The Rabbit Girls(55)

Eugenia looked up at me, as I scribbled away.

‘I do not know their names,’ she said. ‘They don’t exist. No one who loved them will know how they died.’

And Eugenia took another deep breath, picked up the patch of cloth that was resting in her lap and sewed a running stitch along its seam, as methodical and precise as ever.

Henryk, her story seems to whisper in the crevices of my mind. After all, fear is contagious. I tell myself that although we die in body, the memories of us will live on. In the hearts of those who know and love us, for as long as they live, we survive. Eugenia lost everyone that day, so I entrust her memory to you, so that she does not have to die twice.

Yours, always.

Miriam feels sick, the snakes that fed through her skin slime and shiver inside her again, from what she reads, not from a dream now.

The baby.

A thought. A flicker, a flash and then gone. The baby.

Tears swim in her vision. She gets to the bathroom and washes and washes and washes her hands.

Eugenia believed she no longer existed. What about her? What was she doing to prove her worth in life, to live when all these incredible women died?

Darling Miriam, my wife, my love.

She can hear his voice, feel the texture of his hands along her cheek, then moving to the back of her head, caressing her neck.

I will never, ever hurt you.

She can feel the kiss as his lips pressed themselves into her neck.

My most precious wife, I will always be with you.

She hears words spoken in love, but words which have left more than a scar.

She looks into the mirror until her features blur into his words and she can feel his breath on her neck, and hear his voice.

‘What are you going to do, Miriam?’ she says to her reflection.





22





HENRYK


The world came back into focus quickly after I met Miriam for the first time. I became a father and a man. I sorted out the wire that hung corner to corner in our little room, so that when Emilie was hanging up the towelling for Miriam’s nappies she didn’t have to balance on a footstool with half its leg missing. I held and hugged and fed and looked at the small person I had, unknowingly, created. And I looked at Emilie, with Miriam’s arms wrapped around her neck like a monkey, radiating in motherhood, and felt proud that I had given her something.

Something good.

Miriam’s appearance in our lives changed everything. We were parents, and I followed Emilie’s guidance and found my feet. I was watching Emilie settle Miriam on our mattress; the abandoned cot in the upper hallway of the block felt too empty to fill.

Emilie was singing whilst rubbing circles on Miriam’s back, and the nagging feeling that I had had for a few weeks came clattering over me and took the air out of my lungs.

‘Emilie,’ I said in hushed tones as she shuffled around, busy with her hands. She rarely stood still and never made eye contact. I wondered what she had been through, pregnant and alone. I wondered if she could ever forgive me. ‘Emilie, I need to try and find Frieda,’ I said.

‘Why?’ she asked. ‘What good can possibly come from that?’

‘I have to try. I have to try and find out what happened to her.’

Emilie was pottering around not looking at me. ‘Emilie, please. Let’s talk about this,’ I said.

‘Why? Henryk, why are you doing this again? We have a baby, a future!’ She shook her head, took a deep breath and came and sat in the chair opposite. ‘You really want to know?’ she asked.

‘Yes.’

Emilie took my hand in hers. ‘Henryk, Frieda died, in the hospital after the place . . . the place you were held. After it was liberated,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, I didn’t want to tell you this way.’ She tried to hug me, but my body was completely stiff, unyielding to her touch.

‘No,’ I said. In our one-room apartment, in the aftermath of the war. Everything seemed black and yet brilliant white.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

‘No,’ I stood. Pacing the room, ready to run. I wasn’t sure where I was going. ‘No,’ I said again. ‘How can you know?’

‘I know,’ she said sadly.

‘You can’t.’ I ran my hand through my hair and then over my eyes. ‘How? How did she die?’

‘Henryk, please calm down.’

I was walking from wall to wall, a caged animal.

‘I found you, at the hospital, you remember? She was there too.’ Emilie looked at her feet. ‘She died in the hospital.’

‘No!’ I shouted. Then I collapsed in the chair. ‘Emilie why are you saying this to me?’

‘I didn’t tell you straightaway because, Henryk, you couldn’t even feed or dress yourself.’ She took a breath. ‘She was dying. Henryk, she wanted to come to you, but she couldn’t. Here . . .’ She stood quietly and walked over to the old chest.

It had been the only furniture left in the apartment when we acquired it, mainly because it was too heavy to steal. She dug to the bottom and removed a sheet.

I stood as she placed it on the table, and carefully unfolded it. I remember looking and thinking that Emilie must have known what I had done, otherwise why confront me with this.

A uniform, I presumed my own, was folded on the table.