Page 30 of The Lies We Leave Behind

30

Kate/Lena

Hamburg

I clasped my hands tightly in my lap, my palms damp, as we rolled into the city of my childhood.

So many of the beautiful buildings, homes, and apartments had been hollowed, blackened, or were now piles of rubble from the Allied attack the year before.

Streets I had run down and shopped on, bakeries and sweet shops I’d frequented, parks I’d played in...all gone.

There was barely anyone on the crumbling sidewalks, save for the soldiers who watched us as we drove slowly by. Tanks and other military vehicles sat around every corner. Here and there an old lady limped by, or a woman with her young child hurried along, their heads bowed, their eyes on the ground in front of them.

A line of people waited for food, their ration tickets in their hands, their faces drawn and pale. An older man was handcuffed and being shoved roughly into the street. I turned my eyes away.

“You’re sure my parents’ home still stands?” I asked.

Max nodded.

“It is my understanding that there was some damage, but most of the house is still in livable condition.”

“Of course they would be so lucky,” I said bitterly. “And I’m sure they offered to take in those displaced with all the spare room they still have.”

My voice dripped with sarcasm, and he glanced at me.

“You’re sure you don’t want to come with me?” he asked. “At least for a couple of nights? Get yourself acclimated to the city a little before going home?”

He had plans to stay in one of the few hotels still standing and had offered to let me sleep on the sofa the day before, after seeing my face when we’d both returned to the car during a quick stop in Luneburg. He’d had an errand to run there and I’d noted a small bookshop nearby.

While he’d hurried off across the street, I’d walked to the bookshop in hopes of finding a book to distract me when I was alone in my room, and maybe even a journal. I wanted to start documenting what I was seeing. Without friends to talk to and confide in, to entrust my fears to, I was lonely. I hoped that by keeping a journal I’d feel less so somehow. At least I’d have my words to keep me company.

The man at the front desk of the tiny shop had looked surprised to see someone entering his store, and not a little bit nervous. I’d given him a small smile in hopes of letting him know I wasn’t a threat and asked, “Zeitschriften?”

He’d nodded and pointed. “The journals are over there.”

“Danke.”

There were several to choose from. Most of them masculine looking, with sharp edges and serious-looking covers. Several had the Nazi insignia on them and I shoved those back in place hard, feeling my skin heat at the mere sight of the symbol.

And then I found it. Near the end of the shelf. It was slender, the leather soft. And on the front, tiny flowers were etched into the cover. I’d smiled and pulled it free, flipping the pages with my thumb and ducking my head as I’d breathed in, smelling the scent of the unmarked pages.

I moved along a wall of books, taking in titles, my heart sinking with each step. Nazi propaganda on every shelf.

“Fr?ulein?” the shopkeeper said.

When I turned, he pointed to the back corner of the store where a small selection of novels had been shoved and mostly obscured by books on Germany’s geography.

I smiled at the sight of Cold Comfort Farm by Stella Gibbons and pulled it from the shelf.

“I’ll take these,” I’d said to the clerk, who nodded and rang me up promptly.

As I walked back toward the car, I noticed a small, stately post office, several people coming and going out the front door. But as I passed the narrow alleyway behind it, I paused at the sight of several cloth bags stuffed and piled on top of one another, paper littering the ground around them. A gust of wind sent one of the pieces toward me and I knelt to see what it was, frowning when I saw it was a letter, addressed to someone in France.

Assuming the bags were waiting for someone to take them inside and sort them, I walked quickly behind the building and carefully slid the envelope inside the nearest bag. But the scent of something burning caught my attention and, curious, I squeezed past the stacks of bags until I found the source. In the far corner was a metal barrel, the flames inside it licking upward. At first I thought perhaps a homeless person had lit it and was living back here, the piles of bags providing protection from the elements, but then a bit of charred paper drifted up out of the barrel and landed on the ground beside it. An ugly feeling twisted inside my stomach. Glancing at a nearby back door, I hurried to the scrap and picked it up, finding exactly what I’d feared. Handwriting and a partial address. Beside the barrel, I now saw, were more bags. But these ones were empty. They weren’t sending or delivering the letters, they were burning them, collecting their citizens’ money and hope and playing a terrible trick on them.

A thump on the other side of the door made me drop the scrap of paper and hurry from the alley and around the corner.

It was then that I remembered the handful of letters I’d sent William. Or at least thought I had. Were they too now a pile of ash at the bottom of a barrel? Saddened and angry at the thought, I hurried back to the car to where Max was waiting to drive us onward.

“Not too much farther now,” he said.

I inhaled and nodded, a tremor shaking my body at its core.

Despite my running from Hamburg years ago, I had loved my city. Not the house I’d lived in with my family, with the expensive furnishings I was barely allowed to touch, or the fussy bedroom decorated by my mother that had felt more like a prison than a sanctuary. But the city I’d roamed as a girl had been beautiful. The parks and gardens, shops and cafés, the many street corners I’d hung out on with my friends, the alleyways Ruthie and I had run down, laughing, our footsteps echoing off the walls, our hair streaming behind us.

As we drove from the outskirts farther in, we were stopped every so often, our papers checked, eyebrows raised as they saw his credentials, and then offered me a smile. We were home, their grins said. We were welcome.

I’d never felt more scared.

“Where you headed?” a soldier asked, handing back our paperwork to Max.

He gave him the street name of my parents’ home. The man frowned and nodded.

“I believe that’s right on the border of the worst of the destruction. You may have to park and walk the last couple of streets. There are a lot of roads closed off due to rubble and the fear of buildings toppling.”

“Understood,” Max said. “Thank you. We’ll be careful.”

The closer we got to our destination, the more barren the city became.

Thanks to his intel, we knew the government had relocated many of the survivors of the attack the year before farther out or to other cities. It felt like a ghost town, and I wondered if the information both he and Uncle Frank had received about my mother still living at home was correct. But when I’d asked Max again as we’d crossed over the border into Hamburg, he’d told me simply that per all reports he’d received, she was still residing in our family home.

“And Catrin?” I’d asked. “Has she been seen?”

“She was spotted two weeks ago. I have no information past that.”

I tried to picture my younger sister. When we were children, people had said we looked alike, but any similarities were mostly due to our coloring. The pale hair and eyes, the slender build. We were our parents’ children through and through, though she’d favored our father’s classic good looks, while my features were a combination of my mother and aunt’s more lush attributes.

It was hard to imagine Catrin as a young woman. She’d been so spirited as a girl. Always giggling and getting admonished by our parents. Creative, bright... What had life been like for her? What had life been like living with another family? Had she been kept away from the worst of the war? I had so many questions and ached to see her, hear her, and learn everything that had happened in my absence.

We’d always been so close. I was frightened she’d be angry with me. That she wouldn’t believe our aunt and uncle had tried to get her out too. That I hadn’t left her behind on purpose.

Would she forgive me for leaving? Would she forgive me for the lie that was my death and for taking so long to come back?

The plan, per Max, was that while he tended to some business nearby, I would go to my parents’ home in hopes of seeing Catrin and convincing her to leave with me. If she was there and agreed, both of us would then go to a safe house. The woman who lived there would get word to Max.

“The safe house is there,” he said, pointing discreetly as we turned down another street. “Three doors down. Number four. The blue door.”

I nodded.

He reached forward and knocked three times on the dashboard, paused, and knocked once more.

“That’s the knock,” he said. “Do anything other than that and she won’t answer the door and you’ll be out in the cold, exposed.”

The house was at least twelve blocks from where my parents’ home was, the streets between becoming more and more treacherous as we drove farther into the city.

I stared in quiet awe as we bumped over potholes and stones, looking at buildings and shops and parks that had once been filled with families, friends out for an afternoon, and businessmen hurrying to and from meetings. They now stood empty, devoid of life, doors closed, windows dark or boarded over, sprawling lawns unmarked by the footfall of children running across them.

The car slowed and stopped and the two of us leaned forward, frowning at the sight ahead of us. The road was blocked by wooden partitions. Beyond them a tank sat off to one side, its metal body charred and covered in ash. Behind that was a scene I couldn’t quite comprehend.

“What is that?” I asked, looking past Max out his window.

“I believe that was a building,” he said of the cascade of rubble covering most of the street.

He turned then and looked out the passenger-side window where a large hole obstructed anything or anyone from getting through. My parents’ home was still several blocks away, but to get to it...

“I can try and go around,” he said. “Otherwise, you’ll have to go on foot.”

An older woman appeared to the right of us and hurried across the street, her body bundled against the cold, her face worn, eyes wary as she watched us. She didn’t look familiar to me. I wondered if there was anyone still in town I’d recognize—and who might recognize me.

“I can walk from here,” I said, my voice low.

“You’re sure?”

“Yes. It’s not far.”

He was quiet for a long moment.

“You remember where the safe house is?”

“I do.”

“The knock?”

“I remember.”

“Go there as soon as you’re done,” he said and I nodded. “With or without her. If you don’t see her, we’ll talk tonight about next steps.”

“Okay,” I said.

“And don’t take longer than necessary,” he said.

I reached for the door handle, but he stopped me, his hand on my arm.

“She may not be the same person you remember. And to her, you might be a traitor. You need to be careful. Aware at all times. A lot has happened since you left. You shouldn’t trust anyone. Not even the baby sister who loved you and looked up to you.”

But he was wrong. I knew he was wrong. And I would prove it when I met him later at the safe house, Catrin by my side, or at least information on where I could find her.

I grabbed my bag from the floor of the car and opened the door.

“I’ll see you soon,” I said.

“Please. Remember what I said. And keep your papers hidden. I’ll wait here until I can’t see you anymore.”

I opened the door and got out, slinging the shoulder strap of my bag over my shoulder and looking back inside the car at my traveling companion. I wouldn’t say we’d grown closer as the days had gone by, but we’d developed a relationship. A fondness for one another. A sense of respect. And for me, a feeling of safety in his presence. I was nervous to be without him, but this next part had to be done alone.

I looked up the street, so different than it had been ten years before, then back at him.

“Lebewohl,” I said.

“Farewell,” he said, and I shut the door.

It was strange walking down the old streets. The quiet disconcerting. Even the soldiers, so prominent several blocks away, didn’t bother to monitor this area, the lack of inhabitants making it not worth their time or efforts.

As I drew closer to the building I’d once called home, I was shocked at what I saw just around it. Homes, shops, and businesses that had once stood strong and beautiful, were now shells of themselves, reduced to their bare bones by the fires that had ripped through the city, burning history, art, and lives. The city center was a shell of itself, the asphalt in some areas melted in large patches. There were mountains of brick piled everywhere, and the dust I kicked up as I walked settled on my coat and in my throat, making me cough.

Some of it I was glad to see in ruins. Government buildings, the homes of those I’d known supported the tyrant who had brought this disgrace down on our country. But other places, like my favorite bookstore, the sweet shop Ruthie and I spent our allowance in nearly every week, and the bench that had been our meeting place before we wandered off on some silly adventure, were harder to take, their absence tearing small holes into my heart.

The few trees that still stood were scorched, others bent and disfigured, their bark charred, ash dusting their exposed roots below. It felt otherworldly. But no world I wanted to be a part of.

My heart raced as I approached my old home, stepping carefully around the mounds of rubble, and noting that while the windows in the building across from it were blown out, somehow the windows in ours were all intact.

It wasn’t until I reached for the handle of the large front door that I realized the longtime doorman, Jürgen, wasn’t there to greet me. When I stepped inside, there was no concierge at the desk, and none of the other tenants milled about talking quietly in the lobby. There was just the echo of my footsteps skittering across the marble floor as I made my way to the elevator, taking in my dusty surroundings and the eerie emptiness around me.

I pressed the button for the elevator, but it didn’t light up. I noticed the large crystal chandelier hanging in the entryway was dark. The little lamps on either side of the concierge’s desk weren’t on either. No electricity. I’d have to take the stairs.

Grasping the handle, I pushed the door open and looked up, memories flooding back as I remembered Catrin and I begging Nanny Paulina to let us take the stairs whenever she took us out. Looking up the stairwell now, I couldn’t remember what was so magical about them, except perhaps that my parents never deigned to take them, and it had felt like going against their rules and lifestyle to not take the elevator like “civilized people.” I was pretty sure the only reason Nanny Paulina agreed was because she knew it would help wear us out.

I began climbing the fourteen flights to our top-floor apartment, stopping periodically whenever I reached a landing and heard a noise on the other side of the door. I was tempted to peek. To see who might still be residing in this building on the edge of the disaster that had ravaged buildings only a few doors down, but I pushed on. Contact with anyone but my family was a dangerous game I knew not to play.

At the top floor I paused, catching my breath and steadying myself before entering the narrow hall that led to the small, elegant lobby outside my family’s home.

Two identical benches still flanked the ornate double doors to the apartment. How many times had I peeked out here during one of my parents’ many parties to find guests had drifted out and perched, drinks in their hands, in this very space?

I looked at the doors that led inside, my eyes tracing the wood-carved pattern as they had so many times before. My breath trembled as I inhaled. I suddenly felt small. Scared. Once more that child, that young girl, that woman—on the verge—who wanted to run. Far and fast. Away from here.

And now I’d come back.

A flash of worry spread through me, Max’s words coming back as I reached my hand out to knock. I paused. What if he was right? What if too much had changed?

I glanced out the window to my right, taking in the sight of a city covered in ash. It wasn’t too late. I could leave now. Hurry to the house with the woman who would contact Max. It would take minutes and I’d be safe and soon on my way back. To France. To England.

To William.

But my hand moved on its own, rapping softly on the thick wood door, the sound echoing throughout the lobby. A minute passed. Two. Had I knocked too quietly? Maybe the reports were wrong and no one was here. I grasped the strap of my bag still hanging from my shoulder...waiting, listening. But there was no sound. No movement felt. It was strange to hear nothing. There had always been something, even from out here. The steps of our trusted butler, August. The hushed voices of my mother’s personal secretary or maid. The clank of pots and pans from meals being prepared by the cook. Perhaps it was a bad time. Perhaps there was never going to be a good time to return.

Perhaps my mother was already dead.

My heart sank as my mind immediately went to my sister. Had I come all this way only to receive no answers at all?

I took a step back, still listening, still hoping. But as the seconds ticked away, I began to fear the worst.

I turned to go—and then I heard it. Footsteps. A pause. And then the locks being released and the doorknob turning.

Suddenly, I was looking into the familiar green eyes of my former nanny. She looked scared, but like the clouds parting to reveal the sun, recognition began to dawn and the fear turned to something else.

“Fr?ulein?” she said in a whisper.

“ Hallo , Paulina,” I said, taking in the woman who had cared for me and my sister lovingly for years.

She was thinner, her round face showing the signs of scant food at the ready, her clothes hanging on her frame more than hugging it. There was gray in her light brown hair, and wrinkles around her eyes. But the gentle smile on her face was one I knew well.

“Hallo, kleiner Hase,” she said.

I couldn’t help it. I smiled back. Little bunny was what she had called Catrin and me. But a moment later the terror of the situation came back to me and my smile disappeared.

“I am here to see my sister,” I said.

She looked over her shoulder, hesitating, and then back at me, clearly trying to decide the right thing to do. Letting me in after being gone so long, having clearly duped them all, would be a transgression my mother might not forgive her. I was a traitor.

“Your mother is not well,” she said, avoiding my mention of Catrin.

“I know. That’s partly why I’ve come.” It was a lie. I didn’t care if I never saw my mother again, but whatever it took to find out where Catrin was, I would do.

She nodded and her shoulders sagged, and then she pressed a finger to her lips, took a step back, and opened the door wider.

Despite finding my way here, I wasn’t prepared for the emotions that filled my entire being as I stepped inside my childhood home. The furnishings, though still opulent, had faded with age, the brass and silver losing much of their shine, the windows covered in dust on the outside, clouding the view of the city, which was probably for the best.

I stepped lightly, as was habit in this household, the only one allowed to make a sound being my father, his foot strikes marking his place in our home. I had tried often to steer clear of those footsteps.

I touched a vase, trailed my fingers along a tabletop, glanced at the chandeliers, recalled a peaceful moment in a corner chair after my parents had left for a night of dining and drinking, and then stood at the foot of the curved staircase and looked up, gasping at the sight that greeted me.

“Thankfully there were still men around at the time to help patch it,” Paulina said, her voice barely more than a whisper as she came to stand beside me.

At the top of the stairs where the landing led off to different hallways and bedrooms, the ceiling had caved in, leaving a large gaping hole that had been covered with several long boards.

“Was it a bomb?” I asked.

“It hit two buildings over, but the blast pushed through the one next to us and into our roof. There’s more damage farther down the hallway.”

Farther down the hallway was where Catrin’s and my rooms had been.

“It’s still there,” Paulina said. “Exactly as you left it.”

I blew out a breath and gripped the handrail. I didn’t want to see the remnants of the childhood I’d run from. It wasn’t why I was here.

“I’ve only come to see Catrin. And to say goodbye to my mother.”

She touched my sleeve, her eyes meeting mine, and I wondered why she was still here. As far as I knew, my sister hadn’t lived here in years, and even if she had, a nanny wouldn’t still be needed now when Catrin was a woman of twenty. Why had Paulina stayed on? And where was the rest of the staff? Obviously not all were needed with only one woman to tend to, but my mother had always had a small entourage to accommodate her every need and whim.

“Where’s the rest of the staff, Paulina?” I asked. “August? Ingrid?” I looked around, expecting my mother’s secretary to appear in the doorway of the study my mother had conducted her meetings in.

But Paulina shook her head and then motioned for me to follow her to the kitchen where she shut the door so we couldn’t be heard.

“They are all gone,” she said, moving to the kitchen table and taking a seat. “Ingrid fled early on. The maid soon after. August stayed to look after the house when we left to stay in the country estate. When we returned last year, he was gone, having left a note to say he was going to stay with his daughter and her family. And Freya, the cook, was killed when the ceiling caved in. She had just delivered food to your mother when the blast took her.”

I bowed my head. I had always liked Freya. A stern woman, she hadn’t been averse to spoiling Cat and me with little treats every now and then.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “That must’ve been hard for you to lose so many people. But...how did you end up staying with both Catrin and me gone?”

She shrugged.

“I think at first your parents didn’t realize I was still here. They never saw me much in the first place. And then when Catrin was quietly brought around for visits, it was handy to have me around to tend to her needs. But then Ingrid left. And the maid and...suddenly I was needed by your mother as well.” She looked at me, guilt filling her eyes, pleading with me to understand her plight.

“I know she was a terrible mother to you,” she said. “They were both...so horrible. So many of us in the household felt such pity. How could one be so cruel to their own children? You were perfect girls. Kind, funny, smart, and so beautiful. But they saw none of it.”

I sat across from her and her eyes met mine again, this time filled with a fierceness that startled me.

“She has not changed, fr?ulein. Evil runs through her blood. She will not be happy to see you. You can still change your mind. You can still go.”

“No. I can’t,” I said. “Not until I’ve seen Cat. Where is she?”

Paulina’s eyes searched mine.

“You did not hear she died?” Her voice was faint. She knew I knew the truth.

“I did hear that. But I know it was a lie.”

The older woman sighed.

“She does not live here.”

“I know. But I also know she visits. When will you expect her next?”

Paulina shook her head.

“I never know. She comes when she can. She was here two weeks ago. It could be a month, even two, before she’s back again.”

My heart sank, but this wasn’t unexpected.

“Do you know where she is? Can you contact her?”

She clasped her hands in front of her. “I... No. Your mother wouldn’t like it.”

“Why not?”

“She has kept your sister’s existence carefully hidden. If she came more often, your mother worries someone would take notice. Maybe the same people who tried to kill her years ago. And then there’s the matter of the young soldier who checks in every other day or so.”

“What do you mean?”

“It is disgusting,” she said, sitting back and crossing her arms over her chest. “It is clear the way he eyes your mother’s belongings that he is counting the minutes until she dies. He has asked many times my plans for after, making sure I aim to leave. He thinks there is no one else to claim all this.” She waved a hand at the room. “If he knew your sister was alive...that there was an heir to collect...who knows what he might do.”

I nodded, understanding.

“And now you are here,” she said.

“She won’t care about keeping me safe,” I said. “And I don’t want anything from her—or this house. I’ve only come for Cat. Can you help me? Please, Paulina.” I reached for her hand. “I don’t have much time. Can you tell me where to find her?”

She pulled her hand from mine and pressed her fingertips to her lips, her gaze drifting past me. A moment later she took in a long breath and got to her feet. As she passed me on the way to the door she squeezed my shoulder, and then she was gone.

I sat quietly, waiting, my eyes on the clock on the far wall. A minute passed. Two. Just as I began to fret that she wasn’t coming back, the door swung open and she stood before me, holding out a small square of paper. I reached for it, but she pulled it away, her gaze holding mine.

“I must warn you,” she said. “She is not the same girl you knew.”

My smile was grim.

“Are any of us the same people we once were, Paulina?”

She sighed, shook her head, and pressed the slip of paper into my palm.