The rain fell heavy and cold on the grimy cobbled roads. The streets were so narrow that it felt as though the tall buildings were swallowing the scurrying rats below. The air was thick with smog and the stench of cigarettes, the usual perfume of fresh rain disguised by the influence of human activity. A scrawny ginger cat, peering from behind a battered dustbin overflowing with waste, crouched in the slimy road and flicked out a tongue to taste a sliver of rotting flesh.
The cat darted away as a dark figure stormed boldly past, his heavy boots splattering muddy water along the hem of his robes. Fearful eyes peered out to watch him through gaps in boarded windows, and the clicks of locks could be heard as he marched past reinforced doors. He had not been there long, yet already the people had sensed that he was to be avoided.
He soon reached his destination. Like all the other premises, the house was tall, narrow and neglected. Any attempts at bringing colour to the home seemed pointless. Despite the efforts of a decaying flower box, it still held the same grey tones as the derelict walls, and sodden laundry hung sadly from a rusted balcony. At one time the door may have been green, but the chipped paint did nothing to trigger a smile in the harsh lines of the man’s face as he stared into the scratched spy hole, raised his fist, and pounded on the door.
Other than the relentless pouring of the rain, there was silence. A street lamp spluttered angrily behind the man, and was extinguished. He stared, waiting, for another minute. He calmly kicked open the door and entered.
Her eyes opened, but her blank expression did not change as she woke. Through the gaps in the tattered curtains she could see flashes through the rain, hear shrieks and screams underneath the rat a tat tat of gunfire and feel a deadened, lazy feeling of fear bubble in the pit of her stomach. Her younger brother had sat straight up from his nest of blankets on the floor, a hardened expression (so unnatural for a child of ten) carved into his gaunt face. The rest of her family and the Kaminski’s were, or were pretending to be, still asleep.
‘Są to strzelanie Zimmermaans,’ said Oskar quietly.
Sofia nodded. They were indeed shooting the Zimmermaans. The Zimmermaan family had been forging documentation for a small group of families. It had been inevitable that they would be caught. She could see the greying, heavy sheets light up with each flash, shivering lazily in the heavy rain. Soon there were no more screams.
She moved her legs from under the thin woollen blankets and her cold bare feet touched the floor as she slowly and quietly sat up. Careful not to wake the two others on the bed, she rose and cautiously advanced to the window. Men in German SS uniforms were leaving the house, grumbling about the weather and darting to their truck. Sofia looked down to see them step over a crumpled heap on the floor, a thin, pale hand shining out against the muddy, blood stained cobbles.
The truck revved and spat as the men piled in. One last man rushed out of the house, his arms filled with clothes.
‘Wartet auf mich! Wartet!’ he called, stumbling over the body. The men laughed and the truck moved away a few metres as they teased and impersonated him. It was a game Sofia had once known well; no matter how much the German commanded his friends to wait for him, they tormented him by pretending to drive off. Such petty games now seemed alien to her.
‘Ich sagte, wartet!’ The truck stopped and the last man clambered in, snapping at his colleagues for teasing him as they snickered. They drove away noisily.
For some reason she could not explain, Sofia continued to stare at the house across the street. It seemed strange that they shared the same laundry line, that their houses were connected. She wondered how soon it would be before someone claimed the sheets.
Something caught her eye. From the battered door, another figure emerged. For half a second she joyously assumed that the Germans had missed someone, and that someone had survived. But on closer inspection she could see something was strange.
His hair was long and dark, his face unshaven. He was well fed, yet he somehow still looked malnourished, with sunken eyes and pale skin. But the oddest aspect of his appearance was the long black robes, torn and damp along the hem, but heavy and layered. Sofia caught a glimpse of a wand being tucked into the folds of the cloak, and knew immediately that he was a wizard. He looked up and their eyes met. She doubted he was a good wizard; she could tell by the way his eyes bored into her and the severity of his face. She knew that she should probably hide, run, at the very least break eye contact. But something told her not to. He intrigued her.
Without breaking his stare, his body twisted, and with a loud crack and the whip of his robes, he had vanished.
Her heart was pounding, but she remained calm. Her brother whispered her name. Sofia turned, and saw he was crying. She hugged him as he wept, but she did not think of the Zimmermaans. People died every day; she couldn’t be sorrowful for all of them. No, the cold gaze of the wizard floated to the front of her mind. She wondered why he was there, and why he had not left with the Germans. She wondered if he had helped kill the Zimmermaan family, and if he had, why were the Nazis there?
The encounter with the wizard had revived memories of her life as a witch. She remembered Durmstrang, with its ice and mountains and the thrill of magic. But she was a Jew, and Jews were not welcomed there any longer, by the influence of Grindelwald. She was also Muggleborn, and Muggleborns had never truly been welcomed there, certainly not now.
If she still had her wand, she thought bitterly, she could protect herself and her family. She could charm away Oskar’s tears and she might have saved the Zimmermaans. But it had been snapped with her expulsion and now she was left with the ability, but no tool.
The fact that a wizard had stepped out of the scene of slaughter disturbed her. She knew the war had Grindelwald’s influence, but she had not considered the extent to which magic may be involved. While the war had been organised and fought by Muggles, she had believed that the odd dark wizard such as Grindelwald had been involved only for financial reasons or some other gain, merely exacerbating the situation for their own benefit. Yet here was a sinister looking wizard leaving a property shortly after a family had been massacred, with no sign of looting and showing neither pleasure nor disappointment at their deaths. If wizards were involved, this was not going to get better. She had to get out.
Mrs Kaminski stirred and her sagging face squinted sleepily at them.
‘Hör auf zu weinen und geh schlafen!’ Sofia was poor at German, having never ventured out of her native Poland, but she gathered from her irritable tones that Mrs Kaminski, the grumpy Berliner forced into Krakow, wanted them to sleep.
Thinking dark thoughts about the German people, Sofia gave her brother one last kiss on the forehead and crawled back into bed. Next to her, her mother gave a raspy cough and rolled over in her sleep.
Sofia could not sleep that night. As much as she just wanted to rest and think it over in the morning, she could not distract her mind from trying to form a plan to get her and her family out. Both she and Oskar were magical – that could possibly get them to Britain as a charitable case at Hogwarts. But Oskar would not be old enough for another year, and her parents and older sister were Muggles. It would be much harder to get them out of Poland.
She would speak to her parents tomorrow, she decided, and a solution would be found. Father would know. Father was a doctor and he knew everything. There was no life for any of them here and while they had hoped that things would get better, it had long been apparent that they were on the brink of something very dark and terrible.
Hogwarts had strong potential. It was charitable and famous for taking in Muggleborns. Sofia hoped they would take in Jews as well. Staring up at the cracked, cobwebbed and crumbling ceiling, Sofia succumbed to sleep.
Bicie Serca by BlueJoker
Story Notes:
This story deals with very difficult and often upsetting issues, some of which may create difficult moral choices. I try to write such issues as sensitively yet realistically as possible, and as such I am open to any comments. The last thing I want to do is offend. However, on that note I think it is important to note that my characters' views do not always represent my own; they merely represent opinions, thoughts and prejudices of 1940's Europe. If you have been upset/offended/have any questions about my writing, please do get in contact with me, whether through a review or through an email. This was a very dark time in history, I'm not going to sugar coat it, but that doesn't mean I plan to offend either.
Chapter Endnotes: This story deals with very difficult and often upsetting issues, some of which may create difficult moral choices. I try to write such issues as sensitively yet realistically as possible, and as such I am open to any comments. The last thing I want to do is offend. However, on that note I think it is important to note that my characters' views do not always represent my own; they merely represent opinions, thoughts and prejudices of 1940's Europe. Hopefully I have been able to deal with the above issues sensitively. If, however, you were unhappy, you feel I could improve or you have any question please do let me know, whether in a review or by email.
A big thank you to my beta/moderator, Karaley Dargen.