“This is the formal sitting room. Family and guests only. There won’t be a need for you in here,” Frau Schäfer says, her final words ending in venom as she was speaking over the upstairs thudding that paused suddenly.
“We had another nanny before you,” Marlene says, her words a mere whisper. “But she didn’t listen. Isn’t that right, Mama?”
Frau Schäfer grips Marlene’s shoulder, silently telling her to be quiet.
I shouldn’t be jolted to find out this information.
She circles around the room, walking back into the hallway, toward the front door. We pass a narrow door on the left, and a muffled whimper, so faint it might have been a creaking floorboard, grasps my attention. It wasn’t the floor, I know it. I stop and tilt my ear toward the door. A scratch, or a sniffle. Then nothing.
“Come,” Frau Schäfer snaps, smoothing her hands down the side of her dress as she turns for the stairwell. “It would be wise of you to do only as you’re told. Do not take liberties. This is our home, not yours. You are merely staying here as part of your servitude.” Servitude. A servant.
“Of—of course, Frau Schäfer,” I reply, peering back once more toward the door before following them up to the next floor. “What will the pay be for this position? Your husband didn’t mention.”
Frau Schäfer rumbles a laugh, cupping her hand around her swollen abdomen. “My…husband…” she speaks slowly as if I can’t keep up, “is an SS-Sturmbannführer, a major, and the top rank in his position as the Director of Camp Labor Services.” She huffs and turns her nose up at me. “You should be honored to be working in this household, never mind worrying about being paid.”
Anger boils through me as she releases a sigh. I won’t respond. Not because I agree, but because I know some people…people with a sense of authority mistake silence for obedience. That might become useful to me here.
At the top of the stairs, there is a bedroom with two beds framing a center window and floral wallpaper. “And this is Isla and Marlene’s bedroom.” She pushes open the door across the hall next. “This is Flora’s nursery.”
Is she going to mention anything about the baby so obviously growing in her belly? Maybe she did and her words were lost among all the hammering. It’s rude to ask a woman about her assumed pregnancy but I would think she’d tell me there will soon be a fourth.
The thuds grow in volume and ricochet between the hallway walls. Only now does Frau Schäfer press her hands against her ears before releasing a hand to open a closet door at the end of the short hallway. “Your bedroom is in the attic, to the left. There is a list of house rules and household responsibilities on the writing desk. Bring your belongings upstairs, read through the list, and report back downstairs. Make it quick. This racket is giving me another headache.”
Some of the housemothers who came and left the orphanage acted similarly to Frau Schäfer. Their cold demeanors made me wonder what reason they had to be watching over abandoned or parentless children. I learned to ignore their attitude and instead focus solely on the directions they were giving. The older I grew, the more I realized the women acting out in such a cruel manner toward children were often abandoned or neglected themselves.
Thud, thud, thud, thud…Each thud grows louder and louder as I ascend the narrow stairwell, my slender frame barely fitting between the walls. At the top, I find the right-side wide open, exposed to the outdoors but framed by wooden beams crisscrossing like stitches. No walls. No roof.
The banging ceases again, and a man steps between two large beams. A hammer gripped in his bruised, scratched hand. The ashen blue and white striped uniform startles me.
Is he a prisoner? A criminal? In any case, he’s certainly responsible for all the racket. With short, shaven dark hair, red cheeks, and sweat dripping down his sun-darkened complexion, the late-morning light pins him in a spotlight. He must be melting without shade.
The young man, maybe just a couple years older than me, looks as if he’s lived an entire lifetime. And yet, he smiles. It’s bittersweet but holds charm. The expression tugs at the corners of his lips and presses up into his eyes—teardrop-shaped with swirls of various brown hues that catch in the light like gold dust. My breath sticks to my throat and something within my chest tumbles, like a collapsing house of cards. Could he be dangerous?
With a quick wave, he whispers, “Good luck,” as a scrap of newspaper drifts from his fingertips to the floor within reach. My eyes lock on it, just for a short second. My hand twitches with an urge to reach for it. A headline in bold ink peeks from the curled edge, but I’m not sure what it says. Is it something I needto know? I glance back up at the man, trying to read the answer within his mysterious eyes.
I don’t know him. I shouldn’t care. But his two simple words weren’t mocking. They were wrapped in hope. Why offer something so fragile to a stranger?
“There is to be no conversing between a servant and prisoners,” Frau Schäfer says, her monotone voice yapping up the stairwell.
A prisoner.For what?
My arms stiffen by my sides, my grip tightens against my belongings, and I shift my direction, as if physically forced, and move toward the room on the left. The man’s words weigh on my shoulders, questioning if I can hold on to them, keep them for a while.
The tarnished doorknob wobbles in my hand, sticking when turned to the right. After a few jiggles and a shove, the door creaks open, a warning as if I shouldn’t enter.
Dust rises in a cloud, catching in the light that threads between the two tree branches outside the small square window ahead.
The room is small and cramped. Yellow-striped paper lines the short walls beneath a low sloped ceiling tucked into the roofline. To the left side of the window, a rusting metal-framed bed leans against the wall. The far posts scrape the ceiling, and a rumpled cream quilt drapes the thin mattress and pillow.
To the right of the window is a small wooden desk, leaning crookedly into the corner with a backless stool tucked beneath. A tinge of mildew and sweat cloaks me like a blanket as I step inside the constricted space, and as a form of welcoming, the warped floorboards complain with an exhale.
I bow my head forward while stepping up to the side of the bed, careful to avoid a collision with the ceiling, then sweep the fallen debris, along with a layer of wiry hairs that are too shortand bristled to belong to a person, from the bed quilt’s creases. With the swift movement from my hand, another stench, something rotten, strikes my nostrils and gnaws at my stomach. Then I notice the mattress is still molded to someone else’s body shape.
Julia would have found this room appalling but wouldn’t have said so out loud. She would have clucked her tongue at the mildew and thrust open the windows. She’d spin around in search for something beautiful, even if just a patch of sunlight forming an unlikely shape on a warped piece of wood. She would tell me it’s something special, meant just for me, even in a place like this.
I didn’t hug her back.
FIVE
