by Sara Young
"Good luck!" I called to the double doors as they swung shut behind Neve.
Too late.
FORTY-SIX
"No visitors allowed."
It was the same story when I had tried before lunch, and when I sat down for the meal, the empty seat beside me made me uneasy. I was glad when I felt someone move to sit in it, surprised to look up and see the new girl. Her name, I'd heard, was Corrie. She didn't say anything to me, but her presence felt like a gesture of forgiveness for the other night. I turned to her and smiled. She nodded and looked down at her plate—that was all, one nod. It made me feel absurdly joyful.
"Neve's having hers," I said. Again Corrie nodded, and again I felt a surge of irrational happiness.
Was that all we really wanted? I thought. To spin even single threads of connection between ourselves and other human beings? And if it was, why was that such a hard thing to do? Or was I the only one who failed at it over and over again?
By tiny, shared gestures—a disgusted twitch of the lip at beet soup for the third straight day; an arched eyebrow at a raucous peal of laughter from the German girls—Corrie and I spun our threads. We still didn't speak, but every time I slid a sideways glance at her, I though I saw the faintest smile. I felt she saw the same thing.
I saw something else I recognized: the startled look down at her belly that meant her baby had kicked. Then what I saw on her face shocked me—a burst of fury and terror, like an animal caught in a trap. Corrie would have cut her pregnancy from her body if she could have.
She looked up and saw me reading her expression. She lifted her shoulder and turned away—only the slightest degree, but there may as well have been a wall of iron between us for the rest of the meal.
After lunch I tried to see Neve again. "No visitors," I was told again. Finally, late in the afternoon, I saw an opportunity to slip into the ward when the nurses' station was empty.
I found Neve in a room by herself, awake, although groggy.
"My baby," she asked, reaching for me, missing my arm. "Where is he?"
"I don't know," I told her, sitting at the edge of the bed and smiling. I tucked her hand back onto the bed as you would with a sleeping child. "It was a boy?"
"Where is he? They took him away."
"You must have needed your rest. I'll go tell them you're ready for him."
Neve struggled to drag her legs over the side of the bed. Ugly bruises seeped over her ankles and knees. "They took him away—"
"I'll take care of it," I promised, pushing her back gently. "You lie down now. I'm sure it's fine."
I hurried back into the hall and pulled at the sleeve of the first nurse I saw. "Where is Neve De Vries's baby? Why hasn't he been brought to her for feeding?"
She turned and I saw she was one of the new student nurses. I let go of her sleeve and went to the nurses' station. Frau Klaus was there, sitting at her desk with a file open in front of her, but not really working.
"Where is Neve De Vries's baby?"
Frau Klaus turned away and raised her shoulder to me, pretending to search for something in the file. When I didn't leave, she looked up with a warning scowl. "Get back to your wing. You don't belong here."
I knew then that they had taken him. Someone had heard Neve questioning her decision, or had heard me advising her. How could I have been so stupid?
"She needs to nurse him," I tried anyway. "She hasn't seen him. She was planning on taking care of him."
Frau Klaus dropped the file onto the desk and looked up toward the door—a gesture that every girl in the home knew was a threat to call a guard. I would have stood my ground even then, but from the corner of my eye I saw Sister Ilse, standing out of view of Frau Klaus, glance at me and tip her head.
I turned and walked down the corridor as if to leave, but once I'd passed through the big swinging doors, I stepped back into the labor room, flooded with harsh sunlight this morning. Sister Ilse opened the door a moment later, but shook her head. She was carrying a basket of linens; as I passed by her in the doorway she whispered, "The laundry room."
There was no one in the laundry room, but she handed me a pile of towels to fold and didn't speak right away. With every moment I felt dread build.
"He was born wrong. Harelipped" was all she said when she spoke at last. "You must not ask about him."
"But why haven't they let her see him? They've taken him to correct it already?"
Sister Ilse stared at the pillowcase in her hands for a moment, folded it neatly, then looked up at me. "Here, a child is either perfect or he's not. There's no correcting. It's best if you leave this alone."
"But where is he?"
"He wasn't Edelprodukt, Anneke—top-quality goods for adoption. Do you understand?" She pulled a sheet from the basket and shook it out. She wouldn't meet my eyes.
For an instant, I had hope. "So he won't be adopted? Can she take him home?"
Ilse dropped the sheet back into the basket and turned to me, looked straight at me. "He's not here. He's gone. You must stop asking questions."
"He's gone? Someone's got to ask questions! Someone knows where he is, someone took him, and I'm going to find out." I turned for the door but Sister Ilse gripped my arm.
"You really don't want to do that."
I struggled away. "Yes, I really do." I pulled the door open.
"Wait." She placed her hand over mine on the doorknob. "All right." She pulled a key ring from her pocket, slid a key off and handed it to me. "I have a room here," she whispered. "You know where the nurses' quarters are? It's an outside door. The number's on the key. Wait there."
I left, went outside, and let myself into Ilse's room. I paced.
At last she came.
"Where is he?"
"Sit down." She motioned to a cot. We sat.
"Where is he?"
"He was taken to the institute at Gorden."
"When will they bring him back?"
"They don't come back."
I lost control. "What are you telling me? Where do they go, Ilse? Babies don't just disappear ... are you telling me ... are you telling me that they could ... mordują niemowlåta?"
Sister Ilse's face snapped to me in shock. It took me a moment to realize what I had just done.
"You're Polish!" she said, as if this was of any importance right now.
I could only stare back.
"That's your big secret?"
I wrapped my arms tight around my belly. "You think they might kill babies if they're born with a defect? Answer me!"
" 'Disinfected' is the word here. No, not usually. Neve's soldier denied paternity at the end, did you know that? He said he couldn't be sure the baby was his. If that hadn't happened, they'd be doing everything they could to repair the defect."
"Why not just send him home with Neve?"
"Babies aren't babies here—haven't you noticed? They're potential soldiers. If Neve took her son back to Holland, he might grow up to be an enemy soldier."
"So if something's wrong ... Wait ... What about Marta's little girl? Was she really stillborn?"
"Deaf."
"But she was a girl!"
"She might have borne a soldier to fight against Germany."
"They actually say this?"
"Of course not."
"Then how do you know?"
"I don't. That's the whole point. I don't know what's happened to your friend's baby. And I can't ask. But even if I could ... who could live through knowing something like that?" She patted the air at her heart—as if that place was too sensitive to bear touch—her face wrenched in agony. " 'Disinfected' means whatever you can bear it to mean." She sighed and lowered her head.
"So you're telling me you just close your eyes to it? Pretend it's not happening? As if Neve's baby isn't real?"
Until this moment I hadn't allowed myself to picture him. But now I had a sudden image—a little red face, heart-shaped like Neve's, and two tiny hands reaching—and it split my heart open. Sobs overtook
me. Ilse moved to put her arms around me; her eyes were filled with tears also, but I pushed her away. I slumped against the door, one hand over my face and the other tight over my belly, and I cried.
After a few moments, Ilse touched my shoulder.
I wiped my face with my palms and looked up. "How can you work here? How can you be part of this?"
Ilse's face told me she struggled with these questions daily, and what the struggle cost her. "Choice is a thing of the past."
"But how can you bear it?"
Ilse stepped to her dresser and picked up a photograph in an oval frame, gazed at it. "I'm a coward. Yes. I look away. I don't allow myself to think about certain things. I can't. It would kill me. So this is how I survive. This is how everyone I know survives, except we can't even talk about it. We're all cowards." Ilse placed the photograph back on the lace runner and turned back to face me, slumped against the dresser as if she hadn't the strength to stand on her own. "I know it must be difficult to understand. But surely you know that I can't just stand up and say, 'This thing you're doing is horrific. Stop it at once!' I'd be arrested within hours, for one thing. Probably killed. And then what good would I be? I've found a way to make a difference here in my work, but to do it, I have to block out certain things. Everything is a compromise these days. Especially for women. You know this, An-neke, you know this! Terrible compromises."
My anger melted. She was not the enemy. I'd known this all along—otherwise I'd have been too afraid to rage against her like this. I had my own terrible compromises. "You do make a difference here."
"Well, it's true, I like being around the babies and some of the mothers. They aren't to blame, and you can almost forget about the war in a delivery room. But that's not what I mean."
"What then?"
Ilse lowered her voice to a whisper. "I talk to the girls. Not the fanatics—that would be too big a risk, and besides, they're lost anyway. But some of the girls just need someone to remind them of things. Like that they have other options than to become broodmares. I talk about the future their babies might have if the war were over. I talk to them about what it really means to be a mother. Hitler and Himmler probably played at war games. Maybe their mothers could have stopped that."
"That sounds dangerous."
"I'm careful. But I have to do this. Men start wars. But women might end them." She put her hand to the doorknob.
"Wait. Who will tell Neve?"
"Whoever's on duty."
"Let me. Please. She's been through so much."
"It's not allowed."
"Would you do it then? Please?"
She sighed. "I'll see that she has plenty of morphine."
"And you'll tell her he was stillborn?"
She nodded. "That's what they're all told."
"I'll go with you."
She waved me back. This had been enough. And to my shame, I was relieved not to have to be there when Neve was told.
It didn't matter, though. All evening, through the chattering of the other girls and through the silence of my own room, I could hear her screams.
And that night I dreamed of my own child. Of his dark, dark curls.
The next morning, Sister Ilse pulled me aside as I was leaving breakfast. "They're sending her home today. You can see her now; there's a staff meeting until ten, so it's safe."
"Today?"
Ilse spread her hands. There was no baby for her to care for.
When I opened the door to Neve's room, I reminded myself to wear a face that showed only sadness, not horror. She was drugged, but the drugs hadn't touched her pain. She clawed clumsily at my arm and pulled me to the bed.
"I know," I told her, stroking the back of her hand. It was cold and dry, like fine kid leather. "I heard. I'm so sorry. The nurses said he was beautiful."
"He was? They said that?"
"They said he was perfect. They said they'd never seen such a beautiful child." Lies made in kindness were easier to tell. It was fear that gave most lies away.
Ilse came into the room. "He was an angel."
Neve's eyes filled with new tears, but she lay back on her pillow, comforted. Then she moaned and cupped her breasts.
Ilse frowned. "Your milk's come in early. They should have helped you with that! Here, I'll show you what to do so it won't hurt so much."
I helped Ilse strip off Neve's nightgown. Her belly was soft and empty, but her breasts were hard and full, laced with veins. Then we wrapped her chest in bandages, tightly. "Keep these on as long as you can," Ilse told her. "For a week, if you have to."
Then she bent and opened a suitcase that was standing at the foot of the bed. I hadn't noticed it before. I wondered who had been in our room packing up her things, and my heart jumped. Ilse began to dress Neve, who seemed to have no will or strength of her own. I picked out a sweater and tried to help, but Ilse shook her head. "They'll be coming for her soon. You should leave now."
I leaned over and kissed Neve's wet cheek. "We'll see each other again. When this is all over." One last lie. None of us would ever look each other up. We were going to spend the rest of our lives trying to erase this time.
FORTY-SEVEN
After all that had happened with Neve, I spent even more time in the orphanage—sometimes four hours a day—pressing Klaas close, whispering to him lies about how safe he was, how loved. I began to keep a journal for Leona in the back of the notebook she had sent me:
He has three cowlicks, three! And what a sense of humor ... as soon as I pick him up, he grabs at my sleeve, asking me to hide behind it and then peek out so he can laugh. He has your laugh and the same dimples...
Small comfort, but then these were days of small comforts, and it pleased me to think of how Leona might like to know I was finding parts of her in her son. I found myself wondering which parts of him were his father's. Could I sieve out Leona's traits and find anything of the man she had loved, for that night at least? The way he slept with his fists under his chin? His big ears? What kind of a man had he been, that slow kisser with the cinema passes?
Caring for Klaas filled my days; and during the nights I thought only about how it would be when Isaak came for me, which I decided would be when the weather broke. Nothing else at the home seemed real, and I had forgotten completely about Karl when he suddenly reappeared. Not being prepared made me anxious. He got up when I entered the parlor and walked to me, smiling. I looked through his smile, trying to predict what threat he would reveal. Blackmail, I hoped. Maybe he'd thought about it and decided to profit from what he knew.
"Are you feeling all right?" he asked. "How is the baby?"
"What do you want?"
"I've learned some things. We should talk, Cyrla."
My eyes darted to the door.
"I know," Karl said. "I won't call you that if anyone's around. Can we talk?"
I took a deep breath and spread my hands to him. "Fine."
"Well, let's sit down. You look tired."
I sat in the armchair so he wouldn't have a chance to sit beside me. So I wouldn't have to be touched by that uniform. He pulled the matching armchair up to mine. Then he jumped up again, went to a side chair at the door, and drew a large box from underneath his coat. He brought it to me, smiling. But trying not to. "Open it."
Again I searched his face for the danger.
"Open it," he said again. But he didn't wait; he knelt beside me and pulled the silver ribbon from the box, then lifted the top. He lifted a coat and draped it over my lap—cobalt-blue wool, thick and soft, with wide lapels of curly black lamb.
"Do you like it? It will fit, I know. My sister helped me pick it out—she's been, well, she's had a baby. See, it wraps around, so you can wear it after, too."
"What is this?" I interrupted him. I pushed the coat back into the box. "What are you thinking?"
"You need a new coat. Your old one won't button around you."
"But I don't need one from you. I don't need anything from you."
Karl put t
he cover back on the box and set it on the floor. "I think you do." He went to the door, pulled it shut, and sat beside me again. "I think you don't have anyone else. If you did, they'd at least make sure you had a coat that fit."
I looked out the window beside me. The ragged fog which now clung to the mountaintops every day was thicker and darker today, crawling lower.
"Snow," Karl said, reading my thoughts. This angered me and I hardened my shoulders to him and didn't answer.
"Look, I've been talking to some people. First, you haven't taken my name off those forms, have you?"
I shook my head. After the guard had caught me trying to run away, I'd been trying not to attract any more attention. And then, after Neve, it felt even less safe.
"Good. Don't. That's the most important thing. When the baby comes, he'll be much better off if there's a father's name on that certificate. And so will you. It gives you options. Did they tell you that?"
I shrugged, not implying yes or no.
"And if I'm on the forms, I can make some choices that you can't."
I folded my arms across my chest and still didn't turn from the window.
"Like where he goes afterward. You're going to try to take him with you, of course. How do you think you can do that?"
I looked down at my hands. I'd painted my nails again and the bright scarlet surprised me as it had each time I'd seen it. My hands looked so much like Anneke's now. I curled my fingertips into my palms, pushed my hands down to the sides of my lap, buried them in the stiff horsehair of the cushion.
"Oh, God. You're going to leave before he's born? You're in Germany, Cyrla. How are you going to manage? Do you have someone on the outside helping you?"
I seized that to end his questioning. "All right," I whispered, facing him. "Yes, I'm going home soon. So none of this matters. You don't have to be involved."
