The Diplomat's Wife (2 page)

“It’s okay.” He kneels beside me once more, gesturing toward the door of the cell with his head. “Doctor.” He means to bring me help. I relax slightly, still clinging to him. “It’s okay,” he repeats slowly, squeezing my hand. “You will go.” Go. My eyes start to burn. The nightmare is over. It is almost too much to believe. A single tear rolls hot down my cheek. He reaches out to brush it away.

He clears his throat, then touches his chest with his free hand. “Paul.”

Paul.
I stare up at him, repeating his name in my mind. I do not know if I can speak. But I need for him to know my name, too. I swallow, then take a deep breath. “M-Marta,” I manage to say. Then, overwhelmed by the effort and all that has happened, I collapse into darkness once more.

CHAPTER
2

“A
wake now, are we?” A woman’s voice, brisk and unfamiliar, cuts through the darkness. Have the Germans returned? I inhale sharply. Something is different. The air is no longer thick with waste, but with smells of rubbing alcohol and fresh paint. Gone are the sounds of the rats and dripping water, too. They have been replaced by gentle rustling, voices talking softly.

Snapping my eyes open, I am stunned to discover that I am no longer in my cell, but in a large room with bright yellow walls. Where am I? A woman stands by the foot of the bed. Though her face is blurry, I can see that she is wearing a white dress and cap. She comes up beside me and touches my forehead. “How are you feeling?” I swallow uncertainly. There is still pain in my side, but it is duller now, like a toothache. “My name is Dava. Do you know where you are?” She is not speaking Polish, but I understand what she is saying. Yiddish, I realize. I have not heard it since leaving the ghetto. But Yiddish is so close to German, and the woman speaks it with some sort of an accent. Perhaps this is just another Nazi trick to get me to talk. The woman, seeming to notice my distress, quickly answers her own question. “You are in a camp run by the Allies for displaced persons, just outside Salzburg.”

Camp. Salzburg. My mind races. “Nazis…?” I manage to say. My throat aches as much from saying the word as from the effort of speaking.

“Gone. Hitler killed himself and what was left of the German army surrendered. The war in Europe is over.” She sounds so sure, so unafraid. I relax slightly, letting her words sink in as she reaches above my head to a window and adjusts the curtains to block some of the sunlight that is streaming through. Don’t, I want to say. I have lived in darkness for so long. “There, that’s better.” I look up at her. Though her full figure gives her a matronly appearance, I can tell by her face that she is not more than thirty. A lock of brown hair peeks out from beneath her cap.

Dava pours water from a blue pitcher into a glass on the low table beside my bed. I start to sit up, but she presses against my shoulder with her free hand. “Wait.” She takes a pillow from the empty bed beside mine and, lifting me up slightly, places it atop the one already beneath my head. I notice then that I am wearing a hospital gown made of coarse, light-blue cotton. “Your body has been through a great deal. You need to move slowly.” I lift my head as Dava brings the glass to my lips. “Slowly,” she repeats. I take a small sip. “That’s good, Marta.” I look up, wondering how she knows my name. “It was written on your forehead when they brought you in,” she explains. Then, noticing my surprise, she adds, “The soldiers who are liberating the camps often write things, names or conditions directly on the patients. They either don’t have paper or they’re afraid the information would be lost on the way in.”

I take another sip, then lay my head down on the pillow once more. Suddenly I remember the soldier helping me drink on the prison floor. “How did I get here?”

Dava replaces the glass on the table. “The Americans found you in the Nazi prison when they liberated Dachau, just outside Munich. We’re just two hours south, not far from the German border, so many of the liberated are brought here. You’ve been unconscious since they brought you in more than a week ago. Your wound was infected and you had a very high fever. We weren’t sure if you were going to pull through. But you’re awake now, and the fever is gone.” Dava looks over her shoulder across the room, then turns back to me. “You rest for a few minutes. I’m going to let the doctor know you’re awake.”

As she walks away, I lift my head again. Although my vision is blurry, I can make out two rows of narrow, evenly spaced beds running along the walls of the long, rectangular room. Mine is in the farthest corner, pressed against a wall on one side. All of the beds seem to be filled, except the one beside me. Several women dressed in white move briskly between them.

Dava returns a few minutes later carrying a tray, an older man with thick glasses in tow. He picks up my wrist with one hand and touches my forehead. Then he lifts the blanket and reaches for the corner of my gown. Surprised, I recoil.

Dava sets down the tray on the empty bed behind her and steps forward. “He just needs to examine the wound to make sure it is healing properly.” I relax slightly and let the doctor lift my gown, trying not to feel his cold, unfamiliar hands as they press on my stomach. Then he pulls the gown back farther, revealing the wound. I am surprised to see fresh stitches along the incision line. “They had to operate again when you first arrived here,” Dava explains. “There was a piece of bullet still inside you and you had developed an infection.” I nod. In prison I often wondered why my side still ached so long after the Nazis operated on me. Now, not long after the second surgery, it already feels much better.

The doctor replaces my gown and turns to Dava, speaking to her in German too brisk and accented for me to comprehend. Then he hurries away. “He said you’re healing really well. And that you should try to eat something. Are you hungry?” Before I can answer, Dava picks up a bowl from the tray behind her. “Soup,” she announces brightly. I sit up slowly and this time she does not stop me, but brings the bowl close under my chin. A rich aroma wafts upward. Nausea rises in me and a cold sweats break out on my forehead. Noticing, Dava sets the bowl down on the table and picks up a cup and saucer from the tray. “Let’s just start with some tea.”

I swallow, my stomach calmer now. “I can hold it.”

Dava hands me the cup and I take a sip. The liquid is lukewarm and soothing to my throat. Cradling the cup in both hands, I look upward. The ceiling is high and decorated with a pattern of some sort. I squint to try to make it out.

“This used to be a formal dining room,” Dava explains. “The whole camp is housed on the grounds of Schloss Leopoldskron, which was one of the Hapsburg palaces. The Nazis confiscated it from its previous owners, and we took it from them. The palace is very beautiful, as are the grounds. I’ll give you a tour when you are well enough.”

“Thank you.” I take another sip of tea.

Dava points upward. “If you look there, you can see the Baroque influence. The detail is really quite extraordinary.”

“I can’t…” I begin, then hesitate. “That is, I can’t see it.”

“What do you mean?” Dava’s voice is heavy with concern. “Did the Nazis do something? A blow to the head, perhaps? Or did you fall?”

I shake my head. “Nothing like that,” I reply quickly, though of course they had struck me in the head many times. “It’s just that I am very nearsighted. And my glasses were confiscated when I was arrested.”

“Oh, my goodness, why didn’t you say something? We have a whole boxful of glasses in the supply room.” What happened to their former owners? I wonder. Dava continues, “As soon as you’ve finished eating, I’ll bring you a few pairs to try out. Now, let’s give the soup another go.” She takes the teacup from me and puts it back on the tray, then picks up the bowl once more. My stomach rumbles with anticipation. I swallow the first mouthful Dava spoons for me, savoring the warm, salty broth as it runs down my throat. Neither of us speak as she feeds me a second spoonful, then a third. “Let’s slow down for a minute and see how that sits,” she says.

I open my mouth to start to protest. It is the first fresh food I have tasted in months and I do not want to stop. But I know that she is right. I lean back and look around the ward. “I’ve been wondering, the rest of the room looks so crowded, but there is no one here.” I gesture to the empty bed beside my own.

“You mean, why are you being kept separate from the others?”

“Yes.”

Dava hesitates. “The others are from the camps.”

“I don’t understand. You said I was in Dachau. Wasn’t that a camp?”

“Yes, of course. But where you were kept, in the prison, you were not in the general population with the other women.” I study Dava’s face. Does she know why I was in that special prison cell? “The conditions in the general populations of the camps like Dachau were very bad,” she adds.

“Worse than where I was?” I try to imagine what could be more horrible than the beatings, starvation and isolation I endured.

“Not necessarily worse, but different. There were lots of diseases, dysentery, typhus.” Typhus. My mother died of typhus in the Kraków ghetto. I see her sore-ravaged body, hear her crying out in the delirium brought on by high fever. “We didn’t want to risk you catching something while you were weak from the surgery and infection, so we kept you as separate as we could. That’s about to change, though. We’re expecting another transport and we’ll likely have to use all of the beds then, so you’ll be getting a neighbor. But enough about that. Let’s have some more soup.”

As Dava spoons the broth for me, I look over her shoulder. Most of the other women lie still in their beds. I am suddenly aware of noises I hadn’t heard before, low moans, the whirring and beeping of medical equipment. There is another smell, too: the faint, metallic odor of blood.

I turn back to Dava, studying her face with interest. “Where are you from?”

“Russia originally, but my family moved to Vienna when I was a child. My parents died in Buchenwald.”

“You’re Jewish?” I cannot keep the surprise from my voice. With her ample figure, Dava does not look like she spent time in the camps.

She nods. “I was in the south of France studying languages when the war broke out. My family wouldn’t hear of me coming back. So I signed up as a nurse with the Allies, made my way back to Austria as soon as I was able. But my parents, our house, it was all gone.”

Mine, too, I think, my eyes burning.

“All gone,” Dava repeats a minute later. But her tone is bright and I realize as she sets the bowl back down on the tray that she is talking about the soup now. Gone. Suddenly I am back in my cell without any food, wondering when the next meal will come, whether I will eat again that day. Panic shoots through me. Dava, accustomed to dealing with survivors, seems to read my thoughts. “Don’t worry.” She pats my shoulder. “The Red Cross supplies our kitchen. There’s plenty of soup, and many other kinds of food as well. If you’re still hungry and manage to hold down what you’ve just eaten, I can bring you bread in an hour. But you have to stop eating for now. It’s for your own good.”

I lean back, relieved. “Thank you.”

“My pleasure.” Dava stands up. “Now I need to go check on some of the other patients. I want you to get some rest. You need to regain your strength.”

My eyelids suddenly seem to grow heavier. “I am a little sleepy,” I admit.

“It’s the food. You rest. Sleep is good for your healing.” Dava picks up the tray and starts to leave.

“Dava,” I call after her, struggling to sit up again.

She turns back. “Yes?”

“I have another question.” I pause, picturing the soldier hovering over me in prison. “You said that the Americans brought me in. Do you know any of their names?”

Dava’s brow furrows. “I’m afraid not. Why do you ask?”

“There was one soldier I remember helping me before I passed out. I think he was called Paul.” My heart flutters as I say his name aloud.

“What was his surname?”

I hesitate, trying to remember. There had been dark writing on the green lapel of his uniform. I close my eyes, straining without success to read it from memory. “I don’t know.”

“There are thousands of American soldiers in Europe right now, liberating the camps,” she replies gently. My heart sinks. “I’ll ask around when the transports come in from the various camps, but I wouldn’t count on too much. Now, you rest. I’ll be back when I finish my rounds.”

I sink back in bed, watching Dava as she walks away. Then I look around the ward once more. This is not a dream. I really have been saved. Exhaustion overcomes me and I lean my head back against the crisp white sheets, drifting to sleep.

Sometime later, I open my eyes. How much time has passed? The ward is nearly dark now, illuminated only by a beam of moonlight that stubbornly makes its way through the drawn curtains behind me. The room buzzes with the thick, labored breathing of sick women trying to sleep. In the distance, I hear someone crying softly.

I swallow against the dryness in my throat. Pushing myself up to a sitting position, I reach for the glass on the table beside my bed, which Dava left half full of water. I take a sip, and as I set the glass down I notice several metal objects on the far side of the nightstand that were not there before. Glasses! Curious, I reach over and pick up a pair. I put them on but the room remains blurry. They are too weak. Quickly I try the next pair, which are weaker than the first. Disappointment rises in me as I take them off. What if none work for me? The lenses in the third pair are too strong, making my temples ache when I try to focus. I look at the table once more. Only two pairs left to try. Are there more, if none of these are right? I pick up the next pair, holding my breath as I put them on. The room suddenly comes into focus. They are nearly perfect. I can see again!

I turn toward the window, my side aching from the sudden movement. Pulling back the curtains, I gasp. Majestic, snow-capped mountains line the horizon, their jagged peaks climbing to the star-filled sky. The Alps, I realize. Goose bumps form on my arms. A wide lake sits at the base of the mountains, reflecting their vistas in its glasslike surface.