Pastel Orphans (23 page)

“Yes, we must go,” he says. “There is nothing here. Greta is not here.” And I wonder if this is what he truly believes, whether he has convinced himself for my sake.

We walk northward towards the checkpoint and wait like criminals in the shadows of buildings. We have no food or water left. Our lips are cracked, our spirits chipped and split.

We see Gottfried’s truck around midday. The sound of his engine is the kindest sound of all.

Gottfried opens the door and covers our weary, cold bones with rugs, and hands us water and sweet doughy rolls filled with jellied apricot. His hands are large and gentle as he rubs our shoulders and backs, and then he closes the door. We crawl into our mouse holes once again while he closes the door. The darkness brings up the images of the faces I saw through the binoculars.

Outside the café, we stay inside the truck until night, both of us sleeping. Later, Gottfried comes to collect us and I lean on him as we are taken to our room.

Henrik does not want to talk. He has gone to bed, but I seek out Gottfried.

“You knew about the camp, didn’t you?” I say. “You knew what they did.”

He nods. “It is best not to see some things. It is best not to think too hard about it or else you can lose hope. Henrik had to see for himself. He is that type of person; he has to know before he can believe. Let’s hope that he still has hope.”

We are quiet for a moment. I make myself busy helping him in the kitchen.

Gottfried says that it is a joke amongst the Germans that they kill those who can’t work, but he wasn’t so sure what happened to the children.

“But what about all the clothes?” I say. “The ones you take from the Jews. Do you not feel sad?”

“Of course,” he says. “I do what I can. It is the only way I can survive. But I can tell you that whenever I see a small coat of a child, I think of my son, fight back tears, and joke along with the Germans. At the end, the clothes mean nothing to those who are dead. Instead, they become a commodity, and a weapon to use against the Germans. This is the only way to look at it, so I can do what I do.”

“Why don’t all the Jews revolt in the camp? There are hundreds.”

“I think it is the hope that someone will come and save them, or that the war will end. All those I have rescued from the ghetto have said they held on to hope, and it came in the shape of me, and others.”

Henrik doesn’t talk about what we saw and Gottfried doesn’t ask. Gottfried understands; he shows this by his silence. He cooks in his kitchen for much of the evening and I can tell that this is where he is happiest.

For the next two days, Henrik still doesn’t speak much, nor does he eat. Sometimes, in his nightmares, he whimpers and calls out to his mama. But when he wakes, there is no expression or emotion. It is as if someone reached into his soul and pulled it out by the roots.

I rise early to help Gottfried with the bread. I talk to him about Henrik, about how I am worried.

“It is grief, Beka,” he says. “You have to let him deal with it. He might never see his sister and he is feeling that he has let his mother down. And he has seen much. You have perhaps already gone through your grief and you are stronger for it. Henrik has not had a chance yet to think of his loss. He has been strong for both of you, and for his family also.”

Gottfried is right, of course. Henrik has nurtured and caressed my soul. Perhaps it is time he looked after his own.

Hiding in the back of this café feels good. It has been a long time since I have known that feeling. But Henrik continues to worry me. He has buried his thoughts deeply. He does not talk about Greta, and he does not meet my eyes.

I am afraid to ask him about our next plan. I know we can’t stay here forever, even though Gottfried has made no hint about us leaving.

In the time we have been here, several refugees have come and gone. One night we share the room with three Frenchmen and Gottfried asks that we do not talk to them, to let them rest. They do not talk to us either, but lie quietly on the floor. They are gone before morning. Gottfried says they are on a mission. He cannot give any details. I have guessed that some of these refugees will die in the course of their endeavors, that some are purposely heading towards danger rather than from it.

It is late. Gottfried has gone to bed and Henrik and I are in our little room behind the wall. Henrik sits perched on the edge of his bed, thinking.

I sit on my bed across from Henrik’s, writing in a diary that I have acquired from Gottfried. Suddenly there is a sound like the whining of an injured animal. I look up to see that Henrik has turned to face the wall, his body curled into a ball, his knees against his chin.

I sit beside him on the bed and touch his back.

“Rik?”

He turns. His face is awash with grief. Tears stream down his cheeks. I have never seen him distraught. It is a shock to see him this way.

“I am sorry, Rebekah,” he says. “I should not have dragged you through all this. It was for nothing. My sister is probably far away from here or dead, and perhaps I will never know where she is buried.”

“Hush,” I say. “You must not think about that, Henrik. You have fought hard to find her.”

“And you,” he says. “You have lost everyone. Perhaps even your brother. This has been a selfish quest.”

“No,” I say soothingly. “There is nothing selfish about it. Many have lost people they love, but you have tried to save one, and in the process you have made my life better. You have never given up on me. You could have left me in the forest, and again in the barn. I have been like lead around your neck. I am the one who is sorry, Henrik.”

The sobbing subsides, though his grief is only partway through. I know this from experience. I too have suffered grief so black that I couldn’t see a way out. If it wasn’t for Henrik, I would still be in the darkness.

“Rebekah,” he says more calmly. “You have been a wonderful friend. I will repay you any way I can.”

“Don’t be silly,” I say. “I have done nothing.”

Henrik puts his head in my lap and I stroke his fine hair, imagining that his mother once did the same.

I feel his hand on my leg and touch his strong, firm shoulders. When he looks up at me next, I see a man, not a boy: a man who possesses me. My body trembles at this realization, at our physical closeness. My feelings towards him are so strong and I bend to kiss him.

And then he is sitting upright and his lips are firmly on mine, as if we are fused. I feel my body relax and soften against him. I feel his hand touching my skin, which he says is like silk. He lifts my dress above my head and gently pulls me down to lie with him on top of the blankets. With my ear against his chest I listen to his heart beating rapidly, like my own. The air is cool but our bodies are warm.

“I love you, Rebekah,” he says. “I love every little bit of you. I have since the first day I saw you.”

I cradle his face and cover it with more kisses. I am crying and he touches my face to wipe the tears away.

“It is nothing to be sad about.”

“It is not sadness.”

What I feel is overwhelming joy and relief. Henrik’s skin is all that I want surrounding me.

Eventually we grow cold and, cocooned together in blankets, we discuss our plan to return to Zamosc. Henrik talks about how he will fix things around the home, and build an extension room for me to hide in until it is safe. He says that one day he will manage the farm.

We talk about how the Germans will be defeated. How we will laugh about them, at their folly. We talk about how we will name our firstborn girl “Greta,” and our firstborn boy after my papa.

He talks about how he is looking forward to seeing his mother, and even his aunt, who sounds quite fierce from his descriptions.

We lie in the darkened, windowless room beneath one light blanket and talk until we are glad to be back in the present because that is the safest place to be; that is what we know.

I hear Henrik’s breathing start to slow. I know that he will soon be asleep. He is good at sleeping.

“Henrik,” I say.

“Yes,” he says croakily.

“I love you too.”

We sleep. It is the best sleep I have had in months. I dream again of Henrik, and ships that sail to faraway destinations.

C
HAPTER
30

Gottfried says that we can stay as long as we like, especially if we help out.

“I have received further word from my contacts in Lodz. It is good news. There is a place where many of the stolen children are sent. It is called the Litzmannstadt ghetto.

“I am told that this is where they take some of the pastel orphans, where they weed out the ones they don’t want to keep.”

“What do you mean:
pastel orphans
?”

“Unfortunately, my dear Henrik, the pastel orphans are the ones like your sister: blonde, blue-eyed. Hitler wants to build an empire of Aryans.”

“Are you certain the children are adopted by German families?”

“Yes, and others are sent to orphanages. They are forced to forget their real families and their birth records are erased. When they are old enough, they will likely be sent to join the Hitler Youth, or be married off, or used for any other service.

“My contacts in Lodz are kidnapping many children from the ghetto—Aryan, Jew, any race—and delivering them to a safe house in the east.”

“To the Soviet Union?” Henrik says incredulously.

“Do you have a better plan?” Gottfried thinks for a moment. “Perhaps you can help with this too. You might get an opportunity to ask someone in Lodz about your sister.”

“When do I start?” asks Henrik.

“Not so quickly. It may take a couple of weeks to advise my contacts, and set up a new line of delivery. In the meantime, you can do a little networking from Cracow.”

By
networking
, he means helping people escape.

“How do you get them out?”

“Some by the sewers; some through the forests. They are brought here first if there is no direct line to where they want to go. Some are too young to travel alone and need someone to guide them. You already know part of the route.”

Gottfried brings out his map and points to the towns Henrik will be passing through. “You take them here, then to the next contact in the east. That contact takes them from you and passes them along the line.”

“Maybe after this Cracow job I can go to Lodz myself.”

Gottfried has renewed Henrik’s hope, but my hopes have fallen. I do not like it that Henrik will take new risks. Henrik suddenly thinks of me.

“You can stay here. You will be safe.”

I pull Henrik aside to our room. “I thought you said that we would return to Zamosc.”

“We will. I promise. But this could be the place where I find Greta. I have come this far . . .” His words trail away. I know that there is nothing I can say to change his mind. And since he needs to move quickly, there is no question that I will go this time. We both know that I will only slow him down.

I know also that I will wait for him. The only place for me is with Henrik now.

Henrik successfully completes his Cracow mission, delivering two children to the café in the middle of the night and then, the following night, taking them safely to another location. It is then that he begins his missions in the north. He delivers messages to other locations to advise on safe routes, names, and dates. Sometimes he has to collect people and take them directly to another base in Lublin, where they are smuggled by rail.

Sometimes, he brings the refugees back here and they stay in our room. At one time there are as many as six. But it is usually only one night before Henrik delivers them safely to the next point of contact in Gottfried’s web.

When the refugees are here, it is my job to attend to their clothes, food, and bedding. The rest of the time I help Gottfried bake cakes and even help make up new ones for his shop. He says they are a success and I try different kinds, with new ingredients. There seems to be no end to Gottfried’s resources. He is a large man with a hard expression, stubble on his chin, and buttoned shirts that strain across his belly. First impressions might be that he is gruff. But he is not. He has a heart as soft as beaten egg whites, and the temperament of a cherished child.

Henrik is taking longer to return. Sometimes he is gone for days. In between missions he tells me stories of sabotage. Once he killed a German who had arrived at their secret location unexpectedly. Henrik says it was fortunate he was there, hiding behind a door; once the man had entered, he shot him with the pistol that Gottfried has given him. The entire operation had to be moved.

Another time, he is gone for five days. He had to lead a group across the river and to the east, to guide them to their safe house in one of the villages. He says he had to take them all the way because they were women and children, and they were frightened and crying and sick.

But sometimes he does not tell me things, only Gottfried. I catch whispers of what Henrik says. Once he arrived at a house to collect some Jewish escapees from the north, only to find they’d been caught unaware and slaughtered. Perhaps the Germans had been tipped off by others who had been caught and interrogated, or perhaps the escapees’ house had been under suspicion for a while, or they were tracked. I start to worry. What if Gottfried is being spied upon?

When I ask him if he is worried, he laughs. He says that he is invincible because he is cautious. “Your friend might not be, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“He does not seem afraid of danger. He seems to gravitate towards it.”

I think about this later and wonder if Henrik is trying to make up for the loss of Greta. That nothing will fill the hole, even partly—not even me.

Gottfried takes us out in his little delivery truck. Many from the Gestapo know Gottfried. They do not check his vehicle. We lie in the back between the crates once more.

It seems wild and dangerous but Gottfried is not worried. He trusts his instincts. He takes us to a private place near the river. He says I have been cooped up in the back with the damp for too long, and someone as small and frail as I am needs more daylight.

Gottfried has given me a pale peach-colored dress, which I wear today. Though, in the last couple of weeks, it has been getting tight on me after all the food I’ve eaten at Gottfried’s. I notice that there is the shadow of a beard along Henrik’s jawline and chin, and a faint line above his nose.

The three of us share some wine and cheese and chicken beside the river. The sun is shining and out in the open we feel strangely safe. There are small trees lining either side of the river. At the end of the day, Henrik tells me that with my cheeks brushed by sunlight, I have never looked more beautiful.

Since Henrik began his missions, he has not mentioned the house in Zamosc or the future he was planning with me. It is yet another condition of war to sometimes not look forward, simply to live each day as if it is your last.

One day Henrik is gone again, performing his part in yet another operation. He has heard that more children have been taken to Lodz for assessment. This time he will travel all the way to the end of the line, and spend more time with his investigations there. I am starting to have reservations about his work and worry that Gottfried might be recruiting Henrik to do more than he is able.

When I say this to Gottfried, he looks at me with eyes that have heavy bags beneath them—evidence of the worrisome and dangerous work he carries out to save others.

“You are right,” he says. “He should be back home with his mother. You should tell him that it is probably time to finish.”

I feel suddenly bad for Gottfried and throw my arms around him.

“I didn’t mean to sound so forceful. It is just that I am worried.”

“You should return to the village, get married, have a life. I mean it! It is time for you both to go.”

My face flushes with embarrassment. It has never been formally stated that Henrik and I are together. I thought that we had kept our feelings hidden.

“Don’t blush, Beka,” says Gottfried. “No matter how careful you think you are, there are some things, like love, that can’t be hidden. Don’t think I don’t see the way the two of you look at each other. It is a beautiful thing.”

He says this with sadness, which is uncharacteristic of Gottfried. I sense that something is wrong and he reveals the awful truth: the ghetto in Cracow has been liquidated; all the remaining Jews have been sent to the camps.

Henrik’s final mission is to help lead a family of children from Lodz to Lublin. But he has not returned from the mission, and twelve nights have gone, and I am beside myself with worry.

On the thirteenth night, Gottfried gets word to his contact in Lublin. They reply to say that Henrik never arrived.

Gottfried does not know what to do, and for the next two nights I cannot sleep. Gottfried is concerned about us both. He tells me to have faith, not in God but in Henrik.

Several days later, in the middle of the night, I leave my bed to investigate the commotion coming from the front of the building. It is very dark inside the café. Gottfried has covered the front glass door and windows with blackout curtains to stop anyone from seeing in. The room bursts into light as I enter.

Standing in the café is Henrik. He carries one small child in his arms, and the two standing beside him are barely six years old. Their faces are smeared with dirt and their clothes are ragged and torn.

I rush to hug Henrik, who is weak and exhausted. While Henrik reports the incident to Gottfried, I take the weary, hungry children into the back room and hand them each a glass of milk, some bread, and a bowl of leek soup. They are so famished they do nothing but concentrate on their food until every cup, plate, and bowl is empty.

Then I bathe them until they are clean. I raid Gottfried’s trunk of clothes until I find some to fit them.

With their bellies full they are now so tired they can barely move. I tuck the children into my bed—the two boys at one end, and the little girl at the other. I hug each of them good night and tell them that they are safe. The younger boy, who is two, and the girl fall asleep instantly but the older boy begins to weep for his parents. I sing a tune that my mother used to sing to me, until his eyes close.

In the café, Henrik and Gottfried sit quietly. When I enter, they do not say anything; they do not even look up. They have run out of talk. I leave them to contemplate in silence. It is late when Henrik comes to bed, and I pretend to sleep so that he does not feel the need to speak, to relive the events a second time that evening. I am just grateful that he is here, and alive.

The next day, the children and Henrik sleep late and I hear the story from Gottfried. Henrik had collected the children without issue but found German roadblocks along the route to the next point of contact. He could not go to any villages because of the strong anti-Semitism that hovers above Poland even towards children. So they hid in the forest. But the Germans had heard there were partisans there, and the military stormed directly into the areas where Henrik and the children were hiding. Sometimes they had to hide under brush, with the Germans very close, and there was much gunfire. Henrik had to keep the terrified children from crying.

These children had escaped the Lodz ghetto and had been housed and hidden by sympathizers since. The purpose of Henrik’s mission was to get the children to a contact in Lublin. Someone else would take them southeast from there.

Gottfried admits that some of these attempts have been unsuccessful, some of the recruited and the escapees never heard of again. He thought something terrible might have happened to Henrik, but says that he also believes in him: “There is something about that boy. It is the need to save many for not saving one. It is a need to survive despite the odds. It is neither desperation nor madness, but something more powerful.”

Henrik, knowing that his access east was temporarily blocked, had no option but to bring the children to Cracow, since the place he had collected them from could no longer be reached.

When Henrik wakes, he fills in the gaps. He tells me that several times the children cried and he thought their sounds would give them away. He says that he thought of my face and held Greta’s locket, and this had made it bearable.

While they were hiding in trees, Henrik played a game to distract the children, to stop them from crying. The officers were so close, the fugitives could see their faces. Henrik told them that the game was “who can spot the ugliest German.” When they saw the ugliest one, the children had to pinch the inside of Henrik’s arm. He says that from the moment they started the game, he was pinched continuously. He shows me some tiny fingernail marks on his arm as evidence, surrounded by scratches where he has crawled through barbed wire fences. I smile despite the seriousness.

Then the journey back to Gottfried’s and reentering the city was just as bad. He says they have doubled the manpower at some entry points. Twice he had to carry the children, who were so weary they could barely walk. He carried two at once: one on his back and the other in front. And they took turns so that each could sleep while Henrik carried them. He says that his arms and shoulders ache but there is no regret or bitterness.

I am so proud of what he has done and astonished by his endurance.

“And Greta? Is there any word?”

He shakes his head.

“She is not there. Many were shipped to camps. She may have been sent elsewhere.” It sounds like the hardness has set in for him also.

I take his hand and squeeze it tightly.

“What about the children here now? What will happen to them?”

“We have to try again to get them to Lublin.”

“You?”

“Yes,” he says. “Gottfried is studying the maps to see if there is another route that will not be so heavily manned.”

I am angry inside. Gottfried promised that this was Henrik’s last mission. I confront him when Henrik is not in earshot.

“I have told him not to go, that he must return to his mother. That he must concentrate on looking after you—but he can be stubborn.”

“Henrik, if you go, then I am going too.”

“No,” he says firmly.

“Why? Because I am frail? Because of my weak lungs?”

He brushes some strands of hair away from my eyes.