Saving Amelie

by Cathy Gohlke

  Jason sat back, holding Amelie, but raised one hand in surrender, waiting for a better suggestion.

  “She was alive, Oma,” Lea whispered.

  Oma looked up. “I wouldn’t have thought you would agree to . . .”

  Lea swallowed, her eyes fastened on Amelie’s back. “I don’t want her to go. But we don’t know how long we can safely hide her; and if, as Herr Young says, there’s talk in Berlin of invading Switzerland . . . I want her alive more than I want her with me.”

  Jason looked up at Rachel, still standing in the doorway to the kitchen. “You’ve not said anything. What do you think?”

  “It’s so sudden.” Rachel felt the rush of adrenaline and the crashing of her confidence at once, mixed in with her growing attraction to Jason. She wanted the others to clear the room, to leave them alone, to let them talk. And she wanted to push back the hank of sandy hair that kept falling across his forehead.

  Jason brought her focus to bear. “What do you think about Amelie traveling in the box? Or is there some way to have her travel in disguise with you—or in the same train car as you?”

  “No.” Rachel knew she said it too quickly. But she didn’t want to be responsible for Amelie. “I don’t think I could keep her quiet. And I’m not . . . not natural with her.”

  “I agree,” Lea said. “It would be too dangerous for them both.”

  “Laudanum,” Oma said quietly. “That’s what we gave babies in the hospital during the last war to make them sleep.”

  Lea blinked. “But—”

  “Give her just enough to make her sleep most of the time—not enough to do any permanent damage. It will not only keep her quiet for a few hours; it will keep her from being so terrified of the box.”

  “Whom do we send the box to?” Lea asked.

  “It could be mine—part of my luggage. A trunk perhaps, rather than a box.” This sounded more like a play Rachel could comprehend.

  But Oma disagreed. “If anyone is suspicious of you or your papers, they will search your luggage. It could be the undoing of you both.”

  “Friederich’s work,” Lea said.

  “What?”

  “When the box first came, I thought it was wood for Friederich—a mistaken delivery.” Lea leaned forward. “Rachel could travel as herself—at least, as the middle-aged woman she has papers for. And I could travel with the box. We’d make a separate compartment for Amelie, just as we’ve done with the cupboard, and place the carvings in the top. I’d travel as though I’m going to sell my husband’s woodcarvings, to find new business clients. I could, perhaps, take them all the way to Austria, or even Switzerland.” She turned to Rachel. “We could meet there—or you could buy some and I could have the box relabeled to go with you.”

  Rachel could hardly believe Lea would put herself at such risk. “If they discover you, they’ll—”

  “They’ll do no more to me than they will do to you—or to Amelie. And I could care for her along the way.”

  Oma held her hands to her cheeks, her eyes shining with unshed tears. “It’s so dangerous—for all of you. Can’t we just keep on as we are?”

  Jason shifted Amelie to his other knee. “There’s more news from Berlin.” He looked up at Rachel.

  Her mouth went dry. “Father?”

  He nodded, searching her eyes.

  “Tell me.” Rachel stood bravely. “Tell us all.”

  Jason shared what he’d heard—that Dr. Rudolph Kramer had died of heart failure in prison after thorough interrogation.

  Rachel could only imagine what horrors an interrogation from Gerhardt and his cohorts meant. But her father could not tell what he didn’t know. Had she betrayed him, left him to suffer at Gerhardt’s hands? But how do I live with my father’s betrayal? With my stupidity—my inability to see that he and even Mother used me? How do I live with knowing that he didn’t love me—that I was nothing but a laboratory rat for him?

  She turned away, refusing to cry, to shed tears for the man, and yet she couldn’t push the crushing weight from her chest, the hope that he’d not suffered long, and the regretful wish that all she’d believed three months ago about her adoptive parents was true.

  She heard the scrape of a chair and Amelie’s small feet settle on the floor. Jason’s hands found her shoulders. She turned into his chest, grateful for the arms that enveloped her.

  Gerhardt Schlick’s driver pulled to a stop before the newly painted barracks on the outskirts of Oberammergau just after midnight. His chauffeur opened the door and stepped smartly aside.

  Gerhardt checked his watch by his cigarette lighter. The streets of the Passion Village, shrouded in darkness, lay sleepy and quiet. He smiled as he stepped from the car.

  The more Gerhardt thought about it, the more convinced he’d become that Jason Young was connected in some way to Rachel and her family in Oberammergau. A little intimidation was all that had been required to obtain the information he wanted from the reporter Eldridge. Gerhardt shook his head at the naiveté of the American press. Hitler should keep them in Germany for his own amusement if nothing more.

  Another telephone call might have given Gerhardt all he needed. But that was too simple, and if Young was more intricately, intimately connected to Rachel than it appeared, such a call could tip the scales unfavorably.

  It was significant that Young had been reassigned to Munich in time for the Führer’s speech to commemorate his 1923 beer hall putsch. Reporters from every paper would surely need stories marking the anniversary of Hitler’s early attempt to rouse the populace and seize power. And Gerhardt himself had been ordered to cover the speech in an official capacity.

  He holstered his revolver. With all of Germany focused on Munich, no one would suspect a raid in the little village amid the celebrations.

  He’d dispatched SS troops and attack dogs to Oberammergau, where they would be barracked and standing by. In the early-morning hours, they’d greet Oberammergau in a manner the locals would not soon forget. Midnight raids increased terror but too often allowed escapes into the darkness.

  Gerhardt moistened his lips in anticipation. When the village was just rising, he’d blare the sirens and release the dogs. Every house and barn would be searched, every shop, the church, the school, every square centimeter of every building and haystack. If Rachel Kramer was hiding in Oberammergau, he would certainly find her.

  Before leaving Berlin, he’d placed a final call to Frankfurt. The doctors agreed that it was too early to close the case. Identical twins were not so plentiful that the experiment, particularly one of such long duration, should be abandoned prematurely—particularly in the light of Gerhardt’s new leads.

  But he didn’t have long. Dr. Mengele had expressed novel ideas for obtaining new sets of twins for his experiments through concentration camps—experiments unsuitable for Aryan bloodlines. They’d conceded that Gerhardt’s bloodline was still of interest . . . as long as time didn’t overrun his prime. Dr. Mengele had laughed at his own joke. Gerhardt had not.

  He had no intention of allowing Rachel Kramer to slip through his fingers again. It was not that he cared to please the good doctors beyond what notice the experiment might bring him within the ranks of the SS, or that he could not find a more desirable woman. Stunning women were plentiful and certainly eager to fill any need he required. But finding and mastering Rachel Kramer had become a matter of the hunt, of personal pride—a matter of honor. He’d gladly crucify all those who’d helped her.

  Gerhardt tugged the fingers of his gloves into place and smiled. That should provide a fitting new scene for their Passion Play.

  35

  JASON HAD STAYED past curfew, helping Lea prepare the crate. She said the compartment was smaller than the one Amelie had arrived in. But Lea had lined it in soft blankets, even a new pink crocheted piece that he suspected she’d made for the child of her hopes. Only he knew from Rachel’s file that there would be no child for Lea.

  Lea was clever with wood—things her hu
sband had taught her—and knew how to make the lid secure for travel but easy to remove.

  It made Jason sick to think he was sending the two girls he cared most about into such danger—one so beautiful he could barely breathe when he’d held her, and one so small and vulnerable he wanted to stop time to preserve her innocence.

  For the first time he felt he better understood “costly grace”—sacrificial living and dying. He only prayed that he wasn’t being stupid and that God would watch over them, care for them. He’d whispered a prayer over Rachel before leaving for his room at the Hartmans’ house and had taken a couple of pictures on a fresh roll of film—one of Rachel holding Amelie, the two of them smiling at each other, and one of Amelie’s hands lifted to Rachel’s face as Rachel faced him. If he was not mistaken, Rachel’s eyes held all he hoped.

  By the time the sisters said their good-byes and Oma tearfully released Rachel with vows to find her after the madness of Hitler had passed, gray dawn crept over the mountain—first in lavender hues, then in shades of rose, amber, and melon. Lowing cattle, their bells jingling, heralded their morning milking from the outskirts of town.

  Rachel closed her eyes as, bundled against the cold, she walked down the hill and through the village, toward the train station, her frame slightly bent and her gait uneven—a middle-aged woman with a touch of rheumatism. But she was glad to walk slowly. She wanted to ingrain every sound, savor every smell, every nuance of Oberammergau and this window into her mother’s—her real mother’s—and her grandmother’s and sister’s world.

  Getting out of the village was the important thing. If anyone stopped her, it would likely be here, where everyone knew their neighbors’ business.

  Lea had wagered that fewer villagers would be Munich-bound on the earliest train. Once they reached the big city, she’d said, they could more easily blend in. No one would likely know or recognize them. They must still pretend not to know each other, and Rachel must maintain her disguise and be on her guard, but they could breathe a little easier until they reached the Swiss border as long as they submitted their papers as required and did or portrayed nothing suspicious to alert Nazi patrols.

  Lea would leave half an hour later. It would be best for the villagers to see her leave, to know her business. It might rouse gossip for a woman to try to sell her absent husband’s carvings, but stranger things had been done in this new wartime.

  The borders were what worried Rachel most. They surely still had her photograph, were surely still on the watch for her. But if they thought Rachel might attempt to reach Oberammergau, wouldn’t they also be keeping track of Lea’s whereabouts?

  Jason had thought so—wasn’t sure Lea’s participation was a good idea, except that she could be seen as truly innocent. There was nothing to link her to anyone on the train, and that might save Amelie.

  Rachel had purchased her ticket and was about to enter the railcar when she heard someone calling.

  “Frau Hartman!”

  Rachel tried not to stare as the ruddy-cheeked priest thrust his hand toward Lea. Rachel took a seat in the railcar and lowered the window less than an inch, enough to hear.

  “Curate Bauer—guten Morgen!” Lea returned the greeting.

  “You’re out early this morning.” The priest nodded toward her luggage. “Off on a trip?”

  “Ja, ja. I’m going to see what I can sell of Friederich’s Nativities, a little bit to tide us over until he returns.”

  Concern—or disbelief, Rachel thought—sprang to the priest’s eyes. He eyed Lea as though he were a doctor, checking for symptoms of flu. “A good—a very good plan.” Pity—he looks at her with pity! “I, too, am going to Munich—just for the day.” He hesitated. “You mustn’t worry about the children. I’ll take the rehearsal tomorrow myself. It won’t matter if they miss today.”

  “Ja—of course! Danke, Curate Bauer. I should have spoken with you first. I’m so very sorry.”

  “It is no matter. I’m sure we can manage. I’ll get Frau Fenstermacher to help me for the remainder of the week, or the next. You won’t be gone longer than that, will you?”

  “Nein, nein. Only a few days. Just to sell what I can for the Christmas season—the Advent markets should help.”

  The priest searched her eyes, pity and questions in their blue orbs. He hefted Lea’s bag and they disappeared into the car ahead.

  Rachel let out the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding and moved to a seat nearer the rear of the car. She pushed her traveling case onto the shelf above, then took a window seat and closed her eyes, feigning sleepiness, hoping no one would engage her in conversation.

  Minutes passed, and though she was conscious of the time, it seemed that the train delayed. She felt more than saw that the car filled and the fresh air diminished. The blast of the conductor’s whistle and his last call to board helped loosen the vise grip in her lungs. Still, the car did not move.

  She peeked through her lashes. Lea was sitting six or so rows ahead. She couldn’t mistake the honey-colored braids wound just above the nape of her neck and beneath her hat brim.

  At the front of the car stood two SS officers. All heads lifted toward them. Hands reached automatically into purses and coat pockets for papers. Everyone needed papers, must show papers on request, must have papers on their person at all times.

  Rachel knew, before they’d ever reached her, that Lea was their target. She was their reason for harassing the locals and holding up the train. They were just making a scene, a show. It was every bit a play upon the stage as they made their way down the aisle toward her sister.

  Rachel opened her leather purse. As she pulled out papers, a man—the priest who’d spoken to Lea—stood, blocking the path of the SS officer. Every eye widened at the man’s daring. “Is this delay necessary, Rottenführer Vondgaurdt? You know us. You can see we are all locals here. You’ve checked our papers a dozen times.”

  “Sit down, priest.” The officer clapped his hand on the man’s shoulder and pushed the priest to his seat, continuing his slow descent of the aisle.

  Rachel forced herself to breathe deeply, evenly, to keep her heart from jumping through her chest, to ignore the menace in the officer’s face.

  “Frau Hartman.” The officer stopped. “I haven’t seen you on the train for some time. May I ask where you are going this fine morning?”

  Even Rachel knew he was playing with her. But Lea rose to the occasion.

  “I am taking our Führer’s advice at last and taking myself to see our Fatherland.”

  “You are making the joy of journey? Alone?” He did not look amused.

  But Lea cast embarrassed glances from side to side, taking in her neighbors. Rachel’s pulse quickened to realize that her sister had more of the actress about her than she’d imagined. “If you must know, Herr Rottenführer, I am going to sell some of my husband’s carvings.” She looked up bravely. “I haven’t heard from him in weeks, and I must sell them to care for my grandmother and myself.”

  “So,” the Nazi grunted, ignoring her confession, “our busy little choir director—a bee too busy to join the Nazi Women’s Party—has decided to tour the Reich? Before winter sets in with a vengeance? You are not too busy, Frau Hartman, with the training of the children’s choir—the Reich’s future Passion Players—to be away at this time? Just before Christmas?”

  Rachel felt her heart rise in her throat, until all went as dry as cardboard. That was the mistake she’d seen in the curate’s eyes. Lea would never leave her children’s choir at such a time!

  She nearly stood, determined to save her sister. But before she could speak the priest jumped up again. “We’ve arranged everything, Herr Rottenführer. Why do you bother us? Frau Fenstermacher and I will take over the children’s rehearsals until Frau Hartman returns.” The priest feigned impatience, but Rachel knew he did so at his own peril.

  “Sit down, priest.” The order came sharper, the officer’s patience gone. “I am afraid that your presence is r
equired in Oberammergau, Frau Hartman. You realize, of course, that the children cannot be without you at this time.” He smiled with his mouth, but his eyes sent shivers down Rachel’s spine. “Children are important to you, are they not?”

  Rachel heard Lea’s involuntary gasp. She knew there was more than she grasped in Lea’s change in posture.

  “It is only for a few days, Herr Rottenführer, and all has been arranged. This is my first excursion in months.”

  “Since Frankfurt—if I am not mistaken.” He tipped his jaw. “I thought not. You see, we place great value on the Reich’s citizens.” He shook his head and sighed audibly. “It is a great pity, of course. But Oberammergau cannot do without its Frau Hartman—not today, and not in the near future. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Herr Rottenführer, I ask you to please reconsider. This once.”

  “We prefer to keep all our pawns on the chessboard, where we can clearly see them.” He stood at attention. “You will leave the train, Frau Hartman. Or do you need assistance?”

  Rachel silently begged Lea not to fight back, not to argue, though she knew her sister—her sister who’d seemed so mousy—had grown a determined streak, especially where Amelie’s safety was concerned.

  Lea stood and stepped into the aisle.

  “You’ve made a wise decision, Frau Hartman,” the officer mocked. She did not look him in the eye. “This is your luggage?” He reached for the case above her head and set it at her feet. When she bent to retrieve it, he pushed back her hat and stroked her hair. “Such lovely Bavarian braids.”

  Rachel’s fury and fear grew inside her, but the priest stood once more. “My journey can wait. I will help you, Frau Hartman.”

  As Lea stepped forward, the Rottenführer placed his baton across the aisle in front of her, blocking her path. “Do not attempt to leave the village again.”

  She didn’t speak.

  But Rachel caught the priest’s fearful and pitying glance and realized that he knew—knew she was hiding something.