The Kingdom of Shadows (6 page)

SIX

One of the
Lebensborn
nurses stuck her head inside the hostel director’s office. “
Frau
Hegemann – you had best come to the maternity section.”

The nurse was overexcited; that was not the way her superior should be spoken to. But
Frau
Hegemann did not take the time to correct the nurse now. Without even hearing them, she had been aware of the whispers that had disturbed the hostel’s tranquil spaces. Whatever had caused such a commotion was more important than scolding an impertinent nurse.
Frau
Hegemann rose from her desk. “I shall be right there.”

In the newborns’ room, a senior nurse nodded to the hostel director. Surrounded by the rows of cradles, the nurse held one bundled infant in her arms. The squalling of the other small creatures, and their damp, sweetish smell, hung in the air.

“I thought you should see this,
Frau Direktor
.” The senior nurse pulled back the hood of the infant’s wrappings, exposing its pink, soft face. Its eyes screwed tight, one small hand fussing against its cheek.

Frau
Hegemann was aware of a gaggle of the younger nurses at the room’s door, hushing each other and standing on tiptoe to try and see around her back. She knew that if she turned around and stamped her foot, they would all scatter like frightened geese.

Instead, she ignored them and reached out to touch the infant’s forehead. “There seems nothing wrong with this child.” She didn’t know which girl had been its mother; there had been several due about this time.

The nurse, with a thumb and forefinger, gently pulled open the infant’s eyelids. The pink skin reddened, the toothless mouth opening in protest.

Frau
Hegemann saw then, what was the matter.

The infant’s left eye was the delicate blue of just-born creatures. And the other eye, as beautiful and perfect, a deep golden-brown.

* * *

Liesel already knew why
Frau
Hegemann wanted to talk to her. The talk had gone all around the
Lebensborn
hostel. Not just of what had happened, but what was going to be done about it. She knew, both by instinct and her sure awareness of her rightful place among all the girls, that she would be part of the answer.

She sat up in the bed, waiting for
Frau
Hegemann. The nurses had moved her into a private room. That was a dead giveaway, too: things were going to be spoken that were not meant to be overheard. She’d made sure that her own baby was brought in to her just before
Frau
Hegemann was to appear. So she could have the tiny boy she’d decided to name Siegfried – that seemed patriotic and martial enough – at her breast, the image of serene motherhood.

The door opened and the hostel director came in. She smiled at Liesel. “Everything is going well for you, I trust?”

“Quite well,
Frau
Direktor.” Liesel had opened the front of her bedrobe for the baby to suckle. Its small hands pawed annoyingly at her breast, but she had made her mind up to endure that. “He’s put on seven ounces.”

“
Sehr ausgezeichnet
.”
Frau
Hegemann tilted her head to look at the infant. “This is how the war of births shall be won. The
Lebensborn
program was instituted for just this reason, to bring such children into the life of our people. Unfortunately –” The hostel director’s face turned hard. “It has not worked out that way in every instance.”

“What do you mean?”

“You needn’t play stupid. I’m well aware of how all the girls and the nurses gossip, and that everyone here knows what has happened. One of the girls has given birth to a child that doesn’t meet the strict standards of racial hygiene that we practice here. The child shows obvious signs of a mongrelized genetic background.”

The eyes
, thought Liesel smugly. A deep sense of satisfaction had arisen in her when she’d first heard the whispered news. About the bastard that mousey, conniving bitch had thrown, with its two different-colored eyes. Her Siegfried’s were both blue, like little jewels, the way a proper Aryan child’s should be.

“Investigations have been made.”
Frau
Hegemann sat rigid in the chair, her spine a rod of iron. “The girl should never have been allowed in here at all. The documents that supposedly substantiated her racial background were discovered to be forgeries; her mother’s Nordic blood was mixed with that of her father’s ethnic group, a degenerate strain in which this heterochromia is common.”

Liesel hadn’t heard that word before, but could guess what it meant: that other baby’s condition of one blue eye, one brown. She liked the word
mongrel
better, to describe such creatures. The same word someone would use for those gaunt, garbage-eating dogs in the street.

“I suppose you could drown the baby.” She tried to keep from smiling. “In a bucket of water. My uncle, on his farm, used to do that with kittens.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” snapped
Frau
Hegemann. “The child in question is healthy and sound, other than its regrettable . . . features.” The hostel director’s mouth curled in distaste. “There are other considerations to be kept in mind. This child is the offspring of an SS officer of note. As such, it presents us with a dilemma as to its . . . disposition. Until such time as the
Rasse- und Siedlungshauptamt
makes a further determination about what is to be done, we have been instructed to make sure that the child is to be placed in a racially fit household. That is why I wished to speak to you.”

“I’ll be happy to help,” said Liesel, “in any way I can.”

Frau
Hegemann studied her for a moment. “I’m sure you will be. I’m also sure that you’ll understand the need for discretion in this matter . . .”

* * *

The other girl had been placed in a private room as well. A room with a locked door.

“I’m hoping there will be no emotional display.” The hostel director dropped her jangling key ring into the deep pocket of her dress. “The girl might have the decency to understand what her duty should be.”

The senior nurse closed the door behind them. The girl, this Marte, was sitting up in bed, the infant cradled in her arms. She bent her face down low to it, as though murmuring secrets into the small pink shell of the child’s ear.

“Marte –”
Frau
Hegemann kept her voice soft, as calming as possible. “You do remember, don’t you? That the whole purpose of our being here, the creating of the
Lebensborn
program . . . it’s all for a reason, the bringing into existence of healthy new life. Life of pure blood. The babies that are born here are to be considered as gifts to the race, and to the
Führer
. You understand that, don’t you?”

The girl held the infant closer to herself. That was a bad sign – the hostel director could see that the girl was going to make this more difficult than it needed to be.

“I was told,” said Marte, “that I could keep my baby. Before I came here – that’s what I was told. If that was what I wanted.”

“Yes. Ordinarily, we do give the girls that option. There should be no stigma attached to an unmarried woman whose child was fathered by a hero of the Reich. The outmoded morals of the past are to be extinguished. But . . .”
Frau
Hegemann drew in a deep breath. “There are unusual circumstances in your case. Surely you see that.”

A fierce light glinted in the girl’s eyes. “There’s nothing wrong with my baby.”

“Your child’s health is not the issue.”
Frau
Hegemann felt her jaw tensing. The impulse to slap the silly girl, to make her see sense, was almost irresistible. “Its racial background –
your
racial background – that is the problem. You know you are not the pure Aryan that your forged documents made you out to be. Unfortunately for you, the genetic contamination in your blood has shown up in your child. One of life’s ironies is that degenerate breeding is so powerful; it drags the good, strong blood down to its level. And that is why it is so important for our people – the true Nordic race – to safeguard their precious inheritance from those who would defile it. From such as you.”

The infant whimpered, caught in the girl’s embrace. “I’m keeping him.”

“That’s not possible. You must try to understand. This is
Rassenschande
 – you are a racial criminal. And worse, you have engaged an officer of the SS in this crime, the mixing of bloods.”
Frau
Hegemann’s voice rose, her anger overwhelming her resolution to stay calm. “Do you really think you can be allowed to raise this child? That the Reich can trust one such as you? That when people see this
Mischling
, this little half-breed, and they ask who is its father, you won’t say your baby’s father wears the black uniform?”

The girl had shrunk beneath the lash of the hostel director’s spittle-flecked shout, bowing her head and wrapping herself around the infant in her arms. The infant had started to cry. As though no one else existed in the room, the girl opened the front of her robe and put the infant to her breast.

Frau
Hegemann nodded to the senior nurse.

“Let me take him,” the nurse said softly, reaching down. “Everything will be all right. There’s nothing you have to worry about . . .”

The girl drew back, her eyes wide with fear and anger. “No –” She shook her head. “Don’t touch him.”

“There, now.” The nurse had managed to get her hands around the swaddled form. “No need to make a fuss . . .”

“No!” The girl jerked the infant out of the nurse’s grasp. She twisted her shoulder and upper back toward the women, her spine arched as she bent protectively over her child. “Go away! Leave us alone!”

Frau
Hegemann had hoped that it would be easy, that the girl would see it was her duty to give up the child. It should have been easy; this girl Marte had been so quiet and timid since the day she had arrived at the hostel. So little trouble that one could have forgotten her, let her presence fade from one’s mind, if it hadn’t been for the loveliness of her face, the radiance of her white-blonde hair. Of course that was why the
Obersturmführer
had fallen for her, bestowed his valuable seed upon her; men were all fools in that way.

But where had this other girl come from? This one who cried out and clung to her baby? There had been nothing like this, nothing at all, behind that beautiful, still mask . . .

The infant could be torn in two, if the nurse could even get her hands on it again, before the girl would give it up.

Frau
Hegemann reached down and grabbed a fistful of Marte’s golden hair, pulling the girl’s head around toward her. With her other hand, she slapped the girl’s face, hard enough to shock and stun her, mouth opening wide as a red mark in the shape of a palm and fingers swelled on her white cheek.