Karolina's Twins (18 page)

“‘Of course.'

“‘Are you familiar with the German prison camp that has been built in Oświęcim?'

“‘Everyone is. It's well known. Auschwitz is only twenty kilometers from Chrzanów. Men from Chrzanów were sent to work on that prison. Has Ares been captured and sent to Auschwitz?'

“‘He was not captured,' Jan said.

“Then it hit me. I sat back in my chair. ‘He entered Auschwitz voluntarily? He's a prisoner by his own volition?'

“Jan nodded. ‘When TAP learned about this huge prison camp being built in Oświęcim, and of the many thousands that were being sent there in 1940, they decided we needed people on the inside. A few brave members volunteered to be sent to Auschwitz for the purpose of gathering intelligence and forming an internal resistance unit.

“‘On September 19, 1940, Ares walked out into the streets of Warsaw during a Nazi roundup of dissidents, intending that he be arrested and sent with the others to Auschwitz. He joined two thousand other people who were taken into custody that day. He was jailed, beaten and then shipped to Auschwitz by train.'

“I was astonished. How could anyone be that brave? ‘He willingly walked into a roundup to be beaten and incarcerated in a Nazi prison camp?' I said with my jaw hanging.

“Jan nodded. ‘Ares is such a man. On the inside, he makes notes, records information about who has been interned, where they are coming from, how the camp is organized and more importantly, what the Nazis are doing to the prisoners.'

“David broke in, ‘They've begun mass executions, Lena. At first Auschwitz was a prisoner-of-war camp, brutal to be sure, but just a very large jail. Now it is a death camp. There have been shootings and mass executions. We know from Ares that poison gas was tested in September 1941. In locked chambers. The camp has been expanded and tens of thousands are now being imprisoned. We suspect that the Nazis intend to expand the use of poison gas to murder the prisoners. Ares has been smuggling out the truth in his reports.'

“‘What do you want me to do?' I said quietly, now fully aware of the gravity of my role.

“‘Ares's notes are smuggled out of the camp every couple of weeks and sent along a network,' David said. ‘First here to Chrzanów, then ultimately to England. In England they are passed to the Polish Army in Exile and then given to Churchill. Presumably they also find their way to Roosevelt, now that the Americans have entered the war. It is important that the Allied leaders know exactly what is happening in Auschwitz.

“‘Recently, a link in our network has broken. We lost one of our couriers. We can't be sure what happened to him, but we don't think that the Nazis have discovered the network.'

“‘And you want me to take his place?' I said, excitedly. ‘You want me to deliver his reports?'

“Jan nodded. ‘We need to reestablish the network. We need to get those notes to England. David is too well known and too well observed to go out into the town. He rarely leaves this building. David will give you Ares's handwritten reports. We need you to take those notes and deliver them to our contact.'

“‘But I'm a Jew. I have an armband and papers that identify me as
Lena Sarah Scheinman—Jüdin.
I am bound by curfew and prohibited from leaving the ghetto.'

“David and Jan looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. ‘Okay,' they said. ‘We understand.' They rose from their chairs and thanked me for coming. ‘Please tell no one of our discussion.'

“‘Wait. You're dismissing me?'

“They nodded. ‘With no hard feelings.'

“‘You misread me. I only meant to say that if I'm stopped and I show them my identity card, they'll shoot me. But, I'll do it. How and when do I make the delivery? Do I go in the middle of the night? When do you want me to start? Oh, and will you give me a poison capsule to take if I'm caught? I don't want those bastards torturing me.'

“They laughed heartily and David said, ‘I told you we had the right woman.' He put his arms around me. ‘No poison, Lena. You won't get caught.' Then he took a bottle of wine out of his closet and set it on the table with sausage and cheese. ‘We celebrate our new comrade!'”

 

E
IGHTEEN

C
ATHERINE SIDLED SLOWLY INTO
the passenger seat and grimaced a bit as she bent forward. When settled, she let out a long sigh.

“What's the matter? Are you okay? Is something wrong?”

“I wish you'd quit asking me all the time if something's wrong, Liam. Every time I grunt you want to rush me to the doctor. Pregnant women grimace, grunt, sigh, grumble and bitch. It's our Constitutional right. Leave me alone.”

“It's something more. My Catherine radar picked up a troubled sigh.”

Catherine grinned. “You know me too well. It's about Lena. I'm probably being overcautious, but yesterday's conversation keeps playing out in my mind and it disturbs me.”

“Was it particularly terrifying?”

Catherine shook her head. “No. Actually, it was uplifting. Of course, hearing the details of her travail is horrifying, but yesterday she described a scene where she was recruited into a situation, all of which I find highly improbable. Isn't that terrible—that doubts are creeping into my mind?”

“You've always had a keen lawyer's intuition. What perked up your antennae?”

“The coming attractions, the parts of her story that I'm anticipating she'll tell me tomorrow. I don't think it can be true—at least the part that puts
her
in the middle of it. I want to believe her, but I think to myself, how is it possible that what's she's telling me all really happened to this one girl?”

“You think she's exaggerating? Maybe she's confused?”

Catherine shook her head. “Not confused. But I've heard that people who suffer from dementia, even in the initial stages, sometimes believe that the stories they read or hear about other people actually happened to them. Her own doctor told me that was a common symptom.”

“He told you that she…”

“No, no. He was just describing symptoms of dementia in general.”

“And you believe Lena shows signs of dementia?”

Catherine turned to face Liam. “No, I don't, but I'm not a doctor. I'm not competent to do a mental-status exam. What if parts of her story really belong to someone else?”

“Well, what if they do?”

“This most recent discourse…”

“Oh, I get it. There's a possibility that Karolina's children might just be a story she heard and not something she experienced?”

“I hate to think that. But maybe. It's certainly possible. Maybe there's some truth in Arthur's allegations. Oh God, I hope not, Liam.”

“What harm is there in listening to Lena's tale? Hearing her out? What's the downside? Is it too much strain on your practice? Does she take too much time? Do you need to curtail your sessions?”

“No. Things are slow at the office right now. I can certainly find the time. The downside is my emotional investment. I just fear a grand disappointment at the end of the road. For both her and me.”

“What is it about this most recent episode that triggers these doubts?”

“She's about to tell me that she embarked upon an espionage career to deliver secret notes from a spy inside Auschwitz, code-named Ares. And if that isn't bizarre enough, she says that the spy was a Polish war hero who voluntarily had himself thrown into Auschwitz so he could organize a resistance and tell the world about what was happening inside the concentration camp.”

“It couldn't happen?”

“To Lena Scheinman, a person unknown to any historical accounts?”

“I admit it's questionable, but that's just it. Question her. Hell, you're the best cross-examiner I know. What is it you say: cross-examination is the crucible of truth?”

“It's not just my angst about Lena's involvement, it's about buying into the spy story itself. That she smuggled out reports of the gas chambers to the Allies? I mean there's that whole debate—why didn't we bomb Auschwitz or the rail lines when we had the chance? Why didn't we do something to stop the slaughter? As a survivor, I'm sure it's something she's rightfully pondered all of her life.”

Liam nodded. “My understanding, admittedly based on minimal exposure, was that America didn't know that mass exterminations were happening until late in the war, maybe 1944 or 1945. I recall a picture of a shocked General Eisenhower at a Buchenwald sub-camp demanding that his aides take photographs and films proving to future disbelievers that the death camp really existed.”

“Right. And now Lena embarks upon a story of a Polish hero who intentionally has himself committed to Auschwitz and smuggles out diaries of the mass exterminations to Churchill and Roosevelt. Not in 1944 or 1945, but relatively early in the war. And armed with that knowledge, the Allies didn't do a damn thing to stop the genocide? For years? And Lena Scheinman's right in the middle of the mix? She's the Mata Hari who delivers the reports? Doesn't that send up credibility alerts?”

“Cat, you have the tools…”

“I know, I know, cross-examination is the crucible of truth. But do me a favor. Conduct some of your world-famous investigative research. See if you come across anyone like this Ares person.”

“Done.”

Liam slowed the car and pulled into the parking lot for Northwestern Memorial Hospital. “Let's see if those ultrasound photographers can get a good eight-by-ten glossy of the world's most beautiful baby-to-be.”

“Liam, there's something else,” she said, getting out of the car.

“Seriously?”

She nodded. “I've been having some pains. When I talk to the doctor, I don't want you freaking.”

“Pains? What kind of pains? Where are the pains? Damn, Cat, why didn't you say something? When did you start having pains?”

“A few days ago. I'm sure it's nothing. They're very minor. They come and then they go away. I figured since we're going to the doctor anyway, I'd wait to tell him.”

“Why would you wait? Where are these pains?”

“I think we'll let the doctor do the diagnosis. And there's something else.”

“Something else? Something else??”

“I need more maternity clothes. We have to shop.”

 

N
INETEEN

“Y
OU LOOK UNCOMFORTABLE TODAY
,” Lena said to Catherine.

“A little back pain. Headache. Doctor says it could be a bladder infection. He's going to keep a close watch on it. Thanks for asking.” She took her notes out of her file. “Last time, we were talking about your meeting with David and Jan. They told you about a secret Polish soldier who knew there were mass executions happening at Auschwitz years before anyone else in the world and he voluntarily had the Germans arrest him and send him there so that he could report it all.”

Lena looked askance at Catherine. “Well, that's not exactly what I said. You obviously have some hesitations.”

“Lena, I'm sure you're not purposefully fabricating any part of your story…”

“I'm not fabricating it purposefully or in any other way. It's true. I'm not senile. I can see it like it was yesterday.”

“I'm sorry,” Catherine said. “I don't mean to doubt you…”

“Yes, you do.”

“I certainly didn't intend to offend you, Lena. Please don't get defensive. Your story is a lot for me to digest. Especially when it runs contrary to what I know.”

Lena raised her eyebrows. “Exactly what do you know?”

“That the Allied leaders didn't know about the Auschwitz exterminations. It's hard for me to grasp your story that they received reports from inside the camp and then did nothing.”

“And that's what you know?”

Catherine nodded. “You said you were Ben Solomon's biggest fan. Well, you weren't the only one. During our sessions, I studied with him. He taught and I learned. Probably the first time in my life that I was impelled to know historical subject matters. Ben showed me pictures of President Eisenhower at the Buchenwald death camp.”

“Ohrdruf,” Lena countered. “Ohrdruf was a Buchenwald sub-camp.”

“In 1945 Eisenhower found naked bodies piled one on another in wooden sheds. He found thousands of starving prisoners looking like stick figures, enough that it made him sick. He never knew about it. He called upon Joseph Pulitzer and other journalists to record the scene. Pulitzer at first didn't even want to come, thinking that such a tale was preposterous. But after he arrived, he thought the reports were understated. No one knew, Lena.”

“Yes, they did.”

“Ben told me that General Patton was so incensed by what he saw that he ordered his military policemen to travel to the nearby town of Weimar and return with the townsfolk to show them what their leaders had done. The MPs brought back two thousand people and made them look. Many fainted. Three days later, Edward R. Murrow went on the air and broadcast from Buchenwald, and he described the horrific scene.”

Catherine reached behind her and pulled a book off the shelf. She thumbed to a page and said, “Let me read this to you. Murrow said, ‘I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it, I have no words. If I have offended you…'”

Lena broke in and spoke in a whisper, “‘If I have offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I am not in the least sorry.'”

“Yes,” Catherine said with a catch in her throat. “That's a chilling statement by one of the world's most respected reporters and someone who was certainly up to speed on what the world knew. Everyone was shocked. No one knew the extent of the Nazi genocide. And now you tell me that leaders of the free world knew all about the Final Solution, all about the crematoriums, all about the genocide and did nothing? I'm sorry, but it's a little incredible to me that a single Polish soldier volunteered to be incarcerated in Auschwitz and smuggled out reports to Churchill and Roosevelt, and they could have done something, they could have bombed the crematoria or the railroad lines, but they kept it quiet, not even telling Eisenhower…”