The Rabbit Girls(33)

‘Frau Voight,’ the voice rebounds around her.

She runs until her legs numb and she’s running on feet alone. Not looking back. At the top of the hill she doubles back on herself, there is no one there.

She allows herself to walk slower, count the steps, focus on moving forward. Keep going.

‘Keep going,’ she says to herself. ‘Almost there.’ She continues to try and soothe herself with her voice. ‘Couldn’t have been him. Couldn’t have been him.’ Her feet move faster and her words run into each other. ‘Was it him?’

‘Scissors and sorry, in sickness and cold, Hani and gypsy and bread and cold. Missing and shivering and no more, and don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave.’ Talking to the rhythm of her feet.

‘Miriam,’ Lionel calls to her as she keeps following the drum of her feet ‘home’ to the stairs.

‘Fr?ulein,’ he calls again. She stops on the beat of home. ‘Letter for you.’ He passes her a manila envelope.

She holds it away from her body. ‘I don’t want it,’ she says to Lionel.

‘It’s from an Easterner, she said she was a lady friend of yours. She was insistent that I gave it to you. In person.’

Miriam looks at her name on the front. Not in his handwriting. She holds the envelope closer.

‘You be careful, pet. Can never be too cautious of those Easterners hanging around now. My cousin over in,’ he points over his shoulder, ‘had terrible trouble with the . . .’ But she turns away.

The feather in the door, safe.

The water in the tap, hot.

Her hands bleed, peace.

She places plasters over some of the wounds. The wooden block of knives in the kitchen and the sewing scissors she shuts away in a drawer. Yet her fingers pull and tug at the skin. She digs the nail of her thumb into her wrist where a graze has scabbed over and pushes it as deeply as she can, drawing it across her skin horizontally, watching her skin go from pink to white under the pressure. Pink to white then red, pulling at the broken skin until it bleeds.

The silence of the house thrums in her ears and she finds a loose eyelash irritating her eye and starts pulling them out, more and more. Until she is blinking them away with tears.

‘Dad,’ she speaks into the silence.

‘I saw, I mean, I know, but I cannot be sure. I . . .’

‘Miriam,’ he says and lifts his arm to the side and there is a tiny space in the bed. She doesn’t think twice.

‘Dad,’ she sobs. She moves on to the bed; the air mattress shifts and groans as she moves awkwardly into his straight body. The cardigan buttons remind her of twisting and playing with them as a child. She draws circles into the buttons with her finger. Around and around.

His arm closes her in. He is frail and she can feel the bones of him as she moves into his arm.

‘He’s back,’ she says.





14





MIRIAM


The days and nights become unfocused. They seep into each other like a watercolour. The only determination of time is her father, he is drinking, he is eating tiny amounts. And he talks, mumbles and sometimes calls out.

‘Frieda. Frieda. Frieda.’

His mouth opens and closes and most of the time no words leave it, but his whole body is fighting.

She hopes she can help him, but as she rubs the chill out of his hands, and massages his arms and legs, she knows caring for him is the only thing she can do.

When she brings herself to open the envelope given to her by Lionel, she finds a small note and three pages of elaborate writing, large and legible, and the letters from the dress attached to each one.

A small note on the front.

I need to speak with you about the letters, please contact me.

Eva

Miriam puts it to one side and allows herself to be drawn into the world of the letters. A world in which he doesn’t exist.

Henryk

I have no pockets in my uniform. The fabric falls off my shoulders. I have nothing, yet I have everything. By luck or intent, I still have my ID card under the sole of my boots and the ring. I can feel the shape of it. A circle burned into the pad of my toe. I have the means of escape. I can leave this place. Now I am in, I can find my way out, find who I need to speak to to try and leave.

I need to see the Kommandant while my features still resemble those on my card. Before I morph into the others. Before I become faceless. I need to find my way free, so I can find you.

I keep my head low, following the cobbles, randomly aligned. If you don’t watch where you place your feet, it is easy to slip. I could feel the cobbles beneath the soles of my boots, I felt grounded. Where once many must have bled and died laying this path I am standing atop. Still breathing, still alive.

The salt in the air reminds me of chasing Louisa across the beach, avoiding the waves, running as fast as I could, my shorter legs no match for her long ones. Hair streaming behind her. The fresh sea air, the lavender garlands we made together. The smell of her last summer.

Here the salt air is tainted with the smell of people. This place was not designed to hold us all. The guards must be outnumbered one hundred to one, yet we do nothing.

The ten-metre wall, the barbed wire, the inmates behaving like guards, the guards like dogs. Salt in the air, the taste on the skin. Fir trees and manicured lawns we saw on the way in.