by Sara Young
I knew that too well. You can't walk around blind just because you don't want to see.
"And do you know how much of a coward that makes me? All of us? We were all like that—cowards." He swallowed and looked at me, asking me for something. But I had nothing to give him.
"It was uncomfortable being in another country, seeing the people's faces when I'd walk around in my uniform. I knew they hated us for being there. But that was all. And with Anneke—well, if she could see past my uniform, then I could pretend it wasn't very important. And you know how Anneke was."
I knew that, too—how Anneke's brightness could burn away any clouds. How appealing that was.
"And then when I came to Munich—the new job—it was even easier. I hardly ever have to face anything here."
"Karl, what is it you do?"
"Mostly I build models. Of rockets. I'm part of a team: We're given designs and we make models of rockets out of wood. You should hear us talk: about how it will revolutionize travel someday, the good we're doing. But I can't pretend anymore. We're helping to build weapons that will kill thousands of people. And I knew it all along. The only thing I didn't know was how we're murdering people just to make those weapons."
Karl stopped and looked at me for the first time. And he saw. "Oh, God. Cyrla, I'm sorry. Isaak ... I'm sorry, I didn't think."
As soon as I saw it written on his face, I couldn't bear it. "No. No. He's at Westerbork. Remember? That's where he is now. He's all right. And my father is in Lodz. My family is safe in Lodz."
Karl took me and held me hard to him against the rough rock. I let him. I needed him to. We clung together in the sound and the cold of the water.
At last he pulled away. "I don't know what to do." His face was filled with anguish. "If I ever speak about this, I'll be shot immediately. But we are making God angry. We are making God so angry, Cyrla. What's the point in staying alive?"
"They won't shoot you. You're valuable."
"Everyone's more valuable as a warning. They'd gladly shoot me to keep a hundred others in line. All the time now, I think: I should refuse to serve. At least my conscience would be clear. But even if I were heroic enough, I couldn't risk what they'd do to Erika and the baby, and my mother. For something like that, they'd be sent to a camp. Maybe worse. And I can't desert for the same reason."
Karl read my mind. "No. I gave Erika my word, and now I'm giving it to you."
"There's a woman who works at the home," I said. And then I told Karl about Sister Ilse, how she'd found something she could do, a way to live with her compromise.
"Does she think it makes everything all right? Does she sleep at night?"
"It's the best she can do."
Karl leaned over and cupped a hand in the stream and watched the water flow around his fingers. "She's lying to herself. She's telling herself it's some sort of atonement ... well, I wish I could do that. It won't work, though. At night, in the dark, it doesn't work."
I thought of Ilse running out to the walk, her hatred so naked, and I realized something terrible. At night, in the dark, it didn't work for her. And she didn't care anymore what happened to her.
"Karl, promise me," I said. I pulled him around to face me. And then I didn't know what I could ask him to promise. "What you're doing, taking my baby ... it's such a good thing."
Karl looked out over the clearing beside us. He didn't believe me.
"I'm the coward, Karl—running home to be safe. Leaving him."
"No. What you're doing takes courage."
I sat on the mossy rock beside him and pulled my feet up. But I leaned back, away from him. It was my turn to avoid the mirror of his face. "Maybe not. Maybe it's a family trait—abandoning children."
I needed to tell him then. The list of people who had sent me away under the ruse of keeping me safe: my mother, when she knew she was dying..."Go to school! Go now." My father, my aunt and uncle. Anneke and Isaak. Everyone I'd ever tried to love. "And it's further back than that. It's all through my family, on both sides."
I told him about my grandmother, how she cut my mother out of her life for marrying my father, how she pretended I didn't exist. "And my father's family, too. They were polite to me, but I didn't pass through the birth canal of a Jewish woman. I wasn't part of their family." A memory of walking to school. My grandparents lived on the way; I'd imagine them behind the windows, watching me walk by, scowling at my blond hair, angry at my father for having chosen wrong.
I sat up again and rested my head against Karl's shoulder, and pulled his arm around my belly. "This isn't what I want. I want to give my baby a big family that welcomes him from all sides. I want him to feel that they'll never let him go. But I can't even give him a mother."
"You could," Karl said.
I pulled back to search his face.
"Marry me. I can keep you safe, too, then."
I looked away. It took an eternity to form the right word. It was an anvil, the heaviest I'd ever pulled from my throat. "No," I finally said. Because I can't keep you safe. And because I can't bear to imagine your skull smashed by the dark wood of a rifle butt. I can't bear to imagine Erika's face split open from jaw to mouth in a spray of blood. Or your mother's body dragged and tossed into the back of a wagon.
"Don't ask me why," I told him. "Just keep him safe for me. Give him a family until I can."
Karl sighed and looked out over the stream. Then he pulled me to him and kissed the top of my head. "All right. You're his family, though. We'll keep him for a little while, but you'll raise him."
I tried to picture it—raising a child. Not just caring for him, but making decisions about his upbringing.
Karl must have been reading my thoughts. "Would you raise him as a Jew?"
"Yes. If I could. I'd like to study, too. That seems right."
"Because it would balance things out?"
"Yes. I've been hiding and lying too long. But also because ... Karl, Isaak will want that. You know he will want to raise this child, too."
Karl straightened and pulled his arm from me. He lit a cigarette and leaned forward, kicking at the water. "You're right," he said, after a moment. "Isaak. Of course." His face was wreathed in smoke so I couldn't see his expression. "I don't want to talk anymore." He slid off the rock and offered his hand to me. "What I want to do is take your picture. I want something good to remember."
I didn't want to talk anymore, either. Karl took pictures of me—sitting in the meadow, standing beside a tree, and back by the river. He seemed better, but the haunted look never left his face completely. I wondered if it ever would.
"Karl," I reminded him at last. "You said you didn't have much time today."
He looked at his watch. "I was due back an hour ago."
"Then let's go."
"Let's not. Maybe this is my solution. Maybe being late is exactly the right infraction—not so bad they'll hang me, but serious enough that they'll throw me in prison for the rest of the war."
"I don't think that's funny. Let's go back."
"In a while. I'm not in a hurry."
He packed up the camera, and we began to walk back. We stopped several times—to investigate a fox den, to look for some peach trees his friend had told him about, to listen to some blackbirds. To kiss. It seemed he wanted to forget the things we had talked about.
"Will you recite one of your poems to me?" Karl asked as we were walking by the barn to the car.
I suddenly wanted to. But not here, not now. "Not today," I said at last.
"All right. But will you at least tell me how you write them?"
I thought for a moment. I had never asked myself that question. "Sometimes the first line just comes to me. It's such a wild thing—almost dangerous—that I need to write the rest of it to control it. It feels like something's running away from me, and I have to write it down to corral it. That probably sounds crazy."
"No. Wanting to control something sounds like the most sensible thing in the world." He stepped off the
path to pick up his tunic. He threw it over his shoulder without even brushing it off—this new carelessness frightened me. We walked to the car, to the end of our time together, and I realized something else. I loved him. That frightened me more.
At the car, we held each other tight. Then he pulled away. I was afraid he was going to say it was our last time. I didn't want to hear that again. But he surprised me. "I hate that face you make."
"What face?"
"The one you always make after I kiss you or hold you. As if you regret it. As if you feel guilty about it."
I touched Karl's cheek. "I can't help it. Sometimes I feel as if I'm stealing something from Anneke."
"What ... me? You can't steal something she never had."
"No, but she wanted you. I guess that's what makes me feel bad. If she were alive, we wouldn't be here. And besides, she'd never have done anything like this to me."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, if she were alive, I don't think she'd ever have been with Isaak. Even if Isaak and I weren't together."
Something flickered across Karl's face for an instant. He covered it, but I'd seen surprise, worry. Something.
"What is it?" I asked him. "What's the matter?"
"Nothing. We should go."
And then I knew. "Anneke and Isaak?" I fell back against the car. Every fiber of my body resisted the thought, and yet everything I knew about Anneke and Isaak told me it was true. It explained so much. "Karl, look at me. Anneke and Isaak?"
Karl winced as if it caused him physical pain to answer.
"And you knew?"
"She told me. When it happened, she started to tell you about it. She said you were so close, she thought you'd be happy. She started to tell you she was seeing Isaak, but something you said made her realize you had a crush on him."
"A crush?"
"I think you were about sixteen. They were young, too. She said it had been silly and hadn't meant anything, and she ended it."
It had meant something to Isaak, though.
"Are you all right, Cyrla?"
I felt as if I'd been kicked. But also somehow as if I'd been waiting to know this. I couldn't find the words. I held up my hands the way Karl had done once, turning them to interlock my fingers.
"The pieces fit?"
I nodded again. There was a symmetry to it that felt right. Cruel but right.
"Anneke loved you so much. She said she always felt terrible about it."
An ache to see her closed like a fist around my chest. I'd tell her not to feel terrible. She didn't take anything from me, and she was right about Isaak. He always reminded me of my father, and I saw now that I'd gotten that confused with love. I felt a lump constrict my throat. I raised my palms to Karl and then got into the car. I needed to go back. To be alone.
When we pulled into the drive, Karl put his hand over mine. "I'm sorry."
"No. I just don't want to talk about it now. Maybe next time."
"Cyrla, things are different now. I might not be able to get away again." He saw the panic rise in my face, and he squeezed my hand. "No, whatever happens, I'll be there when the baby's born. Everything's going to be all right."
I suddenly didn't want to get out of the car. Or couldn't. "Everything's not going to be all right. I'm so afraid. I'm afraid for you now, I'm afraid for the baby—"
"Nothing's going to change. I promise you that. I'm not going to do anything. And you're not going to worry about any of this."
"I'm going to worry about all of it!"
"No, you won't. You're braver than that. I know you."
I wasn't brave. I didn't even have the courage to tell Karl what I was really afraid of. And Karl couldn't know me—I didn't even know myself anymore. Where was the person who swore she'd never ask love to follow rules? Who called Isaak a coward for not daring to love anyone? Who told her uncle love is the opposite of shame?
I knew a trick for when I was afraid. But I didn't need it anymore.
"Karl." My voice was steady. "I love you."
SIXTY
On the first of June, I awoke late—Eva had already gone down to breakfast—and I lay in bed feeling a growing sense of restlessness. I hurried out of bed, seized by a sudden urge to clean everything, pack, prepare. I dragged my suitcase from under the bed and flung open the doors of the wardrobe. The old maternity clothes could stay, and Erika didn't want hers back. But I'd need clothes for after—I dug out the things of Anneke's that my aunt had packed so long ago. I held up the pearl-gray trousers—even with the seams let out, the waist seemed impossibly small. The thought of fitting into normal clothes again made me grin. I dumped all of Anneke's clothes onto the bed beside the suitcase and then looked in my bureau: In the bottom drawer were a few things from before. Everything on top of the bureau I would leave until the last ... but the velvet bag! I couldn't risk anyone finding it after I'd gone into labor.
I eased myself to the floor and reached under the wardrobe—it was difficult with my huge belly in the way. I found the bag and tore the tape off, grunting. I tossed it onto the bed with my clothes, hauled myself up, and then had another sudden thought—the baby's clothes.
Erika had sent over a few things to add to Anneke's layette. Suddenly I needed to wash everything: to feel the soft fabrics and care for the tiny clothes my baby would soon wear against his skin. It wasn't one of my scheduled laundry days, but after breakfast I'd rinse them out.
Breakfast! I dressed in a hurry, grabbed the baby clothes, and went downstairs. In the dining room, the air was soft with the rich scent of lilacs and the hushed chatter of round-bellied girls. I said hello to Eva, who was leaving, ate some bread with honey, talked with the girls who sat next to me—all without really paying any attention. There was still so much to do. I reminded myself to pack Neve's books with mine—maybe I could find a way to get her address. First, though, I had to find Sister Ilse. I didn't want anyone else in charge. I hadn't seen her for a few days, so maybe she was away—I'd go down to her station as soon as I finished the laundry.
In the laundry, I washed the baby things in the special mild soap used for newborns' clothing. The tiny sleeves, the little necks and fastenings, the embroidered hems, all gave me such pleasure. It dawned on me—I was nesting! It was one of the signs Leona's had read to me from her booklet: A sudden energy; a compulsion to clean and prepare things. I hung up the little clothes and went back to my room, smiling to myself at this miracle ... birth was imminent.
When I opened the door, I was still smiling. I'd be leaving this room soon. I would see my baby's face soon!
That was my last clear thought.
There—on my bed next to the jumble of clothes to pack—was the blue velvet bag.
Empty.
I stared at it, unable to understand. Then I fell on it and turned it over and over, turned it inside out, tore through the clothes on the bed, unable to believe. I hurried to the door and shut it. Then threw it open again. The hall was empty—a tunnel stretching away forever. At the end, impossibly far away, was the telephone.
I made myself walk out. Step after step, without feeling the floor, I hurried toward the telephone. When I got there, my hand shook so hard, I dropped the receiver. The crash echoed down the hall as I realized I didn't have Karl's number. My head cleared. Karl and Ilse. I could trust them both. I was not alone.
I went back to my room, steadying myself with these thoughts, and found Karl's number. On the way back to the phone, I passed Inge and her roommate. They nodded at me and Inge pressed on her back and groaned. They didn't know. Yet.
I dialed and it took forever for someone to answer. A man's voice, not Karl's.
But Karl came to the phone.
"Come now. They know!"
"Cyrla?"
"Come now! Come now!"
I dropped the phone. Even with my huge bulk, I ran down the stairs, ran to the delivery wing. At the main desk sat a nurse I had never seen. I asked for Sister Ilse.
"She's not here."
"She's gone. What do you need?"
My hands flew to my forehead—a sudden searing pain.
The nurse dipped her head to peer over her glasses. "What's wrong with you?"
I took a breath, forced my hands to my sides. No panic. "Nothing. I just want to ask her something. Could you tell me where she is?"
The nurse put down her paperwork and pushed herself back from the desk to inspect me. She crossed her arms over her chest; a silver mother's cross rode on her lapel, the swastika glaring at me from the center. "Sister Ilse's services were no longer needed. What did you want with her?"
"She had tea, she gave me tea," I mumbled, backing away.
"Come back."
I turned and kept walking.
"Come back here." The scrape of a chair. "What's your name?"
I was at the door, but I turned back. "Eva De Groot, 12B."
In the hallway, I realized I was out of ideas. I pushed through the door of the laundry room, hoping to steal a minute of quiet so I could think.
And in the laundry room was my salvation.
She was bent over the open washing machine, pulling clothes out, her back to me: the Little Brown Sister whose longing for Eva I'd interrupted. She was pregnant, her apron tied above her rounding waist. I did the unconscious calculation that came with living here: five or six months. The Christmas party? How terrible, to have to give yourself to loud, rough men if what you craved was soft and quiet. Or had that made it easier?
She turned, her arms full of wet clothes, and caught her breath when she saw me. The wet laundry dropped to the floor.
I stood as tall as I could and faced her coldly. "Give me your cap."
Her eyes darted to the door. I stepped to block it. Her mouth worked as if she wanted to say something. I stuck my hand out, my eyes a dare.
She faltered and bit her lip. Then she unpinned her cap and gave it to me.
"And your apron."
I put on her things, never taking my eyes from her, keeping them hard. "I'm leaving here. You could sound an alert. But you won't. You do not want me back." Then I grabbed a basket and walked out. Out of the laundry room, down the hallway to the delivery door and out. Out onto the shadowless walk, down the walk straight out to the side entrance, where one guard stood, facing the street.
