Saving Amelie (53 page)

Lea listened, two nights later, as Friederich confided to her across their pillows, “It wasn’t pleasure but Brigadeführer Schellenberg that recalled Schlick to Berlin. Herr Schrade heard it at the post today—the Brigadeführer got word of Schlick’s oppressive ways among our locals. I expect he wants to have a little talk with the man.”

“Should we thank Herr Young for that ‘word’?”

“I suspect so. Jason’s a good man to have in a pinch.” Friederich reached for his wife in the dark.

But Lea held him at bay. “Did you think more of the plan we ladies contrived?”

“I did.” She heard the frustration in his voice. He pulled away and lay on his back, his arm behind his head. “You know the risks if you impersonate her. Schlick is no fool. He—”

“You know the risks if we don’t get Rachel out.”

“And what about Amelie?” he challenged softly. “If we find a way, are you ready to let her go?”

Her voice broke in return. “I would give my life to save her, and I would do anything to keep her with us. If only the two could be one.” Lea’s breathing grew ragged. “I don’t understand myself. I’ve come to love Rachel—she’s my sister, and I know that none of this craziness is her fault. But it seems . . . it’s always seemed that everything is for her—the good life, the approval, the affirmations, the education, the success . . . and now Amelie. She doesn’t even have to give birth—another thing taken from me forever—and yet she gets the child of our dreams!” She felt Friederich reach for her again, this time overcoming her protests and pulling her close.

“I don’t always understand the ways of God,
meine liebe Frau
.” He nestled a kiss in the curve of her neck. “Sometimes I understand better the ways of evil men. But I know this: you were both an experiment—specimens to them. Identical in every biological way, but one twin was given every advantage they could devise, and one twin deprived of those advantages. In their distorted minds they wanted to see what your environments—her nurturing according to their standards or your lack of nurturing according to their standards—would do to each of you. And now they want their specimens back, to tear apart and peer at beneath their microscopes. Thankfully you are useless to them without her to compare, or without Rachel to bear out their plans for a new generation.”

“It’s so unfair.”

“They presumed you would fail, that the life they dictated and their undermining, their intimidation, would destroy you. They never counted on love in their experiments—not Oma’s love, or my love, or Amelie’s love, not even the love of village children. They know nothing of God’s love or the women He made you both.” He wiped tears from his wife’s face, replacing them with kisses.

Still she shuddered and sobbed aloud, unable to hold in the pain.

“Lea, Lea . . . do you not know that you are my heart, my soul?”

She trembled against him. Friederich pulled her closer still and
continued to kiss her eyes, her brows, her cheeks, her nose, her lips. He rubbed her back and cradled her in his arms, whispering her name, repeating the steadfastness of his love.

Slowly, slowly but surely, envy for all that Rachel possessed, and for all that her sister was, unwound its tentacles from Lea’s heart. More slowly, fear of losing Amelie unwound from her body, then from her mind. Gradually, and at last willingly, she yielded to her husband’s love. Minutes passed, and all the voices stilled.

Two nights later, the clock in the dark kitchen cuckooed ten. Oma, Amelie, and Rivka had gone to bed when Rachel knocked softly on Lea and Friederich’s door.

“Come,” Friederich said.

Rachel tightened her robe about her and tiptoed in, pulling the door behind her. The message she gave her sister and brother-in-law, the parting gift she gave them that night, cost Rachel more than she’d expected. But when she saw her sister’s tears of joy and Friederich’s great relief, she knew she’d done the right thing—for them and for Amelie.

Friederich promised to see Chief Schrade first thing in the morning. He’d already confirmed Rivka’s suspicion that changes could be made to the passport. He knew a local man, a discreet man able to do the work.

When Rachel closed their bedroom door, she knew there would be no sleep for them that night. Happiness would not contain itself. She waited in the silent kitchen until she could compose her heart and emotions. She didn’t walk up the stairs, but crawled humbly through the cupboard and climbed to the attic, where Amelie slept and Rivka read from a tiny pool of light made by her candle.

“I spoke with Lea and Friederich tonight,” Rachel whispered across the room.

“They’ve found a way to get you and Amelie out.” Rivka nodded, her eyes unnaturally bright. “I’m glad—for you both. I’ll miss you, but I will pray for your safety, each step of the way.”

“Pray for us, Rivka—for you and me.”

“What?”

“Will you go with me? Will you be my sister?”

Rivka sat up. “But Amelie—”

“Amelie’s too little for a trip on foot across the Alps. She’s safer here, hidden with Lea and Friederich. As long as Gerhardt can be convinced that I’m not here, he’ll stop pestering Oma and Lea. I’ll make sure he knows I’m in America when we get there.”

“Do you mean this?” Hope, fear, wonder rose in Rivka’s eyes.

Rachel laughed, though she could barely see her friend through her own tears. “Yes—” and she finger-spelled
R-i-v-k-a
—“we’re bound together in hope.”

“Binding—that’s what my name means!”

“Yes, little sister, we’re bound together.”

Rivka sat up on her knees, her hands pressed together. She whispered hoarsely, recounting Ruth’s vow. “‘Where you go, I will go. Where you lodge, I will lodge. Your people will be my people!’”

“I have no people but here,” Rachel whispered, unable to stop the tears, “and we must leave them—for all our sakes. You and I—we’ll go to America. We’ll find a way.”

“Then I will be your people,” Rivka paraphrased. “And you will be mine.”

“And my God, your God,” Rachel returned, remembering Oma’s Bible, holding her breath, wondering if she believed that, if it could be true.

“Yes,” Rivka whispered, “oh yes!”

64

O
MA
WANTED
PHOTOGRAPHS
,
and Rachel agreed, as long as the film was hidden beneath floorboards and not developed until it was safe to bring them into the light of day—whenever that might be. Photos of the twin sisters alone and of both with Oma, of Oma with Lea and her husband and new daughter, of Rachel and Rivka—of every possible combination.

Once Rachel dyed Rivka’s hair a ripened-wheat shade of blonde and applied a little makeup, Rivka sat for her passport photo.

Doctoring Amelie’s passport to fit Rivka was cleaner, easier than Rachel had imagined. Changing the numerals in the year of birth was not so difficult for a local printer turned expert forger, nor was aligning Rivka’s new photograph.

Explaining the coming changes to Amelie had been more difficult. Preparing her to sit quietly alone in the attic or cupboard, sometimes for a few hours in case of a raid, was harder still. Rachel could only imagine how frightened the little girl would be without her or Rivka.

But when Rachel saw Lea’s freedom and joy with her new daughter, she knew she’d done the right thing for both of them. For all of them.

Rivka’s dark eyes lit like warm amber, her smile so radiant the entire family marveled at the change. Rachel decided it was a good thing Rivka was stuck in Oma’s house. It was hard enough for the older women to keep their secret from their faces. Only Oma seemed distressed.

The Nazis forbade fires on the mountain, citing blackout restrictions, even as Rachel had suspected. But dissension among the villagers over the cancellation of their beloved holiday increased tension, which prompted Sturmbannführer Schlick to condescendingly grant their petition to present an alternative indoor form of entertainment—as long as it was dedicated to the Führer and observed blackout restrictions.

Friederich reported that Forester Schrade, Father Oberlanger, and even the mayor, each with his own agenda, played their roles well in organizing the theatre hall and inviting troops stationed in and around Oberammergau.

Word raced through the village that the Ministry of Propaganda had gotten wind of the event through foreign news sources in Berlin. Goebbels was sending Brigadeführer Schellenberg to join Sturmbannführer Schlick for the grand affair, hoping to mend Nazi relationships with the Passion Village willing to honor the Führer and their Sturmbannführer. Word came that Goebbels was delighted to take advantage of photo ops for worldwide papers, all surely hungry for “German news.”

Rachel dared believe the ruse might work, that it might be the answer. While Gerhardt was in Berlin, she taught the acting classes, assigning roles and prompting lines. No matter that it was only two classes—it helped Lea get started with the production and enabled Rachel to better visualize potential pitfalls.

Exciting as it was, it spelled the end of her time with Oma, Lea, Friederich, and Amelie. Rachel told herself that it was best, that it was what she wanted . . . if only her heart would believe.

Gerhardt was not pleased and not taken in. Not for a moment did he believe the people of the Passion wished to present the gift of this event because they held him in high esteem. Villagers fearfully fawned to his face . . . or spit behind his back.

Still, he could not determine where the plan had originated, who was behind the push or why. Father Oberlanger didn’t seem the type—too frightened of Nazi intervention in the Catholic Church rituals he held so dear to try railroading an officer able to send him to a concentration camp. Lea Hartman was too mousy, reduced to a bundle of nerves at his very presence. And what could the community pull together that he’d not seen in her rehearsals, pitiful as they were? Still, it wouldn’t do to snub the officious Brigadeführer Schellenberg or let word of his lack of cooperation get to Goebbels.

Gerhardt had just returned from a grim recall to Berlin and a stern warning. He was “encouraged” to play the gracious recipient of this goodwill gift from the German people. It was the perfect opportunity to put to rest rumors among villagers and suspicions growing within the SS that he’d become obsessed with a dead woman to the point of madness.

Gerhardt had played the dutiful surrogate son to the overbearing Brigadeführer who’d been ordered to warn him. But he knew with every fiber of his being that Rachel Kramer was alive, that she was hiding somewhere—if not in Oberammergau, then nearby, somewhere in Bavaria. He knew not only from the photograph, but because the thing that Rachel Kramer had run to as a young woman, at least before her university experience increased her attitude of independence, was family—even when that family was no one but her scientist father.

The thought of family reminded him of the photographed child’s uncanny likeness to Amelie. The more he looked at the photograph, the stronger the resemblance, though he didn’t see how that could be.

While in Berlin, he’d visited the scene of the clinic explosion where Amelie had died. He tracked down and interrogated the matron. She’d blubbered that it had all happened so quickly, moments after his wife had left the clinic. The fire was intense and the fire trucks misdirected. There was simply not time to get everyone out. She was so very sorry for his loss.

He was not satisfied.

Left to his own devices, Gerhardt would have arrested the old woman, Frau Breisner, and interrogated her personally. Persuasion during raids had proven unsuccessful, but now he wondered if seeing her granddaughter tortured might lead to greater success, or if torturing the old woman might loosen the young Frau Hartman’s tongue. Seeing his wife upon the rack might influence the stoic woodcarver. The possibilities pleased him, though he did not see how he could conduct such interviews under the Brigadeführer’s watchful eye.

On the way through the village, Gerhardt had his driver stop outside the woodcarver’s shop while he took a short stroll round the square. Just to let the provincials know he had returned. Gerhardt enjoyed the trepidation he brought to the eyes of the villagers. There were those who scurried by, averting their eyes, and those who all but genuflected.