Saving Amelie (39 page)

It had been easier to agree with Frau Bergstrom to move and hide children—Jewish and others the Reich wanted to destroy—than to embrace the notion of denying self, dying to self, and living only to Christ. Taking risks and walking a knife’s edge was one thing—even the adrenaline rush was addictive. Loving his enemy and reaching out to him by really living in the world—not escaping from it, even through writing—was altogether new, and Jason needed time to absorb that idea, to understand what it meant, how it could play out in the midst of war.

Shadows spread across the snow-covered hill. Jason circled the chapel again and shoved cold hands deep into his coat pockets. The townspeople would soon fill the chapel and swarm the hillside. He wished Rachel could be there to share the coming service with him, to sing about heavenly peace. He wondered if she’d understand what that meant, what it meant to him.

He wondered if Rachel would like his gift—if Rivka had given it to her yet or if she was really waiting until Christmas morning.

He wished for the photograph he’d taken of Rachel and Amelie. But the risk of developing it had been too great. After his last visit with Gerhardt Schlick and friends, he dared not carry such evidence in his possession. Even if Schlick didn’t recognize the profile of his own daughter dressed like a small boy, he’d never mistake Rachel Kramer for Lea Hartman, not the way she’d looked at him as he’d snapped the shutter. He’d made a risky detour to retrieve the film from Lea Hartman’s house when he’d visited Oberammergau’s Advent market. Now it was tucked away for safekeeping, waiting for the day it could be safely developed. In the meantime, he could dream.

Wind and snow swirled round and round, rattling the windowpanes of Oma’s snug house. Coals shifted, burning low in the stove. The radio crackled and sputtered until they couldn’t make out the
announcer’s words. “This weather!” Oma sighed as she shelved the last supper dish and dried her hands on her apron. “I’m not sure we’ll make it down the hill to church tomorrow.”

“I’d best bring in more firewood before bedtime.” Lea pulled her coat over her shoulders.

“We’ve enough coal for the stove, and you brought in a load of firewood earlier. We’ll not use half that before morning.”

“But imagine how deep this snow will be if it keeps up. I’d rather trudge through a foot than two.” She pulled on mittens and pushed into the night.

Oma sighed. It was work Friederich had done—until this wretched war. Now Lea worked for them all. Rachel helped in the house, though it didn’t seem to occur to her to contribute to the heavier labor. Oma knew Rachel was trying to change, to carry her weight, to lay down her inbred sense of entitlement. Family life, where each lived for the other and all lived for God, was new to her. “My fish out of water,” Oma murmured.
It will be a long time—if ever—before our workforce changes.

The man in the bed was thin—skin stretched taut over bones, his muscles atrophied. Friederich had not twitched, had not opened his eyes since the orderlies had carried him into the house. And Lea, though she bore it all with outward calm and patience, was wearing thin with worry for her husband. Oma could see it in the strain of her granddaughter’s face, in the shine of unshed tears, in the slump of her shoulders when she finally, wearily sat down at night. Even her joy for the children’s choir had waned.

Oma had not mentioned it to either granddaughter, but the difference between the two girls was beginning to show and certainly couldn’t be hidden from the villagers much longer. What they’d do then, she didn’t know.

Oma pulled her chair closer to the stove and stooped to fiddle with the radio’s dial. The shouting voice of the Führer broke
through. Oma pulled back instinctively, then quickly turned the dial again.

The second station reported on a Berlin Hausfrau who’d stolen ration coupons from her neighbor and been sentenced to three months in prison—just in time for Christmas.

She probably needed them to feed her family. How this war changes us at the very core!

Next came a repeated warning about listening to foreign radio stations, and the penalty: “No mercy will be shown the idiotic criminals who listen to the lies of the enemy.” Oma didn’t need to hear the rest. It had been broadcast and rebroadcast all week. Stiff prison sentences were meted out to those caught listening or suspected of listening to the BBC.

She heard Lea stomp her boots on the wooden mat outside the door and on the straw one inside, then the kerplunk of wood and the studied arrangement of kindling. Lea shoveled another bucket of coal into the stove. Rachel and Rivka pulled their kitchen chairs closer. Amelie was already fast asleep and tucked into her bed in the attic.

Oma changed the station once more, hoping something could be found to lighten their hearts. There would be no presents to mark the day beyond Herr Young’s Christmas tree and the carp they’d filleted out of Amelie’s sight for dinner tomorrow. There was no sugar to be had—no rolling and cutting
Lebkuchen
and drizzling the small cakes in sugar glaze as in years gone by.

Two more twirls of the dial and the soft, sweet notes of
“Stille Nacht”
filled the blue and white room. Oma smiled and sat back, leaning her head against the rocker’s high back, glad she could count on something not to change, something to hold true. At least there would always be music in Germany—the pure, sweet carols of Christmas.

She closed her eyes as the choir ceased their humming, happy to share this first Christmas—despite the strangeness and peril of
their circumstances—with both her granddaughters, with Amelie, and with Rivka, who were now as much her family as if they’d been born into it.

Silent night! Holy night!

“My favorite,” she murmured to the young women. At least she could give them this.

All is calm, all is bright.

“So beautiful,” Oma whispered.

But the words changed after the second line. They were not the words on the tip of Oma’s tongue, not the beloved lyrics she’d sung all her life. Her eyes snapped open.

Only the Chancellor, steadfast in fight,

Watches o’er Germany by day and by night,

Always caring for us.

Always caring for us.

Silent night! Holy night!

All is calm, all is bright.

Adolf Hitler is Germany’s wealth;

Brings us greatness, favor, and health.

Oh, give us Germans all power!

Oh, give us Germans all power!

The cold penetrating Oma’s heart was reflected on the three pale faces in the lamp’s glow.

Lea switched off the radio, and the small group of women sat in silence.

44

L
EA
’
S
C
HRISTMAS
MORNING
peek beneath the blackout curtain revealed snow-covered roads. After last night’s storm, lanes into the village would be blocked with drifts. She’d be fortunate to shovel a path to Oma’s little stable to milk their cow. No Nazis would come today, surely.

It felt good to inhale the fragrance of the tree in their room, to snuggle beneath the eiderdown and roll over, to sleep an extra hour beside her husband, to forget that she must soon rise to diaper and feed him.

It was bliss to imagine that at any moment Friederich would wake and fold her in his arms. It was her favorite dream, though getting harder to imagine.
It’s more like sleeping beside a corpse.
The thought shamed her, made her wince. And then the tears trickled down her face and onto Friederich’s arm, just as they did every morning.

“Please, Friederich. Oh, please wake up,” she whispered. “It’s Christmas morning, and there’s nothing in all this world that I want but you. I love you, my dear, my darling husband. Whatever has happened, whatever you’ve been through or become, whatever is left to endure, let me endure it with you. Please, Friederich . . . please open your eyes.”

But Friederich did not move. He barely seemed to breathe, though he never labored in his breathing.

After an hour of stroking his face, his chest, his arm, Lea rose, slipping her feet into cold slippers. Tonight she would light the candles on the tree, and she would sing to her husband—the old
songs of Christmas, the ones he’d loved. That would be her gift to him, whether or not he heard.

Oma did her best to make merry for her little family, though it was hard to keep her smile once she’d seen Lea’s face and the solemn shaking of her head to Oma’s brows raised in question. Oma had long since stopped asking Friederich’s condition aloud. It was simply too wearing on Lea to admit that he was no better, that there had been no sign of improvement, that a little more of her husband had wasted away as they’d slept.

It was nearly noon when their late breakfast ended and the grown-ups finished off with a second cup of ersatz coffee—brewed from the same grounds as the day before. Amelie drained her mug of hot chocolate—chocolate Jason had smuggled through Forester Schrade—which she’d happily shared with the new handkerchief doll that Lea had made for her. Rachel had just begun to clear the table when a knock came at the back door.

Heads shot up and eyes widened. “Who? Heaven’s mercy!” Oma began.

Rachel pulled Amelie toward the cupboard. Rivka followed. The knock came again, only louder. Lea scooped up the remaining cups and crumbs, tumbling everything into the wash pan. Oma straightened the chairs and disappeared to close the cupboard door behind the girls as the pounding increased.

Straightening her apron and hair, Lea stepped into the cold foyer and opened the kitchen door.

“Merry Christmas, Frau Hartman!” The child held up a rectangle wrapped in brown paper, tied with string.

“Heinrich!” Lea gasped. “Merry Christmas to you! Whatever are
you doing out in this weather? The snow is up to your knees!” She pulled him in the door, guiding him near the stove.

“I came with a g-g-gift, for Herr H-Hartman.” The boy’s teeth chattered.

“For Friederich?” Lea stopped, holding the little boy’s scarf in midair. She could not imagine what gift could be given to her nearly comatose husband. “He’s not . . . he’s not well, Heinrich.”

“He’ll need this when he’s b-better.” The boy’s teeth still chattered, and he shivered.

Lea didn’t know what to say. “Pull off those boots and sit by the stove. You’re soaking wet! Does your mother know you’re out in such weather?”

“Sh-she doesn’t. She’s gone to church in our neighbor’s sleigh. But I pretended to be sick, and she thought it was t-too cold for me.”

“Heinrich Helphman! She was right!” Lea helped the child from his coat.