It had been exactly three months since the Jewish vagrant had arrived and been taken in by Petra and Auruo Bossard, stowed away beneath the floorboards of a little house in Munich, Germany. He remained beneath the house in a hidden cellar, intended to be used for storage of extra food and things, which was no bigger than eight by ten feet, with a six-foot ceiling. With the ridiculous food rations implemented by the German government, all of the food that they received in a month could not fill up more than a quarter of the little space below the house. It left more than enough room for the vagabond.
Over the brief few months of Levi's little sojourn, the burned flesh of his wrist had become grotesquely infected, spitting pus and blood and putrescence whenever it was touched. The family had not noticed. Or, at least, the Jew hoped that they hadn't; they were already risking their lives to keep him hidden away in their home—the least he could do was lessen their worries, and lie about his health. Either way, their medical rations were mediocre at best, so it wasn't like they had much help to offer in the first place.
When fever kept him awake at night, he would simply lay against the ground, and press his cheek into the cool concrete beneath him.
There was only one way in and out of the cellar: a small trapdoor, which was hidden beneath a rug in the Bossard's living room. Often, during the evening, Petra would leave the door open for the Jew inside, to try in vain to filter out the pungent air that blanketed the crypt. Of course, Levi was never allowed outside. He was forbidden from even standing on the stairs.
He defecated in a bucket (the very same that he had gagged into upon his first arrival) that was emptied once or twice every few days. It didn't matter how many times Auruo emptied it—the stench remained, and did nothing but deteriorate the Jew's health.
As for meals, Petra was barely rationed enough to feed herself and her husband, let alone the little secret that was tucked away beneath her feet. Levi did not ask for food. He did not have the right to demand anything from these people; they had taken him in, housed him, saved his life (though he wondered if this incarceration constituted "living"), and were risking their lives to keep him. He did not have the right to be picky.
He was lucky that he even got the scraps of bread and soup that he did, and he knew it. So he nibbled on the food, and thanked the family above him constantly.
Between bouts of fever, Levi often found himself thinking that surely his death would be a benefactor to his two saviors—their only problem would be finding a way to dispose of his body.
He still prayed twice a day, and before his meals, whenever he thought about it, but always ended the prayers with the same question—"Can you even hear me?" Believing is seeing—that was the definition of faith, and he knew it. He asked for forgiveness for his doubt constantly, trying to convince himself that God worked in mysterious ways, and that soon, all would be well.
Levi prayed for the Bossards far more than he ever prayed for himself. He asked for them to be blessed for their good deeds, and for them to be fed, for them to be safe when everything was over.
The Jew found himself kneeling on the steps most hours of the day, asking impossible questions of a deity who may as well not exist at all.
Petra often opened the trapdoor and found him kneeling there on the bottom step, bowing his head so low that his nose nearly brushed against the rough wood of the stairway, muttering words in a language that she did not understand.
"… What are you doing?" She asked once, finally, holding a small bowl of soup in her hands.
Levi did not respond for several more seconds, and eventually lifted his head to look at her. "I was saying the Hashkiveinu," He responded, rolling his eyes when he noticed the confused look on her face. "It's a prayer. In Hebrew."
"You speak Hebrew?"
"Of course I speak Hebrew," A small pang of guilt shot through the man when he noticed the split second of offense on Petra's face, and apologized immediately. "Sorry—" He began, and was cut off by the woman's reply.
"Mm, no, it's fine," She told him with a warm smile, setting the bowl on the steps, and sitting down next to it. "What's the Hashkiveinu?"
"It's sort of like a bedtime prayer. You say it before you sleep."
"But it's the middle of the day. Were you going to take a nap?"
His silence was vaguely unsettling, and that was when the redhead on the steps noticed just how unwell the Jew looked; he was pale (more so than usual), and his eyes were rimmed with dark black and purple discoloration, the rest of his pallid skin coated in a light sheen of sweat. His fingers were bony, as was the rest of him, and his clothes hung off of his emaciated frame like rotting flesh from a corpse.
The smile faded from her face.
"… You think you're going to die." It was not a question.
Again, the Jew said nothing, only took the small bowl of soup from the steps and brought it to his lips, sipping the warm liquid gingerly, like it would burn him if he ate too fast. The two of them were silent for several more minutes while Levi finished the rest of his soup. When he handed the bowl back to her, she took it from him solemnly, and stood up to return it to the kitchen, but stopped moving entirely when Levi muttered something.
"What was that?" She asked, hazel eyes burning with emotions that she could not describe.
"I said that kneeling all day is painful," He replied, mercury hues shifting to fall upon the woman's face. "And that there doesn't seem to be a point."
"Then why do you do it?"
"I've been asking myself that question for three months."
The redhead swallowed thickly and did not reply. The two of them stood in silence for what seemed like years, until the Jew finally turned his head and returned to the darkness of the cellar, where he belonged.
Levi was not fed for three more days after that. Not because of his previous conversation with Petra, but because the couple upstairs barely had enough to feed themselves (they didn't eat much more than he did those three days). Petra had come down once or twice to check on him, and ask him if he was doing alright, to which he replied, "As good as I'll ever be."
On the first of the month they received their new ration card, and Petra opened the cellar door to bring Levi a bit of bread and cheese.
"Guten tag!" She called cheerfully down the steps, and hesitated a few moments in anticipation, visibly paling when there was no response. Not even a rustle of the sheets, as there usually was.
The redhead allowed the trapdoor to swing all the way open and remain as such as she climbed hesitantly down the creaky staircase, each groan of the wood beneath her weight echoing through the little room below, making it sound empty. Her heart made a great leap into her throat when she realized that it might as well be.
Silently, the woman set the small meal down on the steps, and continued to make her way down the staircase into the cold, dark basement below. Her fingertips trembled as she reached out to grasp the small chain that hung from the ceiling, tugging on it to allow the old, dim light bulb to illuminate what it could.
Petra was afraid to look around the room. More because of her selfishness than anything else; she did not want to find Levi dead. Not because he meant something to her (though he did, don't misunderstand), but because she would have no way to dispose of the body. For the rest of her life, she would be reminded that she failed to save yet another innocent man, and be forced to let him rot in her basement until someone smelled his rancid flesh upon entering her house.
So, because of these thoughts swimming in her head, the redhead stood there for several moments, slender fingers curled around the chain, gripping it hard, completely alone.
Slowly, she turned around, eyes scanning the room for anything that vaguely resembled life, as if she were afraid of what she might find—afraid that he was alive.
"Hello?" She called again, and her feet bolted to the floor as soon as she was facing the wall, keeping her in a fixed position and facing the cold brick of the basement instead of turning around to face the reality of the rest of the room. She had not yet brought herself to look upon the bed. She was terrified of what she would find.
Suddenly the air seemed so much heavier, and Petra briefly understood what it was like for the Jew down in that basement, with the weight of the world upon his shoulders, and no other company but his God and his mind.
"Please say something." She murmured softly, burying her face in her hands. "Please…" She would have said his name just then, but it suddenly dawned on her that she did not know it. She had barricaded him in a room, letting him fester beneath her feet, feeding him scraps for three months and had not even bothered to ask for his name.
A soft grunt from the corner of the room snapped the redhead out of her stupor, and she whipped around, blue eyes falling upon the little crumpled form on the cot.
"… Petra?" His voice was shaky and uncertain. The feverish delirium was painfully evident.
"I'm here!" She called, perhaps a little too loud, as she stumbled through the cluttered basement and over to the bed in the corner. "I'm here, it's alright. You're alright."
"Do I look alright to you?"
No. No, he didn't. His normally pallid skin had paled even more, blue and green veins crawling over his skin, which clung to his bones like cheap fabric. His cheekbones had been sharp when he had arrived, but now they were even sharper, and his cheeks were hollow, sucked inwards toward a mouth that he never used for anything more than prayer and the occasional conversation.
"Yes, of course!"
"Don't bullshit me, Petra."
She bit her lip. "… Alright, maybe not so good."
"I feel like shit," He murmured, clutching his damp forehead with a clammy hand. "I didn't even hear you come in."
As the Jew lifted his hand to wipe his hair from his forehead, Petra caught a glimpse of the wound on his wrist; swollen and red and irritated, and her mouth fell agape.
"What the hell is that?" She inquired fiercely, narrowing her eyes and wrapping her hand around his forearm, squeezing, watching him cry out beneath her in pain. "Why didn't you tell me about this? You're dying!"
"That doesn't matter!" He shouted back at her, trying in vain to wriggle out of her grasp, forcing dark-colored blood and pus to ooze from his wound and onto Petra's fingers. "I'll die no matter where I am, so who cares?"
A harsh smack to the face quieted him almost instantly. Petra glared down at him, her grip on his arm relentless and firm. "I care. I dragged you almost a mile from that alleyway into my basement and I save my only food for you every week, so don't you dare tell me that no one cares. I'm trying to keep you alive, and I'll be damned if I'll let your victim complex get in my way."
Levi glared at the redhead above him, though his protesting had ceased. He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly, relaxing in her grip just a tad. His distrust in her was painfully evident in every move he made, every breath he took, and it made the poor woman's heart ache, but she did not relent in her pursuit of his trust.
Slowly, she let her fingers unfurl from around his paper-thin forearm, wiping the infection from her fingers with a handkerchief. "Auruo knows a little first aid, and we have whiskey to clean it. Don't ask where we got it, we've had it for a long time. I'll go get him, and we are going to clean this." She pointed angrily at the burn on his arm, turning and leaving the basement without waiting for a reply.
It took them almost an hour just to bring his fever down enough to get coherent sentences from him. They packed snow from outside into buckets and brought those downstairs, pressing it to the nape of his neck, his wrists, and the backs of his knees, force-feeding him whatever water they had on hand. When the man had calmed down enough, Auruo began asking him his questions: When did this happen? With what were you burned?
The replies were short, disinterested, coated with fever. But Auruo found out what he needed to, and then asked Petra to press snow onto the wound until Levi could no longer feel it. Not that it really mattered; it had probably hurt far more for the past few months than it would now. The couple catered to the little vagabond left and right, cutting open his wrist to squeeze out the puss, pouring their alcohol onto it, holding him while he writhed.
Nearly a week later, and the infection was no better than it had been. They had waited far too long to treat it, and they didn't have the medical supplies necessary to do so. Levi's clothes were always damp, and they could not risk bringing him upstairs to bathe him until late at night. When they finally did get him clean, he seemed to relax a lot more.
Every day, they came downstairs to squeeze the puss from the wound, to clean it, and dress it as best they could. It was a slow process, and Levi's condition only seemed to be worsening as time went on.
Soon, he was unable to stand unassisted, and within a week after that, he was unable to stand at all. He was staring Death in the face, just as he had been when he'd arrived; but now, his cold, dark clutches seemed to be so much closer, so much more real. There was no God to save him now.
Petra moved his cot closer to the door, next to the stairs, so that it was easier to access him when it was needed, and also so that he had more fresh air whenever they left the trapdoor open. Levi had ceased to pray. Mostly because he had forgotten, but also because he felt as though there were no longer a point. He laid in his bed at night, staring at the dark ceiling, the silence blanketing his ears and making them ring.
"Fuck you," He said quietly to himself one night (or maybe it were morning, or afternoon), hands balling weakly into fists at his sides. "Fuck you. All I've ever been is loyal, and faithful, and now, the only time I've ever needed you, it turns out that you don't actually give a shit. We're not your children. I'm not your child. You're not going to save me, and neither is anyone else."
Just then, the trapdoor swung open, and Levi turned his head to greet Petra. It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the bright light, and when they finally focused, the man who stood, shrouded in the light of the entryway, was not Petra, nor Auruo. The first thing that Levi noticed was the bright red-and-black swastika pinned to a green uniform sleeve, and the second thing he noticed was the sickeningly familiar boots, black and shining like a diamond.
There were unfamiliar voices echoing throughout the hallway behind the soldier, and Levi was unable to move, still frozen in place.
"Erwin Sturmbannführer!" There was a shout from behind the man, who turned his gaze from the Jew to the three men behind him. "Hast du nichts finden? Did you find anything?"
The man turned his head back to Levi, and for a moment, he looked just as frightened as the little vagabond at his feet was. He hesitated a moment, not breaking eye contact with Levi. With tears in his eyes, Levi mouthed a single word: Please.
"Nein, nichts wichtiges," The soldier replied, letting the trapdoor swing shut again. "Nothing important. We're finished here."
