Part 25 (1/2)
”She's a mum, so she'll understand. These things happen. She'll thank you for taking such good care of her girls and will be grateful you have brought them this far to safety.”
Annelies stirred and muttered, ”Mutti, Mutti.”
Gisela bent over and kissed the girl on her warm forehead, holding her hand. ”She will be here soon. Very soon.”
Annelies opened her eyes, the usual sparkle missing. ”I wish she would come.”
”Me too. But she will be here before you know it.”
She prayed her words were true. Reality told her they were false.
An air-raid siren picked that moment to screech.
She glanced at the two sick girls. She couldn't take them to the shelter and risk getting them sicker or infecting one of their other cellar-mates.
How would she protect them now?
TWENTY-THREE.
Audra and Kurt sat beside each other on the hard kitchen chairs in the chilly air-raid shelter, alone for now. He expected the others to clatter down the stairs any moment.
He leaned forward in his seat. While Audra may have blown any chance she had with Josep, her blunder was all the better for him. She created the perfect opening for him to endear himself to Gisela. His missing fingers tingled to touch those smooth, familiar piano keys.
Now he needed to keep Josep and Gisela from reconciling. ”What about that little tactical error you made this morning?”
Audra raised her chin. ”I made no error, just created a problem between Josep and Gisela. You were supposed to go after her, though, and not let him comfort her.”
”But you need to keep Gisela as your friend. Not that it matters to me, but she won't want to take you to America if she is angry with you.”
”She won't take me to America at all if she falls in love with you.”
A bit of a problem he hadn't thought of when recruiting her. ”In exchange for your help breaking them up, I will insist she go to America until am I able to get a job to support her and take you with her.”
She gave him a dubious look.
”All is not lost. You keep flirting with Josep, and I will generate doubt about him in her mind. The longer those girls are sick, the worse off we are. Pray they recover soon.”
”I disagree. This is the chance you need. The stress of having ill children will wear on her. When she breaks down and cannot handle more trouble, you will be the one to support her, to take care of her when no one else is.”
Kurt couldn't help but admire this crafty, wily woman.
The roar of bombers thundered in the distance, rattling Gisela's bones. The sirens' screeches pitched up in intensity.
Gisela studied the two kinder now awake in the bed, their gray eyes large. She couldn't bring the girls to the shelter. And if they were contagious, she didn't want to start an epidemic.
But should they stay here, with bombs whistling to earth around them?
Mitch decided for her, scooping Annelies in his arms. ”Can you get Renate?”
She nodded, lifted the girl from the mattress, and carried her downstairs.
Sudden cold, like a Russian winter wind, cloaked her. She rubbed her arms and sat on the edge of the mattress they had brought downstairs so the girls could sleep during the air raids. All around, the Allied planes emptied themselves of their cargo. The chattering of machine guns indicated a dogfight in the skies above them.
Annelies lay back on the pillows. ”My head hurts, Tante Gisela.”
With a touch she tried to make as tender as Mutti's, Gisela smoothed back her hair. ”I know, sweetheart, I know. You will be better very soon.”
She gazed at Gisela with pleading eyes. ”Promise?”
”I promise.”
”I hear the planes.”
”Don't worry about them. They won't come here today.”
But the droning grew louder. The sirens screeched. The building shook.
Annelies grabbed Gisela's arm and clung to it. Renate opened her eyes, glazed with fever. ”Airplanes.”
”Ja, I hear them too.”
A bomb whistled as it streaked to the earth.
She threw herself over the girls.
An ear-splitting explosion deafened Gisela.
The floor beneath her shook. Or was that her shaking?
Ceiling plaster rained down on them.
When would it be over?
Booms continued to sound around them, at last becoming more distant. Little by little, the rumble of the bombers hushed.
A siren screeched again-all clear. The bombers had turned back toward Britain. For now.
Gisela sat, still trembling all over. That bomb could have struck them.
Mitch adjusted the blanket around Annelies and lifted her into his arms. ”That hit nearby. But at least we heard the siren.”
”We should inspect the damage.” Kurt carried Renate in his single arm. ”It might have been just down the block.”
”Ja. That's good.” Mitch lugged Annelies upstairs and tucked her into bed beside her sister.
Gisela went to the kitchen to rinse out the compresses. One of the cupboard doors had flung open and broken dishes littered the floor. Too much like the large earthquake that had hit California not long before they returned to Germany.