Wunderland(47)

It was as if someone had placed a tourniquet around her esophagus. Panic descended, not because she couldn’t breathe but because she somehow sensed that this was her last chance to do it: to say something. To change things back, if she could only find the right, magical words. Try as she might, though, Renate couldn’t even come up with one.

“Oh, and just so you know,” Ilse was saying. “I told them not to give you one.”

“One what?”

“One of the tickets. I told them to leave you alone.” Message delivered, Ilse turns back toward the classroom.

“Wait,” Renate said. “One more thing. Then I’ll go.”

Looking annoyed, Ilse waited.

“That—that signature.”

“Which one?”

“The one on the back. From—it said Rudi.” Renate licked her lips nervously. “Was it really from him?”

Ilse had gazed at her former best friend for a moment, and once more Renate—in the past so adept at interpreting her expressions—found herself unable to translate this one.

She did, however, recognize the tone of voice with which Ilse delivered this answer as well: “No.”

It was the tone she usually used when she was lying.



* * *





“And that was it?” her mother asks now, absently straightening Renate’s collar. “You went back into class together?”

Renate nods. “Herr Hartmann said he was going to report me to the headmaster. But then Ilse told him that she’d had to use the lavatory ‘for women’s problems,’ and that that was why we took so long. So in the end he just made me stay after class and sand and wash all the desks.” She doesn’t tell her mother how the harsh soap and cold water caused her fingers to prune, or how the sandpaper blistered the pads of her fingers. Or the way Herr Hartmann made her stand straight without moving an inch while he pressed against her to “inspect” her work.

Instead, she says: “I know I shouldn’t complain. But it’s—it’s so hard, Mama. And I’m lonely.”

“I know.” Sighing, her mother runs a tired hand through her hair. The emerald in her silver ring glints in the light. It’s one of several heirloom pieces her mother’s mother left her; this one a set comprising a finely wrought brooch, a set of earrings, the ring, and a stunning necklace. For as long as Renate can remember, these items have been kept in her mother’s stocking drawer, in an enameled jewelry box inlaid with opalescent mother-of-pearl. Someday they’ll be Renate’s, though for now she has to settle for holding them only when her mother takes them out for a polishing. Or stealing glimpses of them when her mother isn’t home at all.

“But for the moment,” her mother is continuing, “there’s nowhere else you can be. At least, not unless we leave Germany altogether.”

“Are we seriously considering moving to another country?” Even saying it feels blasphemous, as though they were considering setting fire to their own home.

“I’m seriously considering everything.” Lisbet Bauer sighs. “It’s your father who is still resistant. He keeps saying all this will blow over, that it always has in the past. Though I think that’s only part of the reason. He won’t ever say so, but I think he’s worried that he’s not employable anywhere outside Germany.”

“How can that be? He is—was—the most popular instructor in his department!”

“Yes. But he also doesn’t speak another language. At least, not well enough to teach in it. And”—seeing Renate open her mouth to argue—“ancient Latin doesn’t count.”

“But he’s brilliant. Surely he could learn…”

“Not quickly enough to qualify for a job in America. Or Shanghai. Or even Trinidad. And he’d need that in order to get a visa.”

Biting her lip, Renate digests this. “Well, what do you think? Do you think it will blow over?”

Her mother purses her lips, tucking one of Renate’s curls behind her ear. “I think,” she says, “that it’s better to be safe than sorry. But for now let’s just get you to your Abitur without losing your sanity.”

Turning back to her pot, she adds: “Go tell your father that dinner will be in half an hour.”





8.


    Ava


1956

“Ready for trouble?”

Ulrich revved his engine roguishly, and despite her jangling nerves Ava couldn’t help laughing. The car was his father’s sedate ?38 Opel Olympia. Its color was an unobtrusive mint green.

“You look ready to rob a nursing home.”

“I thought you liked men with big motors.”

“Only when they’re balanced on two wheels, you idiot.”

Ava slid into the passenger side and pulled the heavy door shut, leaning over to plant a kiss on his cheek that landed on his mouth as he turned toward her. She closed her eyes, registering the echo of Earl Grey tea and tobacco on his tongue, the stubbly scratch of his upper lip against hers before gently pulling away again. Kicking off her flats, she settled her skirt over her knees, drawing a small stack of bills from her jacket pocket. “Here.”

He lifted a brow. “What’s this?”