The Rabbit Girls(37)

I wouldn’t believe it was me. I touched the mirror several times thinking it was an illusion. Feeling your own shaved head and seeing it are two very different things. My eyes were hollow, the red of blood on my cheek bringing out the green so I looked almost demonic.

The older lady is called Wanda, her hands work as fast as her mouth and she had a bandage for my face. She cleaned and hugged Hani – who couldn’t understand a word. She too was mesmerised with her reflection and studied the place where her teeth had been.

Wanda introduced us to Stella, a little girl, no more than seven or eight. She still has most of her baby teeth, two gaps at the front. Stella sleeps in a bunk with a young woman, ‘Bunny’, who I do not think is her mother. Bunny hums all night to keep her dreams soft.

‘Bunny is silent. She hasn’t spoken since they brought her here,’ said Wanda.

Then there is Eugenia, who comes across as cold, but may be just hardened by life here; she has been here a long time. Two years! She must be in her mid-twenties, as I assume Bunny is, yet Bunny looks like she could be no more than a teenager, or she could be into her late thirties. I kept looking at her for clues, but the kerchief on her head, the bleak, dark space behind her eyes and the fear make it hard to place her in age. She looks like someone who has seen too much.

Hani and I have no blanket and only one bowl between us, we have nothing to offer, but to Wanda this doesn’t seem to matter. She is so kind. We are grateful. I’m not sure if we would have been made so welcome if Wanda had not taken us both under her wing. Wanda seemed enchanted with Hani’s beauty and her innocent look of being unable to understand all that goes on around her.

Hani and I are invited to sleep in the top bunk. I have a thousand questions passing through my mind, but I feel overwhelmed by the kindness. My face throbs from the blow and Hani and I are lying down wrapped in each other’s arms. The first time I have lain down in many weeks. It feels so nice, I cry. The first time since I left you. My eyes heavy from tears, dry and hot. I rest.

These women, this place. For Miriam, there is no point of reference for all she is reading. She cannot imagine it, yet she is reading it. And millions experienced it.

‘You’ve done nothing wrong,’ Miriam says to her father. ‘You cannot blame yourself. You didn’t do this.’ She raises the letter. ‘This is . . . Maybe there aren’t words for this.’





HENRYK

It was the 10th of April 1944. A Monday. The last time I saw Frieda.

We had been arrested two days after all laws ceased and one man oversaw an entire city.

Our journey started on the Schildhornstraβe in Berlin. I was sure we were going to be shot, right outside the flat Emilie and I had been hiding in. But we were told to walk instead. The sun felt like ice as it emerged through a deep fog, blurring the edges of my vision.

We walked for hours, all familiarity behind us. Stopping only for more houses to be emptied of their occupants. As Hagelstraβe turned into Fontanestraβe, we stayed on the road, lined with tree stumps and burnt-out army vehicles.

A procession of footsteps chattered, a train moving on its tracks. The houses that lined the streets had been boarded up. All doors and windows were blocked, yet there was scattered glass on the ground. People attacked from above and within. Behind the facade of empty, derelict houses, people hid and prayed, thankful that today it was not them. I, too, had believed I was safe within the confines of four walls. But those walls had come down and I was out in the open with nothing but Frieda by my side. Surrounded by officers marching along the pavements, we became part of a throng of people under siege.

Ahead of us someone had fallen.

‘Schwein!’ a male voice barked. To my left an officer swept diagonally towards an elderly man who had collapsed over a suitcase. The officer, in perfect green uniform, gleaming boots, spat on him.

‘Du faules Schwein.’ He struck the man on the back of the head. One blow that propelled the man forward, his hat fell off and a shower of white hair emerged from under it as his face impacted on the case. I moved with the crowds and looked down at him. Frieda pulled me on, averting her eyes. I turned and she grabbed my arm harder, but I moved towards the man against others passing me.

Frieda held back.

‘Zurück in der Reihe,’ the officers shouted to me, but there was no line to return to, there was only the hobbling mass that bumbled along.

Away from the fallen man.

‘Henryk.’ Frieda had caught my arm again, she was looking at the officers as they were watching me. No one stopped, they kept pace, all eyes forward. The officer brushed his fingers across the rim of his hat, before stomping on the man’s back.

‘Aufstehen,’ he screamed, red-faced, then looking at his comrades he laughed and they laughed along with him. I paused.

‘Henryk,’ Frieda whispered on tiptoes, touching her lips to my ear. ‘Please.’

The officer stepped away and the fastening popped as he took out a pistol from its holster.

‘Aufstehen!’ He motioned with the pistol for the man to get up.

‘Bitte warten,’ I shouted and pushed Frieda away. I placed myself between the old man and the officer. ‘Wait.’ I bent down. ‘Wait,’ I said again, more to myself this time. Hovering my body over the man, he smelt both damp and old. His coat was too short and his forearms poked out of the sleeves, his feet clad in house shoes, barely soled. The suitcase was made of beaten leather, the stitches frayed at the edges. I was focused on the suitcase, waiting for the shot. Waiting. But it was Frieda who reached me first.