29

LEA HADN’T WORRIED about Friederich’s missing letters for the first few days. After all, he’d told her that there might not be reliable post in war zones. So much depended on supply and the time and opportunity to write, the means to send or receive mail. He’d urged her not to worry.

But when October turned to November, and Germany had formally annexed western Poland, Danzig, and the Polish Corridor, she wondered. If things were going so well for the German military, why was there no mail?

Frau Rheinhardt, one of the village shopkeepers, received word that her husband, who’d been deployed at the same time as Friederich, had been wounded outside Warsaw and was recovering in a hospital near there. Widow Helmes received a formal letter stating that her son had been killed in the Polish campaign, that he had died bravely for the Führer. Still, Lea heard nothing.

When other women in the village received letters from their husbands and sweethearts detailing military victories, Lea’s heart constricted. It was all she could do to smile at her neighbors and wish them guten Morgen.

By the time a brisk knock came at Oma’s door late one Sunday evening, Lea’s heart had nearly failed her.

But it was simply a delivery. At first Lea argued with the man hefting the large wooden box. They’d ordered nothing, and if it was forgotten wood for Friederich’s carving shop, it should be delivered there. She had no way to carry such a load. The driver ignored her and pushed past her into the house, talking loudly. He glanced anxiously into the gathering dark, shook his head, and urged her to sign. She refused without knowing what was being delivered.

“You are Frau Lea Hartman?”

“Ja, ja, certainly.”

“Then the package is for you.” He urged in a whisper, “Close the shutters before you open it, but open it quickly. This goes with the package.” He pulled a small envelope from his chest pocket and shoved it into her hand.

Lea blinked, and the man was gone. She closed the door.

“What is it?” Oma asked.

“I’ve no idea. Friederich said all his orders were in before he left —that I should not be bothered. Who delivers on Sunday night?” She circled the box, clutching the envelope. “The man said to close the shutters and open it quickly.” She tore open the small envelope and tipped it toward her palm. Out fell a small heart-shaped necklace. “A locket.”

“What does that mean?”

Lea shrugged just as the box gurgled. Both women stepped back.

“What is it?” Rachel whispered from the bedroom.

“We —we don’t know,” Oma answered. “It —it —”

“Get your hammer, Oma. We must pry off the lid. Rachel, close the shutters and black the windows.”

“Isn’t it early?”

“Do it,” Lea ordered.

Oma handed her the hammer, and Lea expertly pulled long nails from the perimeter of the lid. She pushed the top aside. A tiny whimper came from the box, and Oma’s mouth fell open.

“Rachel, I think you’d best come here.” Lea spoke in wonder at the child curled in blankets, hair matted into spikes, tearstained eyes wide and blinking in the sudden light.

Rachel stepped beside her sister. She gasped, speechless.

“Is this your Amelie?”

“No —I —I don’t know,” Rachel stammered. “This is a boy. I mean, I’ve never seen her —except her picture. But this . . . Jason said they cut her hair to make her look like a boy. So —”

Lea opened the locket in her palm. A woman’s smiling face looked up at her —a beautiful, fair-haired woman. She held the locket up for Rachel to see. “Do you know her?”

“Kristine!”

Lea waited only a moment longer for Rachel to reach for the child. When she didn’t, Lea lifted the little one from her nest of blankets. “I’ve surely never seen a boy this pretty!”

The child looked from one woman to the other, fear written in every feature.

“What an ordeal you’ve had, Amelie,” Lea crooned. “To think you’ve ridden all this long way in a box! You must be famished and thirsty.”

“She can’t hear.” Rachel sniffed and stepped back. “She’s soiled the blankets.”

“So would you, if you’d been locked in a box for who knows how many hours,” Lea retorted.

“Help me pull them up, Rachel,” Oma ordered. “We’ll set them to soak —see if there’s a note in the bottom.”

But there was nothing, and no return address.

“Your friend is certainly creative in his modes of transportation,” Lea observed.

“You don’t think he was here, do you? The deliveryman?” The lift in Rachel’s voice raised eyebrows from Lea and Oma.

“He wasn’t American,” Lea said. But seeing Rachel’s disappointment, she softened. “At least he sent the child.”

Rachel didn’t smile.

Oma filled a basin with water and pulled it by the stove. “A wash is in order, I think. Thank heaven we have enough fuel to keep the stove going. We can heat it at least a little.”

“But a drink first, and maybe something to eat,” Lea said. “She must be hungry.”

Amelie’s eyes, round in wonder, searched the faces before her and landed on Lea’s.

Lea smiled gently, pressing a cup into the little girl’s hands. When Amelie had her fill, Lea pulled the child’s lederhosen off and pitied the rash between her legs and up their backs.

“She’s been in these boy’s clothes too long,” Oma clucked.

“Only to disguise her,” Rachel defended.

“Ja, well . . . Rachel, bring the chamber pot from the bedroom. We’ll see if she can go before her bath.”

Rachel’s shoulders squared, but she did as she was told.

Oma placed her hand on Lea’s arm and whispered, “Perhaps you should ask Rachel if she wants to bathe and feed the child.”

Lea stiffened. She didn’t want to ask Rachel, didn’t want to give the little one up. She saw no maternal inclination in her sister. But Oma was right. Amelie was Rachel’s responsibility, her child for all intents and purposes.

When Rachel returned with the pot, Lea set Amelie upon it.

“She’s a girl, all right,” Rachel observed.

“Do you want to bathe her,” Lea asked, “or shall I?”

Rachel’s eyes opened wide. “I’ve never done that.”

“Then it’s time to learn,” Oma encouraged. “We’ll help you.”

It was all Lea could do not to jump in. But she pulled an apple from the bin and began cutting it into slices. While Oma coached Rachel in pouring water into the basin and testing the heat, Lea fed Amelie thin slices and bigger smiles.

Rachel’s awkwardness in lifting Amelie set off a chorus of unholy howls from the child, until Lea could take no more and scooped Amelie from her, forming a crooked seat with her elbow for the little girl, who nestled against her chest, tucking her head beneath Lea’s chin. “You must let her know that you won’t drop her.”

“She can’t hear me!” Rachel argued. “I can’t tell her anything.”

“She can feel your confidence in holding her, the security of your arms, your embrace.”

Rachel looked at her sister as if she were talking a foreign language.

Lea glanced at Oma for approval, and Oma shrugged. Lea stood Amelie in the tub of warm water, playfully splashing her legs, talking softly, singing sweetly, coaxing her to a sitting position. She drew the flannel over her small body and hair, soaped the cloth, then scrubbed until she was clean. Oma handed her a pitcher of warm water and Lea poured the water gently over Amelie’s tilted head, shielding her eyes and crooning.

In time, the little girl relaxed beneath Lea’s touch. When she opened her eyes, she rubbed the soap away and smiled.

Lea’s heart quickened. “The towel,” she ordered, and Oma placed one freshly warmed in Rachel’s hands and pushed her gently forward. Lea lifted Amelie to a standing position, and the sisters rubbed her dry together.

“What can she wear?” Rachel looked out of her depth but curiously glad to be working with Lea.

“Just something to sleep in tonight. Her clothes will be dry by morning.” Oma was already scrubbing the little pants and shirt in another basin.

“She can have my camisole with the long sleeves,” Lea offered. “It will be big, but we can tie it round her and it will keep her warm —like a little nightdress.”

“That’s good of you,” Rachel said.

Lea returned a genuine smile. “She’s a precious child.”

“Where will she sleep?”

“She could sleep with me,” Oma suggested.

“But she’ll toss and turn and keep you awake,” Lea said. “Perhaps Rachel can sleep with you, and Amelie with me.”

“You don’t mind?” Rachel asked, clearly relieved.

“Not at all.” Lea could scarcely keep the happiness from her voice.

But Oma stepped in. “Amelie is your child now, Rachel. You should keep her with you. She must grow accustomed to you, and you to her.”

“But I don’t know anything about children.”

“You will learn.” Oma spoke sweetly but firmly. “You must learn. You’ve taken on this responsibility.”

Lea felt her heart wrench. “Truly, I don’t mind. I’d —”

But Oma cut her off with a warning glance and slipped the silver locket over Amelie’s head. “So you’ll always remember your mother, child,” she whispered.

Later that night, after everything had been cleared away and Amelie had fallen fast asleep beside Rachel, Lea lay with her back to her grandmother.

“You are awake?” Oma whispered.

Lea did not answer.

“I know that it hurt you to give the child over to Rachel. But Amelie is not yours, my darling girl. When Rachel goes, the child goes with her. If you let yourself become too attached, it will break your heart all the more.”

Still Lea did not answer. She couldn’t speak without crying. She knew her grandmother was right. Friederich would say the same, would caution her in a minute, if not forbid her outright to give her heart to a child who would break it simply because she must.

But to hold and feed and wash and cuddle Amelie —to feel the little girl’s arms around her neck and the weight of her body against her chest —was heaven. In the space of an hour Lea had conjured a lifetime of feeding and caring for the child, of washing and curling her hair that would later grow long and silken, wound into plaits. She would sew fitting and pretty frocks for Amelie. To have all of that ordered away by the one woman who knew more than any other what having a child might mean to her . . . it was a hurt too cruel to bear, impossible to speak.

Everything for Rachel, and none for Lea. Lea knew the lament was not true, that it reeked of the self-pity that the Institute had burned into her very thought process from childhood, but she had no strength to hold it back. Rachel doesn’t even want her —doesn’t know what to do with her! I could love her, give her a home with Friederich. Oh, how we would love her!

What she couldn’t say, couldn’t acknowledge even in the darkness, was that Amelie’s arms in some strange way helped heal the loss of Friederich’s. No, she wouldn’t acknowledge anything more. Lea closed her eyes and lay awake till morning.