I peer up through my lashes at the German soldiers, ashamed of my fake damsel-like behavior. “Here, let me help you, miss.” One of them helps me to my feet and the other scoops up my belongings from my purse, drops them back inside and lifts my bicycle back upright.
“Do you need a doctor?”
“Oh, bother. No, I’m all right. Please, I need to get home. My father is expecting me,” I say, brushing my hands off on my dress before taking the handlebars into my grip.
“How about I help you get home,” one of them offers.
Dear God. Would anyone agree to this offer? He must be out of his mind. The thought of a German soldier taking me home…it’s unthinkable. I shake my head and smooth my hair down behind my ears. “My father is waiting for me and I’m late. I’ll be fine finding my way home.” With a shove forward against the handlebars on my bicycle, I walk alongside it, making sure to accentuate my limp as I do.
The Jewish people have all made it out of the square.Thank goodness.I breathe a sigh of relief, knowing all those people made it away from the soldiers safely.I turn down the main roadto go home, my heart hammering against my chest as I realize what I just did. What I risked for a stranger.
This isn’t the first time I’ve thought about defying German laws, but it’s the first time something has pushed me to this point. Before today, I’ve tried to mind my own business aside from delivering a few “packages” to friends of my parents, but not in the Jewish district. Of course, I’ve shared my feelings of helplessness in the face of so much persecution happening all around us here, only to be met with the stern warning of danger by my parents.
Complacency isn’t an option when so many are suffering, and I’m not the only one who feels this way, especially seeing as we avoid discussions about my father and brother sneaking off every night to “help” our fellow citizens. I’ve asked to join many times, but I’m a “proper young woman and should follow the laws,” as they tell me. Yet, here I am, forming a distraction that could cost me the freedom I have left. I would do it again if I had to. Maybe I’m tired of being a “proper young woman.”
Now that I’m out of sight and far enough away from the square, I stop and curl over the front of my bike, clutching my chest to catch my breath before I continue. Those soldiers take far too much pride in walking around, torturing innocent people. It’s obvious their intent was to steal the one inkling of happiness some of the Jewish people found tonight while listening to the beautiful music.
Thugs. They’re all thugs who want to steal every bit of our bravery.
I continue home as a fleeting memory of the singer flashes through my mind. His talent and charm, unmatched with anything I’ve seen before. But everything beautiful about him was overshadowed by the fear in his eyes as the soldiers shouted their threats.
I made a hasty decision trying to help him, but it was because he was bringing other people happiness—something so rare to find these days. My erratic reaction was a split-second decision and came without a thought of consequence. The soldiers could have arrested me.But they didn’t.
“Miss?” A whisper pulls my attention back down the street, finding someone standing in a sharp angular shadow of the building.
I move faster.
“Wait, please, wait.” His voice…the sound. He speaks the way he sings. “Why did you save me?” He sounds perplexed, concerned even.
I falter, glancing behind me, finding the singer with his hand on his heart and the other clenched around his hat. After searching in each direction to make sure there isn’t a soldier within sight, I roll my bike down the dark street toward the man. “You’re the singer,” I say in awe.
I step in closer, joining him in the shadow where I can catch a better glimpse of him. He’s tall and slender, his dark loose curls framing the corners of his eyes. He’s…quite breathtaking. “I—I’m just a girl who foolishly fell off her bike,” I argue.
“‘Foolishly,’” he repeats. “Is that right?” He smirks and raises an eyebrow. “Are you hurt?”
I stare as a shimmer of light cuts across his eyes, revealing his soul. This man is a stranger and I shouldn’t be standing on an empty street with someone I’ve never met before.
“Ah—oh dear, no, I’m well,” I tell him.
“That was a pretty hard fall,” he says. I must have played the part well. My body certainly thinks so.
“Truly, I’ll be all right, but thank you for checking on me.” Is that all he was doing? Checking on me? I sound like a young, lovesick girl in the face of a stranger.
“How can I thank you?”
“There’s no need, I assure you.”
“Don’t be so humble,” he says, his words sharp and unexpected. “No one does anything for nothing these days.”
“Humble?” I quip. “Is it a crime to help a person?”
“When your ankle is bleeding through your sock, it might be.”
I look down at my feet, finding my white ankle sock soaked in blood. He crouches down on his knee, places his hat down and rolls my sock below my ankle. His tousled dark hair blows in the breeze as he peers up at me. “That’s a good one. We should get you bandaged up.”
“I don’t have anything?—”
“You must have something in your purse,” he says, standing back up. He takes the bike from my hands and leans it up against the brick wall behind him, then takes my purse out of the front basket. “I’ve heard women can keep an entire pharmacy stored in one small bag.”
