Wunderland(130)

A moment passes. Something dry and light touches her knee. Opening her eyes again, Ava sees Renate’s weathered hand, tentatively hovering over the bare skin. “I’m sure you’re a wonderful mother,” the older woman says quietly. “And teenage girls can also be awful. I remember. I did my share of running out when I was one.”

“Not in New York.”

“True. But Berlin wasn’t always so safe there in those days, either. Particularly for people like me.” She smiles ruefully, returning her hand to her own lap.

“We never had children, Adam and I,” she continues thoughtfully. “Between his medical school and my dissertation, and then his hospital shifts and my teaching, somehow the time never seemed right.” She shrugs. “We waited too long, I suppose. Though sometimes I wonder if it wasn’t because I was afraid.”

“Afraid?”

“Of loving them too much.” Her dark gaze seems to drift for a moment. “I couldn’t have borne it, you see. Anything happening to them. Not after everything else. The truth was, I couldn’t stand even having a pet. God knows Adam would have loved a dog.”

She stares at the worn carpet, looks thoughtful again, a little wistful. Then she looks up.

“What is she like, your daughter?”

“Honestly?” Ava laughs again. “She’s like a clone of my mother. Which is strange, because I’ve tried to raise her completely opposite, in every way, from the way my mother raised me. And yet in the end, Sophie is practically the spitting image. Not just in looks, but in the way she thinks and behaves.”

“How so?”

Ava ponders. “She’s very determined. Fearless. Focused. She has a memory like a steel trap.”

“That does sounds like Ilse.”

“But she is also almost frighteningly honest,” Ava adds quickly. “I don’t think she has ever wittingly told a lie in her life.”

Renate nods again. “Does she write?”

“Write?”

“As a hobby. Essays, stories, that sort of thing.”

“Ah.” Ava nods. “Yes. She’s constantly writing something. Plays. Poems. Things like that. She rarely lets me read them.” She suddenly remembers the letters. “Oh. Speaking of writing…” She reaches into her purse. “These belong to you.”

But even as she is pulling the stack of worn envelopes from her bag, Renate is shaking her head. “Nein.”

“No?” Ava looks up, confused.

“I don’t want them,” Renate says firmly.

“But…but what should I do with them, then?”

Renate Bauer just shrugs. “Perhaps give them to your daughter. After all, they’re as much her story as they are mine.”

Ava puts the letters back in her lap. They fall silent again, and Ava finds herself thinking about what the other woman had said earlier, about her last sight of her parents. She pictures them herself: two small, stark figures on a receding dock. Which was worse, she wonders—knowing and losing both? Or never knowing them at all?

The question seems to usher an endless flood of others. Why had the Gestapo shown up at Ilse’s house that night? Had her mother really thrown them off as firmly as she claimed she had? Or was that just another falsehood she’d told herself to avoid taking blame, the same way she’d lied to herself by imagining that—despite all the exhaustive paperwork the Bauers must have filed—the Gestapo wouldn’t have known of Franz’s and Renate’s travel plans? Or that in talking so glibly with those agents that night, she’d been saving anyone other than herself? For in the end, Ava realizes, it was these untruths—the ones she told herself—that had been her undoing.

The things we tell ourselves, she thinks. The things we lie about to make our crimes bearable.

In another room a clock starts to chime softly. Ava counts along absently in her mind: One. Two. Three…After the sixth tone she hears Renate catch her breath. “Oh dear. Is it really six o’clock? I’m afraid that I have to leave soon. I’ve opera tickets tonight. The Magic Flute. I almost forgot about it completely.”

She stands up, smoothing her skirt. Realizing she’s being dismissed, Ava feels a wave of something approaching panic. What if this is it? What if Renate Bauer has had enough of her already, and never wants to see her again?

“I’m sorry. I’ve kept you,” she says, trying to keep her voice steady as she climbs to her own feet again. “I didn’t realize it had gotten so late either.”

“It’s fine,” says the other woman. “It’s just that I must change.” She smiles wryly. “I’m still old enough to believe in dressing up for these things.”

Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Ava straightens the canvas straps, her mind racing. “Can I call you, at least? I mean, in a couple of days or so. After you’ve had time to let all of this…settle somewhat.” She indicates the space between them. “I have so many things I want to ask you about….”

Renate appears lost in thought a moment. Then she nods. “Yes. Yes, you may call. And then we can make a plan. Perhaps dinner somewhere. You, myself, and your daughter.”

“That would be wonderful,” says Ava. “Just wonderful.” She’s been following Renate to the door now, and as the other woman pulls it open Ava turns to face her, once again at a loss. How does one part with a sole surviving relative that she didn’t even know had existed before today? With the one person who can tell her everything she’s never known about the father and grandparents she never knew?