The Roses Underneath (14 page)

Anna made her way to the barracks door, avoiding the wide arc of the tire swing. She could smell the mix of dirt and sweat that children playing outside always emitted. It smelled like a kind of freedom, she thought.

The heavy door groaned when she pulled it open to step inside the dingy foyer. Two hallways extended from each side and a metal staircase led to the second floor. The plaster walls were a sickly green, the paint peeling to reveal gray underneath. Signs with arrows and numbers were taped to the wall, but were meaningless to her. A young woman was walking toward her, scraping her shoulder against the wall. A tired cotton dress hung on her emaciated frame and her hair had been cut short, like a boy’s. Anna tried to make eye contact but the woman’s gaze was locked on the floor in front of her.

“Excuse me, can you tell where I can find Frau Niemeyer? Maria Niemeyer? I believe she lives in this building.” Anna stopped and waited for a reply that did not come. The woman walked on without indicating in any way that she had heard the question. Anna watched her for a moment and when the woman reached the foyer end of the hallway, she turned, leaned her left shoulder against the wall, and started back.

“Frau Klein?”

Anna turned to see Maria in a doorway down the hall. She was wiping her hands on her dress and looked flushed.

“You are looking for Oskar? He is here with me. I am working in the kitchen today. Please.” She waved Anna toward her. “That’s just our Luisa. She walks up and down all day. I try to keep an eye on her.”

“She needs help,” Anna whispered.

Maria raised her eyebrows. “Of course she does. But the paperwork, it takes so long. The
Amis
are trying to find her family.”

The young woman reached Maria, turned again without a word and started back down the hall, the skin on her arm glistening.

“Come on, come see Oskar.” Maria pulled her gently by the arm.

The kitchen was an onion-scented steam bath of boiling pots and blazing fires. Several women worked at the tables chopping, some moved pots between stove and sink, and others washed. In the far corner, Oskar sat on a table next to
a woman wrapping bread into pieces of paper, his legs dangling over the edge. He pretended not to see Anna.

“Well, it looks like you have plenty to eat at least,” Anna said.

Maria shook her head. “This is for the whole barracks for today. One meal for six hundred people.”

“Six hundred? This is not enough for that many people.”

“Precisely. And that’s just this building. There’s ten more just like this here,” she said. “Come on.” She led the way to Oskar’s corner. “Look who’s here to see you, child. Stand up and say hello.”

Oskar slid off the table and looked at Anna’s kneecaps. She squatted down and hugged him. “Oskar, how are you doing?”

He refused to meet her eyes. “Are you coming to take me home?” he mumbled to the floor.

Anna shook her head. “No,
mein Kind
, I’m not. I wanted to say hello, and to see if you’d like to come play with my little girl this weekend? We could go up to the Neroberg. Maybe have a picnic?”

Oskar shrugged. “Maybe. I guess.”

Anna straightened. “Well, good. Now, is there anything I can do here to help?”

Maria laughed. “Well if you want to wrap sandwiches, that would be good. Then maybe we can get supper out on time for once.”

Anna put on the smock Maria handed her. It was so big that she looped the ties around her waist twice before making a bow. She began wrapping the sandwiches, taking one from the tray and rolling it into the top sheet of the stack of paper. It took her five sandwiches before she realized the papers were old Wehrmacht maps of Belgium.
If only old Adolf could see this. The bastard
.

After she had made a pile of twenty, Oskar took the tray into the dining room next door, returning with the empty tray in less than a minute. Anna started to work faster.

“Tell me, Oskar, how did you end up staying at the villa?” Anna tried to act disinterested, as if she had just asked him his favorite color or subject at school.

The boy fidgeted with the edge of the stack of maps. “I told you. I just stayed there.”

“Yes, but why there? And where did you live before?”

“I came from Darmstadt. After the bombs fell I got a ride on a truck one day. I went to the door and it was open. So I went inside. No one was home and there was a bed.” He shrugged.

“But that’s been a long time.” The bombing of Darmstadt had been the previous September, almost a full year ago. Anna remembered the day—September 11, 1944—because it had been her seventh wedding anniversary. There had been no celebration, only the furtive acknowledgement of the day with a kiss and a smile. There was no thinking of where they had been or where they were going. Only that they still
were
. The news from Darmstadt had trickled in through news from families of neighbors, the official news reports, then eventually through a letter from Madeleine. The bombing had lasted only 30 minutes but the fires raged for days. Bomb shelters became furnaces. Flames raced though the streets, finding entry through every door and window as the asphalt melted. The entire city was destroyed—a grim prelude of what was in store for more cities in the months that followed. Anna looked at Oskar and wondered what he was not telling her. She decided to play along with his story for now.

“How did you survive for so long on your own?”

“I took food. From the
Amis
. From people. It wasn’t so hard.”

“And you were all by yourself? Did no one ever come there?”

He nodded and puffed up. “I wasn’t scared.”

“No, of course not. I’m just wondering about the basement. How did all that art get there?”

“I told you, it was already there. And how should I know where it came from? Nobody ever came. I told you all this.” He took the tray of sandwiches away. This time he didn’t come back. Anna continued wrapping and tried to think of a better strategy to get the boy to talk. She would have to earn his trust somehow.

“Anna? I mean, Frau Klein?” Cooper called from the door. “We need to go.”

“Coming.” Anna looked at her meager pile of sandwiches. “I’m sorry, I didn’t do much.” She took off the smock as Maria patted her arm. “Thank you for coming. I know it matters, even though he’s not letting on. It makes a difference.”

“Tell him I’ll be back this weekend and we’ll go on the picnic I promised.”

Maria assured her she would relay the message and Anna followed Cooper outside to the jeep. The sun was sinking in the west and a cool north breeze felt good on her face after the heat of the kitchen.

“I think you’re right about Oskar hiding something about why he was at the villa,” Anna said. “He’s not telling me the whole story. And what he is telling me makes no sense.”

Cooper leaned his elbow on the steering wheel. “Yeah? Well never mind that now. I did find out something.” His intensity took Anna aback. “I checked on the kid’s paperwork. Something’s come up. About his family.”

“Really? That was so fast. Did they find someone to claim him?”

Cooper shook his head. “Not exactly. But they found out who his parents were.”

Anna slumped. “Oh?”

“Peter and Magda Grünewald. Residence: Heinrichstrasse, Darmstadt. Both deceased, September 11, 1944.”

“So he’s telling the truth about that part at least.” Anna sighed. “How did you find out? Does he have any brothers or sisters? Other family?”

Cooper handed her a yellowing card with a Swastika emblazoned on the top. “Take a look for yourself.”

As she scanned the form she realized it was a kind of death certificate for the Grünewald parents, listing their particulars: the father born 1914 in Passau, near Munich
; the mother in 1917 in Mainz, the town between Wiesbaden and Frankfurt.
Both so young
, Anna thought. Under the father’s name, his rank: SS Sturmbannführer. Children: Oskar Friedrich Grünewald. No date or city was listed in the space provided for information about his birth. She turned the card over, looking for more information.

“What you’re looking for is on the front there.” Cooper pointed his finger at a scribble on the form where Oskar’s birth information should have been.
Adoptiert
,
Steinhöring, 1937
it read.

Anna turned the paper over again, as if some new information might have appeared on the back, but it was blank. “Adopted?”

“Didn’t expect that did you?” Cooper grinned. It seemed to Anna that he enjoyed a good mystery.

She looked at the form again. “His father was SS. That explains his general
world view. And I think Steinhöring is in Bavaria, where his father is from, so that would make sense too.” She tried to picture the boy’s parents. SS officers and their wives had to prove their Aryan heritage going back generations. No doubt Peter and Magda Grünewald were prime specimens of the Master Race—tall, blonde, and privileged, thanks to their racial value to the Reich. Oskar completed the picture, his straw hair and blue eyes, strong features and solid build all contributing to the perfect ideal of the Nazi family. Anna shuddered.

Cooper handed her a gray paper folder that was thick with pages. The letters UNRRA were stamped on the front. “I requisitioned this for you. You wanted to figure out the boy’s provenance, see if you can find anything in there. Don’t say I never gave you anything.” He started the jeep and Anna clamped her hands down on the folder to keep the pages from blowing away.

Anna wondered if Oskar knew he had been adopted. Where had he come from? Maybe his mother had died in childbirth? Or when he was a baby? Even two mothers hadn’t been enough to keep the boy safe. And now, both were probably gone, lost to him forever.

Madeleine was sleeping when Anna and Amalia arrived. Visiting hours were long over but the nurse—the kind one with the dimpled chin and splotchy face—let them sneak in.

“I am also a mother who has to work,” she whispered. “But don’t let matron catch you. Just a few minutes, please.” Standing at the foot of Madeleine’s bed, Anna thought they should let her rest, but Amalia was already at her head, whispering in her ear.

“Auntie?
Auntie wake up. We are here to see you.” Her little hand stroked the old woman’s stringy hair, now matted to her head with several days’ worth of sweat. Anna set down the small basket she had brought. She had boiled one of Frau Hermann’s eggs and added it to some bread and the jar of quince jam. The hospital had little more to offer than broth and bread and even though bringing food was frowned upon officially, the reality was that it meant more rations for those patients who had no such outside deliveries.

Anna sat at the foot of the bed, which gave a low creak and tilted under her weight. The movement roused Madeleine, her eyes opened and focused on Amalia’s face, poised inches from her own.

“
Mein Schatz
, is it you?” she smiled and took the girl’s face between her hands. “All day I was waiting. I am so glad you came.”

“Are you feeling better?” Amalia whispered.

“Much,” said Madeleine. She peered into the darkness at the end of the bed. “Did you bring your mother with you or did you drive yourself?”

Amalia giggled and Anna reached across the bed to quiet her. She leaned forward into the square of light that came through clerestory high above the bed. “Here I am, Madeleine. How are you feeling? Did the doctor see you today?” She cradled the woman’s icy hand in hers.

“No sighting today. I think they’ve given up on me. Which is really all right because I feel much better. I’d like to come home.” Her eyes betrayed her lie. “They aren’t doing a damn thing for me here. At least at home I have my own bathroom, which smells a lot better than this one here.”

“That’s for certain,” said Anna. “Shall I talk to the doctor or do you want to sneak out in the middle of the night?”

“Your mother is feeling adventurous today.” Madeleine winked at Amalia. “Tell me, what’s been going on?”

“Oh, nothing much. Captain Cooper and I went out yesterday and surveyed some of the villas out west and down along the Rhine.
Documenting damage and cataloging valuables. Nothing very interesting. Look here, I brought you an egg. Frau Hermann brought some from her sister’s farm. I gave the other one to Amalia.” She fiddled with the basket and held up the bread. “And this. Are you hungry now? I can fix it for you.”

Madeleine looked at her. “So that’s all, just driving around the countryside with the American? Nothing exciting? What about you, Amalia, where were you when all this was going on?”

“Mama was so late to pick me up that I had to stay with Herr Schilling,” Amalia grumbled. “She and Captain Cooper were out until after my dinner time.”

Anna shot Amalia a stern look. “Maus, I told you we lost track of time and it took longer to get back than we thought. We had to stop to drop off something we found.” When Madeleine gave her a questioning look, she filled her in on the details of the new childcare arrangement. She found herself sounding much more confident in the set up than she felt. Madeleine appeared relieved and pushed herself up on her elbows. “See, I knew it would all work out and you would find someplace for her to go. Now tell me about what you and the American found.”