The Road Beyond Ruin

by Gemma Liviero

  “Get out!” Rosalind shouted.

  Georg came back then. “You know nothing!” he shouted before going down the stairs again. As if the light had turned on briefly, after all the darkness. He was there somewhere, and Rosalind realized that she must focus on him now, help him get better, but she could not do that with Monique, not after what she did. And Georg needed his drugs, the drugs that Monique was against.

  Georg left then. She heard the door bang. She knew what that meant. That he would be gone for hours. He would sit in the river hut until night. He needed his medicine, and she would take it to him.

  But Monique was on the stairs, stopping her from going past; they tussled on the top stair, but Monique pushed her back into the room.

  And then came the lies, the poisonous lies.

  Rosalind didn’t want to hear them. She had already heard from Erich about what Monique had done. How Monique had betrayed Germany and supported traitors with the money he gave her. And she was suddenly proud that she knew something that Monique didn’t know: that Erich was close by, in the very town where they collected their rations. He had asked her to let him know if Monique returned. She called in on him weekly to collect the drugs for Georg, but she hadn’t told him of Monique’s arrival. Rosalind had felt some duty to keep her cousin safe, but that was no longer an option. Monique had killed her baby, and now she was saying vile things about her husband. She was admitting to the adultery.

  “Yes, I loved Georg,” she continued while Rosalind was perched at the edge of the bed, looking beyond the trees to the river. Monique was thinking that Rosalind had calmed, but she was unaware of the thunder that reverberated within her.

  And Monique continued talking, cruel and calculated. She was crying the words that were coming out of her mouth.

  “That night you saw me and Georg on the path, it was not what you thought . . . Erich had left our bedroom, and I followed him. I already knew about Georg . . .”

  Rosalind was covering her ears. She could feel the truth deep, deep down inside of her. She was remembering something, just vaguely, Georg touching the hand of another man at a restaurant they were meeting at, and Georg’s face falling at the sight of Rosalind’s early arrival. At the other man, uniformed, scurrying away like a mouse, disappearing from her sight and then from her mind, willfully. Georg had asked Monique about the secret clubs that didn’t discriminate; he had asked her to take him with her next time he was in town, but he never got the chance. The clubs were closed, Monique then married.

  “I never suspected them. I never loved Erich, and it wasn’t the marriage you think . . . It was a ruse, to protect me, and one of the conditions from Erich was that I tell no one of our arrangement, our pretend marriage, which might affect his position in the party . . . and Georg begged me not to say anything about him . . . all these secrets a burden . . . and I was worried about you, and I was angry at Georg when I saw them . . . It was unfair, you unknowing.”

  The lies were becoming more vicious. Monique said that she caught them, Georg and Erich, together in the river hut that night. That she had known about Georg but not about Erich and it shocked her, but it also made sense then. It didn’t hurt because she didn’t love Erich, but she loved Georg like a brother and he loved her, and she had known his secret since they were teenagers. And he had told her that she was the only one he could ever admit it to; otherwise he was doomed.

  Rosalind didn’t want to hear any more. She hated the truth, but Monique wouldn’t stop. She told her that after learning of Georg’s marriage proposal, she had arranged to meet with him in secret, the night before she left for Austria. Georg had just returned from battle and was due to see Rosalind the next day to begin plans for the wedding. Monique had tried to talk him out of it, because it would cause Rosalind suffering in the end. He said Rosalind didn’t need to know, that he would cover it well. Monique was unable to convince him, but she would be there for both of them when the time came. And that time was now, she said.

  Then Erich did something so terrible as to take away her rights, but for the grace of God, Monique was rewarded with Vivi. And Rosalind was reminded that she, herself, had been punished without a child.

  Monique said that they could start again, the three of them, like they were children, living here, with Vivi, her daughter. Her living daughter, thought Rosalind. And they would both try to help Georg recover, and wean him off the drugs.

  Just for a moment Rosalind thought about it, and then the glass vase glinted, the golden eye of the fish staring at her. It sees the lies, she thought, and Monique took a step closer near the bed, and the idea, the plan, had barely settled, and the vase was in her hand, and she crashed it to the side of Monique’s head, but it didn’t break, and while Monique was doubled over, her vision blurred, she hit her again on the back of the head. This time the vase smashed to pieces, and Monique stumbled forward, slamming into the post near the stairs. She stood up unsteadily, hand across her forehead, eyes half-closed from the pain. And Rosalind still had the base of the vase, glass daggers jutting from its solid-glass base. She lashed out at Monique, who put her arms across her face then and edged closer to the stairs before tripping backward and landing halfway down.

  Rosalind’s thoughts were clearer then. She ran to the window to see whether Georg was anywhere nearby. And she dragged Monique to the bottom of the stairs and wrapped her in a curtain from Georg’s bedroom before dragging her toward the barn. And she could see the back of Vivi’s head near the window as she did this, and it hadn’t occurred to her what to do with the child. She dragged Monique into the barn, then bolted the door. There was still no sign of Georg. He was unlikely to check there.

  She took the bike, in her nightgown, and in daylight rode into town to fetch Erich, and she failed to notice that she was bleeding through her nightgown, and Erich didn’t care, didn’t bother asking what happened, whether her baby lived or died.

  Erich didn’t go straight to the barn. He went first to see Genevieve. And she was there, crying for her mother, arms outstretched from the side of her cot in the living room, and Rosalind had felt the hardness inside her give a little. She breathed in deeply and suddenly, as if brought back to life, and she saw with clarity and revulsion what she had done.

  She told Erich that Monique was still alive, that they had to do something to help her. And she followed him as he crossed to the barn, watched him lean down to check on her and report that she was dead. Rosalind had asked if he was certain, and she had wailed and said she wanted to see her, to check her, to make sure she would live, and Erich had shouted at her to get the shovel, and she did because she had no better plan, no way of stopping what she had started.

  She then followed Erich a short way as he began his ascent of the hill behind the house, and he had stopped and turned to look at her, warned her to stay away with just a glare, and she remembered what he was capable of, what he used to do. Rosalind could hear the child crying, and she reluctantly returned to the house. She tried to comfort Vivi, but the child was calling for her mother, and she wouldn’t listen.

  Erich came back to the house to clean the dirt from his hands and did not look at either of them but made to leave without his daughter. Rosalind couldn’t let him do that. She could not look at Genevieve every day, after what had happened, and she told him to take her away. And he picked up the child and took her, though he didn’t want to. He said it was important for Rosalind’s own sake to never talk of what happened, to tell no one. It was a threat, veiled. And he had left with Vivi.

  The next day she had walked along the ridge that eventually ran into deep woods, until she found Monique’s grave, and then she had returned and sat near the other grave, above the houses, that had a cross and a name, “Georg,” which she had given the boy, the name that Monique had carved. She had cried then, grieved for losses. Grieved for her meaningless life.

  Present-day 1945

  She stares, trying to remember the past days, Erich’s betrayal. It wasn’t the f
irst time. First there was the taking of Georg, who was not his to take, and now injecting her. Why not just kill her? There is nothing to tie her to him anymore. He has broken the bindings.

  Where did he go? She no longer cares. He can’t hurt her anymore. She won’t let that happen.

  The door of the hut opens again, and she blinks back the fog that is in her eyes. It is the tiny boy, Michal, with his basket over his arm.

  “I’ve come back to get my basket,” he whispers in his peculiar accent.

  And she is wondering where he has been, if he has been in the house, what happened to him.

  “Are you leaving here?” she asks.

  “Yes. They’re taking me to a new town.”

  “Who?”

  He looks to the side and fiddles with his fingers before his eyes settle on hers again. He is still wary of questions, of adults who ask them.

  “I hope it’s nice there, wherever it is.”

  “I have to go now,” he says.

  “Goodbye then.”

  He puts down the basket, steps into the hut, and wraps his skinny arms around her neck. He squeezes her so tightly that her face is pressed hard against his, and she breathes in the scent of youthful innocence. She closes her eyes to burn the touch and smell into her memory. A child. How beautiful to have a child. When she opens them again, Michal is gone.

  He was never there, she thinks, and she weeps because nothing is real anymore and everything is gone. It is the needle. It is the medicine. She has imagined sweet Michal, and Monique’s forgiveness. She cries because she so wants to tell Monique she is sorry. Monique, who was loyal to everyone she loved, who cried for Rosalind’s dead baby, genuine tears and genuine pain. She can see the sadness now. See Monique crying, wishing that her baby had lived, while she bathed Rosalind through her fever, her madness, her paranoia, her misunderstanding of everything.

  She remembers now the violence in the attic. It was Rosalind, the cause of Monique’s pain. She wishes she’d had the chance to tell Monique she loves her. That jealousy does strange things to people. That she is flawed, badly. She wishes she had been the daughter her mother had loved, and wonders briefly about Vivi, where she is, whether she will have her mother’s nature, her smile.

  Her feet meet the river. She used to be afraid of the cold, but now she welcomes it. The sensation says that this is real, not imagined.

  She treads briefly, then sinks below the surface. Through the water she can see the pink sky that swaddles the remains of the sun, before turning to float with the current, like Monique used to do.

  She imagines that her name is being called, muffled by the water above and the sound of her bubbles. It is better here, she thinks, in the cold, in the shadows where she is hidden from ghosts. And the current pulls her downward and toward the bend where she can disappear forever.

  CHAPTER 32

  MONIQUE

  July–August 1945

  Monique woke up in the dark, wrapped in fabric, her head in much pain. She fought the curtain that covered her face and sat up to feel the sticky wound on her head. She pulled a piece of glass out from the side of her hair. Blood had streamed down both arms, and she remembered Rosalind’s face, a stranger, controlled by madness and fury.

  She could hear voices, crying, shouts by Rosalind.

  “Where is she?” said Erich.

  She lay back down, pulling the curtain over her face again. The latch was lifted from the barn door. She didn’t hear him walk near, but she sensed him there.

  The curtain above her was bloodied. He did not pull back the cover, not straightaway. He never liked the sight of blood, the sight of wounds. For someone who appeared so in control, he was too cowardly to kill innocent people himself, ordering others to execute instead.

  He slid the bloodied curtain back to see her face, and she feigned unconsciousness, with a piece of glass gripped tightly and concealed in her fist. He put his hand inside the curtain and fumbled for her wrist and with cool hands held tightly.

  “Is she alive?” said Rosalind hysterically. “Please God—”

  “Silence!” said Erich loudly, and Monique’s heart missed a beat. And Rosalind whimpered.

  “She’s dead,” said Erich in the cold tone he had used on her in recent times.

  “I don’t think she is. I think she has just lost consciousness. I saw her chest moving before. Let me see. Let me check her! She needs the wounds bound.” And her pitch was high, and she was still close to the madness that Monique had witnessed in the bedroom. But it wasn’t Rosalind she was fearful of anymore. Erich knew she was alive, and he was planning to dispose of a live body.

  She felt his arms burrow underneath her, lifting her from the ground to walk from the barn.

  “Get me the shovel!” And then he shouted it again, because Rosalind had perhaps not moved the first time.

  And he had it in his hand, the metal blade digging into her shoulders, crushing her as he walked.

  “Where are you going?” said Rosalind.

  Erich didn’t respond, not at first, not until she said it again, her pitch higher still.

  He kept walking, and Monique forced her body to loosen, her head to fall to the side, but inside, her heart pounded, her mind raced. She heard Rosalind behind them, protesting weakly, sobbing, asking if she could see her, asking if she could examine the wounds back at the house, and then Erich stopped suddenly, a moment of silence; then the walking recommenced, and Rosalind’s pleading faded into the background along with the notion of wriggling free of the curtain and hopes for escape.

  Her face was covered, but she still kept her eyes shut, arms pinned to her sides between Erich’s arms, her body jolting with each of his steps.

  At first she thought he was taking her to the river, but he turned and stumbled, his knees bumping into her as he inclined. And then his movements became more steady, long strides deeper into the darkness while branches raked her legs, until finally he laid her down on the hard earth. She imagined the trees somewhere on the ridge above the road. And the sounds of digging were harsh as metal hit the soft earth, and she knew then of his intended crime. She could smell, beneath the metallic smell of her own blood, the dankness of a freshly dug grave.

  Her head pounded from where Rosalind hit her, and from when she fell, and the cuts on her arms were stinging. She was depleted of strength, and her shoes were missing from her feet.

  She pulled the curtain partway down from her face, and in the dark she could see him near, several yards away. She watched his profile, his face fixed on the task. The sight of him suddenly brought out the reality of the situation, and she was trembling now, her arms and hands. Shock was taking over.

  Scrambling free of the curtain, she crawled, then ran, the sliver of glass in her hand forgotten and falling somewhere in the confusion, and she stumbled across the hilltop toward the faint and distant house lights between the trees. The sound she made was feeble and strained, an attempt to scream, to alert Rosalind and Georg that she was alive. Alive! She must stay alive for Vivi.

  She felt him grip the back of her leg, drag her backward, and she called out, “No!” and wondered if it was loud enough before Erich’s hand covered her mouth, suppressing the sounds that were little more than groans. He lifted her partially off the ground, one arm pinning her arms to her body and the other over her face, and she was too weak to do anything but squirm beneath the grip.

  “I can’t let you live. You were always so blind to control, to order. You lost the war for us, people like you: my wife, who betrayed me, who betrayed Germany, who turned Georg against me. You told him what happened, what I did to you.”

  And the hand was so tight over her mouth that she could not shake her head, could not deny or defend. Could not tell him that she never told Georg what he did to her, that he had worked it out for himself that Erich was a monster, a man hired for the lowest of work, hired to entrap and order the executions of innocent people. And she could not remind him that she was never his in the fir
st place, his grip so fierce that she could barely breathe, could not say any of it, and all fight left her, and for the second time she lost consciousness.

  She woke to weight above her and felt vibrations through the ground, a thud each time the soil fell on top of her.

  She screamed and pushed upward, but she was wrapped tightly in a curtain under the dirt, and her screams were trapped in the back of her throat, and she would die here. The wriggling had forced the curtain down slightly, and cold earth was on her face and near her mouth, and she clamped her mouth shut. She felt the last breath within her fighting to leave her body, and the digging slowed, and there was no air, and she still held the breath, held the last precious breath, not giving up, though she knew she would have to. She remembered the time that she nearly drowned years earlier, when she had held her breath until Rosalind came, and she hoped she would come again. Monique would forgive her for what she had done, and she could fix this.

  The thudding stopped, replaced by a silence and the realization that she would never be found here, that even her grave would never be seen. She felt dizzy from holding her breath, and she thought of Vivi and hoped that she would be loved.

  Then the earth moved, footsteps above her, and then scraping sounds like an animal burrowing. Vibrations frenzied then. But she was fading, the fight leaving her body, her mind turning to elsewhere, to the river shimmering under a bright sun. She had run out of time, and she closed her eyes, released the final breath. And suddenly the curtain was pulled away from her, and she was gulping back air greedily. She was lifted and placed at the edge of her grave, and she vomited back in the hole, spat out earth. Georg sat on his haunches, watching her come back to life, and she opened her mouth and sucked in more air when she tried to speak. Georg had picked her up and carried her through thick trees and bushes until he was near the river. He carried her into the little hut, gently leaned her against the wall, and sat watching her, shocked at his discovery.