“That would be wonderful,” I reply. “I really would be so grateful.”
“You want to look for this young woman right away, don’t you?” Lila asks. “As in tomorrow, if the car is running?”
“I do, yes.”
George sets down his empty port glass on the coffee table. “I’ll see about firing it up tomorrow morning.”
We wish one another a good night and a merry Christmas and then we are off to our beds.
In the morning, after George tinkers with the Studebaker, freshens the gas in its tank, and refills its tires with air, I get inside and make my way to the beckoning Golden Gate Bridge and the answers I hope to find on its other side.
25
Before...
MAY 1940
The morning the government official rang the bell at the Maiers’ townhome on Rainergasse was unseasonably chilly for spring and seemed a commentary on the uncertain times all of Vienna was living in.
The Reich had by now marched into Czechoslovakia and Poland. France and Britain had declared war on Germany, but nothing had changed. The Reich, which had taken Denmark only a month earlier, was still moving ever-steadily forward in its quest for dominance and racial purity. In the newly occupied territories, Jews were now required to wear identifying armbands. Hundreds of thousands of Polish citizens had been driven from their homes and forced into ghettos, and ethnic Germans were settled in their place. Dissenters and itinerants were likewise treated as castoffs to be disposed of. Viennese Jews who could leave had left, but those who had nowhere to go continued to suffer daily persecutions. I saw it happening every day, and I felt powerless to do anything about it.
But on this particular May morning, the streets were largelyquiet. Werner and Karl, wearing the new school uniforms that all Hitler Youth wore, had left for school. The twins and Hanna had been dropped off at their school by Martine, who was then headed to the army post to help plan a charity event with other officers’ wives. Brigitta and I had not yet left the house for Sonnenschein Grundschule, a special academy that offered adaptive classes for children with educational and physical challenges. Brigitta attended every weekday from ten until two, and I regularly took her there and picked her up again.
In the months to come, I would wonder if the government official had specifically come at a time in the morning when I would be alone with Brigitta. I would spend many endless nights wondering.
The Maiers lived in an attached townhome on a tree-lined street in the Wieden district, not far from the former imperial palace. It was narrow and four stories tall, as were all the homes on the block. A parlor, dining room, and kitchen comprised the first floor. The second floor was where Johannes and Martine and Hanna and the twins had their bedrooms. Brigitta and I had separate bedrooms on the third floor, and the two tiny fourth-floor bedrooms belonged to the boys. A small garage located in the alley behind the house was where the family’s Opel Olympia was kept. On rainy or snowy days, I used the car to take Brigitta to school.
Brigitta and I had been working on a puzzle in the parlor when the doorbell rang on that cool morning, a few minutes after nine.
A woman stood on the front stoop wrapped in a lightweight coat, with a clipboard in her hands and an official-looking badge on her lapel.
“Good morning,” the woman said in German. “I am Fraulein Platz with the children’s health department. This is the Maier residence, yes?”
“Good morning. Yes, it is.”
Fraulein Platz looked to be in her early thirties. Pretty, flaxen-haired, and with a statuesque bearing.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“I’m here to evaluate Brigitta Maier. She is on our list of children residing in this district requiring special care. I am here by law to make sure all of her needs are being met and to record statistical data.”
I instantly felt the need to be on my guard. “I’m afraid Captain and Frau Maier are not at home at the moment.”
“And who are you, please?” the woman asked.
“My name is Helen Calvert. I am an American citizen on a work visa, and the Maiers’ nanny.”
“So you look after the children when Captain and Frau Maier are not at home?”
“I do. And also when they are.”
“Then we should be able to take care of this right now. If the child is at home and you are able to speak to her care, then we can attend to this and I can be on my way. By law I must make this assessment.”
“Or you could come back this afternoon when Frau Maier is home?” I suggested, still wary.
“But I am here now,” Fraulein Platz said. “And you are here, and I assume the child is here, and since you take care of her... That is what you are for, isn’t it? To take care of this child?”
The unnerving conversation with Johannes and Martine from months ago regarding the disabled person’s quality of life pricked my memory. Perhaps the wisest thing I could do was let this woman in and let her see how well Brigitta Maier was being taken care of. That was something I could easily do for the Maiers and for Brigitta. And in doing so I would also be showing this woman my role in ensuring that all of Brigitta’s needs were being met and would continue to be met. Brigitta was not a burden to society. She was not a burden at all.
