For Such a Time by Kate Breslin Read Free Book Online Page A

strength to try and save her little girl—
    “Wake up!” Stella’s eyes flew open to the sound of her own screams. She spied the black SS uniform and fought harder.
    “Look at me!”
    The colonel shook her. Stella froze. Perspiration pooled at her back as she obeyed him.
    Concern, not cruelty, etched his features. Her panic slowly abated, washing away the last traces of sleep. Her own cries had filled the nightmare; her desperate flailing had been against the bed, not the monster in her dreams.
    Anna was still dead.
    She emitted a choked gasp and turned her head away.
    “Easy.” The colonel drew her into his arms, rubbing her back as if she were a child. “Bad dream? I’m not surprised, considering what you’ve been through.”
    Grief, humiliation, and more disquieting emotions seized her. Stella became acutely aware of her nakedness under the robe, having fallen asleep on top of the coverlet after her bath.
    She pushed away from him and scooted toward the head of the bed. An awkward silence passed.
    “I’ll get you another blanket,” he said at last.
    She watched him rise from the bed and go to the armoire. Imposing in his sinister black uniform, he seemed to limp more than he had earlier.
    What did he really want from her? Secretarial skills . . . or something else?
    He returned to the bed with a standard military-issue wool blanket. Loosening the black tie at his neck, he said, “Take off that robe and lie down.”
    She gaped at him, unable to move as old nightmares paralyzed her. Did she have the strength to fight him off? Pressed up against the headboard, she tugged on the hem of her robe. “I won’t,” she whispered.
    He tossed the blanket at her, clearly exasperated. “I only thought you’d be more comfortable.”
    She quickly covered herself in the wool and averted her eyes.
    “I was on my way to bed when I heard your screams,” he continued. “If you like, I’ll stay until you fall back to sleep.”
    She shook her head, still uneasy.
    “I bid you good night, then.”
    Yet he didn’t move, as though he wanted to say more. Finally he turned and strode to the door, switching off the light. A wash of moonlight flooded in through the lace curtains, casting a pattern of shadows across the floor.
    “The child . . . was she yours?”
    His question pierced the darkness between them like an unseen blade. Stella huddled beneath the blanket, hardly breathing. Only when typhus had finally taken Anna’s mother did the little girl leave her cooling flesh to crawl into Stella’s warm bunk, and into her heart. “She meant more to me than my life.”
    The colonel’s silhouette shone in the dim light from the hall. “I wish . . .” he began, but his voice trailed off. “Good night.”
    “Herr Kommandant?” Stella used the shadows to cloak her anxiety while she voiced her most burning question. “When will I be able to leave?”
    The figure in the doorway grew still. “Are you so eager to go?”
    “I . . . I want to return home.”
    “But you have no family, and I doubt the Jews who raised you are still living there.”
    The truth of his remark stung; she’d returned home on the train after work one day to discover their apartment boarded up, the streets empty, and not a trace of her uncle or her friends.
    “Besides, Innsbruck is many miles from here, Stella,” he added. “How far do you think you could travel in your condition?”
    She didn’t intend to travel to Innsbruck, but he was right about that, too. She’d barely made it up the stairs to her room after dinner. “But when I’m strong enough, Herr Kommandant . . . ?”
    “Once you’re completely rested and have eaten plenty of Helen’s good cooking, we can discuss it.” Light from the halldanced as he shifted against the jamb. “But it wounds me that you choose to abandon me, especially when we are marooned out here in miles of hip-deep snow and I’m in desperate need of a competent assistant. Is this the thanks