The Girl I Left Behind

by Andie Newton

  I expected Auntie to yell for me to come out, help her sell something, but everything was quiet. I sat up, wondering if the customer was someone else. Perhaps one of Auntie’s friends? But then suddenly she was walking back to her office, feet pounding, louder and louder and louder as if she were mad.

  My stomach sank, thinking for a split second it could be the police. I stood up and she was staring at me from the doorway.

  6

  Auntie looked at the opened bottle of scotch on her desk, and then to me and my face, which felt red as a cherry. ‘What on earth?’ Her lips pursed.

  ‘Auntie, I didn’t,’ I said, putting the bottle away. ‘I was just cleaning.’

  ‘You stay here. I’ll tell your visitor to go away.’

  ‘Wait!’ I said, closing up the liquor cabinet. ‘You mean it’s not the police?’

  ‘God no, what are you talking about—the police?’

  ‘That’s not what I meant.’ I shook my head from standing up to quickly. ‘Let me catch my thoughts.’ But Auntie was already walking away. ‘Auntie, stop,’ I said, and she did—I can’t believe she did—her back to me, not even bothering to turn around. ‘Who is it?’

  She said nothing, back still turned.

  I could hear someone messing with the display near the window. ‘Who’s out there?’

  Auntie finally turned around. ‘That girl, Claudia,’ she whispered. ‘I should have sent her away.’ She tried shooing me back into her office and into her chair, but I ducked under her arm. ‘Sascha, I…’ she said, following me to the front.

  My face instantly lit up seeing Claudia at the door. Her hands were clasped loosely together in front of her with a smile plumped on her cheeks. A twisted curl sparkling in soft light hid the scrape on her face. She winked. I nodded, which I thought was a good sign that the Kortens were safe.

  ‘Claudia! What brings you by?’ My head instantly felt better.

  She kissed both my cheeks. ‘I was a few shops down and I thought I’d call on my dear friend Ella, see how you were doing—’

  ‘We are doing excellently, Claudia,’ Auntie said, standing next to me, squaring her arm around my shoulders. ‘Ella here is a brilliant shop girl. I couldn’t run this business without her.’ Her voice changed; it was stern, offensive. She tapped her fingers on my sleeve and then moved her body ever so slightly in between Claudia and myself. ‘How’s your mother? Relaxing today, perhaps?’

  Claudia glanced at me before answering. ‘She’s wonderful. Thanks for asking.’ Claudia’s mother was most likely passed out on the divan, which Auntie knew.

  ‘Claudia, would you like to take a walk?’ I said.

  ‘Now?’ Auntie quipped. ‘But we’re in the middle of inventory.’ Her eyes slanted inward like a Lustige Blätter cartoon character.

  ‘Yes, I’d love to,’ Claudia said. ‘Let’s catch up.’ She offered me her hand and I took it, but Auntie tightened her grip on my shoulder, digging her fingers into my upper arm.

  ‘I don’t like it, Sascha,’ she said.

  ‘But…’ Auntie moved me away from the door where we could talk privately, leaving Claudia standing by herself. ‘I won’t be long.’

  She leaned in close and whispered. ‘After last night? Unless you’re going to and from the shop, or to a League meeting for that matter, I don’t want you venturing off.’ She glanced up at Claudia who was now twiddling her thumbs and looking at the ceiling. ‘Besides,’ she said, whispering even quieter, ‘I don’t want you associating with the wrong crowd.’

  I looked at Claudia, and then to my aunt, my mouth hung open with words to be said but nothing came out. I wanted to tell Auntie I was lost and alone after my parents died and it was Claudia who reminded me I wasn’t. But how could I say such things to my aunt? She wouldn’t understand. ‘Auntie—’

  ‘I heard on the radio the Reich squashed those rebel Communists last night,’ Claudia piped. ‘The streets are safe now. Surely the radio wouldn’t tell us untruths.’

  We both looked at Claudia. Auntie had put her arm around me again, holding me so tightly I could feel my circulation slowing under her fingertips.

  ‘We won’t go far, Auntie. Promise.’ I smiled. ‘Perhaps even up the street to Bergstraße 19 for some lunch?’ Auntie let go of my shoulder, and the blood flowed back into my arm. She couldn’t deny the radio report—she lived by the news. ‘I won’t be long,’ I said again, grabbing my coat from the rack and rushing out with Claudia.

  I glanced back just in time to see my aunt’s face droop along with her body, watching us skip off together.

  *

  Claudia led me to the confectionery shop’s window where a chocolatier was dipping pretzels into a bowl of melted milk chocolate. The woman smiled and mouthed her hello to us as we stood street side with our noses to the glass where we could talk without looking suspicious.

  ‘I’m sorry about my aunt,’ I said, ‘asking about your mother like that.’

  Claudia pulled her nose away from the window and looked at me, her face suddenly very pale. ‘My mother is a drunk because of what happened to my sister. The Reich killed both of them. You don’t have to apologize for what your aunt says.’ Something else was wrong. I could tell by the way her eyes lingered, staring into mine. I touched her hand and she blurted, ‘I have some bad news.’

  I put my nose back to the glass. My stomach tightened like it usually did after I’d vomited and there was nothing left in my stomach—I was afraid to ask. Claudia put her nose back to the glass, and we watched the chocolatier lay dipped pretzels onto a marble slab. ‘Bart and Maria got caught,’ she said, and I closed my eyes briefly from the sharp pang of her news.

  ‘How do you know?’ Claudia didn’t say anything, and I waited, watching the chocolatier mess with the pretzels.

  ‘I know,’ she finally said. ‘I only found housing for two. Bart and Maria were caught before dawn hiding in a transport lorry belonging to his company. They might be boarding a train this very minute for the east, I don’t know.’

  I broke away from the window and we immediately wrapped our arms around each other. ‘I did everything I could.’ The chocolatier knocked on the glass, holding up her scraped bowl, mouthing for us to come inside for a lick. When we didn’t, she looked concerned and put her bowl forcefully down. ‘We’ll spoil lunch,’ Claudia said to her through the glass, and she appeared to understand.

  ‘Let’s go to the station. Maybe we can see.’ I knew I wouldn’t be able to speak with them, but I thought that if I could see them boarding the train together then maybe they’d be all right, that evacuating to the east wasn’t as bad as I thought—just like Auntie had been telling me. A sliver of hope to hold onto.

  *

  The lines out of the train station travelled past the loading platforms and coiled into the street like fat braided ropes. Women held their babies close to their breast, walking in a daze, while the Gestapo ordered everyone inside. All the yellow stars in a row.

  ‘There’s so many of them.’

  We ducked behind a fence, and walked around to the outbound tracks, where weeds and thickets had grown heartily. ‘Nobody can see us over here,’ she said, and we knelt down in the weeds and peeked through the fence gaps.

  ‘Do you see them?’ she said, but everyone looked the same, with drab coats and long faces.

  I crouched down further, pressing my eye to the fence. Passengers loaded onto open-aired freight cars, the kind used for transporting grain, not people. Then the Gestapo marched around the corner onto the tracks where the train had started to steam. They pulled people from the line, making every man getting assistance stand without their canes. Wheelchairs were tossed aside, and the train chuffed away. ‘What are they doing?’ I looked at Claudia for an answer, but she hadn’t one.

  The Gestapo waved their rifles, and the Jews shakily moved to the edge of the platform by gunpoint. ‘No, no, no…’ They raised their guns, and my throat closed up. I reached for Claudia, burying my head, just as a squadron o
f bombers flew over us, their engines rumbling one after the other in waves, drowning out the shots.

  My arms were still clutching her tightly minutes later, long after the planes had flown off to the war, and when I pulled away from her, sticky with tears, the station was completely empty. A lone janitor swept the platform of debris, whistling.

  I bolted to my feet and started to run, but then stopped after Claudia yelled out for me. Now it was me who walked in a daze. I thought about Maria’s big eyes and Bart’s wobbling voice, and then closed my eyes, thinking of the train and the people who were now dead.

  Claudia took my hand when we reached the antiques shop.

  ‘Ella.’ She swallowed. ‘Do you want to join?’

  My face flattened. ‘As in… join?’ I dared not say the word out loud. Resistance.

  ‘The shop. We could use it.’ Claudia took my other hand, and Auntie peeked through the window at us. She was pretending to dust, but was staring hard enough. ‘Think about it before you agree. This is different than pinning wigs to my hair.’

  I nodded.

  ‘Yes?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  She wrapped her arms around me and whispered in my ear, ‘Meet me at the Steichele Hotel tonight at eight o’clock. Back of the dining room. Wear the scarf.’ She let go of my hands and pecked my cheek before leaving.

  I threw open the shop door, and a new bell tinkled directly above my head. I looked up, trying hard not to place what shop it had come from, and the door swung closed, kicking me in the heels.

  Auntie stared at me from a chair just a few feet away, petting the Kortens’ vase with tapping fingers. I already knew she’d seen me holding Claudia’s hands and fully expected her to question me about it, but she only continued to tap her fingers on the vase in her lap.

  ‘Auntie?’

  She shook her head as if she’d just woke up from a nap and realized I was standing in front of her. ‘Sascha! You’re back.’

  ‘Are you all right, Auntie?’

  She nodded. ‘Oh yes,’ she said, still tapping her fingers on the vase.

  I made myself busy with work, trying to get my mind off what I’d seen at the station, and cleaned up the newspaper packing still left on the floor, when an older gentleman and his younger wife came into the shop. He looked around, pointing to the silver pins and watches in Auntie’s glass case.

  The wife turned her nose up at a small painting Auntie had been trying to get rid of for months. Nobody seemed to want a painting of a blue rose. The price had been slashed already and it was worth more than the tag hanging from it. I walked up to them as the husband tried to get his wife to like it. As I got closer, I could hear her say the last thing she needed was another painting.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  The man turned around. His face was tired, as if he had been shopping for hours. ‘I want to buy my wife something special. But she doesn’t like anything. No matter what store we go into.’

  The wife puckered her lips, pouting. ‘I don’t want your gift, husband.’ Her legs were as stiff as her face and arms, which were tightly folded. The husband huffed.

  ‘I saw you looking at the blue rose.’

  The wife’s eyes shifted to mine. ‘He feels guilty about leaving me again, so he wants to buy me a gift.’

  Her husband walked away, his hands in the air as if he didn’t want to hear her anymore. ‘It’s for business,’ he said as he picked through items on a table.

  ‘A gift is a gift, is it not?’ I smiled. ‘And a woman deserves all the gifts in the world. That’s what my aunt tells me.’

  The woman looked at me blank-faced, before smiling. ‘I suppose you’re right.’

  I pointed to the blue rose. ‘Like this painting. Blue roses are very rare. See the streaks of light blue mixed with the ribbons of dark, and a hidden hue of orange?’ The woman leaned in to see what I was talking about, but shook her head. ‘It’s a blue rose of the Orient.’

  ‘I thought blue roses were made using dye?’

  ‘The legend is they exist. Many have searched and still search for such a treasure. It’s a mystery. Like a woman. And beautiful.’

  She got very close to the canvas and then gasped when she saw a brush of gold folded into the rose’s petals. ‘I didn’t notice the colours when I first looked. It’s like an illusion.’

  I nodded.

  ‘This would look lovely in my parlour,’ she said.

  The woman waved to her husband who was very happy to see she had finally agreed on something. ‘Thank you,’ he said as he took out his billfold. ‘I was about to pull my hair out trying to find her something that would make her happy.’ He ran a hand over his bald head. ‘And as you can see I don’t have much hair left!’ He laughed, and then took the painting.

  I handed my aunt the reichsmarks he’d paid. Her face was full of excitement. ‘Sascha, that was amazing work you just did! That woman didn’t want anything in this shop. And you sold her something she didn’t want.’

  I shrugged my shoulders.

  ‘Don’t you see? You reinvented that blue rose, gave it a past and a story, and then you made her believe it. Ribbons of colour—hogwash!’ She kissed my forehead, mashing her lips against my skin. ‘A good shop girl can make a person believe anything.’

  The shop had got quiet with just the two of us inside. Auntie had taken me by the shoulders, smiling, and then her face changed, and she looked very serious. She went behind the cash register.

  ‘Now,’ she said, and I looked up.

  Auntie placed the Kortens’ vase on the glass counter.

  ‘We need to talk.’

  7

  I gulped, thinking she knew the truth about the vase and was about to tell me the Kortens were dead—but how would she know? She took a deep breath, and then smiled, her lipstick nice and smooth on her lips. ‘I want to give this to you.’

  ‘What?’ I stepped back, shaking my head. ‘You can’t!’

  She looked puzzled. ‘Well, why not?’

  I swallowed, trying to think of a reason other than the fact that it wasn’t her vase to give, but then muttered up something about the value.

  ‘It’s too expensive,’ I said. ‘It’s too valuable for a girl my age.’

  Auntie hung her head down, and she looked sad all of a sudden. The tear that had snuck out from the corner of her eye surprised me. ‘What is it?’ I moved closer to her, reaching out for her hand.

  ‘You don’t understand, Sascha.’ She pressed my hand to her cheek. ‘I’m giving you this vase in honour of your mother.’ There was a long pause, and I sat down. ‘It’s the anniversary this week,’ she said, ‘of their death. You know she used to help me when she was younger—right here in this shop. All before she met your father, got married and moved to the country.’ Her lips clamped when she mentioned my father. ‘She was my best friend. It’s a tragedy what happened to her, leaving a young daughter behind.’ She breathed a few breathy sighs, and then handed me the vase. ‘It’s yours. I want you to have it.’

  I took the vase, feeling the cool Dresden porcelain in my hands, thinking of Bart and Maria, and what it must have been like when he gave it to her on their wedding day. They were gone now. The vase was the only thing left to prove they’d had a life in Nuremberg.

  I crumbled into my aunt’s arms, weeping uncontrollably. ‘Thank you, Auntie,’ I said, knowing she could have made a lot of money off the Kortens’ vase, but instead chose to give it to me.

  ‘Now,’ she said, wiping her eyes and mine. ‘Don’t you have a League meeting tonight?’ I got a good dose of the 4711 cologne on her skin before she pulled away.

  I shook my head. ‘No, but I do have something else.’

  ‘Oh? What’s that?’

  My palms suddenly got sweaty holding the vase, and it slipped around in my hands, which I didn’t expect. I’d lied to my aunt before, but I supposed this was different now—everything seemed different. ‘Umm…’ She’d followed me into her office where I’d put
the vase on her shelf for safekeeping. I ran my palms down my skirt. ‘A few girls from the League are meeting for dinner at the Steichele.’

  She gave me a disapproving look, one where her eyes hung low with her head, and I thought she could tell I had lied.

  ‘The Steichele’s only two long blocks away,’ I said. ‘You know the restaurant.’

  She looked all right now, smiling. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I do know that place. Girls from the League? Sounds like a big time.’

  ‘Yes,’ was all I could say.

  We took the tram home, and she inspected me before I left for the Steichele.

  ‘I see you have your scarf on again.’ Auntie pointed. ‘I sewed it for you. Can barely see the stitches.’ I turned my wrist over. The stitching was thick and uneven, which made me wonder if she used the thread from her midwife’s bag. ‘No need to thank me.’

  Auntie slipped on a silky blue robe, untwisted her hair from its bun and let her braid fall over her shoulders, separating like spun strands of gold. She held the door open with her foot and watched me leave, the side of her face pressed against the door’s frame, and her hand in a slow wave. Just as I crested the edge of darkness, she called out to me.

  I looked over my shoulder, and her hand froze in the air.

  ‘Claudia isn’t going to be there, is she?’

  ‘No, Auntie.’ It was the little lies, I’d realized, I had no problem with. ‘Claudia won’t be there.’

  She smiled, and then continued to wave.

  *

  Walking up to the Steichele restaurant I would have thought it had closed; there were no patrons milling about outside, except for a lone soldier smoking next to a Nazi banner on the street. I gave the door a pull, and my feet slipped on the pavement from it not budging one bit. I stepped back, looking at the marquee, making sure I was indeed at the Steichele, and I was. I pulled again, stamping my feet for more leverage, but again, the door didn’t move and I thought about leaving.