“Who else?”
Walter turned his back on the Taubers. “There is one more person missing, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Their daughter, Eliška Tauber.”
She had to leave. Magda had to leave the Koenigs, the villa. Proverbs 7:22. Koenig suspected her, and she would be in his merciless grip. But first she had to warn the very people she was here to protect, who were counting on her, of the raid Koenig had ordered. Was there time?
Magda hurried into the kitchen. She could not just leave. He would come after her.
“Jana—” But the kitchen was empty.
She wanted to scream, to throw the food that was left on the counter. But Jana suddenly came through the service door. Magda ran to her.
“The proverbs. I have to get out of here. He knows.”
Jana made the sign of the cross. Something thudded above them, and Magda clutched Jana’s hands. Then the footfalls of someone running down the stairs. Jana moved to the door that led into the corridor. Magda cried for her to stop.
“Magdalena!” He was calling her again. He was commanding her to come out.
“What’s happened?” Jana asked.
But when Magda stepped out into the corridor, Koenig was anything but furious. He looked stricken.
“My wife…” He raised a shaking finger toward the stairwell. “I think it’s time.”
Magda snorted, the relief bubbling up into uncontrollable giggles.
He stared at her in disbelief.
Jana pushed past him, urged Magda to come. They hurried upstairs, knocked, and burst in to find Frau Koenig doubled over by the bedpost, the hem of her robe soaked. Silently, Magda praised heaven above.
“Frau Koenig, take my hand,” Jana said. “Now.” The cook led the woman to the bed, but Frau Koenig resisted.
“I can’t. I can’t,” she breathed and doubled over again, wailing as another contraction gripped her.
Somewhere, the telephone rang.
Magda helped Jana get Frau Koenig into the bed.
Jana clutched Magda’s hand. “Go fetch Eva. Go fetch the midwife.” She looked meaningfully at her.
Get out. Get out of this house now.
Frau Koenig moaned again. She extended a hand to Magda. “Don’t leave me.”
That hand, that beckoning hand. That plea. Like Eliška. Magda backed out of the room and made her way down the stairs.
In his office, Wolfgang Koenig pulled the telephone away from his ear. “What is it? Is she having the baby?”
“Yes,” Magda said. Fury hammered in her resolve. “It’s coming. I’ll be back with the midwife.”
8
June 1942
The longer she delayed the midwife, the greater the possibility Frau Koenig might have difficulties, might lose the baby inside her. That was Magda’s other chance. She could avoid going through with what she otherwise had in mind to do. Crickets chirped around Magda, and the air was scented by sunbaked cedar bark as Magda scribbled VGP onto the tiny piece of paper. Next she wrote, Nimrod is watching the stars. She rolled it up tight, removed the things she had hidden before, and stuck the message into the hollowed-out knot two feet from the ground. Then she purposefully left the service gate ajar.
If Aleš was watching, if he was hovering nearby, he would know it was an emergency. There would be no dinner party, no information about any reprisals the Nazis planned after Heydrich’s death, but this was much more urgent, and now it was also personal.
She mounted the bicycle and coasted downhill. It was still light out. She pedaled to the road leading to the cathedral’s square. Before her, the Elbe River and the bridge. The clock tower in the square rang eight o’clock. Less than three-quarters of an hour since Koenig gave the order for the hunt. The Nazis were fast—they were well organized—but not that fast. She had just enough time. She steered left, crossed the quarters, and passed beneath the bridge that connected the north tower to the main cathedral. She leaned the bicycle against the wall and tested the door. Locked.
Panic seized her. The cemetery gate opened, and Deacon Gabriel stepped out, closing it behind him. She ran to him. He recognized her.
“I need to confess my sins,” she urged as he walked to the church with her. “It’s been eight days since my last confession.”
He let her in, led her to the entry of the catacombs, and she ran down the stone steps. He stayed to keep watch. The key was above the sconce. Her hands shook, but she finally managed to insert it into the padlock. Inside the crypt, she lifted the coffin and looked in.
“What are you doing here?”
Magda screamed.
Renata stepped out of the shadows.
“Jesus,” Magda said. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.”
Renata put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m a Catholic now. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”
Magda threw her arms around her, laughing and crying at the same time.
“Magda,” she heard Renata say, “breathe. What’s happened?”
“There’s something I need from the Taubers’ possessions, and then you, or someone, you have to go across the bridge. You have to get to the convent.” And then because Magda didn’t know how else to explain why, she shook Renata’s shoulders. “Nimrod!”
“Leutnant,” Koenig barked.
Walter snapped to attention.
“Who else?”
Walter turned his back on the Taubers. “There is one person missing, Herr Obersturmbannführer. Their daughter, Eliška Tauber.”
As if Walter himself had rammed the butt of a rifle into her gut, Magda doubled over. Jana jerked her back upright, and Magda gasped. Walter’s eyes narrowed and froze just before they met hers. The shake of his head was almost imperceptible, but she saw it. Magda saw it.
Koenig noticed everything, except for Frau Tauber’s figure beneath the suit coat thus far. He faced Magda, cocked his head slowly, as if setting sights on her. “You.” He pointed. “Where is the daughter?”
Ruth Tauber moaned, and Magda saw how she meant to charge Walter, or perhaps Magda, but Dr. Tauber threw his arms around her and pulled his wife back against him. One of the policemen whipped Magda around and shoved her toward the house.
“Not her! Please not her!” Ruth Tauber wailed.
What did she mean? Who was “her”? Magda? Or Eliška?
The policeman jammed something
