“Let me see what I can accomplish,” Ethel offered.
“Maybe you can tap your network for temporary homes locally for the rest of the children.”
Ethel gave Sister Ursula a pat on the shoulder and said, “I’ll do my best.”
“You always do.”
CHAPTER 32Auerbach, Germany, January 1951
OZZIE
In the three weeks Ozzie worked in Auerbach at Camp Casanova, he tried his best to be a solid leader to his men, but it had been hard to bolster morale when he himself felt demoralized. He was no closer to landing a job in Intelligence than he had been on that hot day in May at his neighborhood block party in South Philly. Ozzie had assumed that with the title of corporal would come a bump in status, but he found himself side by side with his men, working in the trenches. Camp Casanova had been a prisoner-of-war camp, and their job was to pick the grounds and the adjacent two-story building clean. The rumor was that they were preparing it to be a headquarters for the relatively new CIA. Ozzie shoveled shit both human and God knew what else, cleared rubble, took waste to a nearby incinerator, and burned what they couldn’t repurpose. They smoothed out ditches, repaired the roof, and painted the two-story building.
Every night Ozzie slept in a room that smelled like a bag of jockstraps, on a cot as flimsy as construction paper. He had to hold his nose when he used the latrine, and the water in the communal showers dawdled out in dribbles. And it was freezing. Mannheim had beencold, but Auerbach was downright arctic, and the lack of electricity only added insult to injury. What had worried him most was that Ozzie had not received word from Jelka.
It was bad enough that he had left them behind without a word, but worse, he didn’t know Jelka’s physical address. Ozzie had always been excellent with directions and had a photographic memory when it came to landmarks. From the moment Jelka’s sister had led him to their home on the day Katja was born, he knew his way from the barracks. But without her address, he couldn’t reach Jelka, and her family didn’t have a telephone.
Ozzie had sent two letters to Morgan, asking him to find Jelka. He had even drawn a map from the barracks to her house, but he had not heard from Morgan either. What he did hear playing like a record on repeat wasWith Gottfried returning, what kind of life do you think she will have here…? He is a violent man.Not being there to protect his daughter unnerved Ozzie from his teeth to his toes.
CHAPTER 33Mannheim, Germany, June 1952
ETHEL
With the help of her translator, Vera, Ethel had secured an appointment inFamiliengericht, family court, for six German mothers who were petitioning adoption by proxy for their half-Negro children. For the hearing, Ethel had dressed in her gray sheath dress with peep-toe heels, and a loose string of pearls dangled from her neck. It was a look that she hoped conveyed she meant business.
While the mothers stood around in the hallway, waiting to be called into the courtroom, they drank the complimentary coffee and bonded. Through Vera’s quick translation, Ethel was able to follow along.
“I make only thirty marks per month,” said the blonde called Frieda, and Ethel knew that only amounted to about six dollars and fifty cents. “I wanted to keep my child with me, but I cannot let him starve. I want him to have a good life.”
Frieda had long fingers like a piano player, and she clutched her coffee cup with both hands and gulped it down so quickly, Ethel didn’t see how she hadn’t burnt her tongue. “My friends stopped speaking to me on the street. Behind my back, they called my daughter a freak.” She spoke with her gaze on the floor. “I ran away to Frankfurt, whereI thought I could keep her with me, but after sleeping in the train station for a week, with no job, no food, no water, nothing to clean her with, I knew I could not do it.” Tears sprang to her eyes.
“If I kept him, no German man would marry me. I would live a life in isolation. Alone,” said Heidi. Her nails were bitten down to nubs.
Ethel’s eyes fell upon a woman who called herself Jelka and held an unlit cigarette between her shaking fingers. The other mothers all looked at Jelka too, coaxing her with their silence to tell her story.
“I traveled to the place where I was told that her father was stationed in Auerbach, only to find that he was gone. I can’t wait much longer. My husband said if I don’t get rid of her, he will drown her in the river,” she choked out.
Her tears seemed to set off a chain effect; two other women’s shoulders shook with grief. Vera spoke softly to the women and then motioned to Ethel that it was time for them to enter the courtroom. Inside, the mothers sat together on one wooden pew, an unspoken camaraderie between them. One by one, each went before the judge. Ethel had instructed them to bring the official records that proved their nationality so the children’s passports could be issued and the paperwork for the adoptions could move forward.
It was Jelka’s turn, and she stood before the judge, hunched over.
“What is he saying?” Ethel asked Vera.
“Once she signs the papers and he seals them, she can never again lay claim to her daughter. He is making sure that she understands she is giving up all rights.”
When Jelka was finished, she collapsed in the pew next to Ethel and silently sobbed. “I feel sick. But what other choice do I have?”
Ethel’s heart ached over the costly decisions that these young German mothers had to make. She put her arm around the young woman and let her quiet tears soak the top of her sheath dress. Once the proceedings had concluded, the mothers were led into a small assembly room with stuffed leather chairs and a long wooden table thatsmelled of lemon polish. There was one window that overlooked the street, and Ethel could see that snowflakes had begun to flurry. Now the women had to prepare for the most painful part of the day.
The judge, a middle-aged man, deemed that once the paperwork was completed, the mother and child had to be separated swiftly. The courts believed that it was in the best interest of the children to break their attachment and get on with things, as if it were as easy as cutting the umbilical cord. Although the mothers had surrendered their children to the orphanage weeks ago, Ethel sat with them as they waited for the children to appear for a final goodbye.
The door opened and a curly-headed four-year-old boy bounded into the room. He was followed by a ruddy-faced girl who toddled into Jelka’s arms. Ethel watched as some mothers tried to keep a brave face, while the others blubbered until their cheeks were damp and red, which caused the children to start crying too.
The officer in charge stood in the corner, and after several minutes passed, he held up his hand, signaling that it was time to go. Despite Sister Ursula’s written plea to place the children with local families until it was time to fly to America, the children would be taken on a bus to theWisenheim,where they would live for the next ten days as their “period of adjustment.”
Ethel lifted her chin, trying to look impassive as Jelka’s child howled, and then all the children started clinging to their mothers like life rafts. While the young mothers tried comforting them, they now needed succor themselves. As Ethel rubbed Jelka’s back, Jelka whispered something into her daughter’s little ear.
“She’ll be fine,” Ethel said to Jelka. “I have the perfect home all picked out for her. Don’t worry. She’ll have a charmed life.”
