Yes, please. Tell her—no, never mind.”
He hung up. He stood. He paced.
How could he stand by and do nothing? But what could he do, one man against a government order and heavy machinery and dozens of workmen?
Peter shoved aside his curtain and peered into the night, into the rain.
Those poor people. They had so little time to empty the synagogue. What sort of items would they have? Sacred scrolls and candlesticks and records of congregational life for generations. Their heritage.
He could help save that heritage. He marched to the door and threw on his hat and raincoat without bothering to put on his suit vest and jacket.
Peter climbed into his Opel and pulled away from the curb. As he drove the half mile to the synagogue, the windshield wipers beat in time with his heart.
How could they tear down a house of worship? Would they demolish St. Peterskirche? The Frauenkirche? He didn’t know anymore.
He turned onto Maxburgstrasse. Up ahead, a crowd had gathered. Rain slashed through the faint light of the streetlamps.
Peter parked his car and jogged down the street. About two dozen men stood outside the massive old stone building, shouting and jeering.
Peter’s pace slowed. Weak. Gangly. Like the night Father died.
A sharp pain in his nose.
No. He wasn’t that weakling anymore.
He ran harder. This was why he lifted dumbbells and did calisthenics every morning.
Raindrops on his glasses distorted his vision, but he kept running.
On the sidewalk by a side door to the synagogue, two men hunched, one shielding the other, while men kicked and hit them.
“Lord, help me.” Peter ran up to them. “Halten Sie! Halt!”
The thugs looked over. Hitler Youth. Schoolboys.
Peter grabbed the biggest boy by the collar and jerked him away. “How dare you defy Party orders?”
“I—I’m not.” The kid’s voice squeaked.
Peter shoved him aside and yanked another boy away. “The order was to tear down the synagogue—in the morning. And to let them clear out tonight. Not to beat people up.”
Someone pushed Peter from behind. “Ah, let them have their fun.”
Peter wheeled around and glared at the man, shorter than Peter but powerfully built. “Will you tell the Führer his order was defied? Will you?”
Fear skittered across the man’s face. “Nein.”
Inside the open doorway, a line of men and women held boxes and candelabra and scrolls.
Peter turned to the mob and motioned them back. “Back away. Let them leave. Party orders. You’ll have your fun tomorrow. Don’t make trouble for yourselves.”
Thank goodness, it worked. Mumbling, the crowd dispersed and slunk into the night.
“Herr Lang?” One of the men on the ground looked up.
“Herr Gold!” Peter fell to his knees beside them. “Are you all right?”
Herr Gold shoved up from his position shielding an elderly man. “I’ll be fine, but the rabbi . . .”
The rabbi lay moaning, blood glistening in the lamplight.
Peter laid a hand on the man’s shoulder. “Mein Herr? Can you walk?”
“I—I think so.”
“Let’s get you to safety. My car’s one block down.” He nodded to Herr Gold, and the two men helped the rabbi to his feet.
As the synagogue community hurried their treasures out into the night, Peter made his way down the sidewalk. The rabbi slumped against his side, and Peter tightened his grip. “Only a little farther. Where’s the nearest hospital?”
“Nein,” Herr Gold said. “I do not trust them. Take him home. We’ll call a Jewish doctor.”
Peter’s stomach tightened. Surely doctors would be above cruelty, but everything was upside down in the world.
The rabbi lifted his bearded chin to Peter. “You are Jewish?”
“Nein. I’m a Christian.”
The rabbi stiffened and pulled away.
“Nein,” Herr Gold said. “Herr Lang is a good man. We can trust him.”
“This! This is what Christians do.”
Everything in Peter wanted to protest. No, this was not what Christians did. Not what Christians were supposed to do. And the Nazis didn’t even claim to follow Christ. But Peter had no right to argue with what the rabbi had experienced at the hand of Aryans.
Two storm troopers approached, fists rising, an evil light in their eyes.
“Nein!” Peter thrust out his arm like a linebacker on the charge. “Party orders! They are free to leave. Do not interfere.”
They stepped aside and glowered. “Jew-lover!”
A spitting sound. It hit Peter’s shoulder. He didn’t care.
“Here’s my car.” He shifted the rabbi’s weight to the café owner and opened the back door.
Peter and Herr Gold helped the rabbi lie down on the backseat, then they slid into the front seat. Peter hit the gas before the storm troopers could change their minds.
“You Christians . . .” The rabbi’s voice drifted over the seat, strangely forceful in its weakness. “You say you read the same holy Scriptures we do, but you do not follow them. ‘Higgid leka adam mah-tov; umah-Yahweh doresh mimmeka, ki im-asowt mishpat, veahavat hesed, vehatzneah leket im-elohikah.’”
Peter shot a questioning glance to Herr Gold. “What does that mean?”
“It comes from the Prophet Micah.” Herr Gold pressed his handkerchief to a gash on his cheek. “In German it says, ‘It is known to you, O man, what is good, and what does Jehovah require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk in humility with Elohim?’”
Peter had heard that verse, although he didn’t know the reference.
To do justice. He believed in that, worked for it.
But kindness? Mercy? Forgiveness?
“Oh, Lord,” he whispered. “Where have I gone wrong?”