Page 40 of The Lies We Leave Behind

40

I was surprised to see the bedside lamps on, and realized Paulina must’ve turned them on when Catrin and I were finishing up dinner.

“Good evening, Mother,” Catrin said, taking a seat in one of the armchairs near the fireplace. “You missed a most interesting dinner.”

I could see our mother watching us behind half-closed lids, and I wondered what she felt, if anything, about her two once-dead daughters under her roof at the same time once more.

“Gisela thinks I should move to New York with her,” Catrin continued, crossing one slender leg over the other, and bobbing it up and down as though this conversation was nothing but a casual chat between old friends. “I can’t possibly abandon my post in Berlin, of course, but it’s an intriguing thought—being the one to bring our ideas to Manhattan. Can you imagine?”

My mind immediately went to my aunt and uncle’s many Jewish neighbors and my stomach turned over.

It was horrific looking at this young woman I’d once doted on. Had she always been this way and I’d been blind to it because I’d loved her? If I had stayed, would she still have turned out this way? Making it three against one in our household? Would I have had to leave eventually, unable to reconcile my relationship to them? Or, God forbid, would their influence and threats have turned me into whatever this creature was my sister had become? This icy, cruel woman with evil at her root.

There was a knock and we turned to see Paulina standing in the doorway, her eyes moving from me to my sister to our mother—and then back to me.

“Is everything okay?” she asked, still staring at me. “You’ve left your dinner.”

“I lost my appetite,” Catrin said. “But it was a lovely meal, Paulina. Thank you. You may go now.”

I looked desperately at our childhood nanny, pleading with my eyes for her not to go. Trying to convey that she’d been right, and I knew it now—and was frightened.

“Of course,” Paulina said. “I’ll just clear the dishes then.”

I listened as her footsteps receded down the hallway, the growing distance filling me with dread.

“I found something interesting today,” Catrin said. “While you were helping Paulina.”

I closed my eyes for a moment, preparing myself, and then turned to meet her stony gaze.

“Yes?”

“I thought it might help you with your decision.”

To my horror, she pulled the cloth bag I’d been using when I left the house out from behind the chair and retrieved both passports from inside.

“One might think you are a spy,” she said, opening first one, then the other. “Kate and Lena? How common of you, Gisela. You couldn’t come up with something a little more exotic?”

I wanted to fire back, but we both knew she held all the cards, quite literally, in her hands.

“What do you want?” I asked.

“I told you. Your allegiance.”

“And if I give it to you? To Germany?”

“Well then, I won’t have to have you arrested.”

“For what? I could easily say I was abducted, brainwashed, threatened...”

“These would say otherwise,” she said, waving the passports back and forth. “Tell you what...”

And as I watched, she threw one of the passports into the fire.

“No!”

I spun and found Paulina once more in the doorway, her eyes filled with horror.

“Catrin—” she said. But her words stopped there. She would be putting herself in danger if she defended me. Her eyes met mine and I shook my head. I wouldn’t let her do it.

“Congratulations, sister,” Catrin said, getting to her feet. “You are German once more. No more American identity to hide behind.”

I heard a noise from the other side of the room and glanced at my mother who was watching the whole thing from her bed in weary fascination.

“I thought we weren’t sisters anymore,” I said. “Didn’t you say—” But my thought was cut off by the sound of someone knocking at the front door.

The four of us stared at one another, and then Paulina rushed from the room, only to return moments later with Lieutenant Schmeiden leading the way.

“Well, what do we have here?” he asked and I watched with curiosity as Catrin’s demeanor changed from steely to something almost meek.

“Good evening, Lieutenant,” she said, eyes downcast, shoulders slumping slightly.

“I see they’ve let you leave your post in Berlin again, fr?ulein,” he said.

“My superior is aware of Mrs. Holl?nder’s failing health, and my loyalty to her because of her years of sponsorship,” Catrin said.

I glanced at Paulina, but she was too engrossed in the conversation to catch my eye, her hands deep in her skirt pockets as she slowly moved in closer, her gaze moving from Catrin to the lieutenant.

“Of course,” the lieutenant said in a smooth, almost placating voice that set my nerves on edge. I got the distinct feeling there was no love lost between these two and began to feel like I’d somehow gotten myself trapped in a cat-and-mouse situation. But who was the mouse? And who was the cat...

“What’s that in your hand?” Lieutenant Schmeiden asked Catrin.

My heart nearly stopped. My German passport.

She held it out and the room went still as he examined it, and then looked from me to Catrin.

“And why do you have fr?ulein Klein’s identification?” he asked her.

At that, my mother began to cough, waving one hand while the other grasped at her throat.

“She’s choking,” I said, hurrying to the bedside and hauling her quickly but gently into a seated position. “Paulina. Her water.”

Paulina was instantly beside me, helping me hold my mother upright. But even as we were trying to help her, she was pushing against us. Pushing us aside, her eyes trained on my sister, more intent than I’d seen them since arriving.

I looked over my shoulder at Cat and saw her jaw clench, seeming to physically restrain herself from whatever it was she’d been about to say. The fear I’d felt before intensified as understanding about the dynamics happening in the room became clear. We were in a web of lies, and one truth could undo it all in front of the anxious lieutenant, risking all our lives. What he wanted was dependent on me and my sister not existing as the next of kin to our mother. As far as he knew, we were acquaintances, and the estate was up for grabs as soon as our mother passed. Were he to find out we were her daughters, our lives would be in danger. Meanwhile, my sister hated me. Would she risk revenge by revealing the truth about me? By doing so, she didn’t know if I’d reveal her in turn. If we were found out, our mother could be questioned. And then there was Paulina...who held all our secrets.

I felt my mother’s body falter, the strain of sitting up too much. Carefully, Paulina and I laid her back down and then moved back to our previous spots in the room, the lieutenant watching our every move.

“Why did you have this?” Lieutenant Schmeiden asked Catrin again, holding up the passport and then handing it over to me.

I shoved it in my pocket and looked to Paulina again, worried about the soldier’s focus on my sister.

“I wanted to know who this stranger was who’s been taking care of my friend,” Catrin said. “I was surprised to return yesterday and find fr?ulein Klein here. I was suspicious of her motives.”

“But she is a nurse. Brought here by Mrs. Holl?nder’s trusted servant. I would think you’d be happy to have help for your friend in her last days.”

“Of course,” Catrin said, sinking into herself as if trying to seem smaller. Insignificant and non-threatening. “I am very grateful.”

The lieutenant began to move around the room. “It’s you whose motives I question, fr?ulein,” he said. “It is you who began showing up as soon as Mrs. Holl?nder arrived back in her lovely, expensive home, knowing what treasures you might gain for yourself once she’s gone.”

Catrin shook her head and I could see her calculating her next words carefully as Paulina moved closer to me, her arm brushing mine. I ignored her at first, and then her arm pressed into me, as though she were trying to get my attention. I looked over and met her eyes, which moved downward purposefully. Frowning, I followed her gaze, my heart skipping a beat when I saw what she had in her skirt pocket.

A pistol.

She stepped away from me again and I shook my head. This could only go very wrong. Paulina was trained in household affairs. Lieutenant Schmeiden was a soldier, trained in killing.

“No.”

We all turned to look at my mother, who was shaking her head, her cloudy eyes wild in her sunken face.

“Not that one,” she rasped, raising a shaking finger toward Catrin before turning it on me. “That one. That’s the one you can’t trust.”

“Don’t you dare,” Paulina said, her voice shaking with anger.

In the many nights that would follow, fraught with fear, hunger, and pain, I would have nightmares about the scene that played out now.

Lieutenant Schmeiden turned to see Paulina pulling the gun from her pocket. He grabbed his own pistol and two shots rang out, echoing throughout the room. I gasped and ducked, staring in terror across the room at my sister. Her eyes met mine, her fingers wrapping around the long, iron stoker beside the fireplace as a thud shook the floor beneath our feet, and the sound of someone wailing filled the air.

My ears rang and my body shook as I realized what Cat was about to do.

“Cat, no,” I whispered, taking a step toward her and watching in horror as she raised her arm and took aim at the lieutenant’s back. But he turned just in time—and another shot rang out.

Catrin jerked, her eyes widening, and then the stoker clanged to the floor a second before her body followed.

I raced toward her and fell to my knees beside her. But she was gone, her eyes, so like mine, closed forever.

Catrin. Kitty Cat.

Holding in a sob, I got to my feet and took in the rest of the room. Paulina lay on the floor, a bullet wound to her forehead, eyes open and devoid of life, the gun lying beside her.

On the bed, my mother’s emaciated body lay thrown back against the blood-spattered ivory satin headboard from a gunshot wound to her neck.

I knelt beside Paulina’s body and closed her eyes, then stood and stared at the lieutenant to await whatever came next. I couldn’t imagine he’d just let me go. As far as he was concerned, no one could be trusted with what he considered to be his. It wouldn’t matter if I promised I wanted none of it. To him, it was all worth too much to risk.

He gestured toward the door with his gun.

“You may pack a small bag while I watch,” he said. “Steal anything and I’ll shoot you too.”

I nodded silently and walked down the hall to my room as he followed close behind, watching as with shaking hands I filled a small cloth bag with underwear, a brassiere, socks, a pair of trousers and a sweater that had been my father’s, and a few items Paulina had made for the baby. In the bathroom I grabbed my toothbrush and hairbrush, my eyes moving across the counter to Catrin’s belongings still sitting where she’d left them earlier this morning.

I took my journal from the bedside table and slid it into the bag and then took a last look around my childhood bedroom, glancing at the space beneath my bed where my ring and the only picture I had of William was hidden, and then I turned and led the way down the hallway.

I paused when I reached my mother’s room where she, my sister, and Paulina lay lifeless, guilt and bile rising in my throat. Had I never come, they’d all still be alive.

“Let’s go,” the lieutenant said, giving me a soft shove in the back.

Numb, I nodded and then descended the staircase, my eyes taking it all in as I left the apartment I’d grown up in for what I knew would be the last time, a bag of borrowed clothes over my shoulder, an ID calling me Lena in my pocket, and William’s baby in my belly.