November 1939
I met Klara as instructed at the edge of the property where she was supposed to attend her course. The area was densely forested and abutted the lake. If anyone asked, I’d use the excuse that I was a maid to one of the brides in attendance delivering some missing articles to my mistress. It explained both my presence on the island as well as my small suitcase. Inside the case were a few personal items and nightgowns Klara had lent me to get through the birth. She’d even managed to scrounge up a few small blankets for the baby, though she wasn’t able to procure a gown or sleep suit for him. I thought of the little wardrobe I’d made that was tucked in a drawer at home and cursed the men who’d destroyed my carefully laid plans.
Klara came to my side almost immediately as I left the taxi. She’d been watching attentively so that my arrival would be noticed by as few people as we could manage. We quietly walked into the thicket around the edge of the property. A stately villa lorded over the lot. It was white and soaring against the moody skies and looked large enough to house a hundred people in such spacious quarters that they’d never see one another unless they chose to. It seemed an odd place for a school, but I couldn’t pretend to understand the party’s ways of thinking.
Finally, we reached the edge of the adjacent property and came to the door of a disused cottage.
“This is the best I could do, I’m sorry,” Klara said. “The family that owns the place is friends with mine. I was able to chat with a maid who was out in the courtyard and find out where they were. They’re off on vacation for another week, but the main house is lousy with servants. I managed to convince the maid to find me a key to the old caretaker’s cottage. She swears no one comes here.”
“She won’t talk?” I asked, breathing heavily with the exertion from walking across the grounds.
“I paid her off. Handsomely,” Klara said, turning the key and swinging open the door to the tiny cottage, and gesturing me inside. “She promised to keep an eye out in case anyone takes a notion to visit out here, but she says no one has bothered with the place in months.”
She pulled the sheet off a moth-eaten sofa, and I wondered why anyone had gone to the trouble of protecting the ancient piece of furniture from dust and debris. The cottage was furnished with a bed that was in only slightly better condition than the sofa, a minuscule sitting area, and a rudimentary kitchen. Klara had snuck in as many provisions as she dared so she wouldn’t attract too much attention by coming to visit me more than once a day.
“This will be better than fine, I assure you.” I opened a cabinet to find a mop, a broom, and a whole host of cleaning supplies. Cleaning the space and making it safe for the baby’s arrival would at least give me something to occupy my days. Klara had been thoughtful enough to include a few novels and some writing paper and pens with the nightgowns she’d packed for me. None of the rest of her clothes would fit me before the baby arrived, so I’d be forced to wear the flowing white nightgowns most of the time.
She’d yet to find someone capable of delivering the baby, nor had we addressed what to do if I went into labor and needed help before her daily visit. It was a gaping hole in the plan, but at least I was tucked away from the heart of Berlin. Giving birth was such a daunting prospect, I hadn’t the strength to consider the life that lay beyond. I sat down on the dusty sofa and, miraculously, felt myself able to breathe. I’d never visited Schwanenwerder Island, though it wasn’t far from the heart of Berlin, and many of the elite Jewish families of Berlin once had homes there. The party confiscated many of them, and I was hiding right in the lion’s den, but I was too tired to be afraid. I’d used up my allotment of fear for one lifetime. In that moment, I focused on how the cottage was ensconced by the verdant landscape, and the thick, towering trees. It made me feel hidden and safe. It was hard not to feel at least a little safer nestled among the trees, though in truth I was closer to the heart of the vipers’ nest than I should have dared to tread.
“You’re sure your friends won’t mind if I’m here?” I asked.
“They’ll never know. No one has stayed here in years. As long as you keep the blackout curtains on the windows and don’t make too much noise, you’ll be just fine.”
“You’re placing a lot of confidence in this. What if the servants have been told to scout the outbuildings for this very thing? Times are hard and people are desperate for places to stay.”
“It’s the best we can do for now. I only wish there were a phone here,” she said, looking around and seeing nothing but deficiencies.
“How many caretakers’ cottages do you know that are equipped with phones? I’ll be just fine here. Better than giving birth out in the woods alone.”
“I suppose I can’t argue there,” she said. “And damn everyone who has made it so you can’t deliver this baby safely in a hospital where you ought to be. And damn those who’ve made your life more difficult because you’re Jewish.”
“You knew?” I asked. We’d never broached the subject before. It had been enough that she suspected the father of my child was.
“I had my suspicions. Your father leaving. Your mother never being in the shop. It seemed as good an explanation as any.”
“If you figured it out, I’m lucky I wasn’t forced out of business or locked up months ago,” I said, my hand reflexively going to shield my swollen belly. “The rest of them must have figured it out by now.”
“Don’t give them that much credit. I was paying more attention to you than they were. They might have found you out eventually, but it would have taken a while. You blend in better than most.”
“Thank goodness for that, I suppose,” I said, rolling my eyes. “Too Jewish for the Aryans, too Aryan for the Jews. Being without a people is tiresome.”
“It never mattered to me, you know,” she said, using the sheet to wipe away dust from the kitchen table. “I know that doesn’t mean much given all that’s happening to your people, but it never mattered to me.”
“I believe you,” I said.
“So now you understand why I . . . well. It doesn’t matter. I just hope you don’t hate me.”
“No,” I said. “I couldn’t bring myself to hate you.”
“Even though I stand up to be counted with a party that hates your people?”
“Even then. You haven’t been given many choices. I can see that clearly.”
“It doesn’t excuse it,” she said.
“No, but the blame isn’t yours alone.”
“I have to go,” she said with a shake of her head. “They’re expecting me.”
“Go. Learn to be a good German wife. Make your Ernst proud.”
“Maybe I’ll learn something that will be useful to you,” she said. “Wouldn’t that be a pleasant surprise?”
“You can come teach me after the others have gone to bed,” I said to her. “Go.”
She dashed off toward the big house and I was left in the cottage. My fatigue had abated, and I was filled with the urge to scrub every surface of the building until it shone. Mama had mentioned the surge of energy before birth, and I wondered if it meant the baby would soon be on his way. I filled a bucket with warm water from the tap and began scrubbing from the tops of the cabinets down to the floors.
I thought about Klara’s confession. She’d known for years that I was Jewish. She remained my friend despite this, knowing it would see her censured and even damage her prospects for marriage. She’d always been one to make bold choices, and I admired her for it. But all the same, she was one of them. My life depended on her being trustworthy. Even more, my child’s life did.
I thought of the women converging on the house to the west. I could see them gathered from my little window. They giggled and sipped coffee in the lounge. They were happy and warm. Soon to be wives, and mothers not long after. They would spend six weeks ensconced in luxury, learning from a curriculum I could only imagine. Some practical skills, to be sure. How to feed, clothe, and diaper a baby. I wouldn’t have minded sitting in on those courses myself. Sewing, washing, and mending, I expected. But throughout, I knew these women would be instructed that they should teach their children that their babies were superior to my own. My heart ached that their sweet children would be poisoned at such a young age.
But I couldn’t worry for their babies. I had to worry about my own. I scrubbed for hours until my back demanded I stop, and I ate some bread and cheese from the stores Klara had procured for me. I wondered that she, who had no obligation to me whatsoever, had extended kindness to me, at great personal risk, when my own father had not. The baby moved, revivified by the food I ate.
“You’re being born into a strange world, little one. But I promise I will do all I can to keep you safe.”
And I knew that simple promise was a taller order than it should have been.
I sang the lullabies to the baby that my mother had sung to me. She should have been here to help me as I made my own transition to motherhood. Or I should have been in New York with her. But life was anything but fair these days, and the most important task ahead of me would be to ensure that the precious baby inside me didn’t learn that lesson too well or too soon.