Pastel Orphans (25 page)

“He said Mama tried to stab him after she had sold me.”

“He lied. Mama didn’t sell you. She is a broken woman, not just her body but her heart.”

I can sense that she struggles with the truths just learned, that her loyalties are still divided.

“Are you saying that he lied . . . Are you sure?”

“I am telling you that he lied. They are stealing children from the arms of their mothers.”

“The others aren’t stolen. Their parents died.”

“Probably killed by Germans so they could be taken. They are trying to create a blonde-haired, blue-eyed race. You are just part of their breeding program to produce more. Don’t you see? They might get rid of you tomorrow. Maybe give you to some German that you don’t like so that down the road you will give them more babies just like you.”

“You are lying,” she says, her voice breaking. She is scared.

“Henrik, enough,” I say. “She is frightened and she is young. What you are telling her does not make sense to someone her age. She would not understand.”

I hold both her hands, hoping that she does not run away again. “It’s all right, Greta. Your brother is just worried. The Germans have been mean and cruel and they have hurt a lot of people for no reason other than greed. Unfortunately, the man here is not a good man. He only pretends to be. Your brother has not come all this way to lie to you. And I can promise you, even though I have never met your mama, that she did not sell you.”

I can sense that some of the tension has left her.

“My name isn’t Greta. It is Johanna now.”

Henrik rifles through his bag and pulls out a drawing of his mother. He pulls out his small flashlight and shines it on the page.

“Henrik, the light!” I protest. “Someone will see us.” But he doesn’t hear me. He is too busy, too desperate to win his sister back.

“See, here is your mama. The mother who raised you and gave you everything, who tried to protect you and who nearly died trying. And this is how you repay her!”

Greta touches the page. “Mama,” she says, and she is remembering. Her eyes are filling with tears.

“What is the name of the man who lives here?”

“Dieter Wolff.”

Finally, we have found the owner of the lighter.

This makes Henrik angrier and he paces and curses, and when Greta starts to move away again nervously, Henrik rushes at her and grabs her, pinning her arms by her side with one arm and placing a hand over her mouth.

“It can’t be done this way,” I say.

“It has to be like this. Can’t you see?”

Greta is squirming and struggling.

All of a sudden we are in a beam of bright light, and we are facing the man who started it all. Dieter Wolff has a gun in one hand and a flashlight in the other.

“Release her or I will shoot you.”

Henrik does so but Greta doesn’t run away as I expected her to. Instead, she stands between the two men, wondering who she will trust. The menacing one with the gun or her brother who has just tried to kidnap her back.

“What are you doing here?” says Wolff. “Who are you?”

“I’ve come to take my sister home.”

Dieter is silent while he examines Henrik.

“That sounds very endearing,” says Dieter in a condescending tone. “The boy from the farm here to rescue his sister from a terrible predicament. Is that right, Johanna, it is terrible for you here?”

Greta is too frightened to speak. I can’t tell yet if she is afraid more for Henrik or for herself.

“As you can see, she is well taken care of—she does not need rescuing . . . Johanna! Come here!”

Wolff does not look at Greta. He has the gun trained squarely on Henrik, whose face is tilted slightly downward, filled with something greater than hate.

Greta does not move. Tears stream down her cheeks and she is trembling, but not from the cold.

“Johanna, go back to the house!” Wolff’s command is more forceful this time.

“Don’t hurt him, Papa,” says Greta.

“Go,” he barks, and she jumps at the sound. Greta edges away reluctantly as Dieter steps forward, only feet from where I stand. Henrik stands several yards away from us both.

“What do you want with my sister?”

“Isn’t it obvious? She is my daughter now . . . a gift for my childless wife. You can at least die knowing that she has a better life with me. That she will never know poverty.”

I breathe in suddenly at these words, which slice apart our hopes, and are trailed by silence to allow us briefly to contemplate our end. I think of all that we have been through, of what Henrik has done to find her. I think of all those he has rescued and tell God that he does not deserve to die. I cannot let Henrik die.

“Your wife will never be her true mother,” I say.

“You couldn’t be more wrong. There are now records that say otherwise.”

I can see that Dieter’s knuckles are white as he tightly grips the weapon.

“I will find you in hell then,” says Henrik, in that confident tone I love best, and the way he can rise above disaster to appear the victor, even in defeat, fills me with wonder.

I wrap my hand around a cool metal handle in my pocket, a gift from Gottfried.

I hear the click of The Wolf’s gun.

My hand trembles slightly as the sharp knife is drawn, and in one sweep I lunge and slash at the outstretched arm. The gun drops to the ground as Dieter grabs at the deep wound inflicted. There is blood on my sleeve. I am shocked at my capacity to do this.

Henrik quickly picks up the gun, and Dieter stumbles back towards the house.

“Hey, Hitler dog!” says Henrik calmly. “Did you know that Greta’s father was a Jew?”

Dieter has only moved yards when the shot erupts and breaks the night into sound and color. The bullet pierces the space between Dieter’s shoulder blades and he falls forward onto the grass.

Greta rushes back to Dieter and covers her mouth in horror.

“Come,” I say. “Quickly!” And she does. Greta hitches up her nightgown and we run through the fields fast, and we don’t look back.

We run into the darkness until the wailing of sirens is far behind us. We run until there is no sound of the city, only the sound of birds and creatures scurrying in the forest.

Then we stop. Henrik unclasps Greta’s locket, which hangs around his neck, and puts it on his sister. She clings to Henrik, her tears flowing.

“I want Mama,” says the girl in a small voice, and at first I wonder which one she means.

But she is no longer Dieter’s perfect German. She is someone’s daughter and sister once more.

C
HAPTER
32

I hear the sound of insects and there is newness to the air, as if it has been filtered by the snow and sent out fresh again. There is new growth sprouting from the earth.

We have found our buried packs and rifle. I have cut down Greta’s nightgown to make her a shirt, and given her a pair of my trousers, shortened and tied around her tiny waist with string. When she looks down at herself for the first time, I wonder if she is thinking about her nice clothes and soft bed and the adopted brothers and sisters she has left behind. I wonder how kind her new mama was, but I am afraid to ask. Afraid to hear anything positive, in case this is something Henrik does not want to hear.

We walk in the forest through the night and over the next day, and then, finally, we rest. That night I hear Greta crying and I put my arm around her. We lie on the earth, which grows cool during the night. Henrik lies with his back to us. He is not yet over his anger. Greta falls asleep in my arms. She still has a smell of roses in her hair. She has been well cared for. We should be grateful, at least, that we found her that way.

Greta is staggering, her legs close to giving up, and I touch Henrik’s arm. He looks at me and then Greta and his shoulders slacken with frustration. We wash by the river while the air is still warm. Greta’s feet are blistered from hiking in her soft leather slippers, which are not for walking across the uneven forest floor.

I put dampened rags on her feet to soothe them. She does not cry out. She is afraid to upset Henrik.

Greta stays close to me and sneaks glances at Henrik to check his mood. She has not once complained.

Down at the river I give her a small cloth to wash herself with. Away from Henrik I ask her: “What was it like . . . at the house?”

“It was nice,” she says, her lips pinched to stop herself from saying too much.

“It’s all right. I won’t tell Henrik.”

She thinks on this and eyes me to see if I am being truthful. Her guardedness and measured speech are perhaps things she has acquired at the Wolff house.

“It was very pleasant but strict. They had so much food, and we would celebrate lots of things. Not like at my old home.”

“Was your . . . was Mr. Wolff kind?”

“He wasn’t there much but he would sometimes come back with gifts. He gave me this watch.” She displays the gold at her wrist.

I think of Emelie’s clothes and necklace brought home by her father, and wonder if this also has been stolen from a Jew. There is a pause while she studies me. She looks down, her hands clenched together as if she is in a classroom, as if she is awaiting her next instruction.

“Where did you meet Henrik?”

“My brother and I found him in the forest. He had only been travelling from Zamosc a few days, to search for you, when he became lost and sick.”

“Where is your brother now?”

“Fighting the Germans.”

She looks away.

“Is he a Jew too?”

“Yes. But it is not just a war against the Jews. The Germans have taken French, Polish, Norwegian, and Yugoslavian lands, and now they want Russian lands too. And, who knows, they will take the world if they can.”

“But it is because they want to help nations. With the Führer in control those countries will prosper.”

I am glad that Henrik is not listening. This talk would not be tolerated.

I am careful with my words: too harsh, and she may find what I say difficult to take in. She might become resentful.

“Greta, it is what the Germans tell their own. If you are in England or America or you are in the prison camps you wouldn’t be saying that. You would know the truth. They only tell you what they think you want to hear. Unfortunately, the German leader and his armies have hurt so many, and nothing, dear Greta, is worth so many lives, especially of innocent men, women, and children.”

“Children?”

“Yes. Children have been imprisoned and killed for no reason other than who they are. It matters not to the leader of Germany how good or kind these innocents are. They are faceless to him. The Nazis only want the pastel children—the pale ones—the ones they believe are pure and deserving.”

Greta frowns at this and I think it is enough for her young mind to take in, but she asks, “Is it true that my father was a Jew?”

I nod.

“And my mother . . . are you sure she didn’t sell me?”

“As I said, it was a lie so that you would forget your mama, so that you would no longer care for her. They told you this so that you would be theirs to control. Your mama loves you so much, Greta.” My throat tightens when I think of my own mother and the way she died. How cruel it is to be separated from those you love.

She has seen my face. “Do you miss your brother and your family?”

“Yes, very much.”

When we return to our small camp, Henrik is skinning a rabbit. Greta watches him carefully. Her wide-eyed gaze suggests that, like me, she admires his fast hands and skill. She perhaps sees what I do, even in the short time I have known him: that he has grown. He is a man, tall and strong, square-shouldered, his face browned, his hair fair at the tips. He has gained much confidence since we first met. He would make a good partisan because he is not afraid of anything. He wears a rifle across his bare back, the strap across his torso. He has taken up smoking too. Gottfried has given him cigarettes and one now hangs from the corner of his mouth.

When he catches me staring, he winks.

I place roasting sticks crossed at angles on either side of the fire, in preparation for the rabbit.

When it is ready for cooking, Henrik turns the skinned rabbit with practiced skill so that it is cooked evenly. The smell is wonderful and I see that Greta’s lips are wet in anticipation.

Henrik cuts off a piece of meat with his knife and passes it to her. She takes it in her small hand. There is a look between them when their hands touch, a connection from blood, and a link that Dieter Wolff can never break.

“It is good, huh?” he says to Greta.

She nods, and the corners of her mouth flicker.

Later, when Greta is sleeping, I move away from her to talk to Henrik. He turns and kisses me gently and I kiss him harder, afraid to let him go.

“You have to give her time. You can’t be angry at her. She has suffered in her own way. The separation from you and your mother would have been traumatic and then she finally conceded that you were not coming, that you were no longer a part of her family, believing that your mother had given her up. She accepted her new family and believed their propaganda because there was no one and nothing else to tell her otherwise.”

“I know. But it is not just her; it is that man and what happened. It is that he made all this happen. It is that he died too quickly, that he did not account for any of it . . . not in the way I wanted.”

“We had to act quickly. There was no time for slow revenge. He would have killed us.”

“You did well with the knife. I did not know you were such a fighter,” he says, giving me his Henrik smile, wide and narrow lipped.

It is silent then and we can hear Greta’s heavy breathing. We snuggle together for a while, and then later I roll next to Greta to keep her loved.

Finally—tired and scratched from our long journey through the wilderness—we reach the house where we last saw Kaleb. It is abandoned, the doors open. Flies buzz around the kitchen over food that has thawed since the frozen winter, and dishes lie unwashed. The lights do not work; there is no diesel left in the generator.

We decide to stay the night there and I clean the kitchen. Henrik finds wood to light a fire in the oven and I find flour to make some bread. I pluck out the weevils and crush them between my fingertips. Some supplies have been preserved by the cold of winter.

It looks like no one has been here for many weeks. Kaleb has not returned. There is no trace of him in any of the rooms, yet I can still feel him there. I can still see him lying on his back on the bed, his arms folded behind his head, daydreaming.

There are clothes still in the cupboard. I wonder how it is that no one else has found this place to hide.

We will spend one night here. Henrik has studied the maps and it is possibly only two more days before we will arrive at my new home. He has come to the conclusion that when he first left Zamosc he was going around in circles in the forest. He assures me that with a compass for him to use, there will be no mistakes this time.

The bread is tasteless without salt, but it is warm and soft in the center. There are also potatoes, which I have fried in the teaspoon of fat we kept from the rabbit.

Henrik is talkative. I can sense his excitement. He is looking forward to the look in his mama’s eyes when she sees Greta. I am so happy to see him happy.

Greta talks about the other children. How at night they would cry sometimes and she would do what Henrik did for her and try to make them laugh, but it did not always work. She tells us how she would have writing and arithmetic lessons in the morning, help with baking in the afternoon, and then play games in the evening with the other children.

Henrik reminds her of the fields behind Femke’s house. He tells her about the many cows that they will buy and milk when they return. Greta’s eyes are bright. She is becoming excited to see her mother, to see their farm, to ride Henrik’s bicycle.

I feel that in time we will need to talk about the death of her adopted father. But something tells me that once she sees her mother, everything will fall into place, that things will be clearer to Greta. She will know her true home.