The Orphan's Tale(29)

There is a knock outside the railcar. The door flings open and a border guard steps into the carriage, not waiting for a response. He shines a light around the car, holding it longer than is necessary on the bodies of the girls stirring from sleep. He works his way down the berths, checking each identity card in a perfunctory manner before moving on to the next. I exhale slightly. Perhaps this will be straightforward after all.

Then he reaches us. “Kennkarte. Ausweis.” I pass him my documents, along with those that Noa hands me. I hold my breath and count, waiting for him to hand them back. One, two...

Then he takes them and walks from the train.

I bite my lip so I don’t cry out in protest. “What just happened?” Noa asks, her voice panicked and confused.

I do not answer. Something, some detail of one of our identity cards, had given us away, belied the fact that they were fakes. Easy, I think, forcing myself to breathe normally so as not to panic Noa. The others are eyeing us nervously now. Noa slips her damp hand into mine, trusting as a child. I brace myself, waiting for the guard to return and drag us from the car.

“Your shoes,” I whisper urgently.

“What?” Noa tenses, her nails digging into my damp palm.

“Put them on. If they should take us...” I stop, not finishing as she begins to shake. It is essential that we appear calm when the guard returns.

But he does not come. Five minutes pass, then ten, my dread worsening by the second. Had he gone for the other guards? How I need Peter here with me. Noa squeezes my fingers once, then holds fast, not letting go. The train car rocks and starts to move.

“Our papers,” Noa whispers, her voice growing louder with urgency. “They’re gone.”

“Shh.” We are still on the train. We have not been arrested. But we are continuing on without our papers, which is almost as bad.

A moment later, Herr Neuhoff appears at the door of the carriage and gestures to me. “Here,” he says when I reach him. In his thick fingers he holds all of our documents. A strange look crosses his face and I wonder how much he had to bribe the guard to look the other way and not ask too many questions.

As the train picks up speed there is a collective exhale, the whole carriage seeming to relax at once. Everyone is awake now and the girls rise and dress, jostling into one another in the cramped, swaying space. Outside, the sky is lightening, pink behind the dark silhouette of a terraced vineyard, capped by a crumbling church.

Sometime later, one of the kitchen workers appears at the end of the carriage, passing out a breakfast of cold bread and cheese. The countryside begins to thin, farmhouses dotting the fields more frequently. Children peer curiously from the windows of houses and run along the tracks as our brightly painted train cars pass, hoping to catch a glimpse of the animals.

We continue on in silence, traveling over an aqueduct, and a valley unfurls, revealing a red-roofed village beneath stone castle ruins, ringed by fields of withered brush. Mossy-roofed cottages dot the hillside. They are punctuated by the occasional chateau or church with a crumbling belfry, alabaster stone walls warmed by the sun now high in the sky.

A ripple of excitement runs through the coach. Almost there. “We have to get ready for the parade,” I tell Noa.

“Parade?” Noa asks, her brow furrowing.

I sigh inwardly, reminding myself how much she still does not know. “Yes, after we arrive we will get off the train and immediately parade through town on carriages. We offer a preview to get the locals excited about the show.”

I watch her face as she processes this new bit of information, looking for signs of nervousness or fear. But she simply nods, then sets Theo down so she can dress.

The girls begin to primp as well as they can in the cramped space, applying rouge and blackening their eyebrows. “Here.” I pull a pink sequined dress from my trunk and pass it to Noa. She looks around, still embarrassed to change in front of the others. But there is nowhere to go, so she slips it on, nearly stumbling in her haste.

“Will they even come see us?” Noa asks. “The French, I mean? Surely to them we are still German...”

“I thought the same thing the first year after the war began,” I reply. “Not to worry. The people still love the show. The circus has no borders.” The audiences do not see the show as German, and they come faithfully each year.

The train wheels grind to a halt as we near the station. We do not get out right away, but continue preparing as the wagons, which had gone ahead or been leased locally, assemble out front. The animals are unloaded first, their cages placed on wheeled platforms. We shuffle toward the exit, the space becoming cramped and the midday air warm as we await our cue.

At last the door to the carriage is flung open and cool, fresh air wafts in. The station is nearly as packed as the railcar had been, dozens of spectators pressed close, waiting to welcome the circus to town. Flashbulbs pop from cameras in rapid succession. After the quiet of the train the chaos is jarring, like someone turning on the lights too quickly in the nighttime. I stop midstep, causing the girl behind me to bump into my back. I am filled with doubt, unable to move. Usually I love the open road, but suddenly I long for Darmstadt where I know every inch of the land—and where I have a place to hide. Going on the road last year as if it were not wartime was hard enough. Now I have the added burden of making sure that Noa can perform, that she and Theo are kept safe. How can I possibly carry on?