With nothing to mark the grave, she stood by the sorry mound of crystallizing snow and prayed for his safe passage. The Allies had killed her brother, her father and now her frail, elderly grandfather, who did not care much for Hitler. She decided to add another short prayer requesting that those who killed her family should suffer too. She felt better for it. The Allies deservedher anger, if not God’s wrath. She turned to find Klara looking at her. Her cheeks burned despite the chill creeping into her bones.
She attempted a smile. ‘We had better start walking. It will be getting dark soon.’ She reached out her hand. ‘Thank you for doing as I asked so I could bury my grandfather.’ She stretched her fingers a little more and the child dared to slip her hand into Elsa’s again. They were on their own now, in a landscape of snow and threatening blizzards, with little to eat and few people around.
‘Do you want to know where we are going?’
The child remained silent.
‘We are going to Bremen. My mother and sister should be there.’ She pulled up her collar, picked up her bag and started out on the long trek, silently following the ruts and footfalls left by the convoy that had gone ahead. With each step the sun sank lower and quietly, surreptitiously, stole the light from the sky.
Chapter Six
Elsa knocked again on the farmhouse door. No one answered. She looked around the deserted farmyard. The mix of churned mud and snow showed it was still a working farm. She caught a fleeting glimpse of a man entering one of the buildings, his shoulders hunched against the rising wind. Without hesitating, she grabbed Klara’s hand and ran after him.
She found the farmer sitting on a stool, his hands working furiously as he milked a patient cow. She paused in the shadows of the barn doorway, hypnotized by the comforting sight and sound of creamy milk hitting the bucket between his feet. Her mouth began to water. Exhausted and hungry, she rested her head against the frame of the doorway to watch. The farmer’s shoulders stiffened. He paused in his milking and looked over his shoulder, his searching gaze finally coming to rest in her direction. He stood up abruptly and squinted into the shadows.
‘Who are you? Come out where I can see you!’ he demanded.
Elsa stepped into the light. ‘I didn’t mean to scare you. We’re looking for shelter and something to eat.’ Her gaze fell away to the bucket at his feet.
‘We?’ he asked.
‘I have a five-year-old.’ She revealed Klara, who had been hiding behind her.
His tense shoulders lowered. He lifted his worn hat, raked a hand through his tousled grey hair, and replaced it on his head with a well-practised slide from front to back.
‘So many people coming through these days,’ he muttered as he turned back to his milking. ‘Old. Young. Families. People on their own. My wife’s tired of it.’
‘We won’t be any bother.’ She took a step closer, unable to look away from the milk. ‘We have been walking for days. I’m not even sure where we are.’
‘You are near Prenzlau.’
She looked up at him, surprised. ‘We’ve come that far?’
‘You didn’t know?’
‘I hoped.’
The farmer had readjusted his position, obscuring her view of the milk pulsing into the bucket. Unconsciously, she moved closer, her gaze finally settling on the creamy drink again. ‘I didn’t know for sure. May we have a little milk to drink?’
‘May we have a little milk to drink,’ he mimicked unkindly. ‘That’s what they all say.’ He glanced over his shoulder at her and saw how his imitation had stung. A fleeting shadow of shame crossed his features and his tone softened. ‘How much money do you have?’
Elsa’s heart sank as she thought of her purse in Frau Fellhaber’s withered hand.
Her silence caused him to return to his milking. ‘I can’t give it away for free. If I did that to every person who crept in here I’d have nothing to sell. If you were wounded or ill—’ he shrugged — ‘then I might be persuaded.’
‘We have no money. I was robbed.’By an elderly and infirm woman.
The steady sound of milk hitting the bucket stopped. ‘Robbed?’ He shook his head in disgust and the methodical spurting began again. ‘Some people have no shame. I hope that is all they did to you.’ He turned on his stool to look up at her. ‘It’s not safe for a young woman to travel alone.’
‘I wasn’t alone at first. My grandfather died on the journey.’
The farmer studied her, tutted and reached for a small ladle. ‘Is the child yours?’
Elsa instinctively put her arm around Klara’s shoulders. ‘My niece.’
His eyes narrowed slightly as he filled a ladle with milk and offered it to her.
He studied Klara’s face as she drank. ‘The snow will get worse. There is a blizzard on the way.’ He slowly refilled it and passed the ladle to her.
