Page 50 of The Girl with a Secret
“How could they have hurt you so?” her mother exclaimed, pressing gentle kisses to his damaged face. “How could they havedone such a thing? I hope they’ve caught the monsters, I hope they’vefloggedthem?—”
“They weren’t monsters.”
It took Rosa a few seconds to realize what her father had said, in such a low, weary voice.
He closed his eyes, a heavy sigh escaping him as her mother eased back, wiping her face.
“Fritz, what do you mean?” her mother protested, her voice wobbling with uncertainty.
“Who were they?” Rosa asked quietly. “Do you know?”
His father kept his eyes closed. “My fellow internees, as well as fellow Jews.”
Fellow Jews.A cold and creeping suspicion took hold of Rosa. Had her father been attacked because his past had become known?
“I knew one of them, at least,” her father continued in the same weary voice. “Aaron Horowitz. He would have killed me if he could. The others held him back, but only because they didn’t want to hang for murder, I should think.”
Her mother let out a little whimper. “Oh,Fritz…”
Her father opened his eyes, managing a lopsided smile as he patted his wife’s hand. “It’s all right, Elsa. I’m all right—or I will be.”
“But why would they hurt you so?” Rosa’s mother exclaimed. “It’s diabolical…”
“It’s justice,” her father replied.
“Justice—”
He stared at her bleakly. “They found out about how I treated Nazis, back in Berlin.”
So, it was true. Rosa took a steadying breath as she pressed one hand to her middle. How many other people knew? Would the women in Rushen find out? What would it mean for them?
Her mother drew herself up, all indignation. “What else were you meant to do?—”
“Elsa, you know that wasn’t just it,” her father cut her off, his tone turning almost gentle. “I entertained them. I courted them, even. I accepted what power and privilege they threw my way, never caring what it looked like. What it might have cost other people.” His gaze moved to Rosa, who still stood at the end of his bed. She sensed something different and defeated in her father, as if an essential part of him were missing, and she did not know what to make of it. Was he finally showing some regret for his choices, or was it simply because he’d been attacked for them? “Youknow,” he told her, his gaze locked on hers. “Don’t you? You’re probably going to tell me that this serves me right.”
Rosa’s mother’s mouth dropped open in outrage. “What?—”
“No, Father,” Rosa said quietly, realizing that she meant it. “I’d never say that.”
His gaze, challenging yet also resigned, never left hers. “But you’dthinkit?” he pressed, and Rosa hesitated.
Would she? Could she be that callous, that cruel, especially when, just a few days ago, she’d been forced to acknowledge her own sorry part in the whole wretched affair? Was she really any better than her father? He might have made the first move, inviting those men into their home, but she’d followed his lead, even if she hadn’t wanted to.
“No,” she said at last. “I wouldn’t.”
“Well.” Her father let out a huff of breath as his eyes fluttered closed again. “Iwould.”
“Fritz…” Her mother’s distressed protest trailed away as she gazed at her husband in consternation. “You only did what you had to,” she said after a moment, her tone quiet and intense. “To protect us. We both know that, Rosa, don’t we?” She turned to give Rosa a quelling look.
“Yes,” Rosa said after a moment. “But it’s had consequences, hasn’t it?” She thought of her interrogators, back when she’d first been detained.
And yet many Jews, in fact just about all other Jews, did not use such means as away to survive.
Her father had made a choice, one that many reviled and disdained. Rosa certainly had, even as she’d been complicit, which, she supposed, made her even worse than her father. In addition to a traitor to her own people, she was a hypocrite. She certainly wasn’t about to blame her father now, not without also blaming herself.
“Yes,” her father agreed as he opened his eyes once. “Consequences. More, perhaps, than you could even realize. This changes everything.”
Rosa stared at him uneasily. “What is that supposed to mean?” she asked.
