“What I wouldn’t give to have been privy to that exchange,” Peterson whispered.
Jason nodded, glad his colleague was there.
Overhead lights flickered and theatregoers filed down the rows to their seats. Rachel appeared once more by way of the stage steps and slipped into her chair just as the lights went down.
Or is that Lea? She walks confidently like Rachel, looks like her.
Jason checked his watch.
When will they make the switch? The intermission would have been the perfect time.
The play continued, lost momentum, picked up, and finally climaxed. The ending came victoriously with all the cast onstage, rounding out the story. Thunderous parental applause, echoed by a pounding of feet from the troops, brought the entire auditorium to their feet, calling for an encore bow. The young players had barely exited before they trooped back to the stage, bowing once again.
Proud parents pointed out their children. Peterson snapped pictures and Jason edged closer to the front, pretending to scribble names and quotes, nearly crazy in his worry for Rachel.
Why didn’t she go? How will she get out now?
And then she glided once more to the stage, holding up her hands for silence, thanking everyone for coming, encouraging them to join the special celebrations to follow, to be sure and thank Sturmbannführer Schlick for lifting the curfew this night. “Remember our Führer, our troops, and the goodwill of this night. Let us all pray to God for peace on earth.”
Is she crazy?
Jason saw the Brigadeführer frown. Germans weren’t supposed to pray for peace; they were told to pray for the Führer’s
victories, if they prayed at all. And then she smiled at Schlick, that seemingly innocent but alluring smile that only Rachel could give. Schlick’s eyes lit. Jason gritted his teeth. She walked offstage but turned just inside the curtain, in view of anyone who cared to watch, though everyone else seemed oblivious. She held up ten fingers, smiling at Schlick again.
Schlick lifted his chin. He’d received his signal.
The audience filed out, subdued now that troops and Nazi officers were revealed by electric light.
“What now?” Peterson threaded a new roll of film through his camera.
“Glad-hand the entourage—shoot a few pictures to make Schellenberg happy and get Schlick on film with the mayor, as promised. I think they’re planning something backstage in a few; then it’s off to the beer halls and inns to watch them drink like fish. Maybe we can get in on that.”
“Do we want to?” Peterson grunted.
“Yeah, well, the backstage part, anyway.” Jason made his way in a wide arc around the Brigadeführer and Schlick as the theatre emptied. “You shoot the artwork. I’ll see what I can learn.”
Jason pushed through the stage door, no matter that Friederich tried to stop him. “Where is she? Why hasn’t she gone?” he hissed.
Friederich’s eyes told him plainly enough to shut up, but Jason was terrified.
“You are the journalist,” a voice behind him accused.
Jason whirled. The boy had grown half a head taller and muscled a hefty thirty pounds since Jason had seen him last. “You’re the Hitler Youth kid.”
The youth stepped through the stage curtains. “Maximillion Grieser.” He squared his shoulders. “Just who are you looking for, Herr Young?”
Jason looked past Grieser’s shoulder, into the eyes of Hilde
Breisner. “Frau Breisner—” he pushed past Grieser—“I thought you’d gone. I have a car and wanted to offer you a ride. I understand the Hartmans must stay and break down the set.”
“How kind of you, Herr Young, to think of me. Walking is still quite difficult.” She tapped her cane against her cast. “I’ll gladly take you up on that good offer, if you’re able to wait just a few more minutes.” She stage-whispered, loud enough for Grieser to hear, “We have a surprise for Sturmbannführer Schlick—one I very much think he’ll enjoy. Why don’t you come and see?” She glanced at Grieser. “You, too, young man. It will do you good to see how kind people treat others.”
Maximillion’s neck flared red, but Jason cut him off. “Your lord and master’s getting a gift, I understand, for human relations. Best stop and take note.”
Friederich shushed them all. “Come in, but be quiet! You’ll ruin the surprise!”
Jason offered his arm to Frau Breisner and squeezed onto the darkened stage, hugging the side curtain behind Friederich, Grieser close on their heels.
On the opposite end of the stage, a crevice of light gleamed as the curtains parted. A deep voice from the far end called uncertainly, “Rachel?”
A collective shout of “Huzzah!” rose from the darkness as lights flooded the stage. Actors, singers, musicians, and noted town officials took up a rousing rendition of “Deutschland über Alles.”
Jason had never seen Gerhardt Schlick register shock, confusion, or betrayal, but his eyes flashed all three in quick succession. The Brigadeführer was suddenly at his back, beaming like a proud father as two of the loveliest Fräuleins Oberammergau boasted wheeled a beautifully decorated tiered cake before the officers.
Peterson stepped to the side, shooting photographs, switching flashbulbs as fast as he could, tossing the hot bulbs to a flabbergasted
Grieser. Schlick’s dismay shot toward the camera’s flash and stopped on the Hitler Youth, who looked like Peterson’s assistant—the picture of betrayal, his hand in the cookie jar.
Jason searched the crowd for Rachel, didn’t see her, and dared to breathe.
But as the song finished, she stepped through the curtains, the same vision in silk, confident and smiling, that all-too-familiar glint to her eye, and held out both hands in welcome. “Your surprise, Sturmbannführer Schlick—do you like it?”
“Rachel!” Schlick seemed to find his moorings. The boastful gleam in his eyes returned. He stepped forward to claim her. Brigadeführer Schellenberg’s eyes widened. Jason thought he’d be sick.
But she stopped, frozen, just before reaching Schlick. “Rachel?” She looked genuinely confused and stepped back. “Oh no, Sturmbannführer. You’ve confused me again. I’m not the Rachel you seek. I’m Frau Hartman—do you not remember?” She looked to her husband, perplexed, then saddened. The blue orbs of her beautiful eyes appealed to Schlick, who seemed to be engaged in a cardiac explosion, and then to the Brigadeführer standing behind him. “We’d all hoped you were feeling better after your time away in Berlin. We wanted to begin anew, all the unfortunate past forgotten.”
“Don’t take me for a fool.” Schlick smirked. “The little Bavarian Frau has no such swivel to her hips, no such gleam in her eye.” He took another step forward and boldly fingered the neckline of her dress. “I remember this gown from Berlin last year, the night we danced.” He leaned toward her ear as she cowered.
Friederich, who’d been at the back of the crowd, pushed between the astonished onlookers, his limp pronounced, and pulled her back with a jerk. “I’ll thank you to take your hands off my wife.”
Schlick rose in height. “This woman is no more your wife than—”
“Sturmbannführer Schlick,” Schellenberg ordered, “join me for another picture.”
The vision in blue melted into Friederich’s arms. Schlick did not move, but his face raged. “You lying vixen!”
“We invited you here to honor you, and you disgrace us?” Friederich challenged.
Mayor Schulz intervened. “Sturmbannführer, surely you don’t mean to insult us? We’d hoped this would be a happy occasion, a—”
“And it is.” Schellenberg stepped forward, his arm firmly around Schlick’s shoulders. “Sturmbannführer Schlick was mistaken.”
But Schlick shrugged from the general’s grip. “A mistake?” He pulled a folded magazine cover from his breast pocket and slapped it with the back of his hand. “Is this not the same woman? Do you not see they are making fools of us?”
Schellenberg frowned. He glanced at the photograph and looked carefully at the woman before him. “The likeness is certainly remarkable,” he admitted.
“Let me see,” ordered Friederich.
Schlick looked ready to backhand the impertinence, but Friederich stood his ground, his hand extended. “You speak of my wife.”
“Show him,” Schellenberg commanded.
Friederich took the picture, held it as though it were not the first time he’d seen it. “
Ja
, this is my Lea.” He held the picture before the crowd. “We all know this is my Lea.” He handed it back to Schlick. “It was the American press that made such a thing of the photo—calling her the Bavarian Madonna. We never did. You persecute us because you lost someone who looks like my wife?”
Whispers and side glances stole through the partygoers, while the Brigadeführer’s eyes registered the tide turning against the SS.
“So, Brigadeführer, how do we report this evening of anticipated Reich endorsement to the international press?” Jason added to the fire.
“You!” Schlick turned on Jason. “You are behind this! You came between Rachel and me in Berlin, and now—”
Jason raised his hands in surrender. “I just report the news—to the world.”
An aide whispered into the Brigadeführer’s ear. Schellenberg straightened. His eyes narrowed, searching the face and figure of the woman beside Friederich. “If this is you, Frau Hartman, where is your child?”
The woman’s face fell. Friederich took her in his arms again, but recovering her features, she stepped away from him and spoke, her voice broken but strong. “It is easy for those in authority to know that I have no children, that after my enforced visit to the Institute in Frankfurt, I never will . . . and why. Of course the child is not mine.”
Schlick stepped forward, revelation dawning in his eyes. “No, the child is mine. Isn’t she?” he demanded. “This is my daughter—made to look like a boy, so as to hide her from me.” He shook his head in wonder, incredulity. “Kristine, Kristine—you were more clever than I thought,” he whispered. Then his eyes focused on Lea. “And you, Miss Kramer, were brilliant—too brilliant for your own good.”
Tension rose across the stage. The Brigadeführer asked, “Who is this child, Frau Hartman?”
At this her confidence wavered. Her eyes swept the crowd, as if needing help, but found none. “Just a child—a child in the village. Why would I hide your daughter, Sturmbannführer Schlick?
How
could I hide your daughter?”
“Whose child?” Schellenberg demanded.
“A refugee—passing through, if I remember correctly.” Father Oberlanger spoke from the back of the group. “The child and his mother did not stay.”
“Priest? You dare to lie?” Schlick’s scathing glance parted the crowd. “You will join your curate—”
“Sturmbannführer,” Jason intervened, “I understood that your daughter died in a clinic explosion—after you or your wife had her
committed. There was something wrong with the little girl, wasn’t there? Something not quite up to SS standards?”
Schlick reddened. The Brigadeführer looked ready to explode.
“Was it because of her mouth?” Heinrich Helphman called, peering between grown-ups’ skirts and pant legs. He pushed his way through to the center of the stage and looked up into the face of Schlick. “Men came and took my little sister when she was born with a crooked mouth. They said she was a monster and they killed her, and then they did something to
meine Mutter
—I don’t know what. They took my sister’s body away so we couldn’t even bury her. Did the bad men kill your little girl too?”
The eyes of women circling the men in uniforms widened, horrified. Murmuring villagers stepped back.
“Because if they did,” Heinrich insisted, “you can ask Herr Hartman to carve you a perfect Christkind with a beautiful mouth, and you can keep him at home until your Frau has a new baby. It will help, I’m certain.” Heinrich turned to Friederich. “That’s why I stole the Christkind from your Nativity. But I’ll give it back just as soon as
meine Mutter
has a new baby.”
A gasp spread through the crowd, and a sob from one end.
“Baby killing? Is that what the New Germany specializes in?” Jason pushed, his pen poised to write. Peterson’s camera flashed and Schellenberg came to life.
“
Nein, nein!
The Reich is in no such business. Clearly there has been an unfortunate misunderstanding.” Schellenberg turned to the Hartmans. “You will forgive Sturmbannführer Schlick. He—”
“Forgive me?” Schlick shouted. “These
Dummköpfe
have—”
Schellenberg glared at Schlick, raising his voice. “These villagers have extended their folkish gifts in gratitude and goodwill, and we—the Reich—thank them for this splendid evening.”
“But—”
“Enough!” Schellenberg nodded to two men in uniform behind
him, who stepped up to escort a struggling Schlick, nostrils flaring, from the stage. The Brigadeführer bowed to the group. “It is a long drive back to Berlin, so I must ask you to excuse us. Forgive me for taking your guest of honor, but Berlin is in need of Sturmbannführer Schlick at this time. Continue your party, and accept our gift of a lenient curfew this night.”
The sweep of questions not answered was drowned in tentative applause. Jason couldn’t tell if the half cheers were for a night to drink without curfew or for Schlick’s enforced departure.
Either way, Jason bit down on his grin.
Whose idea was it to stage the kid? He was brilliant.
Schellenberg paused on his way off the stage. “I look forward to reading your rendition of this evening, Herr Young.”
Jason nodded. “If I hurry, maybe I can get it in tomorrow’s paper.”
“Allow me to make myself clear. I am most anxious to read this particular story—before it goes to press.”
Jason searched the Brigadeführer’s eyes. “Of course.”
“
Schön gut.
You may write in my hotel. I will leave a car and driver at your disposal—for when you are finished.”
Jason hadn’t counted on hanging around to have his story censored. He’d already written the party line—the only one that would fly. The last thing he wanted was to be held up. He had another appointment to keep this night.
67
F
ORTY
MINUTES
before Brigadeführer Schellenberg and his aides escorted Schlick from the theatre, Father Oberlanger had stepped from the shadows of the darkened church. He’d searched the street before and beside. Seeing no one, he’d furtively beckoned Rivka from the darkness and helped her into Forestry Chief Schrade’s wagon. He and Chief Schrade had helped her step in a burlap sack, surrounded her with wooden boxes—eight bottles to a box—and pulled another sack over her head, covering it with straw. Together, they’d driven to the theatre. Father Oberlanger had jumped as nimbly as his old bones could muster from the wagon and deftly handed up the middle-aged woman who’d just stepped out the back door.