Kristian continued to whimper.
“Mama’s got you. We’re almost there.” Pushing aside the memory of children sinking around her, she exhaled to dispel the tightness in her chest. An inch at a time, she slid into the water.
She could hear their desperate shrieking all around her.
No, it’s in my head. “I can’t help you,” she declared to quiet them, and Kristian’s lips wavered, his mouth open in a soundless cry.
“It’s okay. Mama’s got you.” She waded to the side closer to him, and he leaped into her arms. She set him on the sand, and with what little remaining energy she could muster, pulled the raft ashore.
With Kristian clinging to her, she dragged the boxes and finally the platform past the rim of the forest.
Collapsing from exhaustion, she pulled Kristian into a hug. “You are my everything,” she hoarsely whispered into his ear.
Darkness closed in on her, and she resisted it just long enough to tighten the knots on the cord that connected her to her son.
Two Days After Reaching South Brother Island
ora squinted against the light. Instead of a tree canopy, ceiling tiles blocked her view of the sky. She blinked, but they didn’t go away. The still air carried a faint scent of antiseptic, and the cut of the worn cotton against her skin felt alarmingly familiar.
Propping herself up on her elbows, she rose to a seated position and met Ulrich’s eyes, their anger barely obscured by the reflection off his wartime gas mask. He was seated a few feet beyond the side of the bed, with Kristian asleep in his lap.
Only his rage kept her from reaching for her son. The aching in her engorged breasts told her they’d been apart for too long.
Neither she nor Ulrich spoke. Averting her gaze, she recognized the vast room as one of the dormitories within the tuberculosis pavilion.
Kristian squawked in his sleep and hugged his security blanket tighter. The fact that he’d been reunited with it consoled her only momentarily. Her baby once again in the hands of her tormentor . . . she had failed.
Unable to bear seeing him sleep so peacefully on Ulrich’s lap, she rolled to her side to climb out of bed and felt resistance. Amid a fresh spattering of smallpox scars, a needle extended from her right arm.
Her veins were carrying whatever toxin was dripping from that bag to every cell in her body. Once the side effects began, it would become even harder to stop him from stealing her son. She reached to yank the needle from her flesh, and Ulrich barked “Halt.”
She froze, but her mind continued to reel. The skin around the site looked freshly washed, and her hair smelled of lavender. “What are you doing to me?”
“It’s only a saline solution to treat your dehydration.”
“You expect me to believe that?” she asked, tugging at a corner of the tape.
“I’ve no reason to lie.”
Exhausted, she let her arms sink to the mattress. He’d always disclosed the rationale and risks for each of his trials, like he was providing the necessary details to obtain her permission. But in the end, her consent was always coerced. Unlike the inmates and orphan babies that had been experimented on throughout much of the twentieth century, to the outrage of a few good reporters, she had no human rights.
But Kristian did. Ulrich had filed a birth certificate with the New York City Health Department, listing Rollie and his new wife, Petra, as the parents.
“It’s a good thing I found him when I did,” he said, stroking the fine, blond curls at the nape of Kristian’s neck.
She waited for him to continue, suspecting that once he’d recounted the details, she would agree.
“He was playing in the shallows of South Brother. He could have drowned. Undoubtedly he would have if I hadn’t spotted him from the lighthouse roof.”
Nausea surged, and she swallowed hard. “He was tied to me,” she managed to croak out, as much for her benefit as his.
“We—I—almost lost my son,” Ulrich said with a sob.
The heaving of his chest told Cora that he was crying. Only once before had she seen him do so—the day his mother and sister died.
Before now, she’d thought his cruelty had withered his tear ducts. He does love our boy, she thought and pictured him frantically searching the island for them. A sharp pang of guilt sliced through her. “I’m so sorry,” she spluttered. “I shouldn’t have—”
His chin jerked upward and he fixed her with a cold stare. “You’re sorry?” From a nearby bed frame, he picked up the dirty, crusted remains of the cord, now ripped in two. “Your recklessness almost killed my son.” He tossed the pieces onto the floor.
The noise startled Kristian, and he woke with a cry.
“It’s okay, mein kleiner Bär,” she said out of habit to soothe her “little bear.”
He wailed for her and tried to slide off Ulrich’s lap.
Ulrich repositioned him. “Mutti braucht zu schlafen. Mommy needs to sleep. Ich habe dich. I’ve got you.”
Why’s he teaching him English? She sucked in her breath at the likely answer: just as she’d feared, he would take her son, and she would remain here alone. For eternity.
“This is your own doing,” Ulrich stated as he struggled to control the flailing boy.
“You were planning to steal him from me,” she said, loudly enough for Ulrich to hear over Kristian’s escalating cries.
Ulrich managed to retrieve a chocolate bar from his black kit and broke off a block for Kristian. “You should have spoken to me about my plans before you endangered our child. Kristian’s cognitive development requires socialization. However, he also still needs a mother’s affection. I’d been intending to split his time between the city and here with you.”
She pressed the back of her head into the pillow. It had to be a lie, but what if he were speaking truthfully? Over an eighteen-year span, with only a two-year interruption while Riverside had been temporarily closed, she’d observed Ulrich’s commitment to providing Rollie and then also Greta with an idyllic childhood. He might have concluded that Kristian should remain close to his mother.
“That was my plan.” He cleared his throat, and the knot in her stomach tightened.
“But because of your folly, you’ll never see him again.”
The pronouncement slammed into her and stole her breath. If she hadn’t fled with Kristian, would Ulrich have let him live here part-time? She would never know. “Please. I’m sorry. I’ll never do anything like it again.”
“Correct. You won’t.”
Cold sweat clung to her sides, and her heart pounded in protest.
Kristian, who’d finished the treat, whined for another. His tears ran into the chocolate smeared around his mouth, and she felt an overwhelming urge to clean his face and kiss those little lips.
She swung her legs off the bed and reached for him.
“Mutti.” He dove toward her, and Ulrich yanked him back and raised his other hand to strike her.
Cora flinched but didn’t retreat.
“Please, he wants me.” Her entire body trembled with exhaustion and fear.
Writhing to free himself, Kristian clawed at the protective suit, which forced Ulrich to thrust the boy at her.
She grabbed him, and Kristian quieted instantaneously.
Buckling under the extra weight, she staggered backward and collapsed onto the bed.
Her son burrowed under the gown to find her breast, and she inhaled his scent. Ulrich must have bathed him and his diaper beneath the fresh pair of trousers felt dry. The long shadows on the floor told her it was late afternoon, but she could only guess how long she’d been unconscious.
As he suckled, his fingers flitted across her belly, and he hummed with contentment.
“He needs his mother.” She stared into the round lenses of Ulrich’s alienesque mask.
“He’s old e
nough for cow’s milk.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know. I’m anticipating a difficult adjustment period, but that will be only temporary.”
“Ulrich, you know what it’s like to grow up without a mom,” Cora pleaded, desperate enough to broach a topic that had always been taboo. “Don’t do this to your son. Give him what you didn’t have.”
“This is very different.”
“No, it’s not. I love him. He needs his mother’s love.”
Ulrich shook his head. “Soon, he’ll come to think of Petra as his mother. And I’ll be there to make sure she fully replaces you.”
“No,” she said, weeping, and Kristian looked up at her questioningly. He raised his hand to her face, and she grabbed his wrist for a kiss to keep him from touching her tears. She didn’t want him to know this pain. But in the weeks to follow, he would. Although she was relieved to hear that Rollie—not Ulrich—would raise her son, the thought of Kristian crying out for her cut deeper than any scalpel ever had.
Kristian resumed nursing, and she caressed his chubby cheek.
Eventually, wrapped in the love of his false parents and deranged “grandfather,” he would forget her. Oblivious to her existence, he would grow up in the city she’d fantasized about experiencing with him.
Meanwhile she would remain trapped in this hell, aching for him with every beat of her heart. Now death called to her, louder than ever before. “Your next visit, kill me, please.”
“Ha. You’re far too valuable to exterminate.”
“Then I’ll kill myself.”
He laughed. “Go ahead. Then, someday, I’ll tell Kristian his birth mother didn’t love him enough to stay alive.”
She stiffened. Kristian pulled away from her breast, so she shifted him to the other side. “Give me another chance.”
“You don’t deserve one.”
Without disrupting Kristian, she sat up. “For six decades, I’ve been subjected to every form of torture, in the name of medicine, and I’ve never asked for anything.”
A sly smile stretched to his eyes. “Perhaps I will bring him back sometime.”
He was lying; she was sure of it. Ulrich would use the promise of a reunion to force her compliance and to torment her. She pressed her baby to her chest, and his warmth radiated through her. Before she would let Ulrich break this bond, she would destroy him. Just as she’d sworn to do the day the last ferry had departed from Riverside.
To conceal her hatred, she ducked her head and gazed at her baby. A sense of awe pushed aside her loathing.
Her scalpels might still be in his physician’s bag, resting on the cart just out of her reach. Could she sever the vein that bulged from his neck? It should be as easy as slicing an apple. Not only could she do this, Cora reasoned, but she had to do this today. Once he’d removed Kristian from the island, Ulrich would be her only tie to her son.
“Your time is up. Give him to me.”
“Please, one more hour.” To fool him into thinking she was too feeble to resist, she raised an arm and let it fall.
He huffed through his respirator. “Fine, thirty minutes.” He took out a magazine and settled into his chair.
If she failed, these moments with her son would turn out to be her last. Determined not to let Ulrich’s presence ruin them, she laid Kristian on his back between her legs and played “This Little Piggy” with his toes. His cascade of giggles formed the most beautiful song she’d ever heard. Committing the sound to memory, she blinked back tears and kept up a smile for his sake.
“I love that sound,” Ulrich murmured from his chair.
As much as Cora wanted this time to belong only to Kristian and her, she needed to lull him into thinking they were once again a happy family. Only then would he put down his guard, enabling her to grab his medical kit. Even if her scalpels weren’t inside, the bag had to contain something else sharp.
“And this little piggy went wee, wee, wee, all the way home.”
Kristian cackled as her fingers traveled up his leg and tickled his belly.
“He is quite remarkable,” Ulrich said as sincerely as any father might say to his wife.
“Because of you. And me.” She massaged Kristian’s chunky thighs.
Despite his cruelty, she knew his principles had never wavered when it came to his family. Maybe he really would bring Kristian back to visit.
But not if she tried to slaughter Ulrich now. Given her weakened state, he could easily wrest a blade from her, and then there would be no question that she was unfit to mother their child. No, she couldn’t risk it.
Instead, she would cherish these final moments with her baby, and hopefully, in the process, convince Ulrich that they were a family.
She lifted Kristian’s other foot, and he pointed at her. “Mutti toes?”
Already he’d picked up the English word. “But your toes are much cuter.”
He repeated his request, so she made a Bronx cheer on his stomach.
His laughter subsided, and he touched her wet cheek, triggering new tears. He crawled up her lap and examined her face with his hands. “Mutti boo-boo?”
“No, Mommy’s not hurt. Mommy’s sad.”
“Ssssad,” he said, trying out the new word.
She looked at Ulrich, who was no longer pretending to read the magazine.
“Mommy’s sad because you’re going on a trip. A boat! But you’ll come back soon, and we’ll hunt for spiders.”
He nodded, though he couldn’t possibly have understood, and wrapped his arms around her neck.
“And Vati, too,” she said for Ulrich’s benefit. “We’ll play hide-and-seek with Vati.”
Ulrich discarded the magazine. “Time’s up.” From his bag, he removed a syringe.
White spots bombarded her vision. “What’s that?”
He tapped the tube. “A concentrated dose of . . . we’ll call it Veh Zeh.”
Cora knew he was referring to the letters V and Z in German. “What’s it for?”
“The good of society. If you ever try to come after Kristian, you’ll be dead before you reach the Williamsburg Bridge. It’s a weaponized strain of a highly lethal disease.”
She grabbed Kristian and scrambled off the far side of the bed. Another breed of microscopic monster, this one even deadlier. She couldn’t allow it into her veins. “I’ve learned my lesson, I swear, and the germs already inside me, they’d stop me anyway. On South Brother they would have succeeded if you hadn’t—”
“Roll up your sleeve,” he commanded, and Kristian began crying.
She bounced her son to calm him, but the jerky motion only worsened his distress.
Ulrich came around the bed, yanked up her sleeve, and jabbed the needle into her flesh. She shrieked, and Kristian’s wail sharpened.
Ulrich tore him from her.
“Mommy’s okay,” he said, bobbing the boy. “The shot will keep her safe, and everyone else. Do you want to ride in a boat? A real boat?” He sneered at her.
Kristian squealed and clapped his hands, and Ulrich wiped the tears from the toddler’s reddened cheeks with his rubber glove.
“Say bye-bye to Mommy.”
Kristian waved. To avoid upsetting him, she forced a smile.
Ulrich shifted their son to his hip, grabbed his kit, and strode from the room.
His footsteps echoed down the corridor.
He hadn’t even let her kiss her baby good-bye.
Her howls to bring him back drowned out his footfalls.
She staggered to the window for one last glimpse of her son. Minutes passed, and the porch outside the central entrance remained empty. Maybe he changed his mind, she thought. Holding her breath, she listened for the sound of their return.
Below, the front door banged open, and Cora bit her knuckle so hard she tasted
blood.
She pressed her forehead to the glass to bring them into view.
Ulrich hurried down the front steps and onto the lawn. The fair skin of Kristian’s face, nestled in the crook of Ulrich’s shoulder and hood, stood out against the black hazmat suit.
Cora threw open the window and screamed for her boy, for her everything. Without him, she would have nothing. Be nothing.
Ulrich didn’t turn or break stride; he’d already disregarded her.
But Kristian hadn’t. He spotted her at the fourth-story window and beamed.
She blew him a kiss and he mirrored the gesture.
Devastated, her cries primal, she caught his love in her palm and swore that she would never loosen her hold on it. Even while driving a scalpel through Ulrich’s heart.
February 1967
he bitter cold seeped through her friendship quilt, down comforter, and parka, yet Cora wouldn’t relinquish her post on the morgue roof; she’d been watching for Ulrich every morning since he’d taken Kristian four months earlier. Not once had he come to deliver provisions, resume the experimentation, or even discuss their son. Rather than seek her advice, presumably he’d been allowing Petra and Rollie to make mistakes as they learned. Undoubtedly Angela wouldn’t have been sharing her expertise.
The transition must have been tough on Kristian. She pictured him, confined to a crib with wooden rails, wailing in the night for Mutti. Would they have figured out that he wanted his back rubbed? She hoped so. At least he had his blankie. She shivered and conjured the warmth of his body, snuggled against her, twitching as he dreamed important baby dreams. Did he still remember her at all? By his birthday, in less than a month and a half, she knew he wouldn’t.
She would miss the marking of his second year, and every one after that.
Tears blurred the skyscrapers across the strait, and she was amazed by her body’s endless supply. If only her food caches could likewise never run out. The ache in her hollow stomach had become an almost constant companion.
Although unlikely, Ulrich could be planning to return with Kristian once the weather improved. In the current conditions, the passage through Hell Gate would be dangerous for a toddler who liked to climb. The tension in her shoulders eased with the prospect. Maybe Ulrich would bring him on his birthday. Just in case, she would have a present ready, as well as an iced cake. From what Mary had taught her, and the two chocolate bars she’d been saving, she would manage something.
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