The Rabbit Girls(83)

‘One of these “routine questioning” occasions,’ Eva says, ‘I really thought I had reached the end, but then I knew something, something bigger than all this.’ She gestures dramatically. ‘It was as small as a tiny golden speck. Light. It gave me a cause, and I saw that in you when we were at the church tower. You can kill anything if you surround it with a wall.’ Eva presses both her thumbs and fingers together to make a circle. ‘But if there is a tiny light, if there is hope . . .’ She separates her fingers. ‘You can survive anything. The letters and finding Frieda gave you a cause, and I wanted you to keep fighting, no matter what.’

‘So you told me I was a mouse.’ Miriam laughs, but her voice squeaks on the rush of air and they both smile.

‘I wanted you to keep fighting,’ Eva says. ‘I was very scared you wouldn’t. Clotilde didn’t.’

‘Clotilde, your daughter?’ Miriam says stunned. ‘What happened?’

‘I don’t know. I don’t think I ever will. She stopped fighting. She stopped seeing me, and I never saw my grandchildren again. Filipe was ill for a while, but I think watching his daughter submit to her Stasi husband . . . It was too much. I couldn’t save her.’

Miriam turns away to allow Eva the privacy to dry her eyes and gather her composure.

Miriam speaks carefully, ‘You saved me though, even though I have done nothing to deserve it.’

Neither woman speaks for a very long time.

‘I had a thought,’ Miriam says eventually. ‘The letters should be in a museum or published, or something, they are such a timeless thing. The women, the stories, shouldn’t be lost.’

‘They are not lost, they are with you now.’

‘Yes, but others should read them too.’

‘Maybe. See how you feel after you read them all, they are yours so you can decide. I saw your advert in the paper, about Frieda,’ Eva says. ‘That’s why I came over – you need to read all the letters. I think you will have your answers.’

‘Why?’ Miriam asks. ‘She died, didn’t she?’

‘I think,’ Eva says carefully, ‘I think you should read them all and then you can do what you feel is right.’

Eva stands and brings Miriam the final letters. She places them down on the table next to the dress in its bag on the chair.

‘But first, let’s eat something. I’ll make another pot of tea.’ She looks at the bag again. ‘It’s amazing how it survived for so long.’

Miriam hears Eva pottering around the kitchen, filling the kettle, and sinks further into the sofa. Closing her eyes, just for a moment . . .





HENRYK

I was sitting on the bus with all the commuters going from Charlottenburg to Checkpoint Charlie. The black suits and briefcases, the newspapers full of yesterday’s news, and idle chat became the noise of my future. I was finally moving and I couldn’t help but smile, I even tapped my toe as we were jostled around. I would find out what happened to Frieda, and for no reason at all, I knew that journey would start at the Wall.

I was ready after all this time. To face what I had done, to finally know, when a volcano of pain started behind my eyes. What if she was alive? She would look at me and see. See all that I had done.

That I threw people into the crematoria, that I never checked if they were alive.

The volcano erupted into my face, pulsing my skin like magma.

That I did not fight, I did not stand up for what was right.

Cleaving my head.

The heat swallowing me whole, a heartbeat and I would fall deep into the flames. Sucked away with only ash to rise.

To steal some bread, to last the night.

The heat to my heart shivers.

Though so many died. How many did I kill too?

It burns its way down my arm.

So it is over. It must be over.





34





MIRIAM


She sinks to the sea floor, under darkness. Frieda’s letters move around her like tiny shoals of fish. A rust-black anchor held tight around her neck embeds her to the seabed. The letter-fish scatter, the anchor rises and her eyes open to a crash.

She sits, suddenly, prepared for what, she doesn’t know. The blanket that has swaddled her falls across her lap.

‘Miriam Voight,’ a voice calls.

‘Yes.’ Her voice comes out so pinched, she places her hands on her neck, then withdraws them as if hot.

She answers the door and the police officers, the same pair from after the ‘incident’, are on the other side. Concern etched into their faces.

‘Thank heavens,’ says the younger, Officer Snelling. ‘We were about to break your door down.’

‘I . . .’ Miriam squeaks, then whispers instead, ‘I was asleep.’ Her words come out muffled and swollen. ‘What time is it?’

‘It’s early, we are sorry to call on you,’ says the elder, ‘but I needed to check you were okay and to collate some evidence to investigate the incident that went on here last night.’

Miriam opens the door fully and they follow the same tread, sit in the same seats as before and collect their black notebooks together. Synchronised policing.

‘Do you need to see a doctor?’ says Officer Snelling. ‘I hear you sustained some injury yourself.’