The Orphan's Tale(26)

Instead, I walk into the dressing room, staring at the spot where Astrid had hidden. What had it been like for her? I slip out the back door of the dressing room into the cold night air once more, then walk to the cellar door and pull at it. The latch sticks and I marvel that Astrid had been able to put herself in the tiny space so quickly. I cannot open it. My heart pounds. Suddenly it is as if I am running for my life from the Germans, about to get caught.

The door swings open and I climb inside. Then I shut the door and I lie in the darkness. The space is long and shallow, with enough room for only one person to lie flat. And perhaps a child. Could we hide Theo here with Astrid if the police came again? He might cry out. A baby, though smaller, is not as easy to hide. I inhale the air, which is choked with the fetid smell of decay.

My mind reels back to earlier when Astrid had asked me to stay with the circus. I had not answered right away. My burden seemed heavier for knowing her secret and I could not help but wonder whether Theo and I would be safer on our own.

Then I saw it, the pleading look in her eyes, needing help but not wanting to ask. “I’ll stay,” I promised. I could not abandon her now.

“Good,” she replied, with more relief in her voice than she surely intended. “We need you more than ever.” The words seemed to stick a bit in her throat. “We’ll begin again tomorrow.” She turned and walked away. Remembering now, I realize she had not thanked me.

It does not matter, though. Astrid needs me, and in this moment lying in her place beneath the ground, I will do anything to save her.





7

Astrid

Out of Germany. Finally.

As the flat-roofed border station recedes in the darkness, my entire body slumps with relief. I lie back down beside Peter on the double-wide berth that takes up most of his quarters on the train. He snores lightly, mumbles something in his sleep.

It has been more than a month since the SS officers had come to the training hall in Darmstadt, asking questions about a Jew performing with the circus. We had rehearsed for it of course, the possibility that I would have to hide, plotting the possible distractions, calculating how many steps it would take me to get to the cellar from various locations, the effort it would require for me to pull up the heavy wood trapdoor. We’d even had a code word planned: if Herr Neuhoff or Peter or one of the others told me to “go fishing,” I was to head for the cellar; “go camping” meant to flee the fairgrounds entirely. But we had been caught off guard when the SS came and I’d barely made it out the back door before they stormed into the training hall. It was just as well—there was nothing that could have prepared me for lying motionless underground in that cold, dark space. Suffocated beneath the ground was the furthest thing from the freedom I felt when I flew through the air. It was death.

Remembering now, I press closer to Peter, soaking in his solidness and warmth. Who had told the police there was a Jew with the circus? I had scarcely gone beyond the winter quarters when we were not on the road, but perhaps a delivery person or other visitor had spied me and caught on. Or had it been one of our own? I eyed the other performers or workers differently after that day, wondering who might not want me around. No one could be trusted. Except Peter, of course. And Noa. She has as much to lose as I do—maybe more.

The SS had not come to the winter quarters again in the weeks before we went on the road. But I’d nevertheless been on edge ever since. The days passed slowly before our departure, each with its own threat of detection. The danger became real after that in a way it hadn’t quite been before.

Erich appears improbably in my mind. What would the obergruppenführer think of his wife, hiding from his colleagues beneath the earth like a hunted animal? I see his face more vividly than I had in months, and wonder how he had explained my departure to our friends and neighbors. Off to visit a sick family member, I could hear him say in the smooth voice I’d once so loved. Or maybe no one asked at all. Had he stayed in the apartment, still smelling my scent and using the things that once were ours, or worse yet, brought another woman there? He might have moved. Erich was not one to linger on the past.

Beside me Peter stirs and I push away my thoughts of Erich guiltily. As Peter rolls toward me I feel his need for me through the fabric of our nightclothes. His hands reach for me, find the edge of my nightdress. It is often this way in the middle of the night. More than once I have awoken to find him already inside me, ready and primal. Once I might have minded; now I am grateful for the bluntness of his desire, which comes without the pretext of romance.

I climb astride Peter, naked beneath my nightdress, and press my palms against the warmth of his chest, inhaling the air mixed with liquor and tobacco and sweat. Then I rock slowly and methodically with the rhythm of the train. Peter reaches up and cups my chin, drawing my gaze down to his. Usually he keeps his eyes closed, lost as if in another world. But he is staring deeply at me now in a way he has not before. It is as if he is trying to solve a mystery or unlock some sort of door. The intensity of his eyes releases something in me. I begin to move more quickly, needing more as the heat of our connection deep inside me grows. Peter’s hands are on my hips, guiding me. His eyes roll backward. As my passion crests in that silent, practiced way, I collapse forward and bite his shoulder to stifle my cries so they do not echo through the railcars.

Then I roll onto the berth beside Peter. His fingers are knotted in my hair and he murmurs softly to himself in Russian. He clings to me tightly, kissing my forehead, cheeks, chin. His passion sated now, his touch is gentle and his gaze warm.