Saving Amelie (12 page)

At nine o’clock, Kristine hefted the small suitcase by its handle, ushered her little girl along the hallway, and closed the door of their home behind her. She tucked Amelie’s small, pink hand in her own and walked toward the train station, desperately trying to stay in the moment, memorizing each breath her daughter drew.

By the time they reached the medical center, Kristine trembled. Amelie, usually delighted by outings with her mother, crowded into her skirt, pensive and fractious. Kristine knew Amelie was only responding to her mother’s tension, but she couldn’t force herself to act more normally. She knew that whatever happened, she would never see her daughter again once she walked out the center’s door.

“Do not frown so, Frau Schlick,” the admitting nurse chided. “You have made the right decision for your daughter. The girl will thrive under our discipline and receive the most advanced treatment.”

Kristine’s eyes filled and she nearly sobbed as she signed the papers.

“This is only your duty as a good German mother,” the nurse admonished, clearly put off by the young woman’s display of emotion.

It was more than Kristine could take. “I am not a ‘good German mother,’ Frau Braun.” She threw the pen to the desk. “But I assure you that I am the very best of mothers, and I love my daughter more than I love my life. Now give me the papers.”

Frau Braun colored, then made a show of concentrating, of signing and separating duplicate copies of the forms. Standing, she thrust one set toward Kristine. “You don’t want to miss your train, Frau Schlick.”

Kristine folded the papers deliberately, placed them in her purse, and closed it with a snap. But her anger evaporated when she turned back to her daughter. Kneeling, she scooped Amelie into her arms, smothering her with kisses. Amelie, blue eyes wide, clung to her.

Kristine squeezed her eyes shut, memorizing the feel of the muscles in her daughter’s arms as they wound round her neck, of the warm and tiny body, heart beating wildly, pressed against her own.

“You must go, Frau Schlick. You’re upsetting the child,” Nurse Braun insisted. She pulled Amelie’s arms from Kristine’s neck.

For one wild moment Kristine thought to grab Amelie and tear from the center, running, running with her forever.

“This is the best plan, I assure you. Shall I call for help?” the nurse threatened.

The plan—yes, the plan. I must stick to the plan—for Amelie.
Kristine whispered into her daughter’s hair, “I will love you forever—as long as I have breath, and beyond.” Kristine knew Amelie could not hear her, but she knew with all certainty that the girl understood her heart.

Kristine stood, pushing Amelie away, and signed that she must go with the woman. But Amelie didn’t want to go. She struggled, her eyes large in alarm, reaching for her mother. “You must go, my darling.” Kristine straightened her arms, increasing the distance between herself and her daughter.

Frau Braun pulled Amelie by the waist. The child cried out in
panicked, guttural yelps. The nurse called for assistance. An orderly appeared and swept up the kicking Amelie, hoisting her none too gently beyond a door that closed with a resounding click as the latch fell into place.

Kristine could see nothing for her tears but Frau Braun’s grim-set mouth. She could not hear or comprehend what the woman was saying to her. All she could think was,
Amelie! My Amelie!

Love for her Amelie drove her from the office, down the hallway, and into the street. Distraught, but desperate to know the plan would be carried out and her precious daughter safe, she slowed her steps. She’d not walked a full minute when the explosion came from behind her.

Jason had watched Kristine kneel before Amelie at the door of the clinic, tuck something inside the neck of the little girl’s dress, and press her forehead against her daughter’s. They communicated something between them through their fingers, a sign Jason could not understand. A perfect picture—mother and child.

Jason turned away, feeling an intruder into such intimacy. He’d waited for Kristine to exit the building before signaling the all clear to his coconspirator. The resistance group was so secret, so tightly woven, that he didn’t even know who’d set the bomb, who proclaimed loudly that they’d called the fire department, who blocked the roadway with delivery carts and a faked bicycle accident, further delaying the firemen who’d been sent to the wrong address.

He didn’t know the name of the woman who argued vehemently with Frau Braun and the medical staff in the courtyard, or from where the sudden influx of pedestrians came to rescue the remaining children from the burning building. He didn’t know who stole away in the smoke and confusion, a child-sized bag bundled beneath his arm.

Jason held no part in the resistance, and his peripheral contacts were there one day and gone the next. But he’d dug up and shared enough Nazi dirt to make friends with those who knew people who knew people who made things happen. He trusted his “friends of friends” to do their job, and concentrated on badgering the medical staff for a story—how could such a thing happen and why weren’t they more responsible with their equipment and didn’t they realize the children could have all been killed and the detailed spelling of names. Confusion reigned as he ordered photographers to capture the burning building and the frightened but safe children from every angle.

Before the fire brigade finally arrived in force, a crowd of genuine locals had gathered, further blocking access. By the time hoses were pulled from the truck and turned on the blaze, the building had been gutted, the heat so intense there was no hope of entering.

Kristine Schlick, eyes wide and hair wild, ran from child to child, from nurse to orderly to nurse again, searching for Amelie—crying and screaming for the daughter she’d only just left behind. She played her part well, but Jason knew it was more than acting.

It was all Jason could do not to grab her, comfort her, tell her that Amelie and the other children with secret places to go had been safely spirited away. But he could not, dared not even speak to her for fear of giving everything away. Instead he sent photographers to capture on film the nearly hysterical, grief-stricken mother. And all the while he invented good copy for the news story that he prayed would rock Berlin and New York.

11

R
ACHEL
WAS
HORRIFIED
when she read the heartbreaking story buried on page five of the morning paper. The story outlined the bungling phone call that first sent firefighters first to the wrong address, and lauded heroic locals who’d appeared from the streets to rescue most of the children when the medical center’s ancient boilers exploded. No bodies had been recovered. The intense heat had prevented firemen from entering the building until everything inside was in ashes. Four-year-old Amelie Schlick and two others from the greater Berlin area were presumed dead. Case closed. A memorial service for the three children would be held Sunday morning after services.

Rachel would never have agreed to the explosion, never have risked such danger. Her stomach churned for Kristine’s sake. If only she could place Amelie in her friend’s arms once more, or at least assure her that her child was safe. But she could do neither, and there was no proof that all was well. She dared not contact Jason for fear she was watched or that her phone—or his—was tapped. She, and therefore Kristine, could only wait.

Amelie remembered the strong hands that had wrenched her from her mother’s neck, her mother’s arms. She knew that the man in the white coat had shut her in a room with other children. She was intrigued by the children—most bigger than she. But she wanted her mother. None of the other children had mothers. Where were all the mothers?

When the pungent smell and vapory cloud began to fill the air, grown-ups had thrown open the door, picking up children and pulling them from the room into the burning hallway. Amelie had been frightened by the chaos and the eyes of grown-ups filled with terror. She’d cowered back, behind a crib, into the corner.

The man in the white coat returned. Through the rungs of the crib she could see his mouth making shapes, could see his features distort, see him cough in the growing smoke and heat. But he looked so mean, so angry—like her father when he was frustrated with her. She didn’t want the man to see her, to touch her again. Amelie shut her eyes tight and made herself as small as she possibly could, curling into a ball beneath the crib.

She didn’t see when the strong hands jerked her out, banging her head sharply on the bottom of the crib. She yelped in pain. And then the hands dropped her to the floor. Their owner stumbled backward. Different hands grabbed her up, tucked her beneath a blanket so tight she could barely breathe.

The hands carried her, bumping her up and down as they ran. Her head throbbed. She tasted the sticky blood oozing from the gash on her forehead. And then everything went dark.

Rachel received a note, scribbled across a napkin, with the Sunday morning coffee delivered to her room. Three words had never meant so much.

Safe and well.

She accompanied her father to the Sunday-morning memorial service held in the largest Lutheran church in Berlin. Two dozen people gathered to mourn and pay their respects in the dark church—mostly curiosity seekers from the neighborhood of the fire.

Gerhardt portrayed the stoic German officer, proudly humbled in his grief. Kristine hunched, tearful and pale beneath her black veil.

Nothing the Lutheran pastor said could comfort the young mother, and though Rachel sensed Gerhardt’s kindness toward his wife at the front of the church was show, she was glad he had the decency to make a display for the public. She hoped that was in some way a help to Kristine.

But as the few mourners began to leave, while Kristine knelt at the altar and the pastor spoke with her, Gerhardt stepped back, joining Rachel and her father, as though they were his family, more his concern than Kristine.

“My condolences for your loss, Gerhardt,” her father said, extending his hand.

Gerhardt nodded. “An unfortunate end.”

Rachel seethed inside. “Unfortunate, Herr Schlick?”

“You can see what her death has done to Kristine. I’ve seen daily what the child’s life did to her.” He straightened. “Kristine will grieve. We shall see if she is able to overcome her grief.”

“She needs to get away.” It was a sudden inspiration on Rachel’s part. “Father—” she laid her hand on his arm—“I want to take Kristine home with us. Let her get away for a time.” She turned to Gerhardt. “It will do her a world of good.”

Gerhardt’s eyes registered surprise, then a hint of frost. “Out of the question.”

“Why?” Rachel demanded. “Look at her, Gerhardt—she’s desperate. She needs help.”

“Precisely why I cannot allow her to leave my side. The best doctors are here, in Germany. I will see that she gets the help and care she needs.” He leaned closer. “You forget, Fräulein Kramer, that Kristine is my wife, that we have lost this unfortunate child together, and that we must certainly grieve together. It is only seemly.”

“You don’t strike me as the horribly grieving father.”