Saving Amelie (51 page)

“Please let me help,” Rachel cried.

Lea wanted to shout at her sister,
They beat Oma because of you! Because they didn’t believe her when she said she was not hiding you, that she didn’t know where you are! I know this because I know Oma and how she loves you! And we all know why the soldiers came!
But she didn’t shout it, didn’t say it. She swallowed and repeated, “The doctor may be here any moment. Please, Rachel—for Oma’s sake, do as I ask. Oma knows that you love her. Now show her by doing what is needed. Take care of Amelie and Rivka—and yourself. Get into the cupboard.”

Rachel looked as though she was struggling—what she wanted and what was wanted of her warring at the top of their lungs within. She kissed Oma’s free hand but stepped back and disappeared through the bedroom doorway.

Lea heard the quiet rattle of crockery in the kitchen, the kettle being filled and placed on the stove. A few moments later Rachel reappeared in the doorway. “Everything’s ready. We’ll take Amelie into the cupboard, and we’ll wait there until you come for us.”

Lea nodded without turning. “I hope it won’t be long. But I think he’ll set her leg. I don’t know how long that will take.”

“Please,” Rachel whispered, “when she wakes . . . tell her I’m sorry. Please tell her I’m so very sorry.”

Lea gritted her teeth, conscious of the tension in her arms, her shoulders, her neck and face. She forced herself to breathe, to turn, to say, “You can tell her yourself tonight. Now into the cupboard, and please—please keep Amelie still.”

Jason handed over the forged passports to Dietrich’s contact. Despite their best sources, neither had been able to track down Curate Bauer—where he’d been taken or what he’d been charged with.

It was another week before Jason got wind of Schlick’s transfer to Oberammergau. But a call from a phone box to the chief told him why the SS officer had requested transfer to the Bavarian village.

“What do you know about that photograph Eldridge took—the Bavarian Madonna, they’re calling it?” Jason could hear the chief chewing on his cigar through the telephone lines—no typewriters clattering in the background.
He must not be in the newsroom. So what’s up?

“Not sure I can tell you anything,” Jason answered. “Seeing it in that US rag was the first time I laid eyes on it.”
That’s the truth—best stick to the truth.

“That’s what I told that Sturmbannführer Schlick who keeps pestering. Apparently he’s out looking for the broad—says she’s the American, Rachel Kramer. The guy’s on some kind of crusade, if you ask me.” The chief yawned. “I’m just as glad Eldridge went back to the States. I’ve a feeling this thing with Schlick could get ugly.”

“Ugly is an SS signature,” Jason agreed.

“Censorship, my boy. Watch yourself,” the chief warned.

“Roger. Over and—”

“Wait. I’ve a lead for you. Word on the street is that mercy killings are up.”

“What do you mean, ‘up’?” Jason could barely breathe.

“The Gestapo’s ‘relieving society of the mentally deficient of the Reich.’ No idea what that means in numbers. Probably only Himmler and a handful of his cronies know. There’s an asylum in Bethel. Nazis are pressuring the pastor to give the kids up. Word is neither will give and something’s gonna blow. Ever since Hitler got France, things have gotten even nastier, more out in the open. See what you can dig up—but be careful.”

“Roger.” Jason dropped the receiver into its cradle, sick in his stomach, wishing Rachel and Amelie were stateside, knowing that with Schlick stationed in Oberammergau, they’d run out of time.

He picked up the phone again and dialed. Three rings and a woman answered.
“Ja?”

“I’m looking for a stenographer. Know any good ones?” It was his regular code question.

“One or two?” Her standard response.

“Three.”
Rachel, Amelie, Rivka.

“Not three. I’ll be in touch.” The phone went dead.

Jason replaced his receiver.
Not three. Whose life do I save? Whose do I lose?

61

F
RIEDERICH
MADE
the train trip to Munich himself. He was the least likely of his household to be followed, and he could legitimately take care of a little business in the city. He also took the opportunity to speak with Jason, albeit not face to face. Back to back on benches in the train station would have to do.

“The train is impossible. There’s no way to get them out in cars or trunks. Schlick has checkpoints at every entrance to the city. The entire village is on tenterhooks and treating Lea like a pariah, waiting for her twin to show up. Schlick has shown Rachel’s picture all over the village. There is a reward for the one who finds her.”

“Rachel’s lying low?”

“She’s not teaching the theatre classes anymore. It’s too risky, and Lea’s stalling—saying Oma needs more care since her ‘visit’ from the SS. Lea’s not an acting teacher. She’s frightened out of her wits. Schlick comes to watch her teach choir—anytime he wishes. Lea will have to start the theatre class up again soon, but we’ve no doubt he’ll show up there, too.”

“Intimidation. Schlick’s trademark.” Jason sighed. “Okay, so no trains, cars, buses—nothing on the road. We need a diversion to get her out.”

“Something to keep every guard from his duties?” Friederich nearly grunted. “Impossible.” He sat for a moment, hating to confess one more need. “We’re low on food. Oma’s garden is not enough, and there are those hungrier—pilferers we cannot turn away.”

But Jason didn’t seem to hear. “Smoke and mirrors.”

“What?”

“Smoke and mirrors. Making something look like something it’s not.”

“I’ve no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Rachel will understand. Ask her for an idea—a diversion that will keep them all busy long enough to get her out.” Jason stretched, checking his watch against the clock. “I’ll be waiting.”

Rachel had put Amelie to bed in the attic. The five adults sat in the kitchen, blackout curtains pulled tight and pinned.

“Smoke and mirrors?” Lea asked.

Friederich shrugged. “That’s what he said, and that Rachel would know what he meant.”

All eyes turned toward Rachel.

“I know what he means; I’m just not sure how to make that work.”

Oma shrugged helplessly, then peeked beneath the blackout curtain, keeping watch from her rocking chair.

“It’s just what Lea and I have been doing with our classes—or were doing. By me pretending to be Lea, we could pull the wool over the eyes of everyone who saw us.”

“And those who didn’t,” Rivka added thoughtfully, tapping the table.

“Yes?” Lea asked.

Rivka turned to Lea. “You were in two places at once. You were at the church, and you were here. You were able to accomplish twice as much because there were two of you, pretending to be one. The same would be true if you both pretended to be Rachel.”

“I still don’t see—” Lea began.

“I do,” Rachel said, grasping Lea’s hand. “What if, instead of everyone thinking I was you, Gerhardt really thought you were me?
What if he thought you were me, and was diverted—kept busy just long enough for Amelie and Rivka and me to get away? And then he would realize that you’re not me after all—that he was mistaken.”

“No.” Friederich stood up now. “It’s been risky enough having you pretend to be Lea. I won’t have Lea pretending to be you, to be put in such danger. That man, thinking my Lea is you, that he could do with her as he wishes, even for a minute, is out of the question! No, that is the end of such talk.”

Rachel looked at Lea, pleading. But Lea shook her head, pulling away. “I agree with Friederich.” She shuddered. “Maximillion trails the Sturmbannführer like a shadow. No telling what he’s told him, what lies or half truths, what distortions. Any moment I expect them to tear me away as they did the curate! I’m afraid. . . . And how would we ever get you out of the village? There’s no way—there’s simply no way!” Lea’s voice had risen; her panic spread round the table.

Rachel reached again for her sister. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

But the days of July passed, and inspiration did not come.

Rations in the little house thinned without Curate Bauer’s intervention. Friederich worried over the Jewish family hidden in the cellar of his and Lea’s home. Others were helping to feed them, but lines of communication had broken down, and not enough black-market food was getting past the Nazi patrols into the village. Amelie cried herself to sleep in Rachel’s arms at night from hunger, no matter that Rachel saved her little bits from her own food to provide a bedtime snack. After that, Rachel and Rivka halved their shares, insisting that those who were working eat. Oma continued to recover physically from her beating, but slowly, and everyone’s nerves frayed.

62

T
HE
FIRST
WEEK
in August, Forestry Chief Schrade stopped by Friederich’s shop to place a Nativity order and to slip him wedges of cheese and one of beef. “I’m sorry it is not more.”

“Thank you, Chief Schrade. You’re a godsend to us.” Friederich meant it.

Chief Schrade glanced over his shoulder, waiting until the guard outside the shop door passed the window, then quickly pulled a slim, zippered pouch from inside his vest. “Herr Young sent these. He said to say that he’s sorry he could not do three—there are so many needed. He wants to know how you will get them out.”

Friederich glanced at the papers but had no idea how he could transport high-profile refugees under the nose of Schlick. He momentarily closed his eyes against the hopelessness, the enormity of the question.

“I’ve been thinking that with all the roads blocked and those Nazi bloodhounds on the prowl, there is only one way,” Chief Schrade whispered.

Friederich was ready to listen—ready for anything.

Now that Sturmbannführer Schlick was stationed in Oberammergau—an apparently long-term fixture—it was entirely too risky for Rachel to leave the house.

But Lea had never taught dramatics, did not understand
improvisational games or the high drama of children’s skits, had no concept of the American humor Rachel naturally interjected into her classes under Lea’s name. Lea’s first class fell flat and the children left disappointed and bewildered. Lea excused her odd behavior with a stomach disorder. The mothers who came to retrieve their children sympathized but went away as puzzled as their children by Frau Hartman’s abrupt change in teaching methods.

That night Lea grilled Rachel, begging her to better prepare her for class, to help her devise a skit and assign roles that would take the attention off of her and place it on the children once more. They didn’t get far that night. Lea taught choir the next day.

Sturmbannführer Schlick strode, arrogant and commanding, into Lea’s second dramatics class, an alternately fawning and gloating Maximillion Grieser glued to his side. Between the two, all of Lea’s training under Rachel flew from her head.

“Sturmbannführer Schlick,” Lea began, her throat drier than the cardboard clock prop she held in her hand. She hated that the man had this same effect on her each time she encountered him, hated that her own body betrayed her, that her heart raced and fingers trembled. All she could remember was his raid on Oma’s house—his intimate humiliation and cruelty to them both. What could stop him from doing as he pleased again? The children—perhaps the presence of the children!