Pastel Orphans (20 page)

Henrik does this while I wait on the path.

“Oh, so sorry,” says Henrik to the occupants. “My sister is useless with giving information.”

“What did you say your name was?” asks the owner of the house.

“Scherner,” says Henrik.

“I know that name.”

“My father is an officer.”

“All right then.”

“You have lovely children. Four, is it?” Henrik can see them through the doorway.

“Yes. Four is enough.”

And they laugh. I am amazed at how easy Henrik is with people and how easily they reveal themselves to him. He is special, golden almost.

Henrik shakes his head at me and we return to the loft after dark. He doesn’t say anything but I can sense his disappointment. It has been weeks now and we have gleaned nothing.

“It is finished,” says Emelie. “I have run out of addresses. I do not think your sister is here.”

She says this offhandedly, as if a dance hall has closed for the evening and she is wearily glad that the event has ended. It is clear she doesn’t know pain, that she doesn’t understand what it is to lose someone. Not yet anyway. Though, even as I think this, I also think of Otto.

We hear the sound of a car. It is close. Emelie rushes to the window.

“Papa is home,” she says excitedly. “I must go to see him.”

“Perhaps he will know something,” says Henrik.

“Perhaps,” she says, but she is not really listening. We are suddenly no longer a priority. “I must go.”

She runs. We peer over the windowsill and watch her father step out of the vehicle, dressed in full SS uniform. His buttons and boots shine. Even from a distance we can see that he is tall and commanding; he is also frightening, and my heart quickens.

Emelie does not come back the next day, or the day after that. We can hear much laughter coming from the house, and a truck arrives with food parcels and clothes. We watch it unload.

When Emelie finally does come out to the loft, she is beaming.

“It is so good to have Papa back.”

I don’t know why but I am starting to feel uncomfortable around her. I notice that she is wearing a gold chain.

“That is nice,” I say.

“Thanks,” she says, but she does not meet my eyes. She holds on to it a little tighter. She does not like me looking at it.

“And that is a beautiful dress.”

The dress is silk and long.

She has brought some more food and some news.

“Father spoke about the children taken from their parents. He says that they are taken to be looked after. Well . . . maybe not all of them.”

“What do you mean?”

“They have to be racially tested first.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know the process, but if they are German enough, they are sent to the families of officers to be raised, or to centers in Germany and Norway and other places.”

I can see that more light is draining from Henrik, as if a candle is slowly fading.

“There are centers in Lodz and other cities where the children were taken first. She may still be at one of those.”

I think that it is unlikely. It has been months, though for Henrik’s sake, I will not give up until he does.

“And what if they are not
German
enough
?” There is a slight sarcastic edge to Henrik’s voice and I see that Emelie has picked up on this also.

Her tone is belligerent when she responds. “To the camps, of course.”

There is no doubt now that if it weren’t for Otto, she would not have helped us; we too would be rotting in the ghetto or the camps.

“Papa is sending word to Otto’s army group to see how he is. It is so good to have Papa back.”

“How long is he staying?”

“Only a week. You are lucky we don’t have horses; otherwise, he would be here every day. He loves horses. We used to ride together.”

She seems more fickle and airy the more I speak to her.

“Anyway, I will try and find out the addresses of these centers. But you can’t leave during the day. Papa might see you.”

I think this comment is more for her sake than ours. I can’t imagine what her father would do if he ever found out she had housed and helped us.

“Rik,” I say.

“Yes,” he says in the dark. The moonlight shows his face in a hue of blue. I touch his cheek.

“Are you all right?”

For hours now Henrik has been tossing and turning. Each night we lie with our backs together. My cough is almost completely gone, no more trying to muffle it with the blankets.

“I was thinking about our families. I was thinking about how you lost your parents,” he says.

I do not say anything.

“What do you think will become of us?”

I am shocked by the question and I look at his face. He turns from me and sits up so that he is a silhouette in the window. There is a white glow around him from the moonlight. The barn creaks and complains against the heavy warm wind that is brushing aside the cold weather to lay a pathway for spring.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“Do you miss your parents and your brother?”

“Terribly,” I say. “But I keep thinking that through all the loss one good thing might come. If we can return your sister to her mother, then somehow a bit of the pain will go away.”

He turns then so I can’t see his face, which is fully in darkness.

“You have been wonderful, you know. You have suffered with the ankle and then this sickness and still you are here supporting what I must do. If I didn’t have you . . .”

“There was never any question. What else was I going to do?”

“I can’t wait for you to come home with me! I want us to get away from this country . . . perhaps to emigrate to America or Australia, all of us together. Germany has turned its back on me. I will not live there again.”

I put my hand on his arm.

“I really want that too.”

He puts his hand over my hand and I can feel his eyes burning into mine, caught in the stream of light.

C
HAPTER
27

In the early morning, I hear the sounds of car doors opening and closing and a motor starting. I am the first to hear the barn doors open and Emelie’s footsteps. Looking outside, I can see that her father has left early for somewhere.

“Henrik,” I say. “Wake up!”

Emelie’s head appears above the ladder. From the frown on her face she has something on her mind. She climbs into the loft and sits on a chair she had placed earlier so that she didn’t have to sit down on the floor and spoil her nice clothes. Her lips are thinner today, her chin raised higher.

“My father informs me that Otto is missing.”

“Oh,” says Henrik. “Do they know anything?”

“Only a few details. Another soldier reported that he was shot and wounded two months ago when they discovered some partisans who had been raiding the villages. Where did you say you saw him?”

“It was around that time, I think.”

“You said it was Christmastime when you last saw him. Where was it?”

“In the forest.”

“And he was alone?”

I wonder now why she hasn’t asked these questions sooner.

“He was with the partisans.”

She stands up angrily. “What do you mean by that? Was he captured?”

“No. He was a free man. We were staying at a house. He had befriended us all.”

“You are saying that he had befriended the resistance . . . the enemy. He would be shot for that!” she says.

“Well, perhaps he had joined the partisans. I do not know exactly.”

“No, Henrik,” I say. “Enough.” I cannot take this deception any more. I do not want word to get out that Otto was a deserter or betrayer. He deserves more than that.

“Otto is dead, Emelie,” I say. “He was killed by a madman who had no allegiance to anyone but himself.”

“Dead?” The query is venomous.

“He was captured at first and Henrik tried to help him . . .”

“You lied to me!” she says. When I try to tell her that Henrik had helped Otto escape from the partisans, she is no longer listening.

“We were going to tell you,” I say, “but the letter was the only way to get you to help us.”

“So you forced Otto to write it. Probably with a gun!”

“No! I wrote it.”

Emelie looks at Henrik, her expression blank as if she can’t quite believe that she was duped.

“I’m telling my father. He will be back tonight. You have all day to run now if you want, but eventually he will find you. Soon all the Jews will be gone from here. It is something to be thankful for!”

To have been duped by Jews is perhaps worse than the truth about Otto’s disappearance.

“Wait!” says Henrik. “Otto told me something before he died. He said that he loved another back in Germany. He said you were a spoiled little girl but that he had to be nice to you because of your father’s seniority, because you would tell your father if he wasn’t.”

I can see that this revelation hurts her initially but I do not think it will scar. She is shallow enough not to believe it, or perhaps she is fickle enough to find another to quickly replace Otto.

“Thank you for your help,” I say, because we cannot forget that I am alive because of the medicine, shelter, and food.

“The clothes weren’t mine anyway. Papa brought them back from the camps. They were taken from the Jews. Even the dress I wear now has come from the camps, and you should see the one that Mama has.”

She is cold—far colder than I thought—but what we have done to her is perhaps just as cold. It is all part of the fight.

There is no cover of darkness but Henrik is not afraid. We change into the clothes that Emelie had brought for our earlier disguise, grab several oranges, and exit the barn at the rear. Henrik throws the blankets and clothes we arrived in into the fields next to Emelie’s, in the opposite direction from where we are headed. He hopes that after the Gestapo has been alerted to our existence, their military dogs will find these and the guards will think we are heading west.

A vehicle with a siren blaring passes us on the street and does not take any notice of us. There does not appear to be anyone searching for us. Not yet.

In the afternoon we stop in a garden shed to eat an orange. Amid the smells of wood rot and earth, we peer through the slats and wait for the sun to fall.

“Do you think Emelie will tell her father that she helped us?”

“No,” says Henrik. “She would not risk punishment. She will say that there were Jews or criminals of some kind hiding in their barn, stealing from them. That is all she needs to say.”

“You should not have said those things . . . They weren’t true.”

He turns to me. “About what?”

“Otto deserves more than a deserter’s burial. Can you imagine his family finding out what you said? Such a lie is too great.”

“They are the enemy,” says Henrik.

“But he was also your friend.”

“I do not know that for sure. I do not know anything.”

“You said yourself that you trusted him.”

“How do I know, now that I have met his girlfriend, if he only said those things to escape and would have ratted me out?”

Henrik has changed. Some of his trust has gone. Perhaps he is growing harder, like the partisans. After what we have seen, we can never again be who we were.

But I cannot believe what he says about Otto. There was something trustworthy about him, and Henrik knows this too. I hope it is just his anger talking. I hope that he will return to the Henrik I first met. I don’t like our fighting.

Once the light has dimmed, we creep behind houses towards the city lights. One time, we encounter a barking dog who alerts the elderly house owner. The woman steps out from her back door to yell at us, thinking we are thieves, and Henrik, casual as always, apologizes profusely for the intrusion and wishes her a good night. She watches us until we are out of sight.

As we near the city center, there are checkpoints ahead and more sirens sounding. A horse and cart, carrying sacks of vegetables, stands at the edge of the street; the owner has left it to deliver some goods. While he is distracted by his task, we climb into the cart to hide under empty potato sacks. It is only seconds before the driver returns and climbs into the vehicle. Several long moments seem to pass. My heart is pounding with fear that he has noticed something different about his load. Henrik squeezes my hand and the driver suddenly orders the horse to move, and the cart bounces briefly forward before rattling into steady motion. The driver rides past the guards, mumbling his German greetings. After several minutes of travel, when we are well past the checkpoint and into the city streets, Henrik raises his head to peer over the sides.

“When I say jump,
jump!
”

He gives the command.

He jumps but I do not have the nerve. I am worried that my ankle won’t support me. The cart, though slow, is still moving. He runs after it.

I crouch near the back of the cart, one foot on the edge, and then suddenly the driver sees me and he comes to a stop. I climb down.

The owner steps out of the cart to yell at us. Henrik grabs my hand and we run down a lane before stopping to hide behind some bins.

We are both panting from the effort.

“Don’t ever do that to me again,” he says, but he is wearing a small smile. He reaches for my hand. “When I say jump, next time
jump
, or you will kill us both!”

We are friends again. His anger is gone after the thrill of our close encounter with capture.

We choose the streets carefully. By now, Scherner will have informed the police and they will be looking for thieves on the run. Premises and streets will be searched. Every time we hear the blowing of a whistle, my heart races. They will not stop looking until we are caught.

I wrap a scarf around my head and Henrik wears a hat that he has stolen. He holds my hand and we pass another couple in the street. Henrik says hello in his perfect German and then kisses me awkwardly on the lips as part of our disguise.

“Where are we going?”

“I don’t know,” says Henrik. “I will know it when I see it.”

We are nearly at the end of a long street. Every vehicle that passes us causes my hands to tremble. A policeman turns the corner and Henrik pulls me through a café door.

“Act German. Act like you deserve to be here.”

I hold my head higher but I keep the scarf on. We slip into a corner booth. There are several other patrons. A young girl comes to serve us at the table. We order coffee and sausages and onions.

“How will we pay for this?” I whisper.

“We won’t. We just have to stay here for as long as we can.”

I can smell the coffee and the food. The smell is delicious and my mouth waters. When the food arrives, it takes much control not to gulp the coffee and shovel the food into our mouths greedily. I take tiny bites and close my eyes each time so that I can savor the taste and cement the memory.

We talk quietly, but all the time Henrik sneaks glances at the owner, who occasionally looks over at us. A smartly dressed man walks in and stands beside the counter. The café owner and man greet each other with smiles that appear genuine and intimate. This customer, it seems, is a regular here. The owner takes a cake box from below the counter and hands it to him. They do not engage in conversation but as the man walks away, the café owner says, “Give your wife and little ones a kiss for me.” The customer nods, then walks briskly past us towards the door, casually glancing in our direction. The man looks familiar.

“I want you to know that if this is my last meal, I am glad it is with you.” I do not know what has come over me; perhaps the enjoyment of my food makes me talk this way. But I feel it is important that Henrik knows this.

Henrik smiles. “I want you to know that in a couple of months I want you to be in my home with me, laughing about our escape.”

This is the reason why I love him. It is his thirst for life and belief in the future. I think:
How can anyone not fall in love with Henrik?
And in that moment I am grateful that out of all the girls in the world, I am the one who is his friend.

Then the other patrons are gone and the owner is cleaning up. The girl has taken off her apron and says good-bye to the owner. The tinkling of the bell above the café door as she leaves suggests we should also take action. The café owner saunters over and Henrik tenses slightly, but it is something that only I can recognize; the way his lips twist slightly and his hair falls forward on his forehead, it is as if he is thinking hard about something.

The owner introduces himself as Gottfried Schlick.

“Are you new here in the city?”

“Yes,” says Henrik. “We are staying with the Scherners.”

The café owner says that he is familiar with the name.

“My uncle is responsible for logistics here, in particular the transfers of Polish children.”

“Ah yes, the children,” says the proprietor.

“Do you know of them?” asks Henrik, trying not to sound too interested.

“I presume you are talking about the orphans?” Henrik nods. “We used to see about a dozen of them marching by the café. Sweet things. Such tragedy, yes? Parents killed in war.”

I think that the propaganda is working well. I wonder how many children were stolen, and know that Henrik is thinking only of one.

“What do you mean:
were
?”

“They left two weeks ago. I heard that some have been sent to Germany for adoption.”

I fear that perhaps Emilie knew this all along.

Henrik has gone quiet. The man speaks Polish and it is easy for me to continue the communication.

“They weren’t orphaned,” I say.

“What do you mean?”

“They were stolen.”

I cannot stand the ignorance of these people. These people who were once my people. Henrik throws me a look. It is one I have not seen before. It is stern and disapproving. I try to deflect the comment, and lighten my tone. “The orphans will no doubt be adopted by kindly German parents, who will teach them good German ways, no?”

“But you said
stolen
.”

“She meant stolen by war.”

“Ah, I see.”

“Are you still open for one more coffee?” Henrik asks the man, who says that he is.

“Get up,” says Henrik when the man is behind the counter again. “We have drawn suspicion now and we have to get away. Don’t run yet; just walk.”

The bell on the café door sounds again as we leave, and I turn to see that the owner is following us. We head for the corner of the street, breaking into a run.

“Wait! Don’t be afraid. I know who you are.”

I slow down to a walk but Henrik pulls my arm. “It’s a trick.”

Something about the man’s voice has made me want to stop. I whisper to Henrik that I think Gottfried is a Jew. Henrik holds his hand in his pocket, where he holds a dinner knife he stole from the café, just in case.

“What do you want?” he hisses to Gottfried.

“I want to help you. I think I understand something. Please . . . come with me.”

We can hear cars coming closer and shouts in German coming from the direction we were heading. Henrik nudges me back towards the café. We have no choice now.

We enter the café and Gottfried locks the door behind us. I think at that moment we are doomed, that perhaps my instinct has killed us.

He leads us through a door to a back room. There are others there: a man and woman.

“You are Jewish, no?” says Gottfried.

“What is this?” asks Henrik.

“I knew the moment I saw your eyes,” he says to me. “Jews cannot hide the sorrow.” He turns to Henrik. “You . . . I’m not too sure of.”

He introduces us to the man and woman in the room: a young married couple.

“These two have escaped the ghetto. This is a safe house for those on the run, those who are not welcome to enjoy freedom. I give much free food and coffee to the German officers, so they never search my place. And they come to the café often. Sometimes, I invite them to play cards with me.”

Henrik looks at me quizzically. “How did you know to trust him?”

There is an inflection in the way Gottfried says certain words that reminds me of the voices of my father and uncles and grandfather. But I do not say this. I think that Gottfried might not want us to know that he is Jewish. So I say to him: “The man who came in earlier lived on our street. Last time I saw him he was being escorted to the ghetto. You appeared too familiar with him not to know of his history.”