Lilac Girls (9 page)

Wiola.

“Who is it?” came a voice from inside.

“It is Iwona,” I said.

I looked back at the street, cars and horse-drawn wagons driving on their way, people on the sidewalks.
Hurry,
Wiola. I could be spotted by the SS there with my telephone book for all the world to see.

The door buzzed, I entered and closed the door behind me.

I recognized the girl with the code name Wiola, Janina Grabowski, from my former Girl Guide troop. She held all ten fingers splayed, each tipped with wet ruby lacquer.

“Sorry I didn't answer the door straightaway,” she said.

I held out the telephone book. “Wiola, this is for Konrad Zegota.”

Janina was a good sort, with hair dyed flame red and a farm-girl build, but not my first choice for a partner when risking my life. She didn't have one serious Girl Guide proficiency badge in first aid or orienteering, and everyone knew she'd gotten her art badge for doing makeup.

Janina took the book between her palms.

“Thank you,
Iwona.
”

The office was in a converted apartment building with tall windows that overlooked the street, covered only with transparent white drapes. It was furnished with one metal desk, an old typewriter atop it; two easy chairs; and a dusty table scattered with outdated Polish fashion magazines. Someone had placed a glass bowl on the table, inside it one goldfish. The goldfish, suspended in place with his fins beating, stared at me, mouth agape in a surprised
O.
Even he could tell this office was a fake.

Janina flopped the telephone book onto the desk. A smile teased at her face until she burst out with a loud laugh.

“You can't expect me to keep a straight face, Kasia.
Iwona.
This is all so funny.”

The name Pietrik had given her, Wiola, meant violet flower, not a fitting name for her, since she was a tall girl with wrists thick as table legs.

“Keep your voice down. Who knows who's nearby watching?”

The overhead lights were so bright. Were we lit up for every Nazi to see?

“The only Nazis that've come anywhere
near
here followed Anna Sadowski when she was carrying grenades in her bra. Flirted with her the whole way. Some girls get fun jobs.” Janina stepped closer. “Stay for cards?”

Cards?

“There's money in that book. Shouldn't you hide it? Do you want to get us shot?”

“Come on, stay. I'll do your hair.”

“I need to get home before dark.”

She clutched her hands to her chest. “An updo?”

Janina worked part-time at the best hair salon in Lublin.

“Pietrik told me to leave right away.”

“Are you two sweethearts?”

“I have to go—”

“Everyone says he likes you…”

I hurried to the door. “Don't listen to rumors.”

Janina picked a magazine from the table, and slid herself up onto the desk. “So you're not interested in
any
rumors?”

I turned.

“Even rumors about, say…Nadia Watroba?”

I stepped toward the desk.

“What do you know?”

Janina thrust her chin in the air. “Oh, now you'll stay.”

“She's my best friend.”

“Oh, really?” Janina said, flipping through the magazine.

“Would you stop? Her dog is outside waiting, very sick—”

She slapped her magazine closed. “Not
Felka
?”

Nadia's Felka was a famous dog.

“Yes, Felka. So tell me now.”

“Well, I only know a little…”

“Janina, if you don't tell me—”

“Okay. Okay. All I know is that Pietrik—well, I
think
it was Pietrik—took Nadia and her mother to a safe apartment.”

“Close by?”

“In Lublin, yes. But that's all I know.”

“
Nothing
else?”

“Just that I heard she's somewhere right under the Nazis' noses.”

Dazed, I thanked Janina, walked back down the front steps, and started for home, through the park as Pietrik had told me. Nadia really was safe! My whole body relaxed as I pulled the wagon quicker to get Felka home and fed. Nadia was with her mother and still in Lublin! There was much I could do for her—care for Felka, keep working for the underground.

After all, my first mission had gone well even if Janina hadn't taken it seriously. Was I now part of the resistance? I'd delivered
money.
I would take the oath tomorrow and make it official.

Halfway home, the skies opened, flooding the cobblestone streets, soaking Felka and me through.

“You were lucky once,” my wet shoes said with each step. “Don't make a habit of it.”

I
took the train home from Camp Blossom, happy to leave, my thoughts fixed on finding a job as a physician. I wore my BDM uniform, but before long regretted this. It would have been restful to watch the thick forests fly by outside the train window, assembling a mental checklist of possible clinics to visit. But I did not get a moment of solitude, for every passenger stopped to display admiration for my uniform.

“May I touch your eagle please, Fräulein?” a young boy asked.

He stood at my train seat, posture good, arms by his sides, rocking slightly as the train swayed. His mother stood behind him, two fingers to her lips, eyes wide, as if meeting the Führer. Yes, it was somewhat burdensome to represent the BDM, but flattering as well, since great respect was shown to those of us in that uniform. As young people, we had such power.

“You may,” I said.

Water came to my eyes as he stroked the gold thread with the touch of a butterfly.

Nothing grips the heart like an unspoiled German child.

It was understandable my uniform caused a fuss, since most Germans had never seen the full complement of BDM badges on a woman. While the all-male Hitler Youth had patches and pins for every activity, down to potting plants, BDM achievement badges were limited in number and hard-won. On my navy-blue leader's jacket, I wore the Red Cross patch, the silver proficiency clasp for nursing, and the first aid and physical fitness badges.

But it was the eagle indicating the highest level of leadership, the golden bird worn over my heart, his bullioned wings fanned out, which attracted the most attention. Mutti had cried with pride the day I first wore it home. She'd been more impressed with that than my diploma from medical school, accelerated on account of the war.

Once home, I tried to find my first job as a doctor, but even though I'd graduated second in my class, practices were reluctant to hire a woman doctor. It seemed the Party rhetoric about a woman's rightful place being at home raising children had taken root and many patients requested a male physician. Since, as a female university student, I'd been required to take needlework classes, I took in sewing work for extra money.

I finally found a part-time post at the Skin Clinic of Düsseldorf, which paid a small fee for each patient I treated. It was a dull job, the highlight of most days lancing a boil. Would I forget the few surgical techniques I'd learned in medical school? A surgeon must operate consistently to stay proficient.

Our economy had improved markedly by then, which only reduced the number of patients seeking skin treatment. Even dishpan hands, once the bread and butter of dermatology, were not a problem for most German housewives anymore. Polish laborers provided by the Reich, imported from the east, took care of the scullery work.

As a result, my earnings soon dropped to almost nothing. Father's condition went from serious to critical, and Mutti had to stay home with him. I barely sustained all three of us. In no time I became the only starving doctor in Düsseldorf, so I continued to work part time at
Onkel
Heinz's butcher shop.

After the stillness of the Camp Blossom woods and the quiet clinic, the bustle of the crowds coming to the shop for their meat, the anxious
Hausfrauen
in their ironed housedresses jostling to the counter, like a polite herd of cattle themselves, was a welcome variation. There I could escape my troubles and just tear great sheets of white paper from the roll and practice surgical knots as I wrapped packages in striped twine.

I came to work as usual one Sunday, when the shop was closed to the public. That was the day Heinz had me work there alone, so no one could see what I made for him.

His special project.

“Hurry up,” Heinz said.

He pressed himself against the butcher-block table, which sagged from the blows of his cleaver and his father's before him. His bulge was plain even under his butcher's apron, which was stiff with dried calf's blood. How did I get myself in such a fix? Years of being too afraid to say anything; that is how.

Heinz watched as I stood at the worktable and chose the tautest lamb intestine. The waiting was the best and worst part for Heinz. I turned the tissue inside out, macerated it in bleach, and removed the mucous membrane, careful to leave the peritoneal and muscular coats.
Onkel
Heinz urged me on, but I took my time, since any tear or pinprick could spell disaster.

“I'm going as fast as I can,” I said. It was best to stall, for once I finished, the worst part came, and the whole process began again.

Bad thoughts stung me as I worked. Why wasn't I home researching new jobs? It was my own fault I was stuck there, trapped by Heinz, fearing he would reveal our secret. I should have told on him years before, but
Tante
Ilsa would never have paid for my schooling if she'd known. What would Mutti say? I could never tell her, of course. Even sick as he was, Father would murder
Onkel
Heinz if he knew. This was the price I paid for my education. Heinz said I'd brought it on myself, a young woman alone there with him.

Heinz moved next to me and lifted my skirt. I felt the familiar creep of his calloused fingers onto my thigh.

“Why does it take you so long?” Heinz asked. I smelled that sweet wine he liked on his breath.

I pushed his hand away. “Things take time.”

Heinz was not exactly the cream of the master race. With an IQ somewhere between borderline deficient and mildly retarded, he was easily put off by any excuse more than two words long. I patted the delicate tissue dry, measured, and cut. Heinz was red in the face by the time I rolled it down, smooth and clear as a silk stocking.

I didn't have to be told to go to the meat locker with the tin bucket of lard. There was a curious comfort in the sameness of it. I pulled the string attached to the bare bulb to illuminate the space and braced myself against the cold wooden shelf behind me. Even with the flour sack across my face, I knew what was coming. The sweet flour smell cut his odor of beef blood, cigars, and bleach.
Don't cry.
Crying only angered Heinz and made it take longer. He inched my handiwork over himself, dipped one paw into the lard, ran it down the membrane, and began.

I reviewed the bones of the hand.

One: the scaphoid bone, derived from the Greek
skaphos,
which means boat.

Folds of fat hung from Heinz's abdomen like a hairy apron and flapped against me with each thrust. With his irregular breathing coming faster, it would not be long.

Two: the lunate bone, shaped like a crescent moon.

I had long ago stopped wishing for a sudden heart attack. Years of fatty roasts must have provided him with arterial plaque buildup two fingers thick, but he managed to stay alive nonetheless.

Three: the triquetrum bone. Four: the round pisiform bone, named for the Latin for pea.

Heinz could not contain himself and began his usual moaning and so on, his breath a cold fog on my neck. His hands shook as he gripped the shelf, his thick butcher's wrists supporting his weight.

Without warning, the refrigerator door opened, and the flour sack slipped from my face. Ilsa stood in the doorway, holding the door open with one hand, a jar of marmalade in the other. She must have heard Heinz groaning like a stuck pig.

“Shut that door, woman,” Heinz said, pants puddled at his ankles, face purple.

Was that disgust on her face or just weariness? She placed the marmalade on the refrigerator shelf, turned, and left.

The locker door chunked shut behind her, and Heinz went back about his work.

O
NE SLOW DAY AT
the skin clinic, I sat at my desk after finishing with my last patient, a rotund four-year-old thumb-sucker. I'd sent his mother home with some antiseptic cream for a rash. How would I make a living doing this? I was much better suited to the tranquility of a university position, but a teacher's salary would not support my family much better.

I picked up
The Journal of Medicine
and noticed a classified ad for a
doctor needed at a reeducation camp for women, 90 km north of Berlin, near the resort town of Fürstenberg on Lake Schwedt.
There were many such camps at the time, mostly for the work-shy and minor criminals. The idea of a change of scenery was appealing. A resort town? I would miss Mutti but wouldn't miss Heinz.

The only other thing I knew about the camp was that Fritz Fischer, my former medical school classmate, worked there, but it had a pleasant-sounding name.

Ravensbrück.