Read For Such a Time for Free Online

the feeling, as alien and vague as her freedom.
    Stella returned to the bedroom. The boy still hovered at the door. “You’re Joseph?”
    He stared at her, then dropped his gaze and nodded.
    “How old are you?”
    His face shot up. Long brown lashes lowered slightly. “Ten.”
    Older than Anna. Stella blocked the memory as swiftly as it came. The boy’s clothes were clean but worn and hung loosely on his small frame. He seemed so fragile; no wonder she’d thought him younger at first.
    She’d also failed to note his missing right ear.
    “How old are you, Fräulein?”
    Stella found a smile, despite her cracked lips. “You should never ask a lady that question.”
    His olive cheeks bloomed with color.
    “Twenty-three,” she relented. “How long have you lived here, Joseph?”
    “A year—in the ghetto, anyway. I only been with Herr Kommandant about a month.”
    “Does he treat you well?” Stella tried not to stare at the bloody scab where his ear had been. If the colonel did this to him, then her own fate would surely be worse.
    “I like it here. The work’s easy and I get to eat all the Käsespätzle I want. I even got my own bed.”
    Maybe the colonel hadn’t hurt the child. Stella thought of the two soldiers she’d just seen outside. Her heart raced as she struggled to recall their names . . . a captain . . . Hermann?Yes—and Sergeant Koch. Easing out a breath, she asked the boy, “What about the other Nazis?”
    His features tensed, and she closed the distance between them. “Listen to me, Joseph,” she said as she crouched to his level. “I know the cruelty they can inflict. I give you my word I won’t repeat what you tell me. But I must know . . . what to expect here.”
    His intelligent brown eyes studied her with an intensity beyond his tender years. “You’re Jewish, aren’t you, Fräulein?”
    “Nein!” She reared back, her reaction automatic, borne of fear, rehearsed a thousand times as Morty had taught her. And they hadn’t even asked . . .
    She stood with others at the Mannheim checkpoint, regretting her decision to leave the safety of Marta’s Heidelberg apartment and return to search for her uncle. The place was crawling with Nazis. A fat Gestapo man moved up close behind her in line , his comrades shouting encouragement. Stella gasped when his filthy wet mouth grazed her neck, the rankness of stale beer and tobacco on his breath. When he began to touch her , she lost control. Like a feral cat unleashed, she turned and attacked him before several pairs of hands dragged her away. Her satisfaction at the bloody welts she’d raked along his face exploded into pain with the first blow ; the second knocked her flat against the ground.
    Afterward he ’d grabbed up her scattered papers and marched with them to the checkpoint table, stamping them in red with the damning word that bought her passage on the next train to Hell . . .
    “I’m no Jew,” she told the boy. “Please don’t say that again.”
    Hurt flashed in his eyes. Stella felt shamed by her defection, as though she’d left him alone to the fate of their race. Yet there was no choice but to lie; she wouldn’t burden him with that kind of secret. She couldn’t risk another . . .
    She offered him a contrite smile. “I’d still like to be your friend, Joseph. I’ll need one in this place.”
    His features brightened with a child’s ready acceptance. “I’ll have to teach you the rules,” he said. “The first is, stay away from Captain Hermann. He hits the prisoners with his fists.” The boy cocked his head. “And you look like a prisoner, Fräulein.”
    Stella flushed. “Anything else I should know?”
    “There’s Sergeant Koch and Lieutenant Brucker. They just like to hurt people.” His gaze skittered to the floor. “Especially the older ones who can’t defend themselves.”
    “And the children, Joseph?” she whispered, glancing at his angry scab.
    He wouldn’t look at her. “Children