Aleš gently pressed the wardrobe closed on Eliška before giving Magda and Samuel a once-over. He dropped onto all fours near the bed and pried open three floorboards. From the bed, he grabbed a thin blanket and stuffed it between the slats.
How long had he been planning this?
“Do the same for Samuel,” he said, taking the box and shoving it deep beneath the floor. “Get some opium on your finger, rub it on his gums. Not too much, but the children must sleep through this.”
Magda grabbed the vial and followed Aleš’s procedure with Samuel, forcing his mouth open and just putting a couple drops onto his gums. The baby’s face scrunched up in protest and turned bright red at the foreign taste. Magda handed him over to Aleš, her empty arms lead.
“What is that?” She pointed to what looked like a pillowcase near the blanket.
“The Taubers’ possessions,” Aleš said.
She remembered the box of silverware he’d carried upstairs the day Dr. Tauber had been banned from the hospital. Aleš pushed things deeper beneath the floor, then lowered Samuel between the slats.
Magda helped place the floorboards back into their position.
Aleš spoke quickly. “It’s jewelry, some valuables, things that they can sell if they―”
Escape this? “How? How did you know?”
Aleš, his forehead gleaming with exertion, looked gravely at her. “We managed papers for them to Switzerland. Next week. Dr. Tauber had these ready and asked me to—”
From the wardrobe, Eliška whimpered, and Magda had to hold herself back from opening it. Instead, she scrambled over to where she knew the girl would be able to hear her.
“What’s wrong, child?”
Thickly, Eliška said, “I feel funny. I want Mama. Where’s Papa?”
“I have to watch after your brother.” Magda’s voice betrayed her despair. “Wait for us. We’ll come get you when it’s…time.”
“Magda, no. Don’t leave me.”
Two floors below them, the barking dogs invaded the house, and heavy boots drummed on the marble foyer. Doors opened and slammed, and something shattered like glass. A shot fired.
Magda rushed to the window. An SS officer, his pistol aimed at the sky, stood in the midst of police and soldiers as the Taubers and their guests were herded onto the lawn before him. There was one familiar figure, and Magda gasped.
“That’s Walter!”
There were shouts coming from the staircase. Aleš grabbed Magda and steered her out the door. On the second floor, they nearly collided with three Waffen-SS soldiers. They were nothing but young boys, newly graduated recruits.
Aleš and Magda did not resist when two of them seized them and marched them down to the foyer and to the veranda doors. Magda winced at the swarm of soldiers ransacking the house. Outside, a pair of soldiers allowed their German shepherds to snarl and bark around the terrified group.
It seems too easy, giving them a feeling of security only to hunt them down.
It’s the way things are done, Magda. It’s how we control the population.
Outside, Dr. Tauber had draped his suit coat over Frau Tauber’s shoulders, and she was pressed up against him, her face a grotesque mask of horror. The SS officer in charge, a man with a square jaw and a face as cold as a steel trap, spotted the soldiers with Aleš and Magda and waved them over. Magda did not recognize him.
“Who else is in the house?” the commander snapped. He turned to Walter behind him. “Lieutenant! Inventory!” His German had a Viennese accent.
Walter scanned the crowd, his eyes grazing over her as she was shoved at gunpoint into the terrified group on the lawn. She sought out Jana, who slipped her hand into Magda’s and held on tightly. Where was Renata? Where had she gone? To her left, Magda felt Ruth Tauber’s eyes boring into her. Magda could not look at her. She would certainly give something away.
“The household staff is all here, Herr Obersturmbannführer,” Walter reported. “Except one.” He showed no reaction to Magda’s shocked expression.
“Who?”
Walter’s eyes skittered over to Aleš. “I’m not sure what her name—”
“Our housekeeper,” Dr. Tauber spoke. “She has the day off today. She is visiting her relatives in Prague.”
“Is that so?” the commander snapped. “If she’s here, we’ll find her. Documents. Check all their identities.”
Calmly, Dr. Tauber reached into the breast pocket of his suit coat, still draped over Frau Tauber, and presented them to the first policeman.
“Obersturmbannführer,” Dr. Tauber called to the commander, “you will find that everyone here is prepared to cooperate. I am the Napola director’s personal physician.”
The commander grazed Dr. Tauber with an indignant look. “The only authority here now is me. And you, your family, and your housekeeper were ordered to report to the resettlement office, with your belongings, for deportation.” He strode over and snatched the Taubers’ papers, opened them, then handed them to Walter. “What is the nature of your assembly here?—that’s what I want to know. Are you conspiring against the Reich?”
Dr. Tauber raised his hands. “Not at all. We were having a birthday celebration.”
“A birthday celebration. Whose birthday is it?” His eyes darted to Frau Tauber, who’d shielded herself behind her husband. “Yours, Frau Tauber?”
Anna Dvorákova, dressed in a fur stole and a dark-green suit, stepped forward. “Mine, Herr Kommandant. It’s my birthday.”
“Herr Kommandant? My name is Koenig, and you will address me as Obersturmbannführer.” He snapped his fingers at a policeman to check Paní Dvorákova’s papers.
The policeman examined them and nodded. “It’s this woman’s birthday today.”
Magda slowly exhaled. What were the chances? Or perhaps—she was piecing together—it was not luck at all.
Now it was Magda’s turn. She handed over her identity card and work permit to a policeman, but she could not stop staring at Walter. Still, he gave no hint of a struggle as the Taubers were marched past him.
“Where are they taking them?” Magda whispered to Jana, but her friend’s look said it all. Across the river. Where else?
“Leutnant,” Koenig barked.
Walter
