The Rabbit Girls(77)

‘Sue, can you not let him in if he does. Axel, he has a bit of a vendetta.’

‘Against your father?’

‘Against me. He’s belligerent, he won’t give up.’





HENRYK

‘He’s belligerent, he won’t give up.’ I can hear Miriam’s voice. He was here, I want to say. That man. He told me what he was going to do to my little girl. But the confines of my inert body cannot let me move.

I want to battle, to shout, to scream, to move in any way to stop him. I could feel the pressure moving through my chest and into my head, a scuttle of beetles. I wanted to explode just so I could stop hearing his voice. His words. So I could get to Miriam.

I am imprisoned in this body. The nurses gave me something. The taste so strong, like peppermint, cherries and bitter too. Everything grew wobbly and flat. I was back on the bed, Axel had left and I knew I needed to tell Miriam.

But I had no way of doing so.

Miriam grew up so fast, I’m not sure I realised this until I was sitting in a too-loose tux, in a freezing cold church. Miriam at the altar in a white taffeta dress, violets in her long, dark hair. My little girl had grown up and I hadn’t noticed.

She left the house in silence, and Emilie and I both pined for our most precious daughter in different ways. Emilie was always at Miriam’s house, but I couldn’t go. I saw the look in Axel’s eye and I wanted to take her and run away. Emilie thought differently, and Miriam’s relationship grew with her and stagnated with me. So that when I did see her I could see the change. Her downcast eyes, checking with Axel before opening her mouth. I saw it all too clearly, but when I spoke to her about it, she wouldn’t listen to me.

Emilie didn’t see it, Miriam didn’t see it, but I did.

After years of living down the road and after Miriam lost the baby, they moved to Wolfsburg.

Axel and Miriam were moving away, together. I hoped that I could go and see them. I offered to help, but all my approaches were denied. It was the move that stopped Emilie talking to Miriam. She went there once, unannounced, and was turned away. She required an invitation, but none came. The phone calls became less and less.

Miriam had been in Wolfsburg a year when Emilie got sick.

Miriam didn’t come home, she stayed away. I hadn’t heard from her, not once. In the whole time Emilie was ill, then when she was dying. I sent letters, I called, but I was just as powerless at keeping Emilie alive as I was at finding Frieda. And Miriam wasn’t there.

She missed the church service for Emilie.

At the wake, I saw her across the busy room. I went to go to her, but Axel stood in my way.

‘Don’t think that’s a good idea, do you?’ he said, and I don’t remember what I had thought, just that my daughter was in pain. I was in pain and with only one wing each, crippled by the loss of Emilie, I thought we might hold each other up.

Axel placed a hand on my shoulder and steered me to a bar and ordered me a drink. A glass with a small amount of brown liquid was presented to me.

‘I don’t drink,’ I had protested, but he insisted and he was hard to refuse. I cannot remember why or what he said, but it was like a trance. I did what he said and regretted it later.

The threat of unknown consequences enough to drive you to actions that are not your own. I knew Miriam was in a lot of trouble, but I couldn’t find my way around Axel to her.

‘She’s struggling, obviously,’ he said, close to my ear, and I turned to see her sitting looking lost, pulling at the sleeves of her clothes. ‘You have to admit you weren’t close.’ He was probably right, I thought.

‘She’s a bit upset with you, to be honest?’ he said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

‘Why?’

‘I think she has it in her head that you . . . well, the stress of Emilie always working so hard, and looking after you when you were . . . indisposed.’ He raised an eyebrow as if I should know what he meant.

Then something shifted into place and everything came ratcheting down on me.

Axel continued, ‘I think Miriam is upset because Emilie, well, maybe she could have had an easier life?’

‘Miriam blames me?’

‘Blame is a strong word. Give her time and if she wants to, she’ll come to you. A bit of time,’ he repeated.

The alcohol was rushing through my head and of course I was to blame, I had caused Emilie so much hurt and pain. I could never take any of that back and Miriam knew that too. I watched Miriam over Axel’s shoulder as he talked. I couldn’t turn away from the wilting flower my child had become. Axel talked nonsensically then about grandchildren for me in my dotage, but I couldn’t imagine a future where my daughter would want to be in the same room as me. And then they were gone. I hadn’t even spoken to her.

My daughter.

After that when I tried to call it rung out, and the post was returned, unopened, to sender.





MIRIAM

She goes home to pack a bag.

She feels the release as her teeth break the skin and the blood oozes across the white nail bed.

She places her white gloves over her ripped fingers, then goes to the letters, only five remain.

Miriam plans on packing them, but instead she is drawn in to reading just one more letter.

Henryk,

The transports happen more and more frequently, lists calling people up in the morning who are gone by the afternoon. No one knows where. Everyone fears the lists. We are all treated the same, so many women, a collective. Yet when they select we are individuals, one number means nothing, another death.