And she had no place to hide.
10
HANNA
The director of the Germanic National Museum was middle-aged, but he looked like one of the museum’s artifacts, with cheeks so taut they could have been chiseled from sandstone. This building and the thousands of artifacts inside were Heinrich Kohlhaussen’s kingdom, and Grete Cohn, the secretary who’d greeted Hanna at the front door, explained clearly that the director wouldn’t let any of the staff undermine his work.
Director Kohlhaussen stood in the stark-white lobby, silently critiquing Hanna’s trousers before shaking her hand. “Welcome to the National Museum.”
“I’m pleased to be here,” she said, praying that God would forgive her recurring lies.
“With all of our recent acquisitions, our collection is on the way to becoming the best in Europe.” He waved her through a gallery of historical artwork, each piece hung in a gilded frame. “We’re preserving the German heritage, but we’re also a safe house for valuables from across the Continent.”
At the end of the corridor, they passed through the arched cloister of a former Carthusian monastery, the monks’ cells now used as exhibit rooms for the twelve wooden panels of an altarpiece, each depicting a different scene from the life of Christ.
“Lunch is provided for all our employees in the cafeteria,” the director said as they neared a staircase. “You will leave your personal belongings in a locker outside the front door so none of your things are stolen.”
And so nothing was taken from their collection, she surmised. Too many museum workers would be tempted to walk out the door with artifacts stuffed into their handbags.
“Your work is waiting for you downstairs.”
He directed her through a dimly lit basement, the ceiling a gray cloud socking them into this space, a variety of posters lining the walls. Some promoted the ideal of a perfect German family, several blond children with their parents, a baby in the mother’s arms. Some reminded Germans about the dangers of an air raid. Others displayed frightening creatures, crossed with skulls, to warn them about typhus, the infection that would afflict any Aryan who associated with their Jewish neighbors.
The face of Paul Gruenewald swept into her mind, the sharp eyes that understood the internal workings at Tillich Toy Factory, the warm smile that rested on Luisa whenever he visited their home.
Paul didn’t look anything like the dirty, disease-infested caricatures on these posters. Nor did Albert Einstein or the Jewish professors and students she’d met in Berlin.
She reached in her pocket, felt the key that Frau Weber had given her to the attic. Her cousin had loved Paul for years. Was the Gestapo planning to punish her now for their marriage?
Director Kohlhaussen opened a door to show her their storehouse of extinguishers for an air attack, gas masks, and buckets of sand if necessary to extinguish a fire before it burned their collection. She’d heard the war reports, seen the prisoners in France, but the fighting was outside Germany. No one would ever penetrate their defenses here, even by air.
Farther down the hall, the aroma of cardboard and worn leather seeped from a second storage room. Inside were two filing cabinets and a regiment of box-filled shelves.
The director handed her a clipboard with lined paper. “You must catalog everything in these boxes and then repackage the items in crates so not even a British bomb will shatter them.”
She looked at him as if he’d lost his mind. “No amount of paper and wood will stop a bomb.”
“Our bunker will soften any blow.”
She blinked. “What bunker?”
“That I can’t tell you.”
Her hands ran over one of the boxes. “So I’m burying your treasure.”
“In a way, I suppose.”
She wanted to learn the stories, find the pieces that nodded to their past, not create an inventory. But if she couldn’t dig in the field, she’d do her best to curate the artifacts here, saving them from the bombs. Each piece had a story. A creator and an owner and probably a family who’d ushered it carefully through the years.
Director Kohlhaussen lifted a bolt of fabric off the top of a cabinet, slipping it onto one of the shelves so she could use it to wrap the artifacts. “I understand you are to be married soon.”
Startled, she didn’t reply. Had the secret police reported this information to her supervisor? In her statement to the Gestapo agent, a lie to save her life, she feared that she’d lynched herself.
Instead of responding, Hanna lifted a bronze Glocke from a box and examined the beehive-shaped bell from a much earlier century. Thirteenth or fourteenth, back when these bells were used to signal danger or death.
“Fräulein?”
She glanced back up at the director, a flickering light bulb reflecting off his balding head. He was waiting for some sort of response about her impending marriage.
She placed the bell on an empty shelf. “We haven’t set a wedding date.”
His eyes clouded with confusion and then cleared. “When is Standartenführer Strauss expected to arrive in Nuremberg?”
“Soon” was all she offered, hoping she wouldn’t see Kolman soon at all. That he would receive her letter of refusal and become so immersed in wherever Himmler sent him that he’d forget about her completely.
“I look forward to meeting him.”
She gave a brusque nod. She was here to do a job, and she’d do it to the best of her ability. If the director wanted to speak with Kolman, he needed to contact the SS.
“We work from nine until five, every weekday,” he said. “You’ll have time off, of course, for your wedding.”
“I’m not getting married.”
He patted her shoulder as if he was more concerned about her future as a wife than her work at the museum. “These storage rooms double as bomb shelters for all our employees, so if the air siren goes off, you’ll have a crowd.”
While she longed to feel the dirt on her hands instead of cloth, she unfolded the paper from another box, removing a circular wooden panel. The center was gerated with pieces of iron, leather, and parchment, and on the top of the panel was a helmet with red-glazed wings, the bottom a silvered coat of arms.
A memorial shield, made to remember the dead.
Where had the museum secured such a treasure?
It didn’t matter, she supposed. She’d do whatever she could to protect it from the Royal Air Force and its bombs.
For hours, she sorted through the boxes, recording porcelain figurines, paintings, and engraved glass from the House of Habsburg. Treasure, all of it, to further prove their Nordic past. She noted the items on the clipboard and wrapped them with cloth before placing them in crates. Most of the artifacts were passed down, she suspected, from the patriciate in Nuremberg, before their city was swallowed up in 1806 by the federal state of Bavaria.
“Fräulein Tillich?” someone called from the corridor.
“I’m in here.” She reached into a new box and pulled out an egg-shaped watch hooked to a silver chain. One that appeared to be from the 1500s.
Grete walked into the room, a cup in her hand, eyeglasses dangling around her neck with a beaded strap. Early twenties, if Hanna had to guess her age, but she held a firm air of authority as if she could run this museum on her own. “I thought you might want some coffee.”
Hanna took a sip of the warm drink. No sugar but fresh cream. “Thank you.”
“You can come upstairs whenever you’d like more.”
“I lost track of time,” Hanna said, holding up the old watch as if it concurred.
“Director Kohlhaussen always stays until eight. He can write you a curfew pass if you’d like to work late.”
Hanna glanced at her wrist. It was almost four, and she was eager to explore the attic before the Gestapo returned. “I have to leave right at five.”
“These boxes, and perhaps a few more, will all be waiting for you in the morning.” Grete glanced down at Hanna’s trousers. “I wish I could
wear a pair of those to work.”
“It makes lifting these boxes much easier.” Hanna swept her hand over the display of artifacts that she’d lined up on a shelf. “Where did the museum get all of these things?”
“From different homes across Germany.”
“People donated them?”
Grete hesitated. “Not exactly.”
“But how—?”
Grete moved toward the door. “I must get back upstairs before the director starts looking for me.”
Hanna swathed the watch in linen and carefully packed it into a crate. Had the museum purchased these items from local dealers? Perhaps their brokers weren’t as reputable as the museum would like to admit.
Or had the museum taken these things from those who’d rebelled against the regime? Himmler was notorious for picking and choosing whatever he pleased, even antiquities that belonged to others. In his mind, the Aryans owned everything, and no one dared to defy him, not if they wanted to keep their life.
In the next box she found a fragile book made with parchment and a worn leather cover. Turning the pages carefully, she marveled at the calligraphy, the ink artwork of leaves and vines, wishing she could read the Hebrew lettering. This wasn’t an artifact to prove the German’s ancestral heritage. It was a Memorbuch, once owned by a Jewish family.
She’d read about these Memorbücher but had never seen one before. The Jewish population in Nuremberg began keeping these memory books in the thirteenth century to remember those who’d been killed in pogroms.
The Nazis wouldn’t protect Jewish people like Paul and his family; it was strange that they would care for their things.
Her mind wandered back to the letters on the labyrinth stones beside the abbey. Each person who’d died had a story, but to her knowledge, no one had written them down. And according to her mother, the Torah said it was imperative to remember the stories, reminding readers—169 times—of this decree.
Rachel. Benjamin. Mary. She and Luisa had picked biblical names for all the letters in the labyrinth so these people wouldn’t be forgotten. It was another game for them, which name matched which number of stone.
Her stomach curled again at the memory.
If only she could visit Frau Weber one more time, try and help Luisa, but if the Gestapo began to track her, she feared she might lead them right to Luisa’s hiding place.
At five, she hurried back upstairs, anxious to return home with the attic key.
Director Kohlhaussen stood by the front door, wishing his employees a good evening, scanning their clothing to make sure nothing left this building that was supposed to remain. That no employees would plunder what they’d already taken and stored.
One woman was motioned to the side. Random selection, Grete had explained. All of them were subject to a personal search.
The director shook Hanna’s hand, deftly searching for any bulges in her cardigan. “Thank you for your work today.”
“It was my pleasure.”
“Take the next week off,” he said when he released her hand. “Spend it with your husband.”
“I’m not getting—”
But the man had already turned his back, shaking the next hand.
11
EMBER
“The house is still two miles from here,” Dakota said after Ember stepped off the bus. The shuttle pulled away from the parking lot, returning to the ferry terminal in Oak Bluffs, but it had delivered her a good fifteen miles into the heart of the island.
“I’ll head up when the storm stops.” She ducked under an awning on the town hall as rain dripped off the shingles onto her open toes. Two miles was an easy walk after living in DC.
“I can’t blame you for not wanting a ride, but my grandmother is expecting us at four, and it’s almost 3:40.”
With those words, her cell phone chimed.
While Noah knew she’d be gone, that information never stopped him from checking in.
Where are you?
Ember shot the boy a quick text back, reminding him that she was only gone for two days.
When it chimed again, Dakota glanced at her screen. “Who misses you?”
She flipped the phone over. “His name’s Noah.”
“Your husband?”
“No, I’ve never been married.” That’s what the FBI told her, at least, after they’d rushed her away from Eagle Lake. Nothing about her arrangement with Lukas had been legal.
“Well, this Noah is a blessed man to have found you.”
Lifting the phone, she keyed in one more response.
I miss you too. Now back to your homework!
And Phish Food, Noah said.
After muting the volume, she slipped the phone into her handbag. No sense trying to explain Phish Food to the man in front of her.
Dakota held out his hand beyond the awning and the raindrops sprang off his palm, diving into the puddle below. “You’re going to get soaked.”
“It will let up soon.”
“Not according to the National Weather Service. We’ve got a thunderstorm blowing in this afternoon that’s supposed to last all night.”
If she continued this, her stubbornness would end up in an unexplainable tardiness for her meeting with Mrs. Kiehl, not to mention a nasty cold. She was supposed to be ambivalent, but once again she’d let Dakota get under her skin.
“I guess I’ll have to ride up with you.” Two miles would go by quickly. She wouldn’t even have to talk until she saw Mrs. Kiehl.
“You want me to put your suitcase in the 4Runner?” he asked, his hands in his pockets.
She slowly released her grasp on the handle. “That would be fine.”
Dakota thought she had a boyfriend. A blessed man, he’d said. Noah really was the only guy in her life at the moment, and she didn’t see any reason to correct Dakota’s flawed assumption. A phantom boyfriend would help her make it through dinner at the Kiehls’. All she wanted was to hear the stories about Hanna and Nuremberg, and then she’d be gone.
After depositing her luggage in the back, Dakota cleaned a stack of papers from the passenger seat. Lightning flashed in the distance, and she hopped into the SUV as he started the engine. Then he turned onto a farm road built for locals and lost tourists, limestone walls fencing both sides.
“The cottage in Oak Bluffs is ready for you. You can have it for a whole week if you’d like.”
“I’m only spending the night.” The reverse order of transportation, from ferry to Lyft, would whisk her back to her condo in Georgetown tomorrow. By Friday morning, she would be inside the safe walls of her office at the Mandel Center, pulling files from the shelves, enjoying ice cream with her favorite fourth grader that afternoon. “How long has your family owned one of the gingerbread cottages?”
“Since 1872,” he said. “We used to rent it out, but now I—”
She sucked in air so quickly that it felt like a hit of helium to her brain. “You live in it?”
Leaves shuddered around them, a thousand sails in the wake of this storm. “Not tonight, of course. I’ll stay at the farm with Gram.”
The fading light flecked his brown eyes with gold as he adjusted the rearview mirror. She looked away.
“You keep in touch with anyone from school?” He slowed the truck to dodge a fallen branch.
“A few.”
“A couple of our classmates are still on the island,” he said over the rhythm of the wiper blades. “But only Beatty and I keep in touch. You remember Beatty?”
She remembered the names of everyone in their class. “He was the skateboarder with the Rugrats collection.”
“That’s him.”
She glanced back at him, surprised. “You and Beatty were friends in high school?”
“A lot has changed, Em. For me in particular.” She flinched at the familiar name, but he didn’t seem to notice. “Hard to believe we’re almost at the twenty-year mark.”
“I don’t want to talk about high school.”
A gr
ay sheet of rain blew across the pond on their right, its corners rippling in the storm, and a rogue drum, the distant bellow of thunder, joined the chorus of wind.
“I still feel like a teenager some days,” he said. “I just don’t want to make the same miserable choices over again.”
Which choices? That’s what she wanted to ask, but she didn’t want him to think her interest had in any way returned. Men like Lukas and Dakota might learn how to charm, but they never really changed.
Branches bobbed overhead as if trying to hook their vehicle, and she watched a yellow patch creep across her weather app, the warning about a thunderstorm churning offshore. She wanted to go straight to the ferry terminal, return to the safety of the mainland, but the ferry would remain docked until the winds calmed again. No one in their right mind would cross the sound in this weather.
Then again, she wasn’t exactly in her right mind.
Dakota was hunched over the steering wheel, squinting to see the asphalt in the onslaught of rain. The wiper blades ticked like the hands of a broken clock across his windshield. Stuck in time.
He glanced at her as they climbed the hill. “We’re almost there.”
“Good.”
He jerked the wheel to the left, avoiding another fallen branch. “Maybe five more minutes with this storm.”
The last time she had been in a nor’easter, she’d been sixteen. A mesocyclone ripped across the shore before a tornado touched down outside Oak Bluffs. The winds had flipped boats and stirred up the ocean floor, covering the beach with debris.
She and her brother had battened down their own hatches that night, filling the garage with the car parts he’d strewn across the yard and then locking the shutters in the house. Alex had—
A deafening crack and she watched in horror as an oak tree teetered ahead of them before falling across the road. Dakota slammed on the brakes, and the 4Runner slipped to the right, toward the stone wall. As she clenched the handle, a picture flashed through her mind of the SUV slamming against the wall, rolling back down the street on its bars.
The Curator's Daughter Page 9
