Klara slid a cigarette out of a carton, her hands trembling as she tried to start the lighter. Finally she gave up and threw both the lighter and cigarette back on the table.
Luzi stepped toward her. “A long time ago, you said I was like a niece to you.”
Klara’s eyes filled with tears. “You have always been like a niece. Your mother like my sister.”
“Then Marta is like your niece as well, except she can’t fend for herself. We must fight for her.”
Klara’s gaze dropped to Marta, and Luzi saw the sadness in her eyes. “Your parents want her to leave?”
“My mother is too sick to care for her.”
“But your father—”
“He will be pleased to know she is safe,” Luzi said softly.
“The agents will never believe me.”
“I have a baptismal certificate.” Luzi dug into the satchel between diapers and money, a bottle of milk along with an engraved rattle from Luzi’s childhood and a book with her name inside—weak evidence, perhaps, but she hoped they might help Klara in case anyone disputed Marta’s new name.
She laid the baptismal certificate on the coffee table. The details that Max had forged were impeccable. Luzi only had to alter, very carefully, the date of January 1923 to January 1938. The guards, she prayed, would only scan it, their interest focused on the money in her bag instead of the baby.
Klara pointed at the top line of the paper. “Your name is on this.”
“The guards won’t know Luzia is not her birth name. You can tell them that she’s your granddaughter.”
“But Karl Weiss is not my son,” Klara said, pointing to the father’s name on the certificate.
“Luzia is the child of your daughter, not your son. Your daughter married a Weiss.”
“The guards will never believe me—”
“With enough money, they’ll believe almost anything.”
Klara knitted her fingers together and rocked up on her toes. “What if they won’t let me through?”
“Then you bring her back to me tomorrow and board the next train headed to Paris alone.”
Klara walked to the window and fingered the curtains. “I will consider it.”
“We don’t have long to consider, Klara.”
“Wait here,” the older woman said.
Marta began to stir, and Luzi gently brushed her hand over her curls. “I will come for you,” she whispered. “If only you will wait for me.”
She did this because Marta needed food and milk and a safe place to rest at night. She did this because she loved her baby sister more than anyone else in the world.
She did this because Hitler and his men had given her no other choice.
CHAPTER 24
Ella clings to my hand as we board the jet. Or perhaps I’m clinging to her, ready to embark on my very first flight, an entire box of Dramamine stored in my carry-on and my cell phone upgraded to an international plan so I can call my sister or Charlotte whenever I’d like.
Charlotte kissed my cheek an hour ago, after she and Brie escorted me to the security line. “Courage, dear heart,” she said, quoting Aslan, and I saw the pride in her eyes. In two weeks, they both promised to be back at the Columbus airport, waiting for me.
Ella and I loaded up on extra snacks, just in case, and after we find our seats on the plane, she gazes out the window, waiting for the other passengers to board. “Do you think we’ll be able to see the ocean?”
“I’m certain of it, and I read something about seeing icebergs near Greenland too.”
