Saving Amelie

by Cathy Gohlke

  Lea laughed, pulling back from her sister. “I love our Oma, but her clothes don’t suit us.”

  Rachel swiped new tears with the backs of her hands, knowing she’d probably made rivers in her makeup.

  Lea pulled her handkerchief from her pocket, passing it to her sister. “When Friederich wakes I will let him know every hour of every day that I love him. I will let him know through the way I look at him, smile at him, by the way I touch his hand in passing. I can’t blame you for the same.”

  “But Oma said—”

  “What—that you shouldn’t risk the theatre class in the village?”

  Rachel nodded.

  “Oma is afraid. She’s right to be afraid—for all of us. But this is a good thing—a better and more needful thing than I first realized. The curate told me some of what is happening to Jews sent to Poland. It’s worse than you can imagine.”

  “But I could have . . . Maybe you should teach the classes, and I can watch the children you bring.”

  Lea snorted. “Rachel, I can’t teach acting. And you’re terrible with Amelie; how will you keep three or four little ones occupied and quiet?”

  “How will I teach a class if I can’t do that?”

  “Because it’s theatre—it’s what you love. You really were very good in the village today. It was only that little bit of time.”

  Rachel looked at her sister as if she’d not seen her before. Where had this new version, this generous new twin, come from?

  “We must form a truce. We’re more than sisters, more than a team now. We must behave as one person, think as one person. That’s what will convince them that we are only one.”

  “I told you that.”

  “I didn’t think it was possible. But today I met our first orphan. Today I know we must make this work. She’s the only one of her family left—and only because she was at a friend’s house when the Gestapo came for her parents.”

  “Where—?”

  “She’ll be here after dark. Forestry Chief Schrade will bring her as part of a delivery of firewood.”

  “Who is Forestry Chief Schrade?” Rachel felt the panic rise in her throat at the notion of more characters being suddenly thrust into trusted parts of the play.

  “There are more people involved than I realized—more helping, and in different ways. We’re not alone. Still, the less we know, the safer for everyone.”

  Rachel nodded. She knew that was true. Jason and Sheila had said the same.

  “There’s something else.” Lea smiled mischievously. “Herr Young—I think perhaps he loves you too. The way his eyes followed you was far more dangerous than the way you responded to him.”

  Rachel’s heart tripped. She could only remember the smart young American woman at his side—very close to his side.

  42

  FROM THE CUPBOARD, Rachel heard the kitchen door close behind the man she’d heard Oma call Chief Schrade.

  “Rachel,” Oma called softly, “come; you’ll want to meet your new roommate.”

  Rachel pushed open the cupboard door, prepared to look down into the brown eyes of a frightened Jewish child. She wasn’t prepared for the petite but curvaceous young blonde woman who stepped from the sack in the middle of the kitchen floor.

  “You!” Rachel exclaimed. “You’re the photographer!”

  The girl’s brown eyes widened and she nodded, looking from one sister to the other.

  “That was her disguise,” Lea said. “Rivka, this is Rachel, my sister.”

  “You’re . . . so alike,” Rivka stammered, not sounding American at all.

  “And this is our grandmother, Frau Breisner. Welcome to our home, Rivka.”

  “Yes, welcome.” Oma reached for the girl. “Twins—my granddaughters are twins,” she said in answer to Rivka’s blatant stare. “Rachel, show Rivka her sleeping quarters while I heat a bowl of soup.” Oma patted the girl’s shoulder—the girl whose wide-eyed expression looked anything but grown-up. “You must be starving.”

  Rivka nodded but looked at Rachel as if afraid she’d bite her.

  “Go on,” Lea encouraged. “Rachel will explain our routines. I’ll look in on Friederich.”

  The knots in Rachel’s stomach tightened, but she motioned for Rivka to follow her through the small cupboard and into the wall, up the ladder to the attic.

  “This is very cleverly done,” Rivka whispered once they’d reached the attic floor.

  “Yes. You must be quiet here—not a word. Not a sound.”

  “Yes.” Rivka lowered her eyes.

  “That’s Amelie.” Rachel pointed to a small lump of covers nearest the stovepipe. “She can’t hear or speak properly, but she senses things—so don’t startle her. She’s apt to cry out, and someone might hear her.”

  Rivka didn’t speak. Rachel felt an unfamiliar urgency to defend Amelie. “She responds to some hand motions and facial expressions, but she doesn’t know what you’re saying.”

  “She’s the little girl Jason was telling me about—he’s been so worried about her,” Rivka exclaimed softly. “He taught me some sign language, in case she was still here—how to call you ‘Aunt Rachel,’ and lots of things. Oh, I’m glad she’s safe!”

  Rachel bristled. She didn’t know whether to be pleased that Jason had taught Rivka signs for “Aunt Rachel” or to be miffed that he’d confided so much to her. Rachel pulled her pallet nearer Amelie’s, leaving Rivka’s nearer the ladder.

  “My sister said you came alone?” Something perverse in Rachel made her ask the question, made her emphasize that Lea was her sister, that she had a sister, had family.

  “Yes.” Rivka turned away.

  Rachel was immediately sorry, ashamed of her intended cut, but didn’t soften her tone. “You have nightclothes?”

  “My chemise,” Rivka whispered. “Everything I have, I’m wearing.”

  Rachel bit her lip. “Get ready for bed, then come downstairs. Oma will have your soup ready soon. But you must be ready to climb into the cupboard right away—stand on the rungs of the ladder anytime you hear a noise outside or a knock at the door. The trapdoor into the attic must remain closed in case we’re taken by surprise. We can take no chances.”

  “I understand.”

  “I hope so—for all our sakes.” But Rachel couldn’t look Rivka in the eye. She climbed down the ladder and crawled through the cupboard, letting the younger girl fend for herself.

  Once the house was quiet and Rachel heard the rhythmic, whiffling breath of Amelie and Rivka, she turned to her side. She’d been nothing but cruel to Rivka. Why? The girl had lost everything, everyone dear to her, and Rachel, though a captive in Oberammergau, was surrounded by people—by family—who loved her, risked their lives to hide her. Why couldn’t she extend that same kindness to Rivka, who needed it so desperately?

  She rolled over, knowing the answer. Is Jason only helping the girl, or is he interested in her? He certainly looked interested as she modeled that necklace before him.

  Friederich, still locked in his cone of darkness, heard the whispered prayers of Lea and the Scripture readings of Oma. Other dreams, other voices came and went—whispers of women, prayers of his longtime pastor, the urgency of men he didn’t recognize. But they swirled and mixed, convoluting with nightmare orders barked by his sergeant, the roar of artillery, and the blasting of dynamite. At times he felt the heat of fires, heard insanity unleashed in bloodcurdling screams. Just as suddenly a cool Alpine breeze, just off the mountains, soothed his brow. Sometimes tiny drops of moisture traveled the length of his arm—warm rivulets of rain or tears he could feel, or imagined. Once he was certain he tasted Oma’s potato soup. He tried so hard to reach out, to touch—if only his mind could make his muscles move his hands, will his mouth open to speak, his eyes to see. Still the darkness prevailed, and he could not reach beyond it.

  Rachel stumbled through the children’s names in her first theatre class, but the improvisational game she taught them created distraction and won them over.
When the hour ended, small feet skipped and flaxen braids bounced through the classroom door.

  Rachel was happily repacking small props after her second class with the children when Curate Bauer stopped in the classroom.

  “We’ve come to a conclusion,” the curate confided miserably to the woman he assumed was Lea. “There is nothing more to be done. The board met last night. Father Oberlanger notified the local newspapers this morning, and I sent word to Herr Young in Munich for his foreign press. The 1940 Passion Play has been canceled.” He searched her face. “I am so sorry.”

  Nothing could have pleased Rachel more, given that she—pretending to be Lea, a woman and a Protestant—would not have been allowed to have anything to do with play rehearsals. Without the Passion Play, she was still needed. It was a different thing entirely—comparatively nothing—to organize after-school theatre classes in the wartime absence of their normal Passion Play directors. But Rachel dared not show her relief. Lea and Oma had explained the vital impact of the play on the villagers—the fulfillment of their vow to perform every ten years, the essential income the play brought through tourists for hotels, restaurants, and the many woodcarving industries. “I don’t know what to say. The entire village will be so very disappointed.”

  “It’s this war—the war we’re told the British have forced upon us.” He almost grunted. “Too many of our leading players have been conscripted. Germans can’t come—no Benzin for pleasure trips. And food, meat—everything rationed. And of course the British and Americans won’t come. Not that they’d be welcome.” He shrugged. “When this accursed war is over, they’ll want to come again, perhaps. And perhaps Germany will want them.”

  She’d no idea what to say to comfort him. “There’s always 1941—the war will surely be done by then.”

  He looked at her as if she’d spoken sacrilege.

  “Or 1942?” She tried to make light, to break the awkward silence.

  But he simply frowned, studying her face.

  They usually do it on the decade turn, but it can’t matter if they need the money, the business. Whatever she’d said was not comforting him. So she turned, finished packing her bag, and bade him good night. But all the way home she wondered and worried what the curate was thinking—for oh so clearly, he was.

  She’d been careful of her posture, her accent. Her clothes were Lea’s. She’d even tried to think like her sister! What had he seen in her that discomfited him so?

  Lea had insisted to Curate Bauer that the children and their parents choose either choir or drama—not both. He’d agreed that it seemed only fair to spread the opportunity and to develop seriously the unique talents of the children. For Rachel and Lea, it also kept the children from comparing too closely Frau Hartman, teacher of the choir, with Frau Hartman, teacher of drama classes.

  The first two classes had gone far better than Rachel had dared hope, with the exception of the too-constant attentions of one of the Hitler Youth—a boy the others called Maximillion. The children were more enthusiastic, more joyfully exasperating and wonderfully alive than she’d imagined, the hour all too short. If only she hadn’t drawn the attention of the curate. If only she knew what she’d done to raise his curiosity!

  It took thirty minutes and a pot of tea for Lea to calm Rachel after she’d returned from the market, to reassure her that everything would be all right with the curate.

  “You didn’t see his face. He suspects something—wonders something.”

  “If he does, he’ll tell me. He trusts me. We’re hiding Rivka at his request!”

  Rachel nodded, trying to breathe.

  “Now, tell me about your class, about the children. The curate mentioned that we have a repeat student between the two classes when I saw him in town this afternoon. I could only smile as though I knew what he was talking about.”

  “Heinrich Helphman. It’s as though he has nowhere else to go each afternoon after school and no inclination to go home. And I really think he’s in love with us.” Rachel smiled at last. “And that Maximillion Grieser.”

  “Maximillion? He can’t be part of the class. He’s at least fifteen!”

  “He hangs around, offers to carry my books or move props—even to build anything I want. He’s puffed up like a peacock, but I’m sure he’s harmless—just smitten.”

  Lea frowned. “I asked Curate Bauer to keep him away. Please don’t encourage him. He could be trouble.”

  Rachel bristled. “I never—” She stopped. Changing the subject was safer. “Heinrich’s a creative handful but can be deathly serious.” She set her cup in its saucer. “My professor always said that surviving real-life drama is the best training for the stage. I don’t know what it is, but I suspect something has happened in his life, something that has given him the ability to bring depth to the characters he portrays.”

  “I know his mother isn’t well. She lost a child last year. I assume stillborn. I only know she went into the hospital to deliver but came home with empty arms. Her husband was conscripted soon after. She seems a very sad woman.”

  “Heinrich is her only?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, he’s quite enough for two or three,” Rachel quipped.

  Lea smiled absently. “At least she has him.”

  The silence stretched between them until the ticking of the clock intruded.

  “I hadn’t realized . . . ,” Rachel began. “With Friederich—with the way things are for him . . . you won’t have children.” The comprehension of what this must mean to her sister—her sister who bloomed in the presence of children not even her own—struck Rachel with an unexpected force.

  Lea straightened and rose to place her cup and saucer in the sink, her back to Rachel.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  Lea stood very still.

  For the second time that day, Rachel wished she’d kept her mouth closed. She didn’t know what to do, had hardly ever extended herself into another’s pain. But she felt this, felt it for Lea—who was part of her, and growing more so each day. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

  Lea shook her head once but continued leaning over the sink. The ticking of the clock on the wall swallowed the room.

  “Tell me something,” Lea said without turning round.

  Rachel waited.

  “At the Institute in Frankfurt . . . did they ever . . . did you ever have surgery?”

  “For what?”

  “Anything.”

  “Not that I remember. No, I’m sure I didn’t.”

  “You were never there for a prolonged visit? A few days? A week or more? They never put you under anesthesia, as far as you know?”

  “No. It was always just two or three hours or so every two years—routine examinations. Sometimes too probing, but general. And maybe lunch at a fine restaurant with the doctors, or dinner and the theatre—an opera in the evening with my father and Dr. Verschuer, or that creepy Dr. Mengele. They were always very nice—very encouraging toward me. Fawning, really. I didn’t care for that. And I hated being told I had to go. Why?”

  Lea had gone rigid.

  “What is it?”

  When Lea turned toward her, her face starkly white, Rachel sat back.

  The sisters stared at one another. Rachel could not grasp what had happened. Was it because Lea could never have children with her husband? Had something horrible been done to her at the Institute? “What happened to you there?”

  Lea opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.

  “Lea?” Rachel reached for her sister, but a sharp rap at the kitchen door made them both jump.

  Rachel grabbed her cup and saucer and made for the cupboard.

  43

  LEA TRIED to still the rapid beating of her heart, like the banging of bricks within her chest and brain. She flattened her palms against her cheeks, as if that would hold her face in place. The rap on the door came again.

  “Frau Hartman!”

  Lea took a breath, then opened the door.
“Chief Schrade! I—we weren’t expecting you today.” She tried to think if there was something she should remember—something Oma had said or Curate Bauer had implied. Not another refugee come to stay—not yet!

  “A surprise—a gift from your journalist friend, the renter of your house.” He winked.

  “A gift?”

  “Stand back—just a bit of space needed!” He hefted a Norway spruce through the kitchen door.

  “A tree?”

  “Ja! Ja! A Christmas tree! Herr Young said it was little enough to send his benefactress for allowing him a place to stay. He also said to tell you that he hopes to be back again soon—another story he’s working on for his American newspaper.”

  “It’s lovely.”

  Oma appeared in the low doorway, hands clasped to her chest. “A tree! A Christmas tree! Oh, Chief Schrade, how good of you!”

  “It’s not me you must thank.”

  “Shall we set it in your room, Lea? When Friederich wakes up it will be the first thing he sees.”

  Chief Schrade laughed, eyeing Lea appreciatively, making her blush. “Nein, Frau Breisner; it will be the second, I think.” He hefted the tree again. “Show me the way.”

  Once Forestry Chief Schrade had left, Oma called Rachel, Rivka, and Amelie from their hiding place to see the tree, then sent Rachel back to the attic to find the box of ornaments.

  When Rachel returned, Oma’s arm was wrapped around Rivka’s shoulders. “I don’t suppose you’ve ever decorated a tree, my dear?”

  Rivka solemnly shook her head.

  “Well, you’re in for a treat!” Oma declared. Amelie, taking in all she could, clapped her small hands and danced. Oma laughed.

  But Rivka looked as if she’d been asked to eat pork against all her Jewish upbringing.

  “It smells wonderful!” Rachel ran her fingers through the scented branches, glad in some perverse way that Rivka was not enamored of the tree. Maybe that will help her realize she and Jason are worlds apart.

  “Best to wait until the children have gone,” Lea counseled, paler than usual.