SPARROWS CANNOT CATCH ME
By R. H. MURSELL
Copyright © Raymond H. Mursell, 2008
Published by: Crystal Books LLC at Smashwords
All rights reserved except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise), or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the copyright owner.
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This is a work of pure fiction. To create a factual, historical backdrop, certain historical names have been used, although the words and actions attributed to them in this novel are purely the imagination of the author. All other names, characters, and events in this book are purely fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, or events, is strictly coincidental and not intended by the author.
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Cover Design by: Donna M. Mursell
Cover Art: © istockphoto #14662602
Novel edited by: Donna M. Mursell
Visit the author's website: http://www.rhmursell.com
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
To friends and family members who believed in me
when I lost belief in myself.
Special Thanks To:
Donna Mursell, my wife and right hand.
Bruce Glubin, my friend and legal advisor.
Michael Flanders, website design & UK marketing.
Isac Tabib
Lori Wilk
In Memory of:
The many people who suffered and died during this period in history
For Anna
AUTHOR’S NOTE
We enter the finale of this two part story that I created to allow you an opportunity to explore other people’s lives, some still living where others have ‘passed-on’.
To understand Sparrows cannot catch me better, I truly recommend that you first read Sparrows which offers the dramatic initiation for this epic. I do not mention this to sell you a book, but in hope that you may enjoy the complete journey of the story portrayed.
As mentioned in the Author’s Note for Sparrows, I wish to reiterate the following few lines: The story is provocative in nature and has diverse contents and I really do want you drawn into its pages, live the lives of its chronicled characters, become them and transport yourself into another world, a savage world where life and death depends on an instant judgment.
But also, it can be a beautiful world too, it’s already created all we have to do is enjoy it.
So, if you are ready to indulge yourself in this work, only then will you understand and cherish your freedom, like the tiny birds symbolize.
Enjoy your journey, it will last forever.
THE HOME OF GRETAL PROSKE & AMELIA STRITH:
ESSLINGEN, WEST GERMAN
FEBRUARY 21, 1957
Amelia Strith stared into the crackling fire, the heat was warming her face, but still she shivered recalling ghosts from the past. She leaned forward and lethargically poked at the fire that sent sparks spiraling up the chimney.
"I must speak to Gretal, should have told her years ago mmmmm" she muttered pursing her lips tightly deep in thought, having had kept secret what little knowledge she had of David from her eldest daughter, but now she was aging and realized she should confer with Gretal.
"Yes, I will tell Gretal all I know about David tonight……she'll understand," Amelia reassured herself replacing the fire tool on the hearth before leaning back contented, feeling comfortable with her decision.
Amelia had lived with her daughter since leaving Berlin, bringing Helga’s infant with her into Gretal’s small, homely cottage. Naturally Gretal had asked on several occasions how Helga had obtained the child, but respecting her youngest daughter’s confidence she had always offered a vague reply, or changed the subject. Amelia had always hated herself for it as Gretal had been so warm and generous, sharing what little she had in the lean years after the war.
"Gerhardt..... I'm glad you can't see me now, I've gotten so old!" She sighed, remembering their final moments on the platform; she could still see the pallid handkerchief he waived after her, as forlorn as his face.
"Oh Gerhardt!"
She reached into her handbag and fumbled inside producing a faded yellow letter which she opened carefully, the worn pages hung limp in her slightly shaking hands as she read it again, like she had done practically every day since receiving it in 1945. Finally, she carefully returned it to her handbag wiping away a solitary tear, remembering the day it had arrived.
Replying to a hurried knock on the front door Amelia was surprised to find an SS army dispatch rider filling the doorway, he stiffened as she appeared, clicking his heels.
"A parcel for the Colonel!"
"The Colonel?" She queried, taken off guard.
"Yes, Waffen SS Colonel G. Strith, this is his home?” He showed her the label, then she smiled appearing confident, recognizing the handwriting, it was Helga’s.
"Oh the Colonel..... I can't get used to his promotion” she had lied feeling uncomfortable but knowing she had to live the pretense.
“Um, he's resting shall I awaken him to accept it?”
"No, that’s not necessary. Can you make sure he'll receive it soon as he awakens.......It's marked urgent" the soldier frowned.
"Of course she replied. Would you like to come in for a drink perhaps?" Amelia inquired casually.
The man shook his head "Thank you, but no, I have many calls to make."
For several hours, the sealed canvas dispatch bag had sat on the sofa next to her before she plucked up enough courage to open it, although she knew it was from her daughter, the official eagle stamp and a stern warning outlining severe penalties to persons opening the bag other than the addressee had caused her apprehension.
Amelia recalled her relief when, finally, she opened the bag and knew that she was the ‘Colonel’, then smiled mentally praising Helga for her imagination, knowing that communications were collapsing and, she scandalously had concocted the rank of Colonel der Waffen SS, ensuring delivery. Carefully, she had picked through the contents, they had been varied, but to Amelia the most important items had been the two letters from Gerhardt and Helga which she realized, as the years passed, was their last communications to her.
She knew her husband's letter by memory, each word having been carefully scrutinized and cherished over the years. It spoke of his work and colleagues in the hospital, lied about how well their home in Berlin is holding up without any damage from the aerial bombing attacks, then his love for her and their two daughters describing happy times that they had spent together and continued to look forward to seeing her in the not too distant future, and become a family again. Finally he had spoke of Helga and little David, his words had been somber and compelling; 'As you know, Helga remains in uniform here in Berlin, I will stay here with her but I am worried about her safety, should she fail to return, the child must be returned to his real family, if you can find them!'
She always wondered why dear Gerhardt's letter and Helga’s were similar in this respect, had Helga spoken to her father or, did he assume correctly about the end? It seemed that Helga had also included a window into her thinking which sounded so final 'When you find his family Mama, please give them the files that I have sent in this dispatch bag.’
In the early years after the war, when she had vainly waited for Gerhardt and Helga’s return, Amelia had curiously flicked through the Nazi files, hoping somehow, that they may have clues of their whereabouts or even David's parents. But the files showed only grim photographs and cold, foreboding faces with full dossiers of persons with SS credentials, all rubber stamped with the formidable eagled swastika bearing the SS insignias. Plus there were other items, to inhuman for her to stomach so she returned the files into the two inner canvas shrouds which also bore the distinctive stampings, then into the canvas satchel, looped its strap over her shoulder and carried it up the creaking staircase, and concealed in her wardrobe it had remained untouched for over a decade.
At the time she had wondered how Helga had obtained the documents, but had decided to comply with her daughter’s request but, over the years Amelia had basically dismissed the canvas satchel and their sinister contents, until now.
"Mother, how are you?" A voice sounded briskly behind her, distracting the old woman’s contemplation.
“Ah Gretal, hello,” Amelia smiled watching her daughter close the front door from which she had just entered drawing a chilling draft in her wake.
"I have something to tell you" Amelia said, her eyes continuing to absorb her daughter as she joined her mother by the inviting fireplace to warm her hands.
"Oh!" Gretal answered stretching out her hands and rubbing them before the flames. "It sounds mysterious" half patronizing her mother, before walking to the coat-rack to hang up her faded outer coat.
"It's partly to do with my letter.....from your father" the old woman's eyes continued to bathe her daughter as she watched her return and sit next to her.
Gretal had grown accustomed over the years to her mother's moments of depression caused by the loss of her father and sister, also, that her mother spent many hours reliving the past and considered it lamentable, that a woman once so bright and intelligent, could continually fade into her shell, and realized that the letter was the key to her mother’s condition, a key that she had never been privy to. For a while she was angry but over the years she took it for granted, it was just an old woman's link to the departed. But now…..!
"The letter from my father” Gretal asked with anticipation.
“It’s not really about your father, more about Helga and David. I know..... and I'm sorry, but I’ve found it hard to tell you before, you've worked so hard to feed and keep David and me, heaven knows you've had your problems so, in the beginning I purposely kept it from you. As time moved on, I stupidly decided that it was no longer important to you" Amelia said taking her daughter’s hand between hers and patting it.
"Well I can't say that I haven't been curious, but there's a time for everything. So?” Gretal responded, succumbing to the intrigue.
Amelia spoke for a long time, Gretal listened as the crackling flames accompanied her mother’s voice, she told her daughter everything that she knew, finally, like an epitaph she handed the old letter to Gretal.
"It's been my link to the past, maybe now I should live for today, you read it then we'll throw it on the fire, I think that's what your father would have wanted." Amelia said nodding encouragingly.
"For some reason Father seemed to think that Helga wouldn't survive, how strange!" Gretal mentioned thoughtfully looking up from the letter, kicking off her shoes to warm her feet.
"Well, two things come to mind mother, one, what do we tell David? And secondly, what do the files contain. You said you looked at them......is there any clues to the past there?"
Amelia shook her head, "I didn't see any clues, but that was a long time ago now, all I remember is they contained a lot of sadness and hatred. I’m not really sure, it’s been so long, I recall the files mentioned a place called Maidanek, it seems like it's another of those dreadful Nazi death camps!" For a moment the old lady stopped talking to wipe her eyes, the past rushing back at her as she conferred with her daughter.
"I remember they contain countless names that I think were Polish, and details about each person, also dossiers of Germans probably those who worked there, photographs, records and tallies of daily deaths, awful things just awful, I tried to shut them out from my mind. Now, talking to you I remember a little more about them."
For many minutes the women sat thoughtfully looking into the blaze, so much about the death camps had been disclosed since the war had ended, then in the years following there had been countless war trials, imprisonments, and hangings of the guilty. Other than what she read in the newspapers, the subject of Nazi brutality, although terrible, was really unknown, often distant to Gretal who strived to feed and house three growing children, her mother, and herself.
"I hope…..that the world doesn’t think all Germans are purveyors of genocide like the Nazis were!" Amelia said, finally breaking the silence.
"Oh, I think many do" Gretal returned quickly "If they don't think we were at the camps, or knew about them, they will still say we voted Hitler into power so he could do it….I suppose in some ways they are correct, we did God help us, sit back and let him and his cohorts gain our confidence, sadly once he had power there was no stopping him. I hope they will forgive us……one day, God knows we’ve paid enough in blood.”
Amelia nodded at her daughter’s words still looking into the fire pondering on a fear that had haunted her, she hated to mention it, in fact, it had been a primary reason for not confiding in Gretal sooner.
"I hope Helga didn't participate in the....”
“Murder of innocent people?” Gretal concluded Amelia’s words shaking her head, watching her mother roll her sacred letter into a ball between her trembling hands.
"I don't think so mother." Gretal stressed, leaning forward for a moment to poke at the dwindling flames extending the opportunity to think.
"If she did, why would she keep the evidence? Secondly, if she hated Jews why did she take David? I think we have to assume that's where he came from, but let’s keep to the facts. We know that she was a secretary or some form of clerical officer in the Waffen SS, so, she would be privy to these files. Hell, it doesn't make her completely innocent, but knowing Helga I cannot believe she helped in murder, maybe she found out about it and hoped by giving you the files, you can pass them onto people who will help David! Who knows for sure, but I for one will always give my sister the benefit of the doubt."
An interlude commenced with a silent reticence, allowing both women to return their gaze into the flames, their minds locked into previous worlds when life held unexpected joys and sorrows for them, Gretal pulled a handkerchief from her sleeve and patted lightly at her tearful eyes as she began to speak again.
"I thought that after all this time I would no longer have tears, all this talk of war reminds me of poor Stefan, he never saw his second child, then Father and Helga both gone, and for what?”
"I'm sorry that I brought it up Gretal" her mother apologized. "I'm getting older and I didn't want you left with a problem when I, ah….join your papa. Now, if only for Helga’s sake, I feel that I should look for David's family while I'm still able."
Gretal nodded, she understood her Mother, of course she was correct, she would help however possible and she strengthened, forcing away the tears until another time.
"What you've told me about David doesn't change anything Mother, he'll always be welcome here, he is family and if we don't find his real parents he stays with us until he wants to leave, but what do we tell him, we'll have to say some……..”
"Oh……Hello Mother.....Grandmother, what's for dinner I'm starving" a young voice interrupted, standing at the open front door allowing the winter's cold to enter like a sharp knife. The teenager realizing her indiscretion from the looks on the older women’s faces hunched her shoulders, smiled mouthing the word 'sorry', then closed the door quickly behind her to seal off further dispensation of the winter’s icy tentacles.
"I've made a stew Magda, with nice dumplings" Amelia replied smiling at her granddaughter.
"Where's the boys?” Her mother asked, looking at the door expecting another jet of cold air any moment.
"Oh stupid Eugen's been kept back at school again by his teacher for talking in class, David's helping a boy fix his sled, I don't like that kid he used to pull my pigtails now he tries to kiss me" Magda replied hanging her coat.
"Who tries to kiss you, David?" The grandmother asked slightly confused.
"No silly, his friend, if David knew he’d hit him……boy’s!" Magda expressed, her last word held with an inhalation and exhalation of breath which amused the seated women, they smiled at the exuberance of youth allowing the pains of their talk to soften, until they resumed some other day.
THE HOME AND OFFICE OF MARKUS ERLICH:
STUTTGART, WEST GERMAN
MARCH 1957
Gretal rubbed her gloved hands briskly then pulled on the black painted knob, which she hoped would ring a bell somewhere inside the large old building. The early March day was cold, and she turned her attention to her feet stamping them trying to improve their circulation as she waited expectantly for the front door to open.
"Do you think we're doing the correct thing?” Gretal said with a chilled impatience, turning with skeptical concern towards her mother for her reactions.