Women Of Courage: Daisies Are Forever Part 23

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 fishing." 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."

Nein, she couldn't allow Gisela to fall for him.

"I will do what I can."

Gisela and Mitch sat on the bed beside each other, the girls sleeping. Their breathing appeared to be deep and even, but she didn't dare relax. Not until they bounded from under the sheets and came to hug her legs.

"I'm scared," she whispered, not wanting to wake them, not wanting them to hear her trepidation.

"I know." Mitch's voice was as soft.

"What if I have to tell their mother . . . ?" The thought turned her stomach.

"You won't."

"How do you know?"

"They have colds. Nothing more. The trip tired them. They won't die or anything."

"And you pretend to know the mind of G.o.d?"

"No. But I trust Him."

Gisela wiped a stray hair from her eyes. "I want to believe. To trust. But what if G.o.d is punishing me for leaving Heide and Lotta?"

"Who are they?"

Though unable to put back the words that had come uncorked, Gisela slapped her hand to her mouth. Her legs trembled.

He caressed the back of her hand. "You can tell me."

"I would rather not."

"Who are they?"

Gisela stared at the worn toe of her brown oxfords. "My cousins. The ones I left in East Prussia."

"I thought you only had the one cousin-Ella."

"Before I went to live with Ella, I stayed with my aunt and two younger cousins, Heide and Lotta, in Goldap. It was supposed to be a German stronghold and Mutti and Vater thought I would be safe there." Still the screams echoed in her head. She would never be rid of those sounds.

"The Russians came last October. I ran away. Heide, Lotta, and my aunt did not." She closed her eyes, but the darkness only magnified those horrific memories.

Mitch pulled her close to himself. "Running away can be a very good thing. If I hadn't run, we wouldn't have survived the fighting in Belgium."

"In these days, how do you know what is right and what is wrong? One bad decision can affect you for the rest of your life. Might even shorten it."

"You're right."

She sat still for a while, her ear pressed against his chest and listened to his heart beating.

"Tante. Tante." Annelies stirred, and Gisela left his embrace to give the girl a drink of water.

"How are you feeling?"

Annelies shook her head. "Yucky. When is Mutti coming?"

That was a question Gisela wished she had the answer to. "Soon, very soon. After you sleep and feel better, then perhaps she will be here."

Annelies's blond eyelashes fluttered and she drifted off. Gisela stroked her glistening hair.

"Look at what your running did. You're alive. The girls are here, out of the clutches of the Russians."

"For now. What if staying here is the wrong thing to do?"

Audra gave a tap at the bedroom door before entering the sickroom. Both kinder slept, their faces pale, their cheeks rosy. Josep and Gisela sat together on the edge of the bed, his arm around her waist.

Kurt was right. If they didn't act now, Josep and Gisela might form a bond that would be difficult for him to break.

"Excuse me. How are the girls?"

Gisela nodded. "Resting well. I wish the doctor would hurry and come. Mutti left awhile ago."

"She will be here soon. Time drags when you are worried. You look exhausted. Why don't you go to my room and lie down for a while? I will let you know when the doctor arrives."

Josep released his grip. "That's a terrific idea. You go."

Gisela came to her feet. "Danke. You are a true friend."

Audra didn't relax until the door clicked shut behind Gisela. Then she slipped into the spot the other woman had vacated. "I am worried about you too."

"Danke. I am fine. That is nice of you to help Gisela."

"Renate and Annelies have become special to me. I have known them for a little while. When they came into the dress shop where I worked, they chatted away and sat so well while their mutti shopped. They loved it when I snuck them each a piece of candy."

"Gisela is good to them. You are too."

She sat in silence for a moment, deciding on what to say next. The awkward pause dragged on too long.

Josep cleared his throat. "Are you staying here? In Berlin?"

"I don't know. I would like to go to America someday. People there are rich. I could be a movie star." She sat straighter. "You could teach me English. I will never be an actress if I don't learn it."

"Not everyone in America is rich."

"You've been to America?"

He bit the inside of his cheek. "Nein. But that is what I hear."