The Darkest Canyon Read online

  “What? Why?” Gretchen took Hilde’s hand. “Is something wrong between you and Axel?”

  “Can I be honest? More honest than I have ever been with anyone? I would only tell you this because you’re my best friend.”

  “Of course, you can tell me anything. You know you can.”

  “I am still not certain that I really want to marry Axel. And I think the problem is that . . . I never really got over Hann. You know that I loved Hann, Gretchen. I guess I still do. I know he never loved me. But I love him.”

  “I know you liked him a lot. But he was more of a fantasy. If Axel wants to marry you, he is in love with you. That makes him a much better choice, doesn’t it?”

  Hilde shook her head. Then she said, “He is in love with me. I know he is. And I know that Hann was in love with that Jew bitch, Thea. But I can’t help my feelings for Hann. Even though I haven’t seen him in a long time, my feelings refuse to go away.”

  Gretchen understood this better than she wanted to express. When she and Eli had been apart for several years, her feelings for Eli had not diminished. So how could she judge Hilde for holding a torch for Hann? “Maybe you shouldn’t rush into marriage. Maybe you’re right; maybe you should wait until you find someone who makes you feel the way Hann did. Still, Hilde, it is said that love can develop over time.”

  “I don’t know if this will make sense to you. But I like everything that Axel brings to the marriage. I like his position in the SS. He earns a good living, and when we walk into a restaurant together, he makes a very nice appearance in his well-tailored uniform. He is also very kind to me, and well, I am lonely. My mother and I were never close. So, except for you, I haven’t ever felt like I had any family. Would you believe that I have started to really like the idea of having a child. I know, I never wanted one. But as I am getting older and I see women pushing carriages, I wonder if a baby might be the key to happiness.”

  “Perhaps you will learn to love Axel,” Gretchen said, and again the guilt came over her. She liked Hilde, and Hilde was her friend. But she had never felt as close to Hilde as Hilde felt to her. And she was secretly hoping that a husband might occupy more of Hilde’s time and bring out a softer side in her.

  “I think I will enjoy our life together. I know I will love being invited to galas where there will be high officials from the Nazi Party. And there is no doubt in my mind that Axel will be a good father. We’ve talked about children. He is pure Aryan, comes from a good pure bloodline. And as you know, that is so important for the future of our fatherland. And I would never have gotten this interview without Axel’s influence. I must admit, I am kind of thrilled to be interviewed for such a good paying, steady job. Quite frankly, I’m sick of the factory with its low pay and lack of opportunity to earn more. I feel so unimportant and disposable there. I hope that I am not hurting your feelings.”

  “My feelings, why?”

  “Well, because you work at the factory as well.”

  “Nonsense. You’re absolutely right about the factory. The employees are disposable and the pay is lousy. But it’s a job and I am comfortable there. So what is this place where you are going for your interview?”

  “Axel described it as a camp for women. I am not sure what exactly that means. But he told me about the pay. And I love that it’s lots of money. He also said that there would be plenty of food. Who could complain, right? And besides, if I get the job, I would see him more often. He was happy about that. He said his superiors will allow him to visit me at Ravensbrück. Everything sounds good. Except for how much I will miss you. I’ll come home as often as I can. I promise. Besides, once I have been working at this job for a while and I’ve proved my worth, I could ask my superiors if they would consider hiring you.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I want to stay here, at my apartment in Berlin. When my father comes home this is where he will return to. I don’t want him to come home to an empty house. I’m sure you understand.”

  “I was hoping that you wouldn’t say that.” Hilde smiled. “But I kind of assumed you would. I know how you are about your father.”

  Gretchen smiled. “Yes, well, when he returns he will need me. I think about him every day. And I worry. I keep hoping to hear news from him. So I must wait. But if you’re hired, and I know you will be . . .” Gretchen smiled. “You must take the job. It will be good for you. Do you think it’s like a women's prison?”

  “I’m not sure what it is exactly. I’ll see when I get there. All I know is the pay and benefits are good. And Axel says I’ll even get real coffee, sometimes.”

  “I feel so sorry for the poor women in that place.”

  “Remember, they are enemies of the state. They are getting what they deserve. Anyway, will you miss me, Gretchen?”

  “Of course I’ll miss you,” Gretchen said. She would miss the food that Hilde brought. And she would sometimes even miss the conversations.

  There was a loud noise as if something had fallen.

  “What was that? It sounded like it came from below. I think I remember that you have a basement. Don’t you?” Hilde asked.

  Oh my God, Gretchen thought. Eli or Rebecca must have dropped something. “Oh, I’m sure it’s nothing. It happens sometimes. It’s just rats in the basement.” Gretchen’s voice was high and shaky.

  “Are you sure? Do you want me to go and check?”

  Gretchen’s heart was pounding out of her chest. “Oh no. You don’t want to go down there. Rats bite and they have rabies.”

  “I would do it for you,” Hilde said.

  Gretchen forced herself to smile. “You’ve done enough by bringing me all this wonderful food. How can I ever thank you?” Gretchen tried to hide the fear in her voice. Then in an effort to distract Hilde she added, “Your hair looks wonderful, by the way. It’s almost dry. And it looks much lighter than it did when it was wet.” She knew she couldn’t trust Hilde. But she wanted to believe that somewhere inside Hilde was a good person. She wanted to believe that Hilde only joined the Nazi Party because she wanted to belong to something, to be a part of something. After all, Hilde had always been an outcast. But even as Gretchen tried to rationalize and trivialize Hilde’s exuberance for the Nazi Party, she couldn’t help but remember what Hilde had done to Thea to punish her because Hann was in love with her.

  “No need to thank me. You’re my best friend, Gretchen. No one in my entire life has ever been as kind to me.” Hilde smiled broadly. Then she got up and walked over to the mirror. “You’re right. My hair does look good. I look so Aryan. Like a Valkyrie, like the perfect Nazi woman.”

  CHAPTER 2

  After Hilde left, Gretchen closed the door behind her, leaned against the wall, and took a deep breath. She sighed with relief. Safe. She thought. But she couldn’t take any chances. She had to be sure. So she ran to the window as Hilde walked out the door of the apartment building and onto the sidewalk. Hilde pulled her coat tighter around her ample waist. The sun had just begun to set as she turned left at the end of the street and started toward home.

  Gretchen watched her carefully. Her eyelids were twitching, and her throat felt dry and raw with worry. She wanted to run down to the basement to see Eli and talk to him, to get his advice. But she had to wait; she had to be patient. It was imperative that she be sure that Hilde was gone.

  The problem at hand seemed monumental. With Hilde moving out of Berlin they would be losing a large portion of their food source. Gretchen’s rations were small, hardly enough for one, let alone three people. If only she and Eli were alone. She longed to fall into Eli’s arms and let him cradle her, let him hold her. If only she could lean on him, hear his soft voice in her ear assuring her that everything would be all right. But she knew this would not happen because neither Gretchen nor Eli would ever show their feelings for each other as long as Rebecca, Eli’s wife, was present. Even so, just to see him, just to be near him and hear his voice would be a comfort to her.

  Gretchen didn’t know if Rebecca suspected tha
t she and Eli were attracted to each other. They did their best to deny their feelings or at least to hide them, not only from Rebecca but also from each other. And strangely enough, Rebecca never asked any questions the night following the horrors of Kristallnacht, when Gretchen took them in. If she wondered how Eli and Gretchen knew each other, she never mentioned it. She was always respectful to Gretchen, constantly thanking Gretchen for everything.

  If Gretchen’s father had not been in the army, she would not have been able to hide Eli and Rebecca. But with him gone, the apartment was hers, and no one could tell her what to do.

  Even so, she missed her father terribly. The last letter she had from him had been about the Nazi takeover of Poland. He’d seemed so frightened, and she knew he wished to come home. But his letter made it clear he was unable to. It was heartbreaking for her, each day, wondering if he was safe and not knowing if he was dead or alive.

  And to make matters worse, Gretchen was anxious. How were she, Eli, and Rebecca going to acquire enough food to sustain them? Gretchen forced herself to wait for five additional minutes after she saw Hilde disappear around the corner. Once she was certain that Hilde was gone, she jumped up and closed all the curtains. She moved the rug and opened the trapdoor to the basement. She quickly picked up the candle in its holder and lit it. Then after pulling the trapdoor closed after her, Gretchen began to descend the rickety staircase.

  The basement was dark, musty, brutally cold, and deadly silent.

  “It’s me. Is everything all right? I heard a noise down here.”

  “Yes, I’m sorry. It was me,” Eli said as he came out of the shadows, an old blanket covering his shoulders. “I tripped and knocked over my books.”

  “Hilde was here. She came to see me. She brought us food.”

  “Oh no! Did she hear the noise?” Rebecca asked, her teeth chattering as she too came into the light of Gretchen’s candle. She was covered in several blankets.

  “Yes, she heard the noise, but I told her that we had rats in the basement.”

  “Do you think she believed you?” Eli asked, his voice soft but trembling with concern.

  “Yes, I think everything is all right. I don’t think she suspects anything. However, we three need to talk. We have a problem,” Gretchen said as she placed the candle in it’s brass holder in the middle of the cold concrete floor. Then she sat down beside it.

  Eli and Rebecca gathered around the candle and sat. “What is it?” Eli asked.

  “Hilde is probably going to be leaving Berlin. She has an interview for a job in a little town that’s north of here, so she won’t be coming by to visit. She brought a bag of food today. But once she moves we are going to have to find a way to survive without the extra food she has been providing.”

  “Are you sure she’ll get the job?” Eli asked.

  “I’m fairly certain she will.”

  “I have an idea. This is something I have been thinking about,” Rebecca said. “I have very fair skin, light blonde hair, and blue eyes. If I could get some fake papers, I could get a job.”

  The marriage between Rebecca and Eli was an arranged marriage. Rebecca had grown up believing that her life’s purpose was to serve her husband, to have a family, and to care for her home. When she and Eli wed, she was afraid of displeasing him, so she kept her head down and never spoke her mind. Many couples they knew who were in arranged marriages found love with their spouses. This was not the case for Eli and Rebecca. As life unfolded for both of them, they discovered that, although their feelings for each other were not those of great lovers, they did have a special bond of deep friendship.

  Still, when Rebecca was a child, she’d dreamed of finding her own bashert, the man whose soul was the other half of her own soul. She loved the religious story of the twin souls she’d once read. The story said that in the beginning of time, God had divided souls in half, and then sent them to earth where they would occupy bodies and go in search of their other halves. Somewhere, out in the vast and mysterious world, Rebecca believed that her twin soul was searching for her as much as she was for him. So, when she saw the way Eli looked at Gretchen and the way Gretchen’s eyes lit up when she gazed at Eli, although she never told anyone, Rebecca knew Gretchen was Eli’s bashert. And this she accepted as God’s will.

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to go out and get a job, Rebecca. It’s just too dangerous,” Eli said, shaking his head “If you’re caught it would be disastrous.”

  “But I don’t see any other way,” Rebecca said. “I insist. I must get work so I can help. But I am going to need papers. And I am assuming that papers will cost money.”

  “Money, we don’t have.” Eli rubbed his chin as he thought. “But as I said before, I don’t like the sound of this. It’s just too risky. Not only will you be putting yourself in peril, but what about Gretchen? The laws are very clear that Germans must not help Jews in any way.”

  “So what else can we do?” Gretchen asked, biting her lower lip. “I could try to find another job where I could work at night.”

  “You work long hours already. I don’t see how it would be possible,” Eli said. “But I have an idea. I have two teeth that have gold fillings. I can pull the teeth, and we can sell the fillings. They are real gold. They will buy some food. It’s not a permanent solution. However, it will help.”

  “No,” both women answered in unison.

  “Please, Eli, don’t do that,” Gretchen said. Her hand went to her throat as she felt the bile rise. “That’s not necessary.”

  “Gretchen is right. You can’t do that to yourself. Besides, you could get an infection, and that would be worse for all of us. The very thought of it is horrific. I still think the best thing for all of us would be for me to get a job. If I have papers I can pass as a pure German. I’ll be able to get a ration card. Then the three of us can get by on the rations allotted for two people,” Rebecca said.

  “It might be the only choice we have, Eli,” Gretchen said.

  “I don’t know,” Eli said, shaking his head as he gazed down at the floor. Then he continued. “I don’t know what to do. I should be taking care of the both of you. Yet I can’t. There is nothing I can do for either of you. I feel so helpless.”

  “Eli . . .” Gretchen said, “don't do this, please. It’s not your fault. You’re doing the best you can.”

  Rebecca watched the two of them, but she said nothing.

  “Why don’t we all sleep on it. We can each give the problem some thought during the night. Perhaps we’ll come up with some kind of plan,” Rebecca offered.

  “Yes, let’s do that,” Gretchen said.

  “All right,” Eli agreed.

  * * * * *

  Once Gretchen was upstairs she carefully covered the trapdoor with the rug. Then she took a quick bath and went to bed. But she couldn’t sleep. She lay in bed thinking and shivering from the cold. It was still chilly upstairs even though she’d turned on the gas heater. But it was miserably cold in the basement where there was no heat at all. Poor Eli and Rebecca. She'd given them all the blankets she owned. Gretchen remembered that tonight, when she saw Eli, he had only one blanket across his shoulders. He’d given the rest to Rebecca. That was what she loved about him; he was truly a kind and gentle soul, always putting others needs before his own. If only I could bring them upstairs and put them in Father’s room. They are freezing down there. But she knew that she dared not. Hilde might return, unannounced, knock on the door, and demand to be allowed in immediately. She’d done this many times before. Or a neighbor might see an extra shadow on the window curtains. Everything was dangerous.

  Gretchen tossed and turned, drifting in and out of fitful sleep until it was almost dawn. Then she got out of bed and headed into the bathroom to wash her face and brush her teeth. There on the cabinet, next to the sink, she found an envelope. It was addressed to her. She felt a bolt of fear go through her as she tore it open. A Star of David on a gold chain, fell onto the floor. She picked it up
and held it in her hand. Then she swallowed hard and began to read.

  "My Dearest Gretchen,

  By the time you read this I should be well on my way out of the city. Since I know you as no one else knows you, I can already see how upset you are going to be that I have gone. I am so sorry. The last thing I would ever want to do is hurt you. However, I know that my decision to leave is the best thing I can do. I have given this much thought, and I feel that you and Rebecca will have a better chance of surviving without me. The two of you don’t eat much and can probably manage on one share of rations. And although I tried to control my appetite, I know you two were constantly making sacrifices to be sure I always had enough to eat.

  I don’t want this. My job as a man is to provide for and look after those I love. However, with the way things are, I’ve been reduced to a pathetic coward hiding in your basement. Let’s face it, the Nazis have stripped away my dignity and made me feel like less of a man. I am unable to do anything for either you or Rebecca. All I am is a weight around your neck. I require too much food. And I have little to offer in return. The necklace inside of this letter was a gift to me from my father for my Bar- Mitzva. It is solid gold. I knew if I tried to give it to you, you would have refused to take it. Now you will have no choice. Please, accept it and sell it. Use the money to buy food.

  I want you to know how grateful I am to you for taking Rebecca and I in. Rebecca is a good person, with a big heart. I know she cares deeply for you, and even though I believe she has suspicions about you and I, she regards you as a good friend. After all, she and I have never had a real marriage and we both accept that. Together, I believe that you and Rebecca can survive this. Take care of her for me, Gretchen. You are strong and she will need you.