Decker closed the door to his office and handed his wife a Styrofoam cup of coffee. “No Eve Miller popped out of the Missing Persons Network computer,” he said.
“That would have been too easy.” Rina took a sip of coffee. It had been three days since Peter interviewed Eve. “It took you all this time to find that out?”
“I was working on the problem from several other angles. Because once I get started, I find it hard to stop.” Decker sat down in his desk chair. “During the questioning, she kept talking about how ‘the will to survive is great’ and about ‘the need to be prepared.’ Something like that. You remember her saying those words?”
Rina frowned. “Vaguely.”
Decker smiled. “See, that’s why I take notes. If I had to trust my memory, more felons would be walking the streets. Anyway, her language set off warning bells. She was acting as if she were running from something. So I began to punch the permutations on the name Eve Miller into some of the crime databases. I’d start with Eve Miller, then Eva Miller, then Ava Miller, and so on.”
Rina’s stomach lurched. “Is she wanted for something?”
Decker took in a breath and let it out. “Eve Miller isn’t a wanted woman, but Ava Mueller is.”
“Ava Mueller.” Rina bit her lip. “She’s German?”
“Yes, Ava Mueller is German, and not a nice one. During World War Two, Ava Mueller was a Gestapo guard at the Ravensbrueck labor camp. I took the liberty of calling up the Holocaust Center to find out about the camp’s history. It was basically divided into two sections-subversive women detained by the state and Jewish women in captivity. There was a universe of difference between the two camps-their living quarters, their clothes, the treatment, the food. Namely, the non-Jewish contingency had edible food, whereas the Jewish unit survived on turnip soup and moldy bread. Ava worked as a guard in the Jewish bunkers. Afterward, she was wanted for Nazi war crimes because she was considered to be personally responsible for the deaths of over three hundred women.”
“Oh my God!” Rina blurted out. “Do I even want to hear the rest?” Though sickened, she knew she had to listen. “Go on.”
Decker heaved a sigh. “I asked the center if it had any postwar records on Ava Mueller. One of the librarians told me that Ava had somehow made it into the States using false papers, and had disappeared. This was about 1949.”
He finished his coffee and continued, “Thirty-five years later-in 1984-one of Simon Wiesenthal’s Nazi hunters in New York got a tip on Mueller’s whereabouts. She was now a doting grandmother, living a quiet life as a Mennonite in Indiana. Makes sense. The vast majority of Mennonites are either German or of German heritage. Many of them speak Palatine Dutch, a German dialect. And religious sects are very forgiving. They also tend to be isolated, generally don’t mix much with the secular world. What better place to hide?”
“I’m sorry, Peter, but I don’t see the Mennonites randomly welcoming in a former Nazi.”
“I’m sure Ava Mueller didn’t tell them about her past. Or maybe she had some Mennonite relatives. Lots of people, present company included, have a skeletal relative or two in the closet. For me, it’s Great-uncle Ray, the Alabama Klansman.”
Rina smiled. “And I have Great-aunt Bessie the Stalinist. Even on her deathbed, she insisted that Josef meant well. He was just misguided.”
Decker let out a laugh, then the room fell silent. Rina tried to break it but couldn’t find the words. Finally, she said, “What happened after Ava Mueller was discovered?”
“She, her husband, and her family left the conclave and were lost again.” Decker shrugged. “Maybe this time they ventured into the city. If so, Ava’s granddaughter, Eve, or whatever her name really is, would have been about five or six. If the family had chosen to settle in a more urban neighborhood, then Eve would have gone to a more urban school and learned things like how to operate a computer or how to drive. That scenario would explain why Eve knows the Bible so well-her early upbringing-and why she also has some contemporary skills.”
“This is all just speculation.”
“Of course.” Decker tried to be gentle. “But it does help explain some things.” He formulated his thoughts. “Suppose, as a girl, Eve didn’t know about her grandmother’s dark history.”
Rina nodded.
“Then let’s suppose that around six months ago, as an adult, she discovered her grandmother’s evil past and was horrified by it. Suppose she confronted her grandmother and demanded answers. You’ve implied that Eve is a deep thinker and doesn’t accept explanations by rote.”
“Yes, that’s correct,” Rina said.
“What if her grandmother tried to rationalize her behavior, tried to make Eve understand Ava Mueller’s state of mind. Maybe she spoke about how the will to survive is great and how you had to be prepared. Maybe Grandma gave her details on how she disappeared and reinvented herself. To me, that would be logical. Because I never bought the story of Eve going to a bookstore and carving out a new identity by reading texts. It just sounds too rehearsed, too… TV.”
“ ‘The will to survive’… ‘be prepared’…” Rina thought for a moment. “Eve was subconsciously parroting her grandmother’s words.”
“Not only parroting her words-reliving her story.”
“But Peter, if Eve was horrified by her grandmother, why would she take on her name and story?”
“Because this time, Eve decided to reinvent Grandma as a good person, a kindly person who not only likes Jews but wants to learn more about them. It’s no accident that she showed up at your class, Rina. And it’s no accident that she chose to confide in you.”
Rina felt weak. “How do we break it to her?”
Decker shook his head. “We don’t. Even if it’s true, neither one of us is equipped to deal with it. Eve needs to find a psychiatrist who’s familiar with these kinds of traumas. Then we tell the psychiatrist what we found out, and leave it up to his or her professional judgment.” He grinned at her. “Which was what I suggested in the first place.”
“I know, I know.” Rina managed a tepid smile. “Thanks for helping.”
“Are you okay? You don’t look well.”
“I don’t feel well. I know you told me this could happen. I was forewarned.” She sighed. “Unfortunately, I wasn’t forearmed.”
Eve had eagerly agreed to an initial round of therapy-six sessions, one per week. During the first session, the psychiatrist started the slow process with an intake and history, leaving Eve unsatisfied. She needed her identity now! She needed hypnosis! But the doctor refused to rush the therapy.
So she dropped him and went to someone else-not a psychiatrist this time, but a hypnotherapist. As far as Rina was concerned, he was not qualified to handle Eve’s delicate situation, and she wanted no part of it. But Eve begged her to accompany her to the appointment, and Rina relented.
As the session progressed, Eve broke into tears, sobbing bitterly. But she divulged little except to say that her name was Sarah Miller. Twenty minutes later, Rina insisted the hypnosis be stopped. Eve was too emotionally wrought to go on.
Afterward, Rina walked her home, staying with her until Eve/Sarah insisted she was all right. The next day Rina went to check on her, but it was too late. There was no answer at the door. The apartment was empty. The young woman had packed up and left.
Decker had not expected easy resolution, and Eve’s behavior came as no surprise to him. Rina hadn’t expected much, either, but still, she was sharply disappointed. For months, neither of them talked about Eve. Then one night, just as Rina was drifting off to sleep, Decker said out of the blue, “I wonder what she’s doing. Whether she really has any memory of what happened.”