Saving Amelie

by Cathy Gohlke

  “What?”

  She told him what her father had said on the church steps about not leaving tomorrow, about Gerhardt’s invitation to his house, Dr. Mengele’s words carried on the morning breeze. She told him the mysterious things her father had said about her adoption, told him about Frankfurt, about the files she knew those doctors had kept on her from childhood, the frequent medical examinations requiring trips to Germany. She remembered more as she spoke, including her father’s insistence that her German be fluent, with a Bavarian accent. And finally, his words about closing the file.

  For the first time since she’d met him, Jason Young looked truly worried.

  13

  THE AFTERNOON WAS GONE when Rachel locked her hotel suite door, barricading it with a wooden tea trolley. If her father returned, she hoped his struggles with key and trolley would give her sufficient time and warning.

  She’d never played private investigator, let alone international spy, but there would not be a better time. Her father had said he’d be late, and because of the funeral she knew he hadn’t taken his briefcase and files to his meeting with the doctors and Gerhardt.

  Everything Jason had said, had urged her to do, made sense. If there was a link between the doctors and Gerhardt Schlick that concerned her, it would likely be detailed among her father’s papers. If they were lucky, there might even be something there—or as a last resort, something she would find in Gerhardt’s home—to link him to Kristine’s death.

  She’d expected her father’s bedroom and study doors to be locked. But picking locks with a hairpin was something she and Kristine had perfected during their adolescent sleepovers. It took less than a minute.

  She drew the drapes and found his briefcase beneath his bed. Picking that lock was out of the question. It was a combination lock, the numbers of which she spent nearly an hour trying to guess. She tried birthdays, telephone numbers, ages, days of the week, their address—everything she could think of—to no avail.

  Oh, Mother! Mother! If only you were here. What would you do? I don’t know what to do! I don’t know what to do, and time is running out!

  Love him. The image of her mother’s smile, her embrace, her solution to all of life’s ills was so strong, Rachel gasped.

  You don’t know how he’s changed, Mother. He’s changed so even you wouldn’t recognize him!

  But the image persisted, the impression in her brain waxing strong.

  I can’t! I’m so angry—so hurt. I don’t know what he’s thinking. I know you loved him, but he was a different man when you married him . . . when you married him . . .

  Not daring to breathe, Rachel keyed in the date of her parents’ wedding anniversary. The tumblers clicked into place. She pushed the latch, and it snapped open.

  The first set of files detailed peculiar symptoms of tuberculosis patients, everything from skin lesions to diminished lung capacity. There were photographs, charts of patients, descriptions of treatments and the efficacy of drugs used experimentally.

  The second set of files dealt with sets of twins, separated at the beginning of the experiment. One of the twins in each case was injected with a tubercular serum, or in some cases fed milk from tubercular cows. The other twin was raised on wholesome foods in a wholesome environment. The files charted the devastating development of the disease in the exposed twin. Once the untreated disease was full-blown, the healthy twin was reunited with and kept in close proximity to the tubercular twin. Reports indicated that some patients appeared to develop immunity to the disease, while in the majority of cases, the disease became full-blown and eventually fatal to both twins.

  In conclusion, she read, this is the desired strain . . . She could read no more.

  Experiments on human beings. I knew you were researching tuberculosis. I had no idea you murdered in the process.

  She pulled Jason’s small camera from her purse and photographed the last few pages of the file, hoping it was only her tears that made the words appear blurry through the tiny viewer.

  The clock struck eight, and she pressed forward. The next several files dealt with more sets of twins but seemed to be largely clinical observations—no treatments. What is it about twins?

  At last she came to a file on Gerhardt Schlick. There was mention of a failed experiment—something about subject B-47. There was an after note about his marriage to Kristine, and more detailed notes on the birth of Amelie. A midwife’s notation that the child appeared to be healthy, and two years later a doctor’s diagnosis of deafness. There was nothing incriminating—nothing about Kristine but a recent notation on her death and something about an aborted experiment. It was primarily a detailed record of Gerhardt’s lineage, his physical and mental development based on clinical examinations made at the Frankfurt Institute over the last several years, each detail compared to an ideal Aryan model.

  Hitler’s supermen. Rachel cringed. She’d reached the last page of Gerhardt’s file when she saw a scribbled note—her father’s handwriting—at the bottom of the page. Insert subject B-47.

  Insert subject B-47? What does that mean? She had no idea, and no time. Her father would surely return any moment.

  She replaced the files and was about to close and lock the case when she realized that there was something of bulk in a separately latched compartment in the lining of the lid. She pulled the smaller group of files from their hiding place.

  Each of the files was lettered and numbered. She flipped open the first one and saw the photograph of a young boy, not more than three or four years of age. There were subsequent pictures of the boy, at different ages and only in his undergarments. Each photograph was accompanied by a chart detailing the subject’s physical and mental development. There was something familiar about the background in each picture. What was it?

  By the time she’d flipped through the second file, Rachel recognized the sterile walls of the clinic in Frankfurt. She remembered being told to stand against that wall, to turn, to bend this way and that and hold the position. As a child it had been a game with the doctor present. As a young woman she’d been perturbed but obedient to the longtime regimen and the nurse who’d replaced the doctor due to her state of undress. She’d had no idea there was a hidden camera taking photographs.

  Though she felt the heat of shame, she flipped through the remaining files, certain now that she’d find her own set of humiliating, revealing photographs, her own file with details of her growth and development.

  The numbered and lettered files apparently designated individual subjects. A-25, A-36, A-37, A-42, A-47, A-51 for male subjects. B-29, B-34, B-47, B-56, B-71 for female subjects. Beyond the photographs taken during clinical examinations, there were numerous family photographs of each subject, details of family life, of the parents’ background, of athletic abilities, education and intellectual achievements, religious, political, and community affiliations.

  She snapped random photographs of the files, uncertain of their usefulness, changed the film, and snapped dozens more. Nothing she saw could hold any of the doctors or her father accountable in a court of law—not even an American court—unless she could prove the files were kept for some lurid purpose.

  Public opinion could be swayed by reports of injecting innocents with tubercular serum, not by files and growth charts of children, no matter how demeaning.

  She’d been searching for, expecting, her own file, but was not prepared when she opened the folder. That her father would have sanctioned such an invasion to her privacy cut her; that he would have detailed her life in such a clinical fashion debased her. But that he saw her as a specimen, part of his eugenics research, entirely unnerved her. Clipped synopses of her studies and relationships, of every facet of her life, filled the folder labeled B-47.

  The clock struck nine. She couldn’t read more, couldn’t stomach more, but knew that she would want to know all he’d said—later, when she’d had some sleep and could digest what she’d seen. She spread the pages across her father’s bed and p
hotographed them, one after another. She’d just returned the last of the files to its hiding place when the image of her father’s scribbling on Gerhardt’s file flashed to the forefront of her mind—Insert subject B-47. I am subject B-47!

  She pulled out her file, flipped to the back, and read. She was not only part of his research. She was an “experiment and an element in experiments.” Rachel felt the room tilt, the light fade. She shook her head, forced herself to concentrate. Notes near the end of her file were in handwriting other than her father’s: It is imperative that this subject reproduce in order to achieve its purpose. Noncompliance will result in an aborted experiment.—Dr. J. Mengele.

  Dr. Josef Mengele, who doesn’t like loose ends. My father, who anticipated closing the file. They mean for me to marry Gerhardt. I was raised to marry Gerhardt Schlick—or someone like him! That’s what Father meant about demonstrating interest in marriage, about choosing someone, about not returning to New York.

  Rachel closed her eyes, sick to her stomach, trying to get her bearings. Kristine was murdered because she didn’t produce a “perfect” child. Gerhardt was ordered to marry me—all part of this sick breeding program. And now that they’ve eliminated Kristine, they intend to get their experiment back on track. But what happens if I don’t comply?

  She reassembled the file, placed it in the case, and reset the lock. She slid the briefcase beneath the bed, making certain to angle it just as it had been. She switched off the light, opened the drapes, and stared into the dark, trying to absorb what she’d read.

  Rachel did not believe in God—had been raised to view such belief as a crutch for the weak. And she, a member of the elite, was not weak. But for the first time in her life she wished she did believe. She knew she was weak, and she needed help.

  14

  My dearest Friederich,

  You will never believe what has happened. . . .

  The young refugee and village children are precious beyond measure, trusting and starving for attention—and for apple strudel! Their sweet voices carry the timbre of cherubs, barely in need of tuning.

  Curate Bauer has asked me to oversee some minor tweaking of crooked halos here and there, admonitions for improved behavior. To my great surprise, that is more easily accomplished than I’d have imagined. They’re so eager to please, to be part of something wholesome and cheerful. What could be more cheerful than a choir of young children? Even Heinrich Helphman is a pleasure, a treasure, a joy—though he adamantly refuses to return your Christkind. I don’t know what possesses him, but I haven’t the heart to press him.

  I cannot tell you, my husband, how they fill my heart, how their questions spark my mind and their small hands tucked into mine as we walk from school lift my life.

  I love you, my darling. Hurry home to me and you will see. You will love them too.

  Friederich lay back on his pallet and folded the letter. He closed his eyes as he held it, envisioning the smile of his angel wife.

  He’d worried when he first read of Curate Bauer’s request. He’d heard from Frau Fenstermacher of her nightmares with the children’s choir—the entire village had heard for weeks. He couldn’t understand how the priest had come to ask his wife such a favor—how it would ever be approved by the board or the Catholic parents, even though Lea wrote that she’d accepted minimal pay, so anxious was she to do the job.

  Friederich shook his head as he tucked the letter inside his shirt, next to his heart. Lea not only looked the part; she sang like an angel. And Oma had seen to it that she’d learned to read music and play the piano from childhood. That was normal in Oberammergau, for Catholics, Protestants, or Jews. Music was mandatory in every child’s education—always the singing, and often an instrument. Catholic children, especially, were watched and early on encouraged in music, acting, and singing. All were watched for woodcarving or hospitality skills. How else could the village be prepared to launch and host a Passion Play every ten years, with all the attending theatricals and musical programs year round?

  But Lea had no special training with children. None of it made sense, and Friederich feared for his wife’s mental state if the priest should decide to withdraw the opportunity or offer it to another—someone better trained, someone a member of the Catholic church. He wished he could caution Lea, perhaps even talk her out of it.

  But it was as though a fire had been lit in his wife’s heart. He saw it in the rush of her handwriting across the page. She was radiant—he knew it by her words, by the bright lifting of her t’s and the happy tails on her k’s. And it turned out that she was a natural teacher, a disciplinarian when needed, but even more a mentor and guide to the children. She said so herself in so many words. It was the first time she’d recognized her own strength in all the months they’d been married.

  How could he deny her or advise against it? If things did not change in some way he could not imagine, she would need all the validation and joy this life could afford her. She might even need the income.

  Friederich pulled from his pocket the small babe he’d carved from pine in his rare free time and ran his thumb over the face, the limbs of the child.

  Since coming to Poland his unit had done nothing but obliterate Poles. He’d not been assigned to the burning of the synagogue last week, but his friend Gunther Friedman had returned from the mission as white as a sheet. He’d whispered that they’d herded the men, women, and even the children from the village into the synagogue. Just before slamming the door, he’d locked eyes with a little girl, the age and size of his own Gretel back home. Gunther said she seemed to understand better than he did what was coming. He’d slid the outside bolt on command, and his unit burned the synagogue to the ground. The screams—before the helpless were overcome by smoke—had haunted Gunther’s dreams for days. The sickly sweet smell of burning hair and flesh clung to his jacket for less than a night. But Friederich thought he, too, would vomit.

  There was no way he could continue this killing, be part of the murder of villagers whose only crime was to live in the path of the German army. But he knew there were few alternatives. None of them boded well for him, or for the possibility he would see his Lea again.

  He’d nearly stained the small Christkind through rubbing it with his muddied thumb. He thought of little Heinrich and his fascination with the Christkind—the babe Lea wrote she’d not been able to retrieve from her most difficult but nevertheless endearing pupil.

  Heinrich Helphman? Endearing? Friederich shook his head. Lea was besotted. Are all children so fascinated by other children, by babies, as is Heinrich?

  He smiled for the first time since coming to Poland, and it warmed him through. Who would not love a child? And what could be better for my Lea? I could not give her a child, but sharing in the lives of these children gives her a family. It gives her life again.

  Jason waited for Rachel two hours past their appointed meeting time at the Tiergarten café. He’d read through two morning newspapers and finished two plum turnovers and three cups of black coffee—or something like coffee—thanking his lucky stars that foreign correspondents received special ration cards. Still, she hadn’t shown.

  He raked tense fingers through his hair, massaged the back of his neck. Stupid, Young—stupid! No story is worth this. What kind of risk did I put you through, Rachel? If they killed Kristine . . . if your father was in on it . . . if he found you going through his files . . . He couldn’t complete the thought.

  He’d determined, for both their sakes, not to telephone her at her hotel, not to have her telephone him at the news office. He’d bet a week’s wages that the Reich had every phone in both places tapped. But two hours was too long. Something’s happened.

  Jason threw coins to the table and set pace for the hotel. He couldn’t leave her in the lurch, no matter what that meant.

  He’d nearly reached Wilhelmstrasse when he saw Rachel’s slim figure, curves wrapped in a navy traveling suit, emerge from the stream of morning shoppers. He didn’t try to di
sguise his relief, but the tension in her face drew him.

  He met her as she crossed the street. “You sure know how to leave a guy hanging, Miss Kramer.” He hefted the case she carried. “Going on a trip?”

  She pushed past him, never slowing, not looking him in the eye. “Help me get a plane, a ship—whatever will get me out of Germany and to New York the fastest. I need it now.” She glanced over her shoulder. “And not from Berlin.”

  He matched her pace, confused, needing to understand what that meant, what had happened, what it meant for Amelie, knowing she wouldn’t ask such a thing without reason. “Can we change your ticket?”

  She missed a beat, and he thought her voice cracked. “Father’s holding our tickets—at least he said he was.” She walked half a block, heels clicking the pavement in sharp rhythm. “I’ve no idea what’s safe. But I have money. I emptied his cache.”

  What happened? “Does Dr. Kramer know you’re leaving?”

  “Not yet. I waited until he’d gone.” She walked faster, her voice coming thick. “You were right about him. And his research.” She passed the camera and a small bag of film canisters to him. “You’ll find everything you need there. Use it as you wish, except—” She stopped abruptly, and the pedestrians behind them nearly collided.

  Jason pulled her aside, saw her bite her lip.

  “There are files about me—about others like me. Promise you won’t—you won’t use those pictures.”

  Jason frowned, not knowing what she was talking about.

  “Promise me!” she insisted.

  “I promise; I promise,” he said.

  “Be careful.” Rachel locked eyes with him. “Be so very careful.”