The Rabbit Girls(40)

‘Actually, I was wondering if I can talk to you,’ Eva says, looking straight at Miriam, her gaze strong. Miriam covers her stomach with freshly washed hands. ‘I may have been a bit . . . forceful at the library the other day.’

‘Forceful?’

‘I just wasn’t, well, it’s very difficult to trust people.’

‘I understand.’ She opens the door wider to invite Eva in. ‘I suppose I have been privileged, I don’t know what it was like on the other side of the Wall.’

‘Have you been reading the letters?’

‘Yes, the rabbit girls . . . It’s horrific, that this happened and—’

‘You didn’t make it to the library yesterday,’ Eva interrupts her.

‘No, I’m sorry.’

‘Did you get my note?’

‘Yes, and thank you for the letters too. It’s quite a story, but I don’t really know—’

‘Can I buy you a coffee? The shop at the end of the street?’ Eva interrupts again.

She thinks of her father resting and nods. ‘Coffee would be lovely, let me just tell Dad.’

The coffee shop is open, the inhabitants laughing, talking. Living. Miriam walks in and the smell of Christmas invades her senses. She softens in the warm glow of cinnamon and coffee beans.

Eva finds a seat at the back of the shop in front of a large, open window; even though it is early, the view from the window is grim and dark. The breeze is a welcome chill to the hot fuzz of people and coffee. Miriam orders a coffee in a large glass with cream and cinnamon sprinkles; a small biscuit and long spoon are placed in front of her.

She orders Eva the same and scans the room before perching on the edge of her chair. She wishes Axel could just be there. Just there. Because if he’s there, he cannot be everywhere. Miriam fidgets, looks up and jumps at the slightest noise or movement from the people around her. Within minutes her body is tense and aches, confined within the chair.

Eva takes a bite of her biscuit and crumbs fall into her lap. Miriam watches as she flicks them away with the back of her hand.

‘Thank you for helping me with the letters,’ Miriam says.

‘You are paying me, and . . .’

‘Yes, I owe you money, don’t I?’

Eva waves the question away.

‘It was a good thing I met Jeff, or you may have found me slaving over a dictionary trying to put the words together.’ She knows she is talking fast and almost nonsensically, but cannot find a way to calm down. ‘Do you have a family?’ she asks. ‘Other than Jeff?’

‘My husband died a few years ago, he was a doctor. A very good man. His daughters are grown now. Jeffrey is Renka’s son, she was the oldest,’ Eva says, stirring the cream into her coffee with the long spoon. ‘They stole through the tunnels when he was a boy. I hadn’t seen them for almost twenty years.’

A long silence casts a shadow over the table as Miriam listens to Eva’s breathing slow down. Her hands are darkened with age, yet long and thin.

‘Do you have a partner, Miriam?’ Eva asks, her mouth full of biscuit.

Miriam shakes her head and sips at her scalding-hot coffee.

‘No,’ she says. ‘Well, not exactly.’

Miriam thinks of the night she left him.

‘It’s . . .’ she starts. ‘You see . . .’ she tries and then settles with, ‘It’s a bit complicated.’

That night, the phone call from the hospital still ringing around her head, Miriam had washed her hands thoroughly and tiptoed into their bedroom, thinking only of her father, alone, dying, a few hours away.

The soothing sound of Axel’s snores offered her peace. He was in his usual position, asleep in the bed as he would be dead in his grave.

The soft, cream blanket, usually found at the foot of their bed, was placed on the floor, folded over and over on itself until it made a small rectangle. The size of a dog basket. Her bed for the night.

Dogs and bitches get the floor.

She turned and left the room.

Her toes had crawled for purchase on the side of the bath as she teetered, trying to access the top shelves of the cabinet where her medication was stored. Away from her.

Axel was the only one who could be trusted to ensure she received the correct dose. After the last time . . . when each bitter pill seemed sugar-coated, a sweetness to abyss.

She opened the old box at the back, and amongst an assortment of medications, anti-depressants, anti-hallucinogenics and sleeping tablets . . .

She saw it.

After years of not knowing where it was, Miriam, looking for an escape, any way to free herself, had found one.

Her ID card.

If she could prove she was a West German citizen, she could get back into Berlin, she could go home. No matter that they lived in Wolfsburg, still West Germany, the guards at the checkpoints would need proof she wasn’t an East German stowaway.

She gathered it in her nightdress, close to her heart, and silently walked down the stairs, avoiding the second-from-top stair and its hollow creak. She placed her feet into her shoes, took her coat and bag from the rack, and pulled the front door shut tight. There was no thinking. Her feet left the house.

‘Sorry, Eva, what did you say?’ She feels the room pulse towards her and imagines her exit through the mass of bodies and tables should he enter the café here. Or be sitting there. Or behind her.