Lilac Girls

by Martha Hall Kelly

  On my way northwest, I passed through one neglected village after another, the only color in the drab towns the red on white propaganda posters proclaiming the virtues of socialism and the UNBREAKABLE FRIENDSHIP WITH THE PEOPLES OF THE SOVIET UNION.

  The travel arrangements were complicated, since Germany had been stripped of all the land it had taken during the war. In the East it had been returned to Poland under Russian occupation, and in the West it was divvied up between the Western Allies. Two new states had been created out of occupied Germany, free West Germany, no longer fully occupied by the Allies, and the smaller German Democratic Republic, or GDR, in the East.

  It took me a whole day to make it through Poland and East Germany. The roads were potholed and often strewn with litter, and it was rare to see other passenger cars. A Soviet military convoy lumbered by, license plates painted out. The soldiers riding in the back of the trucks eyed me as if I were a circus oddity. The first night I slept in my car, one eye open, alert for robbers.

  The next day, through dense fog and drizzle, I made it to the inner German border, the 1,393-kilometer boundary between West German and Soviet territories. Caroline had directed me to one of the few routes open to non-Germans, the northernmost designated transit route, to the Lübeck/Schlutup checkpoint. As I approached the guardhouse and the red-striped pole, which blocked the road, I slowed and pulled up behind the last car in line.

  Light rain fell on the car roof as I waited and I studied the white concrete watchtower standing along the wall in the distance. Were they watching me from up there? Could they see my dying car spewing lavender smoke as I waited? Somewhere a guard dog barked and I considered the stark surrounding countryside and the long, metal fence that ran the length of the road. Was that where the booby traps were, beyond that fence? I would be fine as long as I didn’t have to get out of the car.

  My car inched forward in line, my naked windshield wipers useless, the rubber stolen long before by petty bandits. I turned off my radio so I could concentrate. Where was Zuzanna when I needed her? Oh yes. Enjoying her new life in New York City. I rechecked my papers for the tenth time. Three pages thick and signed in ink with a flourish. Kasia Kuzmerick, Cultural Ambassador, it said. I ran my finger over the raised seal. I certainly didn’t look like any cultural ambassador but those papers made me feel important. Safe.

  By the time I made it to the gate, my dress was soaked with sweat under my heavy coat. I rolled down my window to speak with the East German guard.

  “Polski?” said the guard.

  I nodded and handed him my papers. He took one look and turned toward the guardhouse, my papers in hand. “Don’t turn off the car,” he said, in German.

  I waited and studied my gas gauge. Was the needle actually moving downward as I watched? Two more East German soldiers swept aside the guardhouse curtains and glanced out at me. At last, a middle-aged officer came out to my car.

  “Get out of the car,” he said in German-accented Polish.

  “Why?” I said. “Where are my papers?”

  “They have been impounded,” said the officer.

  Why had I not listened to Pietrik? Maybe he was right. Some people never learn.

  1959

  It took me some time to get out of my car at the checkpoint, for the door would not open, no matter how I tried. I climbed across and out the passenger side, much to the amusement of the border guards, standing there flaunting their rifles.

  The rain was down to a fine mist, and I watched it collect and bead on the shiny cap brim of the officer who had ordered me out. I braced myself with one hand on the hood of the car, for my legs felt about to fail, then snatched it away, for the metal was hot from the engine. Was the car about to overheat?

  “You have fancy papers,” the officer said. “They have, however, been replaced with a one-day pass.”

  “But they are—”

  “If you don’t like it, turn around,” the officer said. “Either way, get this car out of here—it’s on its last leg.”

  I took the pass. Did he see my fingers trembling? The pass, soggy by then and no bigger than a pack of cigarettes, was a miserable exchange for my beautiful papers.

  “Make sure you are back here by six tomorrow morning, or you will be living here in this house with us.” He waved the next car forward, signaling the end of the conversation.

  Back in the driver’s seat, I broke out in a cold sweat of relief. The second checkpoint was easier, and once the West German border guards checked me through, I crossed into the West, and drove north toward Stocksee.

  West Germany was like a different world, a wonderland of green fields and neat farms. The road was smooth, and modern trucks passed me on that popular trucking route, for my car refused to go over fifty miles per hour. I stopped only once, at the first telegraph office I saw, and sent a wire to Caroline saying I was on my way.

  Somewhere on the outskirts of Stocksee, I heard a terrific clank and turned to see my muffler fall on the asphalt and clatter to the side of the road. I backed up and retrieved the lanky hunk of metal and hurled it into my backseat. After that, my car sounded like the loudest motorbike when I pressed the gas pedal, but what choice did I have? I had to keep going.

  I chugged into Stocksee in the early afternoon and shivered as I passed the flowered sign: WILLKOMMEN IN STOCKSEE! Herta’s home base? It was a rural town close to a lake with the same name, a big lake, tranquil and dark. She always did like lakes.

  I drove past rolling farmland and into the heart of Stocksee, a tidy little place. If the dress of the inhabitants was any indication, Stocksee was a conservative place too, for most wore traditional Tracht, the men in lederhosen, Trachten coats, and alpine hats, the women in dirndl dresses. I slowed my car by a sidewalk and asked a man for help in my best rusty German.

  “Excuse me, sir, could you tell me where Dorfstrasse can be found?” The man ignored me and kept walking. A stab of fear went through me when I saw a woman resembling Gerda Quernheim, Nurse Gerda from the camp, pass by on the sidewalk. Could it possibly be her? Out of prison already?

  I found the doctor’s office, a single-story building of white-painted brick. I parked far down the street, relieved to turn my car off, and sat there attracting hostile looks from passersby. One peered into the backseat in a pointed way, looking at the muffler lying there. I tried to steady my breathing and gain courage. Should I just return home? Call the police and ask for help? That might not end well.

  A silver Mercedes-Benz slid by me and docked at the curb in front of the doctor’s office. It was an older model but the kind of car Pietrik would have admired.

  A woman got out of the car. Could that possibly be Herta driving such an expensive car? Why had I forgotten my glasses? My heart beat like a crazy, flip-flopping fish. The woman was too skinny to be her, wasn’t she? My hands were slippery on the steering wheel as I watched the woman walk into the doctor’s office.

  I slid to the passenger door and exited, the hinges complaining, and shook my hands about like two wet mops, trying to calm myself. I entered the doctor’s office, and stopped to read the brass sign next to the door: FAMILY MEDICAL CLINIC. The words WE LOVE CHILDREN were painted below. Children? It couldn’t be Herta. Who would let someone like her touch their little ones?

  It wasn’t a big waiting room, but it was unnervingly neat and tidy. The walls were painted with schools of manic fish and turtles, and an aquarium bubbled in the corner. I sat and thumbed through magazines, glancing now and then at the patients, waiting to see if she’d walk by. It was hard to look at those well-fed infants with their velvety skin and know Herta might be the one touching them. As their names were called, the mothers went in to see the doctor just as we once had. Did she give them their inoculations or leave that to a nurse?

  I watched an angelfish in the tank suck in and spit rocks from the pink-gravel bottom. A German mother sat across the room, the picture of Aryan purity. The Nazis would have put her on the cover of every magazine during the wa
r. I considered telling her how they killed babies at Ravensbrück, but then thought better of it. Never volunteer information. The Germans were always suspicious of that.

  Though it was cool in the room, sweat ran down my back. To calm myself, I paged through German Mother magazine. The war was long since over, but the Hausfrauen had not come far. Still working hard, but no longer for their beloved Führer. If the magazine was any indication, the Germans worshipped a new idol—consumer goods. Volkswagens, hi-fis, dishwashers, and televisions. At least that was an improvement. The receptionist scraped her glass window open.

  “Do you have an appointment?” she asked, blue eye shadow on her lids. Makeup? The Führer would not have approved.

  I stood.

  “No, but if the doctor is free, I’d like one.”

  She handed me a clipboard, a long form trapped under the silver clamp.

  “Fill this out, and I’ll check,” she said.

  The Germans still loved their paperwork.

  I filled in the form with my real married name and a false address in the nearby town of Plön. It was barely readable, my fingers shook so. Why worry? The war was long over. Hitler was dead. What could Herta do to me?

  I listened to the music as I waited. Tchaikovsky? It wasn’t calming me.

  The last patient went in to see the doctor, and I sat alone. Would she remember me? I was certain she’d recognize her own handiwork.

  The receptionist appeared at her window.

  “The doctor will see you after the last patient. I will be leaving soon, so may I have your paperwork?”

  “Of course,” I said and handed her the clipboard.

  I’d be there alone with the doctor? Should I just leave?

  I went to the wooden coat-tree in the corner, empty except for a white lab jacket, to hang up my coat. The nameplate pinned to the breast pocket said DR. OBERHEUSER. A chill ran through me. How strange to see that name in print. At Ravensbrück the staff had been careful not to reveal their names. Not that we hadn’t known them.

  The receptionist stood and tidied her desk, ready to go home.

  Why stay? If I left then, no one would know I’d been here. Caroline could send someone else.

  The last mother walked through the waiting room, baby at her shoulder, and smiled at me as she left the office. I thought of Mrs. Mikelsky’s baby with a pang of sadness. I could follow that nice girl out of the waiting room and go home to Lublin. I hurried my coat on and started toward the door, openmouthed, sucking in air. I made it and felt the knob smooth in my hand.

  Just go.

  Before I could turn it, the receptionist opened the door that led to the back rooms.

  “Kasia Bakoski?” she said with a smile. “The doctor will see you now.”

  1959

  October 25, 1959, turned out to be a perfectly lovely day for a wedding. Mother was in rare form, despite the fact the United States had just launched monkeys Able and Baker into space on a Jupiter missile and she was knee-deep in a letter-writing campaign to end such animal cruelty.

  It was a year of firsts. The first diplomatic visit to the United States by a Soviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev. The first time the musical Gypsy played on Broadway. The first wedding at The Hay.

  Serge and Zuzanna were guaranteed good weather for their nuptials, since we’d erected a tent at great expense in the lower yard below the garden. It was Indian summer up in Bethlehem, hazy, hot, and just a bit blustery.

  This was not a society wedding, if that is what you are accustomed to—far from it, as our procession back from the church proved. Our raucous little group meandered from Bethlehem’s Catholic church, past the town green, to The Hay, attended by a great gonging of bells from the town’s churches. All of Bethlehem had come out for Serge and Zuzanna’s big day, except for Earl Johnson, who felt duty-bound to remain on his post office stool.

  Mother, understated in gray taffeta, led the procession, Mr. Merrill from the general store by her side. She walked backward, conducting her Russian orchestra friends, their instruments festooned with gay flowers and ribbons. They performed a rousing version of Bach’s “Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring,” lovely actually, on balalaika.

  Next came the bride and groom. Serge was striking in one of Father’s gabardine suits we’d cut down for him and wore the kind of wide grin usually found on a man standing next to a trophy marlin on a Key West pier. What man wouldn’t be proud to marry lovely Zuzanna? She was part Audrey Hepburn and part Grace Kelly, with the temperament of a spring lamb. She and her strong-willed sister, Kasia, were as different as chalk and cheese. Kasia refreshingly forthright, Zuzanna subtler.

  Mother had sewn Zuzanna a dress of ecru lace. It was becoming, even with dollar bills pinned all about it in the Polish tradition, the breeze sending them fluttering like a flapper’s fringe. The bride carried a spray of Mr. Gardener’s Souvenir de la Malmaison roses, fragrant and blush pink. The groom carried a blossom as well—a ten-month-old named Julien, peach cheeked with a headful of hair that was, as Mother would say, “black and straight as a Chinaman’s.” The dear boy had officially been theirs for two weeks, and his feet had yet to touch terra firma, so many adults loved holding him so.

  After various and sundry cousins and acquaintances came Betty and me. She was resplendent in a Chanel suit, the mink heads on her stole bouncing with each step. I wore a lavender raw silk sheath Mother had whipped up, which Zuzanna said suited the mother of the bride, which sent me into tears even before the service. Bringing up the rear was Lady Chatterley the sow, daisy chain around her neck, and like many of our guests most concerned with the prospect of good cake.

  Our procession wended its way to our gravel driveway. Back beyond the house, behind the barns, the hayfield stretched all the way to the next street over, Munger Lane. The hay had been harvested, leaving the naked meadow spiky with tufts of straw, and the maples and elms at meadow’s edge, already starting their crimson turn, swayed in the breeze. Back there, one’s eye naturally goes to the end of the meadow, beyond the orchard to my old playhouse.

  I considered the little house, a white clapboard echo of its parent, with its sturdy chimney and pedimented entryway fitted with child-sized benches. The black door shone in the sun and the silk curtains Zuzanna had sewn, the color of pussy willows, lapped out the windows with the breeze. I was not surprised it had become Zuzanna’s cocoon of sorts, where she went when the world was just too much. It was once my place of solace, where I’d spent days reading after Father died.

  Once the procession wound around to the back garden, Betty and I went to the kitchen to fetch the petit fours Serge’s sous chef had prepared.

  Serge had opened a restaurant in nearby Woodbury, weekend home of well-heeled Manhattanites. He called it Serge! and it was an immaculate hole-in-the-wall that had a line out the door on Saturday nights. This was not surprising, since everyone knows New Yorkers, when deprived of good French food for more than twenty-four hours, become impossible and seek it out like truffle pigs. Or maybe it was Zuzanna’s Polish desserts that kept patrons lining up.

  “I do love the Polish traditions, don’t you, Caroline? Pinning money to the bride? Genius.” Betty plucked a petit four from the box and popped it into her mouth whole.

  I tied on one of Serge’s new aprons with his logo, a black S, down the front. “Stop pinning hundred-dollar bills on the bride, Betty. It’s vulgar.”

  “It’s such a practical tradition.”

  “At least it’s distracting Zuzanna. From dwelling on the fact that none of her family could be here.”

  “Those two need a honeymoon, Caroline. Must be exhausting tending to a teething child.”

  “She misses her sister.”

  “Kasia? Fly her in, for heaven’s sake.”

  “It isn’t that easy, Betty. Poland’s a Communist country. I had a hard enough time getting her a transit visa to go to Germany—”

  “To confront that doctor? Really, Caroline…”

  “I sent everything
she needs, but I haven’t heard a word from her.”

  I’d mailed the package to Poland weeks before, express, with more than enough money for her trip to Stocksee, and still hadn’t heard a peep. And I wasn’t the only one waiting to hear if it truly was Herta Oberheuser. A slew of British doctors was ready to help me pressure the German government to revoke Herta’s medical license. Anise and friends were ready to go to battle as well. Herta was just one of many on our list of Nazi war criminals who needed to be held accountable.

  “Your persuasive powers are first-rate, dear. You won’t catch me traipsing up to some godforsaken German town to identify a deranged Nazi doctor.”

  How did Betty manage to boil every situation down to the absurd? Had I taken advantage of Kasia by asking her to identify Herta? She would be fine—such a strong, capable person, not unlike myself at her age.

  “Well, anyway, don’t worry about all that, Caroline. I have a gift for you.”

  “That isn’t necessary.”

  Betty heaved a Schiaparelli tote onto the kitchen table.

  “It’s lovely, Betty.”

  “Oh, the bag is Mother’s, and she wants it back—she’s become positively miserly in her old age. But the gift is inside.”

  I reached into the bag and felt the flannel, that unmistakable feeling of metal muffled by cloth, and knew instantly what it was.

  “Oh, Betty.” I held on to the table to steady myself.

  I pulled out one flannel roll and unfurled it to find a row of oyster forks.

  “It’s all there,” Betty said. “I’ve been buying it from Mr. Snyder for years. You know he calls me first when he has anything good. When he had Woolsey silver…”

  I pulled all twenty rolls from the bag and piled them into a brown-flannel pyramid on the table. Even the silver petit four tongs were there.

  Betty wrapped her arms around me, and I rested my cheek against cool, smooth mink. “Now, don’t get all teary on me, Caroline. This is a joyous day.”