The Rabbit Girls(56)

‘It was hers.’

‘You wanted me to know that she was there, that I had done this to her. I killed her, Emilie.’ It wasn’t loud, the confession. It was silent, a whisper. Emilie tried to pull me into her soft body, but I couldn’t yield. I was transfixed by the empty dress. An uninhabited uniform, the evidence of what I had done.

Emilie was still talking. ‘I cared for you, I wanted you to get better, for me and for Miriam. I didn’t want to set you back. I know I should have told you sooner, but I didn’t know how to. So please, you need to let it go. It’s over.’

In such a jumble her voice seemed to journey around me. Look for her, I heard. Look for her. Yes, I thought. I shall. But how? The dress was empty.

‘Where is Frieda?’ I asked.

‘She died.’ A worried look entered Emilie’s eyes and she dragged me to sit with her and get me to focus on her face, but the dress, laid out, the stripes, the stitched pocket. I kept looking at it.

‘She didn’t die,’ I said.

‘How many people did you see who lived in that place?’

I turned to her, her dark eyes were on me and I held both her wrists in my hands tight. ‘She wasn’t there. She didn’t die.’ Emilie pulled away, but I didn’t let go of her wrists.

‘Look.’ She pointed to the dress.

‘Please, tell me this isn’t true. Please, Emilie. Tell me you don’t know where she is, tell me anything. I’ll do anything, anything, but please. Tell me it’s not true. Please.’

She held my gaze steady. ‘I am so sorry, Henryk.’ She matched my intensity with her own, and I was empty.

Hung-empty. A void. Blank. An utter bleakness clouded my vision, turning everything two-dimensional, space sucked out colour like a vacuum. Everything and everyone now a series of featureless shells. All flat, like the empty dress.

Nothing moved as I held on to Emilie, holding her eyes with my own, but just before I was about to crumble away into dust, her eyes flashed towards Miriam.

She stood quickly and went to Miriam, fast asleep, her bottom in the air, thumb in mouth. I watched Emilie fuss over the sleeping infant.

Emilie was lying about something, but why?

Was she sparing me a worse pain, knowing how Frieda died? Was there something she hadn’t told me?

Or was she ending something I never could?

Dazed and confused, I left the apartment and walked around the graves at Heerstraβe Cemetery. I looked at the grieving, shell-shocked faces that mirrored my own. It wasn’t true. And as I walked, without sleep, I knew that she was alive.

Because lights that bright do not just go out.





MIRIAM

The sky is dark when she returns to the letters, tears soaking her face and a vortex opening deep within her.

Things cannot be unheard or unseen, the images seep into her, and although she tries to detach, she wasn’t there, she cannot manage the images of the baby as they appear from the letter.

As the clock inches forward, and she hasn’t heard from Hilda, Miriam notices that time itself has changed: 4 p.m. used to be time to tend to her father, now 4 p.m. is nothing; 6 p.m. turning him, but now, nothing. Not having heard from anyone, and with nothing to do, her day is empty.

She finds the cord to the phone disconnected.

Shunting it back into its socket as fast as she can, knowing she may have missed the call after waiting for it all day. She calls Hilda. There is no answer.

She calls the hospice.

‘Hi, can I please speak with the nurse for Herr Winter, Henryk Winter. He arrived by ambulance today.’

‘No Herr Winter, I’m afraid,’ a deeply nasal woman says.

‘He . . .’ Miriam is cut off. She dials again.

‘I’m Henryk Winter’s daughter, he was due to arrive with you today.’

‘As I said, we’ve had no new arrivals today.’

‘Wait,’ Miriam says. ‘Can you check again, please?’

A huge sigh comes across the phone line. ‘As I said, no new arrivals today.’ There is a pause down the line and a shuffle. ‘We had a Herr Winter pencilled into room four, but he didn’t arrive.’

‘What do you mean, didn’t arrive? Where is he?’

‘I don’t know. Look, the manager has gone home for the day. Call back tomorrow, I’m sure she’ll have more details for you.’

Miriam calls Hilda, again. No answer, again. She leaves a message trying to sound calm, but her voice comes out pinched and when she hangs up she feels like crying. She tries the medical centre, but they are closed. She doesn’t leave a message. She scratches her thumb and pulls the tiny bit of skin she uncovers with her teeth. She looks at the phone, and picks it up.

Shredding her thumb with her teeth, she dials another number. A number that once was her own.

‘Where’s Dad?’

‘Hello? Mim? Is that you?’

‘Where is my dad? What have you done?’

He yawns down the receiver and she can hear him stretching. ‘Was he transferred today?’

‘Yes,’ she says, suddenly unsure why she made the call.

‘Then he’s at the hospice surely?’

‘You know he didn’t get there. Where is my dad? What did you do?’

‘Miriam . . . Darling, have you taken your medication today?’ She places her weary hand on her forehead and takes it off quickly as the skin on her thumb burns to the touch.