Forced Journey by Rosemary Zibart

Author:Rosemary Zibart
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kinkajou Press
Published: 2018-09-26T02:31:03+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

As soon as Werner returned from Central Park, he discovered something very wrong. The apartment was dark and cold. He could barely see Esther. When he called her name, he discovered the poor woman in bed covered with blankets. Clothes were piled on top of the blankets for extra warmth.

Oh my God. He glanced across the room. The window was half open. His mind darted back to that morning. He’d been so excited about the trip that he’d left it like that when he checked the weather. It had seemed fine at the time. Then he recalled the sudden rainstorm that had caught Sam and him in Central Park. The storm had quickly pushed away the spring sunshine, pelting them with rain and chilling the air with gusts of wind. The same storm must have visited here. The radiators had been turned off a month ago. The apartment could easily turn cold and drafty.

Werner rushed across the room and slammed down the window. Though he knew it was too late.

“Thanks, Werner,” murmured Esther from beneath the covers. “I meant to get up and do that myself. Just didn’t get ’round to it.” Her voice was weak.

“Esther, I’m so very…” he mumbled.

“Don’t you worry, Werner,” she added. “I just hope you and Sam had a good time. And how’s the little guy, what’s his name, your turtle?”

Werner felt a pang in his heart. A cold dark apartment and an empty crate, not much to cheer him up.

“Maybe later you can head down to Mr. Mozer’s,” said Esther. “I wouldn’t mind reading the news.”

Werner opened up a can of mushroom soup and poured it into a pot. “The news, the news – why have you always gotta read the news?” He banged the soup pot down on the burner. “You oughta quit reading the dumb news! It makes you so miserable.”

Esther was silent a moment. “It’s worse not knowing, isn’t it, bubele?” she murmured. “And if you don’t know what’s going on, how can you do anything?”

“Do anything? What difference does it make what we do?” Werner muttered. “The Nazis are winning! They’re beating everybody!”

He poured Esther a bowl of soup and brought it to her on a tray, then hurried downstairs to the grocery. He felt bad about the drafty cold apartment. He also felt bad because all day he’d been having such a swell time. All day he’d forgotten about the news, about the war in Europe, about Father and Bettina.

What he’d told Esther, however, was true. By late spring, Nazi Germany had gobbled up Czechoslovakia, Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Luxembourg, and Holland. The map of Europe looked like a bottle of black ink had toppled over and drenched the continent with dark blotches. Only brave little England stood fast against the Nazi forces.

Every day newsboys on every street corner shouted out grim headlines like “HOLLAND FLOODS ITS OWN FIELDS TO STOP NAZI ADVANCE BUT NOTHING STOPS THE HUNS!”

When he reached Mr. Mozer’s store that evening, he found the old man sitting on a stool behind the counter.

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