by Cathy Gohlke
Rachel listened, her chest tight, her ear pressed to the attic floor above the kitchen, as the women talked of this and that, as Frau Himmerschmidt, perhaps too cheerfully, advised her neighbor on the best ways to stretch potatoes, which supplements could be mixed with flour for bread.
Without seeing, Rachel could tell that Frau Weisman did not buy her neighbor’s frugality. More was more, and rationed meats did not lie.
By the time Frau Weisman and her many pointed questions had gone, Frau Himmerschmidt, frazzled to the bone, had decided it was simply too risky for her family to hide Rachel in the attic any longer. Just before her children bounded in from school, she whispered to the attic door that Rachel must find another place, and right away, so certain was she that Frau Weisman suspected her secret and would find them out.
By midafternoon, Frau Himmerschmidt’s children had finished their luncheon and returned to school. Rachel heard her call good-bye to her courtyard monitor as the curious woman, martyr that she was, plowed through rain puddles toward her local hospital to fulfill volunteer obligations. Less than two minutes passed before Frau Himmerschmidt pushed the attic door open and helped Rachel down.
Rachel layered her clothing and stuffed her pockets beneath the Frau’s raincoat to make herself look heavier. She powdered her hair and made up her face to look older, using whatever Frau Himmerschmidt could provide and all the theatrical tricks she’d learned in the makeup department at NYU. This isn’t how I’d planned to use that knowledge.
Rachel knew she should be frightened. But she was sick of the attic, and the anticipation of walking out of doors revived her.
Frau Himmerschmidt telephoned the foreign correspondents’ office and asked for Jason Young. “Your laundry is finished and ready to be picked up. I’m sorry, but I’ve decided that I will no longer take in laundry. I have enough to do with my own family. You must find someone else.” Not waiting for a response, she hung up, turning to Rachel. “I’m sorry—” she spread her hands—“but I have children. I don’t know why they are after you—you seem like a nice young woman.” She helped Rachel into her raincoat. “You’re not Jewish, are you?”
“No.” Rachel blushed, then felt ashamed that she’d blushed. “Would that matter?”
The woman sighed. “I don’t want it to matter.”
Rachel nodded. She understood, at least as best she could. Everyone was afraid to hide Jews—afraid of the Nazis, of the Gestapo, of the SS, of the brownshirts, of the Hitler Youth, of the monitors in their apartment blocks and courtyards, of nosy neighbors quick to report longtime friends and quicker yet their enemies. Fear reeked. She’d just been too self-absorbed and blind to see it before. She’d not needed to see it—it hadn’t threatened her until now. “Thank you for hiding me these days. I know it was a risk.”
Frau Himmerschmidt blinked, then pulled the curtain from the corner of the window, whispering, “Through the courtyard and turn left. The trolley stop is up one block and over one.”
Rachel hesitated, terribly aware that she had no place to go, no one to trust. But the woman stepped back and lowered her eyes. She’d been dismissed. Frau Himmerschmidt pulled open the door, and Rachel slipped through. Imitating her benefactor’s heavy walk through the courtyard, she made her way toward the next block.
Riding the trolley was a risk, but so was walking the streets.
She prayed Jason had understood the message, prayed he would once again come to her rescue and find her a place to stay—all before she remembered she didn’t believe in praying. She walked slowly, not increasing her pace to catch the trolley just in view.
She was halfway through the second block when a taupe BMW pulled beside her. “A lift, meine Frau?” It was an attractive young woman.
“Nein, danke.” Rachel pointed toward the trolley stop.
“Friend of Jason’s,” the woman whispered, leaning across to open the door.
Rachel hesitated.
“Come, Frau Wagner.” The woman spoke well and brightly, but with a distinct American accent. “I’ll give you a lift. It’s no trouble at all. I’m eager to pick up my laundry.”
Rachel drew a deep breath and slipped into the car.
“Sheila Graham.” The woman extended her hand.
Gratefully, Rachel clasped it.
“Don’t say anything. Jason’s told me not to ask.”
“Then how—?”
“It’s better I don’t know. We all operate on that basis from time to time.” She grinned, pulling back into the line of traffic. “Jason will meet us at my apartment later. You can get a bath—relax, maybe get some sleep before he comes over. I’m guessing those lines aren’t all about great stage makeup.”
“I’m afraid they’re not,” Rachel breathed. “Thank you.”
Sheila nodded, shifting gears. “I have a date tonight. You and Jason’ll have plenty of time to talk. I don’t know what’s going on, but I’ll help any way I can. You can stay with me—for now.”
Rachel shuddered, nodded her thanks, and determined to keep tears of relief from spilling down her made-up cheeks.
Never had a bath and hair wash felt so good. Rachel thought she could stay in the small tub forever, and she might have fallen asleep there had Sheila not called her from the other side of the hanging comforter. “Jason will be here soon. You might want to get decent.”
Rachel dressed quickly, glad for Sheila’s loan of a skirt and blouse. She pulled back her hair in a taut ponytail, hoping it would dry without springing tiny ringlets all over her head.
She was tucking the blouse into the band of her skirt when Sheila opened the door. Jason slipped through, bearing dinner.
“Takeout Chinese—Berlin style!” He grinned, mouth triumphant, eyes relieved and alight at the sight of Rachel.
“My favorite!” She couldn’t stop the grin spreading between her ears.
Sheila glanced between the two of them and laughed. “I’m outta here. Keep it down and keep the door locked. Keep those lights low. I’ll jingle the key in the lock before I come in.”
Rachel felt herself blush.
Jason, too, turned crimson, but was quick on the draw. “I’ll be gone before you get back.”
“If you do, make sure you’re not seen. You know about my courtyard monitor.”
He nodded, and Rachel was surprised how easily, how smoothly they communicated. She must not be the first secret they’d shared.
When the door closed behind Sheila, Rachel felt suddenly shy. “Sheila made some coffee. Would you like some?”
“Real coffee? Sure. That’s a rarity outside the best restaurants these days. Sheila must be using up her stash. I’ll dish up the grub.”
“Sounds good.”
But as they ate, Rachel couldn’t think of a thing to say. She kept lifting her napkin to make sure she’d not left a smidgen of rice or a dab of soy sauce on her lips.
“Pretty good, but not like American Chinese food.”
“No,” she agreed, “but it sure beats potatoes every meal.”
“Ah—” he smiled halfheartedly—“the plight of refugees.”
“Refugees,” she repeated, disheartened, and sat back, pushing her plate away.
“Rough in the attic?”
“It’s not like home.” She winced, not meaning to sound ungrateful. “I’m not sure where home is now.”
That killed the conversation.
Jason pulled a large envelope from his jacket.
“New passport?” She lifted her brows hopefully.
“Pictures.” He licked his lips, as if deciding how to proceed. “I developed your film.”
Rachel felt her heartbeat quicken, her chest tighten. She’d been wondering what else was in her file—what she hadn’t seen.
He pushed the envelope across the table. Holding her breath to steady her fingers, Rachel pulled out the sheaf of prints. Five minutes passed as she read, peeling away the years of her life. “He changed after Mother died,” she confided. “Even his notes show
that he took a different path.”
“Maybe she held him back.”
“Or kept him sane,” Rachel insisted, then continued to read. “A sister? I have a sister?”
“An identical twin. Which explains the trips to the clinic—the examinations—every two years. Both of you.”
Rachel had realized she was an experiment as soon as she’d seen the file in her father’s hotel room, but she still couldn’t grasp that reality—that he’d used her. Now, to learn that she had a twin was more than her mind could absorb. “I—we—were part of a long-term research project.”
“Are—you are a long-term project. That’s why they’re determined to keep you here. And read this.” Jason took back the file, separating portions, and pushed another photograph toward her. “This shows that your father never had any intention of allowing you to leave Germany. It’s his handwriting, isn’t it?”
Rachel nodded.
“He forged your signature, attempting to withdraw your US citizenship, effective the Friday you arrived in Berlin.” Jason sat back while she absorbed that idea. “There’s no confirmation that it worked, but I think you can safely stop worrying about him.”
Which is harder to believe? That he’s betrayed me, sold me, raised me for science and his own egotistical research? Or that I have a sister? “How long have you known this?”
“Since I developed the film—two nights after you gave it to me.”
“But you didn’t tell me—get word to me?”
He reddened. “I was afraid you’d want to find her, that you’d run off like a crazy person. It’s the first place they’ll look—maybe already have, if they suspected you’d seen your father’s files, if they thought he’d told you.”
“He never told me any of this.”
“Schlick and his goons wouldn’t know that. They must have figured you knew something, learned something, to make you run off. Your letter would’ve made them think so. Trust me, the SS covers their bases.”
“But you knew, and—”
“And you were safe where you were,” he shot back. “Now you’re not, so we’ve got to figure out something else.”
“Who is she? Where’s my sister?” She must focus on that.
He flipped through the pile and pulled a photograph. “Her name is Lea Hartman. Looks like she’s been married something over a year. No children. The last record shows she lives in Oberammergau—I think always has.”
“She looks exactly like me,” Rachel gasped, “only—old fashioned. . . . Oberammergau . . . the town of the Passion Play.”
“You know it?”
“I was there once—in 1934. Right after Hitler came to power. It was a special year—the three-hundred-year anniversary of the play. Father—” Rachel stopped. Her heart ached. She blinked and pressed on. “Father and I attended in August—the same day the Führer attended. Father pointed him out to me.” She sank back against the chair. “But he never said I had a sister living there.” She looked at Jason, wishing for a lifeline. “Perhaps he didn’t know.”
“He knew, and his wife knew . . . from the beginning.” Jason looked her squarely in the eye. “He and your adoptive mother were researchers, Rachel. You were their project, raised as an experiment—as was your sister, though it doesn’t look like any of your biological family knows that.”
She turned away, feeling suddenly gritty, dirty. To be so devalued, so debased by my own father! But Mother . . . I truly thought she loved me. I don’t know what to believe. She swallowed. “Does it say who my real parents are?”
“Your mother’s listed, but it looks like information on your father is missing.”
“Missing?”
“I mean there’s nothing about him—as if they didn’t know who he was.”
Rachel sighed, feeling another door to her life close. She leaned toward him. “Tell me about my birth mother. What is her name? Is she alive, after all?” Her heart beat with hope.
“No, I’m sorry.”
She bit her lip.
“But there’s a grandmother. I think she’s still living.”
“I have a grandmother?”
He sat back and pushed the remainder of the file across the table. “Look, you might want to read all this for yourself.”
“And my sister?”
“She’s alive—like I said, she’s living in Oberammergau. Not always had an easy time of it, apparently, but she’s there.”
“My sister.” Rachel said the words aloud. Two words that tasted as new as Creation. “I want to see her, to meet her.” She wanted it more than anything she could imagine.
“There’s something else.”
“More?”
“My sources tell me Schlick has made a quick trip south—to Oberammergau. He returned less than happy.”
Rachel felt her eyes go wide.
“I don’t know what that means, but I’m guessing it can’t be good for your sister or grandmother. I can’t ask without tipping too many people off, and you never know who to trust for sure, who will hold out if they’re picked up.” He sat back, his eyes registering all the worry she felt.
Schlick had not hesitated to have his daughter killed, nor his wife. Rachel could only imagine what that might mean for the women in her family.
19
BY THE TIME the SS roared away, Oma’s house had been upended, closets torn to pieces and holes gouged in woodwork thought too hollow—possible hiding places for whom, neither Oma nor Lea comprehended. The attic had been ripped apart and the storm cellar’s shelves emptied—canning jars of fruits and vegetables crashed to the floor and dried herbs and flowers batted back and forth in fury.
They’d twisted Lea’s arm, and the taller man in charge had ripped her shirtwaist, running his hands where he pleased, demanding she tell him where she was hidden. Lea could only weep. Another had threatened Oma and slapped the old woman, forcing her to the floor, bruising her cheek. But neither understood whom they meant, what they wanted.
It was twenty minutes before the nightmare thundered back the way it had come, angry but apparently satisfied that she was not there. Still, the one in charge, the one with the driven eyes, threatened that it was no use to hide her, to hide anyone, and if she appeared, they were not to give her refuge but to turn her in right away. He tucked his calling card, with the name Sturmbannführer Gerhardt Schlick and a telephone number, into Lea’s skirt, assuring the women that he had methods of finding her. When he did, if they’d done anything to help her, each of them would pay. He would be back.
Once they’d left, both women stayed where they were for some time, crumpled on the floor, barely daring to breathe, summoning their courage and bearings.
It was too frightening, too bizarre to comprehend.
Lea helped her grandmother to bed, bathed her cheek, and brought her hot tea. They didn’t speak of the invasion, the violation. There were no words.
Once the old woman was settled, Lea returned to the kitchen sink, drew the curtains, and scrubbed her arms, her chest, her torso, with a vengeance. She did her best to straighten her torn clothing and hold her tears at bay. Friederich! Friederich, I need you!
She wrapped her grandmother’s shawl around her, tying it tightly across her chest. She would return the next morning to help clean and straighten the house, but for now she must go home—home to Friederich’s carvings and the quilt that had covered them both before he’d been called into service.
Lea walked quickly through the dark, glancing over her shoulder at every sound. When she finally reached her threshold, her heart stopped. The door stood wide. The same vandalism had stormed her home. The haven she and Friederich had built and shared and treasured had been trashed, his rows of carvings thrown against the wall, her porcelain figurines and the teacups she’d been given by Oma smashed.
It was too much. Lea shoved her nightdress into a bag, pushed Mildred, her calico cat, through the door, closed it, and retraced her steps, trudging up the hill. She would deal with it all tomorr
ow. But tonight she would sleep in the bed she’d grown up in. She would listen to Oma breathing in and out, and she would pray that Friederich would come home soon.
Rachel refused to change her mind though Jason had tried to reason with her for nearly an hour, to talk her out of racing to Oberammergau, saying he was certain that was the first place the Nazis would search for her, positive they’d lie in wait when they didn’t find her the first time. Finally he’d given up, begged her to sleep on it, promised they’d talk the next day.
As soon as she locked the door behind him, Rachel drew the lamp close on the kitchen table. She pored over the photographed file, squinting to make out some of the wording. Pushing away conflicting memories of the only parents she’d known, Rachel concentrated on family she’d never met, never imagined existed.
“Lea. Her name is Lea.” Rachel traced the facial features that could have been her own. But the hairstyle was different, the woman wore no makeup, and something about her eyes and mouth didn’t match Rachel’s own. Not in their shape, but in what they conveyed. Rachel couldn’t quite put her finger on it, but it was something—some spark not there, a confidence lacking.
She shook her head. It could just be a trick of the photograph. She’d know when she met her.
“When I meet her,” she whispered, closing her eyes, letting the words seep through her brain and into her bones. “My sister.”
Rachel owed Jason everything; she knew that. She’d trusted him with her film, her story, her life—and Amelie’s. He’d put his job and reputation at risk to help her—even his freedom, his life. And now she was asking him to help her again, to get her to a little Bavarian town far away, where they might already be looking for her. No wonder he didn’t think it was safe. He probably believed it wouldn’t take much to get her to spill everything she knew, incriminating him.
But he doesn’t understand what it’s meant to be alone—at least inside—all my life. To have always felt that some part of me was missing, and now, to suddenly learn that I have a sister—a sister and a twin—and a grandmother . . .
