I sprinted for the front door, grabbed my purse to lock the house, and then began to run the six blocks to Brigitta’s school.
I had been a fool, and so full of self-importance that I put the child I loved in danger. I couldn’t think about what I’d do if Martine told me she didn’t want me anywhere near Brigitta anymore. The only thing that mattered was getting Brigitta and bringing her home. My lungs began to burn after the first three blocks, and I had to stop a moment at a lamppost and catch my breath before taking off again.
Perhaps Martine would be so desperate to get Brigitta to her parents that she would have no choice but to entrust her to me again, and this time I would make good on my promise. I would protect that little girl with my life. And I would keep my mouth shut.
By the time I reached the school, breathless and gasping,Martine had been inside for several minutes. The second I threw open the door, I heard a high keening sound, the wail of a woman in agony. Beyond the reception area was Martine, crumpled onto her knees in front of the administrator’s office. The administrator, a silver-haired woman in her early sixties named Emilie Pichler, was bending over Martine, speaking softly to her. The receptionist was standing at her desk, a handkerchief to her eyes. Several students had come out from their classrooms and were peeking from around a corner even as their teachers were trying to herd them back.
As I approached, Martine turned to me.
“She’s gone!” Martine yelled. “They took Brigitta. They already took her!”
I felt my legs go weak, and I wobbled backward against the wall behind me. For a moment I thought I might faint.
“That’s impossible,” I said, my words little more than whispers. I turned to Frau Pichler. “You would have called the house.”
“We were instructed not to,” Emilie said, her voice hoarse with restrained emotion. “They said they would be contacting the families. Not us.”
Martine gazed up at me. “You stupid, stupid woman!” she shouted, and then took up her weeping again.
I wanted to put my hands over my ears to block out the sound of those agonizing cries and the words that I knew now were true. I had been stupid. But I would be stupid no longer. We would get Brigitta back. I would not rest until we had.
“Who came for her, Frau Pichler? I need to know who came for her. Tell me who it was. Where’s the paperwork? Who signed her out?”
Emilie Pichler stared at me a moment. “No one here signed her out,” she said, indignant. “They had official papers for seven of the students. Seven! They took them because they could,Fraulein Calvert. They came with armed police and we could do nothing.”
“Where did they take her? Where did they go?” I said, undeterred.
The administrator exhaled heavily. “Am Steinhof.”
“What is that? I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a... a special hospital in Penzing,” Emilie said, as if choosing her words carefully while looking down at Martine.
I bent down. “Let’s go,” I said to Martine. “Let’s go and get her.”
“I don’t think it’s going to be that easy,” Emilie said.
I snapped my head up to look at the woman. “I don’t care how hard it is!” I turned and said the same thing to Martine. But Martine was now slumped against the receptionist’s desk, her tearstained face blank. It was as if she had entered another room and shut the door behind her.
“Martine?”
She did not respond.
I stood. “Let me call one of her friends to come get her, and then I’ll go get Brigitta myself.”
“Fraulein Calvert,” Emilie said wearily. “I know how fond you are of this family and especially of Brigitta, but I think perhaps this is a matter that Captain and Frau Maier will need to address.”
“Captain Maier is in Poland until next week. Do you really think he would want us to do nothing while we wait for him to come home?” I said as politely as I could. I liked Emilie Pichler, but waiting was the worst possible next course of action.
Emilie sighed and then nodded. The receptionist turned the telephone on her desk toward me.
Minutes later, after having arranged for one of Martine’s friends to come for her, I was taking the car keys out of Martine’s skirt pocket and rushing out the door.
•••
Vienna was a sprawling, beautiful city laid out in twenty-three numbered districts; Penzing was the fourteenth, and nine kilometers away from the Maiers’ home in the Wieden district. In the eight years Vienna had been my home, I’d had little occasion to travel to the outer districts. As I made my way northwest, I couldn’t remember the last time I’d been in this direction. The Maiers liked the city—and spent most of their leisure time in theinnere Stadt—the city center.
As I maneuvered my way out of the busier part of the city, I practiced in my mind what I was going to say when I arrived at Am Steinhof. I would calmly but authoritatively ask to see who’d been in charge of transporting the schoolchildren from Wieden that morning, as there had been a mistake. Brigitta Maier was the daughter of a captain in the führer’s Wehrmacht, a brave soldier who was at that very moment serving his country. That was the mistake.
