Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum Read Free Book Online

entire Quarter inside out, she says. You can’t expect me to believe they were only looking for who might still have a dog or two.
    Max contemplates Anna for some time, stroking his razor-reddened chin. Then he says, My being here is placing you in terrible danger. The less you know, the better.
    Anna leaps to her feet.
    You listen, she says, giving Max a small shove. Do I mean so little to you that you can’t trust me? Were all those nights we spent talking and playing chess nothing more than that, only games?
    Max sighs.
    Of course not, he says. All right. Since I’ve already involved you by coming here—
    Yes, tell me.
    I did know about the Aktion before it happened. More than that, I’m afraid I was its cause.
    I don’t understand. How—
    Max looks sternly at her. Quiet, young lady. Let me explain in my own way.
    He sits beside Anna on the tub.
    You know of the concentration camp?
    Chastened, Anna nods.
    There’s been some talk, she says. It’s up on the Ettersberg, yes?
    Yes. In the forest on the mountain. Established for political prisoners and criminals and Jews and anyone else who offends the Nazis. They’re put into this Buchenwald for re-education, which means they are used for slave labor. They are starved and beaten and then, when they’re half-dead, they are considered dispensable.
    What happens then? Anna whispers.
    Why, they’re dispensed with. But since it’s a crime to waste ammunition nowadays, it’s done by lethal injection. The SS kill them in batches, with needles to the heart. Evipan sodium, I believe. Or air. Afterwards, the bodies are cremated.
    Anna tries to digest this and fails. It is too insane to be comprehended. She looks resentfully at the cold, skillful fingers on hers, then up at Max’s dear, tired face, strangely exposed without his glasses, poised and watchful as that of a fox. The deep lines hashmarked about his eyes, the violet shadows beneath them. How can he inflict this on her? How can he come here, to her home, and dump this repugnant story in her lap?
    That can’t be true, she tells him.
    Max attempts an ironic smile, but a muscle flutters near his jaw.
    Oh, it’s true, he says. I know it seems impossible. But it’s happening as we speak.
    How do you know? How do you know it’s not just a rumor?
    It’s not a rumor, Max says wearily. I’ve been there. I’ve seen it.
    He withdraws his hands from hers and fumbles in the pocket of Gerhard’s trousers, producing a small cylindrical parcel.
    What’s that?
    Film of the camp. There’s a photography studio the SS use for identification shots of the inmates. Some of the prisoners have managed to take pictures of what goes on up there, don’t ask me how. I have to make sure that this film gets to a safe place.
    Where?
    Somewhere in Switzerland. Exactly where, I don’t know. It’s safer that way.
    So the SS found out you were working for this—Resistance network.
    Yes.
    And they were looking for the film.
    Yes.
    Max drops the little canister into Anna’s palm. The waxed paper it is wrapped in is greasy to the touch. It will repel water.
    Such a small thing, says Max. You’d never suspect it was worth so much blood.
    Anna returns it to him, trying to parse this new Max with the man she knows, the good doctor to whom she has confessed secrets she never knew she had. All along, while she has been thinking only of beguiling him, he has been engaged in an infinitely more complicated and important game. She looks at the braided rug beneath her feet, suddenly shy.
    Who else is involved? she asks.
    Max slips the film back into his borrowed trousers.
    I don’t know the extent of the network. A handful in Weimar. Most beyond. Frau Staudt, for one—Frau Staudt?
    Anna pictures the baker trampling through the forest on the Ettersberg and begins to laugh helplessly.
    I would have gone to her tonight, but I saw the SS outside the bakery, says Max. I couldn’t think where else to go.
    Anna gets up and kisses him on the forehead,