Vandella resilience, p.1
Vandella Resilience, page 1
Vandella: Resilience
Copyright © 2023 by M. Ch. Landa
All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America.
No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
For information address Landa Publishings LLC.
www.landapublishings.com
ISBN eBook 978-1-955601-04-7
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Edited by Kelly Schaub and Lara Kennedy
Dear reader, thank you for purchasing a copy of Vandella: Resilience. As an artist, your economic support, honest reviews, and sincere recommendation to your close ones are what allow me to continue this writing venture.
That’s why, as a token of gratitude, I want to share with you the short story “The Courier,” intended to be read before this novel. Please visit my webpage, www.mchlanda.com, and subscribe to my newsletter to download it for FREE.
Thank you again, and I hope you enjoy it.
Sincerely,
M. Ch. Landa
For my late mother,
for your resilience and dedication
PROLOGUE
DESPITE HAVING ONLY BEEN GONE FOR A FEW DAYS, I was a stranger in my own house. Without Gran, it felt huge, cold, and lifeless.
“Maia, are you sure about this?” Shelly stood at the doorjamb. “You can stay at my house until you feel better… We can have girls’ night every day!”
I smiled briefly, remembering all the silly things we’d done wearing pajamas. “Thanks, Shelly, but… I want— I need to be here.” My heart sank at the sight of the vacant chair where my gran used to sit every morning to drink her coffee.
“I know.” Shelly squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll leave this in your room.” She lifted the backpack containing my clothes and the manila envelope Bill had given me at the graveyard.
“You can leave them on the table.”
“But the stairs—”
“Don’t worry, Shelly. I’ll manage. Crutches are temporary.” I hugged her. “Thank you for everything you’ve done for me.”
“That’s what friends are for.”
I nodded, and we both grinned.
“Please call me if you need something.”
“I will.”
Shelly closed the door.
Alone, I sighed, looking around. “What am I supposed to do now?”
I somehow still expected the always-wise response of my gran, but the empty house did not answer.
I grabbed the manila envelope and sat on the armchair. I dumped its contents over the coffee table, including the mysterious ancient, leather hardcover book. I brushed my fingertips around the outline of the word carved into the cover: Resilience. The word transmitted the despair of the hand that had engraved it. I browsed through. The first third of the book was missing, the remains of the torn pages still stuck to the binding. The first available page contained a dedication from my gran, so I assumed the discarded pages were unimportant. I read it aloud.
“‘My dearest Maia’…” My voice broke at the thought of hearing her voice. “‘By the time you read this, you will be clouded with questions, many of which not even I have an answer for. Sorry, I should have told you this before, but I lacked the courage. I kept silent, hoping my past would never haunt you, that you would not inherit my curse. But watching you lying prostrate in the hospital bed, my little Ruddy Bear, is what encouraged me to write this, heartbroken. Because you have the right to know the truth. The secret buried in my chest for so long. Maia, you must know how I met the Harbinger of Death…’”
CHAPTER 1
THAT MORNING I WOKE UP like a trained soldier, before my Kienzle alarm clock could ring. I blew out the candle on my nightstand as the first ray of light shone through the dew-tarnished windows. As a person afraid of sleeping in the dark, growing up during a time when keeping a light at night could pinpoint the target of a bombardier was challenging. Yet every night I dared to kindle a candlelight. It was a muffled cry of protest at war, when light and darkness were not a perfect metaphor for good and evil. There was too much evil happening in broad daylight, but also kindness blooming in the darkness.
I put on a white top, tucked this into my shorts, tied the laces of my shoes, and fastened my unruly frizzies with a headband, following the apparel of the woman depicted in the poster hanging on my bedroom wall. A beautiful, strong, and heroic woman crossing the finishing line, with the Nazi flag waving behind her. I sighed, envisioning myself like her, winning gold at the Olympics. I heiled, reading the phrase written at the top, “Im Bund Deutscher Mädel,” longing to reunite with my friends Gerda and Ania and all the other BDM girls. Because what was the point of belonging to a Band of German Maidens if we could not be together? Bonding, friendship, and belonging were all my eyes could see in that image. As a teenager, you didn’t dare to question your allegiance. Our cause is just, we were told. Taught. Indoctrinated. So, they sent us off to wander a ruptured world, blindfolded by our naivete.
I grabbed my coat and sneaked out of my room, tiptoeing all the way down the stairs to avoid waking up my mother. In the kitchen, Frau Weber was already preparing breakfast. She smiled in collusion, her stubby finger pressed against her pursed lips. She sliced a bulky loaf of wheat bread and smeared it with marmalade—true strawberry marmalade, farmed and preserved by her, not the chemically colored jam distributed in those days in Berlin. It was one of the few advantages of living in the countryside. “Danke,” I whispered and headed outside.
The early sunbeams tinted the cloud canopy, and the spruces and pines topping the mountains radiated a halo of holiness. Chilly September wind blew my hair as I devoured my bread and went on stretching. “Up, right, down, left, up…” I touched my feet and the soil at each flex. I trotted back and forth across the earthen driveway several times, my heart pumping warm blood to my limbs, until my coat became unnecessary.
A figure loomed in the driveway. It was Herr Huber pulling his mule. “You rose earlier than the sun today, Peach!” he said, removing his hat.
“We leave for Wewelsburg after my class. My dear friend Gerda is marrying.”
“Ja, your mother told me about it. Let me take old Schwein to the barn,” he said, petting his mule. “I’ll fetch your equipment before starting my day.” Herr Huber was the first farm worker hired by my grandpa, and after fifty years was the sole remaining. “Too old to remarry, too old to fight in the war,” he used to say, after the passing of his wife by pneumonia and losing his son during the Great War. “Plowing the fields is the only thing I have left.”
Herr Huber came out of the barn carrying the wood frames he had helped me to assemble when I moved to the farm. We spaced the hurdles proportionally along the eighty meters of my makeshift track, and I jogged to the starting line. I knelt, hands behind the lime line and feet gripped tightly to the soil. Herr Huber held his handkerchief aloft, pocket watch in hand. When he gave the signal, I ran.
Sprinting a hurdle race relied on precision as much as speed, to calculate the exact moment to jump, having body and mind perfectly synchronized. After endless hours of training, your body acts instinctively, feeling almost magical. As I approached the finish line, I saw neither Herr Huber nor the farm. My mind had transported to the Olympiastadion in Berlin, surrounded by a crowd of thousands of cheering attendees. I raised my arms at crossing the finish line, imagining myself climbing to the summit of the podium, everybody cheering my triumph.
“Less than fifteen seconds, Peach!” Herr Huber said excitedly. “You broke your previous record.”
“Yay!” I cavorted at the thought of being closer to materializing my dream. But my joy was short-lived.
“Emma!” My mother appeared at the door, arms akimbo. “How many times must I tell you not to play outside while it is still dark?”
I gulped. “I was training, not playing,” I retorted.
“And you think the bombardiers will make a distinction?”
I sighed.
“Emma, we’re at war.”
“I know,” I said, disheartened, remembering the air raids that broke Berlin’s peace starting the summer of ’40. Those countless nightmarish nights we’d had to sleep in the cellar had become unbearable for my mother by autumn of last year, 1943. “But that’s why we moved to the quiet of the countryside, right? To live at peace. No bombings.” I echoed her own words when justifying to my father.
My mother frowned and grunted.
“Frau Niemeyer, please, I’m sorry, it’s my fault—” Herr Huber tried to intercede for me.
“Don’t apologize on her behalf, Herr Huber. I know my daughter. She’s a professional at dragging everyone into her mess.”
But for me, that “mess” was something the skeptical eyes of my mother could not see. Without school or BDM and having only paper friends—Ania’s letters weren’t half as funny as real Ania was—my dream of becoming an athlete like Trebisonda Valla was all I had left. My mother always complained, “Why not as Anni Steuer?” one of our best German athletes, but Trebisonda was the Italian who had robbed the gold from Anni in a hurdle race in ’36. And I wanted to be the best, to win gold, and as the Führer said, “If you win, you need not to have to explain.”
Unfortunately, my mother never pictured me as an athlete but as a housewife like her. “What honorable man will marry you if he sees you romping like that, Emma?” But despite her efforts, I could not see marriage at my finish line. “I hope your father loves to see his daughter all grubby and smelly.” My mother pushed the door open. “Now, get inside!”
“I’ll bathe before my class with Herr Günther.” He was the tutor my father had hired to continue my studies.
“Bad news for you, maiden, there will be no class today. Our transport will pick us up early, so you better finish your breakfast and wash yourself, now!”
“But first I need to clean up my mess, as you taught me, right?”
My mother’s jaw dropped at being outsmarted, while Frau Weber battled to contain her laughter under the scrutiny of my mother.
“Did you see, Herr Huber?” I asked, helping him to carry the wood frames back to the barn. “At each jump, I felt like I could almost fly.”
“My eyes could not believe it. You flew as gracefully as a swan.”
I grinned. “But my knee grazed the sixth hurdle.”
“Don’t worry, I’m sure you will do it perfectly next time.”
We heaped the frames behind a haystack. Schwein greeted us by regurgitating his meal, making a sound like an oink—hence his nickname, “Pig.”
“Before you leave.” Herr Huber rummaged through his bag and pulled out a letter. “Despite being addressed to me, it seems it’s really intended for you.”
“You don’t know a Jacques DuBois from Paris?” I asked, reading the name of the sender.
Herr Huber shook his head. “Flip it over.”
Written on the back, the word For could be read beside a colored-pencil drawing of a peach with a smiling face. “‘For Peach’… Could it be from… Anton?”
Herr Huber smiled knowingly, and my heart raced at the thought that my brother could be behind the sender’s identity. I struggled to believe it, considering Anton had passed a year ago, meaning this might be the last letter he’d penned before his death.
“Emma!” my mother shouted in the distance.
“You better go,” Herr Huber advised.
“Danke, Herr Huber.”
I held the letter against my chest as if it were my lifeline and sprinted back, imagining that if I ran fast enough, I could find my brother waiting for me at the house. To challenge myself, I used the posts of the fence running parallel to the road as marks to erect mental hurdles that I jumped as if they were real obstacles. But upon my arrival, somebody else welcomed me instead.
“From whom are you running away?” a young man asked from the driveway. His gray uniform flaunted oak-leaf badges on his collar and braided shoulder boards, but what called my attention were his polished jackboots, impeccable, just like my father’s. He had arrived in a car while I was in the barn, a shimmering black Horch with protruding, chrome-plated headlights.
I hid the envelope behind me, startled. “Pardon me?”
“I’m sorry.” He removed his cap and held it under his left armpit. The top of his silken hair glistened under the sun, contrasted with his close-cropped sides. “I saw you running all the way here. Quite impressive.” His darting, sterling-gray eyes rendered me speechless, and I blushed, realizing he had watched me jumping. “You must be Emma, right?”
“Emma, I told you—” My mother came out reprimanding me, but she composed herself at noticing our visitor. “Oh! I’m sorry.”
“Sieg Heil! Frau Niemeyer.”
“Sieg Heil,” my mother replied. “I thought Hermann would drive us.”
“I’m sorry, Frau Niemeyer. Your husband and Hermann had an urgent matter to attend to, so Obergruppenführer Von Schroeder instructed me and Otto to come for you, and not to delay your arrival to Wewelsburg.”
Otto emerged from the wheel of the car wearing the same uniform. “Sieg Heil.” He saluted and adjusted his thick, rounded spectacles, emphasized by his bushy brows but at least helping to dissimulate his hooked nose.
“I’m sorry…” My mother beckoned, looking for his name.
“Brigadeführer Ghislain Fleischer.”
“Oh!” My mother’s voice turned melodious at hearing his name and rank. “My apologies, Brigadeführer Fleischer, but as you can see, my rebellious daughter is not yet ready. So I’m afraid we will have to delay our departure.”
Ghislain turned to Otto, who fished a gilded watch from his jacket pocket. Otto held it carefully, and using the knuckle of his index finger, he knocked the lid three times, as on a door, before opening it. He observed the clock for a moment and nodded to Ghislain.
“We’ll wait until your daughter is ready, Frau Niemeyer.” Ghislain smiled agreeably, with his perfectly aligned teeth. “Your daughter’s commitment in sports is what the Reich needs the most.”
“Emma, your bath awaits,” my mother urged me with a half grin. “Gentlemen, can I offer you a cup of tea to alleviate the wait?”
“Splendid,” Otto replied, and both men walked inside after me.
I hurried upstairs, not least concerned about washing myself. Once alone in my room, I opened the letter. At first glimpse, I confirmed it was Anton’s handwriting. I struggled to contain my sobbing, to avoid being heard downstairs. I put the unread letter away and slid inside the bathtub to wash off my tears, hoping water could also carry away the image of Anton resting inside the casket. The mortuary paleness of his stiff skin, the coldness of his perfectly intertwined fingers, and the hollowness of his wide, shut eyes. I scrubbed my skin vigorously, as if the memories of his funeral were dirt I couldn’t remove.
Once the water had quieted my nerves, I climbed out of the tub and dried myself.
Then, I dared to read the letter.
Dear Peach:
If you’re holding this letter, it means two things. First, the letter outwitted the intelligence agencies all the way from Paris. But it also means I’m already dead.
People will say many things after my demise. Some will remember me as a hero and others as a traitor. Truth is, neither those who praised nor those who condemned me really knew me. Only you know the man your brother really was.
Peach, I did terrible things that haunt me in my sleep. But once I discovered the truth, I could not turn away from it. I wish I could explain to you, but that would put you in peril. It’s enough to say that many secrets hide behind Wewelsburg’s walls.
Don’t divulge the contents of this letter to anyone, not even our parents. Please look after Mother for me. She’ll need you more than ever. When war knocks at your door, stay close to Father and everything will be fine.
I send you my congratulations in advance for all your birthdays I’m going to miss.
Don’t miss me, because after what I’ve seen, I assure you, we will meet again.
Don’t rush through life, no matter how slow time passes. Clock hands always circle around.
Don’t despair, because in the place where I’m heading, no days pass by.
Be true to yourself, because I’ll only recognize you if you don’t forget who you really are.
Traitor?… Terrible things?… Secrets in Wewelsburg Castle? I sighed, disheartened, wondering about the unknowns surrounding my brother’s death. “Wewelsburg…” I whispered, convincing myself I could find the truth behind his murder at that castle.
Be brave, because bravery is what you’ll need the most… were Anton’s last words before his pen trailed off.
“Is what the Reich needs the most,” I repeated Ghislain’s words that echoed my brother’s. Fueled with determination, I wore my BDM uniform: a full blue skirt, brown lace-up shoes with gray stockings, a white blouse with a dark neckerchief, and on top, a velvety golden-brown, four-pocket jacket. Finally, I wore my cap, cocked, with my curls sprouting below.
“Emma!” my mother shouted from downstairs. “Hurry! We’re leaving!”
“I’m coming!” But before leaving, I hid the letter behind the poster on my wall, and I collected my orbed locket necklace from the nightstand. It contained Anton’s photo as a cadet on one side and a photo of my parents on the other. I kissed it before closing it and hung it around my neck, hiding it carefully inside my blouse—remembering no jewelry should be displayed with the uniform.
