“Yes. I—” I fell to my knees and retched.
“How many times has she vomited?” Lars asked from behind me.
Anton jumped. So neither of us had noticed his approach.
“Twice, sir,” Anton said. “Once before she splinted her arm and just now.”
Three times, but he had not seen the first one by the Gestapo car. I thought to chastise them for speaking about me as if I were not there, but decided to save my strength to crawl away from my mess one-handed.
“You splinted your own arm?” Lars knelt next to me. “I could have helped you.”
I pushed hair off my forehead with my good hand, sweating in the cold air.
He brushed his fingertips across the nape of my neck. “What happened to the back of your head?”
“Hit a rock,” I said. “Behind the Gestapo car.”
“You might have mentioned it sooner.”
My head spun. The ground rushed toward my face. I could not get my arms up in time.
Lars scooped me up. Pain stabbed in my arm. My stomach lurched again.
“Get the door, Anton,” Lars said.
I fought going to sleep. Lars bundled me into a blanket, and I felt more bumping. Then, nothing.
* * *
Pain grated in my arm. I moaned and tried to wrench it away, but someone held it fast. I struggled to open my eyes. I lay on something soft in a brightly lit room. A man I did not know held my arm.
Lars stood on my other side. He cradled my head in one hand; with the other he stroked hair off my forehead. “Easy.” He soothed. “He’s set your arm. The worst is over.”
Wetness slapped against my wrist. A plaster cast. My arm would heal. My head I was not so certain of. My heart I did not even want to think about.
I tried to push pain aside and figure out where I was. This was no time for weakness. I tried to speak.
“Don’t move,” Lars said. “Everything will be fine.”
“Anton.” I forced out the word.
“Here.” The voice came from somewhere on my left. I turned my head but could not see him. My eyes watered in the glare. I closed them.
I had seen that I lay in a bedroom, on a bed. A man I did not know applied plaster to my arm. My head ached, and I wanted only to sleep again. I fought it.
“Switzerland,” I said. “To Boris.”
“Don’t worry about that,” Lars said.
“Promise.” Every word took a hundred years to say.
“I promise,” he said softly. “I will take him home for you, if it comes to that. Which it will not.”
“Thank you,” I said, and I was gone again.
* * *
I awoke to darkness. Where was I?
My head hurt worse than it ever had. My cheek rested against a stale pillowcase that smelled of Khasana perfume. When I lifted my aching right arm, it felt heavy and hard. What had happened to it?
Someone else lowered my arm back down to my side. “Shh,” said a voice. “Sleep.”
I turned my head to the voice. It belonged to Lars Lang. I lay in a bed with him. It must be a dream. I struggled to wake up.
“Lars?” My voice sounded thick.
“I’m here,” he said. “You had nightmares, and I didn’t want you to injure yourself thrashing around.”
I touched his face with my heavy hand. I felt stubble on his cheek. It seemed real.
“Am I dead?” I asked.
He tightened his arms around me. “No.”
“But you are dead.” I wriggled out of his grasp. “I remember.”
“No, Spatz.” Worry tinged his words.
“Where is the little girl?” I remembered a little girl was in danger. I pushed myself into a sitting position. A mistake. My stomach heaved, and I vomited on the duvet.
“Fetch a basin,” he called. “Her name is Ruth. She’s fine.”
I wiped my mouth on a clean corner of the duvet. I shook. My stomach twitched again. I looked around the room. Empty except for the bed and shadows that must have been nightstands. A heavy curtain covered the window, so I could not tell if it was night or day. Artificial light fell through the doorway. “I am sorry about the blanket.”
Lars folded the duvet one-handed, his other arm tight around my shoulder. “It can be washed.”
Anton stood suddenly next to the bed and handed Lars a white ceramic bowl. Anton wore a nightshirt too large for him. It must be the middle of the night. Lars took the basin with his free hand.
“Anton!” I said in shock. “You should not be here.”
“Why not?” He rubbed his eyes with his fist.
“Because, then I have failed at everything.” I tried to move toward him, but Lars eased me back against the mattress. Gray shapes swirled above my head.
* * *
My head throbbed. Later, a man came to shine a bright light into my eyes and speak in a rumbling voice that I could not understand. I slept.
* * *
My eyes opened. The sun was up, but half-drawn curtains dimmed the light. A stranger in a white coat sat on a chair next to me. I looked around. A bedroom, sparely furnished with a double bed, a wardrobe, a muted rug, and two nightstands, plus the chair upon which the stranger sat.
I cleared my throat. My head ached, but it was manageable.
“Ah, good,” said the stranger. “You are awake.” He held a glass of water to my lips. “I am a doctor.”
He had not given his name. Neither should I.
8
A figure appeared in the doorway. I turned toward it. “Mother?” Anton said.
“Anton!” Relief flooded through me. Wherever I was, Anton was safe.
He came and sat on the edge of the bed. He took my hand in his warm one. “How are you?” He spoke with the Berlin accent he had used as a young child, not the Swiss one he used now.
“My head hurts.” I used the same accent as he. “But I think I shall be fine.”
Guardedly, I turned my head. I feared moving quickly, as if my head might come loose. The man in the chair was tall and spare, dressed in a well-tailored dark suit under his doctor’s coat. He had an old-fashioned long mustache and a pink indentation on his nose where he must usually set his pince-nez. Near his shoes sat a black leather doctor’s bag. “What do you think, Doktor Anonymous?”
“You remembered my name,” he said in a delighted tone. “That’s very promising.”
“Where am I?” I asked.
Anton opened his mouth to answer, but the doctor shook his head. “Where do you think you are?”
“In a room, in a house.” I struggled to recall. Switzerland? We usually lived in Switzerland, but I remembered a vacation. A vacation with a promise of a white horse and fragrant pastry with almond paste and poppy seed. Poland. But Anton’s accent led me to think we were no longer there. “Berlin?”
“Yes, Mother,” Anton said. “We’re in Berlin.”
My head spun. Berlin was the most dangerous place in the world for us. “I see.”
“Do you know how you came to be here?” The doctor settled his pince-nez on his nose.
I had no idea. But should I admit it?
“I think that’s enough questions,” someone spoke from the doorway.
I looked over at it. Lars? That made no sense. He was dead. Relief surged through me, then confusion. Why had he not come back from Russia? I closed my eyes. Anton squeezed my hand.
I had taken Anton on a holiday to Poland to cover Saint Martin’s Day. Remembering that detail made me feel better. Fragments of my trip to Zbąszyń came back to me.
“Ruth.” I opened my eyes. I did not know how I had gotten here or how Lars had become involved, but I knew why I was here. I had to find that little girl.
“Later, Spatz,” Lars said. “Once you are finished with the doctor.”
I stared at him. “Where have you been?”
“Later,” he insisted. I sensed that he had a good reason for wanting my silence, that he did not trust the doctor. I kept my questions t
o myself. His quiet awareness of others was something I had once loved about him. It had saved our lives many times.
The doctor looked from Lars to me. “How do you feel?”
I described my headache and, to get rid of the doctor, lied when I answered no to questions about nausea, pain, and vision disturbances.
The doctor turned to Lars. “Physically, she is much improved. I would like to ask questions to ascertain how much of her memory is gone—”
Lars shook his head once.
The doctor polished his pince-nez on the edge of his white coat. “So,” he said peevishly. “The questions you should ask are things about what she last remembers. If she has lost more than twenty-four hours before the incident and loses time again now, I would be concerned.”
“What should we do?” Lars asked.
“Rest,” he said. “And quiet. Nothing stressful.”
I stifled a laugh. Anton and I were in Nazi Germany, and I was not to feel any stress about it.
“Can she be moved?” Lars asked.
He made me sound like a piece of furniture.
“I would advise against it,” the doctor said. “I believe she lied to me about the state of her injuries.”
Lars’s lips curved into a smile. “Indeed?”
I did not see how a protestation of innocence would help my case, so I stayed silent while Lars saw the doctor out.
I pushed myself to a sitting position even though my head warned me that it was a mistake. “Anton, how long have I been here?”
Lars came back into the room, and Anton looked toward him before answering. I pushed down my irritation. He owed no loyalty to Lars. Did he?
“It’s November fifth.” Lars walked to the heavy curtains and pulled them open. Midday sun jumped into the room. “We arrived late last night.”
“What happened?” I asked Anton.
“You slept, mostly.” A closed look dropped over Anton’s eyes. I recognized that look from my own face in the mirror. I would get no further information from him. But why not?
Lars sat on the bed and took my good hand. When I yanked it back, both he and Anton looked startled. What did they know that I had forgotten?
“Ruth,” I said. “Please tell me.”
“I went to Paul’s apartment,” Lars said. “No one was there so I let myself in.”
The former police kommissar was skilled with lockpicks. “Did you have a key, Herr Kommissar?”
He gave me a conspiratorial look. Anton wrinkled his brow in annoyance. He did not like it that his mother had a life he knew nothing about.
“Once inside,” Lars continued, “I checked all the cupboards, including the one by the door. I saw evidence that a small child had been in it, but no child.”
I let out my breath. My head hurt so that I had trouble thinking. “Where is she?”
“I don’t know. I couldn’t do much more than look.”
“Why not?” I sounded more irritated than I should have.
“Because, Spatz,” he said gently. “You were hurt. No one knew if you would live or die. My place was here.”
“Was it that bad?” I read the answer from his eyes. For the first time I realized how terrible he looked. He looked as if he had not slept, his clothes hung on him as if he had lost weight, and he had missed a patch shaving. I longed to reach over and trace the new scar in his eyebrow. And if he had not abandoned me for two years without a word, if I had not spent months grieving his death, I would have.
I turned to Anton. He, too, looked pale, but not so bad as Lars. Either he had more faith in my ability to recover than Lars did, or Lars had hidden the extent of my injury from him. Perhaps both. “How are you?”
“I am much better than either of you,” Anton said. “Except I’ve been shut up in here since last night. So I cleaned Lars’s guns and practiced on the flute.”
I wondered how many guns he had, but all I said was, “The flute?”
“Lars has a flute.” Anton pulled a long wooden instrument out from behind his back. “I learned a new song.”
He started playing “O Tannenbaum.” I stared at him, astonished. He did a creditable job. However, the sound burrowed into the pit of my stomach. I struggled not to clap my hands over my ears. Another sign of a concussion: sensitivity to sounds.
“Nicely done,” I managed when he finished.
“Your mother needs rest,” Lars said. “This is the longest she’s been awake yet.”
Anton returned the flute to a long velvet sack and sat quietly.
Lars did not let me rest. He quizzed me on what I remembered: Gestapo men taking me from the hotel and disjointed images from a car’s trunk. I thought I remembered waking up in Lars’s arms.
“Anton,” I said. “Could you please give us a moment of privacy?”
He grimaced but walked out twirling his flute sack.
As soon as he closed the door, I turned to Lars. “Were you in this bed with me?”
He suddenly became very interested in the floor. “I did not mean to presume, but the doctor said to tie you down, and I didn’t have the heart.”
“Next time,” I said, “listen to the doctor.”
“As you wish.” He sounded hurt. Well, perhaps he should have come back two years ago.
“Please tell me what happened after I got out of the trunk.”
He quickly filled me in on my abduction. How I managed to free myself by murdering a man. How could I have done such a thing? And how could I have forgotten it afterwards? Shame and horror filled me. I had taken away a life. Indirectly, I had taken two. My head ached. Tears pricked my eyelids.
He put his hand over mine. “They would have killed you.”
“Does that make me better than they?” The man’s family was slowly beginning to realize he would never come home. I had ensured that he would not. Worse still, I did not remember his death. I drew my hand back.
Lars talked, but I barely heard the words. Death surrounded me every time I came near Germany, and now I had dealt it out myself. I shivered.
He gently eased me from a sitting position to lying back down. I lifted the covers up to my chin. “So, after all that, when we got here I put you in that bed, and there you have mostly stayed since,” he finished.
Mostly? He concealed something from me. “Did I wake at all?”
“You did, from time to time.” He gave me a half smile. “You had a great deal to say.”
I winced. I hated to think what I might have spilled. Once again, he knew more than I wanted him to. Only this time the fault was mine. “I wish to make sure that Ruth is with her father. Then, Anton and I return to Switzerland.”
“How?” He crossed his legs. “Your Hannah Vogel and Adelheid Zinsli identities are compromised. And Anton has no papers.”
I still had my Hannah Schmidt papers, but I did not tell him so. My old colleague, Herr Silbert the forger, could produce papers for Anton for the proper price. I only hoped that he still lived in Berlin and had not been arrested, and that I had enough money. “We cannot stay in Berlin with no papers either.”
“I have a clean identity.” He leaned closer and began to speak more quickly. “Lars Schmidt. I can use it to drive you and Anton across any border but Zbąszyń. I have a false gas tank in the lorry that I’ve used for smuggling. I’ll put you both in it.”
“Thank you.” I hated to owe him more, but I would pay whatever price he asked to get myself and Anton out of Germany. “You have done much already.”
“I am your husband,” he said. “It’s my duty.”
I glanced quickly at the door to make certain that Anton had not heard. “Please do not jest about that, Lars. I am grateful for what you have done for us, but we both know that your actions clearly indicate you have no interest in assuming that role. I would prefer that you not confuse Anton.” As you once confused me, I wanted to add.
“You were easier to deal with when you were raving,” he said.
“That is because I could not remember.
”
“On the contrary. You remembered a great deal.”
My head throbbed. “I—”
“Rest. You are in no condition to fight with me.” He smiled wryly. “And I’m in no condition to fight with you, either.”
“Then let me get dressed. We can fight in Switzerland,” I said.
He grinned. “I agree.”
I hauled my legs over the side of the bed and waited for the world to stop sloshing. My head injury was not going to make any of this easier.
“May I help you?” he asked.
“I can manage.”
Lars raised a skeptical eyebrow, but he knew better than to object, as he must recall the hospital beds I had climbed out of over his objections. He handed me a dress. “I had it cleaned and mended.”
“Thank you.” I took it. I wore an unfamiliar slip. I tried not to think who had undressed me. It had to have been Lars. I closed my eyes and swallowed.
To my surprise, I felt better standing up. I dragged myself to the bathroom with my dress clenched in my good hand. Where had Lars been for the last two years, and what was he doing now? Could I trust him? He had risked his life to save mine and Anton’s. That worked in his favor.
I raised my hand to my head. My dress. I shook out the sage green linen. I must have worn it when I was abducted, but I did not remember doing so. I turned it over in my hands, hoping it would spark memories. It did not.
While bathing, I recalled Fräulein Ivona’s words in Doktor Volonoski’s office. She claimed to be one in a string of Lars’s lovers. My stomach clenched. Think about it later, I told myself. First, get out of Germany. Someone had rescued Ruth—probably Paul, or the mystery man from the locket. Even if Miriam’s death was suspicious, there was little I could do about it. I had to get myself and Anton out of Germany as soon as I could.
I bathed and brushed my teeth before I chanced a glance in the mirror. I looked better than I had expected. My skin, always pale, looked nearly translucent. I had the cast on my arm, of course, and dark purple circles smudged under my bloodshot eyes, but otherwise I did not look as if I had come into Germany in the trunk of a car. I also did not look like I could have killed a Gestapo man by the roadside. I remembered his face now, but I did not let myself speculate about his life outside of the night I had met him. I would not think about the wife and children he might have had. The mother who waited at home for him.
A City of Broken Glass (Hannah Vogel) Page 7