Heidelberg Effect (10 page)

Ella’s eyes opened slowly
to focus on the beautiful nun who sat beside her bed. The smile on
her face was so perfect, so loving, that Ella had to resist the
urge to reach out to her. Slowly, she pulled herself to a sitting
position and positioned the thin rough woolen blanket around her
shoulders. She was in a cell-like room but the heavy wooden door
across from the bed had no lock on it. On the table next to her was
her cellphone, her Taser, her billfold full of Euros, and a pack of
matches from a club in the
Altstadt
she and Heidi had visited last month.

Ella’s mouth felt dry. She had no immediate
memory of how she came to be out of the storm and in this bed. The
woman by her bed wore the black habit of a nun, the wimple framing
a beautiful face with large expressive eyes.

“Does your head hurt? Can you see me?”

Ella stared at her.

“Are you feeling ill? Or just weary?” The
woman handed Ella a cup of water.

Ella drank from the cup quickly and handed
it back. “More, please.”

“Of course.” The nun spoke abruptly over her
shoulder in a language Ella didn’t recognize. A young woman who had
been standing in the hall answered her.

“Where am I?”
Had she made it to the church after
all?

“You are at the
Kloster St. Josef
,” the
woman said. “We are the Order of the Visitation of Mary.” She was
smiling but Ella felt her eyes examining her intently.

“How did I…?”

“You were found collapsed at the foot of the
north gate of the convent garden. The storm was very bad. Because
of your strange clothes, you were mistaken for a lad. Upon closer
inspection, it was deduced that you were a foreign novice of some
kind and so were brought to me.”

“My clothes?” She had been wearing jeans and
a leather jacket. She looked around the room but saw no signs of
them.

“They are drying but you will have no need
of them while you are with us.”

Ella couldn’t tell if the nun was
trustworthy or not. Her head hurt and the cloud of confusion still
hung in her mind.

“Can you tell me what is the date?” Ella
asked.

“So you are taking little steps to the
truth. It was the same with me. My name is Greta Schaefer and I am
the Mother Superior of this convent.”

The young woman returned with a pitcher of
water which she placed on the nightstand and left the room. The nun
poured water into Ella’s cup.

“It is the sixth day of October,” Greta
said, as she handed the cup to Ella. “In the year of our gracious
Lord, 1620.”

Ella’s hand froze as she
reached for the cup and she stared blankly at Greta. The expression
on Ella’s face spoke louder than any words could:
How is that possible?

“It is a lot to understand,” Greta said. “I
know from your clothes and from where you were found, that you are
not from this time.”

Ella put a hand to her head
and looked around the room as if trying to see if there was
anything in the room or about the nun that might conceivably
disprove the idea.
Zippers? Bifocals? A
bedside clock? Sounds of traffic? Anything?
“But, how…is that possible?” she said.

“I know you have many questions,” Greta
said. “I recognized immediately that you and I are alike. You
understand what I am telling you?” Greta reached over and touched
Ella’s hand but Ella withdrew it immediately.

“Forgive me,” Greta said. “You have slept
for many hours and it is so hard to be patient. I have many
questions, too,” she said. “I, myself, came here from the year
1946. Are you from anywhere near that time?”

Ella watched her for any sign of guile, but
the nun merely smiled patiently, her eyes bright and eager.

“2012,” Ella said finally.

“Oh!” Greta put her hand to her mouth as if
she’d been goosed. “Such a long way into the future. So much must
have happened.”

“I’m sorry, Sister,” Ella said, forming her
words carefully in order to be understood. “Can you tell me how it
is possible that you…that you came to be here from…you said 1946?
Are we in some kind of time bubble?”

Greta smiled and shook her head. “I am sure
I must have sounded as confused and mad to everyone as you do to me
now,” she said. “When you have slept again and eaten, I will tell
you my story and then, perhaps, you will tell me yours. Meanwhile,
it is sufficient that God has sent you to help us and for that I am
grateful but not surprised. That is well for now. Rest. We will
talk later.”

Ella could not keep her
eyes open. It occurred to her that it didn’t really matter to her
where she was or even
when
she was. She was safe and dry from the storm. And
for now that was enough. As she drifted off to sleep, she felt a
cool hand gently smooth her brow.

Rowan sat in his apartment, his cellphone on
his knee, staring at the wall. In the noisy bar earlier that
evening, he hadn’t heard his cellphone go off and had missed the
call from Ella. He lifted the bottle of beer to his lips and
glanced at the cellphone screen. He had listened to her voicemail
ten times already. It wasn’t likely to get any less cryptic. He hit
the play button again anyway.

“Hey, Rowan. Surprise. It’s me. Look, I was
just wondering what you were up to. I mean, we haven’t talked in
awhile. When you get this message...please call me back…And if
you’re screening this call because you’ve got some Alabama hottie
on tap there, that’s cool. Except I thought US Marshals have to be
available at all times. What if I were a Federal witness needing a
ride somewhere? Not to get all dramatic here but I kind of need
you, Rowan. Anyway. Okay, you know this is me, Ella, right?”

Rowan stared at the cell time. Five p.m.
Dothan time. Ten p.m. in Heidelberg. What the hell was she doing
calling him at ten at night? He had called her cellphone and her
landline with no answer. One just rang and the other went straight
to voicemail. Tomorrow he planned to call her father to see if he
knew anything. And maybe he’d call her supervisor to see what was
going on there. None of this felt right. Not being able to reach
her felt worst of all. Rowan drained his beer and tossed the bottle
toward the kitchen garbage can. He missed.

“I kind of need you, Rowan.”

When Ella woke up, Greta was again at her
bedside. Without preamble, the nun handed her a steaming cup of tea
and began speaking.

“My name is Greta Schaefer,” she said. “I
taught English before the war and worked in a munitions factory in
Manheim during the war until it was bombed.”

“Your English is really good,” Ella said. As
she sipped from the strange dark tea. She realized she was wearing
a rough cotton shift she didn’t remember putting on. She felt safe
with this nun and in this place. She trusted Greta. She wasn’t sure
if that was wise but it felt inevitable.

“The war had just ended,” Greta said. “I was
living with my mother in Heidelberg until things could be resolved
after the war.”

“’
Resolved’?”

“I had a husband in the war,” she said. “I
had not heard from him for a year. We all believed he had been
killed, but I was waiting with my family to see if he would come
home.”

“Oh. Sorry,” Ella said.

“Heidelberg was not damaged in the war. Did
you know that?”

Ella shook her head.

“Although we didn’t think
the Americans cared for such things, it was widely believed that
they were so enthralled with Heidelberg’s beauty that they could
not bear to destroy it. One day, I was coming home from late mass
from the
Catholic Church of the
Jesuits
. It began to rain, much like the
storm we had last night. The heavens opened wide, the night sky was
illuminated with terrible bolts of lightning. I tried to hurry.
Stupidly, I had left my umbrella at home. My mother warned me to
take it.”

Ella held the hot tea and blew gently across
the surface. And waited.

“I fell.” Greta said. “It was a shortcut and
the stones were slippery. Very near where you were found.”

“How did it happen?”

“I do not know. One minute I was rubbing a
skinned knee in the dark in 1946 Heidelberg, thinking of my dinner
waiting for me at my mother’s and the next minute I was here.”

A wave of urgency suddenly came over Ella as
she found herself blurting out what she soon realized was, up to
this moment in her life, the most important question of her life:
“Is it possible to go back?” she asked.

“Back to your own time? I believe so. Once,
when I was bringing the lambs in during a bad rain, I found myself
very near that same spot at the base of the garden lane. I felt a
terrible pulling in my soul. It was an almost irresistible urge
that convinced me that if I were to just let it happen, I would
return to my own time after the war.”

“Why didn’t you?”

“I found a better life here.”

“Were you a nun in 1946?”

“I was not. I am not proud of that part of
the story,” Greta said. “But I believe I have made amends to God in
the way that matters.” She looked at Ella and smiled. “In all the
ways that matter. And so that part of the story will wait for
another time. You are tired. Rest now and we will talk more
later.”

Several hours later, after a long hot bath
in an ancient wooden tub, a convent novice showed Ella to a
different cell and gave her a simple habit of crudely dyed linen
and a pair of slippers. There was a missile and a single candle on
the nightstand, a small window looking out over the garden below,
and a thin wool rug on the slate floor.

The bed linen—a far cry from the three
hundred thread count sheets she had at home—was clean, soft and
comfortable. Seconds after her head hit the pillow that night and
just before she fell asleep, it occurred to Ella that for the first
time in a very long time, she felt content and safe.

The next day, Ella spent the first full day
of her life in 1620 Heidelberg following Greta around the convent.
She was reminded that this mysterious woman who had rescued her
from the storm was the Mother Superior. It was not clear how that
happened, since Greta readily admitted she had no formal religious
training to be even a religious novice, let alone a nun, she still
had not revealed to Ella and didn’t appear in any hurry to do
so.

For great parts of that first day—despite
much evidence to the contrary—and into the second, Ella didn’t
completely believe that she was living in a different time. She
found it difficult to grasp the possibility, much less the reality,
of it all. But by the end of her second day of life in 1620, she
would never again have the security of that doubt.

Chapter Seven

“
You are English, yes?”

“American.”

“Ah, yes. The Allies.”

Ella and Greta were setting out dishes for a
simple meal of soup and fresh bread in Greta’s private chamber.
Ella was impressed with the fact that, here, everybody worked, even
the Mother Superior, who seemed to work harder than everyone else.
The other nuns moved silently about the small convent performing
their chores of cleaning, scrubbing, cooking, and tending the
little garden. Ella often saw their lips moving in silent prayer.
She had made eye contact only once with a fourteen year old girl,
who smiled shyly at Ella and then looked away.

“Mother Superior?” Ella said. “I understand
that history stopped for you right after the war but I need you not
to see me that way.”

“As the victor, you mean?”

“Yes, that’s right. Germany
and America are friends now.
Good
friends.”

“I cannot believe that is possible.”

“Well, it’s true. Heck, we’re pals with
Japan, too. I did part of my sophomore year at the University of
Freiburg and half my friends have travelled the length and breadth
of Germany.”

“There…there were no reprisals?”

“There was a trial…”

“The Nuremberg Trials. I know.”

“Then you know a lot of the head honcho SS
guys were executed.”

“But
Germany
was not
punished?”

“In a way they were, I guess, but not by us.
My Dad used to say that history is its own punishment.”

The woman frowned at Ella as if unsatisfied
with that answer.

“Well,” Ella said, seating herself at the
rough wooden table in Greta’s room. “As part of the surrender
agreement, the Allies forbade your country from having an army of
any size. Which meant that during the next fifty years,” Ella
continued, “without the expense of an army draining all their
resources, Germany became an economic powerhouse. With the help of
the Allies—Britain included—they rebuilt their country in a decade
of the war while France was still planting daylilies in their
bunkers. They lead the world in technology and engineering and
their cities and infrastructure reflect that.”

Greta shook her head, tears welling up in
her eyes. “England helped?”

“I believe so.”

“And we are not hated for what
happened?”

“
Not hated,” Ella said.
“But…”

“But?”

“But not forgotten, either.
Not feared, like Hitler wanted, but
respected
.” Ella said with emphasis.
“Germany, today, is considered the only stable financial base in
the European Union.”

“The European Union?”

“You know? That part’s kind of complicated.
Can we leave it until after lunch? Suffice to say, there have been
a lot of changes in the past sixty odd years.”

“Forgive me, Ella.” Greta reached over and
placed her hand over Ella’s. “You have been very patient. It is
good to hear how the story ended.”