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Nineteen

Friday crept into Saturday. Saturday wept into Sunday. Sunday stretched its way toward Monday, all promises of a resurrection on the Lord’s Day withering a bit more in Corinne’s soul with every mocking tic-a-tac of the clock.

How long had her papa lain unconscious when they’d found him? How long had he gone in and out, fighting delirium? How long had he struggled for each breath?

She didn’t remember now. And knew it didn’t matter, because Christian wasn’t Papa.

His chances were better —he had antibiotics coursing through his veins, along with the fluids.

Magic , they would have called it in ages past. A man three days without a drink, but not dying of thirst. A man with a hole in his body, but not fighting infection.

A man who still hadn’t opened his eyes, even though night had fallen again, even though she’d begged him in every language she knew, whispering her plea whenever Felix was out of the room.

Wake up, Christian. For Felix. Wake up and live for your boy.

Wake up so I can tell you again that I love you, without any qualifications. Because I can, I can, I can!

Felix slept now, beside him, curled around the stuffed bear Oncle Georges had brought him from somewhere or another, thumb dangling from his lips.

I’ll have to break him of that again, Christian had said just last week. But he’d looked at his boy like he didn’t really care if he stopped. Didn’t mind the reminder of how little he still was, really. Didn’t care what it did to his teeth if it brought comfort to his soul.

What if he died? What if Felix was left only with her ?

She didn’t know when to urge a child to stop sucking his thumb, or how.

She didn’t know the right words to croon when he awoke in a nightmare.

She didn’t know what patterns to trace on his back when he needed comfort or how to soothe him after a bully’s taunts or encourage him to open his heart when a pretty girl first caught his eye. She didn’t know how to be a mother.

She’d have to sleep tonight, somehow. Because tomorrow, she had to pretend to be normal. Pretend that it didn’t matter that much to her if an acquaintance was presumed dead. Pretend relief, even.

One fewer Nazi in the world.

One fewer good man, if he didn’t open his eyes.

Oncle Georges would come in the morning.

Stay with Christian, with Felix. She would go to the Sorbonne.

She would talk about Plato and Aristotle.

She would translate Faust . She would read the papers that her students ought to have dropped through the slot of her office door on Friday, while she was shouting at Kraus.

She’d say, whenever someone told her how horrible she looked, “You know that flu that’s been going around?” and let them assume that’s what had kept her home all weekend.

She set down the book she’d been clutching in her lap, just to have something to hold on to.

One of the books that Christian had brought to her, that night she’d kissed him.

One of the books she’d never sent out because it had been lost to her.

Trapped in the library. One of the books filled with encoded instructions on what her students ought to be watching for and how to get word back to her if they saw it.

Hands free again, she picked up Christian’s cold hand, positioning her fingers around the tape and the needle and the tube that was keeping him alive.

“I’m supposed to tell you,” she said in the quietest of whispers, eyes on his face, “that it’s all right to let go if you need to.

That I’ll take care of Felix—and I will.

You know I will.” She tightened her grip and let herself pretend he was gripping back.

“But I’m not ready to lose you, Christian.

One kiss isn’t enough. One ‘I love you’ is too few to see me through the rest of my life.

I’m selfish. Greedy. I need more . More of you.

And I am so, so sorry I didn’t make use of what days we had.

I’m sorry I let fear hold me back. Sorry I let your uniform stand in our way, even when I knew it was a lie. ”

She closed her eyes, listening to the steady, deep breathing of the sleeping child.

Yearning for a hitch in Christian’s, but only if it was the kind that accompanied waking up.

Not the kind that stretched on and on and on into eternity.

She prayed and she pleaded and she lifted his hand to press a kiss to each dry knuckle, chilled from being out of the blanket.

Chilled, because the flat was getting cool and there was nothing for heat.

Not this year. No coal, no oil. Only blankets and warm trousers instead of stylish skirts.

His finger twitched in hers. She held her breath, watching. Waiting. Praying. He’d twitched before, but then nothing , so she’d had little choice but to admit they’d just been small muscle spasms. Not an attempt at communication.

“Christian.” She splayed his fingers over hers, letting his long fingers reach to her wrist. “Christian, come back. Please. I know you’re tired.

I know it hurts. But please, there is so much left for you to do.

So many young minds to fill with wisdom.

So many debates you still need to have. Don’t give up. Please, don’t give up.”

Another twitch—and a press. A press of his finger into her wrist.

Tears stormed her eyes, punched her in the nose, and she had to sniff before she could speak again. “Come back to us, beloved. To me, to Felix—he’s right here. We’re here, and we’re not letting you go.”

The pressure eased, and she nearly sobbed—but then his breath caught. It caught , and then he drew in a deep breath, deeper than he had in all these days, and when she looked from his hand to his face, he was blinking.

Who knew that a blink was the most beautiful sight in the world?

“Christian!” She couldn’t shout, because their world had to be ruled by whispers now. But every ounce of feeling she’d ever felt was in those few syllables. She leaned closer, into his line of sight, so he wouldn’t have to move his head. “I’m here. Felix is here.”

He blinked again, and from the confusion on his face, she had the heart-stopping fear that he wouldn’t know her. Wouldn’t know his son . Wouldn’t know why they were worth fighting his way back to life for.

He squinted and rasped, “Fuzzy.”

“Oh—your glasses are off. They’re right here though, when you’re ready for them and...you need water.” She’d been putting balm on his lips, but when they’d tried dribbling water between them, it dripped right back out.

He nodded now, though, and tried to shift.

“No!” She dropped his hand and reached for his shoulders, stilling him. “Don’t try to sit up, not without help. You’ll hurt yourself.”

The tension left him, his head relaxing against the pillow again, confusion still on his face. “What happened?”

She told him as she put the flexible paper straw in the cup of water she’d had ready, just in case, and helped him drink.

As he reached a hand toward Felix and settled it on his son’s sleeping back.

As his eyes slid closed again, but the way his fingers wrapped around hers said he was still listening.

“I can’t stay here,” he croaked once she was finished. “I’m putting you in danger.”

“Don’t be an idiot. They think you’re dead—they’re combing the river and dumps for your corpse, not searching flats for you. And where else would you go, back to your hotel room?”

He winced, letting his head loll in her direction and opening his eyes again. They were so blue. Like Felix’s in color—so very different in what shone out of them. Exhaustion in place of innocence. Worry in place of trust. But love. They had that in common.

She brushed his hair from his forehead, trying to quell the quivering of her lips.

“You’re not leaving this flat. Not until you’re well and we can get you somewhere safer.

And then, we’ll go together. All of us. Somewhere safe, somewhere that the Nazis won’t find us.

England or America or...the North Pole, I don’t really care, as long as you’re alive and I’m with you. ”

Because that was all that mattered. Oncle and her students could carry on without her. What good was she really doing anyway? Maybe that had never really been what God intended her to do during this war. Maybe it all had only been to lead her here. To him, to Felix.

Perhaps the movement of his lips was the beginning of a smile. Perhaps it was an abandoned attempt at words. Either way, it relaxed again, and his eyelids drooped.

She kissed his forehead, the tip of his nose, his lips. They pressed against hers—weakly, briefly, but he kissed her back and that was all that mattered. “Rest,” she bade, kissing him again. “We’ll sort it all out later.”

His head moved the slightest bit in acknowledgment. Then his eyes opened again, brows creased. “Rin...books.”

“Books?”

“With the words in the margin. I know I said...but I have to know. Why those? Why not your own?”

Why had she sent her students with borrowed titles from the Library of Burned Books? Stupidity. Brashness. A desire to thumb her nose at the encroaching tyrants and use the very books they’d tried to obliterate to undermine them. She offered a weak smile. “Poetic justice?”

His lips turned up too.

She watched him for a moment, telling herself that he’d just be sleeping now, not whatever that other unconsciousness had been. That he would wake up in the morning. But that made her suck in a breath. “Christian?”

His eyes fluttered open again.

Good. “If I’m not here in the morning when you wake up and a man is instead, don’t worry—it’s just my uncle. His name is Georges, and he’s helping us. All right? He knows everything. He’s a friend. He’s taking care of Felix while I’m in class.”

He held her gaze as he gave a weak nod and then slid shut his eyes again.