• “Frau Holtzapfel, we’ll die if we stay here.”
• “You still have one son left.”
• “Everyone’s waiting for you.”
• “The bombs will blow your head off.”
• “If you don’t come, I’ll stop coming to read to you, and that means you’ve lost your only friend.”
She went with the last sentence, calling the words directly through the sirens. Her hands were planted on the table.
The woman looked up and made her decision. She didn’t move.
Liesel left. She withdrew herself from the table and rushed from the house.
Rosa held open the gate and they started running to number forty-five. Michael Holtzapfel remained stranded on Himmel Street.
“Come on!” Rosa implored him, but the returned soldier hesitated. He was just about to make his way back inside when something turned him around. His mutilated hand was the only thing attached to the gate, and shamefully, he dragged it free and followed.
They all looked back several times, but there was still no Frau Holtzapfel.
The road seemed so wide, and when the final siren evaporated into the air, the last three people on Himmel Street made their way into the Fiedlers’ basement.
“What took you so long?” Rudy asked. He was holding the toolbox.
Liesel placed her bag of
books on the ground and sat on them. “We were trying to get Frau Holtzapfel.”
Rudy looked around. “Where is she?”
“At home. In the kitchen.”
In the far corner of the shelter, Michael was cramped and shivery. “I should have stayed,” he said, “I should have stayed, I should have stayed ….” His voice was close to noiseless, but his eyes were louder than ever. They beat furiously in their sockets as he squeezed his injured hand and the blood rose through the bandage.
It was Rosa who stopped him.
“Please, Michael, it’s not your fault.”
But the young man with only a few remaining fingers on his right hand was inconsolable. He crouched in Rosa’s eyes.
“Tell me something,” he said, “because I don’t understand ….” He fell back and sat against the wall. “Tell me, Rosa, how she can sit there ready to die while I still want to live.” The blood thickened. “Why do I want to live? I shouldn’t want to, but I do.”
The young man wept uncontrollably with Rosa’s hand on his shoulder for many minutes. The rest of the people watched. He could not make himself stop even when the basement door opened and shut and Frau Holtzapfel entered the shelter.
Her son looked up.
Rosa stepped away.
When they came together, Michael apologized. “Mama, I’m sorry, I should have stayed with you.”
Frau Holtzapfel didn’t hear. She only sat with her son and lifted his bandaged hand. “You’re bleeding again,” she said, and with everyone else, they sat and waited.
Liesel reached into her bag and rummaged through the books.
THE BOMBING OF MUNICH,
MARCH 9 AND 10