Too Little, Too Late

by Marta Tandori

  “The farm was so remote, it’ll take months before someone discovers the—him.”

  “Do you really want to take that chance?”

  Sonja sat down tiredly. “I don’t want to keep running.”

  “So don’t run,” her mother told her. “But go someplace where they don’t know you or the child, someplace where you can start fresh.”

  “Fine.” Sonja looked away, unable to meet her mother’s eyes. “We’ll stay a few more days so Katya can rest up. Then we’ll go.”

  “When are you going to tell me about Lilly?” asked Borghild suddenly. “Katya cries out for her, you know.”

  Above them, Katya held her breath, not daring to breathe.

  “I hear her, too,” Sonja acknowledged, refusing to meet her mother’s gaze. “But I don’t want to talk about Lilly – I can’t right now.”

  Borghild shook her head sadly. “Come to think of it, perhaps it’s best I don’t know.” She watched as her daughter abruptly got up and put on her coat. “Where are you going?”

  “To the market for some apples,” Sonja replied grimly. “I’m going to teach my daughter how to make a strudel.”

  Katya watched as her mother picked up the market basket and left the house, her head held high. It was the last time she saw her mother alive.

  ***

  Sonja Holberg’s body was discovered by a farmer a few days later in a field outside of Droback. She’d been raped and brutally beaten, the words “German whore” carved into her freshly-shorn scalp. Katya was inconsolable but Borghild Holberg remained stoic. She had her daughter’s body buried in an unmarked grave outside of Droback.

  Katya was sent to live with her mother’s second cousin in Lillefjord, where she eventually settled down and life became much better. She was allowed to attend school with other children. In an environment where she was accepted, she soon thrived, becoming an excellent student with a proficiency in languages, much as her mother once had. As time wore on, Katya’s past became a distant memory, due in part to her grandmother severing all contact with her, except for the occasional note to her mother’s cousin, inquiring about Katya’s welfare. Sadly, her feeling of well-being came to an abrupt end shortly before her nineteenth birthday, the day she learned her grandmother had died.

  She and her mother’s cousin went back to Droback for the funeral. It was afterwards, while Katya was in her grandmother’s room packing her possessions, that she found the envelope in the bottom of the chest where her grandmother stored her winter goose down duvet. It contained an old gold necklace made of coins that had a picture of her sister and another woman in the center coin locket, someone Katya didn’t recognize. It also contained what appeared to be Katya’s birth record, issued in 1939 by the Lebensborn Eingetragener Verein. The document listed her mother as Sonja Holberg, of Norwegian nationality, while her father was listed as Karel Bauer, a German. She was identified as Infant No. G109-420.

  The information on the birth record was written in several different languages, including Norwegian. It outlined the goals of Hitler’s Lebensborn program, whose aim was to promote the growth of the Aryan population. It promised aid and accommodations for racially and biologically valuable families as well as endorsed the care of the mothers and children born to such families. All too soon, the shameful circumstances of her birth, as well as her mother’s murder, became clear in Katya’s mind. The war had ended, Hitler had been defeated, and those women unfortunate enough to be saddled with genetically half-German children were ostracized for spawning the enemy’s offspring. Katya had always wondered why her last name and Lilly’s had been different from their father’s. Now she knew.

  The next item in the envelope was a letter from her mother, addressed to her. Judging by the date, she must have written it to Katya shortly after they’d arrived at her grandmother’s house. Her mother’s distinctive script was unmistakable.

  October 12, 1949, Droback

  My dearest Katya,

  I know you’re frightened by what happened at Lars’ farm the other day and you’re probably blaming me for not having done more to save Lilly. I hear you crying out for her as you wrestle with your nightmares and this weighs heavily on my conscience. Until now, I’ve always been reluctant to talk about your father or Lilly as that would have meant facing up to some unpleasant truths about myself but with the way things have turned out, it seems the time for truth is finally at hand.

  About your father - he was an officer in Hitler’s army but beyond that, I knew nothing about him. I figured the less I knew about him, the easier it would be for me to mate with him. Your grandmother was convinced I was attracted to his handsome face and crisp uniform but that couldn’t have been further from the truth. By the time I mated with your father, my spirit had long been broken and I was weary of grovelling in the dirt for scraps of food to keep both me and your grandmother alive. At least producing his child guaranteed our survival. Deep down, I think your grandmother knows this although clinging to her fantasy is perhaps easier than having to face reality.

  And the price I paid for survival was a heavy one, to be sure! With each morsel of food that passed my lips, I struggled with my feelings of self-loathing and begged God’s forgiveness. Then once you were born, I fought to justify the relative comfort of our existence amid an atmosphere of palpable evil, tormented in my belief that we lived with a murderer which made me no better than he was. In my defence, I wasn’t the only one to bed the enemy. Many of my countrywomen were more than eager to oblige those zealots who ran the concentration camps if it meant getting much-needed food or medicine for their families.

  I pleaded with your father to spare you the indoctrination, but once you were born, I had served my purpose and he no longer had any reason to listen to me. Then when Lilly became a part of our lives, it finally became clear to me that your father only had one loyalty, and it wasn’t to any of us.

  Among my many regrets, Lilly is by far my greatest one because she deserved what I could never truly give her. By not being her champion, I did her a greater disservice than your father or the Lebensborn program ever did and for that, I will never forgive myself.

  Had I known back then we would be regarded with such hate and contempt, I might have chosen a different means to an end. At this point, it’s useless to speculate or to agonize over something I cannot change. Although I have much to be held accountable for, you my sweet child, must always take comfort in knowing you have done nothing wrong! I only hope you will find it in your heart to forgive me one day as you seek to find the peace I will surely never have.

  With all my heart and soul,

  Your loving Mama

  By the end of the letter, Katya was in tears. Attached to her mother’s letter was a single sheet of paper headed, “LEBENSBORN ACQUISITION RECORD”. Her hands shook as she scanned the document:

  Subject: blond-haired, blue-eyed female

  Age: under 5 age group

  Acquisition Location: Krakow, Poland

  Name (if known): Lilly

  Comments: Subject appears to be biologically viable.

  Placement: Cmmdr. Karel Bauer for Germanization, Lodz

  It took several minutes for Katya to take in the significance of what her mother’s letter, the document attached to it, and the necklace all meant. Then, as understanding dawned, it was quickly replaced by a sense of untold horror. Lilly, the sister with whom she had shared all her secrets and fears, the one Katya had protected and loved more than her own life… was never… really… her sister…She had been just a little girl when German soldiers had snatched her from her mother, all because Lilly had blond hair, blue eyes and was genetically-viable, just…like…she…was. And all that remained of Lilly’s former life was the gold coin necklace that had probably been around her neck when she had been abducted…How could you have let them do this to Lilly, Mama? How could you?

  The last thing in the envelope was a yellowed clipping from an Oslo newspaper dated twelve years earlier, announcing
the marriage of the actress, Sigourney Johnson, to an up and coming young Hollywood director called Karl Bauer. Katya stared at the name in the article and then at the name of her birth father. It had to be the same Bauer, despite the different spelling of his first name. Katya’s insides slowly froze over as she stared critically at the faded picture, trying to connect the man in the photograph to the father she remembered. Some would call him handsome, she had to admit, but his eyes left her cold. For years, Katya had fervently hoped that her father had fared better with his life than they had. The newspaper clipping seemed to confirm it but instead of being happy over her father’s good fortune, Katya was seething inside. What kind of man abandons his family and steals someone else’s child? What kind of man sends others to their death without a shred of remorse? The murdering monster who happens to be my father, she answered herself grimly.

  Katya removed her father’s now tattered notebook from her purse and flipped through the well-worn pages:

  Date: December 6 and 7, 1941; Location: Kolo; Exterminated: 2,000; Date: January 16, 1942; Location: Lodz ghetto; Exterminated: 4,762 (including Poles, Soviet prisoners of war, Roma).

  There was an entry on each page, written in her father’s handwriting. On the second-to-last page was written the following: Extermination totals from December, 1941 to March, 1945: 340,000. Taking a pen from the top of her grandmother’s dresser, she carefully wrote two more entries in the notebook:

  Lilly Holberg: September, 1949; Sonja Holberg: October, 1949 before changing the total number of those exterminated from 340,000 to 340,002.

  Now the list was complete. She quickly flipped through the pages once again, silently branding each date, each entry and each life to memory. As she did so, a grim determination formed inside her, fueled by years of anger and resentment. Her father would be held accountable for every single one of those lives; she’d make damned well sure of it.

  CHAPTER 4

  1960

  Hollywood, California

  It took Katya just a little over a year and a half to save her money for a one-way ticket to Hollywood. Selling Lilly’s necklace probably would’ve speeded up the process but Katya hadn’t been able to bring herself to part with the last link she had to the girl she’d known and loved as her sister. Katya arrived in the United States on a hot and sticky day in late September and immediately set her sights on finding a job at the studio where her father worked. Not that she expected to bump into him. Karl Bauer was now a big shot director who’d been nominated the previous year for an Oscar, his second nomination in as many years. And even if their paths were to cross, there was no way her father would recognize her now. She was all grown up, the young child’s body having been replaced with a woman’s curves, high firm breasts and long legs. The studio had even changed her name to Kate in order to make it more “Americanized”.

  The public relations department where she was placed was a hub of gossip about the stars who worked for the studio – and Kate soon learned that her father was a favorite topic among those in her department. It didn’t take her long to learn that his wife came from money or that the former Sigourney Johnson had a son, Irving, from a previous marriage. Together, she and her father had had another son they had named Leo. They owned a mansion in the city and also had homes in Aspen and the Sonoma Valley. Karl Bauer’s drinking binges were legendary, and discussions of his infidelities were popular fodder around the water cooler. And despite Karl Bauer’s less than enviable character traits, the consensus among Kate’s co-workers was that he was handsome, rakish and a brilliant director for whom most of the women in her department would have happily abandoned their virtue for a romp in his bed.

  One of Kate’s many duties in public relations included autographing headshots of the studio’s movie stars in English, Spanish, German, French and Norwegian. At first, the messages were the basic “With All My Love, Danica Hathaway” or “Best Wishes from Blane Goodspeed” or “Warmest Personal Regards, Myron Dennison”. As Kate’s confidence grew, the messages became more personal and creative. Her job was hardly rocket science but at least it gave her the opportunity to keep tabs on her father, even if it was only vicariously through gossip.

  She found a small furnished apartment in West Hollywood and took night classes in English, working tirelessly on making her already fluent English flawless. On her days off, she acquainted herself with her adopted city, taking long bus rides and even touring the stars’ homes so she could see first-hand where her father lived. Not that Kate was able to see much. His home was in an exclusive area known as Holmby Hills, where the mansions were hidden behind imposing gates, making it difficult to see anything more than a glimpse of a well-tended garden or a multi-car garage. Kate didn’t care. All of these were snippets of valuable information which she added to her growing mental arsenal. Ironically, despite her determination to integrate into her new life, Kate’s plans for her life never ventured beyond the imminent confrontation with her father.

  The opportunity presented itself sooner than Kate expected. She had been with the studio less than three months when she learned from one of the mailroom clerks that he was going to tend bar at Karl Bauer’s annual Christmas party.

  “Any chance you could get me in?” Kate asked Howard after he’d told her the news. She set the large batch of envelopes she’d been carrying onto the counter.

  Howard casually picked up a handful and began the sorting process. “Have you tended bar before?”

  “No, but I’m a quick learner.” Kate helpfully handed him some more envelopes, trying not to appear too eager.

  “Let me talk to Ellie, my supervisor,” he told her. “Maybe she can use you as wait staff or something. You do know how to waitress, don’t you?”

  “Of course,” Kate lied automatically.

  In the end, Howard came through for her and she got the job. Elated at the thought of finally coming face-to-face with her father, Kate carefully rehearsed what she would say to him when the opportunity presented itself. But when the big night finally arrived, Kate was a mess. She was shaking so hard she could hardly balance an empty tray, let alone one filled with drinks. Kate tried to act confident whenever she saw her supervisor eyeing her but knew she wasn’t fooling anyone.

  She got her first look at her father shortly before the party got under way when Karl Bauer had unceremoniously arrived in the kitchen. She was over by the window, putting dishes and cutlery onto a bus cart, and felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up even before he spoke. His presence seemed to affect everyone as the easy banter among the staff was quickly replaced by silent efficiency. When Kate heard her father’s voice, she recognized it immediately and sidled closer to where he was standing with her supervisor.

  “Tonight must be executed flawlessly,” he announced in his heavy accent. “I’m expecting several important guests from Europe and I want you to make sure that your staff’s service is impeccable.” He gave her a tight smile. “My wife usually looks after this but with her mother dying…she could not be here, of course.”

  “I’m very sorry to hear of her loss – and yours, too, of course,” Ellie corrected herself quickly. “Rest assured, Mr. Bauer, your guests will be very well taken care of.”

  Kate surreptitiously glanced at him through the veil of ash blond hair hiding her face. The past fifteen years since Kate had last seen her father had not been kind to him, despite Karl’s Bauer’s acquired affluence - or perhaps because of it. The handsome lines of his face had become fleshy, exaggerated by the lack of hair on his head. He had also gained a lot of weight and would never again fit into one of the trim uniforms Kate had always remembered him wearing. However, the one thing that had not changed about her father was his commanding presence. Even in the cavernous kitchen, his presence commanded – and got - attention.

  Once the party was under way, her father became a witty and charming host who effortlessly held court over his guests. All evening long, Kate used every excuse to get closer to him but he w
as always surrounded by people. She nevertheless made sure his ashtray was always clean and his empty glass removed the moment he put it down. About halfway through the evening, Kate was rewarded by an enigmatic smile. Her father had finally noticed her! She immediately steeled herself against the ridiculous sense of pride that flooded through her.

  After dinner, when all the guests had retired to the screening room to watch Karl’s newest movie, Kate went into the library to tidy up. When she’d collected all of the dirty glasses and ashtrays, she crossed the hall and proceeded into the study to do the same. Opening the study door, she stopped dead in her tracks, paralyzed at the sight of her father, with his pants around his knees, ramming his fat hairy body against a younger man bent over a sofa. The room was silent but for the sounds of naked flesh slapping against naked flesh and the urgent grunts and heavy breathing of two men in the throes of unadulterated lust.

  “Oh my God, I’m so sorry—” Her nearly full tray wobbled alarmingly and Kate grabbed it with her other hand to steady it.

  Her father pulled up his trousers and came to her side, watching her intently.

  “Why is a beautiful young woman like you cleaning filthy ashtrays?” His accent was pronounced. “Are you an actress?”

  Kate shook her head. “No, I work in the public relations department of Zifarelli Studios. I’m so sorry. I should have knocked but I just thought— ”

  By this time, her father’s young companion had also composed himself enough to pull up his trousers and light a cigarette. “How long have you been working for the studio?”

  “Three months,” she replied.

  “Had I known such a beautiful young woman works in public relations, I would’ve started making excuses to visit.” Her father’s tone was silky as he glanced at his companion.

  Kate was taken aback. It sounded like he was making a pass at her! Panic made her hands shake and this time, she was unable to prevent her tray from toppling over, sending glasses and filthy ashtrays flying onto the priceless rug.