by Tricia Goyer
“Maybe even leave the continent?” Captain Standart raised an eyebrow.
“Sir?” Peter asked.
“How about I put in a request for a United States visa? The quota is filling fast, but it’s worth a try.”
The thought of Helene moving to the States made Peter’s head spin.
“I’ll file the papers today. We should have an answer in a few weeks.”
“Thank you, sir.” Peter rose, holding back his elation. He turned to leave.
“One more thing,” the captain called to his back.
Peter did an about-face. “Sir?”
“Don’t mention it to her yet. I can’t make any promises.”
“Yes, sir.” With a parting salute, Peter left the room.
The day passed slowly. Army personnel brought meals to Helene and her children. The food tasted good, and she appreciated the personal attention, but it hardly compensated for being caged within four bare walls.
Anika was in a difficult mood. Nothing pleased the girl—not stories, songs, or the few meager items Helene had found for her to play with.
Helene’s head ached. Every time she moved, a throbbing pain shot through her temple. “Please just leave me alone,” she begged Anika when the girl insisted on climbing over her. Helene found the Raggedy Ann doll and gave it to her daughter. “Here. Go play over there.”
“Over there” consisted of a bare corner of the room. Anika’s lip trembled, and then her chin jutted out in defiance. Helene recognized that expression all too well. The thought of her daughter picking up Friedrich’s bad habits made Helene’s head pound even more.
Anika plopped down facing the wall, her doll tucked under her arm.
Helene rifled through the satchel. She had to do something to make herself useful. She decided to make a list of the items she needed to acquire in Gmunden. She’d need soap. There was laundry to do—especially Petar’s diapers. She glanced at their clothes, some of which had been torn during their escape. She needed thread for mending.
Before she could find pen and paper, Helene’s thoughts were interrupted by Anika’s clamor in the corner. The girl threw Raggedy Ann against the wall. “Undress! Line up. Filthy vermin.”
Helene’s heartbeat quickened. She knew where her daughter had heard those words. They’d blared from the camp loudspeakers day and night when they’d lived with Friedrich. During quiet nights, the shouting filtered into the house, even with the windows closed.
Anika picked up her doll and shook it hard.
Helene lunged from the cot. “No!” She lifted Anika to her feet. “What are you doing? What are you saying?” Helene’s grip tightened around Anika’s arms. Anger and horror surged through her. Anika winced, then began to cry.
Helene let out a guttural moan and released her grip. Anika sank to the ground and glared at her mother, then curled in a ball against the wall.
“I’m sorry.” Helene slumped to the ground and stroked her daughter’s head. Although the crying stopped, Helene’s chest felt heavy. What have we become?
Anika cautiously climbed into her mother’s lap. Helene clung to her daughter and rocked her gently on the cold, hard floor.
“Please don’t say those things ever again,” she whispered in Anika’s ear. “Those are bad things. We must forget.” Even as she said it, Helene knew forgetting was impossible.
Peter came in. He undoubtedly noticed their somber mood, but didn’t ask. “Is this all you have?” He gingerly lifted the satchel.
Helene rose from the ground and hoisted the baby to her shoulder. “Ja,” she said, feeling vulnerable and overwhelmed.
“We’ll have to do something about that later,” he said as he led her and the children down the hall.
Helene didn’t argue. She was just happy to be leaving this place.
The few hours’ drive to Gmunden was beautiful, lifting Helene’s mood. The summer air felt warm, even with the gentle wind of a topless jeep. A golden moon clung to the dark sky and reflected light against the sharp slopes and deep crags of the mountainside. Peter drove in silence, and Helene wondered if he was thinking about the view around him. Or, like her, was he attempting to keep his thoughts and fears unspoken?
Her children slept to the lull of the engine and the creaks of the vehicle. What would happen to them? Where would they all be a year from now?
She glanced at the man beside her, wondering again what part he would play in her new life. Helene knew she couldn’t depend on his help forever. There would be a time when she’d have to face the hardships of this world alone. Peter, after all, was not her source of protection.
Peter broke the silence with talk about the war. “Our division, the Eleventh Armored, has been alerted for shipment to the South Pacific. They’re sending our equipment ahead, which can only mean one thing. The invasion of Japan.”
Helene’s heart raced. “You might be returning to the battlefield?”
He glanced her way, and she caught a look of apprehension. The wind picked up slightly, the jeep slowed, and a river roared as they passed over a small bridge. “Looks like it.”
Helene couldn’t bear the thought. It would be difficult enough to lose Peter if he returned to the States, but to lose him in another war?
They passed the Gmunden sign and entered the village, which rested comfortably by a lake so wide she couldn’t see the other side. The black waters tumbled in slow motion. Shadowed flowers nodded in the breeze. Light shone from the windows of a few buildings, but for the most part, the town slept.
“This is a beautiful place,” Helene said.
Peter pulled up in front of a small cottage near the edge of the water. “You need to stay inside as much as possible. There’s a tall fence in the backyard that will keep you out of view. No one should bother you here.” He stepped out of the jeep and came around to her side. “I’ll pick you up in a couple of days, and then you’ll meet with the person who will take the information from you.” He placed a warm hand on her shoulder. “Don’t worry. It will be over soon.”
“And you?” Helene cradled Petar against her chest. “Will you let me know if you have to leave … for the States … or the Pacific?”
He grinned and hoisted a groggy Anika into his arms. “That won’t be happening quite yet. The captain pulled some strings. I have two weeks here—unless the invasion of Japan moves forward sooner than we expect.”
Helene felt a weight lift from her shoulders. Together they carried the children and her few meager possessions inside.
The house was sparse but clean. The living area and kitchen comprised one room. A small bedroom held two beds. Helene laid Anika on the one farthest from the door. The baby would sleep with her.
When both children were settled, she returned to the living room where Peter waited. He looked especially tall under the low ceiling. Tall and strong. Peter rubbed his chin, a gesture that reminded Helene of her father.
Helene sank onto the old sofa. If only she knew her father was all right. If only she knew things would work out for her and for Peter. She didn’t want to think of him fighting his way through Japan. Her head ached beneath the bandage.
After a moment, Peter sat beside her and flipped one of her blonde curls back over her shoulder. More than anything, she wanted to lean into his embrace. But too many things clouded her thinking. Her previous bad choices. Michaela.
Peter pulled his hand away and stood. “I need to get going. Tomorrow’s Sunday, so I won’t be around, but someone will be by with food for you. I’ll be back on Monday.”
Helene followed him to the door. She heard the lake lapping against the shore. A distant train whistle called from a mountain pass.
“Get some sleep,” Peter suggested.
Helene shrank back inside the door. “Danke.” The simple thanks seemed insufficient. She soberly waved as he drove away.
The room was stuffy when she finally climbed into bed, but Helene couldn’t bring herself to crack open a window. The sound of her children�
�s breathing was her only comfort.
I’m safe, Helene tried to convince herself. Still her mind would not rest. She jumped at every sound. She thought again of Michaela and wondered if she was doing well in Poland.
Would anything ever be right again?
Peter made the long drive back to Linz feeling like a puppet being yanked by its strings as he served his country and also tried to protect those he cared for. When he entered the army housing late that night, jovial cheers greeted him.
“New York City, here I come,” Jackson yelled. “Bright lights, big city, beautiful girls.”
“What’s going on?” Peter asked, catching a copy of Stars and Stripes that was tossed to him.
“You know anything about atomic bombs?” one soldier asked.
“A little. Why?”
“Well, one’s been dropped on mainland Japan. Wiped out a whole city. You can bet the Japs will surrender now.”
“And if they do,” Jackson exclaimed, “we go home.”
“Oh, yeah, smarty?” another guy called. “What about occupational forces? Some of us will be around here for a while. And they’ll need troops in Japan too.”
Boos erupted throughout the room. Someone tossed a pillow, nailing the doomsayer in the head.
The door opened and a soldier Peter didn’t recognize staggered into the room. “What are you sitting around here for?” he asked with slurred speech. “The Austrian gals are dancing in the streets!”
The room cleared out within minutes, and Peter moaned at the mess left behind. Empty cognac and champagne bottles littered the floor. How had they even managed to find the alcohol?
A few hours later, when the sun was just beginning to rise, Peter had the common area pretty much straightened up. He’d attempted to sleep, but the noise from the celebrating troops had kept him awake. That and the questions that continually plagued his thoughts. Was the end of the war really right around the corner? Would he be returning home? How would things play out with Helene? Would she too become just a distant memory?
As the sun came up, the racket on the streets died down. Peter’s thoughts returned to Gmunden by the lake. He’d first fled there after Lelia’s wedding, needing distance from one girl. Now he was going back there to help another woman find safety from enemies unknown.
On Monday morning, Peter picked up Helene at exactly 8:00. Two nurses had delivered food and household items the day before, and earlier that morning they’d come to watch her children. Although Helene knew her babies were in good hands, she still hated the thought of leaving them. What if someone tried to harm them while she was away?
“We’ll only be a few hours,” Peter assured her. “We can be back in time for lunch.” They stepped through the door, and Peter handed Helene a colorful scarf and a pair of dark sunglasses. “You’d better wear these, just in case.”
Helene tied the scarf over her hair and donned the sunglasses. Then she climbed into the jeep, feeling like an American movie star. Looking around, she realized that in the daylight Gmunden was the perfect movie setting. The water seemed more like an ocean than a lake. The morning fog concealed both the distant shore and the mountains beyond.
They drove to a dilapidated office building converted for army use, and Peter led her to a room at the top of the second-story stairs. A pad of paper and a fountain pen sat on a table. Two chairs faced away from the door. Sitting on one, Helene noticed that outside the tall window was a beautiful view of the lake. Birds covered the docks like a feathered carpet. Through the fog, the outline of a lone boat zipped across the water.
“Do you know who will be questioning me?” Helene thought of the kind captain in Linz and wondered how the new person would compare.
Peter sat beside her. “You’re looking at him.” He winked. “You’re my new assignment.”
“Really?” Helene gazed into Peter’s face. For the first time she noticed how light his eyelashes were and how perfectly they framed his green eyes. Helene picked up the pen. “Where do we begin?”
Peter straightened in his chair. “First, you need to make a list of every Nazi you can remember. Every guard and commander, their duties and where they lived.”
Helene squirmed in her seat. She wrote one name first. Arno Schroeder. She added a few more names, then paused as the realization of what she was doing struck her. Yes, these were the men who ran the camps, but they, for a time, had been her husband’s closest friends. With each name penned, she thought about their wives and children. Their humor, or lack thereof. She thought about their roles as camp guards, their work with the dogs, their supervision over the armament facilities in the Gusen caves. She filled one page, then another.
Helene paused, considering the engineers who had worked in the caves. Mechanics too, making sure the weapons and aircraft parts were up to standard. Should she list them as well?
Helene thought about Friedrich. She didn’t even want to consider what he would think about what she was doing.
Peter examined the list as she worked. Every now and then he questioned what she knew. When did that man arrive? Did you ever see him with the prisoners? When, approximately, was his last day of service? As he interrogated her, Helene saw Peter as the professional he was.
“Now, this is the important part,” he said. “I need you to think hard and try to imagine where these men would hide. Think about the parties you attended. The conversations over coffee. Did they ever talk about family in Germany? Did they discuss moving to another country? We have hundreds of former inmates who can give us names and provide detailed descriptions, but only you, someone on the inside, can give us clues to where they might have disappeared to.”
“I understand.” Helene scoured her memory. She pointed to one of the names. “This mechanic was from Holland—Amsterdam, I believe.” She indicated another name. “That guard has family in Berlin. I remember he received a postcard once, and Anika liked the photo on the front, so he gave it to her.”
Peter’s eyes brightened. “Good. This is exactly what we need. With information like this, the army is going to bend over backward for you.”
After a few hours of writing, Helene was exhausted. Her hand cramped. Her mind was weary.
“That’s enough for today.” Peter stood and stretched his arms over his head. “Let’s see how the kids are doing.”
When they arrived back at the house, one nurse was giving Petar a bottle. Anika and Peter disappeared into the backyard.
Helene thanked the nurses as they left, and her hands trembled as she stroked her baby’s cheek. It took a while for her to shake the helplessness, fear, and anger that revisiting those dark memories had invoked.
That is not my life anymore, she told herself. Most of those men were gone. Some dead. Others imprisoned.
Still, many were unaccounted for, hiding somewhere. She touched the bandage near her eye. There are others still out there. Watching. Like Arno.
Helene laid the baby down for a nap, then joined Peter and Anika. Here in the mountains the weather was not as warm as in the valley. The cool breeze felt refreshing on her face and neck. Her skirt fluttered around her legs.
Anika raced around the yard, trying to catch the dandelion puffs Peter blew into the wind. Helene chuckled at the sight of them and sat on the back steps beside the woodpile to watch.
For a moment Helene imagined this was reality, and had been all along. She imagined Peter chopping firewood on a frosty morning. She pictured herself wrapping her head in a wool scarf and bringing him hot cider. He would sip it and laugh at her cold, red nose.
But in the quiet of that afternoon, she knew a different reality had been hers. Dogs barking, spotlights shining, voices shouting, prisoners crying. Instead of piles of wood chopped by her beloved, she’d witnessed stacks of bodies she’d never forget.
Thirty-Two
AUGUST 11, 1945
The subsequent days passed similarly to the first. Helene and Peter drove to the office building, and Helene wrote down as much as sh
e knew, which was more than she had at first realized.
She remembered that two of the guards were cousins and had grown up in a small town near the Swiss border. Another guard was from a wealthy family who provided for his extravagant lifestyle. There were men who had enjoyed their cruelty and others who were known to let things slide. She told dates and events, mostly of the final months. They were not only the most recent, but also the most vicious as the guards became overwhelmed with the masses. Mauthausen and Gusen were the farthest camps from the front lines, and the Nazis had marched tens of thousands of prisoners there in an effort to keep their atrocities hidden from the Allies.
At the end of each day, Peter and Helene returned to the small cottage and spent a few hours playing with the children, sharing jokes and laughter. Peter and Helene also made it a habit to have dinner together and talk into the night about anything besides the camps.
A few times, Peter brought letters from his sister and translated them for her. He told Helene about his home in Montana, and the Rocky Mountains that ran down the western quarter of the state. He told stories about cowboys who worked on cattle ranches. And how schools, churches, and community organizations worked together for the war effort. He told her about the Indians who still lived on reservations, carrying on their old traditions. His stories were so interesting that sometimes even Anika stopped to listen.
When Saturday arrived, Peter broke the usual routine by surprising Helene at the door with flowers. “It’s the weekend. No work today,” he explained. “I brought a baby-sitter, and I’m taking you for a ride. We’ll be back before midnight, I promise.”
Helene was unsure about leaving Petar and Anika for so long, even though Petar was doing fine with a bottle. She was about to decline when a familiar face peeked around the door.
“Rhonda!” Helene exclaimed, pulling the nurse into a tight embrace.
“Look at you,” Rhonda said. “You have circles under your eyes. What has Scotty being doing to you?”