The officer gestures toward me. “And her?”
A moment’s hesitation. “I’m Astrid Sorrell,” I say, when Noa does not. “The same as when you asked two days ago,” I cannot help but add. What do they think will be so different each time?
“What did you say?” he demands. Noa shoots me a withering look.
“Nothing,” I mutter. No good can come from antagonizing them.
The other officer takes a step into the cabin. “Is she ill?” He nods his head in my direction.
Yes, I want to say. The Nazis are known to fear illness. Perhaps if they think I am contagious, they will leave us alone. “No,” Noa replies firmly, before I can answer. Her eyes dart nervously in my direction.
“And the child?” he asks.
“My little brother,” Noa says with conviction, the lie now long familiar. “His papers are here, as well.
“Are you thirsty, sirs?” Noa offers, changing the subject before he can ask further questions. She reaches behind her bed and produces half a bottle of cognac I had not known she had.
The man’s eyes widen, then narrow again. It is a calculated risk: Will he take the bribe or accuse her of stealing or hoarding the liquor? He takes the bottle and starts toward the door, the shorter man in tow.
When they have gone, Noa closes the door. She picks up Theo and sinks to the bed beside me. “I didn’t think they would come again so soon after the last time,” she says, shaken.
“Almost every day like clockwork,” I reply, turning away from her, looking out the window of the cabin where we have billeted since our arrival. In Alsace, the most worn of regions, all pretense of normalcy is gone. Across a thin strip of river lies the town of Colmar, its once-elegant skyline of Renaissance churches and timber houses crumbled after the air raids, trees that would have been blooming other years in early May snapped in half like twigs. German trucks and Kubelwagen line the roads.
“The cognac,” I say. “Where did you get it?”
A guilty expression crosses Noa’s face. “From Herr Neuhoff’s railcar. Emmet was going through things the other day, taking what he wanted. I didn’t think he would notice.”
“That was smart thinking.” Thank God she did not offer them food—rations have shrunk to a fraction of what they were in Thiers; we barely have enough to feed ourselves and Theo.
“But it’s gone now,” Noa frets. “They’ll expect more next time.”
“We’ll think of something,” I say. I lie down once more, my throat scratchy from the halo of burnt smoke and coal dust that seems to hang constantly in the air. The cabin, just big enough for Noa, Theo and myself, is scarcely a step above camping, with a roof that leaks and a floor that is mostly dirt. We cannot sleep on the train as we had in Thiers for fear the British RAF pilots might bomb the rail lines. So we have moved to the low cabins, not much more than huts without indoor plumbing, once used as work sheds by workers at the adjacent quarry. Not that they are so much safer. The fairgrounds here are close to the roadway and military vehicles rumble down it all night, making it a prime target for the air raids, as well. Last night the bombs fell so close I pulled Noa and Theo under my cot and we huddled against the cold earth until dawn.
It has been nearly a week since Peter was arrested, taken God only knows where. I see it now in my waking thoughts, like a bad dream I cannot erase. Herr Neuhoff is gone, too, left behind in a hillside grave in Auvergne. I wrap my arms around my stomach, feeling the hollowness and mourning all that will never be. After Erich and my family, I thought I had already lost everything, that nothing more could be taken from me. But this, the final blow, is too much. I had let myself hope again, against every promise I had made myself when I left Berlin. I let myself get close. And now I am paying the price.
Noa presses her hand to my forehead. “No fever,” she says, the relief evident in her voice. Bless her, she tries so very hard to care for me. Her concern is a drop of water, though, unable to fill the ocean of void in my heart.
Noa reaches down and takes both of my hands in hers. “Astrid, I have good news.”
For a second, my heart lifts. Perhaps she has word of Peter. Then I catch myself. Can she bring back the dead? Turn back time? I pull away. “There is no good news anymore.”
“Emmet said you can perform again,” she says, then pauses, watching my face for a reaction. Does she expect me to leap up with joy and change into my practice leotard? Once returning to the trapeze was all I wanted. But it does not matter anymore.
“Let’s go practice,” Noa urges, still trying for all her best to make things better. It doesn’t help at all, but I love her for caring. “Astrid, I know how hard this is. But lying here isn’t going to change things. Why not fly again?”
Because doing the normal things feels like accepting that Peter is gone, I think. A betrayal. “What’s the point?” I ask finally.
Noa hesitates. “Astrid, you must get up again.”
“Why?”
She looks away, as if not wanting to tell me. “Remember Yeta?”
“Of course.” Yeta had survived her fall and been sent to a hospital near Vichy to convalesce. I am suddenly uneasy. “What about her?”
“I asked Emmet about her before we left Thiers and he said she was being sent back to Darmstadt to finish healing. But then I heard the workers whispering that she had been taken from the hospital and sent east on one of the trains.” Noa’s voice drops to a whisper.
“Arrested?” I ask. Like Peter. Noa nods. “No one is arrested for a broken leg, Noa. That’s ridiculous. She didn’t do anything wrong.” But even as I say this, I doubt my own words. These days a person could be arrested for just about anything—or nothing at all.
“They said if she couldn’t perform, then her working papers were no longer valid,” Noa continues. “You have to get better, Astrid, for all of our sakes.” I realize that this was why Noa was so quick to tell the Germans I was not sick. They can smell weakness and want nothing more than to exploit it. “Please come with me to the ring. If you don’t feel well enough to practice, at least watch and tell me what to fix.” Noa’s voice is pleading.