The Watcher (16 page)

I had to get away. I flung my bag over my shoulder, pushed through the onlookers, and raced across the room, out the front door, and onto the street.

I
ran down the sidewalk and crossed the street, not waiting for the light to change, while horns beeped at me and someone yelled from a truck window. I did not care.

When I saw an empty bus bench under the sheltering branches of an oak tree, I fell onto it, breathless from crying and sick from the terrible scene I had left behind. I had forgotten my coat and sat shivering on the bench.

My sweet friend Johanna would certainly be sent to a camp—and probably to the same fate as her brother. That man—that cruel Himmler—seemed elated to break the news of Eric's horrible death by slicing his finger across Johanna's neck.

What will Adrie say when she comes to pick me up and hears how I ran out of Lebensborn this morning? She will give me a lecture about Johanna and how traitors deserve their fate.

I looked around and spotted a public telephone booth nearby. Johanna and Barret were the only two people I could confide in. I needed to talk to Barret. I fumbled through my shoulder bag and found the scribbled paper with Barret's number. I went to the telephone, put in the coins I needed, dialed, and waited.

“Hallo!” Barret's voice.

“It's me, Wendy.”

“Ah, Wendy Vendy! What a surprise! Where are you?”

I began to cry again.

“What's wrong? Tell me.”

“Himmler—he is at Lebensborn—and he took Johanna away. Barret, they killed her brother.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Johanna must be heartbroken.” He was silent for a moment. “I hate to say this, but . . . It would happen sooner or later, Wendy. She is a
Bibelforscher,
after all. They were the first Christian group that Hitler banned and the most widely and severely persecuted. So it's to be expected that Johanna would eventually be imprisoned.”

“There is nothing anyone can do, is there?” I asked.

“The
Bibelforscher
already in the prison will encourage her. She will be among her friends.”

I heaved a sigh. “I don't want to go back to Lebensborn. Adrie will be waiting, and when she finds out how I reacted to Johanna's arrest—”

Barret listened and then spoke slowly. “Go back. Act as if nothing happened—or as if you don't care.”

“But I do care. Everyone knows I love Johanna.”

“You are honest, and you show your feelings. However, here in Germany you must be cautious with your words. You are no longer a little girl, my Wendy Vendy. Living here makes us grow up quickly—to survive. Even if you are horrified with what is going on here, you need to pretend all is well. Remember, though, that you do not need to pretend with me. You and I will keep our own secrets.”

I felt a warm tingle as if it came right from the phone. “I hope to see you soon, but I wonder if Adrie is suspicious of my walks to the park.”

“Then we'll find another place to meet. I don't want to stop seeing you . . . and Watcher, of course.” He laughed softly.

“I don't want to stop seeing you, either,” I said.

“Will Adrie be at Lebensborn to pick you up soon?”

I looked at my watch. “Yes. In about a half hour.” I paused, trying to think how I should approach Adrie. “I'll pretend to be a true German and say, ‘It's too bad Johanna didn't sign her paper and go free.' ”

“
Ja, gut!
That should stop any more conversation on the subject of Johanna. Don't be emotional or angry. Pretend you have accepted the situation with Johanna.”

“I will, but it won't be easy.”

“We'll talk more tomorrow at the park. Meanwhile, be careful.”

I hung up just as the coin fell into the box. After wiping my nose and the last of my tears, I headed back to Lebensborn.

As I approached the building, I noticed Adrie's car in
the drive where Reichsführer Himmler's car had been parked. At least he was gone and I would not have to see his stupid, simpering face—or watch him pick his nose.

I checked my watch and realized that Adrie was early. Someone must have called her. Would she be furious with me for causing a scene by running out? I could never tell for sure what Adrie's response would be.

I went up to the door and was about to ring the bell when I realized my hands were trembling. The sick, icy chill I felt earlier as they dragged Johanna away had returned. I took a deep breath and rang the bell.
Pretend. Pretend.
I told myself.

Almost immediately Frau Messner opened the door, her large form a dark shadow in the doorway. Without a word she stood aside and Adrie peered out.

“Wendy, wherever did you go?” Adrie asked uneasily in English.

“I took a walk.”

“You didn't take your coat, and it's cold out there. Why didn't you tell anyone where you were going?” Adrie reached out, took my hand, pulling me into the foyer. “Come in and let everyone see that you're all right.”

I drew back. “No, Adrie. I want to go home. Now.”

A look of dismay darkened Adrie's eyes. She turned to Frau Messner and spoke regretfully in German. “Wendy's not feeling well. I'm taking her home straightaway.”

Frau Messner nodded. “She did have a difficult day.” She handed my coat to Adrie.

Rikka and Gertrude were standing nearby, watching
me with shaking smiles as if they were about to burst into laughter.

“Don't you want to say good-bye to the other girls?” Adrie suggested in English as she reached into her purse for her keys. “Surely, you should at least apologize.”

“Apologize? For what?” I demanded. I looked directly Gertrude and Rikka, who stood behind Adrie.
“Rohlinge!”
The German for “cruel brutes” came out of somewhere in my brain. I spit the word in a loud whisper at their leering faces, and then stomped down the stairs and out to the car.

Still shaking from anguish over Johanna's arrest, I waited for Adrie. I could hear her say something in a soothing voice to Frau Messner before she followed me to the car.

Without a word, I climbed into the passenger's seat. Adrie started the car and backed out into the street. I dreaded the drive home.

F
or a short while, neither Adrie nor I said anything. Part of me wanted to tell her how sad I was. I wanted to ask her if she could help Johanna. I needed a mom who would understand, who would love me, and who would make everything all right—like my mom back in New York.

I knew, though, that the most important person in Adrie's life was not me. It was Adolf Hitler.

Adrie finally spoke. “Do you want to tell me what happened today?”

“You know already, don't you?”

“Only what I heard from Frau Messner—that Johanna was taken away by Reichsführer Himmler.” Adrie shook her head. “She told me that you ran out of the building in tears.”

“You heard right.”

“How do you feel about this? About Johanna?”

“Johanna was . . . is . . . a good friend, a good person, a good German.” I realized it was not easy to pretend after all.

Adrie drew a deep breath. “No, she's not a good German.”

I sat up straight in my seat. “There are criminals who steal, who cheat, who murder . . . but they will salute Hitler. Who is the better German—the criminals who disobey the law? Or some quiet, kind person like Johanna, who only asks for her right to worship God first?”

Adrie was silent for a long time, thinking. Then she said, “If everyone believed as Johanna and those Bible Students, no one would fight, and we'd lose the war.”

“If everyone believed as she does, there would be no war.” I turned my face to the window. “What those two girls did was unforgivable. They set the whole thing up just to see Johanna taken away.”

“You knew girls like that in Maine—the Crystals. They were cruel to you.”

“That's true,” I admitted. “But they didn't send me away to be killed.”

“What do you mean? No one is going to kill Johanna.”

“No? Herr Himmler told her she'd die like her brother—with her head cut off!”

We were almost home when she said, “You have the wrong attitude. You don't put the Third Reich first in your life.”

“Of course I don't. I'm not your perfect, Aryan, German maiden.”

“I don't expect you to be perfect.”

“I can't believe in or trust in the kind of government that is murdering thousands of Jews every day.”

Adrie bristled. “Wherever did you get that idea?”

“I've heard it . . . from lots of people.”

Adrie put her foot on the brake, and the car squealed as she pulled up to the sidewalk and stopped. Then turning to me, she said angrily, “I want you to tell me right now where you ever heard such a thing.”

I was suddenly fearful of Adrie. I would never tell her that Johanna confided in me. I certainly could not tell her that Opa and Barret had told me it was true. “I . . . I don't know where I heard it. Just talk.”

“It was Johanna, wasn't it?”

“She told me how her people were being killed.”

“Her people deserve to die. They are traitors!” Adrie's voice rose.

“Is it true or not?” I demanded. “Are thousands of Jews being killed every day?”

She didn't answer for a moment. Then she sputtered. “S-sometimes I feel like sending
you
to a disciplinary school to Germanize you. Maybe then
you'd
learn to see the good things our Führer has promised for our Fatherland.”

I felt as if a knife had stabbed me. I folded my arms across my chest to stop the pain. “You don't mean that, Adrie, do you?” I asked, tears brimming again. “You're my mother. Would you really send me away to one of those places?”

Adrie sighed, rolled her eyes, and then shook her head. “No. I only want what is best for you.”

“Then let's not talk about this anymore. Please. Can we just go home? All I want in this whole world tonight is to climb into bed and hug my dog.”

To my surprise, Adrie reached out and touched my face. “I do love you, Wendy. I realize you are not German. That is my fault, for letting you live in the States. The only thing I want in this world is for us to be together and believe in the same cause.”

“Adrie, you just told me that no one is going to kill Johanna. If that is so, is there anything you can do to guarantee that? Is there some way you can get her out of the camp?”

Adrie looked into my eyes for a long time, then turned away, started up the car, and began driving again. “I can't do anything to help her.”

We drove along in silence until we reached our driveway. Adrie then slammed on the brakes and turned to me. “And I wouldn't do anything, even if I could.”

I
had a terrible headache that night. Yet, as sad and disturbed as I was, I fell asleep as soon as Watcher climbed onto my bed and snuggled against my legs. I did not want to think about Johanna—I knew I would stay awake all night if I allowed myself to remember everything that happened that day.

Yet I could not get away from my dreams. I saw Herr Himmler with his sickening smirk. He hovered over me like a grimacing ogre—an evil man despite all his adoring fans.

Then I was back in Maine with my friend Jill Winters. She and I were sitting on the floor by the radio, listening to her famous father sing “The White Cliffs of Dover.”

In my dream Adrie called out, “Turn off that radio! Anyone listening to that music will be put to death!”

I woke up, shaking. My headache was pounding, and
now my throat was sore. I reached out for Watcher, who was sleeping at the foot of my bed. “Come here, boy,” I whispered.

He crawled closer, and I put my arm around him, falling back into a restless sleep.

The next morning, Thursday, Watcher and I were up before Adrie left for work at the
Abwehr
office. When we went downstairs, she was sipping coffee at the dining-room table with the newspaper spread out before her. “Frieda has a special breakfast for you this morning,” she said to me.

“Why? Does she know everything that happened yesterday?”

Adrie looked up. “Well, I told her some of it. She could tell you had been crying when you came home.”

I went into the kitchen and let Watcher out into the yard. Frieda turned and smiled as she cracked an egg into a bowl and began whipping batter.

Adrie followed me. “What are you going to do today, Wendy?”

“I don't know. I'll take my dog for a walk, I guess.” I stayed at the open door, waiting for Watcher to come back. I could not see Adrie, but I could feel her penetrating gaze as I tried to be cheerful. My head was still pounding, and it hurt to swallow. I did not want to tell her. She would stay home, or get me to a doctor. I wanted to see Barret.