Page 15 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

ELEVEN

HALINA

Two slamming doors and a car engine in disrepair weren’t even the cause of today’s early wake-up call.

It was the now familiar sound of a verbal lashing that led up to Officer Sch?fer’s heavy steps marching out the front door, followed by Frau Sch?fer returning to her bedroom.

A repeat of yesterday morning. I wonder if she goes back to sleep.

The girls certainly don’t. Again, they found their way up to the attic and into my room where we’ve been sitting on my lumpy bed for over an hour while they talk and I listen, except for Gavriel’s intermission, and a folktale story we all enjoyed.

The explosive shouts terrify even me, never mind how much they must scare the girls. Maybe the Sch?fers don’t care what they’re doing to their daughters. Either way, I’ll keep acting as if I’ve neither heard nor seen anything. It might be the only way I survive here long enough to protect them.

In little whispered voices, they told me their mother would be busy for the next hour and breakfast wouldn’t be ready for them until then.

And their father, “He acts like a hungry lion sometimes and no one knows why.” The brief words were filled with sorrow and fear that painted a clear picture: they’re convinced their father despises them.

At the hour mark, and not a moment sooner, I lead the girls downstairs to the kitchen, finding a bottle prepared for Flora, waiting on the kitchen counter, and breakfast set out on the table by the same prisoner who was here yesterday. There’s also a note in the center of the kitchen table:

There will be a luncheon at noon.

Have the children dressed properly for the occasion.

– Frau Sch?fer

The hours of finding ways to entertain the children have already dragged.

Neither of them like board games, jacks, or dominoes.

Isla prefers to read alone, and Marlene likes to talk and draw pictures with a black crayon.

Neither of them likes to change their clothes, but we managed to find day dresses they eventually agreed to wear.

Just before noon, Frau Sch?fer makes her first appearance for the day, strolling in as if she’s royalty, her arms out, but hands delicately wavering, her wrists and fingers dripping with jewels.

The scent of hairspray and rose oil follow her through the kitchen where we’re greeted with a surprising smile, bright eyes that speak of cheer, and large curls framing her powdered face. She looks as if she’s ready for a night at a ball, but with a casual navy polka-dotted dress.

“Are we ready?” she asks, her voice taut with sophistication. Frau Sch?fer presses her hands into the small of her back, stretching out the ache she appears to have.

“Are you all right?” I ask, wanting to bite through my tongue.

“Oh yes, just pregnancy growing pains.” She sighs.

“We’re ready, Mama,” Isla says, curtsying with a smile mirroring her mother’s.

“Good. Come along,” she says, waiting for Marlene to follow Isla.

Without any further ado, she escorts us out the back door to a landscaped garden, blooming with a variety of flowers, several women sitting around a cloth-laden picnic table, surrounded by trimmed grass.

In the back of the yard are outdoor toys—a ball, wooden rocking horse, and a sandbox, all somewhat hidden behind thick overhanging branches from a tree on the other side of the fence.

“Halina,” Frau Sch?fer says, the tone holding me back from following the children off the patio.

“You will be expected to socialize the children with the others on the street,” she drones in a quiet breath.

“However, I will remind you—do not speak of anything you hear or see within our household. Our lives will remain private.”

This might be an opportunity to learn more about the arrangement between caregiver and family, see how the other children behave, and perhaps pick up on something about Flora’s condition. All I can wonder is if we’re all living the same way?

“Of course,” I say, my gaze catching on the large number of children already playing together.

I join two additional young women, and seven young children. I lean in toward the nearest woman, hoping the sound of my voice won’t carry far. “Are we allowed to speak?” They look to be around the same age as me, a bit fragile, but versed in caring for children.

“Yes, so long as we aren’t heard.”

“Correct,” the other says. “I’m Rosalie.

” Rosalie has a sullen look behind her dark eyes, and a dullness to her auburn hair, fixed in neat braid, causing me to check the falling strands of my braid.

Her straight-edged posture could be tested with a stack of books on her head, even while sitting on a thin blanket in the grass.

“I’m Celina.” With short dark hair pulled back into a coiled knot and large, deep blue eyes that catch the sunlight, she has an essence of more spirit than Rosalie.

Both women are dressed in simple black dresses with white aprons like me, tattered and fraying along the seams. Despite their complacent demeanor, I see something lurking within both pairs of eyes, something I recognize from the orphaned children who gave up hope that someone was coming for them. Like me.

The children are playing in a small wooden sandbox, apart from Isla and a boy about the same age, both of whom are reading beneath an overhanging tree branch. Flora is the youngest by maybe a year. The other two nannies give her a long look as if seeking an unspoken answer.

“How are you adjusting?” Celina asks, shifting her gaze to me.

I smile, for show. “Not well. I’m not exactly here of my own free will. But it could be worse, I suppose. It was either working here or being arrested.”

Neither seem surprised at my response. Did they arrive here the same way as me? Almost chosen at random or found to mark off one simple checkbox on a short list.

Celina fidgets with a wooden block that was left behind by one of the children and stares past me while responding.

“I wouldn’t classify this position as exactly the opposite of being arrested.

This is the in-between, the ‘restricted zone,’ a place where we aren’t prisoners, but we aren’t free.

We’re objects with only a first name,” she says with a tremble in her voice.

Rosalie glimpses over her shoulder, pretending to stretch out a kink in her neck.

“Each house has different rules here. At the moment, we’re the only three nannies on the street, but others come and go from the other houses.

At least, they have in the past. Some of the officers will beat their nanny,” Rosalie says, sweeping her hand over the smooth strands of her hair, revealing four oval shaped bruises side by side along the side of her forearm.

My throat constricts as if a hand is squeezing around my neck.

“Others act as if you’re a guest in their home, but most of them just want you to smile, keep quiet, and forget any form of proof of the rest.”

“I see,” I say, breathless from the invisible chokehold. “I thought…this caretaker position would be safer than the prison camp.”

“It is,” Rosalie says. “There are no selections here. You’ll live as long as you don’t step out of line.”

“Selections?” I repeat.

She touches her hand to her throat, almost as if straining to speak. “Each day, the officers walk between rows of people, stare them in the eye as if their fate will speak for them, and decide whether it will be the day they live or die.”

“We’ve both overheard the stories,” Celina adds in a hush.

They pick and choose who lives and dies as if playing God? “That’s inhumane,” I say, stating the obvious as I wave my hand like a fan in front of my face. The sun has suddenly decided to bear all its heat on me at once, or maybe it’s another dose of realization.

“You should know—” Rosalie begins but clears a hush from her throat.

“The other nannies who have worked in the house you’re in have all been released within a week or two.

” She smoothes out the sun-faded fabric of her dress across her bent legs.

“It’s imperative you follow the rules in the booklet.

All of them precisely.” She must know our booklets are the same, but they could be different.

Not that the outcome of disobeying the rules would be different.

Do they know about the chamomile drops, tainted with bourbon? Is this a common practice between the SS households? The other children seem aware of their surroundings and engaged in their play.

“There are a lot of rules, and some—odd ones regarding the baby,” I whisper. Odd is putting it mildly.

“She’s just a windy baby with some minor delays. There’s little that can be done to help her,” Celina adds.

“She isn’t just a windy baby. There’s something more going on, but whatever it is, there’s less that should be done to fix her,” Rosalie says.

“However, you’re in an impossible situation and must remember she isn’t your child to protect.

Therefore, all you can do is maintain your position by doing what you’re told. ”

Who else will protect them? Their mother and father aren’t doing much of that. Someone could have easily said that about me when I was left on the church stoop as an infant too, but Julia took me in and treated me as her own. She protected me. For as long as she could.

Rosalie’s eyes don’t meet mine. Her stare is heavy, as if she’s looking past me. “I assume the last nannies had morals and resisted the instructions in the booklet.” I’m not sure I need someone to answer me.

“We’ve all been forced to give up our morals upon entering the doors of the houses on this street,” Celina says, her last word fading into silence as the youngest of the children runs toward her with a rock in his hand.

All of them look as if they could be siblings with their light blonde hair and sky-blue eyes, fair complexion, but rosy cheeks. The only two children without blonde hair are Isla and Marlene. Even Flora fits in with the others.