“Of course,” says Miriam.
Of course I can. I am a Nazi official. My father is a close friend of Himmler. I am also an abortionist and a sterilizer of women. Do they know that? Throw out the memories. Make new ones. My forehead and neck feel uncomfortably hot.
I am shown some photos of the girls in training at the Center, and Frau Haus relays some uninteresting facts about their affluent backgrounds. Hanging above the fireplace is our party insignia and a photo of the Führer. In the corner on the bookshelf is another copy of Mein Kampf and books on food preparation and dressmaking. Everything is perfectly arranged: everything in good, working Nazi order at the front; everything to be forgotten placed at the back. My coffee arrives.
“Herr Gerhardt, I hear that you have worked as a doctor in the ghetto, and you have done much research on pregnant women.”
I take a sip of coffee before I respond to Miriam. I can take all day if I choose. The insignias on my collar say so. But the question itself strips me of power, and I drag my eyes upward to meet hers.
“Yes,” I say, and squeeze out a small smile from the corners of my mouth. Sweat drips beneath my collar.
“That will be most helpful here. Especially with the pregnant girls. We have one here now.”
“How is she?”
“She is . . . how should I put it?” Miriam looks across at the nurse. “Sour, at times, would you say, Nurse? Less than resilient?”
Nurse nods her agreement. “At times, yes.”
“She has some concerns about the impending birth, as she is only fifteen,” continues Miriam. “And, of course, naturally hopeful that her baby shows Aryan traits and can then be adopted out.”
“Of course,” I say. “Who looks after the babies?” I do not ask my other question: What happens to the baby if it does not show Aryan traits?
Did my father know about this? Is this a test?
“Nurse takes care of all the children, and we expect more pregnant women to be sent to us very soon.”
“Why is that?”
“Because our men must do what they have to.”
One of the girls giggles too loudly and is reprimanded by the nurse.
“As you know, our girls here are groomed to be good Nazi wives. But we are so short of marriageable men because so many are out in the field. If we can marry them off, that’s a good outcome. But if not, some of the girls will continue on here until a suitable service or pairing can be found.”
Nurse throws a glance my way before avoiding my gaze altogether and shifting around in her seat. The girls stare at Haus as if they are expecting more to come. There is something I am not being told.
“And they are all here by choice?”
“Yes,” says Miriam. “Their parents have helped fund the Center by donating large sums of money to make sure their daughters get a placement. We rely on those donations, since only a small amount of funding comes from Berlin.”
It occurs to me that the older girls to be reeducated here are chosen not only because their parents must have had some alliance that did not initially include Nazism, perhaps something that offended the party that must be recompensed, but also because of their wealth.
“Our full-time nurse here, Claudia, looks after the girls, making sure they are cared for; however, with the first of our births a few months away, we have been assured by headquarters that a doctor—hopefully yourself—will be here soon.”
“And the orphans? Who currently takes care of their health?”
Frau Haus smiles; she looks as though she is not sure if she should. Her false benevolence is tiresome.
“Nurse, of course. She treats them all as if they were her own. Very recently we hosted our first dinner party and invited some of the party officials in for an inspection. They were suitably impressed.” Under my intense scrutiny, she appears suddenly uncomfortable and pauses to clear her throat. “I am sure that you will host your own gatherings should you take the position. All those children under the age of twelve are to be made available for adoption, provided they can be easily Germanized. Once the girls reach adolescence, they are then groomed until they are old enough.”
“Old enough for what?” I believe I know the answer, but I do not intend to make this comfortable for her.
“As I said, for marriage. Or some may choose to join the Hitler Youth.”
“Or for breeding, perhaps,” I say, hoping to unsettle her with my conjecture.
“If that is required, yes,” says Haus, unsettling me instead.
More giggles on the other side of the room. The sound is irritating, like the buzzing of a trapped fly. I want to shout and tell them this. I stare into the black liquid of my cup until the sound of their giggling becomes drowned in my own thoughts.
This place is little more than a breeding farm for the Schutzstaffel, and another opportunity to discard children who are racially impure! Perhaps it is my father who is ignorant after all. Or perhaps he knew this and chose not to tell me. His weak-minded son unable to deal with another Nazi reality.
“You’ll have to excuse my girls,” says Miriam, sisterly. “They find you very attractive, and it makes them quite silly.”
I force a smile and look at the girls. One looks away, her cheeks reddening. Another does not: eyes lingering too long. I sense that some might not be as innocent as they appear. They have everything they need, while the little ones, the ones who won’t be paraded for German men, wait for something else: a strange new home with people they don’t know, or a trip to a camp that offers no future, no life at all.
“It must be wonderful here,” I force myself to say.
I think of the women in the ghetto and wonder if any of them have died since I left. I think of the women who are undergoing surgery at the private facility at the hands of my father. My hand starts to shake, and a bead of sweat from my forehead lands on my trousers.
“Are you feeling unwell, Herr Gerhardt?” says Miriam.
“It’s all the travel,” I say, dismissively.
I raise my cup to take another sip of coffee, but it never reaches my lips.
“I think you will like it here,” says Miriam.
The world fades in and out. I put the cup back on the table, carefully, slowly, afraid that it will slip from my hands. I wonder about the women who will never have children.
I close my eyes and the cup rattles in its saucer, my hand shaking violently. I feel liquid pooling underneath my eyelids.
The grieving for Lena has begun.
Miriam does not know what to say to me.
I get up and leave the room and walk to the car that waits for me. Haus and the girls are calling good-bye, but I do not turn around.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
MATILDA
I am having second thoughts about running away. Juliane follows me around everywhere. She has become used to us, though she is still calling for her mother. Sometimes she starts before daybreak.
I have spoken to Jacek about taking her with us, but he doesn’t like this idea. It is perhaps best to leave her since she will slow us down, he says. She will make an escape impossible. But I think she could be put on the truck like Sarah if I am not here to teach her German.
No one has noticed that the keys from Frau’s office are gone.
Jacek now thinks that we should leave before the month is ended, because there is a break in the weather. He speaks to me when Luise is not there.
“I am worried that we will be taken if we don’t hurry. I think we should leave soon.”
I have thought of that, too. Every time we hear a motor vehicle, we fear that one of us will be taken by strangers or placed on a truck. Last week an officer arrived to inspect the hut. Normally we have to go to the front room of the house for any kind of inspections.
He was tall and frightening and spoke with a deep voice. I think he might have seen one of my stories that I had hidden behind my back. I thought he was about to ask what it was. Perhaps he didn’t see. When he was gone, Luise st
arted throwing books around the hut, and I had to hold her down until the tantrum passed. She is so fearful of being taken. That was also when I learned her fever had worsened, and went to get Nurse to give her some medicine. Her chest rattles and squeaks in the night.
Each day I take some food from the storage house to hide in my pocket. We have a stash of food for when we run away. I still tell the children stories, but Luise lies down facing the other way. I tell them about the time a little girl, who was made to sweep floors by her stepsisters, met a prince and married him. Juliane loves that one. When I am finished, she acts it out. Jacek and I roll around on the floor laughing. It feels good to laugh. Luise watches, but she doesn’t join in. She frowns at our laughter.
Juliane is talking more. She tells us that on the way here, she was on a train with lots of German soldiers, and that most had bandages on their heads and some were missing limbs and eyes.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
ELSI
We sit against the inside of a fence heavily strung with razor wire. There is little cover from the elements. Inside the building there are rows of bunk beds and a wooden floor. A blanket and a bowl rest beside each cot—our only possessions. I wear a prison dress so soiled it is impossible to tell its original color.
The communal grounds are brown and barren, and there are few living things here, except for the guards and the angry dogs that bark in the night and the prisoners who are just barely living. On the first day here, I witnessed the mauling of a prisoner who had tried to escape and heard her shrieking as flesh was torn from her calves. It is the noises here that set my teeth to grind. I have had little sleep. The ground is sodden from the last of the melting ice; the sun still barely finds gaps to shine through. During the day, even when we are not working, we must sit outside. We have to walk far in order to plow fields. Some of us—when we are not digging up the soil to plant vegetables—huddle under blankets, sheltering from the rain. I am luckier than some, those who are put to work at the cemetery with the task of disposing of corpses, or what the guards refer to as “human waste.”
At night we line up for soup before bed, and then I sleep alongside several others. Some are in prison for crimes of stealing, some just for vagrancy after curfew.
Today I see a figure at the fence in a coat I recognize. Mama stands there waiting. I have seen her here before, but I don’t dare go down to talk to her. We will both be in trouble if I do. She just watches me.
The next day she comes again, but this time she doesn’t leave. I wait for the guards to go inside, then sidle along the fence until I reach her.
“Oh, my sweet angel,” she says, her fingers trembling. She looks aged beyond her years. She begins to cry. I put my fingers through the fence, and she kisses them.
“You can’t be here,” I tell her. “They will send you away to the camp.”
“I can’t bear not to see you . . . I have lost too much already . . .” She breaks down; she is inconsolable. I look around to see if the guards have seen. They are changing their posts, their dogs nowhere in sight.
“What are they doing to you?” she asks.
I tell her about the work. That we are so tired at night. But that it could be worse.
She says that Leah is crying constantly and has bedsores and a fever and an ache in her bad leg.
“Yuri was banned from ever having employment after his comment to the Gestapo about his son. He and Rada were living on the streets last time I saw them. I told them to get out of the apartment, and they did, though Rada keeps coming back to say she is innocent. But I don’t believe it. She has been difficult from the beginning, and she has done this to you. It was Yuri who had to convince her to leave and stay away because I threatened to hurt her. I have no job now. I am not sure what I will do.”
She holds out a piece of bread. “This is from Lilli.”
I look around again. The guards are on the move.
“Mama, you are not to bring me food. You must stay away.”
“I will come back every day.”
“Mama, this is all my doing. I was a fool to do what I did. I was a fool to follow Simon.”
Mama’s tears have stopped, and her tone is suddenly fierce. “Do not believe a word of what Manz said! I believe that Simon was gallant in those final hours. I believe he said what he said to try and save you. I did not like him at first, but I believe now that what you and the others tried to do was brave. It is what I would have expected you to do. I am so proud of you.”
Her eyes are watery, though they remind me of how they used to be—full of passion and life and love for her child that cannot be measured in words. I feel sick with shame that I led her to this by following a boy I believed in. I release her fingers.
“Mama, you need to get back to Leah. Do not come back here. You must let me go. You must save yourself.”
I get up and walk away so that she will go. I feel that somehow my punishment is deserved.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
MATILDA
I feel a cold breeze on my face and wake to see that the door of the hut is open. I rush to the door and look outside. I wonder if Nurse has not locked the door properly and the wind has blown it open. The wind had been howling through the night. Tiny pieces of snow float to the ground. It is beautiful, I think, despite the wind that blows through my long nightgown and the cold that seeps through the cracks of the floorboards and into my feet. I close the door, and in the light that is just spreading across the hut, I see there are two other bodies inside, not three.
I shake Jacek awake. “Luise is gone!” I say. He rubs his eyes and slowly climbs out of bed. Spiders have crawled across his eyes and webbed across his eyeballs. He rubs them clear. Juliane is making a small bubbling noise as she breathes.
I put my hand under my mattress to find that the key is gone. The food is also gone.
We run to the door and down the steps and search under and around the hut. There is no guard near the woods. He is probably patrolling elsewhere or having breakfast with the other one who guards the front. The door to the kitchen is still locked. Cook has not yet arrived.
Back in the hut, we discuss the ways that Luise might have escaped. Perhaps she is halfway home by now.
“But how will she know where to go?”
“Perhaps she doesn’t care, just as long as she is away from here,” I say.
We wait until Nurse comes. She cannot hide her surprise when she sees that the door to the hut is already open. We explain that Luise has left.
“Where is she?”
“We don’t know,” I say.
“But you must have heard.”
“No,” says Jacek.
“We think she had a key,” I say, and then regret it. Jacek doesn’t look at me. I suddenly feel ashamed that this could get Luise into worse trouble if she is caught.
We are called to assemble in the backyard. The snow has lifted after a heavy fall the night before. The guards and the older girls are called, also. Frau has not yet arrived at the house. Nurse questions us again, but this time we tell her that we do not think she had a key and we know nothing more.
Several of the older girls have been searching the property. One of the girls says that the fence is undamaged. It is curious that she could have gotten out, says Nurse.
After breakfast, Nurse locks us into the hut again, but we are too worried to work. Juliane keeps crying. She is very much missing her mother today.
Jacek thinks that Luise is far away now and on her way home.
“She doesn’t know which way to go,” I remind him.
Nurse lets us out later that day so that we can play on the swings. We are relieved to be out because we thought she would lock us in all day. But we are too sad to play on the swings, so we sit on the ground instead and stare at the woods, wondering if Luise is hiding there watching us, and we look for signs of any movement in the trees. We are only out there for a short time when one of the older girls runs past us from the back of the property. She
is calling loudly for Nurse. We follow her to the kitchen, but I do not hear what she says, and when we get there, Frau is shouting orders at the guards from the doorway.
“What is happening?” I whisper to Jacek.
“I think Luise has been found.”
I feel my heart beat rapidly. I should be relieved, but I know for certain that Luise will be punished, probably locked in the small house.
A guard arrives at the back door to lead Frau to Luise. Jacek and I follow.
“No! Wait!” says Alice, but we do not listen. I follow Frau, expecting her to send me back, but she doesn’t. At the back of the hut near the fence is a huge pile of wood. On the side that does not face the house, several pieces have been pulled away, making a gap that leads to within the pile. Frau peers through the pieces of wood.
“Yes, that is her. Take her out!”
Luise has pulled away pieces of wood from outside the pile; then, once inside, she must have pulled some of them back in around her. A bird within her nest. It was a clever place to hide, but it is a pity she could not get through the fence instead.
The guards drag out a blanket that is frosted with ice. Several strands of white-gold hair hang through the opening at the top of the blanket, and tiny blue feet are exposed at the other end.
“She climbed in and perhaps fell asleep,” says the guard, cradling her like a baby.
“She was ill and possibly felt too cold to move,” says Nurse, who does not sound angry or happy. “She probably just went to sleep.” Each word seems to drop down further than the one before, as if her sentence has rolled down a hill.
“Wake her up!” I say. In my heart I know there is something wrong, but I cannot yet see what it is.
Frau turns to look at me.
I begin to rush forward to touch Luise, to see her face, but one of the guards grips me by the arm.
“She died here in the night from the cold and fever. You see where your meddling leads!”
Frau, I realize, is talking to me. It is only when I look at Jacek, who has begun to bawl, that the horror dawns on me, and I am caught between the sadness of Luise’s death and the horror of Frau’s words clawing at my throat.
Broken Angels Page 21
