Long Way Home(75)

“Your sister is fine, Miss Maes,” Sister Marie said before I could ask. “Please don’t concern yourself. I asked you here to let you know that she has moved out of the orphanage. She’s sixteen now and too old to remain in our care.”

“You . . . you kicked her out?” I imagined my fragile sister all alone in a world at war, and I couldn’t breathe.

“Not at all. When our wards come of age, we find jobs and safe lodging for them on the outside. That’s what we’ve done for Ruth Anne.”

“Where? What kind of job? Not in a factory—it could be bombed!”

“She has been placed with a family and lives in their home. Ruth Anne was always very gentle and caring toward the younger children when she lived here, and she was easy to place as an au pair. It’s a large family with seven children, so she will be a welcome help to the parents in return for her room and board.”

“They won’t work her like a slave, will they?”

“We screen all of our placements very carefully.”

“Do they know she’s Jewish?”

“No one knows, Miss Maes. Ruth Anne has learned to blend in as a devout Catholic girl.”

The image of Ruthie as a devout Catholic girl startled and upset me. We had both been forced to blend in for our own survival, but I wanted to picture Ruthie sitting at our family’s Passover seder, not sitting in a church. She had always been so proud, as the youngest child, to ask the traditional questions every year—“What makes this Passover night different from all other nights?” Her sweet voice should be singing “Dayenu,” not hymns.

“I need my sister’s address so I can write to her,” I said. Sister Marie sighed as she opened a drawer in her cabinet and pulled out a bundle of letters, tied with a ribbon. She set them on her desk. They were my letters, the ones I’d written to Ruthie. “You had no right!” I shouted.

Sister Marie held up her hand to silence me. “Ruth Anne read them every week, Miss Maes. I allowed her to come into my office and take as long as she liked with them. But it was too risky to let her keep them in her room. The war has produced a lot of hungry, desperate people who are willing to do anything to survive, including betraying an innocent soul.” She returned the bundle to her drawer and closed it. “And now I’m afraid your letters must stop altogether.”

“But I need to know where she is! How will I ever find her when the war ends?”

“We keep excellent records here. You can always come to us.”

I had to trust her. I had no choice. Just as I was trusting Sister Veronica to tell Sam where I was when he returned for me.

*

In June, the long-awaited Allied landing finally took place. Everyone in Belgium heard the good news in spite of the Nazis’ efforts to suppress it. Our rescue was closer than ever before, on the beaches and in the villages of France. We noticed an increase in air activity overhead, with convoys of planes flying bombing missions and the Luftwaffe fighting back with artillery and antiaircraft guns and rockets. The war was all around us, closing in on us, on land and in the air. Civilian casualties multiplied. We were all aware that any one of us could become a casualty at any time. We prayed that the Allies would liberate us with lightning speed, as swiftly as the Nazis had overrun us.

I concentrated on my work, letting it fill my days and occupy my mind. I was assigned to the women’s ward one morning when the supervisor called all of the nurses aside to introduce us to the newest member of our staff. It was Lina Renard from my nursing classes. I quickly ducked my head, remembering how she had held up my sweater with the yellow star on it, hoping Lina wouldn’t recognize me. Lina had always been different from the other girls, and there had been rumors that the reason she could still get silk stockings while the rest of us couldn’t was because her father was a Nazi sympathizer. No one knew if it was true. I felt very uneasy seeing her again, but we all welcomed her to Hospital Sint-Augustinus and continued with our work.

I was stripping one of the beds later that morning when Lina strode up to me. “I thought I recognized you. You’re Gisela Wolff. Why did the matron call you by a different name?”

“I-I go by Ella Maes now.”

“But why?”

If I had been able to think more quickly, I could have lied and said Maes was my married name and Ella was short for Gisela, but her question took me by surprise. And in that moment of hesitation, I saw her eyes widen with comprehension.

“I remember now! You’re Jewish! You had a yellow star on your sweater.” I glanced around, hoping no one had overheard her. “You used to come to school with those two other Jewish girls. What were their names? And your accent. It isn’t really Swiss, is it?”

I pulled Lina off to the side, my heart racing out of control. “If you know I’m Jewish,” I said quietly, “then you know why I moved away and changed my name. No one else here knows the truth, Lina. It would help me a lot if you didn’t tell anyone. And please, call me Ella now.” She gave me a phony smile in return. She didn’t promise to keep my secret.

Lina had never liked me. I avoided her as much as I could after that, hoping she would forget all about me. I was relieved when she was assigned to the night shift so we never worked together. I managed to push her from my mind.

*

One Friday morning in July, I arrived at work and was checking my patient’s vital signs when I noticed that her IV bottle was empty. It should have been exchanged for a new one by her last attending nurse. I checked the clipboard to see if the doctor’s orders had changed. They hadn’t. The patient’s treatment was overdue. It was a sloppy, dangerous mistake. And Lina Renard had been the attending nurse.