Page 4 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

I clench my hands into fists by my sides, my nails piercing the flesh of my palms. “I—I already said?—”

“And the second choice is, I arrest you for loitering, begging, and withholding papers. You go to the prison labor camp. This should be an easy answer.” He shrugs, then grins, making it known I have just as little power as every other natural-born citizen in this country.

The word prison replays in my head. Prison must mean Auschwitz.

There are many rumors about Auschwitz, most of which I hope aren’t true.

I can either look after Nazi-born children or surrender to imprisonment in Auschwitz. These aren’t options.

Any child raised by a Nazi has already been taught to hate. Taught that they’re a superior race, and that others are disposable. I’m sure he’ll expect me to support the beliefs and mindset of the regime.

I won’t.

I’ll do the opposite. In silence and with caution, I’ll be the crack in their solid foundation. I’ll unteach what’s been forced into them. Maybe I could stop just one child from becoming this man standing in front of me. From becoming a monster.

The Reich has already stolen the freedom I never really had. I won’t let them steal my beliefs.

If I have to avoid prison by serving this Nazi family, it will be on my terms.

“I’ll serve.” But if he thinks I’ll be grateful, he’s wrong.

“Come along then,” he says, jutting his head toward his car.

I look to my side, where the labyrinth of trees spills out onto the road—where I sent Eva just before the officer approached me.

“I need to gather my belongings and papers.” I must make sure Eva made it back to the orphanage too.

And Julia—I need to tell her what’s happening.

I might not have parents, and she’s no longer considered my housemother as I’ve been working for her, but she’s been the closest thing I have.

This man isn’t going to let me go anywhere. I can see it in his narrowing eyes.

“Fine. Lead the way.”

What have I done?

This is why the church-turned-orphanage still looks abandoned on the outside. With overgrown brush and nestled tightly between trees that have survived every known war in this country, we’ve been left alone.

I take hesitant steps forward, thinking of a way to stop him from following me, but he’s on my heels. I stop and turn around. “It can be a long walk, and it’s muddy from last night’s rain.”

“How long of a walk?” he asks, his patience questionable by his complacent tone.

“I could run.” He won’t run with me, not with his shiny boots.

He holds up his wrist to look at the time. “You have five minutes. If you aren’t back here then, I’ll find you, and you won’t have a second option.”

I can’t believe he’s letting me go. Without a moment to spare, I race through the trees, as fast as Eva did earlier. I avoid the mud and bang on the locked front door.

Julia opens the door a crack then releases the thick latch to pull me inside and into her chest. Her embrace holds a trace of lavender soap and flour, a scent that I had become too used to and stopped noticing.

It now hits me like it might be the last time I ever smell something so nice.

“Dear God, I thought they took you. Eva said a man in uniform came for you.”

“Yes, and I have to go with the officer who found me. He said I’d serve him—his children.”

“In their home?” she snaps. “Halina, you know what that means. You realize you won’t just be cleaning floors, don’t you? And those children…they aren’t just common children. They’re—why, they’re bred Naz?—”

“I know who they are,” I say, stopping Julia from speaking in a way she likely won’t forgive herself for later.

Bile burns up my throat, knowing I don’t have a choice, and she doesn’t realize that yet.

“You’ll be inside of their territory—that God awful ‘restricted zone’ they’ve claimed,” she says, pointing in the direction of the bridge—the guarded checkpoint.

“You will see things you can’t unsee, and you won’t be able to—” She clutches her hand around her aging neck.

“You won’t be able to get back to this side.

Civilians don’t go in or out of there for a reason. You know this.”

A chill runs down my hot back and my chin shivers.

“I don’t have a choice.” Not about going with that officer, but what I do when I get there.

I can teach these children of the Reich the truth.

Show them who they’re being shaped to become.

I can be a quiet act of resistance from the inside.

One they brought into their home. It might not make a big difference, but it’s something.

“No. No, absolutely not. Where is he, Halina? Where is this soldier? I’ll have a word with that—with that…” She steps to the side, reaching for the front door. Her face is red, her temples pulsating around her protruding veins.

I grab her arm. “You can’t—he’ll take you away.

The children here—they need you. And this man is a high-ranking officer.

If I don’t return, he’ll come find me here then take me to prison for loitering, begging, and not having papers on me.

That’s what he said. You know these people hold on to their word as if it’s made of gold. ”

Tears stream down Julia’s cheeks as she cups her hand over her mouth.

“How will you survive there? What if those children are unmanageable?” Her words become a whisper, “They’ve undoubtedly been brainwashed…”

I can’t answer her. Not with any sort of reassurance.

I’m terrified of what lies ahead or who I’ll have to become to survive.

But if I can make a difference, even just a small one, it will mean I’ve done something.

Make an impact and have a purpose in life like she’s had on me. Even if no one else ever knows it.

I race upstairs to the small bedroom I’ve called mine for the last four years, since transitioning from a child orphan to an adult worker.

Dropping to my knees, I pull my borrowed suitcase out from beneath the low bed.

I tuck in my shabby brown teddy bear and the worn folktale book—its cover etched with a hand-drawn dog standing among a set of trees.

These are the only thing my parents left me—a smidgen of comfort and the only story to my life.

The few other small belongings and identification papers fit into a small satchel that I sling over my shoulder. I grab the suitcase and hurry back down the stairs, right into Julia’s waiting arms.

“Write to me. Promise me, Halina. Promise me.”

“I will—I’ll write you. I’ll be careful.

I’ll follow the rules, and do what I’m asked, and—” my tongue catches in my throat and I tug at the collar of my dress as if it will give me more air to breathe.

“I’ll survive. That’s what I do. That’s what all of us here have done, day after day.

It’s the only thing left that we’re allowed to do. ”

Julia cups my face in her hands, kisses my forehead, then tucks the loose strands from my braid behind my ears.

She used to fiddle with my hair when I was small, usually when I had a fever. While curled up beside her, she’d dream aloud about my future, whispering all the wonderful things I was meant to see. Back then, they were just words. Now I wish I had believed them.

“God brought us together, and together we shall be, my sweet girl. Always. I love you.” She wraps her arms around me, an embrace that hurts inside. It hurts so much. My heart. My stomach. And all I can do is clutch the handle of my suitcase until my knuckles ache.

The only words that come to me are cold and hollow. Not enough. “Thank you for taking me in and keeping me.”

A breath catches in my lungs as I rush back out the door, each step heavier now as I carry my life within my hands—my small, invaluable life.

The officer has his eyes set on his watch as I turn the corner. He raises his brows, as if impressed, but he doesn’t say another word as he leads me to his car.

“Papers?” He presses again before saying another word.

I pull the folded documents from my satchel and hand them to him, wondering how closely he’ll look through them.

A quick scan doesn’t raise an eyebrow, but he slips them into his pocket rather than handing them back.

Cigars, nicotine, and leather, a pungent mixture that fills my nose.

We drive in silence across the first half of the bridge up to the barred entrance of the Reich’s stolen domain.

The officer is chummy with the checkpoint guard, laughing and muttering in German slang about the weather and completing the interaction with simply telling the guard that I’m with him, as in property.

We continue over the remainder of the bridge, the guard towers of Auschwitz coming into focus the further we drive into the “restricted zone.” For a moment I consider if everything he said was a lie.

There aren’t truly two options, and he’s bringing me to Auschwitz.

It’s because I was too close to the boundaries.

I must know more than I should. Now, I’m on the inside and the gate has been sealed behind us.

The thought of Julia’s embrace and my stiff response is already tearing me to shreds. She held me like a mother…the person who has always kept me safe, who would risk her own life for me. And I just stood there. Frozen. She deserved more from me. I should have told her I loved her. God, I do.

Those words feel foreign on my tongue and in my heart, like I shouldn’t speak of something I know nothing about.

My pulse stutters as he takes a sharp turn away from the towers, and away from the barbed-wire fence that’s close enough to make out. He’s not taking me to Auschwitz. Yet .

We end up on a road surrounded by fields of overgrown grass, some as high as wheat, leaving only the tops of a tree line. The barren landscape fills me with dread, as if I’ll be dropped in the middle of nowhere, with no way to return to civilization.

Clouds roll toward us like foreshadowing in a scary story, and my reflection in the car window sharpens.

When did I become this person? My sun-streaked chestnut hair pulled back tightly, a sharp expression of dread mixed with bravery, a straight line across my lips rather than a soft natural smile.

I can’t see my eyes, but they’re heavy and tired.

I’m not the young girl who used to help Julia bring smiles to children’s faces.

Now I’ll have to protect the light in children who’ve been raised by darkness—even if I’ve lost mine.

My breathing grows heavier, and I think he’s noticed as he’s glanced over a few times now. The open space tightens quickly as a wooded area unfolds over a shallow hill.

He turns down a narrow side street with old houses, broken fences, shattered cobblestone. More desolation.

Two more streets pass, just as bleak, before we turn onto a well-groomed road with larger, modern houses. Tall oaks for privacy—because we’re minutes from Auschwitz.

The car comes to a slow halt in front of a two-story house. “Wait here,” he says.