The German Wife(67)

“Peenemünde.” I didn’t react, so he clarified, “On the Baltic Sea.”

“Four hours’ drive?”

“Closer to five.”

“I’m guessing you’re not inviting me and the children to move with you.”

“No. They are going to build us accommodation. It won’t be family friendly.”

“You’re never home as it is.”

“I know.”

“So that’s about to get worse?”

“Probably.”

I digested this, grateful for the pitch darkness beneath the covers, so that he couldn’t see the tears in my eyes.

“Sometimes, it feels like living this life is like listening to a piece of music played by a beginner. Most of the song is fine, isn’t it? Most of the time I am engrossed in my work. That prototype we fired this week is like a baby version of the device that might take us to the moon one day—and it works, Sofie. I helped make that happen and there is pride in that. We have this beautiful house. Perfect children. We’re healthy. We don’t have to worry about money anymore. But...there are dissonant notes...sometimes even discordant phrases. And we have to keep smiling regardless. In fact, we have to smile even harder when we hear those sounds, just to cover up how jarring they are.”

“Sometimes I don’t know if I can bear it.”

“Sofie, believe me, it helps to focus on the parts that you can bear.”

“And for you, that’s the rockets.”

“That’s right. And for you, it’s this house, isn’t it? This lifestyle?” I didn’t have the heart to tell him those things had long since lost their shine, but he correctly read my silence. “There has to be something. The children? The new baby?”

I had just discovered I was pregnant again, but my feelings even about that were muddled. With my first two pregnancies, I told Jürgen and then Mayim before anyone else—even Adele. I was reluctant to break the tradition, even though I knew it was inevitable that I’d have to.

I even felt conflicted about bringing another child into this world. Every day, Georg and Laura were slipping a little further from me, even though we were all still under one roof. The same would happen with this baby, unless something drastic changed before he or she was old enough to start school.

But Jürgen was right—there had to be something positive to focus on so that I could get through each day.

“The children,” I whispered back. “And you. And Aunt Adele.”

“I remember when you two didn’t get along.”

“These days,” I confessed, “I don’t know what I’d do without her.”

Georg’s birthday loomed, and all he wanted to do was to have a party with Hans. I gently tried to suggest other children, but Georg and Hans had the kind of friendship I’d shared with Mayim, so I couldn’t bring myself to refuse the request.

We invited Adele to the picnic, but when she heard that the zu Schiller family would be there, her hip was suddenly too sore. Instead, she came to have breakfast with us beforehand. We had fat ham steaks and eggs, and she brought a photo of Jürgen from his first birthday in her house.

“He looked just like you do now,” she told Georg, showing him the faded black-and-white image. “See?”

“We could be twins, Papa,” Georg said, holding the photo beside his face. There was a strong likeness there, even if Georg had inherited a darker shade of blue eyes from me. Jürgen and Georg grinned at one another, then dissolved into mirroring one another’s silly faces. Laura sighed impatiently at their antics.

“She’s becoming such a serious child. Just as I recall you were,” Adele said wryly, glancing at me.

“I was terrified of you. I remember talking to May—” I stopped myself just in time, drew in a breath to collect myself, then continued as smoothly as I could. “—to my friends about cranky Mrs. Rheinberg, who lived next door to our city house.”

When I was a child, Adele and Jürgen were the slightly odd pair in the house next door to my family’s city house. Then one day I visited our Lichterfelde West house, and that lanky, bespectacled boy next door suddenly seemed irresistible. Later, he admitted he’d been trying to connect with me for years, and he found himself struck mute every time we made eye contact.

“Cranky Mrs. Rheinberg,” Adele chuckled. Then she struggled to her feet. It was easy for me to forget Adele’s advanced age sometimes because she was generally free of health problems, but recently, I’d noticed her occasionally wince in pain, and some days she’d look especially pale. If I asked, she’d mutter something vague about her heart not being what it used to.

“Come to the garden,” she said. “I want to show you a special flower.”

She had let the chickens out for a scratch, and now she shooed them away as she led me into the far corner of her courtyard. There, she gestured for me to lean close.

“Mayim and her parents have moved in with Levi’s brother. It’s a little cramped, but they are getting by and no longer have to worry about rent. She knows you’re well and expecting again.”

I pulled away in shock.

“But...how do you know I’m pregnant...?”

“You’ve been turning green when I offer you coffee. The same thing happened with your first two babies. I know you’re under a lot of stress, Sofie, but you do need to look after yourself. You’re not showing yet, although I daresay that’s because you’ve lost so much weight these months since Jürgen’s... accident.”