Page 31 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

TWENTY-FOUR

HALINA

I believe I just signed my life away without a choice or say in the matter. As if perfectly timed, a man took his life as a measure of reason and proof to fear the other side of those gates. Then, Heinrich’s statement about the one matter I haven’t kept my distance from.

It didn’t come as a surprise that he chose not to follow his remark with an explanation—just another tool in his box to coerce with and cause terror.

I could easily assume he was speaking about Flora’s bottle, and the lack of bourbon no longer tainting the liquid.

Or he could suspect my loyalty to Gavriel.

Between each blink and step, I can vividly see the decomposing world of Auschwitz, the gloom and smoke, people struggling to move.

How does Gavriel survive there when he’s not working himself to the bone at the Sch?fers’ house?

It’s far worse than anything I imagined or thought I’d seen from a distance.

A shiver bears down my spine despite the heat radiating from the sun as I turn the last corner onto the street with the three houses owned by the SS.

The irony of watching children play in the street, as if life is nothing but ordinary, leads me to unanswerable questions.

How will any of them grow up to find a semblance of normalcy?

They’ll find out who their fathers are and what they do.

There’s no way of knowing if they’ll forgive them or run as far away from here as possible.

Most of them are too young to know of a world where they weren’t considered to be among the elite.

Celina and Rosalie are huddled beneath a trimmed willow tree, chatting as the children shriek and squeal with the joy of running with freedom of space, fresh air, and full bellies.

“Where are you coming from? Alone too? Goodness,” Rosalie says, her words snipped and a bit cool. Jealous, perhaps? Though she wouldn’t be if she knew what I was doing and where I’ve come from, I’m sure.

“An errand,” I reply, keeping my response short.

“I’ve never seen the Sch?fers allow their servants to wander off alone without the children,” Rosalie continues.

Celina stares at her while she talks, a troubled grimace tugging on her quaint face.

“You should bring the children out to play,” Celina adds. “It’s a lovely day.”

“I’ll see what Frau Sch?fer has planned. Thank you for the invitation,” I offer. Is that what that was? An invitation for someone else’s children to play on the street?

I make my way to the front door and hesitate before walking inside, unsure if I’ve earned the right to act as if I belong here rather than I’m the slave as I was so kindly told.

With caution over where I figuratively stand, I knock on the door.

Ada will probably be irritated that she’s forced to get up from whatever she’s doing to let me inside. Either way, I would be wrong.

The kitchen prisoner opens the door, a girl whose name I still don’t know. “Frau Sch?fer is in the family room,” she says, bowing her head at me as if I’m something of more importance than she is.

I step inside and place my hand on her shoulder. “No need to bow,” I whisper. “I’m no one important.”

“You’re not a Jew,” she replies with a small shrug.

“What’s your name?” I ask just as quietly.

“Kasia, but—” she presses her shirt sleeve up and twists her arm to show me a set of numbers tattooed along her forearm. “This is who I am now.”

“You’re still Kasia to me,” I say, pushing past the ache in my chest—the tears that threaten to burn down my cheeks.

How did we get here? I thought I knew so much, and now I see I knew very little.

Kasia’s dimples deepen but she doesn’t smile.

Instead, she turns and walks back to the kitchen.

I follow, but stop in front of the family room, finding Ada perched on the sofa with her stocking covered feet up on the coffee table.

She’s reading a fashion magazine. I didn’t think those existed anymore.

“Oh, good. You’re back,” she says, her voice monotone. “The older girls are reading in their bedroom, and Flora—she’s down for a nap.”

“Very well. The other children are outside playing together. I thought I might bring the girls out to join them?”

“I don’t care what you do with them,” she says, flapping the back of her hand at me. “Leave Flora to sleep, though.”

“Of course.”

Ada doesn’t take her eyes off the magazine and flips to the next page as I continue to stand here. “Might I ask how far along you are in your pregnancy? I’m sure everyone is looking forward to another bundle of joy.”

Ada drops her magazine onto her lap and places her hands around her belly as if I’ve insulted the unborn child. “I should be nearing four months along,” she says.

“Any inkling of a gender?” It’s best to act as if I didn’t pick up on any of their argumentative words from last night.

“It’s a boy. I’m quite sure. I’m carrying differently with him than I did with the other three.”

“That’s wonderful. I’m sure the girls will be thrilled to welcome a baby brother.”

“Yes, they will be,” she says with an annoyed sigh.

“I’ll let you get back to your magazine.”

I gather the girls and wait for them to use the toilet and pull on their boots before we can go outside. Isla leaves with a book in hand and Marlene has her hand curled in mine, leaning her head against my arm. “I didn’t know when you’d come back,” she says as we step out the door.

I close the front door behind us and lead her down the front steps. “I’m back now,” I reply.

“Gav was worried too,” she says.

“Gav?” I question her.

“The man in the attic.”

“Gavriel,” I correct her.

“No, I call him Gav.” I can’t help but snicker a bit. I’m not sure how this little girl has so much personality when she’s being raised by the Sch?fers.

“He was worried about me?” I ask her.

My heart flinches. How can someone who carries so much pain still find the strength to worry about someone else? And me, of all people. I’m not sure what to make of that but it thaws something icy inside of me, making it harder to convince myself I don’t feel safer when I’m around him.

“No one knew where Papa made you go.”

I turn over my shoulder and stare up at the construction, finding the gaps between the framing to be covered, leaving the windows to see in and out of now.

I catch Gavriel’s eye through the open frame.

He stops mid-step, moving closer to the window as if pulled by something invisible. “Are you all right?” he mouths.

The sight of him, the worry written along his face, it unravels me for a second. My breath catches in my throat and my cheeks tingle. He’s a prisoner, but he still wants to protect me. The look in his eyes says things I’ve never believed I had the right to feel.

I nod ever so slightly, hoping to be discreet amid Rosalie and Celina who are likely watching my every step right now.

It appears he was worried. How can he worry about me when he’s living in that place?

“Ah, look who’s joining us outside to play!” Celina announces to the children.

“I’m not playing,” Isla quips. “I have a book to finish reading by tomorrow.” I wasn’t aware of any deadline for her to finish reading.

“Soak in all the sun this week, young lady,” Rosalie follows.

“Is something happening next week?” I ask as I step in toward the other two ladies.

“Of course. School starts back up,” Celina says, looking at me with wide eyes as if it’s impossible that I didn’t know this. “They didn’t tell you…? Little Marlene is starting her first day—the poor thing must be all wound up.”

I glance over at her as she approaches one of the other little girls around the same age as her. I’m not sure which child belongs to whom yet, but I suppose I should figure that out too. She hasn’t said a word about starting school. No one has.

“How does it all work? Do we—take them in the morning, and pick them up? I’m not sure what time or where to go? What do they need?”

Celina and Rosalie give each other a look that makes me feel like more of an outsider than I already am. “We’ll help you. Don’t worry,” Celina says.

I wonder if the two of them are paid to do their jobs? Am I being punished for the accusation of begging and loitering?

“School begins next Wednesday at eight in the morning. It’s just down the road, a ten-minute walk. It’s a small schoolhouse for children of?—”

Rosalie lets out a soft cough.

Nazis? I’d like to say it out loud.

If it’s a school for children of Nazis, that means Marlene’s little mind will begin processing the form of corruption next week. Whatever she hasn’t already picked up at home, will be burned into her head quickly, I’m sure.

“Do we walk together?” I might be setting myself up to be laughed at with how little I seem to know compared to them.

“Of course,” Celina says. “We can walk to pick them up together in the afternoon as well.”

“Thank you. That would be wonderful.”

“Where’s the little angel?” Rosalie asks.

“Taking a nap,” I say, feeling uneasy about the way Ada shared that tidbit of information. Flora has not taken a nap in her crib since I’ve arrived. Unless she’s rocked to sleep and shushed for an hour, there hasn’t been a hint of rest.

“She got her to go down?” Rosalie continues.

“So she said.”

“Hmm,” Celina says.

The same thought went through my mind too. I’m sure they’re figuring she’s been given a helping of bourbon.

“That boy up there, he fancies you, doesn’t he?” Rosalie says, looking at the attic window.

“I don’t know him. I’m not allowed to converse with anyone in the house.”

“Of course,” Celina says. “We know that. But let’s be honest with each other. Who can truly live like that?”

“I suppose.”

“It’s a matter of being able to avoid getting caught doing the things we’re not supposed to do,” Celina whispers.

“You aren’t very good at that,” Rosalie tells her. “Your voice carries, you know?”

“Oh, and you’re as quiet as a butterfly?”

“I suppose I’d be cautious if I was you, in that house too.

There’s no saying what that SS man will do next.

He’s far worse than the other two on this street.

Ada isn’t much better, but she’s been brainwashed into submission.

She doesn’t even know who she once was or where she came from.

” Celina leans in closer to me. “From what we’ve heard, she was raised on a farm, working alongside her parents until she was old enough to marry.

She has a whole family who’s never even been here to visit or meet the children. It’s quite odd.”

“Everything is odd,” Rosalie adds. “We’re living in a dark, miserable world that will likely never see the light of day again. We’ve gone back in time to when women have no voices and citizens have no say above the reigning government. We’re nothing and no one, and we may never be someone again.”