Saving Amelie (15 page)

But Lea had no special training with children. None of it made sense, and Friederich feared for his wife’s mental state if the priest should decide to withdraw the opportunity or offer it to another—someone better trained, someone a member of the Catholic church. He wished he could caution Lea, perhaps even talk her out of it.

But it was as though a fire had been lit in his wife’s heart. He saw it in the rush of her handwriting across the page. She was radiant—he knew it by her words, by the bright lifting of her
t
’s and the happy tails on her
k
’s. And it turned out that she was a natural teacher, a disciplinarian when needed, but even more a mentor and guide to the children. She said so herself in so many words. It was the first time she’d recognized her own strength in all the months they’d been married.

How could he deny her or advise against it? If things did not change in some way he could not imagine, she would need all the validation and joy this life could afford her. She might even need the income.

Friederich pulled from his pocket the small babe he’d carved from pine in his rare free time and ran his thumb over the face, the limbs of the child.

Since coming to Poland his unit had done nothing but obliterate Poles. He’d not been assigned to the burning of the synagogue last week, but his friend Gunther Friedman had returned from the mission as white as a sheet. He’d whispered that they’d herded the men, women, and even the children from the village into the synagogue. Just before slamming the door, he’d locked eyes with a little girl, the age and size of his own Gretel back home. Gunther said she seemed to understand better than he did what was coming. He’d slid the outside bolt on command, and his unit burned the synagogue to the ground. The screams—before the helpless were overcome by smoke—had haunted Gunther’s dreams for days. The sickly sweet smell of burning hair and flesh clung to his jacket for less than a night. But Friederich thought he, too, would vomit.

There was no way he could continue this killing, be part of the murder of villagers whose only crime was to live in the path of the German army. But he knew there were few alternatives. None of them boded well for him, or for the possibility he would see his Lea again.

He’d nearly stained the small Christkind through rubbing it with his muddied thumb. He thought of little Heinrich and his fascination with the Christkind—the babe Lea wrote she’d not been able to retrieve from her most difficult but nevertheless endearing pupil.

Heinrich Helphman? Endearing?
Friederich shook his head. Lea was besotted.
Are all children so fascinated by other children, by babies, as is Heinrich?

He smiled for the first time since coming to Poland, and it warmed him through.
Who would not love a child? And what could be better for my Lea? I could not give her a child, but sharing in the lives of these children gives her a family. It gives her life again.

Jason waited for Rachel two hours past their appointed meeting time at the Tiergarten café. He’d read through two morning newspapers and finished two plum turnovers and three cups of black coffee—or something like coffee—thanking his lucky stars that foreign correspondents received special ration cards. Still, she hadn’t shown.

He raked tense fingers through his hair, massaged the back of his neck.
Stupid, Young—stupid! No story is worth this. What kind of risk did I put you through, Rachel? If they killed Kristine . . . if your father was in on it . . . if he found you going through his files . . .
He couldn’t complete the thought.

He’d determined, for both their sakes, not to telephone her at her hotel, not to have her telephone him at the news office. He’d bet a week’s wages that the Reich had every phone in both places tapped. But two hours was too long.
Something’s happened.

Jason threw coins to the table and set pace for the hotel. He couldn’t leave her in the lurch, no matter what that meant.

He’d nearly reached Wilhelmstrasse when he saw Rachel’s slim figure, curves wrapped in a navy traveling suit, emerge from the stream of morning shoppers. He didn’t try to disguise his relief, but the tension in her face drew him.

He met her as she crossed the street. “You sure know how to leave a guy hanging, Miss Kramer.” He hefted the case she carried. “Going on a trip?”

She pushed past him, never slowing, not looking him in the eye. “Help me get a plane, a ship—whatever will get me out of Germany and to New York the fastest. I need it now.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And not from Berlin.”

He matched her pace, confused, needing to understand what that meant, what had happened, what it meant for Amelie, knowing she wouldn’t ask such a thing without reason. “Can we change your ticket?”

She missed a beat, and he thought her voice cracked. “Father’s holding our tickets—at least he said he was.” She walked half a block, heels clicking the pavement in sharp rhythm. “I’ve no idea what’s safe. But I have money. I emptied his cache.”

What happened?
“Does Dr. Kramer know you’re leaving?”

“Not yet. I waited until he’d gone.” She walked faster, her voice coming thick. “You were right about him. And his research.” She passed the camera and a small bag of film canisters to him. “You’ll find everything you need there. Use it as you wish, except—” She stopped abruptly, and the pedestrians behind them nearly collided.

Jason pulled her aside, saw her bite her lip.

“There are files about me—about others like me. Promise you won’t—you won’t use those pictures.”

Jason frowned, not knowing what she was talking about.

“Promise me!” she insisted.

“I promise; I promise,” he said.

“Be careful.” Rachel locked eyes with him. “Be so very careful.”

Jason had been in plenty of tight spots. It came with the territory. This should be no different. He took her hand, leading her through the busy street, down a back alley, and to the only place he knew to borrow a nondescript car on short notice. Whether they could make it through the border checkpoint into Austria was another matter.

After spending the equivalent of three hundred dollars and an hour on the road, Rachel had quietly filled Jason in on the files, what she understood of the work done at Cold Spring Harbor, her father’s focus on tuberculosis, greater detail of the medical examinations she’d been part of in Frankfurt, and her discovery of research done on twins—both for tuberculosis studies and for other programs she’d not had time to identify.

“They’re playing Cupid, as near as I can tell, though love has
nothing to do with the matching. Apparently it’s all about pairing bloodlines—eugenically ideal Aryan bloodlines.” She glanced at Jason, embarrassed to have been an unwitting part of such a program. But the greater pain was the betrayal of her father.

“And Gerhardt Schlick is your match.”

“Evidently designed that way for years.”

“So when you turned him down and he married Kristine, they weren’t happy to begin with. It had nothing to do with Amelie’s deafness after all.”

Rachel sighed. “I wouldn’t say that. If Amelie had been ‘acceptable,’ they may have left everything alone—at least as far as their marriage was concerned.”

“But now, according to the good doctors, you’re slated to marry Gerhardt and produce lots of little Aryan thoroughbreds.”

Rachel winced. “I’ll not do it. I’ve seen the posters promoting fertility and the ‘obligation of every strong German woman’ to bear multiple children.”

“Maybe that’s the twins connection. Maybe it has to do with increasing the Aryan population.”

“I don’t know. But there’s more to it than that. The experiments for tuberculosis infected one twin who was given no treatment. Only when the disease was full-blown was the other twin exposed.”

“Medical experiments for eradicating diseases?”

“And for detecting and eliminating ‘weakened strains,’ and I don’t know what all.” Rachel had been nauseous ever since she’d begun reading the files. Racing down the autobahn did not help. “But they let the twins—one or both—die, and they do nothing to help them, unless one is declared immune to the strain.”

“You don’t suppose you have an infected twin running around somewhere, do you?”

Jason’s sarcasm grated. It was no joke.
Father’s betrayal! How could he?
Rachel straightened.
Did Mother know?
She could not entertain
such a possibility. “He didn’t start out like this—he didn’t,” she insisted. “Father was so different before Mother died. . . . At least I want to believe he was.” She swallowed, but it felt like lead in her throat. “I didn’t get to finish reading the file. I—I was afraid Father would return, and—and I just couldn’t take any more in.”

“So you don’t know anything about—?”

“After I’d gone to my room, I wished I’d looked back in my file—made myself read it. There may have been something about my birth mother and father. I know my mother was German and died in childbirth, that I was born in Frankfurt and adopted by my American parents almost right away. They said I was her only child. That’s all I know.” She turned to Jason, glad that he had to keep his eyes on the road. “I nearly went back to read more, but Father’s key turned in the lock of the suite. I couldn’t face him without showing how I feel toward him. I’m sure he wouldn’t invite me to have a peek, even if I confronted him.”

“And this morning?”

“I left a note last night saying that I wasn’t feeling well and would be sleeping in. I’d see him for dinner tonight. By the time I came out of my room he’d gone for the day. I think he’s meeting with the doctors at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute. He left a note saying he’d be late. He probably imagines I’ll spend the day going through Kristine’s things with Gerhardt.”

“By the time he gets back, you’ll be gone. He won’t know where.” Jason drummed the steering wheel with the tips of his fingers. “It might have been better to wait until they’d be gone longer—would have given you a head start.”

She shook her head, miserable. “I couldn’t stay there another day—I couldn’t. I left him a letter.”

“A letter?” The incredulity in Jason’s voice brought her up short.

“I told him I’m ashamed of him, that he sickens me, that Mother would be disgusted, and that he’s dishonored her memory by selling
me out. Whatever good he’s done in his quest to rid the world of tuberculosis is undone and spat upon by his murder of innocents.”

Jason whistled low.

“I’ll never see him again. I told him I’m returning to New York and that he’s not to try to contact me. I want nothing to do with him.” Her voice broke.

“He’ll come after you, Rachel. They’ll come after you,” Jason insisted. “They’ve spent twenty-odd years raising you as a broodmare; they’re not going to let you off the hook because you say you don’t want to play their nasty game.”

“When I get to New York, I’ll move; I’ll change my name.”

“You underestimate them.”

Rachel couldn’t be defeated before she’d begun to fight. There would be battles enough ahead, and she wouldn’t use her energy to fight with Jason. “Just get me out of Germany.”

Five hours later, as dusk settled in, Jason pulled to the curb of the train station nearest the Austrian border. “I just hope this is still an option. If you get through Austria, next stop is Switzerland.” He took the hand Rachel held out to him, awkward though it seemed.