Saving Amelie (37 page)

When Lea walked in an hour later, Oma hadn’t returned. Rachel swiped the last of her tears with the back of her hand.

“Everything all right?”

Rachel nodded.

“Did you like the choir?”

“Yes.” Rachel looked at her sister with new respect. “It was wonderful. The children were wonderful . . . and so were you.”

Lea flushed. Rachel realized she’d never complimented her sister. Lea was very pretty when she smiled. She’d smiled less since Friederich had come home to lie in her bed, dead but not dead.

“You’ve done an amazing job with them.”

Lea shrugged. “The village children are raised from infancy to sing, to act, to play an instrument—one or more of those gifts run in their veins, nurtured for the Passion Play. Did you get their names? Oma told you?”

“Yes.” Rachel swallowed. “Yes, she did.”

“Could you pick Heinrich out of the crowd?”

Rachel laughed, despite herself. “In a heartbeat—mischief personified.”

Lea laughed too, then sobered. “What’s wrong? What is it?”

“I nearly gave us away today.” The confession was harder than Rachel had anticipated.

“When you saw Jason Young?”

“Yes.”

“You love him. I saw it in your eyes.” It was said as a matter of fact.

Rachel’s eyes filled.

“He saved your life, and Amelie’s. He’s the only American you have any contact with—or had. He’s the person who saved you from your father and that SS officer. Why wouldn’t you love him?”

Rachel couldn’t hold back the tears. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I nearly gave us away.”

Lea shook her head, sympathy in every turn. She walked toward Rachel with open arms, but Rachel couldn’t move, couldn’t step into such grace. It didn’t stop Lea from folding her sister into her embrace or Rachel from sobbing quietly into Lea’s shoulder.

Lea brushed Rachel’s hair from her forehead and whispered, “When you love someone, it is not possible to keep it from your eyes, your face, your posture.”

“But the curate saw—and that older priest.”

“Curate Bauer is our friend. Whatever he knows or suspects he will keep to himself. And Father Oberlanger . . . well, I don’t know. But he knows nothing for certain, and the friend who walked into town with
Oma today will not be here tomorrow. She was a slightly vain and preoccupied woman flustered by a dashing young American—much as the rest of the village women were! But she is gone—as soon as you wash the gray from your hair and take off those awful clothes.”

Rachel gasped.

Lea laughed, pulling back from her sister. “I love our Oma, but her clothes don’t suit us.”

Rachel swiped new tears with the backs of her hands, knowing she’d probably made rivers in her makeup.

Lea pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, passing it to her sister. “When Friederich wakes I will let him know every hour of every day that I love him. I will let him know through the way I look at him, smile at him, by the way I touch his hand in passing. I can’t blame you for the same.”

“But Oma said—”

“What—that you shouldn’t risk the theatre class in the village?”

Rachel nodded.

“Oma is afraid. She’s right to be afraid—for all of us. But this is a good thing—a better and more needful thing than I first realized. The curate told me some of what is happening to Jews sent to Poland. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

“But I could have . . . Maybe you should teach the classes, and I can watch the children you bring.”

Lea snorted. “Rachel, I can’t teach acting. And you’re terrible with Amelie; how will you keep three or four little ones occupied and quiet?”

“How will I teach a class if I can’t do that?”

“Because it’s theatre—it’s what you love. You really were very good in the village today. It was only that little bit of time.”

Rachel looked at her sister as if she’d not seen her before. Where had this new version, this generous new twin, come from?

“We must form a truce. We’re more than sisters, more than a team
now. We must behave as one person, think as one person. That’s what will convince them that we are only one.”

“I told you that.”

“I didn’t think it was possible. But today I met our first orphan. Today I know we must make this work. She’s the only one of her family left—and only because she was at a friend’s house when the Gestapo came for her parents.”

“Where—?”

“She’ll be here after dark. Forestry Chief Schrade will bring her as part of a delivery of firewood.”

“Who is Forestry Chief Schrade?” Rachel felt the panic rise in her throat at the notion of more characters being suddenly thrust into trusted parts of the play.

“There are more people involved than I realized—more helping, and in different ways. We’re not alone. Still, the less we know, the safer for everyone.”

Rachel nodded. She knew that was true. Jason and Sheila had said the same.

“There’s something else.” Lea smiled mischievously. “Herr Young—I think perhaps he loves you too. The way his eyes followed you was far more dangerous than the way you responded to him.”

Rachel’s heart tripped. She could only remember the smart young American woman at his side—very close to his side.

42

F
ROM
THE
CUPBOARD
,
Rachel heard the kitchen door close behind the man she’d heard Oma call Chief Schrade.

“Rachel,” Oma called softly, “come; you’ll want to meet your new roommate.”

Rachel pushed open the cupboard door, prepared to look down into the brown eyes of a frightened Jewish child. She wasn’t prepared for the petite but curvaceous young blonde woman who stepped from the sack in the middle of the kitchen floor.

“You!” Rachel exclaimed. “You’re the photographer!”

The girl’s brown eyes widened and she nodded, looking from one sister to the other.

“That was her disguise,” Lea said. “Rivka, this is Rachel, my sister.”

“You’re . . . so alike,” Rivka stammered, not sounding American at all.

“And this is our grandmother, Frau Breisner. Welcome to our home, Rivka.”

“Yes, welcome.” Oma reached for the girl. “Twins—my granddaughters are twins,” she said in answer to Rivka’s blatant stare. “Rachel, show Rivka her sleeping quarters while I heat a bowl of soup.” Oma patted the girl’s shoulder—the girl whose wide-eyed expression looked anything but grown-up. “You must be starving.”

Rivka nodded but looked at Rachel as if afraid she’d bite her.

“Go on,” Lea encouraged. “Rachel will explain our routines. I’ll look in on Friederich.”

The knots in Rachel’s stomach tightened, but she motioned for Rivka to follow her through the small cupboard and into the wall, up the ladder to the attic.

“This is very cleverly done,” Rivka whispered once they’d reached the attic floor.

“Yes. You must be quiet here—not a word. Not a sound.”

“Yes.” Rivka lowered her eyes.

“That’s Amelie.” Rachel pointed to a small lump of covers nearest the stovepipe. “She can’t hear or speak properly, but she senses things—so don’t startle her. She’s apt to cry out, and someone might hear her.”

Rivka didn’t speak. Rachel felt an unfamiliar urgency to defend Amelie. “She responds to some hand motions and facial expressions, but she doesn’t know what you’re saying.”

“She’s the little girl Jason was telling me about—he’s been so worried about her,” Rivka exclaimed softly. “He taught me some sign language, in case she was still here—how to call you ‘Aunt Rachel,’ and lots of things. Oh, I’m glad she’s safe!”

Rachel bristled. She didn’t know whether to be pleased that Jason had taught Rivka signs for “Aunt Rachel” or to be miffed that he’d confided so much to her. Rachel pulled her pallet nearer Amelie’s, leaving Rivka’s nearer the ladder.

“My sister said you came alone?” Something perverse in Rachel made her ask the question, made her emphasize that Lea was her sister, that she had a sister, had family.

“Yes.” Rivka turned away.

Rachel was immediately sorry, ashamed of her intended cut, but didn’t soften her tone. “You have nightclothes?”

“My chemise,” Rivka whispered. “Everything I have, I’m wearing.”

Rachel bit her lip. “Get ready for bed, then come downstairs. Oma will have your soup ready soon. But you must be ready to climb into the cupboard right away—stand on the rungs of the ladder anytime you hear a noise outside or a knock at the door. The trapdoor
into the attic must remain closed in case we’re taken by surprise. We can take no chances.”

“I understand.”

“I hope so—for all our sakes.” But Rachel couldn’t look Rivka in the eye. She climbed down the ladder and crawled through the cupboard, letting the younger girl fend for herself.

Once the house was quiet and Rachel heard the rhythmic, whiffling breath of Amelie and Rivka, she turned to her side. She’d been nothing but cruel to Rivka. Why? The girl had lost everything, everyone dear to her, and Rachel, though a captive in Oberammergau, was surrounded by people—by family—who loved her, risked their lives to hide her. Why couldn’t she extend that same kindness to Rivka, who needed it so desperately?

She rolled over, knowing the answer.
Is Jason only helping the girl, or is he interested in her? He certainly looked interested as she modeled that necklace before him.

Friederich, still locked in his cone of darkness, heard the whispered prayers of Lea and the Scripture readings of Oma. Other dreams, other voices came and went—whispers of women, prayers of his longtime pastor, the urgency of men he didn’t recognize. But they swirled and mixed, convoluting with nightmare orders barked by his sergeant, the roar of artillery, and the blasting of dynamite. At times he felt the heat of fires, heard insanity unleashed in bloodcurdling screams. Just as suddenly a cool Alpine breeze, just off the mountains, soothed his brow. Sometimes tiny drops of moisture traveled the length of his arm—warm rivulets of rain or tears he could feel, or imagined. Once he was certain he tasted Oma’s potato soup. He tried so hard to reach out, to touch—if only his mind could make his muscles move his hands, will his mouth open to speak, his eyes to see. Still the darkness prevailed, and he could not reach beyond it.

Rachel stumbled through the children’s names in her first theatre class, but the improvisational game she taught them created distraction and won them over. When the hour ended, small feet skipped and flaxen braids bounced through the classroom door.

Rachel was happily repacking small props after her second class with the children when Curate Bauer stopped in the classroom.

“We’ve come to a conclusion,” the curate confided miserably to the woman he assumed was Lea. “There is nothing more to be done. The board met last night. Father Oberlanger notified the local newspapers this morning, and I sent word to Herr Young in Munich for his foreign press. The 1940 Passion Play has been canceled.” He searched her face. “I am so sorry.”

Nothing could have pleased Rachel more, given that she—pretending to be Lea, a woman and a Protestant—would not have been allowed to have anything to do with play rehearsals. Without the Passion Play, she was still needed. It was a different thing entirely—comparatively nothing—to organize after-school theatre classes in the wartime absence of their normal Passion Play directors. But Rachel dared not show her relief. Lea and Oma had explained the vital impact of the play on the villagers—the fulfillment of their vow to perform every ten years, the essential income the play brought through tourists for hotels, restaurants, and the many woodcarving industries. “I don’t know what to say. The entire village will be so very disappointed.”

“It’s this war—the war we’re told the British have forced upon us.” He almost grunted. “Too many of our leading players have been conscripted. Germans can’t come—no Benzin for pleasure trips. And food, meat—everything rationed. And of course the British and Americans won’t come. Not that they’d be welcome.” He shrugged. “When this accursed war is over, they’ll want to come again, perhaps. And perhaps Germany will want them.”

She’d no idea what to say to comfort him. “There’s always 1941—the war will surely be done by then.”

He looked at her as if she’d spoken sacrilege.