Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(76)
A rather bland, stout woman made way for them inside the caravan’s dim and crowded interior then clumped back to hover near a curtain that probably separated the sleeping quarters and a fussing, restive infant.
Giorgio offered them the only two chairs, but Duke said, “We don’t have time to palaver. Where is she? Where is Romy?”
Shaking rain droplets from his hair like a wet dog did its pelt, Giorgio sprawled in one chair. “On her way to Berlin.”
“Verdammt!” Goldman said. “Why?”
“Because she has a twin brother imprisoned there,” Duke said. He should have known the feisty Romy wouldn’t roll over and play dead for long. She was a scrapper, after all. “At some prison in – “
“Sachsenhausen,” Goldman supplied.
“That’s it. How long ago?” he demanded of the Gypsy. “How long ago did she leave?”
“A couple of hours or so. One of our Dutch underground resistors is giving her a lift.”
Duke huffed a snort of exasperation. Once again, they had just missed her. The evasive, elusive, and illusive Romy Sonnenschein. Shit!
“But for a few American dollars, my friends, I myself will take you to her.”
§ CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE §
The small, beat-to-shit lorry rattled through the late-night hours over the dusty, rutted road running between Arnhem in the Netherlands and Munster, Germany. In the bed of the Resistant guide’s blue truck bounced crates of mushrooms, cauliflower, and leeks.
“You understand, once we get to Berlin,” the red-veined and bulbous nosed man told Romy, “I can drop you off at the Gartenstadtweg flats – but anywhere near Sachsenhausen, nein.” Marko’s grungy brown cap was tugged low, and his unkempt woolen jacket collar turned up. “That is not what I signed on for.”
“The apartments will do.”
“I will return to the Gartenstadtweg flats the day after tomorrow. Thirty-six hours from now. If you’re not there – ”
“I know – ye will leave without meself.”
Giorgio had arranged the expedition within minutes of her foolhardy declaration to return to Berlin. The entire trip her heart had been beating faster with each mile that took her closer to Berlin and Sachsenhausen. Flight in the opposite direction her body screamed for.
Opposing that was the strong pull of herself in another’s body, that of Luca’s. Somewhere in Sachsenhausen her twin suffered and endured. How could she endure the rest of her life, when a part of herself suffered?
Drawing closer to Berlin, she could only wonder what had happened to the rest of her clan, to querulous Florika, and old warty Marta, who had stubbornly remained with Old Duke’s body.
And Romy could only feel a cringing shame at her cowardice in fleeing Marzahn, in leaving behind precious others.
When late that afternoon she saw the Gartenstadtweg’s Easter egg-colored, fashionable units, she had to wonder why Irina Klockner would pick a place so ostentatious out of which to run a resistance group.
“The best place to hide something is in plain sight,” Irina said with an inscrutable smile that did not quite conceal her vigilance. The Polish woman, Gideon’s half-sister, was wearing a soft wool crepe dress that emphasized her wasp waist. Her gaze landed on the shabby suitcase and the purse, her purse, tucked under Romy’s arm.
“Brought yuir purse back for ye, I did.” Well sort of.
Irina’s smile was a less guarded one. “So, what Marko says is true? You want to spring your brother from Sachsenhausen?
Romy nodded. “Insanity, aye?”
Irina linked her arm with Romy’s. Let’s catch up over tea.”
Trying to get her bearings, she took an indicated chair at the small aluminum dinette table in the equally small and cramped kitchen with its high ceiling. Watching Irina heat up the brew, she was beset by questions. The most important one first.
“Then, ye hold no grudge against me, making off with yuir purse and identity and coat and things?”
The other woman’s classic features softened. “I may have you to thank that I am still alive. Had they taken me, I may not have escaped. You are quite the skilled illusionist, Romy.”
She accepted the porcelain cup Irina handed her. “And yet ye chose to stay rather than flee, when ye had the chance. Ye chose to continue to fight the Nazis?”
Irina slid into a chair diagonally from hers. “After that raid on your camp, I seriously do not know if I would have had the courage to continue. It was such a close call for me. But Giorgio made all the difference. I do what I do. Because of him.”
She gulped so quickly the weak tea burned her throat. “Giorgio? “
“Yes, he found me – I suspect he had come to the vardo to rescue you – but he hustled me off to safety.” Irina lowered her lids, staring into the cup her graceful hands enfolded. “And he reminded me there was life after the world had spun me around and broken me down. Giorgio built me back up into who I am now.”
At a loss for words, she took another sip of coffee. She knew she shouldn’t ask. “Ye and Giorgio were – ”
“Are lovers. Yes, I know he is married. And I know he has a child. But Giorgio helped me find my child before he left.” Irina nodded over her shoulder toward an adjoining room. “Adrian is taking his afternoon nap.”