Simple Faith by Anna Schmidt Read Free Book Online

try and get away, or you will get us all shot.”
    As if he could move well enough to make it from the stall to the door of the shed
.
    She was a bossy little thing. He’d had a drill sergeant in basic training that he would put her up against any day. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at her beyond that first glance when he regained consciousness. In that moment, he had thought she was possibly the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But he would have believed the same of anyone he’d seen who was not a Nazi. Besides, the lantern her grandmother had held the night before had cast long shadows, and she had extinguished it once she had apparently satisfied herself that he was going to live.
    He pulled the blanket that smelled like a horse around his shoulders like a shawl and opened the tin bucket. When he removed the lid, he paused to sort the contents—a fairly sizable chunk of the stuff that passed for bread over here, a hard-boiled egg, and a tin cup filled with ersatz coffee. But there were luxuries, as well. The bread was buttered and coated with jam, and there was a piece of white creamy cheese. In this place and in these times, he had before him the makings of a feast. He wished that he could give the meal the respect it deserved. But suddenly he was sweating profusely, the world around him was swirling like a carousel, and he knew that he was about to pass out.

   CHAPTER 3   
    B y mid-December Peter’s leg was definitely on the mend, but he was bored to the point that if he didn’t get outside soon, he thought he might lose his mind. This must be what was meant by the term
stir-crazy
.
    It would soon be Christmas and then the start of a new year. He’d lost track of the exact date—and he’d been confined to this tiny loft room that was barely large enough for a narrow cot. The ceiling was sloped so that it was impossible for him to stand up straight. Not that he could stand much at all. He scowled at his leg only recently released from the makeshift covering of sterilized wool and lint that the doctor had devised to keep it immobile after he’d managed to remove the shrapnel and bullet. Peter was stunned at how quickly the muscles had weakened so that, even with the wound well on its way to being healed, his movement was limited at best.
    Josef Buchermann might be a doctor—even a gifted one—but he was a German, and Peter didn’t trust him, although apparently Anja thought the sun rose and set in the young physician-turned-café-owner and his American wife, Lisbeth. Anja had raved so much about her American friend that Peter was anxious to meet her. And she spoke with awestruck reverence about the work that the couple, along with a bunch of other medical students, had done in Munich. Her stories of the escape from the death camp Sobibor that Josef had helped orchestrate was the stuff of Hollywood picture shows. Still, the man was a Kraut.
    Peter heard a noise from below and instantly went on alert. He knew the drill. If he heard a voice or sound he could not identify, he was to remain absolutely still until a member of the household came to let him know that all was well. Anja had shown him that the secret entrance to the cubbyhole that was just large enough for his cot was hidden behind a large chest in the bedroom shared by Ailsa and Olaf. During the day, he got a little light from the small square window covered with a tattered blackout shade. At night the old woman brought a lantern with her when she came to check on him and bring him his supper and a bottle of fresh water. When he heard her move the chest, he knew to reach up and pull down a second blackout curtain so that no one passing would see the flicker of her lantern. Anja came only on the weekends, and he looked forward to her visits like a starving man might look forward to a soup bone.
    For starters, unlike her grandparents, Anja spoke and understood English, and she seemed interested in his stories of home and family. She did