“Hey, are you okay?” Debbie asked in obvious concern.
“Yeah, just tired,” Eva responded. She walked out of the building, too caught up in her internal anguish to even notice how she got on the bus home. She walked the few meters home from the bus stop, but never afterward remembered the journey. She climbed the stairs up to the apartment, opened the door, and dropped her briefcase to the floor. “Zoe? Are you home?” There was no reply.
Eva sat on the sofa, numb with exhaustion. “Oh, God,” she exclaimed. She desperately wished that Zoe would return. She needed her so much that her chest ached. She fell back and let her head rest against the cushions. Her time with Greta seemed as though it had happened a lifetime ago. She cast her mind back, getting past the lingering guilt and letting old memories come surging to the fore.
***
“You know I really hate that game,” Elena said.
Zoe shook her head. “You just don’t understand it. It’s like chess.”
“I’m sure, but chess is quicker,” Elena said as they climbed the stairs of the apartment building.
Zoe had decided to go for the women’s cricket team trials at the college. She did not think she would be picked, but to her surprise and despite not having played the game before, she was. She had seen the notice and decided she wanted to learn how to play. It was late when she and Elena left the college grounds and slowly made their way home by bus.
They parted to go to their respective apartments. Zoe opened the door and entered a darkened lounge. “Hmm, how odd,” she muttered. Normally, the lights would be on. She took a few steps into the room. Ourania rubbed up her leg and meowed loudly.
“Where’s Eva, Raney?” she asked the cat, and picked her up to stroke her. “Maybe she had to stay late at work.” Ourania purred in response.
Zoe put the cat down and peeled off her shirt to take to the laundry basket. On her way back, she passed the sofa and noticed Eva’s handbag lying haphazardly on its side with half the contents spilled on the floor. She scooped up the fallen items, picked up the bag and went into the bedroom to put it away, wondering a little at Eva’s uncharacteristic sloppiness.
Lying on top of the bedspread was Eva, still in her work clothes. She had not even removed her shoes. Zoe stared in surprise for a long moment. Very quietly, so as not to wake Eva, she went over to the wardrobe and pulled out a blanket, placing it gently over Eva’s body.
“What happened, Evy?” Zoe whispered looking down at Eva’s tear stained face. The explanation was going to have to wait until Eva woke. She left the bedroom and closed the door behind her, trying to be as quiet as possible. She went into the kitchen and noticed the dinner she had cooked that morning had been taken out of the icebox and left on the counter. She lifted the lid of the dish and was surprised to find that Eva had not eaten a bite. She had apparently come home, left her bag on the floor, gone into the kitchen, taken the food out, and then left it when she went into the bedroom to fall asleep. Was she ill? Zoe was getting more worried with each new revelation.
“Damn it to hell,” she muttered and put the food back in the refrigerator. “I’m going to kill whoever hurt her.” She left the kitchen in a very black mood.
Zoe was still deep in thought as she went to the bathroom. She had just filled the tub for a bath when she heard Eva’s pained cry coming from the bedroom. She dropped the bath salts into the tub in her haste to get to Eva. She ran into the bedroom to find a sweat-drenched Eva looking extremely pale, doubled up as if in pain, and breathing in shallow gasps.
“It’s all right, love. I’ve got you.” Zoe held her as Eva sobbed. “I’ve got you,” she repeated in reassurance. Zoe was also shaking, her concern skyrocketing. “What’s the matter, Evy, are you sick?” Eva continued to shake and did not respond to Zoe’s question, which only made Zoe more anxious to find out the cause of such distress. “Is Father H all right? Is he hurt? What is it?”
“Hold me,” Eva begged as Zoe got into bed with her and held her shaking partner. She kissed Eva and tried to soothe her, rocking her in her arms. Eva’s sobs tore at Zoe’s heart. She had thought after Muller was captured that all of this would end, but there had been only a brief respite. She decided that the bath could wait until the morning, as could further inquiries into the cause of Eva’s agony.
Chapter Forty-Three
Zoe woke with a start and a very uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach. She turned over to look for Eva, but she was not in bed. Zoe got up, put on her slippers, and walked out of the bedroom. She could see Eva sitting on the sofa, her strong profile outlined in the light from the open curtain, although the rest of the room was dark. Ourania was in her lap, curled up and purring as Eva’s fingers stroked through her fur. Zoe sighed. She padded over to the sofa, her footsteps muffled by the rug.
Eva looked up and gave her a tired smile. “Did I wake you?”
Zoe knelt beside the sofa and took Eva’s hand. “No, I just woke up and you were gone.”
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“So I see.” Zoe took the cat out of Eva’s arms to make a little room for herself. Eva leaned into her embrace and let out a heavy sigh. “Want to tell me what happened yesterday?” Zoe asked.
“I can’t.” Eva swallowed thickly.
Zoe’s heart clenched at the sight of the unshed tears swimming in Eva’s eyes. “Did someone hurt you?” she asked.
Eva shook her head. “No,” she rasped. “Not...not yesterday.”
“I love you and I can’t stand to watch you hurt so much. Please, tell me.”
“Would you still love me if I had died back in Greece?” Eva asked, her voice a bare whisper.
“Did you have that nightmare again?” Zoe asked. “I will love you till I die,” she said. “You know that.” Back in Greece, she had thought about life without Eva and pondered that very question when Eva was lying in the American medical tent hospital in Larissa, recovering from her wounds. Zoe had lost her family and many of her friends, and the idea of losing Eva made her feel physically ill.
Instead of answering her question, Eva asked one of her own. “What if I told you that I didn’t want to be with you?”
Zoe blinked and wondered what was going on in Eva’s mind. “I don’t...if you told me that, it would shatter me into a thousand pieces,” she answered honestly. “Evy, you’re scaring me. What’s the matter? Talk to me!”
Eva took a deep breath. “Do you remember I told you about Greta Strauss?”
Zoe nodded. “Greta was the first woman you fell in love with.”
“She told me she didn’t want to be with me anymore,” Eva continued. “Came right out and told me, like our love was nothing to her.”
“Then this Greta person was the biggest idiot on the planet,” Zoe replied, fierce in Eva’s defense. “I wouldn’t give you up no matter what.”
Eva smiled for the first time since Zoe had found her on the bed a few hours ago. “What if you were going to marry some man?”
“I would probably say that I had rocks in my head.” Zoe stopped talking when she realized that Eva’s question about dying in Greece and Greta’s abandonment in Germany were connected. She cleared her throat. “Were you thinking of Greta? It’s not your fault, love. It’s not your fault she was killed.”
“She’s not dead,” Eva whispered. “She walked into my office yesterday.”
Zoe was stunned. It was obvious that Eva was shell-shocked as well. Zoe did not know how she would react if she were in that position — not that she had a former girlfriend or boyfriend from her past. Eva was her first lover and her last. There would be no others as far as Zoe was concerned. Nevertheless, she could empathize with Eva’s feelings.
“Wow,” Zoe said when she had found her voice again. It was not a surprise that Eva was so unsettled. She now understood why Eva had had the nightmare. Even though she had never met Greta, she disliked her intensely for what she was putting Eva through.
“You know, as she walked into the office, I wa
s about to introduce myself,” Eva went on. “I froze. I stood there like I had been punched. What’s that cricketing term Earl uses all the time?”
“Hit for a six.”
“Yes, I was hit for a six. I didn’t know what to do. She hadn’t been sent to a concentration camp. Reinhardt lied to me. She went home to plan her wedding with John...” Eva stopped and cleared her throat. “I was thinking of how I was going to tell you, and I couldn’t stop crying. I love you, Zoe. I love you so much. I don’t think I could ever go on without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere, love. I’m staying put,” Zoe replied, brushing away Eva’s tears with the flat of her hand. “I made a promise to you on the ship that I would love you and care for you. I vowed before God that you are my partner for life.”
“Partners for life,” Eva whispered. “I never told you—on Kristallnacht Greta told me we couldn’t be together anymore because she was going to get married.”
“I’m confused. She was going to get married?”
“Yes.” Eva sniffed back her tears. “She said that I shouldn’t have thought it was forever.”
“What was forever?”
Eva glanced at Zoe and sighed. “My love for her. Her love for me.”
What a callous, cold-hearted bitch, Zoe thought. “Greta was right, you know.”
“She was?”
“Yes.” Zoe smiled and held Eva’s hands. “She made a horrible mistake letting you go, but I’m glad she was an idiot, because you belong to me now. I would never do that. She must be so stupid. I want to spend the rest of my life waking up to you, loving you, and being there for you.” She tangled her fingers in Eva’s hair, brought her head down, and kissed her passionately. They parted and gazed into each other’s eyes. Eva held her tighter.
“I wasn’t expecting it, for her to speak to me that way. I thought we would be together, and then after that night, everything changed. And not for the better,” Eva said. “After all that time, after so much has happened, Greta was the last person I expected to come through the office door. It was just...it was as if someone had hit me.”
“I’ll bet she was surprised too.”
“I’m not sure. I was so shocked that I don’t even remember what I said to her,” Eva admitted. “Last time I saw her, I was so upset she was leaving me, and then we burned down the synagogue and I got scared.”
“Is that why you left your friends and went home?” Zoe’s question was one she had wanted to ask ever since she had found out about Eva’s part on that fateful night.
“No. It made me sick to see the rabbi being beaten and I had a really strange feeling I should be back home,” Eva replied quietly. “I did nothing to stop Reinhardt. Greta was urging him on and I couldn’t believe what was happening. We were so wrong, Zoe. So wrong.”
“You were essentially my age,” Zoe said, brushing a lock of Eva’s hair out of her eyes.
“But you’re smarter than me, Zoe. You have a backbone,” Eva said and looked away, her shame apparent.
Zoe sighed. She had often wondered where the root of Eva’s insecurities lay, and thought that the cruelties she had endured in Austria at the hands of her uncle were the cause, but not necessarily the beginning. Now she knew — it had started with that Greta woman and gone downhill from there. She was not surprised that Eva’s confidence in herself had taken such a mauling.
She gently turned Eva’s face towards her and whispered, “You didn’t go through a war and have your family killed and see your friends die. You were innocent. You didn’t know anything about life other than going to school and being in the Hitler Youth. You were brainwashed into believing that the Jews weren’t human.”
“Don’t try and excuse my inaction—”
“I’m not trying to. I’m just telling you what happened. If you didn’t have a backbone, you would have participated in urging Reinhardt to kill that rabbi, just like Greta was doing. You have a heart. Greta didn’t.”
“She promised that she was going to whisk me away and we would live in the mountains,” Eva ruefully said. “Back then, I believed what she told me.”
“What else did she promise you?”
Eva wiped her wet face with a handkerchief. “She promised to love me forever. I wanted so desperately to hear that and I believed it. Oh, how I believed!”
“Why did this upset you so much? I know having her show up like that without any warning was a bombshell, but why did it hurt you so much?”
Eva sat still for a moment before she answered, “I thought I was responsible for her death. I thought it was my fault. That’s been pressing on me for a long time.”
“Who told you it was your fault?”
“Reinhardt, at the cabin before he shot me.”
“You believed that sadistic bastard? Oh Evy, that’s the last person you should have listened to.”
“I don’t know, Zo. Maybe it made sense to me.”
“Oh.” Zoe finally understood. “Isn’t it time to let go of the guilt?” she asked. “You’ve been through enough without carrying that with you.”
“I know,” Eva responded and fell silent.
“What is it that scares you, Evy?”
Eva gazed into Zoe’s eyes for such a long time Zoe thought she may never answer that question. She finally spoke up, but her voice sounded strained. “I fear that you will stop loving me.”
Zoe wanted to slap herself. It was Eva’s biggest fear. She had known that, but having Eva say the words made it all the more frightening. Not only had Greta turned Eva’s world upside down, but Eva’s biggest fear was exposed. Zoe could see the unshed tears that threatened to spill but Eva held back. “Do you remember what I said to you in Larissa, in the Church?” It was the night Eva kissed her, and the world came into focus for the first time in years.
Eva nodded and a tiny smile appeared making her eyes crinkle. “You’re not alone.”
“That’s right, and you have never been alone since then, so I’m not about to let you go now.”
“I know, love, but...”
Zoe inwardly groaned. She should have seen this coming. Eva told her what Greta promised her and then cruelly had taken her heart and crushed it. She took Eva’s hands and held them tightly. “I want you to listen to me. You’ve had this fear that I’m going to leave you since Egypt...”
“Larissa,” Eva admitted.
“You have to let go of this fear, Evy. I’m not leaving. I told you that I’m not, but you seem to want to hang on to it like a life preserver.”
“I don’t want to hang on to it.”
“Yes, you do. You see, if in the future I decide to leave, you can say to yourself that you always knew it would happen. That you don’t deserve to be happy. That you don’t deserve to be loved.”
Zoe watched Eva’s face closely. She knew what she had said was exactly what Eva was feeling and thinking, and it was confirmed when Eva gazed down at her hands. Zoe gently tipped Eva’s chin up and gazed into her eyes. “I will never leave you. I will never hurt you. I swear to God that I will never ever let you go unless you want to go.”
“I will never leave you,” Eva replied hoarsely, her voice heavy with emotion.
“I will never leave you either, so we are stuck with each other,” Zoe said and leaned in for a kiss. They parted and smiled at each other. “I don’t like this Greta woman.”
“You’ve never met her.”
“I don’t need to meet her—I know she’s a bitch,” Zoe replied vehemently.
“At the spa, I wondered if this was God’s punishment for me. I loved a woman, and this was God’s way of telling me I was wrong. I was a bad person and this was my punishment.”
Zoe swallowed hard and tried to control the rage building inside — not against Eva, but against those who had taken an innocent teenager and tried to destroy her soul. “The spa” was Eva’s euphemistic way of referring to the horror of the town of Aiden, where her stepfather had sent her to be with his brother, Dr. Dieter Muller. After Eva w
as beaten by her stepfather, it was the place she was taken to heal. It also was supposed to have rehabilitated her, cured her “deviancy,” and changed a fundamental part of who she was, or so her tormentors had thought.
Eva seldom talked about her time in Aiden. It was obviously too painful to discuss and, yet, little bits of information would come out when they talked, giving Zoe an idea of the horrendous, inhuman treatment meted out to a teenage girl whose only crime had been to love another woman.
“It was not God’s punishment,” Zoe stated flatly.
“At the time I thought that it was. That He was punishing me for being a lesbian.” Eva’s voice broke.
“How can a God of love make you suffer, Evy? He wouldn’t. It wasn’t God that caused your pain.” Zoe knew Eva understood the truth in her heart, but she was now dealing with the guilt and pain of an eighteen-year-old and not the mind of a twenty-seven-year-old.
“There was a priest who would come to me every so often.” Eva shut her eyes and swallowed. “He would be so kind and try to help me.”
“Was he a kind man?” Zoe asked, although she had a feeling that she already knew what Eva was going to say.
“He was. He would tell me that hell was not where I wanted to go. I told him once I wasn’t going to hell, because I was already there and it couldn’t be any worse.”
Zoe let her own tears silently spill down her face, glad she was partially concealed by the darkness. “What did he say to that?” she asked when she thought her voice would not betray the gut-wrenching ache that had started to sear through her body in sympathy for the monstrous treatment Eva had endured in the past.
Where Shadows Linger (Intertwined Souls Series Book 2) Page 33