She hesitated a moment, tempted to go and see if the door was unlocked. It reminded her of the little church near her uncle’s farm in Louisiana. She glanced at her watch. Not now, she thought. She’d planned an inspection of the kitchens, and she wanted to be there while the baking of the daily bread ration was in full swing.
It was a little after eight o’clock when Martha made her way to the huge concrete bunker that served as the camp’s warehouse. Her cheeks were pink from the heat in the kitchens—and her stomach a little bloated from the loaf she’d been pressed into sampling. The bakers had clearly been working flat out to produce the thirteen hundred pounds of bread needed to feed close to three thousand hungry mouths. She’d felt bad about eating any of it, knowing that a loaf would be delivered to her cabin that morning. But she sensed that to refuse would offend them.
There was a GI on duty in a stone outbuilding attached to the bunker. She recognized him as the soldier who’d been at the gate when they’d arrived at Seidenmühle. She recalled that he came from Oregon.
He smiled when she asked him if he’d had any news from home lately. “You have a good memory, ma’am.”
“Not that good,” she replied. “I’m afraid I can’t remember your name.”
“Corporal John Brody, ma’am.”
“Well, Corporal, I’d like to see inside the warehouse.”
The door was secured with the biggest padlock Martha had ever seen. Corporal Brody led her through a maze of stacked boxes.
“Everything on this side comes from the States,” he said. “You got sugar in this pile; coffee’s over there; salt, pepper, oil, and vinegar over by the wall.” He waved his hand to the left, where wooden racks were piled with potatoes, cabbages, and onions. “The stuff on that side comes from the farms around here. We got meat in the cold storage through that door. Fresh milk, too, though we’ve got plenty of cans of it if we run out.”
Martha was jotting it all down in a notebook. “What’s the meat allowance for the DPs?”
“Twelve ounces per adult per week. Six ounces for children under fourteen years old.”
“Hmm. That doesn’t sound too bad.” She added the figure to her notes. “But I’ve heard there’s an illicit trade in meat in the camp, with DPs stealing livestock from the farms.”
He nodded. “Problem is what we get is often substandard. The Germans hate that we make them give to the DPs, so they give us the lousy stuff—more bone than meat, sometimes.”
Martha recorded this comment and marked it with an asterisk. Something else that would need tackling, she thought. “What’s in these boxes?” She walked over to a stack near the door. “Oh—I can see—it says soap powder.”
“Cigarettes, actually,” the corporal replied. “We put them in those boxes to keep them from walking out of here.”
“But the place is padlocked . . .”
“Not all the time: when we get a big delivery, it’s all hands on deck—everyone but the patients in the hospital comes to help unload. You have to have eyes in the back of your head.”
Martha clicked her tongue against her teeth. “Okay, I think I’ve seen enough. Thank you, Corporal.”
When she came outside, she saw Stefan Dombrowski waiting for her. He was leaning against a car whose bodywork gleamed in the sunshine. As she drew closer, she saw that there were holes in the rear door, and tape across the window above it.
“Dzień dobry.” She hoped she’d pronounced the words properly. Kitty had written out a list of basic Polish phrases, with a phonetic version beside each one. Martha had been practicing them during her walk around the camp.
“Good morning.” Dombrowski smiled. “I have a car for you.” He held out keys on a leather fob.
“For me?” Martha’s eyes widened. “Where’d you get it?”
“It was left here by the Germans,” he replied. “Bullet holes here, see? From when they tried to get away. But I will fix that. Opel Kapit?n—good car.”
“It runs okay?”
He nodded. “Some damage to the electrics. But I can get new parts.”
“How?”
“In the forest are tanks, also left by the Germans. I will find what I need.” He opened the door. “You want to drive?”
“I . . .” Martha hesitated. It had been a long while since she’d driven a car. Arnie had sold the Model T Ford he’d owned when they met to raise the money for the deposit on their apartment in Brooklyn. Would she even remember what to do?