Page 44 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

THIRTY-SIX

HALINA

The tension between Ada and Heinrich has been palpable since he arrived home from his hours at Auschwitz, but as usual she’s ushered her husband to the dinner table, with what appears to be hope that food would resolve his irrational anger.

Despite a mouthful of food, he’s still demanding answers from Ada.

“Have you found the key to my office?” he growls.

“I already told you I hadn’t. We’ll find it, though,” she assures him.

“And your private study, did you find out why that room was unlocked as well?”

“I told you I must have forgotten to lock it the last time I walked out,” she says, trying to keep her voice calm, unafflicted by his growing rage.

“This is nonsense, Ada. You know very well those prisoners are stealing from us. Do you know what will happen if my commandant finds out that I allowed that to happen here in my own home?”

“Heinrich, you’re being irrational. You’re hungry, that’s all. No one is stealing from us, dear,” she argues as if he’s being foolish. They deserve to be stolen from. I don’t see what’s so absurd about his assumptions, but I find it interesting that she’s evading his accusations.

Heinrich scoffs and smirks then shoves himself away from the kitchen table. “Forget it.” Heinrich drops his fork to his plate, the metal pinging against the hanging light. “I’ll handle this myself, to cover for your indiscretions.”

Handle this…What does he mean?

Heinrich storms out the door, into the yard. Ada’s hand touches her lips, her eyes wide and unblinking. I can read the cues, the signs, the premonition.

There are claws around my neck, nails piercing through my skin, and fire breathing down my spine.

A gunshot.

Gavriel. He just passed through the kitchen.

My breath stops. I can’t move. I can’t even blink.

The house is trembling, the blast still shivering through the walls and my bones.

Who did Heinrich see? Who is he accusing? My mind spins like the blades of a windmill in a storm. I can’t hold onto one solid thought. Except— Please, not Gavriel . Please, not him.

I strain to listen. For anything, a voice, a cry, a call for help. But there’s nothing. Just stark silence as if the world is covered in a heavy blanket. It’s the kind of silence that follows death.

Ice veils my heart and my hands press against my chest, needing to replace the warmth inside of me.

Mere minutes pass before Heinrich returns, his face patchy with red blemishes as he grips the back edge of the kitchen table chair, yanks it out further and sits back down before dragging its legs across the floor.

Ada says nothing, she just stares down at her uneaten food.

Isla and Marlene stare at their father with question and wonder but dare not ask what just happened.

Heinrich takes another few bites of his dinner then swipes for his napkin and holds it over his mouth, staring through his wife’s head. Then he twists in his seat and looks in my direction. “Did you witness any of the prisoners in rooms they shouldn’t be in?”

I shake my head violently. “No, Herr.”

“And you? Have you been in any rooms aside from the children’s, the washroom, and the kitchen?”

Again, I shake my head. “No. I read the rules.”

“You agreed to the rules,” he corrects me. “And by the way, I received confirmation today that your birth records were in fact located. I should have them in my possession soon. Perhaps we can find out who your parents are, together.”

As if I’m not already on the verge of falling ill with their baby in my arms, Heinrich takes a shot at me, not with a bullet, but a threat that will ultimately bring me down. My religious affiliation will be on those papers if they’re complete.

“Her parents?” Ada questions Heinrich.

“She has no parents. Didn’t you know that? No confirmation on anything, really. I can’t have a stranger working with our children in our house.”

“Halina has proven to be trustworthy and good with the children,” Ada mutters. “We need the help.”

“What you mean to say is, she’s trustworthy enough for you to go on a freedom spree in the mornings to run your unnecessary errands?”

I can’t believe she just defended me to him. Why would she do that? It’s clear no one who works in this house means anything to anyone.

But the people working in this house mean something to each other…The image of Gavriel falling to the ground following the gunshot is all I can see. My heart plunges deep into the pit of my stomach. He was just right outside.

Ada clunks her glass down on the table, a hollow thud rumbles through the air.

“I can’t sit at this table with you for another moment.

” She pushes her chair back, stands and storms out of the kitchen.

The commotion sets Flora off, her cries rising despite my steady rocking.

My joints lock like rusted hinges, and worse, my stomach cramps with terror at the thought of what just took place outside.

Heinrich dabs his face with the linen napkin on his lap, then dumps it on his place. “Papa…don’t leave us too,” Marlene whines, reading his gestures like a picture in a storybook.

“I forgot something important at work. I have to go retrieve it. Finish your dinner,” he says.

When the front door slams shut following Heinrich’s exit, I move to the table and take the girls’ napkin-covered dishes to the sink.

“Why—why—uh—” I clear my throat, trying to loosen the sensation of being strangled.

“Go find something to keep you busy over there,” I say, pointing to their play nook.

“I—I need to bring your sister upstairs. I think she has a wet bottom.”

I need to see if Gavriel is all right. How will I know?

“Is Papa going to come back?”

We should all hope he doesn’t, but a child wouldn’t understand. Not his child.

“Yes, I’m sure he’ll be back. No need to worry now.”

I rush upstairs to Isla and Marlene’s bedroom, then to the window, wondering if there’s anything outside to see—a body, as I fear the most. The sun is nearly set, but I don’t see anything in the place where they line up every night. That doesn’t mean anything.

With an unsettling weight on my shoulders, I make my way across the hall into Flora’s nursery and pull the blanket from the side of Flora’s crib and flutter it out to the side so it feathers to the ground where I can set her down before preparing a fresh nappy and pajamas for her.

After sorting through her top drawer and finding her pajamas, I turn to the closet for the cloth diapers, but notice Flora is no longer on the blanket.

I gasp and drop to my knees to look beneath the beds, making no mistake that she is not on the floor of this bedroom anymore.

I run out into the hallway and spot her on hands and knees, crawling away as if she’s been crawling for months. I didn’t realize babies just figured out how to crawl and take off. I hurry after her, getting my hands on her just as she’s about to move in through the cracked opening to Ada’s bedroom.

The moment I have her in my arms, I glance through the cracked door.

And I freeze…

Ada stands before her vanity mirror, clutching a bundle of linen collected at the center of her waist. She’s pulling at it while adjusting straps beneath the back of her blouse.

My breath hitches in my throat when realization strikes…

it’s not her stomach. It’s fabric, wrapped in nylon. A false belly.

She isn’t pregnant—she’s only pretending to be.

“Ma!” Flora shrieks. I jump out of sight from the partially opened door.

“Halina?” Ada says.

My breaths stagger and catch in my throat as I stop short in the hallway and will myself to turn back around in front of her bedroom door. “Yes, Frau Sch?fer. I’m sorry to disturb you. Flora’s learned to crawl, and well?—”

“How long were you standing at my door?”

She opens the door more, and stands in front of me, her eyes wide, face pale.

I shouldn’t confess to standing there long enough to see what I did, though maybe she ought to know.

“Not long. I had just scooped Flora up to bring her back to her room.”

“You’re lying. I can read it all over your face.”

Yes. I am lying. What choice do I have?

“What would you like me to say?” I ask, keeping my tone meek to spare myself any additional grief. Not like I’m facing any positive situation coming up here, but I wasn’t looking for trouble tonight, not while wondering who was killed just outside the walls of this house a half hour ago.

“Nothing,” she says, her voice wavering.

“Ma!” Flora shouts again, reaching her arms out to Ada.

My eyes narrow and not for the reason of trying to intimidate her, but because alarms are sounding in my head the longer I look at her, then down at Flora, and back at her.

The papers I read today…the secondary infertility…

it’s real. Flora must not be hers either, just as Gavriel and I were thinking.

She has made a baby a prisoner of this house. Where is her mother?

Ada doesn’t move a muscle. It’s as if her feet are glued to the ground. My feet are becoming numb the longer I stand here waiting to see how she’s going to handle me—my awareness of her secretive life. She can get rid of me before Heinrich does. I might have just run out of my last thread of hope.

“Heinrich doesn’t know,” she says, her words quiet, but pointed.

What doesn’t Heinrich know? Which part of what lie?

Does he know Flora must not belong to them?

How can someone get away with this? More importantly, how is it that I’ve managed to mistakenly witness her adjusting a fake stuffed belly strapped to her midsection, but her husband who shares a room with her doesn’t know?

“What do you mean?” I press, afraid of what her reaction will be.

“He thinks I’m pregnant.” Her lips purse as if she’s bitten into a lemon.

“If he finds out I’m not…” Her stare widens and loses focus.

“You don’t know what he’s capable of.” Unfortunately, I do.

It’s all I can think about at the moment.

What he might have just done to Gavriel.

“I have no one left. No family to run to. No friends who are truly friends. Just him, and our daughters that he would try and take away from me.”

“Flora isn’t even a year old,” I say, my brows knitting together with accusation rather than question. “Why would he expect you to be pregnant again already?”

“He wants a son now, and has…proven to me that he will do whatever it takes to make that happen.” Her eyes well and her cheeks pucker. “I wanted him to stop. He was hurting me. I became his property, an object, no longer his wife.”

She was looking for a quick solution to protect herself, but all she’s done is corner herself where she’ll never get away.

“He wants another baby, so you’re pretending to be pregnant. How has he not noticed?”

“What is there to notice? There’s nothing real between us. He thinks I’m pregnant, and that’s all he wanted. We share a bed, but he hasn’t looked at me or touched me since I told him I conceived.”

“He will be expecting the birth of this baby in a few months. Then what?”

“You’re right,” she says in a breath. “I just don’t have the ability to fix this overnight.”

She must mean she can’t find an innocent baby to call her own in one night. That must be her solution. Nausea reels in, and a cold sweat layers across my skin as I curl Flora tighter into my chest. How could anyone do something like this? To Flora?

“Are you going to tell him what you saw?” she asks, sniffling through her words.

It wouldn’t matter if I tell him because as soon as he finds out I’m Jewish, nothing else will matter.

“I’m expected to continue living here as a slave to you, taking care of your children for free, eating slop while you feast on warmly prepared meals every night in front of me, and protect your secret from your husband?

” Your husband who just murdered another innocent person outside of his house.

Possibly…Gavriel. The thought pierces through my chest like a sharp blade.

“I don’t expect anything from you. I simply want to know what you plan to do.”

I think back on the words in my mother’s letter about the way my father treated her. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. I also wouldn’t wish my lonely childhood on anyone.

Flora.

She doesn’t deserve this orphaned life without knowing who she is or where she came from. There’s no greater cause of loneliness. No one should have to go through that.

I think fast, wondering how I can spin this to my advantage. Wondering if this is my chance to get what I so desperately need. Freedom…

“I won’t tell Heinrich your secrets, but in return you owe me.

You’re going to need to find a way to let me go.

Not just me, but the man who has been dying of starvation and exhaustion while building your attic expansion—that is, if he isn’t the one your husband just murdered outside tonight,” I say, my final words sticking like molasses to my tongue.

Another image of Gavriel being shot passes through my mind, his body falling to the ground, lifeless. Please tell me it wasn’t him.

“I don’t know who was—” she says with a break in her voice. “All right, I agree to your terms. But I need time. Nothing can change too fast. If I do anything rash, he’ll suspect something.”

“I don’t have long, Ada,” I say. It might be too late for Gavriel. Too late to learn I’ve secured something of a promise for our freedom. He may never find out. How can I live with that?