Only the Beautiful, page 25
I had been to Martine’s parents’ home in Innsbruck several times. It was a charming place, and the children loved going there for summer term breaks and skiing trips over the holidays. But it was only mid-May. There were several weeks of school left. Everything about Martine’s demeanor told me that something was wrong.
“What has happened?” I asked.
But Martine was already turning for the escritoire around the corner in the parlor. I left my tea making and followed her. Martine began rummaging through the pigeonholes, yanking out identification papers and passports, no doubt looking for Brigitta’s.
“Martine! Please tell me,” I said. “You’re scaring me.”
“I don’t want you to be scared.” Martine didn’t look up but kept rummaging through the nooks, pulling out Reichsmarks now. “I just want you to do as I say. Please go up and pack a bag. I’ll be up in a moment to pack Brigitta’s.” Then she turned to me. “You might have to stay there for a long time. And you might . . . you might have to take Brigitta somewhere else after you get to Innsbruck. I’m not sure yet. I’ve wired my father and he’s . . . he’s working on it.”
“Working on what?” I said, a shapeless dread spreading across me.
“I might need you to hide Brigitta for me.” Martine’s voice cracked on the word hide and tears sprang to her eyes.
I could barely breathe. “Why?”
“Because I was at the post office just now and I ran into Klaus’s mother, Sigrid. Klaus is that little boy at Brigitta’s school, the one who is in a wheelchair.”
“I know who Klaus is.”
“Sigrid told me she and Klaus are leaving within the hour for her sister’s in Saint Pölten. There is a government woman going around to all the homes of the students at Brigitta’s school asking questions about them and filling out forms and official documents about their disabilities and how much care they need. Sigrid said four children from another school like ours in the Meidling district were taken yesterday and transported to some hospital west of the city. Their parents were told after the fact that that’s where their children would be residing now. Shut away in some hospital where no one could see them. They institutionalized them, Helen! We’ve got to get Brigitta somewhere safe.”
Regret enveloped me. I’d been wrong to keep from Martine the news that the woman had already been by and that I had taken care of it. I placed my hand on Martine’s shoulder. She stopped riffling through the escritoire, looked at my hand on her shoulder and then up at me.
“You don’t need to worry about this,” I said. “That woman, Fraulein Platz, has already been by, but I took care of it. You don’t have to worry. I didn’t mention the visit to you before because you’d been so anxious about rumors of disabled children being sent to live in institutions. I convinced Fraulein Platz everything here regarding Brigitta’s care is fine. Exceptionally fine. She left here quite satisfied.”
Color drained from Martine’s face. “What do you mean she has already been by? What do you mean you’ve taken care of it?” Her voice was laced with fear and doubt.
“She came by a week ago, but I didn’t say anything because she was happy with her assessment of Brigitta. I knew you were worried about so many other things. I didn’t want you to worry about this, too.”
Martine’s expression and tone were now signs of building anger. “How could you think you were doing the right thing by not telling me?”
“Because you had been so upset by the things Captain Maier was telling us. And I assure you, I did take care of it. We don’t have to worry about Brigitta.” I had never had an employer look at me the way Martine was looking at me in that moment. I’d never angered one of them like I had just now.
“How do you know you took care of it?” Martine said, her voice rising in pitch and volume.
“Because Fraulein Platz was only here for a few minutes and she was happy with her assessment. She was happy with what I told her.”
“What did you tell her?” Martine said urgently. “What did you say?”
“I told her what you and I and the captain had talked about before. That Brigitta is loved here in this family and very well cared for. She is no burden on society and she never will be.”
Martine stared at me, unconvinced.
“I assured her that Brigitta has me as her primary caregiver and that I’m very fond of her, and that I had a chance to go back to the States when Captain Maier suggested I go, but I didn’t go. I stayed. I stayed to take care of her. I will stay as long as Brigitta needs me, even if it’s always. You know that.”
Martine’s eyes had widened in astonishment as I spoke. Now she lunged forward and grabbed my shoulders. “How could you do such a thing!” Martine screamed. “How could you say that?”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. “Say what? What did I say?” I gasped.
She dropped her hands and spun away, clenching her fists. “How could you say that you are the one who cares for Brigitta, that you are the one who will always take care of her? You could be sent back home to the United States tomorrow! The Reich owns your work visa now. They could deport you with one stroke of a pen.” Martine threw her head back and let out a muffled cry of rage. Then she turned back to me. “I can’t believe you did something so stupid.”
“I said I’d always be here for her!”
“That is a promise you can’t keep! What you told them is that Brigitta will always need someone to take care of her. That’s what you told them.”
Full awareness swept over me like a rogue wave. Dear God, I’d made a horrible mistake. “I am so sorry, Martine. I promise I only wanted to keep Brigitta safe! You have to believe me.”
Martine whirled away from me and into the kitchen. She grabbed the car keys from their hook on the wall and threw open the back door. I knew where she was going to go. Martine was going to dash to Sonnenschein and fetch Brigitta. The kettle on the stove began to scream.
“I’ll come with you!” I shouted, dashing into the entry hall to grab my sweater and then racing back into the kitchen to turn off the flame under the boiling water. But when I opened the back door, the car was speeding down the alley. Martine had left without me.
I sprinted for the front door, grabbed my purse to lock the house, and then began to run the six blocks to Brigitta’s school.
I had been a fool, and so full of self-importance that I put the child I loved in danger. I couldn’t think about what I’d do if Martine told me she didn’t want me anywhere near Brigitta anymore. The only thing that mattered was getting Brigitta and bringing her home. My lungs began to burn after the first three blocks, and I had to stop a moment at a lamppost and catch my breath before taking off again.
Perhaps Martine would be so desperate to get Brigitta to her parents that she would have no choice but to entrust her to me again, and this time I would make good on my promise. I would protect that little girl with my life. And I would keep my mouth shut.
By the time I reached the school, breathless and gasping, Martine had been inside for several minutes. The second I threw open the door, I heard a high keening sound, the wail of a woman in agony. Beyond the reception area was Martine, crumpled onto her knees in front of the administrator’s office. The administrator, a silver-haired woman in her early sixties named Emilie Pichler, was bending over Martine, speaking softly to her. The receptionist was standing at her desk, a handkerchief to her eyes. Several students had come out from their classrooms and were peeking from around a corner even as their teachers were trying to herd them back.
As I approached, Martine turned to me.
“She’s gone!” Martine yelled. “They took Brigitta. They already took her!”
I felt my legs go weak, and I wobbled backward against the wall behind me. For a moment I thought I might faint.
“That’s impossible,” I said, my words little more than whispers. I turned to Frau Pichler. “You would have called the house.”
“We were instructed not to,” Emilie said, her voice hoarse with restrained emotion. “They said they would be contacting the families. Not us.”
Martine gazed up at me. “You stupid, stupid woman!” she shouted, and then took up her weeping again.
I wanted to put my hands over my ears to block out the sound of those agonizing cries and the words that I knew now were true. I had been stupid. But I would be stupid no longer. We would get Brigitta back. I would not rest until we had.
“Who came for her, Frau Pichler? I need to know who came for her. Tell me who it was. Where’s the paperwork? Who signed her out?”
Emilie Pichler stared at me a moment. “No one here signed her out,” she said, indignant. “They had official papers for seven of the students. Seven! They took them because they could, Fraulein Calvert. They came with armed police and we could do nothing.”
“Where did they take her? Where did they go?” I said, undeterred.
The administrator exhaled heavily. “Am Steinhof.”
“What is that? I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a . . . a special hospital in Penzing,” Emilie said, as if choosing her words carefully while looking down at Martine.
I bent down. “Let’s go,” I said to Martine. “Let’s go and get her.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Emilie said.
I snapped my head up to look at the woman. “I don’t care how hard it is!” I turned and said the same thing to Martine. But Martine was now slumped against the receptionist’s desk, her tearstained face blank. It was as if she had entered another room and shut the door behind her.
“Martine?”
She did not respond.
I stood. “Let me call one of her friends to come get her, and then I’ll go get Brigitta myself.”
“Fraulein Calvert,” Emilie said wearily. “I know how fond you are of this family and especially of Brigitta, but I think perhaps this is a matter that Captain and Frau Maier will need to address.”
“Captain Maier is in Poland until next week. Do you really think he would want us to do nothing while we wait for him to come home?” I said as politely as I could. I liked Emilie Pichler, but waiting was the worst possible next course of action.
Emilie sighed and then nodded. The receptionist turned the telephone on her desk toward me.
Minutes later, after having arranged for one of Martine’s friends to come for her, I was taking the car keys out of Martine’s skirt pocket and rushing out the door.
* * *
• • •
Vienna was a sprawling, beautiful city laid out in twenty-three numbered districts; Penzing was the fourteenth, and nine kilometers away from the Maiers’ home in the Wieden district. In the eight years Vienna had been my home, I’d had little occasion to travel to the outer districts. As I made my way northwest, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in this direction. The Maiers liked the city—and spent most of their leisure time in the innere Stadt—the city center.
As I maneuvered my way out of the busier part of the city, I practiced in my mind what I was going to say when I arrived at Am Steinhof. I would calmly but authoritatively ask to see who’d been in charge of transporting the schoolchildren from Wieden that morning, as there had been a mistake. Brigitta Maier was the daughter of a captain in the führer’s Wehrmacht, a brave soldier who was at that very moment serving his country. That was the mistake.
I knew those who had taken Brigitta surely knew who her father was, but it was obvious they hadn’t considered the ramifications of taking the child of an army officer. I would loudly announce who Brigitta was. If it was a large hospital, then there had to be a great many people inside it. All within earshot would hear me state why I was there. I would make sure they heard it.
The metropolitan landscape of the city fell away, and in its place were large expanses of verdant pastures and woods, broken here and there with residences and roads leading to smaller towns. Soon I was slowing to study the map Frau Pichler had quickly sketched and glancing at addresses. I stopped in front of a large multistory building, painted white and fenced in and surrounded by trees and hills and lush lawns. Behind it were additional buildings, smaller, also painted white, also edged with grass and trees and flowering shrubs. It looked like a peaceful college campus. But as I came to a stop in front of its gate, I saw that this was no college. It was not even a typical infirmary. The sign read am steinhof psychiatric hospital. A burst of alarm pulsed through me.
I stepped out of the Maiers’ car, my eyes taking in the grandeur of the facility and the absolute quietness. There was no sound coming from the buildings. All I heard was birdsong and the rush of another vehicle passing by me on the road.
I walked up the path to the main building—its front entrance was on the street side of the fence—and opened the heavy door leading to the visitors’ lobby. Inside were shining linoleum floors, comfortable chairs in which to sit and wait, pastoral artwork on the walls. There was no one else in the room except a woman behind a reception desk. She looked up when I approached.
“Can I help you?” she said in German.
I cleared my throat, steeled my resolve, and spoke my best German as well. “Yes. A child was brought in here today from her school in Wieden. But she should not have been. It was a mistake. Brigitta Maier is the daughter of a decorated officer in the Wehrmacht. I’ve come to collect her.”
The woman stared at me as if I had just asked for a table for two.
“And who are you?” she said.
“My name is Fraulein Calvert.”
She cocked her head and frowned. “You are not from the T4 offices. You are American.”
I was disappointed my accent was so obvious but said, “What of it?” I didn’t know what T4 meant, and I could hear the insecurity in my own voice.
“You are not the child’s mother,” the woman went on.
“I am Brigitta Maier’s nanny. I am employed by Captain Maier to care for her.”
“The hospital only speaks to next of kin and legal guardians regarding patients here,” she said calmly.
“But Captain Maier is deployed to Poland and Frau Maier is . . . ill. So I am here. Because as I said already, a mistake was made. Brigitta Maier is not to be a patient here. I’ve come to fetch her home. And I’d like to speak with someone in charge, please.”
The woman sighed and picked up the handset of the telephone on her desk. She pressed a button. “There’s another one out front here. Not a parent this time. She believes a mistake has been made . . . No . . . The child’s surname is Maier . . .”
The woman listened and I waited.
“All right. Thank you.” The woman hung up the phone and looked up at me. “No mistake has been made, Fraulein.”
“I assure you one has been made,” I said, fighting back tears of frustration. “I would like to see Brigitta.”
“Only family is allowed to visit, and only when visitation is allowed.”
“But I must insist that—”
“Unless you wish me to summon guards to escort you out, you should go, Fraulein.” The woman’s demeanor and voice were so calm, almost bored. I wanted to shake her.
“How do you sleep at night?” I said instead. “Taking these children from their parents and hiding them away here to live like lepers, away from the people who love them. How can you live with yourself?”
The woman serenely picked up the phone, surely to call for guards to toss me out.
I turned on my heel and stormed out of the building, vowing aloud to come back with Captain Maier when he returned next week.
Brigitta did not belong in that place, as pretty as it was on the outside. She belonged home with her family.
Johannes would be able to use his influence, I was sure of it. Maybe he could not rescue all seven of the children who had been taken from the school that morning, but he could get Brigitta.
He must.
And when he did, I would be on the next train with her to somewhere safe. Somewhere far away. Farther away than Innsbruck. I would take her to America. To the vineyard. I would find that safe place. I would.
28
DECEMBER 1947
I sit for a moment in the Studebaker staring at the address Stuart Townsend gave me, not seeing the words as much as hearing a name.
Brigitta. Brigitta. Brigitta.
I lean forward and rest my hands and forehead against the cool steering wheel, the paper crinkling in my hand, while I wait for the reverberations to still. My words to the doctor had fallen on deaf ears, but they’d set in motion an old bell in my head that had never really stopped ringing.
The past cannot be undone. I know this. I know I only have now. Today.
And today I am holding a piece of paper with an address I didn’t think would be given to me.
I pull back from the steering wheel to study it. Rosie named her daughter Amaryllis. It can’t have been a coincidence. She hadn’t even known what an amaryllis was before I sent one to her. She’d told me as much in her thank-you note. She’d also written that it was the most beautiful flower she’d ever seen. I suddenly feel connected to Rosie by a thin but luminous thread: the amaryllis. The bond is new and loose but real. As real as the link we already share as mother and aunt to the same child.
Perhaps with this address I can find Rosie, and together we can look for Amaryllis.
I know the town of Petaluma, know it is less than twenty miles away, and I am glad it’s still early in the day. The revelations of the morning have wearied my heart but not weakened my resolve. I start the car, and when I get to the bottom of the little rise, the attendant smiles and waves like we are old friends as he opens the gate wide.
Forty minutes later, I am in Petaluma and looking for Washington Street, which I follow to the 100 block. The hotel, constructed of creamy golden brick, is five stories high and situated on a busy corner. I park, check my appearance in the rearview mirror, and go inside.
