Page 8 of The Nanny Outside the Gates

SIX

HALINA

Frau Sch?fer only gave me a partial tour of the house before sending me up to the eves to drop my suitcase before returning downstairs. She’s left me to seek out the kitchen on my own.

Where the curled and embellished banister tapers at the bottom step, I spot a washroom to the right of the front door. I hadn’t noticed it when I first entered the house. The door is cracked open just enough to see a white porcelain pedestal sink.

Continuing away from the entryway foyer, I spot two closed doors to my left, and the now familiar family room on my right. Then there’s an arched opening to my left which offers a glimpse of their dining room, but the table is covered with stacks of paper. A multi-purpose room, I suppose.

Finally, I come to the kitchen’s arched opening on the right, a larger space than I imagined.

A cast iron stove dominates the left wall, copper pans gleaming above, hanging from a rod along white tile that matches the counters.

Beside it stands a cream-colored refrigerator on thick metal legs, its rounded edges and chrome trim glistening in the sun.

I’ve only ever used an icebox, nothing like this.

Pale green cupboards stretch floor to the ceiling, framing a window above a deep porcelain sink.

A floral valance hangs like a lavish final touch.

In the center, a rectangular table fills the space with a silent authority.

At the far end, Frau Sch?fer sits with ridged posture, writing in a journal with intense focus.

Behind her, another grand archway frames a smaller room.

Isla and Marlene sit quietly within the glow of sunshine, one with a book, the other with paper and crayons. The baby is in a wooden cradle to the side of Isla.

A woman in a blue and white striped smock steps into the kitchen from behind me and makes her way over to the stove, retrieving a soup pot from the rack above.

The clink and clatter send a jolt through my shoulders.

Then a floorboard to my far-left creaks, pulling my attention to another woman, standing as if a statue in the corner.

She’s also in a blue and white striped smock, but instead of working, she’s staring at the woman cooking.

Frau Sch?fer closes her journal and drops her pencil on the table. “Well don’t just stand there like—” she motions a gesture with her hand toward the woman in the corner. “Her.”

“Yes, Frau Sch?fer. I know the children should be engaged in reading and writing until their lunch is set on the table,” I repeat the line written in the schedule. “Come along, children. Let’s get to work.”

Frau Sch?fer raises a brow then folds her hands on top of the journal. “I have some correspondence to tend to in the other room. I trust you’re capable of taking it from here.” She stands from her seat, one hand holding the journal and pencil to her chest, the other curved below her belly.

“How far along are you?” A daring question, I’m sure.

She glares at me for a long moment, and I regret letting my thoughts slip out.

Gavriel warned me to avoid eye contact with Officer Sch?fer, but it might be best to do so with Frau Sch?fer too.

“Four months or so,” she mutters, not with the joy and glow of most mothers excited to welcome a child into the world.

“How wonderful,” I say, forcing more cheer than she.

“Yes, quite…” she says, leaving the room on that flat note.

Before engaging with the girls, I glance toward the cradle.

Flora lies awake, staring at the ceiling.

I kneel beside her and take her tiny hand in mind.

“Hello, sweet girl.” She doesn’t flinch.

Doesn’t blink. Even when I wave my hand in front of her face, her eyes don’t follow.

“You’re so quiet and content,” I murmur, stroking her smooth cheek.

For ten months old, something isn’t right. I can’t be the only one who sees it.

Yet not a word about her from Frau Sch?fer.

“Well—um—um—Mama says…” Marlene scans the kitchen then glances at Isla as if looking for permission to say whatever is caught on her tongue.

“What does she say?” I urge.

“She says that…good babies are quiet babies,” Marlene whispers. “But Flora is—is, uh?—”

“Unusual,” Isla adds. “She has a defect.”

“A defect?” I repeat.

“Her nerves don’t work right,” Isla continues. “No one knows for sure.”

If no one knows for sure, it’s quite a big assumption. There must be more of explanation, but why not inform me so I can help?

“Is that so?” I scoot to the side, finding her scribbling out a drawing.

Marlene shrugs her shoulders and crumples up the drawing.

“Why did you do that? That was a lovely drawing,” I say.

She sweeps a thin strand of baby hairs to the side of her face and looks over at her sister again. “I—I’m supposed to be doing my letters. But I already know them all.”

“If you know your letters, I’m sure it’s all right to continue your drawing,” I tell her, patting my hand on the top of her silky hair. She flinches at my touch and stares up at me as if I’ve broken a rule.

“No, no. If Papa doesn’t see my practice letters when he comes home, he’ll?—”

I stare at her little face, her eyes squinting as she searches for words.

“He’ll be disappointed?” I ask.

“No,” Isla says. “There’s no such thing as disappointment. There’s right and wrong.”

“To be fair, that’s not quite correct. You can be both right and wrong at the same time, and there’s a place in the middle for mistakes or misunderstandings.”

“Papa would disagree,” she says with a bored sigh.

Your papa is a cruel man. The words fester in my throat but stay there.

What good would a response do? These girls don’t know any different.

They’ve been raised in a world where obedience is the only option.

Though, I’ve watched the effect of enforced obedience throughout my life, and some children learn only how to rebel.

I lean back, away from the cradle, watching Isla read. Her eyes aren’t following lines though. She’s just staring at the words. “What book are you reading, Isla?” I ask.

She peers over the soft edges then stiffens before gazing up at me. “ Der Giftpilz ,” she says.

I toy with the German words in my head, trying to make sense of the title: The Poisonous Mushroom .

“What is the book about?” I ask.

Isla thumbs through a few pages to an illustration of a little boy handing an older woman something in the woods. “It’s about spotting differences between a poisonous mushroom and one safe to eat because it can be hard to tell the difference.”

“Ah, I see. That makes sense.”

“Mushrooms are like Jews and non-Jews. It’s hard to tell them apart, but?—”

“Oh goodness,” I say, interrupting her before my exasperation slips out in another way. I press my hand to my mouth, stunned by the vulgarity of it.

Nothing should surprise me after three years in an occupied country, but she’s ten. And she’s already learned to treat hatred like intellect. That book isn’t a warning, it’s a weapon.

If Julia ever caught wind of this book, she’d press it into a priest’s hands, with tears in her eyes, and ask how something so vile could exist in God’s world.

I want to scream then rip the pages out and do the same to this book as the Germans have done to the books of Jewish authors.

This should burn. Not the others. Instead, I smile and breathe through my rage before speaking.

“Isla, I think the real lesson here is that we’re all different.

That’s how God made us. You can’t always see who’s good or bad, but if you listen closely, to how someone speaks and what they say, you’ll learn far more than your eyes ever could.

Could you imagine if we were all the same?

How boring that would be?” I chuckle softly, adding a smile I hope will help her understand.

One of the women in the kitchen clears her throat, seemingly calling for my attention. The woman still standing as if she’s a guard in the corner stares back at me, shaking her head, her lips pursed and nostrils flaring.

I push myself up from the ground and make my way through the kitchen, up to the woman in what I now know to be an Auschwitz uniform. “Are you not appalled by what that child is reading?” I whisper to her in Polish, curious if she speaks the native language.

She huffs a laugh and narrows her eyes. “You’re ungrateful for your privilege,” she replies in Polish.

Privilege. I’ve never been accused of that before. Not as a baby left behind on the stone steps of a church. Not as a domestic servant. And not as a Polish woman prohibited to experience even a breath of freedom.

Then, my thoughts simmer rather quickly as I notice the embroidered Star-of-David on her armband beneath the German word, KAPO. Kapo means overseer. I glance back at the woman now dishing out food from a pan onto plates, spotting another Star-of-David badge on her chest.

Maybe she’s right. Compared to them, the hunger in their eyes, the sag in their shoulders, the dirt-covered uniforms, I should consider myself lucky.

“I have no concern with reporting you to Frau Sch?fer,” the kapo woman says, her voice rising in volume.

I don’t understand. Both women appear to be Jewish, but one is in charge of the other? I was defending Jewish people in my comment about the book being appalling, so why the angry response?

Without another word, I make my way back to the children’s sides, still baffled. No conversations between servants and prisoners , I remind myself. She might abide by the rules. Both of them, I suppose.

I must shake the thought out of my head and refocus my attention on the girls. The clock in the kitchen catches my attention. Noon is in just fifteen minutes. “Girls, your lunch should be ready soon,” I say, according to the booklet. “Why don’t you both go wash your hands.”