Saving Amelie (31 page)

“Of course you’ll stay for coffee and supper. We’d have it no other way.”

From the little Rachel had told them, the man had risked much in helping her and Amelie. Oma had never imagined that was entirely magnanimous on Young’s part. Any man would find her granddaughter attractive. And how could anyone with half a heart resist helping little Amelie?

“Bring this load of kindling, Herr Young—” she pointed toward the woodpile outside the door—“and I’ll pour the coffee.”

“It’s very kind of you to offer this hospitality, Frau Breisner.”

“You’ll find Oberammergau quite the gathering place these days.”

“Because of the play, you mean.”

“The play, and the war.” Oma took the man’s measure. “Our number of transients has grown beyond skilled laborers for the production and hospitality venues.”

“Oma means the women and children coming from the cities,” Lea volunteered. “We have more food here in the countryside. Most villagers are taking in boarders these days—into their houses, even their shops and barns. You are most welcome to stay in our home when you come to Oberammergau for your interviews.”

“Danke schön.”
The American dipped his head in a bow.

“Bitte schön.”
Lea smiled. “Your German is good.”

Jason laughed. “But my accent is terrible! Please—I know. You don’t have to pretend.”

Oma smiled.
A man impossible not to like.
“We’re glad you have come, Herr Young. Only remember, we are people of the Passion.
We offer hospitality and shelter—mercy—to those in need, and we expect the same of others.”

“‘People of the Passion’—that’s not a phrase I’ve heard.”

“You will hear it often as you come to know us better. For all of us in Oberammergau, the play is our trade, our commerce. For some of us it is our life and the fulfillment of our ancestors’ vow to the Lord. And for some—for us—it is the way we live our own vow to Him. Our discipleship.”

“‘I was a stranger and you took me in’?” Jason quoted, tipping his head to the side.

Oma nodded, smiling. “
Ja.
So, we understand each other.” She pointed toward the kitchen door. “Let’s go inside. We’ve more to discuss, do we not?”

It was hard for Rachel to tell who was more delighted, Amelie or Jason, the moment they caught sight of one another. Jason knelt to the floor and Amelie raced into his arms, her eyes lit like candles on a Christmas tree, gurgling in sounds and almost words that ran together so quickly that even Oma gasped.

“How’s my best girl?” Jason picked Amelie up and danced her around the kitchen, hugging her tight. “Are they treating you right?”

Rachel knew Amelie couldn’t hear a word, but she seemed to understand him perfectly. The two exchanged a string of simple signs that passed like a secret code between them. Amelie laughed, delighted, as if they’d shared the most brilliant joke on Broadway.

When Amelie was at last content to nestle in Jason’s arms, he sat at the kitchen table and poured out the news. “Hitler’s speaking in Munich tomorrow night. The city’s crawling with Nazis. Getting you out is definitely a risk, but the focus is on his security. They won’t be looking for middle-aged ladies traveling by train—or children.”

Lea pleaded, “But Amelie can’t be invisible. Her lack of hearing becomes obvious quickly.”

“Right—they can’t travel together.”

“And you daren’t travel with her—an American man with a German child,” Oma said.

“They’d stop me in a heartbeat.” He looked from one woman in the group to the next and stroked Amelie’s hair. “The box worked before. We could—”

“We can’t put her back in that box!” Oma insisted. “You didn’t see what it did to her. She was terrified!”

Jason sat back, holding Amelie, but raised one hand in surrender, waiting for a better suggestion.

“She was alive, Oma,” Lea whispered.

Oma looked up. “I wouldn’t have thought you would agree to . . .”

Lea swallowed, her eyes fastened on Amelie’s back. “I don’t want her to go. But we don’t know how long we can safely hide her; and if, as Herr Young says, there’s talk in Berlin of invading Switzerland . . . I want her alive more than I want her with me.”

Jason looked up at Rachel, still standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “You’ve not said anything. What do you think?”

“It’s so sudden.” Rachel felt the rush of adrenaline and the crashing of her confidence at once, mixed in with her growing attraction to Jason. She wanted the others to clear the room, to leave them alone, to let them talk. And she wanted to push back the hank of sandy hair that kept falling across his forehead.

Jason brought her focus to bear. “What do you think about Amelie traveling in the box? Or is there some way to have her travel in disguise with you—or in the same train car as you?”

“No.” Rachel knew she said it too quickly. But she didn’t want to be responsible for Amelie. “I don’t think I could keep her quiet. And I’m not . . . not natural with her.”

“I agree,” Lea said. “It would be too dangerous for them both.”

“Laudanum,” Oma said quietly. “That’s what we gave babies in the hospital during the last war to make them sleep.”

Lea blinked. “But—”

“Give her just enough to make her sleep most of the time—not enough to do any permanent damage. It will not only keep her quiet for a few hours; it will keep her from being so terrified of the box.”

“Whom do we send the box to?” Lea asked.

“It could be mine—part of my luggage. A trunk perhaps, rather than a box.” This sounded more like a play Rachel could comprehend.

But Oma disagreed. “If anyone is suspicious of you or your papers, they will search your luggage. It could be the undoing of you both.”

“Friederich’s work,” Lea said.

“What?”

“When the box first came, I thought it was wood for Friederich—a mistaken delivery.” Lea leaned forward. “Rachel could travel as herself—at least, as the middle-aged woman she has papers for. And I could travel with the box. We’d make a separate compartment for Amelie, just as we’ve done with the cupboard, and place the carvings in the top. I’d travel as though I’m going to sell my husband’s woodcarvings, to find new business clients. I could, perhaps, take them all the way to Austria, or even Switzerland.” She turned to Rachel. “We could meet there—or you could buy some and I could have the box relabeled to go with you.”

Rachel could hardly believe Lea would put herself at such risk. “If they discover you, they’ll—”

“They’ll do no more to me than they will do to you—or to Amelie. And I could care for her along the way.”

Oma held her hands to her cheeks, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “It’s so dangerous—for all of you. Can’t we just keep on as we are?”

Jason shifted Amelie to his other knee. “There’s more news from Berlin.” He looked up at Rachel.

Her mouth went dry. “Father?”

He nodded, searching her eyes.

“Tell me.” Rachel stood bravely. “Tell us all.”

Jason shared what he’d heard—that Dr. Rudolph Kramer had died of heart failure in prison after thorough interrogation.

Rachel could only imagine what horrors an interrogation from Gerhardt and his cohorts meant. But her father could not tell what he didn’t know. Had she betrayed him, left him to suffer at Gerhardt’s hands?
But how do I live with my father’s betrayal? With my stupidity—my inability to see that he and even Mother used me? How do I live with knowing that he didn’t love me—that I was nothing but a laboratory rat for him?

She turned away, refusing to cry, to shed tears for the man, and yet she couldn’t push the crushing weight from her chest, the hope that he’d not suffered long, and the regretful wish that all she’d believed three months ago about her adoptive parents was true.

She heard the scrape of a chair and Amelie’s small feet settle on the floor. Jason’s hands found her shoulders. She turned into his chest, grateful for the arms that enveloped her.

Gerhardt Schlick’s driver pulled to a stop before the newly painted barracks on the outskirts of Oberammergau just after midnight. His chauffeur opened the door and stepped smartly aside.

Gerhardt checked his watch by his cigarette lighter. The streets of the Passion Village, shrouded in darkness, lay sleepy and quiet. He smiled as he stepped from the car.

The more Gerhardt thought about it, the more convinced he’d become that Jason Young was connected in some way to Rachel and her family in Oberammergau. A little intimidation was all that had been required to obtain the information he wanted from the reporter Eldridge. Gerhardt shook his head at the naiveté of the American
press. Hitler should keep them in Germany for his own amusement if nothing more.

Another telephone call might have given Gerhardt all he needed. But that was too simple, and if Young was more intricately, intimately connected to Rachel than it appeared, such a call could tip the scales unfavorably.

It was significant that Young had been reassigned to Munich in time for the Führer’s speech to commemorate his 1923 beer hall putsch. Reporters from every paper would surely need stories marking the anniversary of Hitler’s early attempt to rouse the populace and seize power. And Gerhardt himself had been ordered to cover the speech in an official capacity.

He holstered his revolver. With all of Germany focused on Munich, no one would suspect a raid in the little village amid the celebrations.

He’d dispatched SS troops and attack dogs to Oberammergau, where they would be barracked and standing by. In the early-morning hours, they’d greet Oberammergau in a manner the locals would not soon forget. Midnight raids increased terror but too often allowed escapes into the darkness.

Gerhardt moistened his lips in anticipation. When the village was just rising, he’d blare the sirens and release the dogs. Every house and barn would be searched, every shop, the church, the school, every square centimeter of every building and haystack. If Rachel Kramer was hiding in Oberammergau, he would certainly find her.

Before leaving Berlin, he’d placed a final call to Frankfurt. The doctors agreed that it was too early to close the case. Identical twins were not so plentiful that the experiment, particularly one of such long duration, should be abandoned prematurely—particularly in the light of Gerhardt’s new leads.

But he didn’t have long. Dr. Mengele had expressed novel ideas for obtaining new sets of twins for his experiments through
concentration camps—experiments unsuitable for Aryan bloodlines. They’d conceded that Gerhardt’s bloodline was still of interest . . . as long as time didn’t overrun his prime. Dr. Mengele had laughed at his own joke. Gerhardt had not.

He had no intention of allowing Rachel Kramer to slip through his fingers again. It was not that he cared to please the good doctors beyond what notice the experiment might bring him within the ranks of the SS, or that he could not find a more desirable woman. Stunning women were plentiful and certainly eager to fill any need he required. But finding and mastering Rachel Kramer had become a matter of the hunt, of personal pride—a matter of honor. He’d gladly crucify all those who’d helped her.

Gerhardt tugged the fingers of his gloves into place and smiled.
That should provide a fitting new scene for their Passion Play.

35

J
ASON
HAD
STAYED
past curfew, helping Lea prepare the crate. She said the compartment was smaller than the one Amelie had arrived in. But Lea had lined it in soft blankets, even a new pink crocheted piece that he suspected she’d made for the child of her hopes. Only he knew from Rachel’s file that there would be no child for Lea.

Lea was clever with wood—things her husband had taught her—and knew how to make the lid secure for travel but easy to remove.

It made Jason sick to think he was sending the two girls he cared most about into such danger—one so beautiful he could barely breathe when he’d held her, and one so small and vulnerable he wanted to stop time to preserve her innocence.

For the first time he felt he better understood “costly grace”—sacrificial living and dying. He only prayed that he wasn’t being stupid and that God would watch over them, care for them. He’d whispered a prayer over Rachel before leaving for his room at the Hartmans’ house and had taken a couple of pictures on a fresh roll of film—one of Rachel holding Amelie, the two of them smiling at each other, and one of Amelie’s hands lifted to Rachel’s face as Rachel faced him. If he was not mistaken, Rachel’s eyes held all he hoped.