Someone Named Eva (17 page)

I stood and held out a hand to help Elsbeth up, then walked with her in silence back to the house and into the shelter.

***

A week later I awoke with a start, sensing that something was wrong. I could see the outline of Elsbeth next to me, lying under the blankets in the same position as the night before. There was no noise in the basement. Nothing looked different in the murky darkness.

Quietly I walked upstairs, to find sunlight just beginning to make its way through the cracked windows in the kitchen, throwing spiderweb-like shapes of light across the walls. I squinted to help my eyes adjust.

Outside, the trees were signaling the beginning of spring. Their branches were covered with buds and filled with birds, singing and chattering merrily. I stopped, trying to remember the last time I had heard birds. Then I closed my eyes and listened carefully.

"Mutter!" I yelled downstairs. "Elsbeth! Wake up!" I raced down the stairs.

They both met me at the bottom, their eyes sleepy and fearful. "Eva, what is it?" Mutter gasped.

"It's quiet, Mutter!" I grabbed her hand and led her upstairs, with Elsbeth close behind. "Listen! Listen!" The three of us stood in the kitchen as several seconds passed in silence.

"It's quiet," Elsbeth whispered. "I don't hear guns."

"Or planes," I added, grabbing her in a hug. Mutter turned and led us back downstairs to the radio that had sat silent for so long. With trembling hands she turned the knobs until we could hear pieces of a broadcast, faint and full of static.

Germany had surrendered, the voices announced. Hitler was dead. Mutter looked at us, tears running down her face.

"It is over," she said quietly.

I
T
felt strange to move out of the shelter and back upstairs. After so much time in the basement, my body had grown used to the darkness, and the brightness of daylight made my eyes ache.

Once we were settled in our rooms again, we spent days cleaning the rest of the house. Many windows had shattered from the constant rattle of planes, and we patched them with pieces of wood from the work shed. Some had jagged holes in them from gunfire. We patched those with smaller pieces of wood, trying to keep enough of the glass visible so we could still see through them. The result looked like a strange patchwork quilt.

It took hours to sweep up the tiny pieces from the broken chandelier that littered the floor of the formal dining room. Throughout the house a fine layer of dust covered everything, and we spent more days wiping tables, furniture, and woodwork, using torn bed sheets as rags.

There was no word about Herr Werner or Peter, despite Mutter's appeals to the temporary government that had been set up in Berlin. Mutter refused to go near Herr Werner's office or allow Elsbeth and me to clean or straighten it. Finally, after growing tired of walking past the empty reminder of her father, Elsbeth propped the door across the open frame.

"He'll put his office in order when he comes back," Mutter assured us. "Peter will help him. You know we aren't allowed in there."

"It's all right, Mutter. We'll just leave it for now." Elsbeth patted her mother on the shoulder, leading her back into the kitchen.

There was still no real food to speak of, although there was an adequate supply of canned goods left in the shelter. Relief camps were open in Fürstenberg, but Mutter refused to visit them. They were for the "poor" and the "needy," she said. According to her, we were neither.

It felt strange to be back upstairs in my pink bedroom. So much had changed both inside me and outside the house since I had last been in my room. I felt detached from it, the house, Mutter, and Elsbeth. My own kind of murky darkness had come to cloud my heart.

I had not been taken away from Elsbeth and Mutter, as I had feared. They were still my family. But ever since the discovery of the camp, I knew I could never fully be the German child I had once been. And the end of the war had not brought a rescue from Mama and Papa.

I felt as if I belonged nowhere and to no one.

***

One morning, shortly after we'd finally finished cleaning the house and reassembling what was left, Elsbeth and I were in her room. We had slowly settled into a routine and Mutter had insisted we return to our lessons. She herself had begun to return to activities she had once enjoyed and she was downstairs with her needlepoint, while we were supposed to be working in our lesson books. But neither of us was really concentrating. Elsbeth was sitting on her bed, drawing little pictures in her book. I sat near her, propped up on one elbow and preoccupied with my thoughts. Suddenly, there was a loud knock at the front door, sharp and persistent. Elsbeth and I looked at each other.

"Who do you think...?" Elsbeth began, but was interrupted by Mutter's screams.

"Nein! Nein!" Mutter's voice sounded anguished.

"Peter!" Elsbeth said, looking at me fearfully. "Something's happened to Peter."

Both of us raced down the spiral staircase to the front entryway. The door was open, and Mutter was huddled on the floor near a man and a woman who were standing in the doorway.

"You knew this day would come, Frau." The man's voice was harsh and loud, his face unsympathetic and angry.

"Nein! Nein! It is not true. Lies, lies, all of it!" She reached out and grabbed his leg. "Please." The man roughly pulled his leg out of her grasp.

"Mutter!" Elsbeth knelt and put an arm around her. "What is happening?" she asked. "Who's lying?" She looked from Mutter to the man and woman. "Has something happened to Peter?"

I stood and stared, unable to move, somehow knowing why they were there. Both wore plain clothes with white armbands that had large red crosses on them. I saw no Nazi uniforms or badges, and neither appeared to be carrying a gun or club.

The woman was tall and slender, with short brown hair that framed her head in shining layers. Her eyes were dark, almost black. The man had red hair and freckles sprinkled across his pale face and arms.

"Are you Milada?" The woman stepped toward me and touched my arm. Her voice was quiet and soft.

Milada, Milada, Milada.
The name shimmered in front of me, so real I could almost touch it.
Milada,
girl from Czechoslovakia, fastest runner in her school.
Milada,
best friend of Terezie, sister of Jaro and Anechka. Milada, who lived with her mama and papa and beloved grandmother.

I nodded and began to tremble fiercely.

"Milada," she continued, "we have found your mother. She is alive. She is waiting for you in Prague."

I began to cry, brushing the tears away so I could see clearly and make sure this was not a dream.

"Nein!" Mutter stood, pounding her fists against the man's chest and shoulders. "Nein! Her name is Eva. She belongs to me. This child was given to me by the Führer.
I
am her mother!" The man put up a hand so her fists couldn't reach him.

I looked at Mutter, feeling oddly detached and barely even hearing what she was saying. Elsbeth took a step back, her face white and her eyes large and frightened.

"Eva!" Mutter cried, turning toward me. There was such pain in her voice, I had to look away. Swinging back to the man, Mutter cried, "You are disobeying the Führer's orders. You cannot take her!"Then with a sob she added, "You will break my heart."

"Milada," the woman said, "will you come with us?"

I looked at Mutter and then at Elsbeth, afraid at that moment that my own heart might break.

"My name is Milada," I said to the woman, needing to say my real name out loud. It sounded right and pure, and it filled me with joy. How long I had waited to reclaim my name! Then I added, "I want to go home."

The woman took my hand, leading me out the open door and into the sunshine.

"Wait," I said, stopping on the steps. "I have to get my things. I have to say good-bye."

"No, Milada," the woman said. "We will get you whatever you need. You need nothing from these people."

I felt for Grandmother's star pin, firmly fastened to the inside of my skirt, and I nodded.

Through the open door I could hear the sounds of Mutter weeping and Elsbeth comforting her. I tried to concentrate only on putting one foot in front of the other as I walked out to the white car that was parked in the driveway,
Milada, Milada, Milada
running through my head.

***

The woman who had come to the Werner house was an International Red Cross worker named Marcie, who was responsible for taking me back to Mama. She was from America but spoke both French and German. She was to be my escort on the long train ride from Berlin to Prague.

For many hours I sat on the train without speaking. A numbness filled me, the same sort of numbness I had felt after first leaving the camp in Poland to live with the Werners. I had been gone for three years. Three years. So much had happened in that time. Was it really true? Could I finally be going home?

Marcie was in the seat next to me, rocking slightly from the motion of the train. We both sat in silence, watching the scenery pass outside the window.

She told me that Mama had been staying in a center for displaced persons in Prague since being liberated from a Ravensbrück subcamp. I gasped when I heard the name Ravensbrück. Mama had been in a subcamp not far from the one Herr Werner had commanded.

I had never been that far from Mama after all.

The towns and countryside of Germany were nothing more than skeletal remains. Broken buildings littered the cities. Cows lay dead in the fields. Allied soldiers patrolled the roads. The people we saw walked with their heads bent low as they carried supplies or picked up debris.

Occasionally Elsbeth's and Mutter's faces would drift into my thoughts, and I forced myself to push them away. It hurt too much to think of either of them.

We entered Czechoslovakia late in the afternoon. Because the president had surrendered to Hitler without a fight, most of my country had been spared the devastation of war. It looked as I remembered it, proud and regal. Beautiful old buildings remained untouched and stood gleaming tall in the sun. The roads and fields looked peaceful and welcoming as we passed by. It seemed almost as if there had never been a war at all.

"It's beautiful, your country." Marcie sat next to me, following my gaze out the window.

I nodded. "America, I understand, is also very nice."

"Yes. It has its good parts. I enjoy seeing other countries, though."

I nodded again. "How much longer will the ride be?"

Marcie looked at her watch. "Another few hours. Your mother is very anxious to see you. You're all she's spoken of since she was freed."

"I can't wait to see Mama and Papa," I said. My voice caught just saying the words.

"Milada, there is something I must tell you." She touched my shoulder, and I could tell by her face that I was about to hear something unpleasant.

I grabbed the armrest of my seat, prepared to find out that I wasn't really going home. Perhaps this was just another lie and I was to be adopted into another family or returned to the center. I had been told so many lies over the past three years. How could I believe this wasn't another?

"Milada, I wish this wasn't what I had to say. But your papa and Jaroslav are not with your Mama. I'm sorry, honey." She stopped, clasping her hands together. Her voice grew softer. "Both of them were killed."

"No!" I cried, jumping to my feet, pain sweeping over me. "No! I don't believe you!" I screamed.

Marcie stayed calm. "It is true, Milada. I am so sorry."

I felt dizzy. "But the night they took us away, the Nazis told us Papa and Jaro had been sent to a work camp! They said..." And then I stopped, and my stomach lurched with the realization. Another Nazi lie.

Marcie gently pulled me back into my seat. Quietly, she continued. "The night you were taken, the Nazis led the men and boys to the Horak farm in Lidice." Her gaze remained steady. "There they were shot."

I felt myself go cold. "Grandmother?" I whispered, afraid I already knew the answer.

Marcie pursed her lips into a thin line and shook her head sadly. "She died in the Ravensbrück sub-camp. But we are still trying to find Anechka," she added quickly. "She was adopted by a German family. We haven't been able to locate the family, but we
will
find her, Milada."

I stared at her, unable to speak, then turned back to the window.

"Milada," Marcie said, touching my arm.

I ignored her, continuing to focus on the trees that were moving past us.

"Milada?" she tried again, and I felt a tear roll down my face, followed by another and another, until I was crying so hard, I could no longer see out the window.

Marcie pulled me close, not speaking, and let me cry as we both swayed with the motion of the train.

***

When we arrived at the displaced persons center in Prague that evening, it was spitting rain, staining the light brick of the building with dark blotches. Before the war the center had been a school. As I looked up at its entrance, I thought how strange it was that Mama and I were being reunited in the same type of building as that in which we had been torn apart.

Inside, I ran my finger along the polished lockers that lined the hall. Signs in German, Czech, and English offered directions to washrooms, doctors, and general assistance. Marcie led me down a hallway and around a corner before stopping at a small room where I had been told Mama was waiting.

"Your mama knows German, so you won't need me to translate," Marcie said.

"Yes. Good," I said. I was glad I would be alone with Mama.

"Are you ready, then?" Marcie asked, her hand on the door to the room.

I nodded, scarcely able to breathe.

"She has been in a concentration camp," Marcie said.

"Yes, yes." I couldn't hide my impatience. How much longer would I have to wait?

"You must understand her condition," she continued. "They were treated worse than animals in those camps. She will be okay in time, but right now she looks..." Her words trailed off.