Page 31 of The Lies We Leave Behind

31

Paulina walked me to the door, but as I reached for the handle, she wrapped a hand around my wrist.

“Wherever you’re going next,” she said, “hurry. Keep out of sight as much as you can, and if stopped, be careful what lies you tell. They’ll ask you to prove them and won’t give you much chance to do so. And don’t forget, your surname means something in these parts.”

“Not for me it doesn’t,” I said. “I’m dead, remember?”

Her lips parted as she gasped.

“How stupid I am,” she said.

“Not stupid. Brave and kind.” I looked toward the stairs. “She does not deserve to have you stay with her.”

“Had I any better offer, I’d have gone. But I was safe here, so long as I was taking care of her.”

Safe. A word I never would’ve associated with my mother.

I reached out then to hug her. She held on to me for but a moment, and then I was gone, hurrying to the stairwell, my feet light and fast on the steps down.

At the front door to the building, I stopped, peeking out the windows and looking up and down the street. A woman holding on to the arm of an older gentleman walked down the crumbling sidewalk across from me. I watched them for a moment, waiting to see if anyone stopped them. When no one did, I pushed out the door.

The safe house was only a few blocks away. I kept my head down, trying not to walk too fast in case it raised suspicions should a soldier see me. The woman and man were half a block ahead of me, their presence bringing me comfort that I wasn’t the only one out and about. But then they turned down another street and a feeling of dread filled my body. Without them, I was a target.

I moved closer to the buildings at my side, added a limp to my gait, and slowed even more, hoping my appearance and hindered walk would make me look too pathetic to bother with.

The minutes ticked by painfully, my slowness frustrating. I wanted to run. Hurry. Get out of sight. But to do so would only draw attention to anyone watching, and so I took a deep breath and kept going, navigating carefully around holes blown into pavement melted from the blasts that had sent fires up and down the streets a year ago.

My shoulders straightened when I looked up and saw I was nearly there.

“Number four. Blue door,” I whispered into the scarf wrapped around my neck.

At the corner I stopped and peeked around the building, checking to see that it was all clear. But the sight of several military vehicles, a dozen or so soldiers, a door I’d memorized only a couple hours before, and a woman being pulled from the home I’d been heading for stopped me.

She was slight. Blonde. Wearing only a long-sleeved navy dress and socks in the freezing air. She moved calmly, seemingly unfazed by being pulled from her house and made to stand in the unbearable cold. I watched her, terrified for her. Watched how her lips never moved as she allowed them to push and pull, hit, and run their hands over her as if looking for weapons but violating her as they worked.

One of the men stepped forward, barking questions at her. What was her name? Was this her home? Was anyone else inside? Who did she work for? Had she seen this person or that? Had she let them stay with her now or at any time?

She shook her head again and again, allowing him to question then berate her over and over, never flinching from his shouts and acts of brutality. Never once looking over her shoulder as men filed in and out of the house behind her.

One of the soldiers came out carrying a small box. The officer before her took it, rifled through it, held it up to her face. Her simple shrug seemed to infuriate him. I sucked in a breath as he pulled a pistol from his belt and held it to her forehead. Still she said nothing. He pushed the barrel of the gun to her head, making her take a step backward. He held the box up again, demanding an explanation. Again, she shrugged.

He turned away for a moment, lowering his gun and saying something I couldn’t hear to one of the men behind him. I exhaled my breath. They were going to let her go.

But when he turned back my stomach did a slow roll as his arm raised again and the air was filled with the crack of the gun firing, her body jerking back before falling lifeless to the ground.

I gasped and moved out of sight, pressing my back to the wall, eyes scanning my surroundings. A few people had gathered not far away and were staring down the street where the woman had just been shot. None of them looked surprised. No one even looked sad. They turned away, chatting to one another, and then moved on down the street and out of sight.

But my heart was pounding. I’d seen many people die in this war, from injuries they’d sustained in battle. Not point-blank while standing on the sidewalk of their own country.

And now I was trapped. I had no idea where Max was having his meetings, or where he and I were staying for the remainder of our time here. The woman was to have been my contact. A way to get word to him. My way out. I had no way of letting him know I hadn’t seen Catrin. That my journey to find her wasn’t yet over.

I peeked back around the corner, watching as the men got back in their vehicles, leaving the woman’s body where it lay, her blond hair splayed across the pavement, her blood splattered on the wall behind her and pooled beneath her head. As the engines roared to life, I ducked back and tucked myself into a nearby doorway, waiting as they passed, my body trembling from fear.

When the trucks were out of sight, I turned and stared back at number four and the blue door, wondering if I should still go. If I should hide inside and wait. Maybe Max would come looking for me when he didn’t receive word. Or maybe I could leave a note inside and go back to my mother’s home.

But as my gaze moved up, I saw faces looking out from behind curtains in several windows, their view of the blue door unobstructed. If I went inside, they’d see. And who was to say one of them wasn’t behind giving the woman up. It was too risky. I’d have to hope and pray that when Max didn’t hear from her, he’d come looking for me.

With a shuddering sigh, I turned my back on the dead woman and began making my way back toward the building I’d once called home.

“Fr?ulein,” Paulina whispered when she opened the door to me, her brow creased with worry. Fright. I imagined any knock on the door was terrifying these days and felt bad for having startled her not once but twice.

“My contact...” I said and felt my eyes fill with tears.

She nodded silently and stepped back so I could enter.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” I said. “The man who brought me here... I have no way of getting word to him without the contact at the safe house. I don’t know where he is.”

Paulina clasped her hands in front of her, twisting her fingers, her eyes seeming to search the air around me for answers.

She shook her head and crossed her arms over her chest.

“If you stay here, I’ll have to tell her. I can’t hide you. The soldier that comes, he is thorough. A right greedy bastard of a man just biding his time for your mother to pass. I’m positive he counts the silverware each time he comes to make sure I haven’t hidden any away. He will find you. And when he does...”

“We’ll all be in danger,” I said.

But who was to say my mother wouldn’t throw me out? Or tell the soldier about me herself. Her traitor daughter who had faked her death and hid for the past ten years. Her eldest daughter, who would both threaten his claim to the estate’s belongings—and Catrin’s.

But what was my other option? To sleep on the street? To find a closet somewhere in the lobby to hide in? What if a resident found me? They would surely turn me in. And what if Catrin came back unexpectedly in the next two days?

I decided it was worth the risk.

“Tell her,” I said.