Part 23 (1/2)
Gisela bowed over Renate, her brown hair falling about the child. She kissed the little girl on the forehead. ”We have to fetch the doctor.”
Frau Cramer nodded. ”Dr. Liebenstraum will come.”
Gisela stared at her mum, eyes wide. ”Dr. Liebenstraum is eighty years old-at least.”
”Many of the other doctors are off fighting or are so busy with the casualties, they cannot take care of the kinder. He will know what to do. He took care of you.”
”And Margot. Even then he was old.”
”He was around before this medicine that we cannot get now. He knows how to deal with having very little. I trust he will take care of them. They only have colds. It's not like with your sister.”
Gisela ma.s.saged her hands together. ”We don't know that. Maybe we should take them to the hospital.”
”Is that necessary? If your mum thinks they have colds, there is nothing to worry about.”
Frau Cramer shook her head. ”Many of the hospitals have been bombed. Every available bed is taken with the injured. Unless you are missing an arm or a leg or have a hole in your body, they will tell you to go home.” Gisela's mum wrapped her in a hug. ”Trust me. Ella's girls will get the best care available from Dr. Liebenstraum.”
Gisela looked at him, her mouth pinched.
”I don't know much about sick children, but your mum is far more experienced than either of us. Take her advice.” He held her hand.
”We have no idea what is even wrong with them. And how contagious it might be.”
Mitch hadn't thought about the possibility that others might become ill as well. ”First things first, then. We will get the doctor and see what his diagnosis is. Tell me where he lives.”
Frau Cramer shook her head. ”Gisela told me who you are. To me, you sound very British. Stay here with her. Keep her calm. I will fetch Dr. Liebenstraum.” She stepped from the room and latched the door behind her.
Gisela nodded. ”Let me get some cool cloths. I'll wake Kurt and Audra. They can ask the neighbors if they might allow the sisters to stay with them for a few days. If it is contagious, we should keep them from being exposed.”
Did every woman have this innate maternal sense, always knowing when to send for the doctor and how to care for an ill child?
Gisela laid Annelies beside her sister and pulled the blanket to her chin. ”I should have never let them anywhere near those sick children. And we were in such cramped quarters. If I had thought, if I had thought at all, I would have moved to a different part of the train. But I didn't, and now they are sick. Ella trusted me to keep her children safe, and this is what happened.”
He caught her upper arm. ”Children get sick. They get colds. You can't blame yourself. Much as you want to, you can never keep children from every illness. There may have been even sicker children elsewhere. And you don't know for sure they caught this from those kids.”
Tears shone in Gisela's eyes. ”If anything happens to them . . .”
He pulled her close to himself, whispering into her hair. ”Your mum said this isn't like what your sister had. We'll pray and trust the Lord to watch over them.”
She buried her head in his chest and clung to him. ”Everything I do, I mess up.”
”That isn't true. You got them here. So far, you kept them safe. And it's not your fault they got sick. You could no more stop that than you could stop the rain.”
She melted against his chest, and he never wanted to let go. ”Thank you.”
”I haven't done anything.”
”You have just by being here.”
Her heart beat in tempo with his. ”There's nowhere else I would be.”
”So you will stay with me?”
Audra stood at the Cramers' tiny kitchen window overlooking the destruction of this once-great city. Much of it had been reduced to rubble. The fronts of many buildings had been sheared away. Entire blocks were flattened. Smoke rose from several spots along the horizon, places where the Allies had recently unloaded their deadly payloads. If the bombings continued much longer, there would be nothing left.
”What is so interesting out there?” Kurt's voice at her elbow startled her.
”What little is left of this city. I had always heard about how grand Berlin was. What a proud metropolis. There is nothing proud remaining.”
”I wonder if it will ever be the same. I have been here several times, but I recognize nothing.”
Audra turned from the window. She had not noticed the fine lines marring Kurt's almost-too-perfect face.
”I heard the most interesting conversation yesterday.”
He had her attention. ”Ja?”
”It's as I suspected. There is no German in Josep at all. He was a British POW. The marriage is fake, thought up by Gisela on the spur of the moment to protect him.”
Audra's mind whirled. ”Are you sure about this?”
”I heard Gisela tell her mutti when I came up to use the washroom. There is no doubt. And she's at least part American.”
”American? She could help me get to Hollywood.”
”But not if she truly comes to love Josep. Then she will go to England with him. And your chance at being the next Marlene Dietrich will be lost.”
”You're sure about this?”
”I am. I didn't hear the entire conversation. The floor creaked and I was afraid they would find me eavesdropping. But I know what I did hear.”
”So, what does that mean?”
Kurt didn't try to hide his enthusiasm. ”Gisela can be mine.”
”You like her?” She didn't really have to ask the question.
”I need your help. They have been spending time together, pretending to be married. I am afraid their feelings for each other will become real.”
”How am I supposed to help?” The situation could turn out well for her.
”I will work on wooing Gisela.” His blue eyes had become hard. ”You pretend to like Josep. Don't let on that we know about them. Do whatever you can think of to plant that seed of doubt in Gisela's mind about him. If she doesn't spend time around him, it will be easier for me to lure her.”
”You sound like you are fis.h.i.+ng.” He didn't come across very much like a man in love. And if he caught Gisela, she would remain in Germany.
The small clock ticked on the faded yellow kitchen wall.
”Josep and Gisela are in with the kinder now. Frau Cramer has gone for the doctor.”
Kurt's jaw clenched. ”This is just the crisis that might bring the two of them closer. We can't allow that to happen.”