The Roses Underneath (19 page)

“I am glad you are not seriously hurt,” she stammered. She tried to remove her hand but Cooper squeezed it, just once, before he let go. She smiled for an instant and made her exit.

Walking down the hall, Anna was aware of the remnant sensation of his hand around hers. A ripple of something warm pushed its way though her body. She closed her palm as if to hold on to the invisible hand in hers.
Damn
Ami
.
She wiped her palm on her pants and quickened her pace toward the stairs.

Anna stood up and stretched her back. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. The Collecting Point had only been open for a few weeks, but already the claims for lost and stolen property amounted to reams and reams of papers. Some claims were itemized, with the owner’s information typed and their belongings meticulously listed to the point of tedium. Three silver teaspoons.
One Wedgwood plate. A set of silver salt and pepper shakers (antique). Other claims were vague and inscrutable, especially the ones written in longhand. None matched the items from the villa, not even close. It was already after two o’clock. She had worked through lunch, preferring to keep to herself and make up the time she had lost. Cooper had vanished, saying something about checking on the fence. She hadn’t seen him for hours.

Anna leaned on the balustrade in the hallway and looked down into the main foyer. Americans and Germans were busy working on the building, the wiring, the windows,
the furniture. Everywhere there was cleaning and scrubbing, moving and organizing. The place was like an anthill. She was on the south side of the building, which had housed the archaeological collection before the war. The northern windows across the foyer had been damaged more severely in the bombings and workers were still replacing them. A continual ribbon of tiny shards of broken glass tracked throughout the entire building and sometimes the constant crunching underfoot made Anna’s teeth stand on edge. Two thousand little panes, Cooper had told her. Captain Farmer, the Collecting Point director, had received a tip from a German worker about several tons of glass that were abandoned by the Luftwaffe at a barracks under construction near the Wiesbaden airfield. He found it under a pile of garbage and managed to get away with it, stealing the precious glass out from under the Air Force. Cooper loved telling this story, which had become a small legend around the building, saying that brawn may win the war, but brains will win the peace. The director had also taken the cots and other equipment abandoned by the Luftwaffe at the museum to UNRRA and traded them for food. The Army cast-offs that the German soldiers now wore were also his doing, since the Germans were forbidden to wear their old uniforms—often the only clothes they still owned.

Anna went back to her desk and picked up where she had left off. A knock on the wall behind her made her turn. A GI with blond hair and a serious face stood in the opening.

“Excuse me, Frau Klein? Anna Klein?”

Anna nodded.

The soldier checked something off his clipboard. “Great, come with me, please.” He stepped aside to allow her to pass.

Anna didn’t move. “Where am I going, may I ask?” she said.

He smiled apologetically. “Personnel. We have to tighten up the place before Monday, so I need you to fill out some paperwork and get you a proper ID. Everyone’s getting one.” His name tag said Bormann. Anna smiled and wondered how much grief he’d gotten for sharing a name with Hitler’s top adjutant. She picked up her bag and followed him downstairs to the records section.

The new pass they gave her had her name and the photo the
Amis
had copied from her paperwork at the Arbeitsamt—the official employment office where all Germans had to register. Bormann stamped her papers with the flourish only the terminally bureaucratic could produce and presented them with a smile. Anna hated identity papers. Sooner or later they always got used against you. But this one, which read “U.S. Military Translator/
Dolmetscherin,
” was an asset for now.

Back in Cooper’s quasi-office, the heat of the day had taken hold, and Anna lowered the blinds in the window above her desk to reduce the glare. There was no breeze anyway. Returning to her lists, she saw a note had been placed on top of the pile.

Anna, I’ll be at my apartment this evening after work. I must talk to you. Please stop by before you pick up Amalia. Yours, Emil.

Anna crumpled the paper in her fist and threw it into the bin under Cooper’s desk. She considered how much longer she could fend Emil off without offending him and upsetting his sister and thus endangering the babysitting arrangement. There were rumors that the schools would restart within the month, once the
Amis
had approved the textbooks and purged all the history books of their so-called Nazi truths. All that would be left would be a pamphlet about the glory of the Weimar Republic, the hapless old Hindenburg who handed power to Hitler like a tray of biscuits, and the American saviors who rescued them. Everything in between still needed sorting out. But at least then Amalia could go to a real kindergarten. Anna would hold her breath until then.

She was trying to focus on the details of a claim by one Albert Ritter of Eberstadt, regarding the loss of, among other things, twelve porcelain cat figurines, when she felt hands clamp down on her shoulders. She jumped.

Cooper laughed. “Sorry. Man, you are wound tight.”

“Don’t do that,” she hissed. “You scared me half to death.”

With his fat lip and swollen eye Cooper looked half-crazed. He sat down at his desk and leaned back. “Guess where I’ve been?”

“Retrieving the repository from the villa?” Anna turned her chair to face him.

“That’s being taken care of. I got sent to survey a church, out in Erbenheim.”

“And?” Anna tried to seem interested.

“And, there were some nuns there. They ran a school there during the war. At least some of the time.” He began to examine the scab forming on the back of his hand with great interest.

“So?”

“So, one of them, an older one who started off kind of grumpy, she spoke English.
Schwester Gerlinde
. We got to chatting, and I asked her how many kids they had in the school and what happened to them. She told me things got pretty chaotic in about ‘43 with the bombs and the shortages. She said the official children’s home, the one out at our villa? It was an SS home, like you said. Sometime in ‘42 it began overflowing with all these blonde orphans. So sometimes the nurses there sent them some kids that were waiting to be adopted. He rubbed the back of his head and winced. “Here’s the part I don’t get. She said the kids were brought there by the SS. Apparently they had nurses in the SS?” He chuckled. “SS nurse seems kind of oxymoronic doesn’t it?”

“Oxymoronic?”

“Yeah, you know a term that contradicts itself. Like military efficiency. Or world peace.”

Anna squinted at him.

Cooper shook his head. “Anyway, the nun said the nurses brought them. Then eventually the families—who were also always SS by the way—would show up with the paperwork and take their new kids home. You see what I’m getting at?”

Anna shook her head no.

“ SS? Nurses?”

“Oh, you mean the Lebensborn
program?” Anna said.

“Yes, that’s what I mean,” Cooper said with mock irritation. “So the SS was adopting out kids. I doubt they were doing it out of the kindness of their hearts. There’s got to be more to the story.”

Anna agreed. “There’s always more to the story with those people. Oskar must have some connection there. Maybe they took him in again after his mother died? It can’t be a coincidence that we found him there.” Anna chewed the inside of her lip. “I guess I need to go talk to our boy again.”

Anna hurried Amalia along the Gustav-Freytag-Strasse. She had left work five minutes early and run almost the whole way to the Schilling house to get there before Emil did. Now she wanted to avoid him on the way home, which took her back past the museum. Amalia was carrying the doll with the red dress from Frieda’s playroom tight under her arm. Frieda had given it to her to keep and Amalia had named her Lili. “Because she is Lulu’s little sister,” she explained.

Anna scanned the road ahead. “What did you do today, Maus?” she asked.

“We played in the garden. We dug holes.”

“Dug holes? For what?”

Amalia rolled her eyes. “For the onions, Mama. We are planting onions. Look at my hands.” She held out her left hand to show the black fingernails. “I look like a real farmer!” She giggled.

Anna rubbed the girl’s head. “You are a city farmer. Maybe you can plant some potatoes in our bathtub.”

They turned onto the Frankfurter Strasse where the traffic picked up and they had to sidestep people coming toward them. Anna picked the girl up to keep her from getting separated.

“Anna!” The voice came from in front of her, but her view was blocked. She pretended not to hear and kept walking upstream.

“Anna?” Emil’s smiling boy face appeared. “Anna, didn’t you get my note?
Hallo
Amalia.” He reached out and patted Amalia’s back.

“Emil,
hallo
. I am sorry, but we are in a terrible hurry,” Anna said and kept walking.

“Oh I see. May I walk with you?” He fell into stride with her. “Are you all right?” He poked Amalia in the belly to make her laugh.

“Yes, of course. I am fine.”

“Listen, I need to talk to you.” Emil lowered his voice. “But I really don’t want to do it out here.”

Anna looked straight ahead. “I’m sorry, Emil. We really have to go.”

“Anna, it’s not what you think. Please…” He grabbed her arm. Anna froze and turned her head toward his face. Then she looked down at the fist wrapped around her bicep, fingers pushing into her flesh. Before she could resist, he pulled her into an alley behind the nearest row of houses.

She tried to pull her arm away. “Let go of me. I’ll scream,” she threatened, looking up at the open windows. She felt stupid, but it was the only threat she could think of. Blood rushed like a waterfall behind her ears.

Emil released his grip but took up a position between her and the street. Amalia’s arms were clamped around Anna’s neck, her head buried.

“What the hell do you want? I told you we are in a hurry,” Anna fumed.

“I told you. I just want to talk to you. You don’t even have time to talk to me?” Emil leaned in, his voice low and coarse, as if he was talking through sandpaper. “I need to tell you something. But not here.”

“Yes, here,” Anna said.

Emil looked at her, then at the houses on each side, considering his options. Anna shifted her weight and wondered if she could get around him before he could grab her. Not if she was carrying Amalia.

“Look, Anna. I have not been entirely honest with you. And now I need to tell you something because, well because I like you. And Amalia too.”

The girl peeked out from under Anna’s arm. Emil smiled. His face returned to its normal boyish character, but his eyes betrayed something darker. Anna wanted no part of whatever he was about to confess.

“Emil, really it’s all right. You don’t need to…”

“Herr Schilling? Did you see my doll?” Amalia held up the new prize. “
Fraulein
gave her to me. As a present. Because I was such a good helper. Isn’t she pretty?”

Emil’s gaze bounced between Anna and Amalia. “Yes, she is.
Very pretty. You must have been very good.”

“Yes, I was. Mama, can we go now?” Amalia whispered. “I want to go home.”

Anna put on a maternal smile. “I really must go, Emil.”

She started to walk but he stepped in front of her. “You know something? I hate when you look at me that way.
Full of pity and charity. Don’t think I don’t see it. You never look at the
Ami
that way.” He leaned in closer and Anna caught the smell of alcohol on his breath. She held her ground but put a protective arm over her daughter’s ear. “I don’t want your goddamn pity. You think you are better than me? You think your hands are clean now that you work for them?”

Anna flared. “Pity you?
For what? For surviving? Why do you earn my pity for that?” She pushed him away and began to walk, pulling Amalia by the wrist. Emil pulled her arm again and she struck at him, just missing.

“Let me tell you something,” she said, turning back toward him and pushing a finger into his shoulder. “For six years I have been the only thing standing between this creature and the hell that was brought down on all of us. I am the only thing that protects her. You think I could have stuck my neck out so my head could get cut off and she’d be
all alone in
this
world? Yes, my hands
are
dirty. You know how I know? Because I am still here. Because a lot of people got dragged away—people just like me, Germans, or people who thought they were Germans—and they never came back. Mothers taken from their children. Every day, Emil. And I did nothing. You saw it too, didn’t you? Or maybe you were one of those doing the taking?”

Instantly she regretted her words. She regretted accusing him and she regretted giving voice to her worst fear in front of her daughter. Emil’s expression shifted slightly to something she did not recognize, but he said nothing.