Saving Amelie (38 page)

“Or 1942?” She tried to make light, to break the awkward silence.

But he simply frowned, studying her face.

They usually do it on the decade turn, but it can’t matter if they need the money, the business.
Whatever she’d said was not comforting him. So she turned, finished packing her bag, and bade him good night. But all the way home she wondered and worried what the curate was thinking—for oh so clearly, he was.

She’d been careful of her posture, her accent. Her clothes were Lea’s. She’d even tried to think like her sister! What had he seen in her that discomfited him so?

Lea had insisted to Curate Bauer that the children and their parents choose either choir or drama—not both. He’d agreed that it seemed only fair to spread the opportunity and to develop seriously the unique talents of the children. For Rachel and Lea, it also kept the children from comparing too closely Frau Hartman, teacher of the choir, with Frau Hartman, teacher of drama classes.

The first two classes had gone far better than Rachel had dared hope, with the exception of the too-constant attentions of one of the Hitler Youth—a boy the others called Maximillion. The children were more enthusiastic, more joyfully exasperating and wonderfully alive than she’d imagined, the hour all too short. If only she hadn’t drawn the attention of the curate. If only she knew what she’d done to raise his curiosity!

It took thirty minutes and a pot of tea for Lea to calm Rachel after she’d returned from the market, to reassure her that everything would be all right with the curate.

“You didn’t see his face. He suspects something—wonders something.”

“If he does, he’ll tell me. He trusts me. We’re hiding Rivka at his request!”

Rachel nodded, trying to breathe.

“Now, tell me about your class, about the children. The curate mentioned that we have a repeat student between the two classes when I saw him in town this afternoon. I could only smile as though I knew what he was talking about.”

“Heinrich Helphman. It’s as though he has nowhere else to go each afternoon after school and no inclination to go home. And I really think he’s in love with us.” Rachel smiled at last. “And that Maximillion Grieser.”

“Maximillion? He can’t be part of the class. He’s at least fifteen!”

“He hangs around, offers to carry my books or move props—even to build anything I want. He’s puffed up like a peacock, but I’m sure he’s harmless—just smitten.”

Lea frowned. “I asked Curate Bauer to keep him away. Please don’t encourage him. He could be trouble.”

Rachel bristled. “I never—” She stopped. Changing the subject was safer. “Heinrich’s a creative handful but can be deathly serious.” She set her cup in its saucer. “My professor always said that surviving real-life drama is the best training for the stage. I don’t know what it is, but I suspect something has happened in his life, something that has given him the ability to bring depth to the characters he portrays.”

“I know his mother isn’t well. She lost a child last year. I assume stillborn. I only know she went into the hospital to deliver but came home with empty arms. Her husband was conscripted soon after. She seems a very sad woman.”

“Heinrich is her only?”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’s quite enough for two or three,” Rachel quipped.

Lea smiled absently. “At least she has him.”

The silence stretched between them until the ticking of the clock intruded.

“I hadn’t realized . . . ,” Rachel began. “With Friederich—with the way things are for him . . . you won’t have children.” The comprehension of what this must mean to her sister—her sister who bloomed in the presence of children not even her own—struck Rachel with an unexpected force.

Lea straightened and rose to place her cup and saucer in the sink, her back to Rachel.

“I’m so sorry.”

Lea stood very still.

For the second time that day, Rachel wished she’d kept her mouth closed. She didn’t know what to do, had hardly ever extended herself into another’s pain. But she felt this, felt it for Lea—who was part of her, and growing more so each day. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

Lea shook her head once but continued leaning over the sink. The ticking of the clock on the wall swallowed the room.

“Tell me something,” Lea said without turning round.

Rachel waited.

“At the Institute in Frankfurt . . . did they ever . . . did you ever have surgery?”

“For what?”

“Anything.”

“Not that I remember. No, I’m sure I didn’t.”

“You were never there for a prolonged visit? A few days? A week or more? They never put you under anesthesia, as far as you know?”

“No. It was always just two or three hours or so every two years—routine examinations. Sometimes too probing, but general. And maybe lunch at a fine restaurant with the doctors, or dinner and the theatre—an opera in the evening with my father and Dr. Verschuer, or that creepy Dr. Mengele. They were always very nice—very
encouraging toward me. Fawning, really. I didn’t care for that. And I hated being told I had to go. Why?”

Lea had gone rigid.

“What is it?”

When Lea turned toward her, her face starkly white, Rachel sat back.

The sisters stared at one another. Rachel could not grasp what had happened. Was it because Lea could never have children with her husband? Had something horrible been done to her at the Institute? “What happened to you there?”

Lea opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

“Lea?” Rachel reached for her sister, but a sharp rap at the kitchen door made them both jump.

Rachel grabbed her cup and saucer and made for the cupboard.

43

L
EA
TRIED
to still the rapid beating of her heart, like the banging of bricks within her chest and brain. She flattened her palms against her cheeks, as if that would hold her face in place. The rap on the door came again.

“Frau Hartman!”

Lea took a breath, then opened the door. “Chief Schrade! I—we weren’t expecting you today.” She tried to think if there was something she should remember—something Oma had said or Curate Bauer had implied.
Not another refugee come to stay—not yet!

“A surprise—a gift from your journalist friend, the renter of your house.” He winked.

“A gift?”

“Stand back—just a bit of space needed!” He hefted a Norway spruce through the kitchen door.

“A tree?”

“
Ja! Ja!
A Christmas tree! Herr Young said it was little enough to send his benefactress for allowing him a place to stay. He also said to tell you that he hopes to be back again soon—another story he’s working on for his American newspaper.”

“It’s lovely.”

Oma appeared in the low doorway, hands clasped to her chest. “A tree! A Christmas tree! Oh, Chief Schrade, how good of you!”

“It’s not me you must thank.”

“Shall we set it in your room, Lea? When Friederich wakes up it will be the first thing he sees.”

Chief Schrade laughed, eyeing Lea appreciatively, making her blush. “
Nein
, Frau Breisner; it will be the second, I think.” He hefted the tree again. “Show me the way.”

Once Forestry Chief Schrade had left, Oma called Rachel, Rivka, and Amelie from their hiding place to see the tree, then sent Rachel back to the attic to find the box of ornaments.

When Rachel returned, Oma’s arm was wrapped around Rivka’s shoulders. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever decorated a tree, my dear?”

Rivka solemnly shook her head.

“Well, you’re in for a treat!” Oma declared. Amelie, taking in all she could, clapped her small hands and danced. Oma laughed.

But Rivka looked as if she’d been asked to eat pork against all her Jewish upbringing.

“It smells wonderful!” Rachel ran her fingers through the scented branches, glad in some perverse way that Rivka was not enamored of the tree.
Maybe that will help her realize she and Jason are worlds apart.

“Best to wait until the children have gone,” Lea counseled, paler than usual.

“Children?” Rachel’s eyes widened.
She can’t be thinking of taking in more!

“The
Klopfelsingen
, the caroling by the village children,” Lea reassured her. “I’ll walk with them. You’ll be able to hear, but stay hidden. We don’t want a houseful of women seen peeking through curtains.”

“There’s something else,” Oma whispered conspiratorially, crooking her finger, beckoning toward the kitchen. “Come see what else Chief Schrade brought us—another gift from your young man.” She smiled at Rachel, and Rachel wondered if at last she’d been forgiven for her faux pas at the Advent market.

“Carp!” Rivka squealed at the floundering fish splashing in the metal tub.

“Oh, it’s soaked my floor!” But Oma laughed.

“A carp for Christmas!” Lea wondered. “We’ve not had one in three years.”

Oma smiled. “It can swim until Christmas Eve.” She cuddled Amelie from behind. “And you, young lady, can come see it every day.”

Amelie, her face the picture of light, reached up to pat Oma’s dimpled wreath of smiles, as though she’d understood every word.

Jason was sick of Christmas, or sick for Christmas. He wasn’t sure which. He only knew that spending the holiday in a city at war, with no presents, no family, and spartan food, was lonelier and bleaker than any other time of year.

Germans were Christmas-tree crazy—even bigger on them than folks were back home. No matter how rationed, no matter how poverty-stricken or desperate or glum the people might be, they still found a way to decorate a tree in their front window. But blackout regulations forced every shade to be drawn, every drape pinned tight. Not one glowing candle or electric bulb shone into the night. And there was something lonelier, something colder about that than if the trees had not been there at all.

So he’d taken the
“Stille Nacht”
assignment in Oberndorf, home of the Christmas carol’s first performance. Nostalgia was written all over the feature—a sentiment Jason had studiously avoided in years gone by. But this year, surrounded by the darkness, the vile hatred and misery of Nazis and propaganda he could no longer stomach, and most especially because Rachel and Amelie were in a place he dared not go, he felt the need to get away.

It would be good to be part of something pure, something holy, if only for an hour. He wanted to hear and sing with locals the simple, sacred words of Joseph Mohr’s poem to the tune composed by Franz Gruber.

The tiny, black-domed white chapel, known far and wide as the Stille-Nacht-Kapelle, stood on its own hillside nestled amid evergreens and festooned in pine garlands and red ribbons. Octagonal and noted for its amazing acoustics, the memorial chapel had opened a couple of years before—long after the flood-damaged original church had been torn down.

Jason circled the chapel, taking it in from every side. He’d already spent an hour with locals over a stein and thirty minutes with the clergy. The article nearly wrote itself. As glad as he was to be there, what Jason wanted most was to hear the high sweet voices of Lea’s young choir sing the beautiful hymn.

Silent night! Holy night!

All is calm, all is bright.

Round yon virgin mother and child—

Holy infant, so tender and mild.

Sleep in heavenly peace!

Sleep in heavenly peace!

For the first time in Jason’s life, Christ was more than the holy infant—more than a Christmas baby in a manger. He was Messiah to the Jews and humanity’s Savior—the Savior that Germany and all the world so desperately needed. Jason’s breath caught at the wonder and the unprecedented love of what He’d given to complete that offering. It would have been so much easier for Jesus to have turned His back on the world—the world that then, and even now, so largely rejected Him.

That’s what he’d seen as he’d read through
Nachfolge
a second time. The Bible passages Bonhoeffer expounded upon had given Jason’s ego—his arrogance—a beating, but he was discovering a new life, a new identity in Christ, and clear vision. He was being changed—transformed in some way he couldn’t explain. And the God he’d never really known before would not let him go.