“I found an old watch,” Ember told him, showing him the picture. “In the center of the labyrinth.”
“Gram said that Hanna buried a coffee can here.”
Ember tucked her phone back into her pocket and knelt down with her trowel beside the entrance. Then she slowly turned the first mossy stone over, pressing into the earth for whatever it was that Hanna left behind.
Nothing appeared underneath.
“We might be here for a week,” Dakota said as he edged the second stone back across a hole.
“Not if you have shovels.” They turned to see Christine, carrying three of them under her arm. “I thought these might help.”
Ember hugged the woman. She couldn’t help herself.
Christine handed her a shovel, and Ember rolled the handle between her palms. “This is so much better than a trowel.”
“Are we allowed to dig like this on private property?” Dakota asked.
Christine held one of the shovels out to him. “You can if the owner gives you permission.”
“Who is the owner?” Ember asked as he took it.
“Me.” The young woman smiled. “I inherited this place from my grandmother.”
“Luisa?”
Christine nodded. “Hanna left the house and land to her.”
“I wonder what else Hanna left behind . . .” Ember gently turned over the next stone with her foot and inched the blade into the sandy soil. Nothing appeared in the hole, so she refilled the dirt and moved on to the next rock. And the next.
Every stone bore the burdens of those who had prayed here over the centuries. Burdens and then the spill of their grateful hearts, collecting blessings like raindrops, growing the moss, it seemed, from the tears.
“I’m going to move to the center,” Ember said as Dakota and Christine began to dig near the front.
She stepped over the loop of stones, making a straight path to the stump. Then she stopped. One of the stones in her path was missing part of its stole, as if an animal had clawed the moss away.
Kneeling down beside it, she saw the letter carved into the top.
L, for Lilly.
“Dakota,” she whispered, and both he and Christine joined her.
She rolled the stone away; then Dakota dug his blade into the dirt. It clanked against tin.
He nodded for Ember to retrieve it, but this was his family’s story. “It’s yours,” she said.
The can was round, any exterior printing erased with time. Inside were several official-looking sheets of paper, each one typed in German and signed.
Dakota handed them over to Christine and she quickly perused them.
“These are adoption papers.” Christine lowered them to her side. “Hanna must have hidden them before she disappeared.”
Dakota looked up. “Adoption paperwork for who?”
“A girl named Roza Nowak,” she said.
“Hanna adopted another child?” Dakota dumped dirt back into the hole, patting it down with his blade.
“No.” Christine hesitated, looking back at the document. “Only one. The girl that Hanna’s husband supposedly brought her from Berlin.”
He shook his head. “I don’t understand.”
“Have you ever heard of Lebensborn?” she asked. “The Fount of Life.”
Dakota hadn’t, but Ember had read about the Nazi program in her research. Lebensborn was developed to grow the size of the Aryan population. Young women from across Germany gave birth in designated homes, the children sired by prominent men in the Nazi party.
Did Kolman and Hanna adopt a child who’d been engineered Aryan? Or had Hanna adopted someone already fathered by her husband? That would make Titus happy. Character didn’t matter when one was trying to play God.
Then again, God didn’t allow anyone to impersonate Him for long.
“Was Mrs. Kiehl born in one of the Lebensborn homes?” Ember asked slowly.
“I don’t believe so.” Christine scanned the paper again. “Some of these children were brought to Lebensborn homes during the war.”
Dakota leaned forward. “What do you mean?”
“The Nazis lost many of their men on the field and not enough women were giving birth for their Third Reich. To compensate, SS officers kidnapped thousands of Nordic-looking children from eastern countries. If these children passed rigorous measurement and medical tests, they would be adopted by upstanding Nazi families.”
“They were fabricating the Aryan race.”
Christine nodded. “They were desperate. It says that Roza Nowak was from Poland.”
“Lilly is Polish,” Ember said, her eyes on Dakota.
He leaned back against a tree and planted the shovel blade into the ground, a smile playing on his lips. “So my family is Polish and Jewish . . .”
“And German,” Ember said.
47
HANNA
AUTUMN 1945
Reels of film were discovered behind the mine’s locked door, boxes and boxes of them. What was on these films, Hanna didn’t know, but after Charlie handled the damning biographies with care, returning the originals to her, she told him about the iron grate.
A team of Americans showed up the next day and picked the lock, lugging these reels of film down from the mine, through her front door. The boxes hadn’t remained at the lodge for long. A truck arrived the next morning and carried them away.
She remembered Kolman in the grotto, on all of their digs, with his lights and camera, capturing every key moment on his motion-picture camera. And then his frequent journeys into the forest when he came to Nuremberg. What had he kept on these reels? And why were they stored in the mine, behind this locked gate?
The soldiers were still billeted in her home, using her rooms and eating the food their hired housekeeper cooked for them. Charlie was rarely there, but he came home late on a Friday and knocked on her bedroom door.
Lilly was already asleep when Hanna slipped out of the room, back down into the great hall. Charlie sat across from her on a couch, his golden wedding band catching a glint of light. He’d been faithful to his wife, not even hinting at their former relationship. For that she was grateful.
“Have you heard from Kolman?” he asked.
“Not a word.”
He leaned forward, pressing his hands together. “If you are lying, there will be penalties that I can’t control.”
“I’m not lying. I would like to know, perhaps even more than you, where my husband went.” The nightmares had returned, the ones with the monster hunting her, and she wanted him imprisoned like many of the Nazi leaders. “He used me for this property and for—”
She almost said to raise a child, but that would give everything away that she needed to hold close to her heart.
“Did he adopt Lilly?” Charlie asked.
“Yes.” That much was true.
“Is she my daughter, Hanna?”
How could she tell him the truth about this? The penalties might be just as stiff for lying if he found out, except she’d hang her heart on the gallows and no rope would end the pain.
But she wasn’t doing this for her heart; that’s what she tried to tell herself. She was doing this to protect her girl.
“I’ll tell you everything you want to know about Kolman, but I’m not talking about Lilly. She is my daughter, and I have raised her well.”
Charlie looked like he was going to probe further, but he stopped. He could believe whatever he wanted. She didn’t owe him an explanation.
“Why did you marry a man like Kolman Strauss?” he asked.
“The Nazi Party didn’t give me a choice. He was an SS officer in need of a wife and children for the Reich, and I happened to own a property that the party wanted to use. They requisitioned me.”
“Did you know he was married before you?”
“They divorced . . .”
“Not according to Elsie.”
“Who is Elsie?” she asked slowly.
“Kolman’s first wife. She d
oesn’t know where he went either.”
The news about his marriage should have surprised her, but it didn’t. She’d known for years that Kolman was deceiving her, but she didn’t know the depths of it. Nor did she care anymore except for curiosity’s sake.
“This Elsie, is she in Hanover?”
Charlie nodded. “She’s raising three of his kids.”
So Kolman was able to offer the Reich four children after all.
“If it’s true,” he continued, “your marriage to him wasn’t legal.”
Part of her was angry at Charlie’s revelation, but mostly she was relieved. She’d been misled into becoming Kolman’s mistress, and he no longer had any right to her bed or her daughter.
Nor had he any reason to return to the lodge, except to retrieve his film.
Hanna rubbed her hand up her cheek, trying to press the thought away. “If this film is incriminating—”
“It is.”
“Then he might do something desperate. He will fight for the Reich until the end.”
Charlie offered her a cigarette from his case. When she shook her head, he took one out and lit it. “There is no Reich left.”
“His devotion to Hitler was about more than being a party member, Charlie. It was a rite of passage. A belief stronger than religion. Just because this war is over, Kolman won’t give up willingly.”
He took a long drag on the cigarette. “We’ll be having a military trial soon to convict him and the other officers for what they did.”
After all the fighting, the swift justice they’d once had in Germany without a judge, it felt strange to talk about a trial.
“It will be an international tribunal,” he explained. “First time in history.”
“That’s why you’ve come to Nuremberg.”
He nodded. “It’s my job to compile the evidence against them. The film . . .”
The details of the trial he would need to keep secret, she understood. Just like the secrets her team had to keep when they were on an expedition.
“We’re painting a picture for the jury, and it’s very dark.”
She’d seen the photographs in the Regensburger Post, the only newspaper permitted by their American occupiers. The people in camps who looked as if they’d been starved and beaten. As if most of the world had forgotten them. “It’s terrible, what happened.”
“I don’t understand.” He leaned forward. “Why didn’t the citizens of Germany stop it?”
She reached for one of the cigarettes, and he lit it for her. “Because we were proud on one hand. We wanted our country to be victors after losing the First World War, and nothing brings people together like a common enemy. Once the Nazis started to kill the Jews—” Her voice broke. “Most of us didn’t know the entirety of what was happening in those camps; I suspect we still don’t know.”
“I suspect that you don’t,” he said. “I’ll be leaving soon to move closer to the courthouse.”
“And the other soldiers?”
“I don’t know how long they will stay here,” he replied. “I would like it if you could attend the trial for a day as my guest. To watch the films you helped us find.”
“I could do that.” Silence settled between them. “Tell me about your wife.”
He smiled, taking another drag. “Her name is Arlene. We met at Columbia after—”
She didn’t want to talk about their time together in Germany. “Do you have children?”
The smile fell. “Arlene is desperate for them, but she’s not able to have kids.”
“I’m sorry . . .”
“But I can still fight for children,” he said, grinding his cigarette butt into the tray. “Bring justice to those men and women who hurt thousands of kids during the war.”
She stood, rubbing off the chill on her arms. “Charlie—”
“What is it?”
“If something happens to me before you leave, will you make sure that Lilly is cared for?”
“Our soldiers will keep you safe.”
“Please,” she begged. “Promise me you’ll take care of her.”
His gaze traveled to the ceiling as if he could see Lilly through the plaster. “I promise.”
She placed her hand on the banister, a crutch to help her move forward when these minutes felt as if they were standing still. “I need all the sleep I can get before I start digging again.”
“You don’t have to work, Hanna,” he said. “When we leave, I can send others to stay in our place.”
Other Americans to pay for her utilities and food.
“I need to do this for myself.”
Once they cleared out the rubble, perhaps this country she loved could start over again.
48
EMBER
Hundreds of Japanese lanterns bubbled from the Campground cottages, the pathway between them washed with light. The Grand Illumination, locals had called it for a hundred and fifty years.
Ember and Dakota strolled through the grove on this warm evening as a symphony of music spilled out of the Tabernacle. They’d landed in Boston yesterday, and he didn’t want her to miss this illumination or the opportunity to give Mrs. Kiehl the adoption papers.
“You’re smiling,” Dakota said as they passed under another string of lights.
“I’ve been plagued by shame for my entire life, and I left it back in that labyrinth. I no longer have to carry it around . . .”
He lifted his arm slowly, tentatively, and then he wrapped it around her waist. She folded into his chest, and he held her there, steadying her as if she might fly away without the stones, the shame, weighing her down. This place, it seemed, was exactly where she was meant to be.
“Is that you, Dakota?” someone called.
He released her. “Hello, Mr. Hawkins.”
An elderly man stepped up to the porch railing, pointed his cane at them. “Are you with a girl?”
“Indeed I am,” he said. “This is Ember Ellis.”
The man squinted. “Umbrellas?”
“No, her name is—”
“It’s okay,” Ember whispered. She sort of liked being an umbrella, holding off the rain.
“Should be some sort of law about names,” the man muttered as they walked away.
“We’re home,” Dakota said as he stepped up onto the porch of the Second Chance cottage. Lanterns dripped from the ceiling like jewels on a necklace, one commissioned for the lovely queen who was rocking on a patio chair.
Dakota greeted his grandmother with a kiss on her cheek, and Mrs. Kiehl smiled at both of them. “Welcome back.”
Mrs. Kiehl would stay here for the week, Dakota had explained, with his mother. Even if they weren’t fond of the crowds, they were minutes from the hospital, and they both enjoyed the music and the lights.
“Anything else from the doctor?” he asked, pulling up two chairs beside his grandmother.
“He says my brain has gone haywire.”
Dakota sat beside her. “Your brain has been through a lot.”
It remembered, Ember thought, even when Mrs. Kiehl struggled to put all the pieces into their proper place.
“Where’s Mom?” he asked.
“Right here.” The younger Mrs. Kiehl, her chestnut hair tied back in a scarf, pushed the screen door open with her hip, a pitcher of lemonade in her hand. “It’s supposed to be cooler on this island than Boston, but it sure doesn’t feel like it tonight.”
“Ember, you remember my mom.”
“I do,” she said, helping with the pitcher. “I never got to thank you, Mrs. Kiehl, for your gift back in high school.” The flowers and verse from 1 John.
“Call me Julie, please. I’m glad you received it.”
“What gift?” Dakota asked.
Julie patted his arm. “Something between girls.”
End of discussion, those words.
“I’m sorry for what I said about Lukas,” Mrs. Kiehl told her.
“I’m glad you did. Until then, I didn’t know he u
sed to live on the island.”
“He came here on vacation at first and then decided to stay,” Mrs. Kiehl said. “Showed off his grandfather’s death ring like it was a trophy and then hounded Albert and me when we didn’t agree with his sentiments.”
Dakota glanced over at Ember before speaking again. “I think we might have some answers for you, Gram, if you want to hear them. But they may only lead to more questions.”
“Perhaps they will answer some of the questions in my mind.”
The band across the plaza struck up “America the Beautiful,” trumpets leading the charge. Their small group stopped to listen before speaking again.
Dakota unfolded the papers from his pocket, smoothing them out on the patio table. It was almost impossible to read the worn type in this light, but he’d wanted to show his grandmother what they found.
“These are adoption papers,” he said. “They were buried in that coffee tin.”
“Adoption?” she asked, her voice shaking.
He nodded slowly. “Hanna and Kolman signed them when they adopted a girl.”
She sat for a moment, her gaze on a group who’d stopped to look at their lights.
“Adoption,” she said again after the tourists left, as if the word was a missing link to the confusion in her head. “Where did they adopt me from?”
“A home called Sun Meadow, although I suspect it wasn’t a very sunny place to live.”
The music stopped in the Tabernacle, an intermission.
“That’s where the matron lived,” Mrs. Kiehl said slowly. “She told me about the wolves in the forest, the ones hungry for children.”
“Oh, Mom—” Julie took hold of her arm.
“I kept asking for my mama until . . .”
Julie patted her arm. “You don’t have to talk about it.”
Dakota refolded the papers. “The Nazis kidnapped Aryan-looking children from countries like Poland and then Germanized them for new parents to raise.”
“And Hanna knew?” Mrs. Kiehl whispered before answering her own question. “She must have known.”
“Frau Cohn said she was a good mother to you.”
The Curator's Daughter Page 28