The Rabbit Girls(88)

‘No, Eva,’ Miriam says, but her voice is inaudible. ‘Eva,’ she tries again, and clears her throat.

She takes a step towards her, but the older officer has crossed the room in a few strides and he ushers Eva to the opposite side of the desk and away from Miriam. Officer Müller puts an arm out to stop Miriam moving towards her.

‘She didn’t kill him,’ she whispers. ‘She saved me. Axel’s not dead, is he?’

‘No, he’s at home, resting.’

‘Then tell her, please?’

‘It’s important we listen to her.’

‘But she’s trying to protect me.’

‘Why? You aren’t in any trouble.’

‘She doesn’t know that!’ Miriam wheezes a response that is inaudible even to her.

‘Go home, rest up and we’ll be in touch.’

‘What will happen to her?’

Officer Müller steps closer to hear Miriam, who repeats herself at a whisper.

‘She’ll be questioned.’

‘Can I wait for her?’

‘No, go home. It will all work out.’

She holds the main door open and Miriam steps through; as she does the door hushes shut behind her and she is swallowed into the late afternoon, as black as night.





36





MIRIAM


Lionel is asleep in his chair, his mouth open, and heavy snores rattle the newspaper on his chest.

‘It’s a bit late for you?’ she whispers, her voice sounding strange and foreign.

She touches him on the shoulder.

‘Why aren’t you home?’ she mouths. ‘It’s New Year’s Day.’

‘Oh, hullo pet, are you okay? Thought them officers had arrested you.’

‘No, I’m fine.’

‘With all the shenanigans going on, I thought I was better placed here today. Well, until all the residents are back. The Smyth sisters are out at the theatre so I said I’d stay late until they got back. What happened with your husband and that woman gave us all a hell of a fright. The whole building’s talking ’bout nothing else today.’

‘I’ll bet.’

‘And that woman, an Easterner, no doubt. I did say it before, but that wall may have been a blessing, you know. Now that it’s down you never know who’ll come through it. Your poor husband.’

‘No, Eva did nothing wrong, she saved me.’

But either Lionel isn’t listening or cannot hear the croak of voice Miriam is using every effort to push out. ‘Came by again today, cheeky blighter, after all she’s done.’ He stretches in his chair and his buttons pull, revealing his greying vest underneath.

‘Told her it was all her fault, you see, that you had been arrested instead of her. Bad lot.’ He shakes his head. ‘She flew off like a cat that caught the pigeon.’ He smiles. ‘So you see, there’s nothing to be worried ’bout now, petal. You get off up the stairs and I’ll keep a look out down here. You find that once the police are round, them Easterners scatter. Bet she was a red and all.’ He rests back in his chair.

‘Lionel,’ Miriam tries again, but points to her throat, to mime that she has no voice.

‘Oh.’ He sits up and looks at her neck where the scarf has fallen loose. ‘Oh pet, that looks terrible. She did that too?’

Miriam says, ‘No. It was Axel.’ But he can’t hear her and just shakes his head.

‘Look after yourself, Fr?ulein, I’ll be here ’til the sisters come back. They do love their ballet, them two. Goodnight.’

She walks up the stairs, pulling the scarf from around her neck. Frustrated by her lack of voice, she thinks about how to get Eva out, how to help her. The house is dark, she locks the door.

On the dining-room table is the dress.

Miriam switches on all the lights, the letters are in small piles resting on the dress at the waistband, and an envelope of newly translated letters is at the head.

She cannot understand what Eva was doing. Why take the dress and return it? Why confess to something that she didn’t do? Perhaps she knows what she is doing. The woman, from the little she has shared, must have endured so much, but still she kept going, and keeps going.

She looks at the stitching on the dress, it’s been patched up as though Miriam had never taken her scissors to it in the first place. The letters, for her, are no longer about finding a woman her father loved, but how a woman can survive these horrors. If she survived. What Eva had said makes her think that whatever Miriam has not read will not be easy. It will not end well.

The letters are all in order, she separates the piles, and finds she only has a few left to read. She wraps a blanket around herself.

Henryk,

Bunny, although silent, is a presence in the camp like nothing else.

Half her right leg is missing, severed from inner knee to ankle, it’s covered in a blanket, but you can see the tendons pulsing if she moves. Her bone removed. She has only one where she should have two.

To keep her fingers busy, she sews. Patching army uniforms and sewing pockets. Trying to thread flesh to bone again.

She holds Stella like a newborn, absorbing her innocence, her childhood warmth.

We could not have been more surprised the morning The Noise ground the camp to a halt.