My Enemy's Cradle (29 page)

I forced myself to wait a little longer.

"Karl," I said, as if it had just occurred to me. "I saw a bakery around the corner when we drove in. I'd like to get some rolls like these for my friends—we don't get anything like them in the home." I opened my purse, withdrew my Dutch money, and frowned. "But all I have is this. Could you exchange it?"

Karl seemed pleased. "We'll stop on our way out. But I'll buy them. I want to." He pushed my hand back across the table. "Let's order dessert first. They have a Linzer torte. Then we'll get the bill and go to the bakery."

"No, really," I insisted. "You have dessert—I'm too full. I'll run over and take care of it now."

Karl studied me for a moment but then he pulled out a five-mark note. "Fine. But keep your money. I insist on that."

I took the money and stood up from the table, trying not to seem too eager. I smiled at him brightly and told him again I'd be right back, then walked away without turning around, afraid that if he saw my guilty face he would leap up and follow me. I left the guesthouse and headed to the right, away from the windows, until I was certain there was no way Karl could still see me.

A minute later, I doubled back and slipped behind the inn and walked to the post office I had seen. Long columns of swastika bunting hung beside the entrance—red and black snakes rustling patiently.

"I'd like to make a telephone call, long distance," I told the clerk at the desk. More bunting was draped across the windows. "The Netherlands. Schiedam."

She took out a booklet and calculated the charge. I paid her and she counted out my change; then I hurried into the booth to wait for the connection to go through. It took forever. A man came in and stood a polite distance behind me, waiting for his turn.

Finally I heard the ringing at the other end. The meter above the telephone began to tick as a woman's voice picked up.

"Isaak Meier," I said. "Please hurry."

"What is your business?"

"I need to speak to him right now. It's an emergency."

There was silence for a moment.

"Please get him!"

"I'm sorry, he's no longer here. Is this Council business? Because the Amsterdam Council—"

"What do you mean, he's no longer there? Where is he?"

"I'm really not allowed—"

"Never mind!" I forced my voice to be calm, but thirty seconds had gone by. "Please let me speak to Rabbi Geron. Now."

The woman left. A full minute passed. I turned my back to the meter. In front of me now was a portrait of Adolf Hitler, his arm raised toward my face. I closed my eyes. Finally, finally, Rabbi Geron picked up the telephone.

"This is Cyrla Van der Berg, Isaak's friend. I need to speak to him."

"Cyrla? But—"

"Please. Where is he?"

"He's ... you don't know this? He's at Westerbork."

For a second, I couldn't remember how to breathe. "Westerbork?" I managed.

"The roundup in October, of all non-Dutch Jews. You must have heard."

"No ... that's impossible. Isaak's Dutch, and—"

"He volunteered to accompany them—he thought he could help, as a lawyer."

"No!"

"I couldn't keep him here." Rabbi Geron had read my mind. "I didn't agree with his decision, but it was his decision. We pray every day that he will return to us soon. That all of them—"

"Is he all right? What have you heard?"

"We think—"

And then the meter rang and the line went dead.

"No, no ... wait! Connect me again! It's an emergency!" I stood holding the telephone because if I put it down, Isaak would fall even further away. The man behind me shifted and coughed. The black receiver suddenly weighed a hundred kilos—I dropped it into the cradle and stumbled out onto the street. The bunting tongues flapped beside me in a rising gust.

Isaak was gone.

I walked across the street to the bakery; I didn't feel my steps or the snow on my face. Isaak was gone. Karl was already there, talking to the girl behind the counter. He spun around at the sound of the door's bell, and suddenly I was reminded of the first time we'd met, in Anneke's bakery—the same scents of warm sugar and vanilla. But this time Karl's eyes didn't slip over me. He ran to me and took hold of my shoulders. I saw his hands, but I didn't feel them.

"Where were you? I was worried!"

"I was ... I had to use the washroom. What's wrong?"

Karl looked around the shop, then put his hand to the small of my back and guided me out the door. "Cyrla, I thought you had run away. I just had a feeling in the guesthouse, and when I got to the bakery and you weren't there ... I was worried." His face grew angry, but it was the anger mothers allow themselves at their children after they've given them a fright. "Don't do that again. It's dangerous."

"Karl." I laughed, trying to sound light. "I just went to the washroom, that's all."

He studied me and I had to look away. "All right. But tell me where you're going next time. I'm responsible for you. Now let's go in and buy those rolls."

Stupidly, I agreed. We went back inside and I chose a dozen little seeded rolls and watched the
Fräulein
tie them up in a paper box. All the while my mind raced—was he all right? What did that mean, he had volunteered? Why?

"Sixty pfennigs," the young woman said, and without thinking I reached into my pocket and pulled out some coins.

Coins. Karl looked at them in my hand and then looked at my face. I felt it drain of blood.

Karl paid for the rolls, his face a gathering storm. Then he grabbed my arm and pulled me out onto the street.

"You're hurting me!"

He pushed me into the car and then got in. "Do you need money, Cyrla?" He shifted in his seat and pulled his wallet from a pocket, yanked the bills out, and threw them onto my lap. "Here. You can have money. Just ask!"

I scowled and pushed the bills off my lap, but I was more afraid than angry.

"You've been lying to me since I met you. Here and now, tell me the truth."

Karl leaned across me and locked the door and suddenly I was in the alley beside my uncle's shop, my head scraping the gravel and there was no air anymore. I cried out and struggled to unlock the door.

Karl pulled back and let me, staring. "What's wrong? I'm not going to hurt you, Cyrla. But I want you to tell me what's going on."

I kept a grip on the door handle. "And I'm your prisoner now? Are you going to turn me in if I don't answer?"

Karl spread his hands. "If that's what you need to believe, then yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes. I will turn you in. I'll drive you right now to my headquarters in Munich. If you try to run, I'll issue a warrant for you."

"You wouldn't do that."

"You're right, I wouldn't. Cyrla, I am not a Nazi. I will never raise my right hand in their salute. But if you need to feel that threat, I'll play the game. Now tell me what just happened."

"Why? Why do you care?"

Karl threw his hands up and then slammed them down on the steering wheel. "Right now, I'm not sure I do." He glared his anger at me for a moment, then let it go. I'd never seen a man do this. My uncle cherished his anger, fed it. Isaak smoldered. My father never got angry, he grew morose. Only Anneke's anger had burst and cleared like this.

"You worry me, I guess," he said. "And I don't think you have anyone else."

We sat in silence for a minute. Then Karl reached over and touched my chin, carefully turned my face to him. "I think you're in trouble. And I think you're alone."

It was the truth of the words that undid me. All the sorrow I'd held back for so long was about this—I was alone. I curled over, my face in my hands, and began to cry.

Karl pulled me to him and held me. "Start at the beginning."

And so I told him. I told him what had happened the night of Anneke's death and what my aunt had done about it. I didn't tell him I hadn't already been pregnant—I was ashamed of that now. I told him the plan, and that Isaak hadn't come for me and that I had just learned why. "He's at Westerbork. He's strong," I said, as if Karl needed the reassurance. "And he volunteered, so maybe he can leave..."

Karl let me go then. "Do you love him?"

I was surprised by his question, but I nodded.

"Does he love you?"

I wiped my eyes and looked out the window at the snow before answering. It was falling in heavy swirls now and glowing in the warm light that spilled from the inn's windows. "It's getting deep," I said. "Maybe we should get back."

But Karl just watched me.

"Isaak won't allow it. He says caring about someone is a liability with the world the way it is—that he might make mistakes if he loved someone."

"He's right." Karl surprised me again. "I feel that way about my sister and my niece. I probably
do
make mistakes because I love them, because I'm afraid of what might happen to them. But they give me something to hold on to. I don't know what would happen if I didn't have that. I don't know if I would survive."

I looked into his eyes and saw that he was serious. Sister Ilse had used that word, too. Then I saw his next thought. "Isaak won't do anything stupid. He'll be fine!"

Karl spread his hands. "I only mean ... he's not coming for you. That's the point. What are you going to do now?" He didn't wait for an answer. "Look, I can help you."

"How? Can you find out if he's all right? Can you get a message to him?"

"Well, maybe. I still have that friend stationed in Schiedam. But what I was thinking of was ... Idon't think your plan was very good in the first place. I think that a Jew coming to rescue you in Germany would be incredibly difficult and dangerous. I could help you with that. You really just need to get out of here safely before your baby is born—is that right?"

I nodded. He might get a message to Isaak.

"I'll ask some questions. When I learn something, I'll let you know." He pulled out a pen and wrote down some numbers on the bakery box between us on the seat. "Meanwhile, if you need anything, call me. The first number will reach me during the day. Use the second number at night."

Relief and gratitude melted through me. I smiled at him and for the first time, it wasn't a lie. "Look. I've soaked your coat." I pulled out a handkerchief and began to dab at the stains I'd left on his chest—so many tears. There would be no more. "Do you really think it's possible to get a message to him?"

"I'll try. Tell me his last name."

I wiped off a button and I saw it—the German eagle pressed into the brass. I recoiled as if I'd been clawed by those talons.

"Cyrla?"

"Take me back."

Corrie was sitting on my bed when I got back. "Does he know?"

I hung up my new coat slowly, then took off my wet shoes.

"I saw him with you today. Doesn't he know?"

"No, he doesn't."

Corrie nodded as if she'd expected this. She got up. "You're lucky. My whole town knew. I didn't have the choice of telling my boyfriend or not. He wouldn't speak to me after. As if
I'm
the one who's dirty." She went to the door and stopped. "Whose is it?"

"I don't know. I think it's ... Karl's. But I don't know."

"You're lucky, then," she said again. She opened the door and then stopped one more time. "How was it afterward? How is it now, when he sleeps with you?"

I shook my head. "We haven't ... it happened right after he left."

"Well, I'll tell you how it will be. You will never be free of it. When any man touches you, you will feel the other one's hands. He'll always be with you. The two who did it to me will always be there. Forever." Then she left.

I worried after that day. About everything, all the time. About Isaak, how being raped would change how he felt about me. But mostly about how I was going to get out of this place and what I would do after. About all the things I had told Karl. My hands no longer looked like Anneke's, I had bitten the nails so ragged. The baby seemed to sense my agitation—he moved restlessly now, as if pacing the dark waters of my womb. When I held Klaas, he fussed and squirmed in my unquiet arms. I lost weight at both of the next two weigh-ins and spent all my time sitting on my bed and staring out at the cold mountains.

I got a second blue notice in my mailbox and of course I worried about that: Two weeks would be obvious to an obstetrician—how could I have been so foolish? I practiced looking surprised, perplexed, then shrugging it off. Mistakes happen, I might say. Then I worried my practiced response would give me away.

But nothing did. The exam was unpleasant—in a cold room with harsh lights, and even there, photographs of Hitler frowned down from the walls. But the doctor didn't act as if he were surprised at anything he found, and soon enough it was over. I could dress.

"All is fine, young lady," the doctor said when he came back. "The heartbeat is strong, and I don't see any signs that the birth will be difficult. You seem a little small for twenty-six weeks, but it's nothing to be alarmed about. I don't want to see another weight loss, though. You're taking the vitamins, of course?"

I assured him I was and got up to leave.

"Babies grow at their own rate," he said. "There's nothing any of us can do to change that."

The next morning, I was told I had a visitor.

"We're going to take a walk. I've already signed you out."

I didn't bother arguing. In the car, I asked Karl what he had come for.

"I have some things to talk over with you."

I turned to face him, waiting.

"Not yet. I know a good place for a walk. It's like spring today."

We drove in silence for about fifteen minutes, then turned off to a narrow rutted road. We stopped in front of a barn beside a broad meadow.

"A friend of mine grew up here," Karl said. "His family used to raise sheep. Until the sheep were 'liberated.'"

He opened my door to help me out and I stepped away from his hand. "All right," I said. "What do you want to talk about?"

"Not yet. Let's walk a while first."

I shrugged and started down the path along the edge of the meadow. Karl walked beside me, matching my slow pace—at six months, the baby nudged my lungs, making me short of breath easily. After a while he broke the quiet. "It's nice out. Warm for March."