The girl moved close. I shared her concern. What if the house was nested with Germans or Russians? Either would be a problem. The Russians would kill me or take me hostage. The Germans would demand to know why I wasn’t in uniform.
I didn’t want to imagine what they would do to the girl.
“We’ll follow the tree line until we’re closer,” I whispered. “We’ll see who’s there.”
One thing I knew for sure—we would not find a kindly old couple enjoying an evening pipe and needlepoint in the drawing room.
emilia
We walked toward the large house. With each step, I felt increasingly ill.
I shot him.
I shot a man.
The knight saved me and now I had saved the knight. Why didn’t that make me feel better?
The sound of gunfire had ripped a seam in my mind. Discarded memories were now leaking, dripping through.
Boots. Screaming. Glass shattering. Guns firing. Skull against wood.
I tried to push them away.
Please go away.
I couldn’t make them stop. The memories rolled at me, faster. Faster.
All the little duckies with their heads in the water
Heads in the water
All the little duckies with their heads in the water
Oh, such sweet little duckies.
A searing pain tore through my body and I collapsed in the snow.
joana
The shoe poet sat by the glowing fireplace, polishing his boots with lampblack he had scraped from the hearth. The wandering boy watched intently at his side, mimicking the strokes on his own small ankle boots.
The fire cracked and popped, rolling waves of heat in front of my face. Glorious. I wrapped the scarf around my head and buttoned my coat.
“If I can find an oak tree, I can boil the bark to treat some of the blisters,” I told Poet.
“I’ll come with you,” he said.
“Rest. You’ll need your strength for the days ahead.”
“I’m fit as a lad, my dear girl.” He pulled up the leg of his wool trousers to reveal his bony knee. It was covered in white. “Shoemaker’s secret,” he whispered to the wandering boy. “There’s mercury in white shoe polish. Fights off the arthritis. Fit as a lad, I am.” The wandering boy pulled up his pant leg to inspect his own tiny knee.
Poet smiled and patted the boy’s head. The old man was still full of energy. He refused to buckle under the burden of grief and loss. “Be careful out there, Joana,” he told me.
I walked through the darkened shell, back to the library with its smashed glass doors. A book lay open, its pages flipping in the icy wind. I bent to pick it up and the name on the cover daggered me with guilt.
Charles Dickens.
Grandma had given The Pickwick Papers to both Lina and me for Christmas.
Lina.
What had I done?
I set the book on a table and walked out into the cold, making my way toward the trees. Two dark figures sat in the snow halfway between the forest and the estate. I looked closely and saw blond braids blowing beneath a pink hat. It was the Polish girl and the young man with the shrapnel. I made my way toward them.
“Were you following us?” I called out.
“Hurry,” he shouted. “Something’s happened to her.”
I ran. Emilia sat in the snow, her chin dropped to her chest.
“What’s wrong?” I asked her. She didn’t respond.
“I think she’s in shock. She shot a soldier in the woods. She won’t move,” he said.
I knelt beside her. She quickly wrapped her arms around her body, trying to inch away from me. “It’s okay, Emilia, tell me what’s wrong. Let me help you,” I said. “Let’s go inside.”
She wouldn’t move. Instead, she lay down in the snow and started to unbutton her coat.
I helped her with the buttons, then sifted through her many layers of clothing.
I gasped when I saw it.
“Oh, dear God.”
florian
We brought her into the house. My stomach pushed up into my throat. The Polish girl was my sister’s age. What had human beings become? Did war make us evil or just activate an evil already lurking within us?
The day was a loss. I had left ahead of the group, yet they had arrived before me. Pathetic.
My senses were so misaligned that I was nearly killed in the woods.
And now the fifteen-year-old kid who saved my life was probably going to die.
The pretty nurse tended to the girl, whispering. I watched her. After several minutes, the nurse appeared at my side. Her fingers grazed my shoulder. “Come away from the fire,” she said.
“I’m cold.”
“You’re cold because you have a fever. Come away from the fire.”
She led me past the man they all called the shoe poet. He and a small boy were in their stocking feet. Their boots, arranged in a row against the wall, shone to mirrored perfection.
The little boy waved at me. “Hallo, I’m Klaus!” he announced. I gave him a discreet wink. He smiled.
“Sit down here,” said the nurse.
I felt uncomfortable with her, yet somehow relieved she was there.
“What did you say your name was?” I asked her.
“Joana. What did you say yours was?”