Wunderland(79)

As if on cue, they were suddenly laughing again together: Ulrich hooting and heaving and wheezing, Ava tittering and snorting and hiccuping, while the teacher and classroom looked on in utter amazement.



* * *





At five o’clock Ava sat at the kitchen table, her new magazine-style history textbook before her, along with more properly booklike math and English textbooks. On top of the older texts was her sketch of the Well Girl, upon which she was putting finishing touches. When she heard the sound of the key in the lock, however, she shut the sketchbook and opened her math textbook instead, staring unseeingly at rows of antlike multiplication tables as her mother’s keys landed with a metallic clatter on the front hall dresser.

There followed a moment of weighted silence. Ava knew her mother was reading the note that Frau Klepf had dashed off für deine Mutter, which Ava in turn had considered ripping up, reading, or rewriting before finally, despairingly, setting it on the front hall bureau.

After a small eternity, her mother finally called. “Ava?”

“In here,” Ava called back, fighting the urge to slide under the table.

She heard Ilse’s hard-soled oxfords marching smartly down the hall. Then her mother was in the doorway, the note lifted in one hand. “Is this true?”

“I don’t know what it says,” said Ava, truthfully.

“Don’t be smart. It says you stole candy from a—from another student. And then refused to apologize for it. And also that you were rude to the teacher in front of the classroom.”

“He gave me the candy,” Ava said. She realized her voice was trembling.

“Then why does she write here that you stole it?”

“I don’t know.” Ava stared at her shoes. “She told the whole class that. But I can prove I didn’t.” Reaching into her jumper pocket, she pulled out the last remaining Mozartkugel. “See? He gave them both back to me after school. I saved this one for you.”

Lips pressed tightly, Ilse took the candy between two fingers. She studied it with a look that implied she suspected it might explode in her hand. “You swear to me you didn’t steal it.”

“Yes.” Ava lifted her chin slightly. “He’s my friend.” The word felt almost as sweet as the chocolate on her tongue.

“Your friend?” Ilse looked bemused. “How long have you known him?”

“We just met today.” Ava felt her ears heat. “But we talked all throughout recess. He told me about Superman.”

For a long moment Ilse said nothing. Her face seemed to set slightly, the way clay sets itself as it hardens. Finally, she sighed. “I’m afraid that the teacher is right. You will have to apologize to your new friend tomorrow.”

“But that’s not fair!” Ava felt her face heating again. “And it’s not even important to Ulrich! He said…”

Her mother cut her off. “It’s clearly important to the teacher. And you want to make sure you start the year off right.”

“By lying? You always say lying is wrong!”

Ilse just shook her head. “We’ll find a way to say it together. But I will check with Frau Klepf to make sure you’ve complied. And I want no more stories about you talking back in class. Do you hear me?”

“You don’t believe me,” Ava said hotly. “My own mother.”

“This has nothing to do with me. To be fully honest—it has nothing to do with you, either.”

“How can you say that?” Ava cried. “She called me a thief! And now you’re making me lie about it!”

Ilse tightened her lips. “You’re too young now to understand. I’ll explain it when you are older.”

“You always say that! You said that about why you work all the time! About why I can’t get new clothes! About why you can’t tell me about my father! I’m always going to be ‘too young.’ For anything!” I hate you, she almost added, but managed—barely—to hold it back. Still, Ilse’s eyes narrowed slightly. As though she’d heard it anyway.

“You’re not too young to learn one lesson,” she said coldly. “Very often, life will not be fair, and there will be nothing you will be able to do about it. Your best hope is to simply keep your nose clean and your mouth shut.”

“How clean is your nose?” Ava muttered.

If Ilse heard the challenge she opted to ignore it. “Speaking of keeping your mouth shut,” she said. “Frau Klepf’s note included one more fact. She wrote that you told the class that…” She hesitated. “That your father died in a camp.”

“A camp?”

Her mother’s jaw seemed to tighten. “A KZ,” she said.

Ava dropped her gaze to the table. “I didn’t know what else to say. Everyone else gave a job or the place their father died in. And I…I don’t even know what my father’s name was. All I know is that Oma and Opa told me he was a soldier somewhere. And that he was dead before I was born.”

For a moment, the only response was a distant-but-growing lowing: the grinding rise of a siren somewhere nearby. As it climbed in volume—a plaintive, raspy howl of pending catastrophe—the panic struck again; the sudden certainty that the walls and ceiling were not solid plaster and wood but were about to collapse on top of them like so much crumbling chalk. As the familiar sense of suffocation set in, Ava gripped her pencil with both hands, so hard her knuckles whitened beneath the skin. For a moment it actually felt as though her lungs couldn’t inflate; as though she might simply collapse herself right here, on the spot. Then the siren faded into the distance, and the terror moved on like the chilly shadow of a windblown cloud.