The German Wife(81)

Should I call an ambulance? A doctor? Should I try to resuscitate her? I didn’t even know how to start, and besides...somewhere deep inside, I knew it was too late. Shaking her body only reminded me how frail she had become in recent times.

I brushed the wispy hair around her face back into place. I touched my shaking fingers to her cheeks and I let my tears rain down over her, anointing her body with my grief and love.

“Sofie?” Dietger was at the door, hovering and uncertain. “Is there someone I can call? Maybe Jürgen? Lydia?”

It took me a few seconds to compose myself enough to speak.

“Did they tell you what happened?”

“They said she’d already collapsed by the time they got inside.”

“And was her alleged crime punishable by death?” I said, unable to keep the bitterness from my voice.

“She was suspected of disloyalty to the Reich,” Dietger said, his expression hardening. “She would have been taken to a camp anyway.” He took a step back from the door, shaking his head sadly, then said, so quietly I had to strain to hear the words, “Perhaps this is a blessing.” His footsteps retreated.

I looked from Adele’s face, relaxed and peaceful in death, to her bed, and the photo of Alfred and her sons that she kept beside it. I started to cry again. I couldn’t stay with her body and leave my children alone in the house, but I couldn’t bear to leave it.

“Mrs. von Meyer Rhodes?” Two of Adele’s tenants were in the doorway. The quiet Bavarian couple who lived in that tiny front room in the front of the ground floor. They kept to themselves mostly, and in the shock of the moment, I couldn’t even remember their names. The man walked into the room and extended a hand toward me. I let him help me to my feet.

“Let us take care of her for you tonight,” his wife said gently from the doorway. “In the morning, we will call the mortuary.”

“She was always so good to us,” the husband said gruffly. “When I lost my job, she let us stay anyway, even though it took me months to find work again. It will be an honor for us to sit with her. We will pray over her soul and keep her company until the undertaker comes in the morning.”

When I nodded, the man crouched beside Adele’s body and whispered, “Let’s get you up on the bed, Mrs. Rheinberg.”

He cradled her gently in his arms as if she were a child. Then he stretched her out on her bed and even pulled the blanket over her, right up to her chin. I started to cry again at the kindness of his gesture.

People could still be good.

I told the couple I needed to wash my face before I went home and saw my children. I let myself into Adele’s bathroom and closed the door before I turned on the light—just in case Mayim was still there. I was relieved to find she wasn’t—although I had no idea if she was hiding elsewhere. It was too risky to search for her. All I could do was pray.

There was no answer the first time I called Jürgen’s lodgings. The second time, he answered on the third ring, sounding dazed and sleepy. Without preamble, I told him that Adele had passed. I didn’t mention the Gestapo or the circumstances of her death. At first, he didn’t even react.

“Jürgen, did you hear me?”

“Did she die at home?” he asked stiffly. I was trying to be brave—for him, for Adele, for the children—but that question broke me. In a strange way, Adele had gone to meet her maker on her own terms.

“She did,” I said, and then I choked on a sob. “She died at home.”

There was another long silence over the phone. Then Jürgen said, “I’m coming home. Right away.”

“Will you be allowed to?” I whispered, a sharp edge of bitterness in my voice.

“She was a mother to me,” Jürgen said, his voice breaking midsentence. “Of course I’ll be allowed to.”

He hung up quickly after that. I’d never seen my husband cry, but I understood that he needed to, and I understood his need for privacy.

I was on the sofa later that afternoon, wrapped in Mayim’s knit blanket, waiting impatiently for Jürgen to arrive. I had a crumpled, tearstained letter in my hand. I’d fished it out of Adele’s sweets jar early that morning before the children woke.

Dearest Jürgen and Sofie,
Jürgen, you were a gift from God to me during the worst period of my life, living proof that no matter how dark the night, the dawn will always come. Raising you and being a part of your life was one of the great privileges of mine. And, Sofie, I have treasured your friendship in these past few years. Do not underestimate yourself. You are stronger than you know.
My loves, these monsters who rule our country are taking us all to uncharted territory, and if you’re reading this, it seems I have run out of days to be by your side supporting you through it. Be courageous, but also be smart.
I am grateful for every single minute I spent with you. Please tell the children their Oma adored them.
Love always,
Aunt Adele
Ultimately, we would have to burn it. But until Jürgen had a chance to read it, I could cling to it, as much a comfort object as Mayim’s blanket had become.

It had been an impossibly hard day. I’d broken the news to the children on my own, consoled them on my own. I’d tried to convince Georg to stay home, but he was adamant he needed to go to school, and although his eyes were red rimmed as he walked out the door, he hadn’t shed a tear. Even after he left, Gisela and Laura were both so demanding—I felt I’d been attending to their needs every minute of the day.