All God's Children by Anna Schmidt Page B

the bored consulate employee demanded.
    Siggy hesitated, then handed him Beth’s identification papers. Beth faded back into the crowd, afraid the man might look from Siggy to her and realize what had happened—or worse, ask for her papers as well. She hurried after Liesl, who was skipping down the street. “Liesl, wait,” she called even as she glanced back and saw her friend waving to her as the man stood aside and indicated that she should go to the short line of people accepted for going inside.
    That night Beth had told her uncle what she had done. He looked at her with a mixture of admiration and fear. “Replacing your papers will not be so easy,” he had said. “But perhaps…”
    The following day the consulate had been closed for good, and in spite of everything her uncle had tried over the last year, it was clear that any opportunity she might have had for replacing the precious documents had disappeared. Every time she left the apartment, Beth ran the risk of being discovered, of being arrested and taken to who knew where. The least that could happen would be that she would be deported back home to America. The worst? She did not wish to consider the worst.
    Now as the sleet turned to snow, she wrapped her arms tightly across her body and walked quickly across the plaza. This holiday season would take more than the scent of roasted nuts or evergreen branches to lift her spirits. She passed a young couple, their arms around each other as they stumbled out of a beer hall. The man was in uniform, and although that was his only resemblance to Josef, Beth found herself thinking of the handsome doctor, recalling how he had coaxed her into that pirouette and how he always wrapped his arm around her during the air raids.
    As Franz had requested, Josef had gone to stay with a fellow student, and Beth had not seen him but was aware that he had been back to the apartment only once since her aunt and uncle had left for their holiday. He had left a note to say he was missing a certain book and if she found it would she call his friend’s landlady and leave a message for him. She had also noticed that a heavy wool scarf he favored in the colder weather was missing from its usual hook in the foyer.
    And on this cold, silent night as she stood in the city center— Mariensplatz, so named for the large statue of the Virgin Mary in the middle of the square—she realized that she missed Josef. She pulled the pale blue, cable-knit woolen scarf her mother had sent as an early Christmas present higher around her chin and tried to ignore the hollow mocking sound her leather boot heels made on the wet cobblestones as she continued on her way. That sound had been amplified a thousand times over by the passing parade of soldiers routinely marching in lockstep through the streets and into this very square. Day after day and sometimes in the dead of night, they pounded the message of Hitler’s omniscient power into the very soul of Bavaria’s capital.
    Beth forced her thoughts to focus on more pleasant images. She was only a few blocks from home, and for once she would not need to face her aunt’s condemning silence. With no one else at home, there might be enough hot water left to wash away the damp chill that seemed to have found its way into the very marrow of her bones.
    She had spent the evening celebrating a friend’s birthday at the famous Hofbrauhaus beer hall, and in the relief of mindless conversation, good food, and beer she had lost track of time. She had missed the last streetcar, and if she didn’t hurry, she would be out past the government enforced curfew. She longed for the sanctuary of silence that she knew awaited her in the empty apartment, for the peace she always found in taking the time to look deep within herself and seek God’s guidance.
    She turned a corner and heard male laughter. Half a block away, she saw two soldiers sharing a cigarette break under the shelter of the arches of the Neues Rathaus or