Lynda Plante - Entwined

She closed her eyes. "The memories plague me, even when I'm alone. It's as if I cannot stop the past..."

"No matter how painful, that's good. What are you remembering?"

"A soldier, the one who took me away from the camp. He took my hand and asked if I wanted some chocolate. I demanded a piece for Ruda also because she was inside me. She needed a piece of chocolate, but... please, please don't leave me alone."

Franks assured her he would stay. He watched as she stared at her reflection in a small mirror, repeating over and over, "It was a mirror..."

Throughout the session, which lasted the entire night, Franks was able to piece together what it was she was desperately trying to release.

Gradually, as the telepathy succeeded beyond his first expectations, Mengele did not want Rebecca to see that her twin had not been rewarded or fed as he had promised, so he tricked her by placing a mirror across the booth's window. Thus, Rebecca did not see Ruda in the white dress, but she saw herself. Only now did Rebecca recognize the deception. She became consumed by guilt because she had not understood the horror of it.

Franks watched Rebecca wrestle with her own conscience.

"How could I know? And Papa was very pleased with me, he kissed and cuddled me and one of the Schutzhaftlings took me over to the warehouse to choose a new dress. I wanted to show off my new dress. We passed a group of inmates designated to clean latrines and they spat at me! One woman hurled mud at me... I remember the way they shouted after me. The children hit and kicked me and I cried and cried. I shouted back that when Ruda came back she would make them cry, too. They told me she'd gone with the Snowman; that she would never come back for me."

Two days after Rebecca had been given the new dress, the camp was liberated. In the mayhem that followed Rebecca and a number of other children from her ward ran into the main hospital wing. She ran from bed to bed looking for Ruda.

Ruda was skin and bone. Lice crawled like black ants over her shaven head. Her skin was paper thin, a deathly bluish white, and tubes full of congealed blood protruded from her stomach. A filthy bandage partially covered a jagged wound in her distended belly. Rebecca saw the pitiful bundle of rags, and perhaps had even known it was her sister, but she was so horrified that she ran away screaming, right into the arms of the young soldier. He held her tightly, he too was crying. He carried her from the ward, not wanting her to see the corpses, the dying.

They went past the glass partition, and, unwittingly, past the mirror... and Rebecca saw Ruda again — this time she was with her, in the soldier's arms. It was at this moment that Rebecca began to believe totally and utterly that she and Ruda were one.

Aware that the adult Rebecca had emerged at last, Franks talked with her about the events that took place at the time of the liberation. When Mengele realized that the Russians were advancing he hastened to destroy all the evidence of his experiments. With manic energy he cleared the camp of the dying; only days before the liberation, thousands lost their lives in the gas chambers. Mengele himself escaped after burning all the documents along with the corpses.

Never brought to justice, never paying for his crimes against humanity, the "Dark Angel" haunted the survivors. The young, whose minds he had twisted, whose bodies he had tormented and crippled, were taken to hospitals and institutions. Many siblings were separated in a desperate bid to give them the medical care they needed so badly. Ruda and Rebecca were just two of these tragic children.

Rebecca was given many carefully chosen books from Franks's personal library to help her understand fully those nightmare years. She had become calm, and often discussed her reading with the doctor. Then late one afternoon, Maja called to Franks at home saying that he was needed urgently at the clinic. Rebecca had become destructive, abusive, and violent. In a rage she had systematically wrecked her room, though she hadn't hurt herself or any of the nurses. As Franks hurried along the corridor, he heard her hoarse screams, and a terrible banging and thudding of furniture being hurled against the walls. He looked through the peephole and asked Maja to bring him a chair. He sat outside the room until the banging and the shouting stopped. Then he entered the room.

Rebecca stood by the window, exhausted. She was utterly drained, her eyes red from weeping. He knew instantly that this was no longer Ruda's rage. At last this was Rebecca's own blazing fury at what had been done to her. Finally, she had embraced her anger, and she was cleansed.

After almost a year of treatment, Franks thought that Rebecca was ready to be told the truth about Ruda. Louis was not allowed to be present, but he was nearby, as he had been throughout the entire year.

Sasha had stayed with him at the hotel during her school holidays; no nanny, just father and daughter. In the time together, he had tried to explain her mother's illness in terms she could understand. When Sasha asked if her mother was well now, Louis had hesitated, knowing Rebecca was at a critical point. Franks had cautioned him that learning of Ruda's death might cause a major setback. Considering her delicate state, the impact of hearing that Ruda had been alive and had now died could send her over the edge — an edge on which she had balanced precariously for years. Louis told Sasha that they would know very soon.

Franks began in a soft gentle voice, asking her if she did recall going to the circus. Rebecca surprised him, looking at him with a tranquil, gentle expression.

"I was wondering when you would speak to me about it, but I know. And I know that her last words were about my safety... It all came back to me days ago, but I didn't want to tell you, I wanted to face it by myself. I needed time alone. She was, you see, always the stronger..."

"Do you blame yourself in any way?"

"Yes, of course. I endangered her, I ran into the clearing, I was stupid, but... I think she could have gotten him back in his cage. She was very calm."

She gave Franks a strange, direct stare. "She was also very disturbed, confused. I wish, I wish we had found you together, but..."

Franks leaned forward, "But?"

"But we didn't... Throughout my life I have been searching for a mother. I have expected too much, loved too much — and caused a lot of pain to those I have loved. Now at last I have found her. She lies within me. Having mothered my sons, my daughters—

albeit distressed them, terribly — I think I have found my first mothering experience — with you."

She smiled at him. "You have given me the unconditional, loving acceptance I have always sought, the support I have always needed, the understanding I have craved. You have given me back my childhood, but most important, through my relationship with you, I have learned to accept and love myself, to give myself the kind of caring that will heal me from the inside. I am going to get stronger. I know that, because I want to live — for my children, for my husband — most of all, I want to do something with my life. My experience must be used, you must use me, reach out for others like me, Dr. Franks, because I am strong now and I want to do this for me and for Ruda, who was the only mother I ever really knew "

Franks couldn't help himself, he leaped from his chair and wrapped his arms around Rebecca. "You're wonderful! You know what you are? A fighter... God bless you!"

Dr. Franks, with his hands stuffed into his pockets, waited for the baron to arrive at the clinic. He had remained in Berlin, and brought his younger daughter, Sasha, to stay at the hotel. Sasha waited with her father for news of Rebecca, of her mother's recovery.

Louis knew by the expression on Franks's face that they had at last broken through.