Mindel was pondering whether she should stay or not, but in the end, curiosity won out.
“You endangered every one of us with your behavior,” Mother Brinkmann scolded Laszlo. “We live in slightly better conditions than in the other barracks, because the SS mostly ignores us. But when they find out that my children are stealing food from the kitchen, they might as well close these barracks. Do you really want to return to having roll calls, and fending for yourself?” Her piercing stare made Mindel shiver. “What you did, Laszlo, was stupid and dangerous.”
“No, what these monsters are doing is stupid. They have no right to starve us to death and I won’t let that happen to me!”
“Laszlo!”
“No!” he was shouting angrily. “You can’t tell me what to do. You’re just another helpless Jew. The only ones who can make me do anything are the bloody SS and even them I defy! Because I’m no coward like the rest of you.”
“I understand you’re upset but you need to listen to my words. No more stealing.” Mother Brinkmann was keeping surprisingly calm in the face of Laszlo’s anger.
“I’m good at it.”
“And it’s going to get you killed,” Mother Brinkmann warned him.
Laszlo defiantly stared at her. “That’s going to happen anyway. What do I care if I die today or a month from now? Nobody will shed a tear for me and the other children can eat my share of the food.”
Mindel’s ears were ringing with shock. He couldn’t be serious about not caring to die. Secretly wiping the tears from her eyes, she snuck out of the barracks, kicking a few pebbles around.
“What are we going to do without Laszlo?” she asked her doll, but not even Paula had words of solace for her.
At night, when she crawled into the bunk beside Laszlo, she plucked up the courage to ask him, “Do you really want to die?”
“Why not? Let’s face it, none of us will survive this camp.”
“I don’t want you to die. I love you and I would shed many tears when you’re gone.”
He rolled around with a pained groan and hugged her with one arm. “I’m going to find a way for the two of us to get out of here. Promise.”
“I don’t want to leave the orphans’ barracks. No one tries to steal my food or our blankets, and it smells a lot better.”
“When we’re in Switzerland we’ll have more food than we can eat and fluffy eiderdowns.”
She sighed. So, he’d not given up on his plan to go to Switzerland. To her it seemed daunting – too daunting. It certainly was better to stay here than to escape to someplace neither of them even knew where it was. She liked Mother Brinkmann and being around the other children. Most of all, she liked the nighttime stories about Fluff.
Fluff had become a dear friend like Paula and every day she looked forward to another of his daring adventures. This night’s story had been about him going swimming with a duck. She still smiled at how he’d been afraid of the water at first but with the duck’s encouragement frolicked in the lake for hours. Something she wished she could do as well…
18
“Anne? Rachel, where are you?” Margot called out as she entered the barracks.
The two girls were sitting on the bunk, the threadbare blanket slung around their shoulders, knitting gloves with threads taken from said blanket.
“What’s up?” Rachel asked.
Margot handed her a dirty slip of paper. “Look!”
Rachel Epstein. Your sister Mindel is at the orphans’ barracks. Hanneli Goslar.
Rachel read the curly handwriting and gasped, “Oh my God! Mindel is alive!” She handed the paper to Anne, to read the good news for herself.
“This…is this true?” Anne’s hand trembled and she’d become even paler than usual.
“What’s wrong?” Margot asked. “Isn’t that good news?”
Anne shook her head. “It’s signed Hanneli Goslar. Hanneli! Don’t you remember my classmate Hanneli?”
Margot reached for the note in her sister’s hands. “I’m sure there are a thousand girls with that same name.”
Rachel looked from one girl to the other, not knowing how to feel. Joy over the possible reunion with their long-lost friend, or sadness that their friend was in this hellish place, too.
“Look at the handwriting. I’m sure it’s her,” Anne insisted. “Where is this orphans’ barracks?”
“In the Star Camp, on the other side of the fence,” Rachel explained.
“I must go and see her.”
“There’s no way to cross over. It’s on the other side of the barbed wire fence in the south corner of our compound.”
Anne shook her head. “The note got here, so we can get a note back. How do we do it?”
“There’s a nurse working in the infirmary over there, but living here. She might be able to help. Although…” Rachel shrugged.
“What?” Margot and Anne said in unison.
“She requires payment.”
Anne frowned, but then held up the glove she was knitting. “A half-finished glove maybe?”
Rachel laughed. “That’s too much, but we could bribe her with a bunch of threads.”
Anne immediately made to unravel threads from the blanket until she held about a dozen in her hand. “Let’s go!”
“No, we have to wait until after dinner. She’ll be working right now,” Rachel said.
Anne pouted, before she agreed. “You’re probably right. And we need a plan.”
For the next hours they tossed ideas at each other on how to best contact Hanneli. They finally settled for a note indicating they’d wait for her each night from after dinner until curfew at the far end of the fence separating the two compounds. There was exactly one spot where waiting people could linger without being seen from the watchtowers.
“I’ll stay here and cover for you, if you ask this Hanneli about Mindel,” Rachel said as the time came for them to leave.
“Thank you, and we will certainly ask about your sister,” Anne said.
The following days passed excruciatingly
