All God's Children by Anna Schmidt Page B

knock or simply her imagination? She edged toward the door.
    There it was again.
Tap. Tap. Tap
.
    “Who’s there?”
    Her answer was a baby’s full-throated cry, and she flung the door open and stepped back as Anja stumbled into the foyer with Daniel, the baby, and a man dressed in tattered clothing. Blood covered Anja’s face around her mouth and chin. “This is my husband, Benjamin,” she managed.
    “The doctor?” Beth asked, peering out the half-open door.
    Anja shook her head, and Beth’s heart actually skipped a beat. “Arrested?” she asked, even as she could not bring herself to ask the question uppermost in her mind—the question of whether or not Josef was dead.
    “No. No,” Anja assured her. “He is well. He is—” A harsh cough drowned out the rest.
    “He is at hospital,” Benjamin explained.
    “Come,” Beth said as she ushered the family into the kitchen. She helped Daniel out of his coat and lifted him onto a bench so that she could remove his shoes and socks. “A glass of warm milk would be good, no?” she asked, and he nodded. “And then you can all spend the day here, all right?”
    The boy glanced at his parents, both of whom seemed to have lost the energy to protest anything that Beth might propose.
    “There’s water in the kettle,” Beth told Benjamin as she lifted Anja’s daughter from her mother’s arms and carried her up the stairs. Daniel followed her.
    “Mama?” He paused on the stairway.
    “Coming,” she replied, her voice as weak as her smile. Benjamin turned on the gas under the kettle and then sat on the edge of the kitchen chair that Beth had been sitting in, his large hands dangling between his knees. “Go on,” he murmured to his wife.
    When they reached the attic and the children collapsed onto Josef’s narrow bed, Beth realized that dried blood wasn’t the only thing marring Anja’s beautiful face. Tears ran down her cheeks, and when she looked at Beth it was a portrait of failure such as Beth had never seen before.
    “We can do this,” Beth assured her as she wet a cloth in the basin of water she’d brought to them the night before. “For today we can do this, and then tomorrow…” She had no idea how to finish that sentence.
    Anja drew in a deep shuddering breath as she wiped away her tears with the backs of her hands and bent to help Daniel get undressed. “Tomorrow,” she said firmly, “we will begin again.”

    At the end of his shift, Josef practically ran all the way back to the apartment from the hospital. There was no sound coming from inside, but still he knocked at the front door. After several long minutes and a second knock, he heard someone coming.
    No light went on, but he saw the shadow of a woman.
    “Beth?” He heard the latch turn, and she opened the door a crack. “Are they here?”
    “Ja.”
    “We can get them out now that it is dark.”
    “They are sleeping. They are exhausted, Josef.”
    It was the first time she had used his given name without her uncle—or him—reminding her to do so. He permitted himself only a moment to savor the breakthrough, and then he pressed closer to the door. “Beth, they cannot stay here.”
    “I know, but tomorrow will be soon enough. They will be safe until then.”
    “And what will you do tomorrow?”
    “I will think of something. Good night.” She closed the door and clicked the latch.
    Josef stood in the dim corridor, staring at the closed door. He recalled how during his years in Boston he had been constantly taken aback at the certainty with which Americans approached life. They simply assumed that somehow they would find answers to whatever challenge they faced. Beth’s comment that she would come up with a plan showed that she had no idea of the lengths the authorities would go to in hunting for Anja and her family once they realized they were not on that train. He had no doubt that the guards knew precisely how many prisoners had boarded the train, and at the end of their