A Bitter Veil by Libby Fischer Hellmann Read Free Book Online Page B

Plaisance, a strip of park sandwiched between 59th and 60th Streets, had been built for the Columbian Exposition in the 1890s. As Anna and Nouri strolled down it, the setting sun was molten gold. Stately university buildings flanked both sides of the park, and flowering bulbs shared the dirt alongside trees and shrubs. But Anna wasn’t focused on the architecture, or the flowers, or the lush carpet of grass.
    “There is something I haven’t told you,” she said. “About my father.” She hesitated. “It might make a difference in…well, everything.”
    “Nothing could make a difference in how I feel about you, Anna.”
    “Don’t…until you’ve heard me out.”
    They passed a statue of Carl Linnaeus, the father of modern taxonomy, which Anna knew was the method of classifying organisms by categories such as genus and species. With his long, curly marbled hair and bookish appearance—although he looked rather pale—he resembled a young Benjamin Franklin.
    “Even if your father was a mass murderer, I couldn’t love you less.”
    Nouri was closer than he knew. Anna halted at the base of the statue. They had been holding hands, but she withdrew hers and squeezed her palms together. “My father is a physicist. He works for the government at a secret lab in Maryland that doesn’t officially exist.”
    Surprise crossed Nouri’s face.
    “He started out in genetics. Studying and deciphering genomes within cells. You’ve probably heard about it. They’re calling it gene therapy. When the techniques are perfected, it will supposedly cure cancer and everything else.”
    They started walking again. “It sounds like a noble occupation,” Nouri said.
    Was he trying to be helpful? If so, it wasn’t working. Anna swallowed. “The thing is, I don’t know exactly what my father does. He won’t tell me. It’s classified.” She made a little snort. “For all I know he’s working on some genetically engineered virus or bacteria that will wipe out the human race.”
    Nouri frowned. “Why would you say something like that?”
    “Because of his background. He was…this is hard for me to talk about, Nouri.”
    Nouri kept his mouth shut.
    “My father was born, raised, and educated in Germany. During World War II he was conscripted and forced to join the Nazi Party. He…well…he worked with scientists who were trying to engineer the Master Race. You know, the pure Aryan.”
    Nouri’s eyebrows shot up. He started to say something, but she cut him off.
    “Yes. Aryan .” She rolled the word on her tongue with only a trace of contempt. “The same word that the name of your country comes from. The same race, too.” She let out an uneven breath. “You see, eighty years ago the eugenics movement was considered a promising science. Everybody was interested in improving human beings. Wiping out the flaws that cause disease. But Hitler turned it into something else.”
    Nouri nodded.
    “There were massive sterilizations. Especially of the mentally and physically disabled. What they called the mongrel population. Then, Hitler decreed that Jews possessed ‘bad’ genes and were a threat to racial purity. You know the rest.”
    “What part did your father play?”
    Anna hesitated. She had seen the films, read the books about that time—at one point she’d been obsessive about it. She had to know every detail, decision, and incident of the war. After a while, though, the need faded. Whether it was the natural consequence of maturity, or some psychological block that prevented her from absorbing more, she never knew. Nor did she make an effort to find out. Her impressions of that era faded into the hazy residue of knowledge most students retain once the course is finished, the exam over. She could now watch The Diary of Anne Frank , Casablanca , even Triumph of the Will , which her professor screened during a course in Twentieth Century European History, with a curious, almost ironic, detachment.
    Now she said, “I can