Opening Pages of "A Tree in the Ardennes" (Historical Fiction, WW2 Holocaust)

[Chad Ellenburg]

Opening Scene to introduce the setting, protagonist, tone, and primary conflict.

 

Antwerp, Belgium

April 1941

Jacob Eichelberg clutched heavy black-out drapes from his third-floor flat and peered through a sliver onto the lightless city of Antwerp. A dark gray blanket of night, like an inky shroud of nothingness, hovered overhead. He scanned the sky and listened for hunting Allied bombers. Part of him wished to hear the droning buzz of those pregnant planes. Though it would send his family scrambling for the basement, he imagined the laden bellies of those warbirds opening up and letting loose their whistling offspring. Who knows? They might just find a perfect target, like the Gestapo headquarters.

Instead, he heard the all too familiar clip-clop of slow and measured boot-steps. Another German patrol making sure everyone stays in their prison cell after curfew. They kept to their routine like dogs tethered to a dead oak tree. Back and forth, back and forth - monotonous steps without memory creating a hard-packed path of oppression. He scarcely remembered holding Rachel’s hand on these same cobbled streets or the day he surprised Moshe with a trip to Kleinblatt’s bakery for a creme pastry. Moshe wore smiles and extra creme on that day. Then the Germans took the city and wiped all of that away.

He closed his eyes and played his game to pass the time. He listened, gauging the sound, and guessed about two hundred meters to the East. He opened and strained his eyes in that direction. A faint shadow paced in the distance right where he thought. Not bad, Eichelberg.

He gleaned this skill from his Uncle Avner in the woods of the Ardennes more than ten years ago. He disliked hunting but loved the thrill of waiting in silence with eyes closed to discern the subtle movement of a red deer approaching. He flinched as he remembered the crack of the rifle, sending hot steel tearing through the body of the unsuspecting beast. Labored raspy breathing, steam rising from a gaping red hole, a metallic smell emanating from glistening dark liquid, and then… stillness. Even now, ten years removed, he fought back a wave of nausea.

The sound of boot steps faded around the block, and his stomach roiled under his loose-hanging, thread-bare shirt. Maybe the creme pastry memory had stirred his insides? Another growl bellowed, and he placed his hand on his stomach. Hunger thrived in an occupied city - like an unwelcome, overstayed out-of-town guest. How many kilos had he dropped in the last year? He kept notching new holes in his belt to keep his pants from falling, but his body had no choice but to consume itself for survival.

A flicker of candlelight caught his eye from a window across the street. What is he thinking? Jacob couldn’t remember his name, but his anger swelled at the stupidity of his neighbor. Gestapo soldiers took out their frustration on curfew violators. They couldn’t storm an enemy holdout, so the citizens of Antwerp made for perfect targets.

Just last week, Mr. Adler, an elderly man who lived on the first floor, walked into his flat mere minutes late. Jacob watched helplessly from his window as they dragged him back into the street and unleashed a torrent of rifle butts on his head. Rachel spent hours with his wife stitching the bleeding gash in his scalp.

Depending on the mood of the Gestapo, a visible light could warrant a sharp command of “Licht aus - Lights out." Or they would fire a shot through the window. Jacob glanced again and willed his aloof neighbor to notice the violation. “Come on,” he whispered through a tight jaw. “Put it out.”

“What is it?” Rachel said, emerging from Moshe's bedroom.

He raised his finger at the infraction across the way and shook his head in disgust. “He’s going to lead them straight here.”

She peeked through the opening in the drapes. “That’s Mr? What is his name?” she thought for a moment. “Stein. That’s it. Mr. Stein. Can you get his attention?”

“How am I supposed to do that?”

"How long until the patrol comes back?" Rachel asked.

"Maybe five minutes? He already turned the corner."

Rachel stormed across the room, grabbed her coat, and reached for the door.

"What are you doing?" Jacob asked, knowing what she meant to do but in disbelief that she was actually doing it.

"Someone needs to tell him,” she said, a sharp edge in her tone.

"No," he said, leaping from his lookout at the window. "Rach, it's not safe."

"Safe?" she shot back. "Nazi soldiers traipsing up and down the stairs of our building isn't safe.” She buttoned her coat and reached for the door, ending the conversation.

He knew he had lost, and more than the argument.

“Mama?”

The sweet tone of their four-year-old interrupted the bile of the moment. They both looked over and saw Moshe standing in the doorframe of his bedroom, like a little bird perched at the edge of the nest. His meager form scarcely reached the door knob.

“You are supposed to be in bed, Pigeon,” Rachel said, her hand loosening from an angry grip on the door knob.

“But I’m hungry,” he said.

Those words cut like a blade through Jacob’s heart. How could he let his little boy go hungry? Both he and Rachel looked sickly, their thinning faces a daily reminder of his inability to provide for them.

“We will eat tomorrow,” Rachel said.

Jacob winced at that promise. They had finished the week’s rations earlier that morning. German occupation measures allotted enough food for almost one meal a day, provided the supply didn’t run out before he reached the front of the line. The only other options would be stealing from the Germans, an easy and sure way to meet a quick death, or someone else’s rations, which probably meant they were already dead. He heard rumors of forged ration books, but he wouldn’t even know where to begin to acquire one. The risk outweighed the hunger.

His parents lived just across the hall, and sometimes his father forgot to eat. He even refused to eat, and no amount of coaxing from his mother could convince him otherwise. He looked like a hatrack with skin on it, and no matter how much she pleaded, he just stared at the food with a puzzled look on his face. Dementia took many things, but it only deepened his stubbornness. Two days ago, she walked over with a couple of crusts of bread for Moshe and half a potato. Jacob refused, but she insisted. Yet even with his father’s portion, his little boy still begged for food.

He could suffer through his own growling belly. The curfew, though inconvenient,  felt doable. But a breach in his family due to his incompetence as a husband and father clawed at his soul. The enemy patrolled the streets outside, but who he was, or rather who he wasn’t, gave them permission to come right into his home, to have a say in his family’s well-being, to keep his boy from eating. He might as well be wearing the gray-green tunic and the SS insignia on his shoulder. He had nothing to give them, at least not tonight,  and barring a miracle, tomorrow’s table would also be barren.

But he could at least keep the Gestapo away. It might be a drop of water on the fire he had allowed to flare up, but he had to try before it burned out of control. “Rach, I will go,” he said. “Please, let me help Mr. Stein.”

She sighed, unbuttoned her coat, and avoided eye contact with him. “Come on, Moshe, let’s get you back in bed—”

A shot rang out and split the tension between them. “Licht aus!” followed the fading echo of gunfire.

Jacob flinched and ducked his head from instinct. He dashed over to the window just in time to see Mr. Stein extinguish the candle.

Moshe burst into tears. Rachel rushed over to him “It’s ok, Mosh. It’s fine. We’re all safe.”

Their eyes met. He wanted to say “Sorry,” but his words would mean nothing now. She wiped tears of frustration, scooped Moshe into her arms, and disappeared back into the bedroom.

Damn it, Jacob.