“It’s mail day tomorrow.”
I looked up to see Brigitte standing beside my bed, a piece of paper, envelope, and pencil in her hand.
I frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“We get to send one letter out a month.”
I pushed myself up so I was sitting, my head bent under the bunk above me.
“And the letters...are mailed?”
She shrugged, the strap of her black slip falling off her shoulder. “I do not understand. Yes?”
“And do you receive letters as well?”
“Some do. Some don’t. But it feels good, no? To write home?”
“I guess so.”
I’d written as I’d felt moved to in my journal. Memories. Dreams. Moments I’d barely been able to find words for. After seeing the bags of mail waiting to be burned behind the post office in a city outside Hamburg, I’d only bothered to write a few more during nights I couldn’t get to sleep right away. I hadn’t intended to try and send them though, assuming it would be pointless. I’d merely tucked them in envelopes and stashed them in a drawer. I wondered if Lieutenant Schmeiden had found them. I could imagine him reading them aloud to his buddies and laughing.
“They check the letters,” Brigitte said. “So be careful what you say. Anything private, keep it short and write it in urine.”
I sat up, hitting my head on the bed frame above me.
“Excuse me?” I said. “Urine?”
She handed me the paper, envelope, and pencil and sat beside me, leaning close, her skin stinking of cheap perfume and sweat.
“It is a trick some of the women that were spies use. The urine dries invisible, but if heat is held under the paper, it shows up like magic.”
“But how would anyone know to look?”
“I do not know. I have never tried it myself and have no secrets to share. But maybe you do?” She pointed to my belly.
I nodded. “Maybe.”
She left then and I looked around, seeing nearly every woman around me sprawled in some position or another on her bed, writing on her one piece of paper.
I wanted to write to William, but I only got one letter a month and I had no idea how long I’d be here. With a baby on the way in this horrible place, I knew I was in danger of losing it without proper care, my own life...or both our lives. I also knew if the letter got to William, there was nothing he could do to help me.
But perhaps my aunt and uncle could.
And so I wrote a letter so banal and boring that no guard could find fault in it, with what I hoped were some well-chosen words my uncle might pick up on. The visit with my family had been lovely, but cut short due to death. I had gone to do my civic duty working in a camp with many other women for the good of our country. The baby grows strong. I was unsure of how long my time here would run, but I hoped to travel west again soon. I missed them. I loved them. I hoped to see them soon.
I signed it with my fake German name, Lena Klein, looping the end of thenaround the bottom to circle theK. For Kate.
I stared at the letter for a long time, reading it over and over. Wondering if they’d pick up on my clues: I was working in a camp with many women. Would they know there were different kinds of camps? Hopefully this would lead them to look for one exclusively for women.
I hoped to travel west again soon. Meaning I’d gone east.
I was pregnant. That, if anything, would hopefully prompt some sort of action.
But was it enough?
I looked to Brigitte’s empty bed and wondered if the urine tip was true. Why would she say it if it wasn’t? But what would happen if one of the guards knew this trick and saw what was written? Would they merely toss it? Or would they punish us all in retaliation?
