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Chapter 2…1940…Happsalu, Estonia

…the thought that Germany could lose the war never entered into her mind. The thought that her possessions might be lost to the war was not possible. The Führer was too masterful.

The old gold pendulum grandfather’s clock on the floor chimed telling her she had fifteen minutes at best before the tank, maybe less.

Pulling the small ladder from their sleeping loft over under the attic crawl hole she pushed up and opened the small hatch into the cool unheated space where days before she had put most all of her valuables. She put her silver plate, jewels, furs, clothes, and goblets stolen by the Germans from Russian churches, old paintings, and icons, anything that would fit down between the rafters and out of sight. Standing on the top step of the ladder she carefully took the last of her precious objects, each silver plate, each goblet and carefully, breathing heavily, crying, swearing, she places her treasures in among the rafters. She saw they were no longer visible.

In amongst these rafters were all of her most valuable but not transportable objects, not now anyway, but some day, someday she would return. Does anyone ever return for buried treasure? When standing up on the rafters she could see this treasure tucked in among the old boardsof the ceiling. When she let herself down through the ceiling hole, she noted with teary satisfaction that unless a person climbed clear up into the attic all of her treasures were hidden. The casual treasure hunter standing on a stool and looking into the attic there would be nothing visible just an old empty spider web laden attic.

The clock, once more, whirls, clicks, and mechanically chimes the hour, she has ten minutes! She reaches for the Mozart manuscripts crying swearing praying to God and asks her great great-grand father Helmut’s forgiveness for what she was about to do. Her constant intent was to guard care for and protect these manuscripts, her most valued possession, and now she must leave them behind in this foreign land. “Oh! Dieses schreckliche Krieg! Oh, this horrid war!” she cries. She stumbles and falls over a coat lying on the floor, gets up raging at the unfairness of life. How could she have ever guessed that her life would depend on whether or not she could or could not carry the Amadeus Mozart manuscript, what were the chances?

Of the Mozart manuscripts she knows that its two volumes are too much to take. She also knows that even one volume is too much, Hans had told her this is serious, life and near certain death, Liebhaber, and with this thought in mind she races the manuscripts up the ladder. Standing on the top rung she reaches as far as she can along the rafters and with heavy heart leaves the manuscripts one on each side of a rafter. Looking down between the rafters she spies her diamond, sapphire, and Tsavorite garnet ring which somehow ended up laying just there in the attic where she could see it. She picks it up and pulls it onto her middle finger. Stepping down she closes the nearly invisible hatch.

She is sobbing but still functioning as she races through the cottage shouting at the book upin the now dark black attic, “I will come back for you. Oh, damn it,” she says in a deep grief filled groan. She is racing now, bellowing, distraught, picking up some things, throwing down others, mayhem.

Finally, her last act in the cottage is to take her grandmother’s heavily flowered silk down quilt and gently, while crying, cover her richly polished nine-foot Kuhn Bösendorpher, rare and desired. “Ahhh war, great grandfather I am so, so sorry,” “oh, oh, oh, Jesus Christ!” she bursts out in a scream.

“You are going to die!” shouts a voice close to her ear. “Shut up!” she says, “shut up, shut up, shut up, shut, shut up!”

She has at most eight minutes, surely less. She pulls on her heavy work overalls two shirts and her heavy jacket with the gems sewn into the lining. She is pulling on her heavy gardening boots when all the clocks in the cottage strike 5:00. She has perhaps, God willing, seven minutes. She pulls open the door with its familiar groan, grabs her pack leaning near the door and throws it across her shoulder, then picks up the loaded small caliber carbine and rushes out, slamming the locked door behind her.

She is gasping for breath, no longer crying, she is sucking air. She is focused, going over in her mind her escape as she rushes for the beach.

Running past the cow pen she throws open the gate latch on the run, her babies, her beloved cow Coca Emma standing expectantly by the gate waiting to be milked. She grabs Coca’s great brown face and kisses her on the nose, smelling her herbal breath. Her pig Otis happily runs after her for a few steps– they too are now war victims.

War comes to all.

She now can clearly hear mad mayhem in the direction of the tank’s insane roar as it ridiculously easily bores and perforates its way through the forest breaking trees and fences as it forces its will, and has its way. Deer run away and frogs leap into ponds.

Then she is running as fast as she can and now, she can actually see this ghastly apparition, for it is now, this second, on her side of the lagoon and out across the far field it disappears and then again it appears, it throws up clods of grass and mud. The cows way out in the field run wildly bucking. The tank has broken down the fences and with its painted Red Star it is careening, smoking its way from the margin of the forest with branches and fence wire trailing behind it. There are small trees stuck to its steel carapace. Riding in the open cock pit, is Valerie Quimov his eyes wild, as his T-34 crosses the long field. He has his smoking newspaper cigarette clenched in his teeth. In his right hand he holds his oily vodka bottle held high in a salute. Girtl can see him; he can see her small and far away but he sees her this time without binoculars.

Girtl’s teeth chatter uncontrollably her inner thoughts yell “you are going to die!” “No!” she screams out loud at her thoughts “I’m not going to die!” “You will be raped by many then gutted and left to die!” “No!” she screams again “I will not! I will survive!”

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