The Forest of Vanishing Stars(73)
Yona thought of Sister Maria Andrzeja’s words. “Perhaps it was God’s plan.”
The maid snorted, but she didn’t say anything more.
“Was this your home?” Yona asked after a moment. “Before the Germans came?”
“No.” Marya paused, as if considering how much to tell Yona. “But I worked for the people who lived here.”
“What happened to them?”
Now there was something else in her eyes: rage. “The father, shot in the street. The mother and children, shot in their beds. The youngest was just four. Russian sympathizers, the Germans said. You tell me how a four-year-old can be a Russian sympathizer, hmm?”
Yona put a hand over her mouth. “The room I’ve been sleeping in…”
“The teenage daughter. Czes?awa. She died right where you’ve slept.” Marya crossed her arms over her chest, looking both smug and devastated. “The snow globe on your nightstand? The beautiful one with the forest and the snow? She used to look at it every night and dream of a future far away. And now, because of people like your father, she is dead, buried in the dirt here. She never even left the town where she was born.”
Yona quickly crossed the kitchen and retched into the sink. When she straightened, the maid was still staring at her. “I’m sorry,” Yona said.
The maid just grunted. “That does not bring them back, Fr?ulein Inge.”
Her given name coming from Marya’s mouth sounded strange and wrong, even worse than when it was uttered by Jüttner, who had at least known her as something else a lifetime ago. “It’s Yona,” she said softly. “My name is Yona now.”
Marya scowled. “You think you can escape who you were born to be? None of us can. Can’t you see that?” She turned away without another word and swept out of the room, leaving Yona alone, the taste of bile and regret in her mouth.
She dressed quickly, once again donning the dead girl’s clothes. Her own things were neatly folded in the corner; Marya had laundered her dress, her shirt, her trousers, her underthings, even mended the holes in her socks. They seemed to taunt her now, reminding her that this was no time to play dress-up, but it had to be. If she could just keep the ruse of being a dutiful daughter going a little longer, she could save everyone. Wasn’t it foolish not to try?
She was relieved not to see Marya as she slipped downstairs again, but the relief faded when she peered out the front door and saw two soldiers outside, both of whom turned to stare with curiosity until she’d closed the door once more.
It took her a full minute to realize that if there were two soldiers out front, one of them might be the one who was supposed to be guarding the alley. Quickly, she flew across the house and flung open the back door. She looked left and right and saw not another soul. Without hesitation, she slipped into the alley, closing the door softly behind her, and then, hugging the shadows, she walked quickly to the end of the block, where a glance told her that the street was deserted. She didn’t wait another second before breaking into a run, putting as much distance between herself and Jüttner’s stolen home as she could.
She slowed to a brisk walk on the main street, so as not to arouse suspicion. What was her plan here? She slowed slightly as she neared the church. She would go to one of the stained glass windows near the altar and peer in; there was a side door to the church with a particularly translucent pane, the flesh tones of Jesus’s mother. If she pressed her face against the glass, she should be able to see inside, though the view would be hazy. It would be enough, though, to count eight nuns, seated and alive. She would then rush back to Jüttner’s home before he discovered her missing, and there she would agonize about her next move. She would need to be ready to flee to the forest the moment the nuns were safe.
Just before she rounded the corner into the small square outside the church, she heard raised voices and froze. It took her a few beats to recognize one of them as Jüttner’s, his words a sharp, threatening hammer of anger. She was too far away to make out what he was saying, but as she crept forward for a glimpse of the argument, hugging the shadows as she went, she could see him standing just outside the church door with a cowering Schneider, poking a finger at the other man’s meaty nose as he yelled about something. Schneider’s face was red, and he was attempting to get a word in, but Jüttner kept going, rolling furiously over him.
Yona bit her lip and slipped backward, letting the shadows swallow her. Something was wrong. Her heart pounding rapidly, Yona hurried up the narrow street, doubled back down an alley, and crept toward the door of the church near the altar. She would just glance in, reassure herself about the nuns’ safety, and then depart as quickly as she’d come.
There was no guard at the side door, which didn’t surprise Yona; there hadn’t been a guard posted here the last few times, either, and Yona had assumed that the door had been locked. What she didn’t expect to see was an unguarded door that had been left slightly ajar. The tempo of her heartbeat quickened.
She hesitated before slipping inside, as quiet as a breeze. The church was silent and dark, and in the stillness, Yona smelled the blood and the spent bullets before she saw the bodies. She clapped a hand over her mouth as her eyes adjusted to the dim lighting. There on the altar, lined up in a neat row, lying on their backs, were seven of the eight nuns, bullet holes in their heads, their open eyes looking sightlessly up toward God. The eighth nun was just a few feet away, on her knees and slumped to her right, facing the crucifix above the altar, a bullet hole in her back. She had died in prayer, staring up at Jesus. Yona knew before she approached and gently turned the body over that it was Sister Maria Andrzeja.