The Orphan's Tale

by Pam Jenoff

“The Reich has ordered all officers with Jewish wives to divorce,” he explained.

Papa was proud and staunchly Dutch, with a limp from the Great War to prove it. My affair with the German was the greatest betrayal. Surely, though, he did not mean for me, his only daughter and just sixteen, to leave. But the same man who had once laced my boots and carried me on his shoulders now unrelentingly held the door open for me to walk through a final time.

If the police followed us, my footprints in the snow would easily lead them here. I hold my breath, feeling like a hunted animal as I strain to listen through the stillness for voices or other sounds. Nothing—at least for now.

The night sky is filled with stars and for a second it seems that each is for one of the infants on the train. Somewhere, if they are still alive, Theo’s parents are wondering where their child has gone, hearts crying out in anguish, just as my own does. I look at the sky and send up a silent prayer, wishing they might know their son is alive.

I think about all that she’s been through. We had both been cast out by people we loved, me by my parents, her by her husband. And we both lost our families. Perhaps we are not so very different after all.

In wartime we all have a past, don’t we, even a baby like Theo? Everyone needs to hide the truth and reinvent himself in order to survive.

But watching him, my admiration grows: he is standing up to the Germans in his own way and fighting, not simply accepting what is happening and the restrictions that have been placed on us, leading to our own inevitable demise.