The Rabbit Girls(26)

‘A walking target,’ she says aloud. ‘A political prisoner.’ And she recalls the television showing the pictures of the East Berliners shot at for trying to scale the Wall. East Germany killing their own.

The cost of freedom.

She thinks of her freedom. What will it cost her?

After looking through the piles of letters until her fingers ache and her head thunders, she rests back in the chair, the letters in her lap.

The letters in French sit unread all night and she watches them, as if she can somehow transform them into German, or that she may be able to read them by the morning. Are the ones written in French from the same person?

The thoughts of the letters and their content swirl in her head, so that past and present have fused into one mass of something indecipherable.





11





MIRIAM


She dreams of Mum, growing older and fragile. Until, like tissue, her skin flakes and starts to shed. Pages first fly around her like a storm, peeling off, until Mum dissolves. Pages turning into words and finally single letters fly. She tries to grab them and put Mum back together again but can’t.

Awake and unwilling to close her eyes lest the images have free rein, she watches the December morning slice through the window. When she can hear traffic and a bin lorry crash and wheeze along the streets, she gets up to begin her day.

Answers.

Miriam needs answers, before it’s too late. He knows where to find her. It’s a matter of time, and there’s no way back. She collects a pile of the French letters into a handkerchief and places them carefully in her bag.

‘I love you, Dad,’ she says, a ball of emotion holds firm in her throat. ‘I will be back soon. I promise.’

Miriam takes a taxi rather than the bus and arrives before the library has opened. She is one of the first admitted through the double doors and her initial thought is that she needs a French dictionary.

As she sits with an enormous French–German dictionary in front of her she unwraps the handkerchief and takes out one of the many letters, wrapping the rest back up. She starts at the beginning. She writes a word, checks and scratches it out, before trying again. One sentence seems to take an age to decipher. And time is not on her side.

The library is almost empty, there are a few people talking, but no students, no pages turning or pencils scribbling.

She puts the dictionary back on the shelf and walks, letter in hand, to the desk. A young librarian with glasses perched on his nose and another pair around his neck busily shifts paper.

‘Hello, I was wondering, can you help me?’

‘Probably,’ he says, not looking up. ‘What are you looking for?’

‘I am looking for someone who can translate some French letters for me?’

He looks up. ‘The French dictionaries are over there.’ He points where she has just been.

‘I’ve been there, but what I am after is someone who knows the language and can help me.’

‘This is a library. I deal in books, not people.’ And with that he turns away and rustles paper on the other side of the desk, his back to her.

A hand rests gently on her shoulder. She flies around and the letter falls to the floor.

‘I’m sorry,’ says a man, bending to pick up the paper as she backs into the desk. ‘Here.’ He hands the letter back.

‘Thank you.’

‘I saw you with the dictionary over there?’ He points. ‘Are you having problems that Schmutz here cannot help you with?’

The librarian huffs, but continues with his filing.

‘No – yes, I mean . . .’ she says.

The man has large eyes and thick lips. He is being kind, Miriam thinks. She’s not sure what to say. Sometimes there are no words, but she tries a few to see what happens. When she does, the words come out in a rush.

‘I have a letter that is to my father. He is dying and my mother has . . . already and this . . .’ She motions to the letter. ‘I just don’t understand and I don’t read French. My father did, but . . . I don’t have time to work out each word . . .’

He smiles gently. ‘I am sorry to hear of your father?’ he asks, and she sees two large hearing aids pushing his ears forward slightly. ‘Bit deaf, you see.’ He points to an offending ear. ‘So I didn’t catch all you said.’

Miriam brings her hand to her mouth in apology, then realises he would probably need to see her mouth to hear.

‘From what I heard, you are looking for a French person, or someone who can help you with your letter?’

She nods.

‘My nonna speaks French.’

‘That’s very kind, but . . .’ she starts, but her protestations aren’t heard.

‘Nonna and Opa were born in Strasbourg, you know, on the Rhine? Stunning there. We went there a long time ago, when I was a boy, but Nonna . . . It’s very sad.’ The man takes her by the elbow. ‘She stayed with him in the East, he was unwell when the Wall was built so she stayed.’ He leads her around the circling stairs and up two levels, talking the entire time. ‘Likes the area called the “reading room”, does Nonna, but you need to be quiet here.’ Miriam smiles as he says it loudly. ‘Be good for her to do something, after the Wall, you know, well . . . it’s been hard on her, I think. Mum and I help out, but she’s been on her own too long. She’s started harassing the librarians about trying to return the stolen books back to their owners, believes the library has been built on the back of fascism and the books do not belong to them. It’s a lost cause, to be honest . . . the owners of the books are probably long dead. I think Opa’s death hit her hard . . .’