Page 38 of The Lies We Leave Behind

38

“I don’t understand,” Catrin said, looking from me to Paulina and then back again.

But I couldn’t speak. I was too busy staring at her. Taking in the young woman she’d grown into. The soft angles of her face, wide blue eyes, and elegant presence. I wanted to rush to her. Throw my arms around her. Tell her I was sorry and grab her hand, dragging her to the address hidden in my bag so that we could escape this place. This—

Home.

The word flashed in my mind and I suddenly remembered that before William, the only sense of home I’d had was when I’d been with Cat in our wing of the house. We were one another’s sanctuary. It was only when I was with her that I felt I belonged.

But the way she was looking at me now...

“I don’t understand,” Catrin said, her voice harder now as she sank into one of the kitchen chairs and looked to Paulina. “Can you please explain what’s going on.”

“Of course,” Pauline said, pulling the pot of broth from the icebox and setting it on the stove to warm. “But first, why don’t you go say hello to your mother and bring her some water while she’s awake.”

She took a clean glass from the cupboard, filled it with water, and held it out to Catrin, who stared at it for a moment before nodding and getting to her feet.

She stopped beside me, her blue eyes, the same color as mine, skimming across my face. And then she leaned forward and kissed me first on one cheek, then the other.

“Willkomen zu Hause, Schwester,” she murmured, and then disappeared out the door.

Paulina and I stared at one another in my sister’s wake.

“You should go,” Paulina said, her voice low. “Now. It’s too dark outside to find your contact, but you could hide in one of the closets in the lobby until morning.”

“What?” I asked, shaking my head in confusion. “Why? She just got here. We’ve barely said two words to one another. I haven’t even told her—”

“She’ll never go with you. I was stupid to entertain the idea that she might.” She motioned toward the door, but I frowned and crossed my arms over my chest.

“Paulina—”

She moved toward me so fast I found myself backing up until I ran into the wall behind me.

“That young woman is not the same girl you knew, Gisela,” she said, her voice a furious whisper. “She is dangerous. Conniving. She is their child. Do you understand me? Theirs. ”

I sucked in a breath, tears hovering on my lower lashes. She didn’t just mean Catrin was my parents’ child. She meant Catrin was a child of the Third Reich. I nodded, a tear streaking down my cheek as I moved a hand to my growing belly.

“I just—I don’t understand. She seemed fine. Why do you suddenly think I’m in danger? Do you think she’d try and hurt me?” I asked.

Paulina stepped back, her eyes filled with sadness. “I don’t know, fr?ulein. Is it worth the risk of staying and finding out?”

“She’s shocked to see me alive,” I said.

“I don’t trust her.”

I stared at her. I had risked everything to get here. To this moment. To see my sister and bring her to New York with me. And now, when I was so close to seeing it happen, was I really going to give up, turn around, and go back home without her?

I felt a small shift deep inside me. At first I thought it was emotional, and then I realized it was a physical shift. My baby.

William’s baby.

The kitchen door swung open and Catrin stepped inside.

“You can take the broth off the stove,” she told Paulina. “She’s gone back to sleep.”

Paulina nodded and switched off the stove. “Did she see you at least?” she asked.

“For a moment. She looks...” Her voice trailed off as she looked from Paulina to me.

“It won’t be long now,” I said and she nodded.

“Well,” Paulina said. “Our dinner is ready. Shall we eat?”

I pulled out another set of dishes from the cupboards and the three of us took our seats around the kitchen table.

“How long have you been here?” Catrin asked me.

“She arrived two weeks after you left for Berlin last month,” Paulina answered.

I watched Catrin’s mouth turn up in a small, almost irritated smile as she looked at our former nanny.

“Thank you, Paulina,” she said and then turned back to me. “And what brought you back?”

“Well...” I glanced at Paulina and then to my sister again. “You. I learned you were alive and had to come.”

“Where have you been for the past ten years? And with whom? How did you leave?” She tilted her head, narrowing her eyes. “Was there ever a pen pal or was it all a lie? Who helped you?”

How many times had I had this conversation with her in my mind? How many times had I tried to explain, hoping my words were enough for her to forgive me for leaving, for lying, and for making her believe I’d died. I’d imagined having to plead with her, a young girl, to accept my apologies. I’d never imagined us doing this as adults. This was much harder.

I took in a long breath and exhaled, rubbing my eyes as I prepared myself, and then sitting back in my chair, a feeling of defeat resonating through my body. This was not going to go how I’d imagined it all those many years before. Catrin was not the same girl.

“It was all set up by our aunt and uncle,” I said.

Catrin frowned. “The ones who died?”

I pursed my lips and saw understanding dawn in her eyes.

“Ah. They didn’t die, did they.”

“No,” I said quietly. “They faked their deaths. A boat accident in the South of France two years before I left.”

“I remember,” she said. “You were devastated. You were a good actress.”

I ignored the comment and continued.

“A few months later I got the invitation from my pen pal in California to come visit in the summer. She, as you might’ve guessed by now, was not a sixteen-year-old girl but an adult contact through the same organization our aunt and uncle worked for.”

“And Mother’s friend Alina?” Catrin asked.

I nodded. “She was in on it too.” I let that sit with her for a moment before going on. “The plan, as it was explained to me, was to get me out first, then come back for you two years later when you were a little bit older and would understand better—and could keep secrets better. I only agreed to go because I knew you would follow.”

“Why didn’t they just take us both at the same time?”

“I don’t know. I was never privy to the planning. I assume it had to do with opportunities that presented themselves. I just did as I was told.”

“Why did you want to go in the first place?”

I sighed, my eyes wandering the extravagant room, faded by age and war but still beautiful. What I would say next would not sit well between us, but she asked, and so I told her.

“I hated them,” I said, my voice soft but firm. “Hated everything about them. Hated what they were trying to force me to be. I didn’t agree with what they believed in, and I could see what I—what we—would be forced into if we stayed.”

She was quiet for a moment and then: “What happened next? After you left with Alina.”

“We went to California, met up with our contact there, and were given paperwork with our new identities. We stayed a night in a hotel, and then in the morning we boarded a train for New York where we met up with our aunt and uncle, who also had new identities and a whole life set up in Manhattan. I said goodbye to Alina and she left. I never saw her again.”

“And then?”

I exhaled, remembering.

“My and Alina’s deaths were faked and I spent the next many months terrified and sad. I was so worried we’d be found out. Scared I’d be taken away, brought back, punished in ways I couldn’t imagine. And I was bereft at the thought of possibly never seeing you again. Before and during the escape, I’d been sure I was doing the right thing for the both of us. But once I was there and settled, I feared I’d been wrong.” I closed my eyes, thinking back to those first days. “I didn’t leave my room for days. I was afraid of the city, which seemed so big and loud, the people brash and hurried. And while I knew the language, I was tentative to use it, worried everyone who heard it would know where I was from and tell the police or try and harm me.”

My sister looked at me with a frank expression, unmoved by my story and waiting for me to go on.

“It got better, of course,” I continued. “Time passed, I got more comfortable and, while I wasn’t told the plans for getting you to the States, I knew things were underway and I was excited to see you and have you with me.” My eyes filled with tears. “And then we heard the news about the bomb.” I stopped talking and swallowed a sob, the memory of hearing my sister had been killed still painful, no matter that she was now sitting before me. “I was devastated. And for a time, I hated our aunt and uncle, blaming them for things they weren’t responsible for and couldn’t possibly have foreseen. But I was angry regardless. And then again, time passed, the wound still stung but the three of us tried to move forward, until eventually life became a new kind of normal again. I went to school, graduated, became a nurse. And then I got a letter saying you were alive and...you can imagine my shock when I learned you were alive after all this time.”

Catrin’s smile was small and tight. “Yes. I can.”

“I’m sorry, Catrin.” I reached out and wrapped my hand around hers. She let me hold it for a moment, then slid it from mine and picked up her napkin to dab at her mouth.

“Did you...have you had a good life?” I asked, even though I was afraid to hear.

“Well, after the sister my world revolved around died, I was devastated,” she said. “But our parents, as you know, found grieving to be a selfish endeavor, and so I was pushed into activities. I learned to play the piano, took painting classes, and was encouraged to join any number of clubs. After the bomb, I lived in the country for a time with an interesting family. The father took special interest in me, though he didn’t express his interest quite like his eldest son did.”

I inhaled, horrified as she continued.

“Things got a little better, though,” she said. “I joined Bund Deutscher M?del where I was bullied by the older girls for a time, and then eventually I was one of the older girls. I got top grades in school, was invited to parties, was introduced to the right boys, and eventually got a much sought-after job doing administrative work at an office in Berlin, where I now live. I have a lovely flat, a nice circle of friends, and a boyfriend whose boss does important work for the Führer.”

She watched me closely as she said that last part and it took everything I had not to cringe.

Instead, I smiled and nodded. “It sounds like you’ve built a good life.”

“I have. And I only intend for it to get better. Despite the growing rumors and fears about how this war is going, there are a great many plans in place to see the dream carried out in myriad of ways.”

I swallowed and snuck a look at Paulina, but she was staring down at her plate, her interest seemingly piqued by the remaining potatoes on her plate.

I startled at the scrape of Catrin’s chair against the floor as she pushed away from the table.

“While this has been lovely—Paulina, the dinner was wonderful as always—I must get to bed.”

“You are staying?” Paulina asked, her eyes wide as she got to her feet.

“It is dark now so I don’t have much choice,” Catrin said. “And of course, my sister is home. How could I leave now when Gisela has returned from the dead? There is so much more to discuss.”

Paulina shot me a look, but I was too busy staring at my sister to look back.

“I have errands to run tomorrow,” Catrin said to me. “But perhaps we can have dinner together when I return?”

“I would like that,” I said, my voice faint.

“Good. Then I shall say good-night to you both.”

She was gone a moment later and I found myself staring at the seat she’d vacated.

“Gisela.” Paulina’s voice was soft.

I turned and met her eyes, seeing worry laced with fear.

“She’s in shock,” I said. “She thought I was dead and now here I am, very much alive.”

“Gisela—” There was a warning in her voice now.

“Just let me talk to her tomorrow,” I said. “Let me tell her my plan. Tell her about life in New York. Tell her about the baby and how she’s going to be an aunt.”

Paulina’s hand was a vise around my wrist.

“Whatever you do,” she said. “Do not tell that girl about your baby.”

Paulina and I cleaned up the kitchen in silence. The dessert she made went uneaten, neither of us in the mood. The wine she’d chosen but never poured was dumped in the sink.

“Good night, Paulina,” I said, standing by the door.

“We’ll talk more in the morning,” she said. “After she’s gone.”

I nodded, opened the door, and headed upstairs to my room.

From the end of the hall I could see light beneath Catrin’s bedroom door. But as I passed by on the way to my own room, the light turned off.

I entered my room and stared through the door of the adjoining bathroom to her door at the other end. Turning on the light, I saw a small bag on her side of the counter beside her sink, a toothbrush and hairbrush laid out just so.

Hurrying, I washed my face and brushed my teeth. As I turned to leave, I hesitated, glancing back at the door to my sister’s room and staring at the lock, the warning in Paulina’s voice earlier still echoing in my mind. But there was no point in locking it. Catrin had learned how to unlock it from the other side using a hairpin at an early age. I was the one who taught her.

Sighing, I turned out the light and shut the door on my side, then climbed in bed and fell asleep.