Broken Angels

by Gemma Liviero

  “And there have been prospective parents here to see her and the boy, more than once? And they have not been interested?”

  “No one is interested. Everyone wants the younger ones, and only those with Aryan characteristics. You know as well as I that she looks foreign. No one will take her, I can assure you. It was a mistake on my part to accept her, I’ll admit. But she came recommended because of her German, and I felt I had little choice; we thought she would fill a need. I was wrong about that, too. Matilda should not have been brought here. She is not German enough, in either features or attitude. Regardless how long you wish to keep her here, the moment you are promoted, or ordered to take a posting elsewhere, even temporarily, someone else will see this and send her to the camps. You and I both know that. You are delaying the inevitable.”

  She says this with relish, and it is I who can no longer meet the gaze. She is right, of course. The non-Aryan children will stay here for as long as I do. But after that there are no guarantees they will remain. My plan to return Matilda home has failed. My admission that she is not suitable for adoption has put me in a corner and perhaps sent her to a fate her young mind could not imagine.

  “And the boy?”

  “He might be lucky enough to be chosen yet, but he is another whose characteristics appear less Aryan the more he grows, and in another year he will be too old for the orphanage.” It goes without saying that, like Matilda, the boy will be sent to the camps if an adoption does not happen within the year.

  I can see the children through the window. Matilda and Ernest play near the swings, discussing something they have found in the grass. They study it as if there is nothing else that matters in the world. Children should not be affected by the infighting of adults, by large issues that take up much of their thoughts. They should have time to examine the small ones.

  And then I find myself seeing into the future: something lost, something that I can find again.

  “I will adopt her.”

  “I beg your pardon, Commander.”

  “I will adopt Matilda.” I say this firmly, though I do not need to convince myself. I fight the urge to smile at the sight of Haus’s churlish, hideous face. She is reasonably attractive if one views her from an aesthetic perspective only; however, I can only judge her on what I see inside.

  “I’m sorry, Herr Gerhardt. National Socialist policy does not support the adoption of those who might diminish the German race, especially not by their officers. It is not what they want for German families. Your wife has not seen Matilda. The girls here will soon have newborns. Perhaps your wife would prefer one of those.”

  “I think I know my own wife and what she would want.”

  I have steered the argument to an area she knows little about: relationships. She looks down awkwardly and straightens some papers on the desk.

  “I see.”

  But she doesn’t. She walks for miles each day with her eyes closed.

  “I just hope that your wife understands the issues. Matilda, as you know, is a willful child who came with many bad vices—”

  “It is so wonderful that you have much concern.” I stand up and turn away, dismissing what she has to say. “I would appreciate that you not say anything about this until the adoption is completed.”

  Her confidence is doubtful, though what she does with this information is unlikely to affect me.

  I visit Matilda after leaving Haus’s office to ask her about her day while examining her schooling work sheets. But I am not really looking at them. I am pondering her smallness and vulnerability, the way she suffered at the mercy of adults who let her down. I think of Lena and the baby I would be holding now had they lived.

  As I leave, I touch Matilda on the shoulder, and she returns the gesture with a smile: one that comes without trying. Unexpectedly, tenderness feeds the sleeping emotional beast in my chest. I long to take this child in my arms, to tell her that she is now safe. It is the beginning. It is possible, what I have begun.

  Walking through the halls, I am euphoric, immune to other petty concerns. I imagine Elsi’s sweet face at the news of our adoption, and then I think of Haus’s. I climb in the car and for several moments fight back laughter until my chest is weak. This is too much joy, an emotion rarely felt.

  The guard steps up to the car window and asks if I’m all right, but I wave him away congenially. I perhaps appear deranged as I drive through the gates. Perhaps, deep down, I am.

  There must be no going back.

  JUNE–JULY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  ELSI

  I don’t know when I first noticed it, the change in him. Willem rises each day, enthusiastic, effusive, as if there is nothing he can’t achieve.

  I have found plenty to keep me occupied: cooking, sewing, reading, learning. Willem has ordered so many books. My childhood dreams of becoming an actress are thinning memories: my previous life stripped bare, my new one rebuilt under Willem’s careful eye.

  He introduces me as his wife, something I am now accustomed to. Occasionally, we dine out in neighboring towns, blending in anonymously at crowded restaurants. My fear of people is lessening, yet there are times when I imagine running into someone from my past, someone who will remember me. Willem brushes these concerns aside.

  “We are in a place where it is doubtful even I will run into someone we know. And besides,” he says, half joking, “even if we ran into Hermann Manz, he would not recognize that you are the sheared waif from the ghetto.”

  Several times since arriving here we have had small disagreements. On one particular day, when I wore a heart filled with too many dark memories, and the rooms noticeably empty of my past, I questioned how much the purpose of my being here was to make him feel better, and not me. I instantly regret these things I say when he stands there undefended and confused, and I am then ashamed to have thrown such feelings in an untidy pile at his feet.

  But these moments are quickly doused by his ability to dismiss my outbursts on his integrity as an expected reaction, in view of all I have been through and lost. There is a clinical distance in his words, and I feel that I know little about him. Yet he is always considerate and concerned about my welfare. We are like man and wife, just not in name, and with pasts that would not allow such a union.

  He is passionate about the Center. After Willem sent away the older girls and moved the younger children into the house, the mood within changed for the better. At my suggestion, Willem had them create gardens at the front and back of the property, planting flowers and trees. He has told the two remaining guards they can stay on duty, but they must not carry their guns—to keep them out of sight of the children.

  The old dormitory is now locked and no one must enter, and there are plans to demolish it. Willem says that even the nurse does not seem so nervous and confused. She has taken to her new position with vigor, though she is still wary of Miriam, who occasionally calls Nurse Claudia into her office. Willem thinks Claudia is grilled for information.

  Willem is not a person who seeks attention, yet he is unwittingly charismatic. I’ve seen the eyes of people linger longer on Willem than on most. In a crowd, he is the first person you notice, even without the uniform. The reason for this cannot be explained by one notion. It is not just his height, the broadness of his shoulders, the magnetic color of his eyes that draws you in; it is all these things and the fact that he is completely unreadable and distant, as if he holds a secret that is worth knowing.

  Willem will keep Miriam on a little longer. He has written to Berlin to request another posting for her, recommending something that involves the supervision of only older girls or women, and is still waiting to hear back. Meanwhile, she pretends to be busy overseeing the tutors who work with the younger children, though she has very little input about anything. Willem says the only authority she has at the Center is over the new casual housekeeper and Hetty the cook, and only because the latter allows it. He said that he likes Hetty, who quietly goes about her busine
ss and quietly despises Miriam. Matilda revealed to him that Hetty sometimes left the storeroom unlocked when the children were out at play. That sometimes Matilda would take several pieces of fruit, and Hetty knew about it. Willem thinks that leaving the door open was a deliberate act, though the cook would never admit it. She keeps her kindness hidden deep inside and thus is able to do these things without reproach from Miriam.

  Willem has seen several documents in which parents have given up rights to the children. There are few details about the children whose parents were killed, including Matilda’s. He said that in Ernest’s files, curiously, the document signifying the transfer of rights is unsigned. Miriam’s filing system and administrative practices are apparently very poor, and there is little information on any of the children. Education of the younger ones was almost nonexistent prior to Willem’s arrival.

  Willem talks often of Matilda. In the playground the other children look up to her and heed everything she says. Despite her mistreatment, she is tenacious and forthcoming—a born leader.

  When Willem told me that the SS had been encouraged to impregnate Aryan women in Germany and all the occupied territories, to grow the Aryan race, I was appalled but not surprised. Nazi babies are being born across Germany, their births celebrated with ceremonies. When the babies are born at the Center, Willem is required to alert headquarters, and several officials will then arrive to swear them into the German fold. It is archaic and barbaric, I said, and Willem agreed. He said Lena would be appalled, also.

  Sometimes when I look at Willem, I also see Lena, as if his eyes are mirrors that reflect the person he wishes me to be. Though I do not say anything about his dead wife, she is with us always, I feel. I am jealous of her ghost sometimes. Though he says her name casually, he is unaware of the effect it has on me. It is not that I dislike her. Quite the opposite. I admire the person she was: brave and honest. It is just that I so want him to love me as much as he loved her.

  Willem is home early today, bringing flowers. He hands these to me, then lifts me off the ground and twirls us around, as if we are new lovers who have been parted for too long.

  “What is it?” I ask, confused by the attention.

  “I have been keeping something from you for two weeks. It has been difficult, but, as you will learn, I had to wait this long. I sought to first draw more trust from the children. Come!” he says, escorting me to the sofa. “Sit down with me.”

  He takes both my hands in his as we sit. I am somewhat fearful; perhaps I am still getting used to the new Willem. He watches me carefully and waits several moments before he speaks. It is like that with Willem. He is careful with his words.

  Sometimes he is not always present with me, or only partially, as if he is saving some part of himself for someone or something else. Now I feel him here beside me. All of him.

  “I have organized an adoption.”

  “For whom? Are they Germans? I didn’t think you were allowing anyone to adopt until you were satisfied that the children were settled, until you had several more weeks to evaluate their health.”

  “This adoption is different. This one is ours.”

  The excitement that I had felt has turned to something less. I have an uneasy feeling that Willem has done something that will affect us: that will distract him from this relationship we are slowly building.

  “Elsi, we are adopting Matilda!”

  I touch my throat, the air around me thinning. We are not properly married, I am just short of twenty years, and yet he is talking about a girl who is ten, who comes damaged, like us both.

  “This is absurd. We are three broken people. How can we possibly offer her some kind of normal life? I can’t fix her. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know how to be a mother.” I had imagined children with Willem, but not like this.

  “We will be helping her,” he says.

  “Is this your plan? Save us all, one by one?”

  “Do you wish I hadn’t? Do you wish I had left you at the ghetto?”

  I turn away. I am torn between the person Willem wants me to be and the person I was before. This is perhaps what I have known all along: my choices are not really mine.

  “I’m sorry,” he says immediately. “I should not have said that.”

  I run to the bedroom to hide my frustration.

  “Elsi,” he says, following me, “I’m sorry. You are perfectly within your rights to argue this. You are worth much more to me than you think, and I respect everything you say. I thought this would be good, even more for you than me. I believe, too, that Matilda would greatly benefit from a home with parents. She is very bright. Nurtured well, she can do anything.”

  “So it is all part of Willem’s special project: to create the perfect wife . . . perhaps a perfect Aryan wife and mother.”

  “It is nothing like that. I promise. I like Matilda a lot, and I believe you will, too. If we don’t take her and I am one day transferred, she could be sent to anyone, or possibly the camps. She does not pass the Aryan testing. Haus is right. Her features are changing as she grows. Her skin has become very dark after time in the sun. These things—things that matter not to you or I—will matter to someone else brought in to inspect the children. And if they do, Matilda will be gone. Already I have taken a chance in waiting this long. Why else do you think I’ve kept Haus, to be so slow with her dismissal? It is so I can keep a close eye on her, so that she does not talk to others. As soon as I adopt out the ones who failed the tests, I will be rid of her. Once she is out of the picture, I can do what I like, make up any lies to Berlin, move new children out quickly, without someone there to spy.”

  Of course he is right. I should have trusted him. Again I have feared the worst. I have thought his motivations perhaps selfish: thinking that adopting a child was filling in the space left by his child with Lena. Now I understand there is more to it. A child rejected by the very people who took her. Matilda’s life at stake.

  “Can you forgive me,” I say, “for such an outburst?”

  He stretches out his arms toward me, enticing me into an embrace.

  “There is nothing to forgive. Now, would you like to come and meet her, meet all the children? They are inquisitive. They have asked questions about you. They are keen to meet the beautiful wife of the commander.”

  “I’ll have to get changed,” I say, pulling away from him. “My dress is covered in baking powder and sauce.”

  “Wear Lena’s blue dress. The one with the white trim. And you will need a coat today. There is an icy breeze from the north.”

  Willem has bought me new dresses, but occasionally I still wear Lena’s. I thought I had broken the connection with her when our possessions from the bombed apartment were unsalvageable, but shortly after we arrived, Willem organized for the remainder of Lena’s belongings in Poland to be sent here. It is my intention that they all be given away eventually. Then there will be one less reminder that I am not perfect in his eyes.

  At the front of the Center is a gate with a guard. The sight of him brings a chill to my spine, and my chest feels winded.

  “Stay calm,” says Willem. “You have nothing to fear. You are the commander’s wife.”

  I lose myself briefly in his cool, pale eyes, and focus on his low, hypnotic voice. My breathing has evened out once more, and I nod formally to the guard as we pass. Freshly churned soil perfumes the air along a pathway to stairs at the front of the house. One step at a time.

  Willem has told no one that I am coming.

  He leads me along a hallway to the back of the house, first to the kitchen to introduce me to the cook. She is small and round, and shakes my hand with her floury warm one, gracious and genuine.

  Miriam Haus has heard my stranger’s voice and left her office to investigate. She is lank of figure, her facial features bland with pale, undefined brows, her coloring bleached and insipid. She is not nearly as frightening as Willem’s description of her. Through a foxlike stare, she examines my clothes and the ring Willem ha
s placed on my hand, perhaps comparing my worth with her own. Then she is quick to feign an excuse to leave us.

  Claudia and I are introduced in the hallway. She appears efficient in the way she quickly responds to several instructions given, but also acts unassuming in Willem’s presence. From this I gather she is somewhat in awe of him.

  Upstairs, it is a shock to see such young girls with rounded stomachs. They are shy and awkward. Then we walk past the rooms full of young children, all sweet, all fair. Some smiling, some apprehensive, surrounded by books. I can smell fresh paint on their brightly colored walls. Another of Willem’s improvements.

  Then finally we come to the room at the end of the hall. This one slightly bigger for the older orphans, Jacek (his former name officially restored) and Matilda. They sit in the middle of the room between their beds. They are playing a memory game with words. They have to turn each card facedown and then try to remember where they first saw the card with the identical word.

  The first thing I notice about Matilda is her thick, curling hair that circles her face like petals on a flower. Dark-brown brows sit above almond-shaped eyes filled with twists of blue and green. She sits still, her eyes resting first on my feet, then rising to look at my face, my dress, my face again. Her scrutiny is unforgiving, as if I am the one who must be chosen. She is beautiful, but she is certainly not what I have come to recognize as Aryan: her features too angular with high cheekbones and a pointed chin, nose too flat and broad. I understand what Willem means. Without him, she would not last here. Willem thinks that her facial features have developed and changed in the months since she arrived. That if the officer had found her the way she looks now, he would have left her on the streets of Poland.

  There is an easy relationship between the two young children. I wonder if Willem has considered what the separation will do to them.

  “Hello,” I say.