The Rabbit Girls(96)

Miriam uses the police phone to call a taxi and they travel in an overheated car which smells of leather and smoke.

Eva rubs her hands to warm them. ‘Would you be very cross with me?’ she whispers.

‘For what?’

‘I saw something in the file at the police station, I may have stolen it,’ Eva confesses quietly, moving closer to Miriam as they are rocked by the travelling car. From her sleeve she pulls out a small stash of papers. ‘I couldn’t let them sit there.’ She hands the paper to Miriam.

‘These are the divorce papers,’ Miriam says so loudly her voice breaks into a squeal, and she coughs.

‘Shhh,’ Eva says and turns the pages. ‘Look.’ She points to the place on the paper where Axel’s large signature dominates the page.

Miriam looks at the paper and back at Eva. ‘Do you think . . . ?’ she starts, but turns to the driver instead.

‘Excuse me.’ She swallows and says a little louder, ‘Can we make a second stop, please?’ She gives the driver the address and the taxi turns down a narrow street, manoeuvring around the parked cars, before heading back to Neufertstraβe.

Miriam looks up at the shopfront and pushes the bell to the flat above. Eva waits in the taxi, running on its meter.

‘We are closed,’ says David Abbott, wearing a thick, knit jumper and rubbing his eyes. ‘Oh, Frau Voight, is anything the matter?’

‘Sorry to disturb you, but I have these’ – she hands over the papers – ‘and I didn’t want to post them.’

‘He signed?’ David Abbott asks, opening the fold.

‘He signed.’

Back in the taxi, Miriam smiles. ‘Thank you,’ she says, although the words are not nearly enough.

‘I am famished,’ Eva says. ‘Shall we have a celebratory breakfast?’

Miriam nods, unable to comprehend that Axel signed the divorce papers.

‘Can I stop by my home first, so I can clean up? I have something for you, but I left it at home.’

Eva gives the driver directions to her flat. Miriam waits in the taxi on the meter, with the window down, as Eva disappears behind a red front door in a building like her own. So much has changed in such a short time. A few weeks ago the Wall was still up, she hadn’t met Eva and her father was well. However, she wouldn’t rewind time. She understands her father better, she has a friend, even Hilda stood by her in the end, and she has a chance at freedom and not through death either.

‘Why did you take the letters and the dress?’ she asks when Eva is back in the taxi, changed and smelling of toothpaste.

‘I was scared.’

‘Of the police?’

‘Well, yes, but not just that. The last letters, I didn’t want you reading them alone. I thought you might wake up and see them and start reading. I wanted to protect you, I think.’

‘Why?’

‘There is one more letter . . . I have translated all of them and feel I have got to know you too, in the process and . . .’ Eva stops talking as the taxi pulls to a stop at traffic lights. She says nothing more until the car has pulled away again. ‘I came back the next day to return the letters, but you weren’t there. When that man said you had been arrested, I left straightaway to see what I could do to help.’

‘Lionel told you I had been arrested?’

‘Yes, and I knew it was all my fault. I went to the doctors. I had met Hilda when the locksmith was here, so she knew me a little, and I asked for a letter, to prove you were okay, hoping it would be enough. Then I put everything back in your flat and went to the police station.’

‘It is enough. You saved my life, you have helped me. You are my friend. That means something to me.’

‘Thank you, and it means something to me too. ‘

Eva says nothing for a while as the taxi jumps through the traffic. The Palace Gardens and the River Spree are silent, the view from the window, grey. The prospect of a different life, unbelievable.

They pay the taxi and walk slowly up the busy streets. They cross the road along Neufertstraβe and walk a few feet. On the corner of the junction between a bike repair shop and an old Italian restaurant, stands a large, green-fronted building. It has only one small window at the front.

‘Here?’ Miriam asks, standing back.

‘Yes, what’s wrong?’

‘I used to come here with Mum,’ Miriam says.

Eva holds open the door and the smell of rising dough makes Miriam’s stomach rumble.

The café is quiet, an older couple sit drinking tea from daintily painted china cups. Pictures of Paris line the wall, with tables and chairs under them in a row along one side of the shop. The heat and the moisture have steamed up the mirror hanging on the facing wall, under which is a counter full of cakes and sandwiches.

‘What do you fancy?’ she asks, pointing to the lines of cake, and the waitress behind the counter poised with a pad to take their order.

Miriam looks at what is on offer, wiping her hand in a napkin, and chooses an inconspicuous Lebkuchen, it smells of Christmas, ginger and warmth.

Eva chooses a much larger cake with icing sugar dusting the top. They take their plates and coffees and sit by the window.

Miriam focuses on her plate, trying not to look around, but aware she is sitting by the window. Able to see the street.