Saving Amelie

by Cathy Gohlke

  “Children?” Rachel’s eyes widened. She can’t be thinking of taking in more!

  “The Klopfelsingen, the caroling by the village children,” Lea reassured her. “I’ll walk with them. You’ll be able to hear, but stay hidden. We don’t want a houseful of women seen peeking through curtains.”

  “There’s something else,” Oma whispered conspiratorially, crooking her finger, beckoning toward the kitchen. “Come see what else Chief Schrade brought us—another gift from your young man.” She smiled at Rachel, and Rachel wondered if at last she’d been forgiven for her faux pas at the Advent market.

  “Carp!” Rivka squealed at the floundering fish splashing in the metal tub.

  “Oh, it’s soaked my floor!” But Oma laughed.

  “A carp for Christmas!” Lea wondered. “We’ve not had one in three years.”

  Oma smiled. “It can swim until Christmas Eve.” She cuddled Amelie from behind. “And you, young lady, can come see it every day.”

  Amelie, her face the picture of light, reached up to pat Oma’s dimpled wreath of smiles, as though she’d understood every word.

  Jason was sick of Christmas, or sick for Christmas. He wasn’t sure which. He only knew that spending the holiday in a city at war, with no presents, no family, and spartan food, was lonelier and bleaker than any other time of year.

  Germans were Christmas-tree crazy—even bigger on them than folks were back home. No matter how rationed, no matter how poverty-stricken or desperate or glum the people might be, they still found a way to decorate a tree in their front window. But blackout regulations forced every shade to be drawn, every drape pinned tight. Not one glowing candle or electric bulb shone into the night. And there was something lonelier, something colder about that than if the trees had not been there at all.

  So he’d taken the “Stille Nacht” assignment in Oberndorf, home of the Christmas carol’s first performance. Nostalgia was written all over the feature—a sentiment Jason had studiously avoided in years gone by. But this year, surrounded by the darkness, the vile hatred and misery of Nazis and propaganda he could no longer stomach, and most especially because Rachel and Amelie were in a place he dared not go, he felt the need to get away.

  It would be good to be part of something pure, something holy, if only for an hour. He wanted to hear and sing with locals the simple, sacred words of Joseph Mohr’s poem to the tune composed by Franz Gruber.

  The tiny, black-domed white chapel, known far and wide as the Stille-Nacht-Kapelle, stood on its own hillside nestled amid evergreens and festooned in pine garlands and red ribbons. Octagonal and noted for its amazing acoustics, the memorial chapel had opened a couple of years before—long after the flood-damaged original church had been torn down.

  Jason circled the chapel, taking it in from every side. He’d already spent an hour with locals over a stein and thirty minutes with the clergy. The article nearly wrote itself. As glad as he was to be there, what Jason wanted most was to hear the high sweet voices of Lea’s young choir sing the beautiful hymn.

  Silent night! Holy night!

  All is calm, all is bright.

  Round yon virgin mother and child—

  Holy infant, so tender and mild.

  Sleep in heavenly peace!

  Sleep in heavenly peace!

  For the first time in Jason’s life, Christ was more than the holy infant—more than a Christmas baby in a manger. He was Messiah to the Jews and humanity’s Savior—the Savior that Germany and all the world so desperately needed. Jason’s breath caught at the wonder and the unprecedented love of what He’d given to complete that offering. It would have been so much easier for Jesus to have turned His back on the world—the world that then, and even now, so largely rejected Him.

  That’s what he’d seen as he’d read through Nachfolge a second time. The Bible passages Bonhoeffer expounded upon had given Jason’s ego—his arrogance—a beating, but he was discovering a new life, a new identity in Christ, and clear vision. He was being changed—transformed in some way he couldn’t explain. And the God he’d never really known before would not let him go.

  It had been easier to agree with Frau Bergstrom to move and hide children—Jewish and others the Reich wanted to destroy—than to embrace the notion of denying self, dying to self, and living only to Christ. Taking risks and walking a knife’s edge was one thing—even the adrenaline rush was addictive. Loving his enemy and reaching out to him by really living in the world—not escaping from it, even through writing—was altogether new, and Jason needed time to absorb that idea, to understand what it meant, how it could play out in the midst of war.

  Shadows spread across the snow-covered hill. Jason circled the chapel again and shoved cold hands deep into his coat pockets. The townspeople would soon fill the chapel and swarm the hillside. He wished Rachel could be there to share the coming service with him, to sing about heavenly peace. He wondered if she’d understand what that meant, what it meant to him.

  He wondered if Rachel would like his gift—if Rivka had given it to her yet or if she was really waiting until Christmas morning.

  He wished for the photograph he’d taken of Rachel and Amelie. But the risk of developing it had been too great. After his last visit with Gerhardt Schlick and friends, he dared not carry such evidence in his possession. Even if Schlick didn’t recognize the profile of his own daughter dressed like a small boy, he’d never mistake Rachel Kramer for Lea Hartman, not the way she’d looked at him as he’d snapped the shutter. He’d made a risky detour to retrieve the film from Lea Hartman’s house when he’d visited Oberammergau’s Advent market. Now it was tucked away for safekeeping, waiting for the day it could be safely developed. In the meantime, he could dream.

  Wind and snow swirled round and round, rattling the windowpanes of Oma’s snug house. Coals shifted, burning low in the stove. The radio crackled and sputtered until they couldn’t make out the announcer’s words. “This weather!” Oma sighed as she shelved the last supper dish and dried her hands on her apron. “I’m not sure we’ll make it down the hill to church tomorrow.”

  “I’d best bring in more firewood before bedtime.” Lea pulled her coat over her shoulders.

  “We’ve enough coal for the stove, and you brought in a load of firewood earlier. We’ll not use half that before morning.”

  “But imagine how deep this snow will be if it keeps up. I’d rather trudge through a foot than two.” She pulled on mittens and pushed into the night.

  Oma sighed. It was work Friederich had done—until this wretched war. Now Lea worked for them all. Rachel helped in the house, though it didn’t seem to occur to her to contribute to the heavier labor. Oma knew Rachel was trying to change, to carry her weight, to lay down her inbred sense of entitlement. Family life, where each lived for the other and all lived for God, was new to her. “My fish out of water,” Oma murmured. It will be a long time—if ever—before our workforce changes.

  The man in the bed was thin—skin stretched taut over bones, his muscles atrophied. Friederich had not twitched, had not opened his eyes since the orderlies had carried him into the house. And Lea, though she bore it all with outward calm and patience, was wearing thin with worry for her husband. Oma could see it in the strain of her granddaughter’s face, in the shine of unshed tears, in the slump of her shoulders when she finally, wearily sat down at night. Even her joy for the children’s choir had waned.

  Oma had not mentioned it to either granddaughter, but the difference between the two girls was beginning to show and certainly couldn’t be hidden from the villagers much longer. What they’d do then, she didn’t know.

  Oma pulled her chair closer to the stove and stooped to fiddle with the radio’s dial. The shouting voice of the Führer broke through. Oma pulled back instinctively, then quickly turned the dial again.

  The second station reported on a Berlin Hausfrau who’d stolen ration coupons from her neighbor and been sentenced to three months in prison—just in time for Christma
s.

  She probably needed them to feed her family. How this war changes us at the very core!

  Next came a repeated warning about listening to foreign radio stations, and the penalty: “No mercy will be shown the idiotic criminals who listen to the lies of the enemy.” Oma didn’t need to hear the rest. It had been broadcast and rebroadcast all week. Stiff prison sentences were meted out to those caught listening or suspected of listening to the BBC.

  She heard Lea stomp her boots on the wooden mat outside the door and on the straw one inside, then the kerplunk of wood and the studied arrangement of kindling. Lea shoveled another bucket of coal into the stove. Rachel and Rivka pulled their kitchen chairs closer. Amelie was already fast asleep and tucked into her bed in the attic.

  Oma changed the station once more, hoping something could be found to lighten their hearts. There would be no presents to mark the day beyond Herr Young’s Christmas tree and the carp they’d filleted out of Amelie’s sight for dinner tomorrow. There was no sugar to be had—no rolling and cutting Lebkuchen and drizzling the small cakes in sugar glaze as in years gone by.

  Two more twirls of the dial and the soft, sweet notes of “Stille Nacht” filled the blue and white room. Oma smiled and sat back, leaning her head against the rocker’s high back, glad she could count on something not to change, something to hold true. At least there would always be music in Germany—the pure, sweet carols of Christmas.

  She closed her eyes as the choir ceased their humming, happy to share this first Christmas—despite the strangeness and peril of their circumstances—with both her granddaughters, with Amelie, and with Rivka, who were now as much her family as if they’d been born into it.

  Silent night! Holy night!

  “My favorite,” she murmured to the young women. At least she could give them this.

  All is calm, all is bright.

  “So beautiful,” Oma whispered.

  But the words changed after the second line. They were not the words on the tip of Oma’s tongue, not the beloved lyrics she’d sung all her life. Her eyes snapped open.

  Only the Chancellor, steadfast in fight,

  Watches o’er Germany by day and by night,

  Always caring for us.

  Always caring for us.

  Silent night! Holy night!

  All is calm, all is bright.

  Adolf Hitler is Germany’s wealth;

  Brings us greatness, favor, and health.

  Oh, give us Germans all power!

  Oh, give us Germans all power!

  The cold penetrating Oma’s heart was reflected on the three pale faces in the lamp’s glow.

  Lea switched off the radio, and the small group of women sat in silence.

  44

  LEA’S CHRISTMAS MORNING peek beneath the blackout curtain revealed snow-covered roads. After last night’s storm, lanes into the village would be blocked with drifts. She’d be fortunate to shovel a path to Oma’s little stable to milk their cow. No Nazis would come today, surely.

  It felt good to inhale the fragrance of the tree in their room, to snuggle beneath the eiderdown and roll over, to sleep an extra hour beside her husband, to forget that she must soon rise to diaper and feed him.

  It was bliss to imagine that at any moment Friederich would wake and fold her in his arms. It was her favorite dream, though getting harder to imagine. It’s more like sleeping beside a corpse. The thought shamed her, made her wince. And then the tears trickled down her face and onto Friederich’s arm, just as they did every morning.

  “Please, Friederich. Oh, please wake up,” she whispered. “It’s Christmas morning, and there’s nothing in all this world that I want but you. I love you, my dear, my darling husband. Whatever has happened, whatever you’ve been through or become, whatever is left to endure, let me endure it with you. Please, Friederich . . . please open your eyes.”

  But Friederich did not move. He barely seemed to breathe, though he never labored in his breathing.

  After an hour of stroking his face, his chest, his arm, Lea rose, slipping her feet into cold slippers. Tonight she would light the candles on the tree, and she would sing to her husband—the old songs of Christmas, the ones he’d loved. That would be her gift to him, whether or not he heard.

  Oma did her best to make merry for her little family, though it was hard to keep her smile once she’d seen Lea’s face and the solemn shaking of her head to Oma’s brows raised in question. Oma had long since stopped asking Friederich’s condition aloud. It was simply too wearing on Lea to admit that he was no better, that there had been no sign of improvement, that a little more of her husband had wasted away as they’d slept.

  It was nearly noon when their late breakfast ended and the grown-ups finished off with a second cup of ersatz coffee—brewed from the same grounds as the day before. Amelie drained her mug of hot chocolate—chocolate Jason had smuggled through Forester Schrade—which she’d happily shared with the new handkerchief doll that Lea had made for her. Rachel had just begun to clear the table when a knock came at the back door.

  Heads shot up and eyes widened. “Who? Heaven’s mercy!” Oma began.

  Rachel pulled Amelie toward the cupboard. Rivka followed. The knock came again, only louder. Lea scooped up the remaining cups and crumbs, tumbling everything into the wash pan. Oma straightened the chairs and disappeared to close the cupboard door behind the girls as the pounding increased.

  Straightening her apron and hair, Lea stepped into the cold foyer and opened the kitchen door.

  “Merry Christmas, Frau Hartman!” The child held up a rectangle wrapped in brown paper, tied with string.

  “Heinrich!” Lea gasped. “Merry Christmas to you! Whatever are you doing out in this weather? The snow is up to your knees!” She pulled him in the door, guiding him near the stove.

  “I came with a g-g-gift, for Herr H-Hartman.” The boy’s teeth chattered.

  “For Friederich?” Lea stopped, holding the little boy’s scarf in midair. She could not imagine what gift could be given to her nearly comatose husband. “He’s not . . . he’s not well, Heinrich.”

  “He’ll need this when he’s b-better.” The boy’s teeth still chattered, and he shivered.

  Lea didn’t know what to say. “Pull off those boots and sit by the stove. You’re soaking wet! Does your mother know you’re out in such weather?”

  “Sh-she doesn’t. She’s gone to church in our neighbor’s sleigh. But I pretended to be sick, and she thought it was t-too cold for me.”

  “Heinrich Helphman! She was right!” Lea helped the child from his coat.

  “But it’s Christmas, and I must give this to Herr Hartman.” The boy handed the package up to Lea. “You can open it, Frau Hartman. He’d want you to. And then you can tell him what it is.”

  Lea could not make herself smile into the boy’s hopeful face. She sat in the rocker by the stove and took the package, pulled the knotted string bow, and folded back the brown paper. Surely it was the Christkind that Heinrich had taken weeks ago. It would be good to have it back. It was Friederich’s best work, and he’d never carve another. She was prepared to kiss the forehead of Heinrich Helphman.

  But when the gift was revealed, it was only a block of wood. Another cruel joke, and that stung Lea most of all. Tears sprang to her eyes.

  Before she could tell him the pain he’d inflicted, Heinrich rushed ahead. “I took Herr Hartman’s Christkind. It was so beautiful, and I think it’s doing its work—at least I hope it is.”

  “Where is it, Heinrich?” Lea demanded. “Where is the Christkind?”

  “I can’t tell you that,” Heinrich retorted, as if speaking to a child too simple to comprehend. “But Herr Hartman can carve another from this wood—it’s fine wood! I worked five weeks for Herr Hochbaum at the woodcarving school—sweeping up and oiling the tools. It’s a fine piece,” he repeated. “A precious piece, he told me—the best that he had.”

  Lea shook her head, too hurt, too angry to speak. To
be given a block of dead wood instead of the beautiful Christ child Friederich had carved—the babe with the face they’d hoped would look like their own—was like being given a shriveled corpse in place of her husband, a husk instead of the smiling, charming man with the strength of an ox. She was sick to death of taking whatever was left over—whatever anyone threw away once they’d taken the best at her expense.

  She stood and Heinrich’s gift dropped to the floor with a loud thud.

  Staring up into Lea’s eyes, the boy looked stricken.

  Lea felt her face flame in fury and shame. But she lifted her hand to strike just as Oma stepped through the doorway.

  “Lea!” Oma ordered.

  Lea trembled with a violence of her own making. Withholding the slap she wanted to give the world, never mind Heinrich, wreaked havoc on her nerves. Oma stroked her granddaughter’s shoulders, her arms, from behind, and pulled her hand from the air above Heinrich’s head.

  “Why is it you want the Christkind, Heinrich? Tell us that. Help us understand,” Oma insisted.

  Now the boy’s eyes filled, and he shook his head. “I can’t tell. It might not come true if I tell.” He stooped to pick up the wood, setting the block on the rocker by the stove. “It’s not beautiful yet, but I know Herr Hartman will make it so. He’s the best woodcarver in Oberammergau—I tell everyone.” He looked hopeful, but uncertain. “Don’t be sad, Frau Hartman. It won’t be long. You’ll see.”

  But Lea turned her head into Oma’s shoulder and wept.

  “I think you’d best bundle up and go now, Heinrich,” Oma whispered. “You’ll want to get home before your mother finds you’ve gone.”

  “Yes, Frau Breisner.” The little boy, worry lines creasing his forehead, pulled black boots over his shoes.

  Oma continued to cradle her granddaughter against her shoulder.

  Heinrich had just buttoned his coat and was pulling his cap down over his ears when he picked up the handkerchief doll from beneath the kitchen table and swiped his finger over the chocolate stain. “Is this yours, Frau Hartman?” He handed it to Lea, hope of redemption written in his features.