Page 21 of The Nanny Outside the Gates
“Can I get something for you?” I offer, uselessly, glancing around the sawdust covered boards surrounding me.
“Marlene is sick from drinking out of Flora’s bourbon-laced bottle. She’s been vomiting since last night. I avoided being the target until now. I don’t have anything else to wear.”
I understand the weight of her struggle. None of us at Auschwitz have more than a layer or two ourselves, and it’s usually soiled with the unthinkable. I’ll keep that thought to myself.
The door creaks as she disappears again, shuffling beneath the bed. I turn away, giving her privacy, and trying to keep myself occupied while being painfully aware of her presence just steps away.
A quick dash across the hall reclaims my attention, finding her in a female Auschwitz uniform—a blue and white striped dress that swallows her petite frame, the fabric billowing behind her as if hanging from a clothesline.
“I’m sorry for snapping at you. I didn’t sleep and I’ve been cleaning up vomit?—”
“I’ve been snapped at for less.”
She fumbles with the shoulders of the uniform, which drape indiscreetly. “What happened to the person last wearing this?” she asks.
“I—” I don’t want to tell her.
“Tell me,” she says, already knowing the answer, I’m sure. She gestures to the jagged hole and dried blood stain on the back.
“Sch?fer threw a bottle at his wife. The nanny stepped between them. They replaced her with someone—someone…like you after that.”
“A servant.” She bluntly suggests the proper term.
“Right. Servant.”
Halina’s fingers graze the bloodstain. “Where were the children?”
“I wasn’t here yet. Someone from Auschwitz told me what happened.”
She turns to face me straight on, her eyes glistening with disdain and sorrow. “How can I walk back down to those girls wearing this?” Her voice breaks as she tugs at the loose fabric on her shoulder. “How can I act as if this is normal?”
“I have an idea.” I step in closer but pause for a moment. “May I?”
She gives a faint nod and nips her bottom lip, wary but agreeable as she sweeps her braid over her shoulder, exposing her back. Her trust unravels something inside of me.
I loosen the fabric belt at her waist and gather the extra fabric at the back, retying it snug so the bloodstain vanishes into the fold. “There. No one will see it now.”
She turns, her eyes catching mine for a flicker before her lashes dip and her cheeks blush. Then she rises onto her toes and wraps her arms around my neck, her small frame molding to mine as if we were meant to be this way. “Thank you,” she whispers, her lips brushing over my ear.
“It’s been my pleasure. I assure you.”
The moment lingers like a beautiful note, one I wish I could hold on to.
Then a shout in the distance, a reminder of where we are—who we are—brings us back to the dusty attic. “I’ve seen horrors before, but this place…it’s something out of a nightmare. That man, he terrifies me. I don’t know what he’s capable of. Or, I guess, I do, and that’s the worst part.”
I pull back just enough to meet her eyes, cupping her arms in my hands. “You’ve already endured more than most. You’re still here. That strength, it matters.”
“Is this what it’s like there? In Auschwitz?”
I swallow hard, unsure how much truth to give her. “Worse. Much worse. I consider us lucky to be here during the daytime hours.”
She drops her gaze as if ashamed. “I’m sorry—of course it is. I—can’t believe I once thought I had a hard life just because my parents gave me away. I grew up not knowing where I belonged in this world, and I thought that was pain. “I was foolish to think that way.”
“No, I’m the one who should be sorry,” I say, the words aching from the bottom of my heart.
“You didn’t deserve to grow up that way.
The pain we speak of…it isn’t comparable.
” I have a family I know and love. I don’t have to question where I came from.
I’ll always know, no matter how we finally end up.
To not know…That’s very different.
She lifts her eyes, finding mine again, but this time with a sense of affinity as if it isn’t the pain we’re comparing, but instead, the understanding of loneliness.
“I won’t let that man hurt those girls,” she proclaims. “I must find a way to stop Frau Sch?fer from harming her baby.”
Terror trickles down my spine at her sentiment. “You can’t fight them. That isn’t how we survive. We have to find a way to squeeze between the rules without leaving a trace. Really, we can only outsmart them if we never step out of line.”
Her eyes grow round with question, almost as if waiting for me to say something more, something different. But there’s no other advice to give.
She turns toward the door but hesitates. “Do you have a family? Are you married?”
“I had a family. I hope I still do. Married? No.”
A small smile curls into her lips. “I haven’t had the chance to live a real life yet. But someday…if we’re set free, I want to live without rules, love who I want, and to have something no one can take from me. That’s what I’m holding on to. Just a dream.”
My chest aches at her words. It aches for her.
“I think that’s worth fighting for,” I tell her.