Saving Amelie

by Cathy Gohlke

“But here? You’re saying that it’s a law here?”

  “Hitler changes the laws to suit his grand design.” She leaned close, looked down to whisper, as if studying Rachel’s pastry. “And if he doesn’t order it directly, he has it done through his emissaries—all made to appear as if it’s done for the greater good of the Fatherland.”

  Rachel sat back. What if the rhetoric about creating a master Nordic race is not just talk, not just the hope and fantasy of dreamers? What might they do to increase the segment of the population with those features and characteristics and decrease the population without? What if . . . ?

  “Once he’s rid of me, Gerhardt will be legally free to remarry—” Kristine’s eye twitched—“someone more suitable. In the meantime he’s free to propagate his bloodline, to do his duty for the Fatherland with prostitutes the Reich deems fit.”

  “I’m sure you’re mistaken. There must be another explanation.” Rachel couldn’t take it in, couldn’t grasp that she was defending Gerhardt.

  Kristine pulled the gray silk scarf from her neck to reveal a perfect circle of purple bruises round her throat and beneath her collarbone, thumbprints obvious. “This is not a string of pearls.” No tears welled this time. “Is this the necklace of a woman valued?” She rewound the scarf.

  Rachel could not breathe, and Kristine gripped her fingers once more. “Take Amelie, I beg you. Take her with you to America.”

  6

  RACHEL TURNED OVER IN BED. She’d not slept well since her meeting with Kristine. She closed her eyes and repeated to herself for the twentieth time that she did not want a child. What did she know about raising or even communicating with a deaf child? She didn’t even know if she wanted marriage—ever. Never mind the unlikelihood that she’d be allowed to leave Germany with someone else’s offspring. Especially when that someone was SS Sturmbannführer Gerhardt Schlick.

  Rachel sat up, slipping her feet into her sandals. What she did want was to return to New York, take up her first real job, begin her career with the Campbell Playhouse, and not look back. She’d studied four years for just this kind of breakthrough. Small—she knew it was small—but any kind of breakthrough in NYC’s theatre community was amazing, nearly impossible to snag.

  She wanted to forget about Kristine and her ravings, forget the smug, licentious Gerhardt, the wild accusations of Jason Young. And she desperately hoped that her father had not stepped onto a moral and ethical slope so slippery that he could not regain his footing or his soul.

  But she’d promised Kristine she would think about taking Amelie to New York. And she had—for nearly a week.

  Rachel rang for room service and coffee, glad for once that the Germans loved their coffee—or whatever was substituting for coffee these days—strong.

  It was a good thing her father was away. Had he been there, she might have gone to him, confided in him, and sought his advice, even against her better judgment. Rachel had sensed an uncomfortable bias on her father’s part toward Gerhardt, a cold dismissal of Kristine—one that made her skeptical of his fair counsel, even made her question his motives. But in whom else could she confide?

  Perhaps he was right. Perhaps Kristine had let her imagination run wild. At any rate, her father would return in another week. She could do nothing about any of it now.

  The thing Rachel could control was her shopping and theatregoing, and she’d taken good advantage of these days on her own to frequent Berlin’s best department stores, and the less traditional, more experimental modern theatre venues—places her father would not appreciate, places the Reich had formally disapproved of but that still thrived. She planned a night of Wagner’s Meistersinger, staged at the Volksoper, for his return. That, she was certain, would meet his approval.

  Unhappily, her favorite stores had been closed—Jewish stores now sporting six-pointed yellow stars with a woeful string of empty windows and signs forbidding Germans from shopping—never mind that there was nothing to sell. Equally, Jews were forbidden to shop in Gentile department stores, eat at Gentile cafés, buy food from Gentile cart vendors—Juden Verboten signs were plastered everywhere.

  Rachel pulled a blue serge suit from her wardrobe and wondered where Jews were allowed to shop, where they ate, if there was enough of anything available to them. Her father had told her to mind her business, not to question or speak her opinions aloud. “You’re not in America,” he’d said, “and things are tense, uncertain here just now. You don’t want to leave a mistaken impression or—” he’d half smiled—“create an international incident.”

  As nearly as Rachel could tell, she wasn’t in Germany either—not the Germany she remembered from her childhood visits. This one was covered with black-jackbooted SS and grim-faced Gestapo, awash with brown-shirted Hitler Youth goose-steppers—hard-faced, energetic, and intimidating. She knew her father wasn’t teasing; he was warning, ordering. Rachel appreciated neither. She wanted to go home.

  Friday morning, September 1, dawned gray and cloudy. Rachel’s sleepy late-summer morning was sharply interrupted by Reich Chancellor Adolf Hitler’s radio broadcast at seven, proclaiming that German troops had crossed the Polish frontier at four that morning, advancing in a “counterattack.”

  She scanned the morning paper slipped beneath her door, but there was nothing about the invasion, making the radical reports seem surreal, more like radio theatre than reality.

  Not a face in the hotel dining room an hour later registered surprise. Guests breakfasted on dark rye bread covered in sliced meat and cheese just as they did each morning, as if invading a bordering country happened every day. Waiters with steady hands poured hot drinks from steaming silver pots.

  Rachel hovered round the hotel, almost afraid to venture through its front door. Luncheon was soup, salad, meat, and vegetables as usual, waiters still steady, though more reserved. By three in the afternoon Rachel felt as though she’d slipped through a rabbit hole where nothing was as it appeared. She remembered Kristine’s words about the execution of T4. “When the nation goes to war . . .”

  Her father wasn’t back yet. There was no one to talk with—no one she dared talk with. But if she sat another minute, she’d crawl out of her skin. “Shopping,” she said aloud, dabbing the corners of her mouth and throwing her napkin to the table. That was something she could understand, something she could do besides eat apple strudel and dunk coffee cake and pace her hotel room floor.

  She stepped into the late-afternoon throng of shoppers and workers, most walking Berlin-briskly about their business, but with faintly dazed expressions, a hint of uncertainty shading their brows. And then there was the underlying apathy . . . which she understood least of all.

  Hawkers of newspapers cried out their specials with the only true emotion she witnessed: “Counterattack on Poland! Army advancing! War is on!”

  Rachel could not believe such madness. Even she knew that Poland’s army was no match for Germany’s. To imagine that they had sprung first . . . she simply couldn’t buy it.

  She headed for the main shopping district and the stores she knew. Surely her father would see they needed to leave immediately, to return to the US earlier than planned. Anything she wanted to take home, she must purchase today.

  She wasn’t prepared for the army of curb painters. “Blackout preparations, Fräulein,” she was told. “Tonight’ll be the first. Just a precaution, these lines, to help us find our way in the dark. Our Führer will never let the enemy through.” He stood, arching his back. “But you might want to keep your gas mask handy, if you’re out tonight.”

  Poland bomb Berlin? It was hard to imagine. But if Hitler didn’t withdraw his troops, Britain and France would surely join the fray by sundown. They were bound to Poland by treaty. Rachel walked faster, determined to be back before dark. She didn’t have a gas mask.

  It was nearly seven when she stepped from her last store, pleased with the new season’s rich-brown and belted cardigan she’d bought at a fairly reasonable price, only slightly embar
rassed that she could think of fashion when war was declared and there was already talk of greater rationing in Berlin. But the war wasn’t here—not yet. And she’d bought something for her father, after all—his favorite writing paper, available only from Berlin stationers. She was contemplating buying a box of chocolates for their return trip when sirens blared so loudly from every direction that she dropped her packages and shopping bags to cover her ears.

  Faces in the waning light paled; steps around her quickened, some heading for the nearest newly appointed air-raid shelter. But once the noise subsided, most pedestrians and the few shopkeepers who’d run into the streets to look up into the sky for Polish bombers masked the tension in their faces, picked up, and moved on as though nothing out of the ordinary had just occurred. Shaken, Rachel pulled her hands from her ears and breathed. That was when she spotted Jason Young across the street.

  Knowing she blushed, she refused to acknowledge his wave, but stooped to retrieve her jumble of packages. The heaviest slipped from her grasp. Vainly she swiped the air in an attempt to recapture the ream of linen stationery that burst open. Jason was suddenly beside her, piling brown paper parcels into her arms, chasing stationery as it turned head over heels in the late-day breeze, rushing up the pavement.

  When he chased the last sheet into traffic, to the tune of impatient taxi drivers laying on their horns, she screamed, “Let it go! Let it go!”

  But he gallantly trotted back, errant sheets in hand. Ordering the linen jumble just so, he handed the ream to her as if on a silver platter. “Lady Kramer—” mouth serious, eyes smiling—“we meet again.”

  She didn’t want to return his smile. She just wanted this miserable, frightening day to be over, and she didn’t want to think about social graces or crude reporters. But she forced a smile, embarrassed though she was to be in his debt again. “Sir Jason to the rescue. You make a habit of saving damsels in distress.”

  He grinned from ear to ear. She hated that her breath nearly caught at his shining brown eyes. Devilishly handsome—there ought to be a law. Does he know? Brash? Boyish? She couldn’t tell, but wouldn’t mind getting to the bottom of it. The thought startled her. He’s Father’s enemy! And then she wondered if perhaps her father needed an enemy . . . or at least a conscience. As horrendous and browbeating as Jason Young’s investigative pieces had been, they’d also proven thought-provoking—for her.

  Perhaps there were things Jason Young knew about Germany that she didn’t—things he could explain. She could ask. But how? “That infernal siren!”

  “Meant to keep us on our toes and off our guard. I’m sure they’d claim they’re running essential tests to see that they work properly in the event of air raids—for the safety of the Volk, of course.” He almost looked serious as he scanned the sky.

  Rachel felt the blood drain from her face. “Poland. You don’t think they’d really—?”

  “You expect something different?” He eyed her cryptically and swept his arm across the expanse. “Preparation—for weeks now. They’ll massacre the Poles, and if the Poles don’t blast them back, shame on them. Already, Hitler’s—” He stopped short. “My apologies, Fräulein Kramer. You don’t want to know.” He tipped his hat as if to move on.

  She felt the rush of heat to her cheeks. “That’s not true.” But his accusation echoed Kristine’s: “Rachel, open your eyes!”

  “No?” He turned back. “What’s changed?”

  A million things—Kristine, Amelie, talk of killing centers and of gassing children. This insane invasion of Poland—and what will that unleash? Surely the Allies won’t abandon Poland as they did Austria. Czechoslovakia. And if Hitler would do this, what else might he do? Is anything too far-fetched?

  Jason waved his hand in front of her face. “Earth to Fräulein Kramer.”

  She blinked.

  “Where’s your father? Back from Scotland yet?”

  Red flags went up in Rachel’s mind. Her face must have registered the same.

  “I’m asking because they’re likely closing borders. You might have a tough time getting through. Time to go home to the good old US of A.”

  “Father’s well connected—the German scientists, the SS,” she defended.

  Jason nodded, though she saw he disapproved. “That might be his ticket. They’re giving travel priority to military.”

  “There’s something I must ask you, Mr. Young.”

  But he was no longer with her. His eyes narrowed, following a black van down the street, its driver apparently searching for an address. He watched it slow, then turn the corner.

  “Go home, Miss Kramer. My best advice to you and your father is to go home and stay there. Get out of Germany before things get any worse—and they will get worse.”

  “That’s just it. I . . . Perhaps over dinner we could—”

  But he cut her off, never meeting her eyes. “Sorry, ma’am. Don’t mean to be rude. Gotta go.”

  It felt like a slap. “Another rescue mission?” She couldn’t keep the sarcasm from her voice. Now that she was willing to give him her attention, he refused her!

  He simply tipped his hat—more to the air than to her—and took off at a clip.

  Rachel watched, stunned, curiosity battling indignation, as he neared the intersection where the van had turned. He hustled across the street, disappearing beyond the corner building. She’d never been left standing in the street by a man who clearly wanted her number, never been refused the time of day by any man. “Forget you, Jason Young!” she spat in frustration.

  Shouldering her purse and hefting bags, Rachel set her jaw and a steady pace in the opposite direction. She’d missed the afternoon coffee hour, but if she caught the streetcar, she might just make it back to the hotel in time to ask for a light supper. Maybe I can convince them to make a good cup of tea—a strong cup of tea. The headache building behind her eyes seemed intent on lodging.

  She rounded the corner just as the trolley pulled to a stop at the end of the block. Walking quickly, she raised her arm to signal she was coming, but the conductor ignored her. Two people stepped up into the car. The trolley bell dinged. She jogged faster, calling out. Still ten steps behind, the car pulled away from the curb.

  A stitch in her side and a stone in her shoe, she dropped her packages to the corner bench and swore. There was nothing to do but wait for the next car. Unchivalrous—that’s what they are!

  She retrieved the pebble from her shoe and straightened the seam in her stocking. When she stood, she saw the black van parked halfway down the block—the vehicle Jason had been so taken with, or one very much like it.

  But Jason Young was nowhere in sight. Curious, she strolled across the side street to get a better view.

  A line of children, perhaps ages three through ten or eleven, filed down the sidewalk, the last one exiting the doorway of a two-story brick building. A man in a white coat led them behind the van, and a woman in a black dress herded the children forward. But there was something about the children. . . . Some were stiff and stilted in their gait. Their arms didn’t swing in rhythm with their stride, or if they did, it was exaggerated. One tall girl, clutching the shoulder of the child before her, was obviously blind.

  A very small boy with a moon-round face, flattened in the front, stumbled and fell. Rachel was too far away to hear what he said as he cried out, but the woman at the end of the line hurried forward and jerked the boy to his feet, shook him soundly, and pushed him back into line. The boy stumbled forward, catching his scraped arm to his chest. The woman happened to glance Rachel’s way. Their eyes connected. Grim, she turned quickly away.

  Rachel knew she shouldn’t intervene in Berlin’s affairs, but the woman was rougher than was called for, surely. It must be some kind of institution.

  Kristine’s words came back to her: “They are going to rid Germany of every genetically imperfect man, woman, and child.”

  “That’s ridiculous,” Rachel whispered. But the memory of Kristine’s urgency rema
ined. Rachel returned to her packages across the street, still watching, anticipating that the line of children would emerge on that side of the van. But they didn’t. They’d disappeared. Shortly, the white-coated man rounded the vehicle and climbed in the front passenger seat. As soon as he did, the driver pulled away, toward Rachel’s end of the street. She stepped back onto the curb.

  The children must have climbed into the back of the van. There was nowhere else for them to have gone.

  The van pulled to the intersection, passing Rachel, pausing for traffic, and turned left.

  Windows painted black—the children can’t see out, and I can’t see them.

  Rachel’s heart began to pound. “They’ll put them in vans and drive them round, gassing them as they go.”

  “There’s some other explanation,” she said aloud.

  The woman in the black dress was already stepping through the doorway of the brick building. A trolley pulled to a stop near the curb. Rachel looked up into the face of the conductor. He waited for her to enter, to hand him her coins. But she stepped back, shaking her head.

  Rachel harnessed her shoulder bag and, leaving her parcels on the bench, headed quickly for the brick building—before she could think it through, before she could change her mind.

  The sign, small and white with gold letters, read, Schmidt-Veiling Institut. She thumped the brass door knocker beneath it. No one came, so she thumped it again, louder this time. She waited, but still no one came. Not accustomed to being ignored, frightened now by her imaginings, she banged it loudly, continually. At last the door flew open and the woman in the dark dress emerged, her face flush with . . . with . . . with what? Anger? Fear? Suspicion? Rachel couldn’t tell.

  “The children,” Rachel stammered in English. She saw the woman’s fear change to contempt and switched to German. “Die Kinder—where have they gone? What’s happened to them?”

  The woman tried to shut the door, but Rachel pushed her foot through it and forced her way into the dark foyer. “Tell me.”