Page 36 of The Lies We Leave Behind

36

By December, Paulina and I had fallen into an easy routine. We met in the mornings, bundled against the cold, in the kitchen. She’d put the kettle on while I lit fires in the two downstairs fireplaces to begin warming the house. After that, the two of us would begin preparations for breakfast.

We ate together at the kitchen table, sometimes talking, sometimes saying nothing at all, the long day ahead stretching before us and our minds preparing to find ways to pass the time until we could sleep again.

My mother was barely conscious most of the day, making my interactions with her few and far between, though that didn’t lessen the ferocity of her words to me when she was awake. If anything, it made them worse.

Clothing began to be an issue for me, my own meager belongings, as well as what Paulina had pulled from my mother’s extensive closet becoming too tight around my chest and waist. The only things I could fit in well were nightgowns, dressing gowns, and a few billowy dresses my mother used to wear in warmer weather, which meant the fabric was thin and did nothing to fight against the cold of winter.

The time had come to tell Paulina.

“You’re sure?” she asked, her eyes worriedly sweeping over me.

“I’m sick nearly every morning now,” I said, and then pressed a hand to my breasts. “They hurt and feel heavy. Swollen. And the waistbands of my pants and skirts are tight. I’m sure.”

“Well,” she said, clasping her hands in front of her. “Okay. We will just...figure it out, yes? You are a nurse. You are trained for such things?”

“Not babies. Gunshots and severed limbs. But...yes. We’ll figure it out.”

I smiled gratefully and she pulled me to her and kissed my forehead.

“Do not fret, fr?ulein.”

The next morning before I came down for breakfast, she knocked on my bedroom door.

“Here,” she said, a pile of clothes in her arms. “These were your father’s. You can belt the pants and I can hem them so they are not too long. Everything else will be big, but you will grow into them.”

I nodded, trying not to balk at the familiar smell of his cologne still clinging to the fabrics.

“If you want something a bit more feminine to wear,” Paulina said. “I can alter some of it.”

“I’m not particularly worried about looking feminine,” I said, running my hand over a gray wool sweater. “But thank you. I’m sure these will be just fine as they are.”

“Should you see a doctor?” she asked. “There’s one I can call to the house. He used to treat your mother, but when it became clear there was nothing to be done, we agreed there was no point in him coming anymore and he armed me with pain medication to keep her comfortable.”

“I don’t think so,” I said. “After I see Catrin, I will try to get us out of here as quickly as possible. It’s been three weeks now. She should come again soon, right?”

“If she keeps to the schedule she’s been on, then yes. But with the way the war is going, who knows. It could be longer. You need to think not just of her now, but of the baby growing inside you.”

The baby. My baby. Mine and William’s.

I looked at Paulina with desperation in my eyes. “I can’t give up. Not yet.”

“We’ll give it two more weeks,” she said. “If Catrin hasn’t come, you must reach out to your contact. For the sake of your child, Gisela, not the one you feel guilty about leaving behind so many years ago.”

I was about to say more, but then my mother screeched my name from her bedroom, startling us both. She didn’t often wake this early and it made me wonder if this was it. By the look on Paulina’s face, I could see she was thinking the same thing.

“I’ll go,” she said, starting for the door.

But I placed my hand on her arm to stop her. “She’ll just insist you get me. You know how she is. It’s fine. You start breakfast, I’ll call if I need you.”

The room stank of the bile I found spewed across the bedside table, her glass of water, and the lamp that was rarely turned on.

“Mutter?” I said, my voice low. Her back was to me, her spine protruding grotesquely through her layers of clothes. It seemed impossible that she’d lost even more weight since I’d arrived, but where she used to be able to walk across the room with help, she now had to be carried, her body a mere skeleton, her skin stretched so thin it looked like it might break.

When she didn’t respond, I walked to the other side of the bed and checked the pulse at her wrist, staring down at the veins and tendons running up the inside of her arm, and realizing for the first time that she wore no jewelry.

Her pulse was weak but there, and I noticed that despite her many layers and the fire burning in the fireplace across from her, she was shivering. I wanted to walk away. Pretend I hadn’t noticed. She had never lifted so much as a finger to help me as a child, instead leaving me for the nanny to deal with. She had humiliated me, abused me both verbally and physically. Neglected me. And never, not for one day, had she made me feel loved or accepted.

And yet, I could almost forgive that if those were her only sins. But they were not. She and my father had donated millions to the Nazi Party. It was that which they gave their time and attention to, throwing parties, fundraising, and attending function after function. The destruction of a community was what they’d chosen to focus on—not their own flesh and blood.

But would I be no better if I stood here, staring down at a dying woman, and did nothing to help comfort her?

An animal-like groan escaped my throat as I pushed myself to my feet. I hated her for making me question my feelings. The right and wrong of them. I owed her nothing. And the painful, ugly death she was dying was exactly what she deserved.

Exhaling angrily, I strode to the bathroom for the cleaning supplies Paulina kept handy in a bucket. Grabbing a bottle of cleaner and a rag, I entered the bedroom again and gagged at the smell that seemed stronger in this part of the room where it had no place to escape.

Not caring about the cold that would rush in, I swept open the curtains covering the nearest window and threw it open, inhaling at the rush of cool, clean air, the nausea building in my throat subsiding.

“Oh! Lena, no!”

I turned to see Paulina rushing in and grabbing one of the extra blankets from the foot of the bed. She unfolded it and threw it over my mother before hurrying across the room and slamming the window closed.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“It stinks,” I said. “I was going to be sick.”

“The cold will kill her,” she said and I stared back at her with unblinking eyes.

Her own eyes filled with tears and her shoulders slumped.

“Give it to me,” she said, reaching for the cleaner. “Go downstairs. Breakfast is ready.”

Shame filled me. Not because of my mother, but because of Paulina, who had spent the last several years caring for my mother. She had sacrificed and endured, and if my mother lived long enough, she would no doubt put her body in front of her employer’s to protect it should the Allies take the city. I knew she also carried guilt because of these things. For tending to a woman who had contributed to the imprisonment and deaths of thousands while hiding her own beliefs in order to protect and watch over Catrin and me until she felt she had no other choice but to stay.

“I’m sorry, Paulina,” I whispered.

She sniffed and gave me a sad smile.

“Go,” she said. “Before the food gets cold.”

Two weeks later I was sitting at the kitchen table eating soup and what was nearly our last slice of bread.

“I’ll go out today,” Paulina had said, pushing the bread toward me when I’d argued we should save it for my mother.

“What if the baker doesn’t have any more?”

“He always holds a loaf aside until end of day in case I come by.”

I’d learned she paid him every week to do so.

The radio beside me was on and turned down low. We kept it like this all day. The volume down so we didn’t have to hear the lies the German people were told by the news outlets, but the noise coming from it constant. It had been my idea. The house was so quiet, it helped fill the absence of sound.

At least a dozen times a day we leaned in close to the speaker and one of us turned the knob, watching the dial in anticipation as it neared the notch that sometimes brought in broadcasts from the BBC. It was traitorous to do so, and getting caught listening to it was cause for imprisonment...and even death. Oftentimes we only got static on that station, but every so often we got lucky. We just had to be very careful we didn’t forget and leave it tuned there, should Lieutenant Schmeiden make one of his unscheduled house calls.

I had the radio tuned there now and as I took a tentative bite of my soup, a potato and leek concoction that so far my body hadn’t rejected, I heard something about Belgium and reached over to turn up the volume a tick.

“Is something happening?” Paulina asked, entering the room.

I waved a hand to shush her and she quietly took the seat across from me, the two of us listening intently to the announcer report that Germany was heading into a new attack on Belgium.

“There won’t be any of us left by the end of this,” Paulina said with a sigh as she got up and went to the pantry to grab the cloth bag she used for getting groceries. “What a selfish, ignorant little man.”

I turned the volume down, moved the dial back, and got to my feet, holding out my hand for the bag.

“Let me go,” I said.

I’d rarely left the house since meeting Max to tell him I wasn’t going with him, and had so far been able to keep Paulina at bay when she’d questioned my plans to reach out to his contact.

“It’s not a good idea,” she said, tightening her grip on the bag.

“Why not?”

“You could slip and fall on the ice and debris.”

“Paulina—”

“I worry someone will recognize you,” she said, slapping her hand on the counter and making me jump.

“But... I haven’t been here in years. I barely look like the sixteen-year-old version of me that last lived in this house.”

“You look like her,” she said, pointing in the direction of my mother’s room.

She wasn’t wrong about that.

“I’ll keep my head down and wear a scarf over my hair. And a hat over that!”

She exhaled, peering at me.

“Please, Paulina. I need to get out of this house. I need fresh air and sunlight on my face.”

It was a beautiful, clear day. Cold, but the blue sky was calling to me. And the smell of my mother’s room was starting to invade the other spaces.

“I promise I’ll be careful.”

“What if someone stops and questions you? Asks to see your ID?”

“Then I’ll show it to them.”

I stared at her and she stared back.

Her shoulders slumped and I knew I’d won.

“Don’t talk to anyone,” she said. “Only the baker. Hand him the list. It has my signature on it and the address here. If he questions you. Asks why you’ve come instead of me, tell him Mrs. Holl?nder isn’t doing well and I couldn’t leave her side.”

I reached out to squeeze her hand. “I’ll be fine. I’ll be smart. I promise.”

Several minutes later I entered the stairwell, a scarf over my hair and one of Paulina’s raggedy old knit hats over the top. Instead of one of my father’s coats, she gave me one of hers.

“Nothing that says money,” she’d said, and gave me a pair of mittens that had seen better days.

Gasping at the cold just beyond our lobby, I hurried down the stairs, careful to keep one hand on the banister in case I slipped, my footsteps echoing throughout the enclosed space. At the landing I paused, listening for anyone coming down behind me, and then opening the door into the grand lobby that used to be filled with the excitement of people coming and going, packages arriving, beautiful women in expensive clothing, men smoking and laughing loudly, the elevator steward smiling politely as he held the door and pressed the buttons, winking at me a moment before he disappeared.

It was odd how quiet it was now. Besides my mother, Paulina had told me only three other families had stayed. A family of four on the second, a couple on the sixth, and a family of three on the tenth.

“All moved in after you left,” Paulina had told me. “So if you happen to run into them, they won’t recognize you.”

It was a small comfort.

A brisk wind whipped against my face as soon as I stepped outside. Ducking my head, I stayed close to the buildings to try and block it as I hurried to the address I’d been given.

The line out front was long, and though Paulina had told me I didn’t have to wait, that I could in fact go straight to the counter, I would have felt guilty walking past all the others to the front of the line.

It took at least an hour to get to the front of the line. An expanse of time that would’ve been almost pleasant in springtime, but was miserable in winter, the wind cutting through my layers, my stomach grumbling at the smell of fresh-baked bread.

As I stepped forward, a small loaf of bread that had barely risen was placed before me. It looked dry. Old. And smelled of nothing. I slid Paulina’s list across the counter and waited patiently as the old man on the other side scanned it, stared at me, and then turned away and disappeared behind a door.

My heart raced. Where was he going? Had I done it wrong? Was I in trouble? Who was he going to tell?

But a moment later he reappeared, a paper sack in his hands, a fresh loaf of bread peeking out the top, the scent of it nearly making me swoon.

“Here you are,” he said, giving me a small, confused smile. “Didn’t Paulina tell you to come straight to the front?”

“She did but...” I glanced behind me. “The line was so long and I felt bad.”

“She pays extra for the fast service. Next time you don’t wait. I don’t want to make Paulina mad. It wouldn’t do to anger my most generous customer.”

“Of course. I’m so sorry. I’ll be sure to tell her it was my fault.”

He nodded then and turned his attention to the next person in line as I hurried to get out of the way.

“Gisela?” a woman’s voice said.

I almost stopped, my step hesitating for half a second. I recovered by pretending to check the contents of the bag and kept going.

“Excuse me.”

She was behind me. Following me. Her hand on my elbow.

I jumped, pretending to be surprised.

“Yes?” I said, my gaze moving across her face, trying to recognize her from my past. She looked familiar, but it had been ten years since I’d seen any of my old classmates. “Can I help you?”

“Are you...” She was staring at me, trying to see the young girl I’d once been in the womanly face looking back at her. “I’m sorry. It’s silly. You look a little like a girl I used to know but...” She glanced at the people still waiting in line, watching our exchange curiously, and then at the soldier by the door.

“But what?” I asked.

“You can’t be,” she said, her shoulders sagging. “She died. A long time ago. I’m sorry.”

Johanna. That was her name. She’d sat two seats back from me in the last mathematics class I’d ever taken in a German school. She’d been a sweet girl. Smart. Bookish. And friendly. One of the only girls to reach out, to touch my hand the day Ruthie didn’t come to school. But I couldn’t know her now.

Life and war had aged her, etching deep lines into her young face, hollowing beneath her eyes, and drying her lips. I gave her a smile and reached out, touching her paper-dry hand with my own.

“I’m sorry about your friend,” I said, and she nodded.

It wasn’t a rare story. It was, unfortunately, an oft-told one these days.

“Are you...” I searched for something to say, not wanting to leave her just yet. Human interaction wasn’t a given these days. Who knew if she had anyone at home to converse with. “Do you have a family?”

“I live with my mother and younger sister,” she said. “My father and brothers were sent off two years ago. My fiancé the year before. We used to get letters from all of them, but...” She shook her head. “They stopped months ago.”

I nodded.

“My sister and I were in The League, of course. They had us at two different camps. When our mother became ill, neither camp informed the other and we were both sent home to care for her. We never told, and no one ever came looking for us.”

“And is your mother well now?”

“She is.”

“Good,” I said. “Well, I hope you hear from the rest of your family and fiancé soon. I should get home now. It’s been lovely chatting to you.”

I was about to turn away but stopped and reached into my bag instead. I couldn’t tell what anything was, save for the bread, since everything was wrapped in brown paper. I grabbed one of the smaller items and handed it to her.

“Oh,” she said, holding her hand up. “No. I can’t take that.”

“Please,” I said, lifting the bag as proof and glancing at the tiny loaf in her hand. “We have plenty.”

She sighed, looked from the item in my hand to my face, and then nodded.

“You are very kind,” she said.

“Stay safe,” I said, and then turned on my heel and hurried down the street for home, preparing myself to be admonished by Paulina for taking so long.

As I turned the corner I looked back. Johanna still stood where I’d left her, head bent as she hurriedly ate the food I’d given her.