The Rabbit Girls(32)

‘To hell with you, Henryk, and Frieda. Both of you be damned,’ she sobbed.

I stacked the books back up and was about to go to her in the kitchen. She had put her apron on and was scrubbing at the work surface. Dashing tears away with the back of her hand as she worked. Her apron untied.

I watched her until tears stung my eyes. I closed the door silently behind me, walking fast and keeping my hat pulled low, my eyes down. Aware that at any moment a hand could rest on my shoulder and I would disappear into a night fog.





MIRIAM

Reading the letter somehow brings Axel alive, unbidden and in the room. Numb was how the letter described it. Numbness settles like film over her skin. She spends a long night unable to keep the chill from her limbs and by the time the grey morning seeps in, her body aches and she cannot peel off the sensation of being both wet and cold.

She doesn’t move from the chair, other than to care for her father.

She doesn’t speak.

The oppression of him, as though they were sharing the same air. Right. There. Keeps her from answering the door when somebody knocks.

‘Hello,’ a voice calls through the letter box.

She doesn’t answer.

‘Miriam? It’s Hilda. Are you in?’

She rises from the chair, the dress unfolded and draped on her lap like a blanket. When she opens the door, Hilda is on the other side.

The eclectic pattern on Hilda’s skirt catches her eye as it sways.

‘You missed it,’ Hilda says. ‘Your appointment, nine a.m., remember?’ She consults her wristwatch. ‘It’s one thirty.’

‘It is?’ Miriam opens the door fully. ‘What day is it?’ she asks and yawns widely, which is followed by a shiver. But looking at Hilda’s face she rubs her arms vigorously and puts a mask of normality on her face.

‘It’s Tuesday,’ Hilda says. ‘Dr Baum told me some of your history. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘Dr Baum?’

A variety of expressions pass over Hilda’s face as she walks past Miriam into the living room. It seems she goes from concern to trepidation to confusion with such rapidity that Miriam smiles.

‘I like you, Hilda,’ Miriam says. ‘Your face is honest.’

‘Miriam, please,’ Hilda says and sits. Miriam follows suit. ‘I cannot tell you how serious this is,’ she continues. ‘Dr Baum is thinking of sending your father back to hospital; he thinks you are unstable. I can’t say otherwise, neither can you . . . You didn’t attend. God, Miriam, you are not helping yourself.’ She pulls fingers through her hair. ‘The meeting is on Friday,’ she says with finality.

The fog clears and the room comes into sharp focus.

‘Please, Hilda, I forgot . . . nothing sinister, I promise. Can I see another doctor to explain? Dad cannot go back into hospital . . . not now.’

Hilda sighs so heavily, Miriam can smell garlic on her breath.

‘Okay – right now. See if we can fit you into the open clinic. Last chance, Miriam.’

‘Let me just check on Dad. I’ll be there.’

‘I’ll wait.’

She follows a step behind Hilda, unable to keep up with her pace. Hilda says nothing on the walk. Miriam follows the green and purple flowers of Hilda’s skirt as she is frog-marched across the busy streets, the trees hold the low clouds like leaves.

They wait at a pedestrian crossing beside a mum with a pushchair. The child is howling, red-faced, tear-stained. When the lights turn green she pushes on ahead, the toddler using its entire body to break free from the restraints of the pushchair. The mum walks with speed and deliberation. Miriam wonders if the mum can hear the plea in the child’s voice or if she has become numb to it, and at what point the child will give up.

In the medical centre, recently refurbished, the smell of paint mingles heavily with the old and the sick, plus the heating makes Miriam want to leave almost as soon as the doors open. The waiting room is a thoroughfare, people bustling around, coughing. Window cleaners are polishing the glass of a full window that frames the car park.

Hilda marches to the reception desk, looking as comfortable here as Miriam imagines she does in her own home, and motions for Miriam to sit while she confers with the receptionist.

Eventually she comes over and says, ‘The doctor will call you when he is available.’

‘Thank you.’ Miriam is sitting between a man puffing on a pipe with his leg in a cast and a mother clutching a child with red-raw cheeks and teary eyes. She watches Hilda’s receding figure.

The noise of the centre bustles along, interrupted by coughing fits and a loud retch.

She picks up a discarded magazine and puts it down. She crosses and uncrosses her legs. She plays with the pleats in her skirt, flattens, then separates each fold.

The child whimpers, moulded into his mother’s body. She soothes him with her voice and Miriam is reminded of the box, the mother and child, and Eugenia hiding . . . waiting.

She looks up, aware of someone. She scans every face and looks out of the glass doors.

He is standing there.

Arms folded, hands tucked into his armpits.

Watching her.

Like the sun, his presence is borne with such force that to gaze directly at him would blister.

She stands, then turns.

‘Frau Voight – room 6 please,’ a male voice calls into the open-plan waiting area. Miriam knocks into people as she runs through the pharmacy attached to the medical centre. Away. As fast as she can. In the opposite direction.