Saving Amelie (24 page)

“Them too.” Eldridge shrugged.

“You’re right—it stinks.” A desk phone rang and the chief turned to pick it up.

“And?” Jason continued, sensing Eldridge wasn’t done.

Eldridge glanced up, then away. “I heard he’s having kids and sick elderly gassed behind closed doors—ever since he invaded Poland.”

Jason’s heart flagged an alert. He wondered about Eldridge’s sources, but agreed. “At least the handicapped, the mentally ill. Calls them ‘life unworthy of life.’”

“There’s no such thing.”

“There is. He calls it his T4 program—euthanasia. My source says the Führer no doubt believes that a few hundred missing handicapped kids won’t be noticed in the glorious rush of war, that their elimination will elevate the Reich to even greater heights by freeing up beds for wounded soldiers.”

“I mean there’s no such thing as life unworthy of life.”

Jason stared at the man who’d raced him for nearly every story, every deadline, for the last twelve months. He’d thought his rival driven, merciless. But he agreed again. “Every life has value.”

“Every life.” Eldridge rubbed the three-day stubble of his beard.

“We’ll never convince US papers to print that story on the front page.”

“Miffing the great Adolf’s not worth the risk of losing Germany’s goodwill—or more to the point, their war reparations,” Eldridge sneered.

Jason grunted. “Like we’ll get them now.”

“Not a chance.”

Jason turned to pack up his desk for the night.

“I have a kid brother back home.”

Jason hadn’t imagined Eldridge with any family. He was too competitive, too isolationist, not the family-man type. “Lucky you.” The thought of his kid sister so far away made Jason shove his rough draft
into a folder so hard that it missed and slid off the desk. Embarrassed, expecting a gibe, he stooped, picking up pages.

“He can’t hear—can’t even see so hot.”

Jason stopped.

“But every thought in his head is worth three times that stupid Kraut brandishing his riding crop and raving about increased living space.” Eldridge’s jaw worked back and forth, his lips tight over his teeth.

“How do you know?” Jason realized how that sounded, felt the heat creep up his neck. “I mean, how do you know what your brother thinks?”

“We talk.” Eldridge looked at him like he was stupid.

“You said he’s deaf.”

“Sign language, facial expressions, lip reading, touch—even some finger spelling into his palm.”

“You know how to do all that?” Jason couldn’t form that picture of Eldridge in his mind.

“Our mom made us learn—the whole family. Not hard—just takes practice.”

“So, you could show me?”

Eldridge looked ready to rip Jason’s face off, as though Jason were messing with him.

“I mean it. I have a friend. But I can’t talk with her.”

“You have a deaf girlfriend?”

“I didn’t say she’s my girlfriend—just a friend. She signs, but I don’t know what she’s saying or how to communicate with her.”

Eldridge pulled his jacket over his shoulder, ready to push off for the night. “Why not? But if I were you, the first thing I’d tell her is to stay out of the Fatherland.”

He was out the newsroom door before Jason could reply.

Stay out of the Fatherland—right. What are the chances of hiding long-term a child the Reich wants to kill?
Jason knew the answer, and he knew Amelie must be moved.

Rachel turned to the right and then to the left before Oma’s bedroom mirror.

“Lea’s dress fits you perfectly! You are two peas in a pod.” Delighted, Oma clapped her hands.

But for each praise Oma lifted, Lea bristled.

“You really think this will work?” Rachel wasn’t so sure that even her best acting skills could turn her into a provincial mountain woman.

“Why not?” Oma cooed. “By the time we finish with your hair and wardrobe, no one could tell the difference between you.”

“That’s not true, Oma.” Lea spoke softly. “She needs to stand, to sit, to walk and talk like me if we’re to fool anyone enough to get her through the train station.”

“You’re right.” Rachel eyed her sister critically. “I must practice your accent. It’s close, I think, but not quite true.”

“Nothing about this is true,” Lea countered.

Oma pinched her lips. “You girls will get it right. You must, for all our sakes.”

“Yes, Oma,” Lea acquiesced.

Her very demeanor annoyed Rachel.
Why does she have to be so two-faced and mousy? She’s obviously jealous. She despises me but won’t say it—would never say it to Oma.
Rachel cast her twin a glance meant to put her in her place, but when Lea’s flaming face and iceberg eyes made clear she’d understood, Rachel felt an unfamiliar twinge of regret. She turned away to tie her stout German shoes—Lea’s shoes, which Rachel thought ugly—pretending she hadn’t seen.

But Rachel knew neither of them had fooled Oma. Their grandmother was observant, quick, and still the most patient, grace-filled woman Rachel had ever met.
She’s not taken in by either of us. And still she seems to like us—to love us!

Oma was Rachel’s picture of a Bavarian grandmother living in her quaint gingerbread cottage. But there was something different—something not so “Oberammergauish” in her home and garden, in her very nature, that Rachel couldn’t articulate. She wanted time to unravel that mystery—time she wouldn’t have.

Many houses and cottages in Oberammergau were painted with scenes, either from Bavarian community and life, German fairy tales, or the Passion Play. Oma’s cottage bore no scene but was painted a plain cream-colored stucco with black shutters—not so different than the basis of the others. Traditional black window boxes lined the base of each window, brimming over with scarlet geraniums, trailing ivy, and another green filler plant Rachel didn’t know—all quite Bavarian. But her narrow, hedged back garden ran deep with winding fall flower and hedgerow trails, little benches tucked here and there beneath flowering or weeping shrubbery—more like an English fairy garden than a Hansel and Gretel sort.

Lea boasted that before blackout regulations had plunged the community—the entire country—into darkness, their grandmother had lit a dozen small lanterns at night tucked here and there along her garden paths. Her neighbor had fussed at Oma’s extravagance, but Oma loved them and claimed their flames made the night come alive, like fireflies.

“Are there fireflies in Germany?” Rachel couldn’t imagine it.

“Not many,” Oma had admitted. “But you’d be surprised the places I’ve lived and traveled, my dear. The things I’ve done . . . England, Ireland, the Netherlands. I wasn’t always an old German
Hausfrau
.” She’d winked and said no more, but it was one more enticement for Rachel, and one more reminder that Lea had lived an entire lifetime knowing and being known and loved by their grandmother.

Oma and her home were ideally placed, Rachel decided, against the backdrop of the snowcapped Alps. Early snowfall had painted the
mountains white against the brilliant-blue October sky—the thing of storybooks.

But as Lea quickly reminded them, those beautiful snowcapped mountains portended an early winter, more difficult travel, and uncertain rations. The sooner they could get Rachel and Amelie out of Germany, the safer it would be for everyone.

Oma had chafed, clearly not wanting Rachel to go so soon. But Rachel knew Lea was right. She must leave with Amelie as soon as Jason found a way to get the child to Oma’s. Impersonating her petulant sister was part of a potential exit plan, and Rachel determined to focus on those preparations.

“Sit here, my dear,” Oma ordered, “and let me braid your hair.”

Rachel straightened her dress—Lea’s dress—and sat, returning her grandmother’s smile in the mirror.

“I’ll do that, Oma.” Lea took the brush and comb from her grandmother. “You see about the coffee.”

Oma released the tools reluctantly. Rachel, too, was sorry. She would have liked to have her grandmother brush her hair—once, before she left. That thought was cut short by Lea’s sudden twist of her long hank of hair and the coarse digging of the comb through her roots.

Rachel bit her lip, determined not to let her sister see her wince. Lea jerked the comb, not bothering to untangle the knot that always formed at Rachel’s neck. She carved a deep part straight down the middle of her scalp—forehead to base of neck. Dividing the hair on either side of the central part, Lea wove tight braids, yanking each time she overlapped, and tied off the ends. She wound them round Rachel’s head and pinned, pushing the pins into her sister’s scalp.

Rachel said not a word, no matter that she’d had to grit her teeth to keep from crying out.

Both sets of eyes met in the mirror. “Do you feel better now?” Rachel asked.

Lea’s face flamed, but she wore the mask of triumph.

“I look nothing like you. Your braids are loose and full,” Rachel accused. “Do it again.”

The red in Lea’s cheeks rushed to her ears. She glanced at Rachel’s hair in the mirror, a foot below her own. Rachel saw that she’d hit her mark and waited to be obeyed.

Lea threw the comb to the vanity and turned. “Do it yourself.”

Rachel grabbed her sister by the wrist and spun her back. “What is your problem?”

“Your coming brings nothing but trouble, and when you leave I’ll be picking up the pieces of Oma’s heart. You’ve put her—all of us—at terrible risk.”

“I wanted to find you, to meet you. We’re sisters—twins! I wanted to know about our parents, and I want to know Oma. I need to know her!”

Lea jerked her wrist free, but stepped nearer, closing the space between them. “Well, that’s just it, isn’t it—it’s what
you
want. I imagine you’ve always gotten what you want, haven’t you?” She walked out.

Rachel felt as if she’d been slapped. This was certainly not what she’d wanted—not like this. She sank to the vanity’s bench.
She has no idea what it is to grow up believing you’re loved, believing you’re special, then have it torn away, to learn it was all a lie without love—worse than without love.

Slowly, as the tears she’d held back trickled down her scrubbed cheeks, she pulled the pins from her hair. She brushed it out, gently, and massaged life back into her burning scalp. She braided her hair in loose coils, then wound them round her head, pinning the braids gently into place, a nearly perfect copy of Lea’s. Her dress and shoes were Lea’s. Her hair matched. But the soul that stared back from the mirror was someone different—neither Rachel nor Lea. Someone Rachel no longer knew.

Jason figured it was a game for Eldridge to pass the time during the long hours of waiting at the news office for a phone call from New York, an assignment, the whiff of a scoop. At least Jason hoped his colleague saw it as a game, hoped he believed that Jason’s fascination with learning sign language was because of his crush on some girl back home.

He picked up the finger spelling quickly. It took longer to grasp common hand signs. Some made sense, were sort of intuitive, but there were so many.

“Not bad,” Eldridge conceded. “Guess pounding the keys keeps those fingers limber after all.”

Jason grunted. He’d kowtow to Eldridge long enough to learn for Amelie’s sake—whenever,
if
ever he had the chance to communicate with her. He hoped the hand signs were universal. He imagined she was too little for finger spelling. Learning to sign was his only means of helping her now, or of easing his own desperation to do something—anything.

But Jason’s lessons were cut short. The message from the farmer’s wife came sooner than even he had expected. Jason translated the crude note folded into the sandwich thrust into his hands by some youngster in the street pretending to hawk lunches:
Storage costs doubled—pay immediately. Surplus not wanted. Remove or destroy.
It couldn’t be plainer than that.

26

J
ASON
HAD
ONE
CONNECTION
—one hope he’d met through the Confessing Church—and he tried it before sundown.

It was nearly blackout when he rang the back doorbell on Potsdamer Strasse. A stocky kitchen maid came to the door and cracked it open. “What do you want?”