“Hello, Vati,” says Matilda. “Mutti and I have baked apples with raisins and honey.”
“That is very good,” he says, looking through her to something else in his mind. I know at these times not to say too much.
“Willem, why don’t you go and rest,” I say. “We will talk later.”
It has been more than an hour and Willem has not returned from the bedroom. I find him sitting in the dark facing the window.
“Willem?”
He says nothing, his gaze fixed to a shapeless night.
“Willem, please tell me what’s wrong.”
“I have made a mistake. I hope you can forgive me, Elsi.”
“What is it?”
He is frightening me. I am afraid to turn on the light, to see bad news in the strain lines beneath his eyes.
“I am not who you think I am. I have done some terrible things . . .”
“What things?”
He is silent.
I take his hand, but he is like a statue: unmoving, unreachable.
“Whatever it is, you can tell me. I believe that everything you have done, every decision, has been the right one, Willem. I know it in my heart. You have given both Matilda and me a chance at life. God knows what sort of life we would have had without you.”
“Vati,” says Matilda, interrupting from the doorway.
“Matilda,” I say, “Vati will be there in a minute.”
She is not deterred but steps into the room. When Willem turns to look at her, she climbs onto his lap, and he accepts this affection easily. She has the ability to reach the soft flesh beneath his shell.
“You should not work so long,” says Matilda.
Willem puts his arm around her and kisses her on the forehead before sending her away again.
When Matilda is gone, I ask him what it is that I should forgive. He says that he doesn’t remember what he said—he was distracted. He says that exhaustion can make him ramble, and to ignore him when he is like this.
I can tell he is lying, though I believe it is futile to question his words. He might close up even further.
“Elsi,” he says, “I am thinking that after this position, we will take a trip far away from here, perhaps to Sweden. Berlin and the rest of Germany will not be safe for a long time. Please know that without you and Matilda, I am no longer whole.”
These are words I have longed to hear, to rejoice and respond to. Yet the vulnerability in his tone leaves me feeling equal measures of uncertainty and reassurance.
SEPTEMBER
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
WILLEM
Today I learned that one of the SS officer’s wives has died. I suspect that the course of tablets I gave her was too much. Authorities have taken the body away for an autopsy.
I have visited the home of the dead woman’s husband to offer my condolences. He has questioned the drugs I gave her. I have explained that a course of “fertility” drugs is unlikely the cause, that it is my belief a previous operation after a miscarriage—not one performed by me—had not been carried out effectively.
He has accepted my false explanation. He has said that I am a good doctor and is grateful for all I have done. He is one rank below me.
I cannot explain why I have no feelings at this stage, why I share none of his grief. I have become like those doctors in the camp. I have become like my father.
Yet when I am home with Elsi and Matilda, I am someone else. I am who I want to be. If the three of us could disappear somewhere, then perhaps the change could become permanent. It is always on my mind, yet what about the children at the Center—what about my project there? What would become of them without me? These are the responsibilities that bind me. Not my enforced duty to Germany but my self-imposed duty to set these people free. And more of them, if I can.
On Sunday Matilda told me that she is forgetting the faces of her family in Romania. I felt mostly relief that she has moved on, accepted her circumstance. But just beneath this feeling, always lying in wait, is the fear of losing her, the feeling of placing myself in her real father’s shoes.
Elsi no longer grieves for the family she has lost. She has accepted her new one, though she still lights a candle for her mother, and now Matilda does this, too, for her own family. Such ritual gives me a sense of annoyance, but a small one. No one will take them away from me. We are woven into the same piece of cloth now.
Doubt lingers over the death of the officer’s wife. I am awaiting the release of the coroner’s report.
Today I met with the parents of one of the purported orphans. I located his real parents and made arrangements for them to take the child home. I have told Haus and Claudia that I have been interviewing German families, not several of the real parents I have traced and met in secret. Claudia believes this. Haus is somewhat suspicious of everything I do. I believe she is still attempting to extract information from Claudia, which is why I must also keep her in the dark. It is why I keep the children’s files locked away.
Haus has requested an audience with me.
Before she says what she has come to say, I tell her the good news: I have found a job for her as a women’s supervisor at one of the camps. I have gone to great lengths to find her work that has nothing to do with children, where she will be told what to do. The camp is in Poland, as far away as I could send her.
Haus squeezes her hands into fists, perhaps attempting to gain back some control.
“I know what you are doing, Commander.”
“And what is that, Miriam?”
“The children you are admitting are not Aryan. I have sent a letter to Berlin to someone more senior than your father, telling him of my suspicions. I also suspect that you have returned some children home again, and I have asked for an investigation. I expect we will receive a visit from an official shortly.”
My throat feels thick, and I am unable to speak, yet strangely I feel calm. There is no obstacle that isn’t surmountable.
“Well, Miriam, could I at least obtain a copy of your letter so that I know what charges I am answering to?”
“I have a copy here.” She slides a carbon of the letter toward me across the desk, offering a smile that is smug, perhaps even triumphant. She appears pleased that I am reading this, that she might finally bring me to heel. My hatred for her has grown more than I thought possible.
Her letter does not mention Elsi, nor does it mention any names of the orphans in particular. I have hidden several files. But she also alludes to some other practices within the Center involving those girls who carry the future of Germany in their wombs. She states that there are a high number of miscarriages occurring. There is, however, even in her own words, no record of proof that I have anything to do with this.
“Thank you, Miriam. Whatever you think of me, there is a good explanation for everything.”
“If you have nothing to be concerned about, then neither will the Berlin officials.”
“I should warn you, though, that if you call these officials here and they find nothing, they will not take kindly to their time being wasted. I assure you that the next post they find you will be worse than the one I have recommended.”
Some of the smugness has left her face.
She leaves my office, and I detect with some gratification that she now carries misgivings. Should she be proved wrong, she would be considered a troublemaker and her opportunities for future employment compromised. Though, should a thorough investigation be pursued, it will be the end for me. I must write my father to prepare him. He will not take kindly to another question mark above the issue of my dedication, much less to a further stain on our name.
I visit the orphans, who show me their German writings, and I encourage them to keep up their good work. The rooms for pregnant women are empty. Two more were recently admitted, but both suffered miscarriages before returning home.
I wish everyone a good day, put my hat on, wave to the guard, and commence the drive home. It is just another day.
CHAPTER FORTY-THREE
ELSI
Something is happening to Willem. He tosses and turns, and the bedsheets are damp in the morning. I believe he has a fever, yet he ignores my concern.
He has recently been the most loving and attentive he has ever been, but in the night he changes, perhaps haunted by demons he cannot talk about. He says he will take something for the insomnia so he doesn’t disturb me. He says that he is overworked, that he will lighten the load, and he will employ more people.
Germany has been hit with many bombs recently, one of them not far from here, and many more around Berlin. Willem says that he will not be returning to the city for any reason now.
One evening Willem doesn’t come home until early in the morning and only has enough time to wash and return to the Center.
When I question him, he says he had to attend to an emergency call from a wife at the clinic who has been hemorrhaging.
And then it happens again several nights later.
Willem is missing. I have not seen him for two days. I cannot go to the Center for fear that something has gone wrong. He has seemed anxious this week and more distant than usual. I fear that he is involved in things he has no control over. I believe that he does other work, secretive, perhaps dangerous, that he cannot talk about with me.
It is shortly before midnight when I hear the front door open. I creep into the living room, where I find him sitting in the dark.
“Willem,” I whisper.
But he doesn’t respond.
When I switch the light on, he has his head in his hands. I feel a wave of panic and rush forward to kneel in front of him. I gently reach for his hands that cover his face and ease them away.
I gasp. One eye is swollen and circled with lacerations and bruises.
“What has happened?”
He shakes his head, grimaces from the movement, and touches underneath his ribs.
“Will you get me some water, please?”
When I return from the kitchen, he has removed his shirt, and I see that there are several cuts on his torso and more bruising across his chest, where he now lays his hand.
He sees my stricken face.
“It looks worse than it is. I will manage.” He takes a sip of water. “I will take a shower,” he says and leaves for the bathroom.
It is always with Willem that I feel so helpless, that I have no control. He does not tell me things, and I do not know how to help him. I know he is suffering internally, his mind distant, his thoughts dark. At first I believed the issue was personal, that I was somehow a mistake he must deal with, but now I know that there are far worse things in Willem’s world, and I must find out what they are.
He fetches some ointment, and I help apply it to the cuts on his face and side.
“You are the doctor now, yes?” he says, though there is no joy in his tone.
I help him bandage his middle, where there are deep lacerations.
“You will need stitches.”
“No,” he says, brushing the comment aside. For some reason his dismissiveness causes my chest to tighten. I feel anger rising.
“Willem, if you don’t tell me what is going on, I don’t know if we can continue together.”
“I do not want to get into an argument with you. Please just leave things to me.”
I pull away from him.
“I have done everything you have said, and now you tell me to go away, as if I have no say whatsoever. Is that what you think of me? I am not sure that you care about us after all. You have become a stranger to me in these last weeks, Willem. You disappear for two days and then come back and don’t want to talk. Even Matilda does not know you anymore. She is becoming uncertain. She worries about you as much as I do.”
Willem sighs and sinks back into the couch.
“Haus has asked officials from headquarters to investigate my procedures at the Center,” he says. “They will be arriving in the coming days, and if these officials test the children, I fear that several will be sent to the camps. I have been searching for safe places for those orphans who are at the greatest risk.
“Hetty gave me a name of her cousin who she said may know someone. She didn’t say much more than that because she, like everyone, is paranoid, but she suggested these people do not follow the Nazi cause and do not see eye to eye with the Gestapo. I gathered from her responses to my questioning that they have helped others escape capture, and they are participants in an underground movement against oppression. Hetty said that I must not tell her cousin where I got the information.” He pauses to take a breath.
“I went to the address she gave me, hoping to make inquiries, but the people there didn’t believe I was looking to help the children. I believe they thought I was a spy. The person in charge, Leon, told me that they support Hitler and I must not say another bad word against him or they will report me. But I know they were lying. They were panicked by my sudden appearance, as you can understand. They thought I had made everything up. I did not wear my uniform, but I told them who I was and who my father was. That only made it worse.
“After that, they offered to take me to a secret meeting place. Thinking they finally believed me, I climbed into my car, and they gave me directions to meet other people, who then drove me farther into some woods. I was beaten and kicked until I lost consciousness. I woke sometime later and went searching for my car until I found it many hours later.”
“That is insanity! But why did you do that? You are lucky they didn’t kill you.”
“I did not expect the distrust. I did not expect them to hate so much.”
“Are you sure they are part of the underground?”
“Even more so, now they have reacted this badly. If they hadn’t, they would have called the Gestapo to come and get me.”
“So, what will you do now? Can you get help from somewhere else?”
“I doubt it. I, too, would find it hard to trust a senior member of the SS who tells me he is an ally. In hindsight, it was naive of me to think this.”
“What about Hetty? Can you ask her to contact them?”
“No. As I said, she cannot afford to become involved. I think she told me more than she wanted to. The fact that she could be remotely implicated is dangerous enough. She has to play both sides carefully or risk getting herself killed.”
“Can you just take the children yourself? Tell Haus that you have found them German families?”
Willem shakes his head.
“It is too much of a risk. There are several of them, and I am running out of time. Besides, Haus will tell the officials from Berlin that these children did not pass the Aryan tests, and the addresses of the placements will then be checked. These resistance workers can drive the truck to the Center, dressed in Nazi uniforms. It has to appear as though the children have been taken to the camps. I can tell the officials when they arrive from Berlin that I agreed with Haus’s testing, and this might stall further investigation.”
“Where will you get the truck to collect the children?”
“In Berlin I requisitioned a truck and had it driven here. It is safely hidden in a rented barn. The uniforms I can supply, also. I kept several from my service in the field.”
There is always something new that I learn about Willem. But that does not concern me at this point in time. A plan is forming in my head.
“Then let me go and talk to these people.”
“Absolutely not!” Willem stands now, his torso slightly bent, though his face shows no pain.
“I must!” I say. “If you really want to save these children, you will have to let me help you.”
He does not agree. He is difficult to convince.
“They will not harm me. Not when they know about my past. I will tell them that I—”
“Elsi, they might give you up. What if I am wrong?”
“You just said you believed it. If you were willing to trust your insti
ncts, then I trust them, too. They may have beaten you to test you. Otherwise, it does not make sense why they didn’t just bury you in the woods.”
Willem searches for further arguments against my proposal but fails to find them.
I put my hand on his arm. “Please . . .”
Two nights later we drive back to the house of Hetty’s cousin and park some way down the street to hide the vehicle from view. I am to walk to the door and ask for Leon.
Willem is watching me. We have left Matilda alone, telling her that she must not open the door for anyone. We have told her that we are visiting a friend of Willem’s who helps with adoptions. Willem is concerned, but I am not. These people are on my side, and I have been through worse.
I knock on the door, and a woman answers. She is not much older than I am.
“Is Leon here?”
“Who are you?”
“I need his help.”
“I do not know why you would need that. Leon is just a farmer, and we don’t invite in strangers.”
“My husband was here two nights ago. I am here because you and I are on the same side.”
She looks at me and twists her mouth.
“I have no idea what you are talking about, but if you must come in and see Leon, then so be it. Fabien,” says the woman to a young boy, “get your father and go fetch Leon.”
I imagine that Leon must be someone important. I sit across from the woman at the kitchen table. She does not move but watches me closely. It is some time before the boy returns with two men and another woman, who stand around me at the table. The men are dressed in clothes, their skin darkly tanned and with hands that are grazed and calloused. The smaller of the men has a deep frown at the bridge of his nose that appears to be permanent, but with forearms that are large and used to heavy work.
“What do you want?”
“Are you Leon?”
“Answer the question.”
“I have come seeking your assistance. My husband wishes to smuggle some children who were kidnapped and brought to Germany. My husband is part of the Nazi Party, but he does not accept what Germany is doing, stealing children—”
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