Life Will Have Its Way

by Angie Myers Lewtschuk

  “So,” Anja continued, “at the edge of the city, on the outskirts of town there is an old drainage system where the runoff is collected and sent out to the river. Of course the children are forbidden to play in it, but…” she looked at them like a spirited mother might look at a mischievous child that had done something wrong but wasn’t really going to get in trouble for it.

  Lukas jumped in before Anja could continue, “It’s her fault, it’s all her fault that we’re even here.” He fully extended his arm to point at Evie. “She always wants to go with us!”

  We all looked at him. He stopped talking for a second, suddenly embarrassed and not quite certain what to do with the attention.

  “Well,” he continued a little less sure of himself, “we keep telling her she’s too little, but yesterday, our mom said maybe now she was big enough to go with us.” He looked to Erich for support, but Erich didn’t say anything. “But our dad thought it should be our decision. And we decided we didn’t want her to go with us, so we left without her!” He cast an angry glance toward Evie.

  Lukas went on to tell us that after they left, they knew Evie was following them. At first they didn’t let on, but eventually they realized there might be trouble if she were to follow them clear to the river. They finally stopped and told her she had to go back. She begged them to let her go, but they knew they couldn’t let her know about their secret trips to the river. They all turned around and the boys walked Evie back to where they could see the rooftops, they watched her walk along the trail heading toward home until they could no longer see her. Lukas finally finished talking and drew in a long gulp of air. His lungs must have been completely empty after all that rambling. I felt exhausted just from listening to him.

  Anja looked to Evie, “Evie, dear little Evie, how did you end up here if you were supposed to go back home?”

  Evie squirmed and looked around the room making quick, nervous eye contact with everyone.

  “You followed us!” Lukas jumped up and stood over her shaking an angry finger in her direction. “You followed us after we told you not to! You could’ve gotten us in big trouble!” He folded his arms crossly and sat back down, his face was screwed up with all the intensity he could muster.

  “I didn’t follow you!” she shot back. She tipped her head downward and finished speaking in a meek, pathetic tone, “I just wanted to go with you… and I did go back home, but, but… you guys never want to play with me.”

  Lukas hung his head and shook it slowly side to side. “No Evie, it’s not ‘cause we don’t want to play with you, it’s just ‘cause… you’re too little!”

  “No I’m not! I’m not too little!” She pulled her legs up to her chest and grabbed them with her arms, tucking her head between them.

  Anja rubbed her hand on Evie’s back and motioned for Lukas to stop. “It’s okay dear, we’re just trying to figure out how you got here by yourself, that’s all, no one’s mad at you.”

  Evie lifted her head, “Well… before I went to the house, I saw this kitty that I sometimes play with, but when I tried to get closer he ran into the forest.”

  “You’re telling me you followed that stupid cat all the way through the woods?” Erich sniped.

  Evie looked back at him, her eyebrows lowered. “No!” she jumped up, “I didn’t follow the stupid kitty all the way through the woods.”

  “Well… then… how… did… you… get… here?” Erich asked mockingly.

  A self-satisfied smile crossed Evie’s face, “Petra brought me.”

  Anja and I exchanged glances.

  “Petra. You mean your grandmother?” I asked.

  “That’s not our grandma,” Erich snapped. “Our grandma’s name was Klara.”

  “Then who’s Petra?”

  “Petra is a bird.”

  “A what?”

  “She’s a hawk. You know,” he said while flapping his hands in front of him, “like a falcon, only bigger.”

  “No, I think she’s an eagle,” Lukas chimed in, “her wings are like this big.” He spread his arms as far as they could reach, straining with all his might to make them expand even farther.

  Erich scoffed, and shook his head, “Trust me, she’s a hawk.”

  Their father had found the bird abandoned in a nest not long after it hatched, it was obvious something had happened to its mother so he decided to bring it home. The sweet little chick, covered in soft, creamy down was utterly helpless. Her thin, frail body went willingly into his knapsack for the long walk to her new home. She was kept inside in a small, open crate in the warmest place in the house, right next to the stove in the kitchen, where a staff of eager young caretakers could tend to her needs. By the time the bird was strong and healthy she had outgrown several wooden crates and become part of the family.

  “Then why,” I asked Evie, "did you tell me Petra was your grandmother?”

  She shrugged her shoulders and started to say something but Lukas cut her off.

  “Evie just likes to pretend Petra’s our grandma.”

  I looked at Anja and raised my eyebrows.

  Erich watched our exchange. “No… we just like to think grandma sent the hawk… so we’ll know she’s still with us.” He seemed impatient, annoyed that the subject should have to be discussed. “Grandma died right before Evie was born, and that was about the same time when my dad found the baby chick.” He looked anxiously back and forth between us, hoping he was done explaining, then grabbed a magazine off the table and started flipping through it.

  “Grandma said Petra was a pretty name,” Evie offered. “She told me I could call her that if I wanted to.”

  Anja and I looked at one another again. “When did you talk to your grandmother?” she asked.

  “I talk to Grandma all the time,” Evie proclaimed boldly.

  I turned to Erich for a reaction, he must have sensed something, he shrugged and shook his head, without looking up. He was obviously done with the conversation.

  “She usually comes to visit when everyone is asleep.”

  I was dying to know more, but wasn’t sure how much I could ask without making her realize how unusual her visits with her grandmother actually were.

  “That is so nice that she comes to see you,” I said, “what do the two of you talk about?”

  “She told me she liked my doll house one time,” Evie replied, “but usually she just talks about grandpa. She’s worried about him. She thinks he’s not very happy.”

  I looked at Anja again, she shook her head, neither of us knew quite what to say. Apparently neither did anyone else, we all sat quietly for several minutes before Anja broke the silence.

  “So,” she started, directing her attention to the boys, “your parents are comfortable with sending the two of you such a distance by yourselves?”

  The boys looked at each other, their eyes wide.

  “Oh my word! Your parents don’t know you’re here, do they?” Anja grabbed her chest with both hands feigning a heart attack, “Surely, they must be worried sick!”

  “Nah,” Lukas replied casually, “they don’t have to worry about us. And besides, they’ll be so excited to see Evie they’ll forget all about getting us in trouble.”

  Chapter 18

  Anja excused herself, I could hear the bath running in the other room, the linen closet open and close. “Who’s up first?” she shouted into the hallway. The boys looked at one another, their reaction was remarkably similar to that of a dog that wasn’t used to bathing but had suddenly realized he was destined for a trip to the bath. I went into the living room and looked for something to read while the kids got cleaned up. Anja joined me soon after and the boys wandered out separately as they finished bathing. Lukas carried his left arm with the other and I could tell he was trying to shield something as he passed. When I asked him what he hiding he reluctantly moved his hand to the side to reveal a sizeable wound on his forearm, it covered nearly the entire underside.

  “My goodness, Lukas!” Anja exc
laimed as she took hold of his arm and pulled it closer so she could take a better look. “What on earth happened here?”

  Erich laughed, “You’ll never believe what he did.”

  Lukas pursed his lips and squinted his eyes into a pretend mad face directed at Erich.

  The boys had been playing in the fields with their cousins. One of the older boys started passing under the horses, he would lower himself to fit beneath the belly and emerge on the other side. The horses seemed indifferent to the antics and for the most part were able to completely ignore the boy. As always happened when the older kids got together, someone eventually dared Lukas to try it. Initially he was reluctant, knowing full well that it was never a good idea to mess around with the horses.

  “Come on!” they chided. “Are yuh chicken?”

  “No I’m not a chicken!” he screeched before bending slightly at the waist and walking straight into the open area under the horse.

  “You’re too tall! You’re too tall!” yelled one of the cousins. “Scrunch your knees! Scrunch your knees!”

  It was too late, Lukas raised his head just enough to touch the tender underside of the horses belly. What followed was a rush of air then a floating sensation followed by a crash and a long tumble. He finally came to rest half way across the field. He sat up, the other boys rushed to him, the horse stood unaffected and continued to graze. The boys found themselves shocked by what they’d just seen and looked wildly around the field hoping no one else had been around to see it. They convinced Lukas not to tell anyone which meant the cut created when the horse kicked him was never properly cared for, and now Anja found it to be quite infected.

  She turned to Erich. “You left this poor boy to deal with this on his own? You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “I tried to help him with it!”

  “You should have told your parents!” Anja said, “This is serious.”

  Erich snapped to attention, “Tell our parents? No way. Noooo way.”

  Anja took Lukas off to the kitchen. Soon I could hear what sounded like cupboards and drawers opening, water boiling and the shredding of rags. They returned shortly with Lukas proudly displaying his freshly bandaged arm.

  “It’s getting late!” Anja announced. “You kids need to get some sleep.”

  The children piled together on the bed in the guest room, not bothering to pull back the covers. Anja moved their things inside the hiding space then pushed the armoire into place, she checked several times to make sure it was still ajar. She leaned over to Erich, giving him instructions in case of an emergency, telling him what he would need to do should she give him the signal. He listened carefully and nodded firmly once she’d finished.

  Chapter 19

  I followed Anja back out to the kitchen. “Oh my God Anja! What is going on today? Could things get any stranger?”

  “I don’t think so,” she laughed, “and I certainly hope not.”

  I asked her what happened before I got home. She said she’d just happened to be looking out the kitchen window when she noticed the boys wandering around in the garden. Her finger shot into the air, “I knew right away who they were and pulled them inside. And I thanked my lucky stars that I’d been the first to have seen them.” She leaned into me and said a bit more quietly, “Those boys stuck out like a sore thumb out there, I hope to hell they didn’t walk around much before I got ahold of ‘em.”

  Anja went to the kitchen and strained her neck to see over the top of the curtains that covered the bottom half of her window. “I had just enough time to get them all a bite to eat and the dishes put away when I heard voices out front. I saw who it was and had a pretty good idea they’d be at my door soon enough.” She moved to the windows in the living room and peeked through the small crack that ran along the edge of the curtain. “But luckily they went to your place first… and thank goodness they did! That extra few minutes gave me just enough time to get the kids out of the way.”

  Anja continued compulsively checking the windows.

  “Is someone out there?” I asked.

  “No, no. I don’t see anyone, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they came back.”

  “Why? Why would they? What did they say to you?”

  “Oh not much. I talked to Friedrich and that other nice boy for a few minutes, they came in, looked around a bit and left.”

  “Weren’t you scared?” I asked.

  “Eh!” she flipped her wrist casually. “Why would I be afraid of those boys? I’ve known most of them since they were about this tall.” She lowered her palm to mark a spot about three feet above the floor. “It’s only when they send the old, cranky ones over that you have to start to worry.”

  I told her about my trip to the police station, she said she’d seen us leave and felt horrible that she couldn’t do anything to stop them from taking me. With the kids hiding in her guest room, she figured it probably wasn’t a good time to draw any attention back to her place. She went on to tell me that she hadn’t been too worried about anything happening to me personally, but wasn’t sure I’d be able to keep quiet about the girl. She knew how they worked people over and how easy it was to say the very thing you were trying not to say.

  “You didn’t tell them anything… did you?” she asked.

  “No. Well… not really.

  “What do you mean not really?”

  “I just told them that I’d talked to the girl in the garden,” I replied nervously.

  “What?” she exploded. “Why? Why on earth would you tell them that? Why on earth would you tell them anything?” Her nostrils flared as her breathing became slow and labored.

  My jaw felt as though it had been clamped shut. “I thought they already knew,” I whispered through my teeth, “I didn’t think it would matter to tell them something they already knew.”

  “What else did you tell them?”

  “I just told them that she was waiting for her grandma, that’s it, I promise.”

  Anja placed her elbows at the edge of the table and let her head fall into her hands. After several minutes, she finally looked back toward me and offered a weak, strained smile. “Well, I guess what’s done is done,” she said, “and hopefully it won’t make a difference.”

  I offered to make up something to eat and went to work flipping mindlessly through one of the cookbooks on the counter, eventually managing to put together something loosely based on one of the casserole recipes. We sat at the table in silence, I could tell Anja was still upset about my revelation to the police. I hoped she would get over it. I wanted her to talk. I wanted to talk to her. I had so many questions I wasn’t sure where to even begin.

  “Okay then,” Anja finally said during an especially long lull, “remember last night after Peter left?”

  I nodded.

  “Remember when I told you that you’d think I was crazy if I told you where we thought Evie came from?”

  I nodded again.

  “Well, the good news is… I’m not crazy.”

  I told her I was glad to hear it, since I was seriously beginning to wonder. She swatted at me with the back of her hand. “Oh come on now,” she laughed and offered to start at the beginning.

  I correctly guessed that the beginning would have something to do with the armoire in her guest room. As for the actual hiding place, everyone had certainly heard of them, of course we all knew they’d existed, but no one wanted to talk about stuff like that anymore. Everyone just wished it would go away. But it didn’t go away, it couldn’t. The ghosts of the past were stubborn. They lingered in every apartment, in every house, in every building, uninvited and unable to leave.

  In the years leading up to the war when people were being arrested, Anja said her mother nearly had a breakdown watching people being taken away, that she absolutely hated the idea of sitting idly while all around them, entire families were disappearing. “Of course you wanted to hope they were going off to maybe a better place, you know, but deep down we all knew that wasn’t the c
ase,” Anja said. One day her mother announced that something had to be done, soon after that Anja noticed an increase in the number of houseguests, some were people they already knew, many were not. “If I sat quietly and acted like I wasn’t paying attention, they would forget about me. But thinking back now, that was actually very dangerous of them. They put a lot of trust in the fact that I wouldn’t go off and say something at school that I had overheard at home.”

  She moved her fork mindlessly across her plate, rearranging the food she hadn’t yet eaten, “When they started building the closet, no one really took notice. The neighbors weren’t preoccupied with one another like they are now days.”

  Of course Anja’s parents were no fools, even though things were fairly sedate when they started their efforts, they had seen the writing on the wall. They became more withdrawn, more paranoid, more serious. Anja said her life got very different, very fast during that time. And although it felt like she’d lost her parents, there was something about the tense new environment that she found very exciting.

  Not long after the closet was built. A friend of Anja’s mother began staying in the apartment. Her parents didn’t tell the children anything about the reason for their new houseguest and the kids didn’t question her presence. “Her name was Rebekah,” Anja said, “she was already like part of the family, an auntie perhaps, so having her stay with us seemed quite natural. She and my mother would talk and laugh and eat little sandwiches and cakes. I can still smell the fresh pastries.” Anja closed her eyes and smiled as she was transported back to the warm, busy kitchen, filled with laughter and sugary treats.