The next day the newspapers spoke of the justified vengeance of an outraged people. The journalists gloated that at last the Jews were receiving the punishment they deserved for years of unspecified abuses against the German people. The editorials warned against the squeamish opinions of people who disapproved of the heroic actions of the mobs. Such liberal opinions were dismissed as delicate and sentimental. The journalists warned their readers to report to the proper authorities any cross attitudes and decried any German who could not recognize the glorious times that they were living in.
Two days later the government levied a fine of one billion marks on German Jews for the destruction of Kristallnacht.
Tens of thousands of Jews were sent to concentration camps—mysterious prisons known in whispers as KZs by the Germans who dared to speak about them. Franka’s father reminded her of the stories he’d heard about the first camp, at Dachau, stories that seemed beyond doubt now. The Nazis had revealed their savage nature but did not lose support. The Hitler Youth still sang their songs as they jogged through town. The members of the League of German Girls still sowed their swastika flags and giggled about “handsome Adolf,” the monster in chief. The lackeys of the National Socialists still strutted through town with their heads held high and their Nazi badges shining in the sun. Millions throughout the country still greeted one other by saluting the führer. The German people still seemed entranced by the hold the Nazis had taken of them.
Life went on, despite the injustices and horrors that were now the daily currency in Germany. Franka had finished her training and been offered a job in Munich. Somehow, people were still graduating college, looking for jobs, and contemplating moving between cities. With everything that the Nazi regime had imposed upon them, the Gerber family was still trying to function, but even that was about to change.
Fredi was getting worse.
At the end of that summer in 1939, they talked to him about the hospital—they couldn’t avoid the topic any longer. The sun was setting, beaming ethereal light over an infinite horizon, casting the leaves of the forest all around them in gold. Fredi was in his wheelchair. He was almost as tall as Thomas now, but his limbs were thin and bent, his legs almost beyond use. He was playing with a toy train, running it on his thighs. His choo-choo noises were interrupted every few seconds by the sounds of his own chuckling.
“Fredi?”
“Father, what’s wrong? Why are you crying?”
“It’s because I love you so much, Fredi.” He turned to look at Franka. “We both do.”
“More than anything else in the world,” she said.
“And I love you,” he said.
Franka hugged him, felt his spindly arms gripping her and his soft kiss upon her cheek. She tried to speak but couldn’t get the words out. She couldn’t believe they were giving charge of Fredi to an institution. She couldn’t fathom that this would have happened if their mother were still alive.
“How do you feel?” Thomas said.
“I feel great.” Fredi smiled.
“Your arms—they don’t hurt?”
“No, I feel good.”
Fredi was always happy. It was all he knew. The world could not sour the wonder of his spirit. His smile remained through the pain, and through the hospital stays, through things that almost no one else could endure. His smile never left. Everyone knew him on his all-too-regular visits to the hospital. The nurses adored him. Some of the doctors—the ones with Nazi badges on their lapels—stopped just short of openly dismissing him, of expressing their resentment at having to treat someone that the government had deemed an “idiot” and “unworthy of life.”
Franka knelt beside him. The sun was still warm, even as the dusk settled in. He seemed to know something was going on. His intuition was sharper than hers. She went to speak, but he beat her to it.
“Franka, I love you. You’re so beautiful. You’re the best big sister.”
“We need to talk to you about something,” she managed.
Thomas knelt beside her.
“You’ve been getting sick more and more lately,” she said, “and Daddy doesn’t have the time that he needs to look after you anymore.”
“I’m so sorry, Daddy.”
“Oh no, don’t be sorry, Fredi, never. It’s not your fault. You’re the best boy in the world—the best son a father could ever have. We’re so lucky to have you, our own angel on this earth.”
“You love the nurses, don’t you?” Franka said.
“Oh yes, they’re so nice.”
“And you know that I’m going to be a nurse, just like they are?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been offered a fantastic opportunity—a job in a hospital in Munich. You know Munich, where Mummy was from?”
“Yes, I remember the lollipops we bought there.”
Thomas laughed. “Yes, when we visited two years ago. We bought lollipops and ate them as we sat in the park.”
“Well, I’m going to work there.”
“It’s far on the train.”
“Yes, it is—too far from here. I’m going to have to find somewhere to live there.”
“You’ll be the best nurse in the whole hospital. You’re going to help so many people.”
“I hope so.” It was hard to get the words out.
Thomas spoke up. “The nurses and doctors in our hospital want you to come and live with them, in a special house, where they can take better care of you.”
“Daddy can’t look after you alone anymore.”
“Will you visit?” Fredi asked. “You’re not going to leave me there?”
“Oh no. Never. I’ll come every day, and Franka as often as she can, whenever she’s home.”
“Nothing’s going to change,” Franka said. “We’ll still love you just as much as we always have. We’re still going to be together. We’ll all live together again soon, and forever.”
Franka thought about those words many times after she said them. Fredi accepted them, as he accepted anything she said, with a smile and an open heart. But time and circumstance made her a liar, and that was the last thing she ever wanted to be, especially to him. Fredi moved into the home the week after. They left him with the nurses and walked away empty and alone. Franka moved to Munich on the third of September, the day Britain and France declared war on Germany. By the time she arrived at the platform in Munich, her father’s prophecy had come true, and the mad berserker fury of the ancient warriors was unleashed on Europe once more.
Chapter 7
The hurricane of agony had reduced to a gale-force wind. It was still the first thing he felt when his eyes opened with the coming of the morning. He reached across for the bottle of aspirin, popping a couple of tiny white pills into his mouth before downing them with water so cold that he was amazed it didn’t have a layer of ice across the top of it. He wondered about the bottle. Was it some kind of Nazi truth serum? It hardly mattered. Submission to her was the only option. He needed her. There was no other way.