1959

The receptionist led me into the doctor’s office.

“Wait here,” she said.

It was nicely furnished, with an Oriental carpet, pale green walls, and French doors that overlooked a quiet garden. It smelled of leather and old wood, and the furniture looked expensive. An upholstered sofa. A shiny brown side table with feet like lion’s paws. A tall leather chair at the doctor’s wide desk. Across from the desk sat a black-painted chair with a caned seat, clearly earmarked for the visitor. Could this really be where Herta spent her days? If so, it was quite a step up from her last office. She was certainly not eating beans out of a can.

“You are the last appointment,” said the receptionist. “The doctor’s had a long day. Two surgeries this morning.”

“Some things never change,” I said.

“Pardon me?”

I walked to the chair. “Oh, nothing.”

My hands shook as I grasped the wooden arms of the chair and lowered myself down. Built-in bookcases lined one wall, and a pink china clock sat on a shelf.

“I’ll be leaving now,” the receptionist said. “Here is your receipt. The doctor will be in shortly.”

“Thank you,” I said.

I glanced at the receipt: Dr. Herta Oberheuser was printed in pretty script across the top. My evidence!

I almost took the receptionist’s hand and begged her to stay in the room with me but instead watched her leave. What could possibly happen? She closed the door gently behind her. If this was indeed Herta’s office, how good it would feel to tell her off, then slam that door behind me when I left.

I stood and walked to the bookcase, the carpet muffling my steps. I ran one finger down a smooth, leather-bound book set and pulled out a heavy volume, Atlas of General Surgery. Herta’s specialty. I slipped the book back into place and stepped to the gilt-framed oil paintings on the wall of cows in a field. The desk held a blotter, a telephone, a facial tissue box, and a silver water pitcher on a china plate. The pitcher perspired. That made two of us.

I looked at the diplomas framed on the wall. DÜSSELDORF ACADEMY FOR PRACTICAL MEDICINE. DERMATOLOGY. There was another for infectious diseases. No surgical diploma? I poured myself a glass of water.

The door opened, and I turned to see the woman who’d stepped out of the silver Mercedes slip into the room. I froze, my mouth suddenly full of sand, and then placed my glass on the desk. It was Herta.

She strode to the desk, clipboard in hand, wearing her white doctor’s coat, a black stethoscope draped around her neck. Thank goodness she didn’t offer to shake my hand, because my palms were wet.

I sat, my whole body jellying, as she eyed my paperwork on the clipboard, her attitude somewhere between bored and irritated.

“What can I do for you today, Mrs. Bakoski? New patient?”

“New patient, yes,” I said, clasping my hands in my lap to stop them from shaking. “Looking for a family doctor.”

She sat in the leather chair and pulled herself to the desk.

“Polish?” she asked as she uncapped her fountain pen. Was that a hint of disdain?

“Yes,” I said and forced a smile. “My husband is a grocer.”

Why was I shaking so? What was the worst that could happen? Commandant Suhren was in a pine box in a German cemetery. Or was he? The way Nazis were turning up in that town, I might see Suhren doing the backstroke in the lake.

“You live in Plön?” She frowned, lifted my glass from the desk, and placed a linen coaster under it.

“Yes,” I said.

“On School Street?”

“That’s right.”

“Funny, there is no School Street in Plön.”

“Did I write School Street? We are new to town.” Outside the window a magpie fluttered its wings.

“What can I help you with today, Mrs. Bakoski?”

How could she not recognize me when her face was so etched in my mind?

“Can you tell me your background?” I asked.

“I was trained as a dermatologist and have recently made the switch to family medicine after practicing for many years both at Hohenlychen Sanatorium and a large teaching hospital in Berlin.”

Once my heart stopped thumping so loudly, I became more comfortable with my role. She really didn’t recognize me.

“Oh, that must have been interesting,” I said. “And before that?”

“I was a camp doctor at a women’s reeducation camp in Fürstenberg.”

She leaned back in her chair, fingers steepled. There was no doubt it was her, but Herta had changed. She had become more refined, with her longer hair and expensive clothes. Prison had not broken her but had made her more sophisticated somehow. My whole body tensed at the thought. How was it that the criminal was enjoying such a luxurious lifestyle while the victim was driving around in a tin can?

“Oh, Fürstenberg is lovely,” I said. “The lake and all. Pretty.”

“So you’ve been there?”

That was the moment. I had a choice. To walk out having identified her or stay for what I really wanted.

“Yes. I was a prisoner there.”

The clock chimed the half hour.

“That was a long time ago,” Herta said. She sat up straight in her chair and organized phantom objects on her desk. “If you have no further questions, I have patients to see, and I am behind schedule.”

There was the old Herta. She could only be pleasant for so long.

“I am your last appointment,” I said.

Herta smiled. A first. “Why stir up old dust? You’re here for some sort of vigilante justice?”

All my rehearsed speeches went away. “You really don’t recognize me, do you?”

Her smile faded.

“You operated on me. Killed young girls. Babies. How could you do it?”

“I did my job. I spent years in prison just for doing academic research.”

“Five years. You were sentenced to twenty. So this is your excuse? Academic research?”

“Research to save German soldiers. And for your information, the German government for years has exercised the right to use executed criminals for such research purposes.”

“Only we weren’t dead, Herta.”

Herta took a closer look at me. “I served my time, and now, if you’ll excuse me—”

“My mother was at Ravensbrück too.”

Herta closed her desk drawer a little too hard. “I can’t be expected to keep track of every Häftling.”

“Halina Kuzmerick.”

“Doesn’t sound familiar,” Herta said without a second’s hesitation.

“You had her moved to Block One.”

“There were over a hundred thousand Häftlings at Ravensbrück,” Herta said.

“Don’t say Häftling again.”

“I have no recollection of that person,” Herta said with a quick glance in my direction.

Was she afraid of me?

“Halina Kuzmerick,” I repeated. “She was a nurse. Worked with you in the Revier.”

“There were three shifts of prisoner nurses. You expect me to remember one?”

“She was blond and spoke German fluently. An artist.”

Herta smiled. “I would like to help you, but my memory is not the best. I’m sorry I can’t remember every nurse who sketched portraits.”

The clouds outside shifted, and sunlight poured through the window onto Herta’s desk. Everything slowed.

“I didn’t say she sketched portraits.”

“I have to ask you to leave. I really am busy. My—”

I stood. “What happened to my mother?”

“If you’re smart, you’ll go back to Poland.”

I stepped closer to her desk. “They may have let you out, but there are people who think you deserve more punishment. Lots of them. Powerful people.”

“I paid the price.”

Herta capped her pen and tossed it onto the blotter. Her ring caught the sunlight and threw a kaleidoscope of light about the desk.

“That’s a beautiful ring,” I said.

“My grandmother’s,” Herta said.

“You’re a sick person. Pathological.”

Herta looked out the window. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Relating to or manifesting behavior that is maladaptive—”

“This ring has been in my family—”

“Save it, Herta.”

Herta took a fancy leather pocketbook from the drawer. “Is it money you want? Seems like every Pole has their hand out.”

“If you don’t tell me exactly what happened to my mother, I will go to the people who sent me and tell them you’re here, with your Mercedes-Benz and your clinic where you treat babies. Then I’ll go to the papers and tell them everything. How you killed people. Children. Mothers. Old people. And here you are, like nothing happened.”

“I don’t—”

“Of course the fancy paintings will have to go. And the leather books.”

“All right!”

“The fine clock too—”

“Just stop it. Let me think.” Herta looked down at her hands. “She was a very good worker, if I recall. Yes, she had the Revier running well.”

“And?” At this rate, I would miss the border checkpoint time by hours.

Herta tipped her head to one side. “How do I know you won’t tell the papers anyway?”

“Keep going,” I said.

“Well…she stole. All sorts of things. Bandages. Sulfa drugs. I couldn’t believe it. Turns out a pharmacist from town named Paula Schultz came with deliveries for the SS apothecary and funneled supplies to her. Heart stimulants. Shoe polishes for their hair, so the older women—”

“I know what it was for. Keep going.”

“All that was bad enough, but I didn’t know about the list.” Herta snuck a look at me.

I leaned in. “What list?”

“The surgical list for the sulfa tests. Nurse Marschall discovered your mother took it upon herself to, well, edit it.”

“Edit it how?” I asked, but I knew.

“She tried to take you and your sister off. And another prisoner.”

“So they killed her?” I said, tears flooding my eyes.

“Sent her to the bunker first. Then Nurse Marschall told Suhren about the coal. How she took it to make remedies for the Häftlings with dysentery. I never even told him she broke into the apothecary closet, but the coal was enough for Suhren.”

“Enough to kill her?” I said, feeling myself sucked down a drain.

“It was stealing from the Reich,” Herta said.

“You didn’t stop them.”

“I didn’t know it was happening.”

“The wall?” I groped for my purse looking for my handkerchief, unable to continue.

Herta took her cue.

“I really must be going now,” she said and started to stand.

“Sit,” I said. “Who shot her?”

“I don’t think—”

“Who shot her, Herta?” I said, louder.

“Otto Poll,” Herta said, speaking faster. “Binz woke him up from a dead sleep.”

She was afraid of me. Just the thought made me stand straighter.

“How did it happen?”

“You don’t want—”

“How did it happen? I won’t ask again.”

Herta sighed, her mouth tight.

“You want to know? Fine. On the way to the wall, Halina kept telling Otto she knew an SS man. Someone high up. Lennart someone. ‘Just contact him. He’ll vouch for me.’ I had sent that Lennart a letter for her, I’ll have you know. At great risk to myself.”

So that was why Brit had seen Lennart at the camp. Lennart the Brave had come to Matka’s rescue after all. Just too late.

“Keep going,” I said.

“ ‘Are you sure?’ Otto kept saying to Binz. He loved the ladies. Then Halina asked a favor—”

“What favor?”

“ ‘Just let me see my children one more time,’ she said, which Suhren allowed…big of him, considering her betrayal. I had no idea we’d operated on you and your sister. Binz took her to where you both were sleeping. After that, she went quietly. Once Suhren met them at the wall, they got on with it. ‘Just do it,’ Binz said to Otto, but his gun jammed. He was crying. She was crying. A mess.”

“And?” I asked.

“This is all so sordid,” Herta said.

Did I really want to know?

“Tell me,” I said.

“He finally did it.” Herta paused. It was so quiet there in her office, only the sound of children far off in a garden, playing.

“How?” I asked. Just get through this, and you’ll be back in the car on the way home soon.

Herta shifted in her chair, and the leather sighed. “When she wasn’t expecting it.”

At long last, the story I’d waited to hear. I sat down, hollowed like a blown-out egg but strangely alive. Hard as it was, suddenly I wanted every crumb of it, for each detail seemed to penetrate and bring me back to life.

“Did she cry out? She was terrified of guns.”

“Her back was turned. She wasn’t expecting it.” Herta wiped away a tear.

“How did you feel?”

“Me?” Herta asked. “I don’t know.”

“You must have felt something once you found out.”

“I was very sad.” She plucked a tissue from the box. “Are you happy now? She was a good worker. Practically pure German. Suhren punished me for getting too close to her.”

“Were you?”

Herta shrugged. “We were somewhat friendly.”

I knew the doctor had liked Matka, but would my mother really have socialized with this criminal? Matka had surely only pretended to be friendly in order to organize supplies.

“If you’d known we were Halina’s daughters, would you have taken us off the list?”

Herta laced her fingers and stared at her thumbs. We listened to the faraway hum of a lawnmower.

After several seconds, I stood.

“I see. Thank you for telling me the story.”

Why was I thanking her? It was all so surreal. Why couldn’t I rail at her, tell her to go to hell?

I started toward the door and then turned back.

“Give me the ring,” I said.

She clasped her hands to her chest.

“Take it off now,” I said. “And put it on the desk.”

The thought of touching her made me queasy.

Herta sat still for a long second and then pulled at the ring.

“My fingers are swollen,” she said.

“Let me see,” I said as I took a deep breath and grasped her hand. I spat on the ring and worked the band back and forth. It released and revealed a narrow strip of white at the base of her finger.

“There,” Herta said, avoiding my eyes. “Are you happy? Go, now.”

She stood, walked to the window, and looked out over the garden. “And I expect you to keep your end of the bargain. You won’t tell the newspapers? Do I have your word?”

I rubbed the ring on my skirt, wiped off every bit of Herta, and slipped it on my left ring finger. It felt cold and heavy there. A perfect fit.

Matka.

I walked toward the door.

“You won’t hear from me again,” I said.

Herta turned from the window. “Mrs. Bakoski.”

I stopped.

Herta stood there, one hand balled in a fist at her chest. “I…”

“What is it?”

“I just wanted to say that, well…”

The clock ticked.

“I would bring her back if I could.”

I looked at her for a long moment.

“Me too,” I said.

I stepped out of the office with a new lightness, leaving the door ajar, no longer craving the vibration of the slam.

—

I WAS ABLE TO FIND the Stocksee telegraph office and hurried in to send two short telegrams.

The first was to Pietrik and Halina: I am fine. Be home soon.

The other was to Caroline in Connecticut: Positively Herta Oberheuser. No doubt.

I ripped up the letter to the newspaper. Caroline would take care of Herta in due time. It was no longer important to me.

I drove to the Lübeck/Schlutup checkpoint and made it through with little difficulty. Though I hadn’t slept, I felt awake and alive on the road home to Lublin. My mufflerless engine seemed powerful and revved with each press of the gas as I drove over the gentle hills toward home. The moonlight showed the way past vast, dark heaths, past blue and white cottages, past slivers of silver birch shining in the dark forest.

I relived my conversation with Herta, reveling in the idea my mother had said goodbye. I touched my forehead and smiled. The dream kiss had been real.

I cranked my window down and let the scent of autumn run around the inside of the dark car, the smell of fresh-mown hay taking me back to Deer Meadow, to thoughts of Pietrik warm beside me, to him holding baby Halina at the breakfast table, reading the newspaper with the bundle of her in his arms. Not letting her go. How easy it is to get tangled up in your own fishing net.

By the time I arrived at Lublin’s outskirts, it was still dark, that time between when the streetlights turn off and dawn’s first light when anything seems possible.

I coasted down the streets so as not to wake the city, past the silent milk women coming with their cows, bells clanging in the dark.

I passed the square under Lublin Castle where the ghetto once stood, now gone, demolished by forced laborers during the war, leaving only a brass plaque. Past our old pink sliver of a house where, at Felka’s grave in the backyard, Caroline’s lilacs had already taken root, on their way to growing into the prettiest, strongest plant. I rode down the street where Matka once walked me to school. I smiled at the memory of her, no longer a hot knife to the chest. I passed the new hospital and thought of Zuzanna with Caroline and hoped she was well. Maybe Halina and I would go to New York one day. She would like the art museums.

Once in the apartment, I slipped out of my shoes and padded down the hallway to Halina’s room. I stood in the darkness and watched her chest rise and fall. Matka’s ring sent gleams of light across the bed as my daughter rested there, her hair fanned out like liquid gold. She didn’t stir as I slipped the red-flannel bundle of brushes under her pillow, tucked her in tight, and kissed the top of her head.

I went to Pietrik’s bed, where he lay in the almost darkness, one arm across his eyes. I unbuttoned my dress, let it fall to the floor, and climbed under the sheets to meet the smoothness of him, breathing in his sweet scent of sweat and Russian cigarettes and home.

He pulled me close, and for the first time in so long, I felt the compact go click.