All characters in this story are 18 years of age or older.
*
Magda's feet hardly touched the stairs as she fled, but the cold stone pavers of the street changed the panic of her flight to the sobering sense of nowhere to go. Her bare feet would not carry her far on the cobblestones. Without clothes or shelter it would be nearly impossible to stay out of the grasp of the Nazis. She stood shivering in a doorway looking furtively down the street for her Nazi pursuers and wondering what to do next. A block away in the square she could see the trucks that brought the soldiers for the house-to-house searches that went on every day. The soldiers called the searches inspections but they were little more than a roundup of Jews to fill the trains and an opportunity for looting. The soldiers took what they wanted as they wandered through homes and no one said anything.
Magda peeked around the doorway and searched in vain for a place to hide. Looking down the other way there were more soldiers in the park. She flattened herself into the shallow alcove and pressed back against the wooden door. It opened a crack. For an instant she thought she could escape through it but the unfriendly face of Herr Schumacher appeared in the opening. His eyes swept over her nakedness pondering her appearance at his door. Magda raised her hand in supplication, pleading for his help. For a moment he stared her down and she thought he was about to summon the soldiers. His craggy face showed no compassion when he stepped aside and motioned for the girl to enter.
The foyer was drab and unlighted with the stale smell of cigarettes. Just beyond was a flight of stairs and Shumaker shuffled ahead of her climbing one step at a time. His apartment was surprisingly tidy and there was a box of canned goods on the counter waiting to be unpacked. There was a small table in the corner of the kitchen and papers neatly stacked on it along with the stub of a carpenters' pencil.
Magda's attention was drawn back to the old man. He had been grinning at her as she was looking around the room, his eyes feasting on her nakedness. She shuffled uncomfortably shifting her weight from one foot to the other as he leered.
"Do you have something I can put on?" she asked politely
The old man shook his head. He was enjoying the unexpected treat of a naked teenager in his apartment too much to assist her in covering up.
Magda knew enough to mask her annoyance. Having a place to get off the street was more important than anything else. If the price of her refuge was an old man gawking at her she would bear it. It was better than a room full of Nazis in any case. She knew Schumacher was Jewish. She'd seen him at synagogue when she was a little girl but there were no signs of it now in his home; no mezuzah in the doorway, none of the little symbols of faith so common in Jewish homes. His tattered coat hanging on the back of the door had no yellow star stitched to its sleeve. Magda briefly faltered in her certainty but the image of the tall man worshipping at the synagogue was compelling. In her heart she knew he was a Jew.
"I need help," she began, he eyes imploring him to understand. "There are soldiers in my house, and they...my mother..." She stammered and then stopped abruptly. The old man was smiling. Not the benevolent smile of a rescuer but the snide smile of predator. When she stopped talking she was startled by his words.
"And the soldiers, did they fuck you?" he asked.
Magda shook her head. "I ran."
"They'll be looking for you," he stated the obvious. "And when they find you they will fuck you, or worse."
The girl knew there was much worse they could do to her. The principal at her school in Switzerland had told her awful stories of what the Nazis liked to do to young Jewish girls. His daughter was her best friend at the school but it didn't stop him from frightening Magda into providing sexual favors. For a time, it had kept her at the school when he could have sent her back to Germany. Still, when the money from home ran out, he sent her back anyway. It was on the day she left that he took her virginity, saving the news of her expulsion until after she had pleasured him.
Schumacher's eyes dropped to Magda's firm young breasts. It had been years since he had seen such nubile flesh. He saw the pink nipples come to life as she began to feel his eyes upon her again. "Turn around," he ordered gruffly. "Let me see your ass."