Behind the Bedroom Wall (4 page)

Frau Rehme shrugged slightly, but Korinna caught the subtle movement and she frowned.

Frau Rehme said, “His speeches are all beginning to sound the same.”

“He repeats himself only because he wants us to remember the important things.”

“What important things?”

“Who our enemies are, of course, and what we can look forward to when Germany wins the war and becomes the power it once was,” Korinna said, repeating the very words her
Jungmädel
leader had said the day before.

“And our Führer is going to do all this?”

“Of course.”

Frau Rehme put down her sewing. “At whose expense? At what cost?”

Korinna stood up. “Mother, I can't believe you're talking like this!”

Frau Rehme gently reached up and took her daughter's hand. “Sit down, Korinna. I love the Fatherland as much as you, if not more because I've been alive longer. But you mustn't follow blindly behind great promises.”

Korinna allowed her mother to pull her down beside her. “Mother, how can you question the Führer? Someone might report you.”

“Is that the only reason it's wrong to question what one man is saying? Fear?”

“It's not fear, Mother,” Korinna said impatiently. “It's love and respect. I have nothing to fear from anyone, because I'm a loyal German, just like you, Mother. And you should never question the Führer, because he's only doing what's best for us.”

Korinna's mother didn't say anything. She picked up her darning and once again began to sew.

Korinna sat silently, watching her mother for a few moments. Finally she said, “Rita is going to tell our leaders about her cousin, Elsa Demmer.”

“Her own cousin,” Frau Rehme said with a sigh, shaking her head.

“Elsa said she felt sorry for our enemies.”

“Who? The English? The French?”

Korinna picked impatiently at a loose thread on the couch. “No, the Jews.”

Suddenly, they heard a muffled crash upstairs. “What was that?” Korinna whispered, afraid to move. She noticed her mother's face looked pale, as though she had put on too much powder.

“Stay here,” her mother whispered firmly. She stood up and walked out of the room.

Korinna heard her mother make her way stealthily up the stairs. Then only silence. Korinna didn't move. She strained her ears to hear anything at all. Had someone managed to break in upstairs? Had someone crept in the front door while they had been listening to the radio?

“Korinna!”

Korinna jumped up when her mother called. She raced upstairs. Her mother stood in the larger bedroom, looking at a fallen brass figurine, which normally sat on her father's desk. She cuddled Korinna's kitten.

Frau Rehme smiled. “This little rascal is into mischief already. I don't think she'll be playing with this statue any more.”

Korinna bent down and picked up the heavy brass figure and placed it back on the desk. Taking the kitten from her mother, she said, “She must be pretty strong to have knocked that thing onto the floor.”

Frau Rehme nodded in agreement.

Just then they heard the back door open.

“Hello,” Herr Rehme called, stomping the snow off his boots. “I'm home!”

Korinna and her mother hurried downstairs to the kitchen.

Frau Rehme reached up to give her tall husband a kiss on his smooth cheek. “Couldn't you have come in the front door where we have a mat for all this snow?”

“The back door was more convenient,” he said shortly. He glanced down at his wife, and she said nothing more about it.

“Hi, Papa,” Korinna said, thinking the back door was rather
inconvenient.
It led out to a narrow back alley, which ran between the tightly packed houses at the edge of the city until it finally emptied out onto a seldomly used road. This road was bordered by
occasional houses on one side and a thick forest on the other, and it led immediately out of the city. “Why did the school have such a late meeting?” she asked.

“How about a kiss first?” her father teased, bending over. “The meeting was nothing, just some things we had to go over,” he said casually.

Korinna took her father's coat. “Was it about Fräulein Meiser?”

“No.” He snapped his scarf over the high back of a kitchen chair and strode into the front room.

Korinna glanced at her mother, who avoided her eyes but took the coat from her arms. She left to hang it up. Korinna followed her father into the front room. He sat in his chair with his feet up on a stool, his head back, eyes closed, and a smoking pipe clamped between his teeth. He should have looked restful, but he didn't. He opened his eyes slightly to look at his daughter as Korinna sat down on the opposite couch.

He removed the pipe from his mouth. “Sometimes it's not good to ask too many questions. You could ask the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

“But I just want to know what happened to Fräulein Meiser. She was my favorite teacher.”

“And she was a good friend,” her father replied. “I'll tell you what little I know, Korinna. But you mustn't talk about her to anyone else. Promise?”

Korinna nodded.

“Last night the Gestapo went to her house to arrest her father. She refused to let him go without her. She went with him.”

Korinna gasped. “You mean she didn't even
have
to go? She
wanted
to?”

“Her father is old. He may be dying. I expect she wants to be with him in case he needs her. Except, I'm afraid she'll find that she'll be separated from her father after all.”

“Why?”

“I doubt they keep the men and women together in those work camps,” Herr Rehme said.

Korinna shook her head sadly. “Then she went for nothing.”

“It wasn't exactly for nothing, Korinna.”

“Then for what?”

Herr Rehme shrugged. “For love? I don't know, Korinna, maybe there's something even more important than that.”

Korinna silently agreed that love was important. It was love for the Fatherland that had made her turn in her notes on Fräulein Meiser last week. And she loved her parents, and she knew her parents loved her. What could be more important than love?

She couldn't imagine.

“Why was Fräulein Meiser's father arrested?” she finally asked.

“I don't know, and I think it's best not to find out,” her father said somberly. Then his face brightened slightly as he smiled at his daughter. “Don't you have any schoolwork to do?”

Korinna stood up. “Yes.” She walked over and gave her father a hug. “I'm glad you're home, Papa.”

“I am too, Korinna.” He gave her a fierce hug. “Now, go do your homework.”

Korinna kissed her mother in the kitchen, then went upstairs. Her kitten was sleeping in the middle of her bed. She stroked the silky head once, then picked up her book bag which sat neatly by the side of her bed. For a moment she just stood there. Hadn't she left her bag next to the
Schrank?
She always left her bag in the same place, next to the wardrobe, not next to the bed. She shrugged. Her mother must have moved it for some reason. If she thought of it, she'd ask her about it later.

She took out her books and sat down quietly at her desk, deciding which subject to tackle first. Then she heard it—a soft rhythmic noise that sounded like something trapped behind her wall. Her heart started to race.

It was the mice in her walls. They weren't gone after all! She turned to her bed and saw her kitten stretching and washing its paws.

Korinna's heart pounded so hard it felt like it was more in the middle of her throat than in her chest somewhere. If only she could find the mouse hole. Her kitten would surely scare the mice away for good!

She decided the noise seemed to be coming from the middle of her wall. Holding her breath, she pushed away from her desk and tiptoed to her wardrobe. She crouched down. The back panel of the
Schrank
almost came down to the floor against the wall. Maybe she'd find a concealed mouse hole back
there, she thought. Carefully, she pressed her shoulder against the heavy wooden piece of furniture. It wouldn't budge. She pushed again. Nothing. It couldn't be that heavy, she thought with despair. She knew if she could just move her wardrobe, she would find the source of her mouse noises.

Korinna straightened up and faced the front of the
Schrank.
She placed one trembling hand on either side of it and pulled. Finally it seemed to be moving! She tugged a little harder, and the wardrobe moved silently away from the wall a bit more, but only on the right side.

The mouse noises stopped. She grabbed her kitten and clutched the squirming animal in her arms. With a thudding heart, she peered around the right backside of the piece of furniture. But there wasn't a little mouse hole leading into the wall—practically the entire wall behind her wardrobe was missing!

Korinna thought her heart would explode in her throat. She dropped her kitten. Frantically she slammed her shoulder against her wardrobe to close up the gaping, black void.

That was no mouse hole—there was something much bigger hiding back there! She had smelled the rank smell of unwashed bodies, and she had seen the pale glow of skin, and the gleam of eyes.

Feet pounded up the narrow stairs, and her parents burst into the room.
“Liebling,
what is it? Stop screaming!” Her mother wrapped her up in her arms.

Korinna took a sobbing breath. She hadn't even realized she was screaming. She pointed a shaky finger. “Back there! Something's back there!”

“Hush, hush,” her mother crooned.

Korinna tried to pull out of her mother's arms. Her father pulled the thick curtain over the window. The room was dark until he lit a couple candles.

Korinna scrubbed away the tears on her cheeks, wondering why her father didn't just turn on the overhead light. “Monsters, Papa! I have monsters behind my wall!” Her stomach churned with fear.

“It's not monsters,
Liebling,”
Herr Rehme said softly. He looked at his wife and his shoulders sagged as though he carried some great weight. “Those are people back there.”

A fierce dread washed over her, strangling her. Korinna gasped for air.

“Jews,” her mother said, still holding her daughter's shoulders. She gave them a little shake. “Did you hear me, Korinna?”

Korinna nodded mutely. Tears burned her eyes, and her fingers ached from clenching them so tightly.

With a heavy sigh, Herr Rehme gently pulled the
Schrank
away from the wall. The candles flickered with the movement. The wardrobe moved silently. Now Korinna could see someone had carefully hinged it to the wall on the left side in such a way that the hinges were invisible from anywhere in her room. Only when someone pulled the wardrobe away from the wall were the hinges visible. Also, the hinges held the wardrobe a millimeter off the floor so its legs wouldn't rub noisily on the wooden boards.

When her father completely “opened” up the wardrobe, Korinna once again stared at the gaping hole in her bedroom wall. Even knowing it was not monsters hiding in the blackness did nothing to calm her heartbeat.

Jews were worse.

Korinna's mother crouched down next to the opening, which was half as tall as the shoulder high wardrobe. Korinna and her father stood behind her.

“Sophie, it's okay. This is Korinna, my daughter,” Frau Rehme said gently.

A pale face, creased with lines of worry and fatigue, inched into the candlelight. Sophie's thin neck
ended in a drab green coat collar, which added a green pallor to her skin. Her dark and suspicious eyes stared up at them. “She's the Nazi?” Her voice came out rough and crumbly, as if she didn't use it much.