The Last Green Valley - Mark Sullivan (black female authors .txt) 📗

cocked his head and kept the papers just out of Emil’s grasp.

“Do I know you, Herr Martel?” he asked, training his dead eyes on Emil again.

Emil’s terror was complete, but he forced himself again to gaze at the man. “No, Major. I do not believe so.”

Haussmann stood there, glanced at the papers. “Pervomaisk. No, I was never there. And where is this Friedenstal?”

“Sixty kilometers southeast of Birsula. A small village established from the Glückstal colony.”

The major thought about that and then shrugged, shook his head, and said, “I must be mistaken, Herr Martel.”

Emil’s emotions had swung back the other way so fast after hearing the word “mistaken” that it took a beat for him to realize Haussmann was handing him his papers.

He took them, nodded shallowly, and said, “Thank you, Major.”

“You were not taken into the army when we invaded, Herr Martel?” Haussmann said, studying him again.

“My wife’s brother was. If I had gone, there would have been no man in our family left to farm our fields. The VoMi decided they’d rather have me produce food than fight.”

The SS major considered that a moment, glanced at Nikolas, and then said, “You were not a member of the Selbstschutz in your area?”

“We lived in a tiny place in a sea of grain fields,” Emil replied. “I know of only one crime there in three years, and that was a Romanian soldier who raped a widow. He was caught.”

“Hmm,” Haussmann said. “Did you know that all men of ethnic German descent over the age of thirty were supposed to be members of the Selbstschutz? And required to take an oath of allegiance?”

“No,” Emil said. “I did not know that. As I said, we lived—”

Haussmann barked, “Raise your right hand in a proper salute, Herr Martel, as if you were greeting the führer right here and now!”

Emil felt as if he were being both tested and humiliated in front of his family but threw his arm up and out in the Nazi salute.

“Repeat after me, Herr Martel: ‘As a carrier of pure German blood, I swear to Adolf Hitler, the führer of all Germans, to be true unto death, to do my best, and to be absolutely obedient to all of my superiors. Heil Hitler!’”

Swallowing his pride, telling himself to do whatever it took to be rid of this man, Emil recited the oath for the second time in his life and for the second time at Haussmann’s command. As he did so, he was seeing the SS major not as he was now but as he’d been nearly three years before, a younger captain shouting at him beside a remote ravine outside Dubossary.

When Emil finished, he stood there with his arm raised, gazing at Haussmann, who finally allowed the wisp of a smile to cross his face.

“You may lower your arm, Herr Martel. Be safe on your journey today.”

“Thank you, Cap—Major,” he said.

If Haussmann caught him addressing him as Captain, he did not show it. Instead, he nodded to Adeline, and then to Emil’s mother before moving toward the vehicle with Nikolas trudging after him. They got in, and as Nikolas drove off, he could hear the two men arguing, though he could not tell about what.

Emil’s knees turned to rubber when they were finally out of sight. He walked to a tree and leaned against it, aware that the boys were thirty meters away, Will by the wagon, Walt in it, both somber and watching him closely. He was also as sweaty as if he’d been working hard for hours and as sick in his gut as he’d been the other night talking to Nikolas. Took us eighteen days to shoot them all.

Adeline came over, put her arms around him, as the rest of the family joined them.

Emil said, “I didn’t want to say that.”

“I know.”

“I had to. For you and the boys.”

“And for you.”

“I feel sick.”

“Don’t,” his mother said. “You did what you had to, Emil.”

His father nodded sadly, and then said, “We all do what we have to, son.”

Emil wanted to argue with his father, tell him that there were lines a man just could not cross, but instead, he said, “Thank you, Papa.”

He realized that Rese, Lydia, and Malia were all looking to him for direction. “Let’s forget this, please, pack now, and get across the border and away from here as fast as we can.”

They listened to him and moved off quickly to pack. Adeline held on to him.

“You’re shaking,” she said quietly.

“Am I? It doesn’t matter. We’re okay now.”

Adeline pulled back a bit, gazed at him. “Do you know him, Emil? Haussmann?”

He would not meet her gaze.

“Emil?”

“Papa, when are we leaving?” Walt called from the wagon.

“In a few minutes,” Emil said, and made it clear he wanted to leave her embrace.

Adeline held on to him, whispered, “I am your wife. Do you keep secrets from me?”

“Of course I keep secrets from you. Some secrets are not to be shared. Some memories are meant to be forgotten. You know that’s true.”

In her heart, Adeline did know that was true. She had seen profound suffering and hardship herself. Though she tried not to, she could summon the brutal emotions at will. Yet many of the cutting details of losing her father, of starvation, and of watching her firstborn die in her arms had gradually disappeared from her daily thoughts, like dead leaves crumbling on the wind.

“I do,” she said, softening. “But will you answer just that one question? Do you know him, Emil? Major Haussmann?”

Emil’s cheeks sagged before he sighed and said, “Haussmann was one of the captains with the SS group that held me in Dubossary when I went to buy supplies for the roof the September after we returned to Friedenstal.”

Adeline remembered Emil coming home that night, how weakened and defeated he’d been. How he’d cried for the second time in their marriage. Her heart broke all over again. “What did Haussmann do to you?”

“You said one question.”

Adeline’s emotions slashed and