Saving Amelie (41 page)

But Rivka shook her shoulder. “No, it cannot wait. I should have told you sooner. I should have told you today—this morning.”

Rachel sighed long and loudly, pulling the covers from her head. “What is it?”

Rachel felt her roommate sit up, saw her faint silhouette against the attic wall as she pulled the long and tangled ropes of her hair to the side and slipped her hands behind her neck.

“He told me to save this until Christmas Day, to give it to you first thing in the morning.” She felt for Rachel’s hand in the darkness and pressed the locket—Rachel could tell by the feel of the metal and
the shape of the oval—with its delicate golden chain into Rachel’s palm. Rivka closed Rachel’s fingers. “I’m sorry that I didn’t give it to you sooner. Jason said—” and now Rivka’s voice trembled—“to tell you that he wants you to be well and safe and happy . . . and that he will find a way out of Germany for you and Amelie—he promises.”

Rachel stopped breathing. She pressed her eyes tight, then opened them again, certain she was dreaming, angry in part that Rivka had held back Jason’s gift, that she’d worn for weeks what was intended for Rachel. Still, one thought pushed beyond all the others.
He cares for me!

Rivka lay down and turned her back to Rachel. “I’m sorry,” she murmured. “I was just pretending it was mine. . . .”

Rachel didn’t trust herself to answer. She closed her eyes and sank beneath the eiderdown. She couldn’t see the necklace, not properly in the dark, but ran her fingers over its every intricacy, again and again. Finally she worked the clasp and fastened it round her neck. She fingered the locket’s shape, imagined that Jason had fastened the clasp himself, that he admired how the locket fell into the hollow of her throat.
He cares for me. He’ll come for me. He’ll get me out of Germany—he promised! But how?
She could not imagine that.

It was late. Christmas night and not a reporter or typist in the newsroom. Mark Eldridge had pushed and pushed for a story or a lead at the US ambassador’s house—nearly begged—but it was shut up tight. The ambassador wasn’t about to let reporters intrude on the final hours of Christmas Day with his family. It had been a long shot anyway, but a shot Eldridge dared in order to impress the chief.

That “Silent Night in Oberndorf” story Young had phoned in was nothing but sap, pure and simple. But the chief was delighted. It seemed that’s what readers wanted this Christmas—something homespun and sappy from Germany. No Hitler atrocities for the holidays, though there was no shortage of those.

Earlier in the month Young had submitted an entire roll of Christmas market shots—all rosy-cheeked Bavarian girls and long-white-bearded men bouncing delighted toddlers on their knees as they played with carved wooden toys. Enough sap to cover the Zugspitze, tallest mountain in Germany—more than enough to make a guy sick.

Eldridge needed something fresh, something wholesome for the New Year. He wasn’t likely to find that in Berlin. He pulled out the chair of Young’s desk and flipped through the photos Peterson had left in the top drawer. Extras. Young had already submitted the best ones. Eldridge had seen them in print.

Frustrated, he slammed the drawer shut. It jammed. Eldridge pushed again, but it wouldn’t close. He pulled the drawer out and ran his hand round the perimeter. Nothing. He tried again. It still wouldn’t close.

Eldridge knelt down and peered into the space. Something dangled, like bait, near the back and from beneath the desktop. He reached in and pulled the small cylinder, sticky with tape, from its hiding place. Popping the canister’s lid, he emptied the contents into his palm.

“Well, well, Ace, what have we here?”

46

“
T
HE
G
ERMAN
PEOPLE
did not want this war. I tried up to the last minute to keep peace with England. But the Jewish and reactionary warmongers waited for this minute to carry out their plans to destroy Germany.”

Rachel switched off the Führer’s New Year speech midstream. She wished the “Jewish and reactionary warmongers”—whoever they were—truly would destroy Germany, or at least the Germany that had emerged since Hitler took power.

The New Year
Sterngang
, the walking musicians and choir of villagers led by a lantern star to welcome the New Year, had been canceled to comply with blackout regulations. Even so, Lea insisted that to lift their spirits, they hold their own singing late in the afternoon, before Friederich slept again. So once again they pulled chairs into Friederich and Lea’s room.

By now, Friederich was sitting up in bed for an hour at a time, at least twice each day, to eat the thick and nourishing soup Oma made, thanks to the meat and fish Curate Bauer brought them. But physically weak and exhausted, tears streaked Friederich’s face over every little thing. He couldn’t sing, could barely speak, but Rachel had never seen a man’s eyes communicate so much—or a woman so easily interpret them as did her sister. Lea sang her heart out in thanksgiving and hope. Friederich drank it in. Rachel slipped from the room when she could take no more.

But Friederich’s nightmares and bloodcurdling screams rocked
the little house and wracked the nerves of each member. Through the attic floor, Rachel could hear Lea soothing and crooning peace to her husband by night. She didn’t understand the words, but she could hear the urgency in Friederich’s long, sobbing explanations.

Between the holiday break and Lea’s determination not to leave Friederich’s side, the acting and singing classes were suspended for the week between Christmas and New Year, and the week following—all of which drove Rachel mad. She was ready to burst from being shut up inside the emotion-filled house. Jason’s locket somehow kept her sane.

But Rivka had grown more distant, more despondent since Christmas, and Rachel could only imagine she missed wearing the necklace, or perhaps missed the fantasy the necklace had fostered.

She shouldn’t have kept it so long. She shouldn’t be fantasizing about a grown man—a man ten years older.

“Have you no pity, Rachel?” Oma asked one morning when Rivka left the breakfast table in tears after Rachel’s chiding. “The child has no family left, no idea what has become of them—if they’re even still alive.”

“That’s not my fault. My father was taken away too.”

“You know that’s different.” She leaned across the table toward Rachel. “You have me and Lea and Friederich.”

That was true, but Rachel was tired of Oma taking everyone’s side but hers. “She’s not like us; she’s Jewish,” Rachel whispered. “What do you expect? Even Friederich can barely look at her.”

Oma stood abruptly, knocking her teacup over, so horrified that Rachel thought she might slap her. “Friederich remembers the horrific things his unit did to Polish Jews. He’s ashamed.”

Rachel felt the warmth spread across her face. “I see that, but Germany’s at war, Oma. That’s what war is,” she defended. “You can’t stop it. Friederich couldn’t stop it. I can’t stop it—it’s everywhere! So please don’t blame me.”

Oma straightened, her mouth trembling in fury, and left the room.

Rachel rolled her eyes. Oma would not stay and fight with her, and Rachel itched for a good fight.

She knew she should treat Rivka better, that she was being nothing short of a brat to her and sometimes to everyone in the house. But everything she’d said was true—none of them could stop Hitler’s madness.

Still, Rachel knew that fueling her desire to squash Rivka’s fantasies of Jason were memories of her father’s tirades about Poles, Jews, Slavs, Negroes, and Asians—how they cursed the world by being and breeding, how they must be contained before they further weakened society, dragging it down to their level. This cleaving—sterilization at the very least, he’d declared—was truly a mercy, and for the good of mankind.

Rachel bit her lip. She knew the idea was madness—as mad as anything Hitler had conceived. She could never admit such dogma to Oma, or that she’d once bought into it. Even now, knowing eugenics was a crock, it was too easy to think of herself as better than the others. So much craziness, so many lies to sort out, and all of them woven, like plaits, into her mind.

47

C
URATE
B
AUER
knelt for morning prayers beside his bed. He prayed that God would blind the eyes of the Gestapo and—God forgive him—Father Oberlanger to his Munich activities with Jews and political dissidents, and to his trading for food on the black market to feed them.

He prayed God’s protection on Mayor Schulz and the couple the mayor had recently illegally wed, Jewish Zebulon Goldmann and Aryan Gretel Schweibe.

He prayed for Administrator Raab and the two junior monks who’d recently begun a weekly religious discussion group for boys in Raab’s home, under the guise of a Hitler Youth program, ostensibly learning and developing signal skills.

He begged God to help Friederich Hartman accept the forgiveness offered him. Such atrocities as he’d known in the Polish campaign could break any man. The heart of the gentle woodcarver was not made for such evil.

He prayed that Jason Young would find a way to tell the world Friederich’s story. He thanked the Holy Father for the spirited young American, for his steadfast heart and crusader nature. He could not ask for a more determined partner in resistance or a more passionate brother in Christ. His ability to move freely within the country, to collect forged papers and passports, was indispensable in helping Jews to safety.

And Lea Hartman and her sister . . . The curate laughed in the
midst of his prayer. He’d not known whether to believe Frau Breisner when she’d finally confessed to him there were two. All three of them were good enough for the stage! But it had explained so much—why Frau Hartman had suggested performing the Passion in an odd year, how she’d bloomed with newfound confidence and boundless energy and talents, why she could be shy and demure one day and nearly flirtatious another.

He shook his head. Herr Hartman must grow dizzy with two such beautiful women beneath his roof. If he didn’t miss his guess, Herr Young would happily relieve him of one of the twins.
Please, Lord, let them go on fooling us all.

He’d passed Jason’s copy of
Nachfolge
to Rachel. Herr Young had such hopes for the Fräulein’s heart. But Curate Bauer wondered. She’d been reared in the haughty spirit of eugenics. Faith in the One who so loved all the world that He’d offered Himself as a ransom for sin was a humbling journey.
Heal and mold her heart, Holy Father.

Such a vast network to keep straight and so many lives at stake—Curate Bauer spent more time than ever on his knees.

And he spent so much time trying to avoid Father Oberlanger that he was greatly surprised when later that morning the priest stopped him in the square and quietly affirmed the Marian instructional sessions and Bible studies for older girls, as long as they could safely be slipped beneath the noses of the Gestapo.

“Even those parents who are members of the Nazi Party are not eager to give up our Catholic traditions or the training of their children, Curate. That’s not the way of the people of the Passion.” Father Oberlanger leaned close and tapped the curate on the shoulder, as if confiding something more.

Curate Bauer wished that the village parents’ staunch spirit led to helping those who truly had no voice in this Nazi regime. But he dared not say that aloud. He wasn’t certain where the old priest stood; he met so frequently with the Nazi officials lording over the village.

It wasn’t that Jews were eager to hide in Oberammergau. Dramatized and distorted scenes of the Passion Play and the vicious responses of some theatregoers made the village a potential hotbed for anti-Semitism, easily compatible with Nazi propaganda. It had become a place for Hebrews, whether Christian or not, to avoid. But a few Jews could be safely slipped among the refugees flocking to the village, especially if the map of their heritage was not written on their faces.

Curate Bauer sighed later as he polished the crucifix in the church. More resisters could be such a help—especially if they were willing to supply food or hiding places within their homes or shops.

Father Oberlanger stopped in the church, clearly preoccupied. “I’m meeting later today with our Nazi official, seeing if I might convince him to keep his hands off our festival and Corpus Christi procession.” He was halfway down the aisle when he appeared to just think of something. “If you happen to be away today, Curate, it won’t matter. I’ll be meeting with the Hauptsturmführer.”

Curate Bauer felt again that the priest was urging him forward, though he couldn’t be certain.