The lies were becoming more vicious. Monique said that she caught them, Georg and Erich, together in the river hut that night. That she had known about Georg but not about Erich and it shocked her, but it also made sense then. It didn’t hurt because she didn’t love Erich, but she loved Georg like a brother and he loved her, and she had known his secret since they were teenagers. And he had told her that she was the only one he could ever admit it to; otherwise he was doomed.
Rosalind didn’t want to hear any more. She hated the truth, but Monique wouldn’t stop. She told her that after learning of Georg’s marriage proposal, she had arranged to meet with him in secret, the night before she left for Austria. Georg had just returned from battle and was due to see Rosalind the next day to begin plans for the wedding. Monique had tried to talk him out of it, because it would cause Rosalind suffering in the end. He said Rosalind didn’t need to know, that he would cover it well. Monique was unable to convince him, but she would be there for both of them when the time came. And that time was now, she said.
Then Erich did something so terrible as to take away her rights, but for the grace of God, Monique was rewarded with Vivi. And Rosalind was reminded that she, herself, had been punished without a child.
Monique said that they could start again, the three of them, like they were children, living here, with Vivi, her daughter. Her living daughter, thought Rosalind. And they would both try to help Georg recover, and wean him off the drugs.
Just for a moment Rosalind thought about it, and then the glass vase glinted, the golden eye of the fish staring at her. It sees the lies, she thought, and Monique took a step closer near the bed, and the idea, the plan, had barely settled, and the vase was in her hand, and she crashed it to the side of Monique’s head, but it didn’t break, and while Monique was doubled over, her vision blurred, she hit her again on the back of the head. This time the vase smashed to pieces, and Monique stumbled forward, slamming into the post near the stairs. She stood up unsteadily, hand across her forehead, eyes half-closed from the pain. And Rosalind still had the base of the vase, glass daggers jutting from its solid-glass base. She lashed out at Monique, who put her arms across her face then and edged closer to the stairs before tripping backward and landing halfway down.
Rosalind’s thoughts were clearer then. She ran to the window to see whether Georg was anywhere nearby. And she dragged Monique to the bottom of the stairs and wrapped her in a curtain from Georg’s bedroom before dragging her toward the barn. And she could see the back of Vivi’s head near the window as she did this, and it hadn’t occurred to her what to do with the child. She dragged Monique into the barn, then bolted the door. There was still no sign of Georg. He was unlikely to check there.
She took the bike, in her nightgown, and in daylight rode into town to fetch Erich, and she failed to notice that she was bleeding through her nightgown, and Erich didn’t care, didn’t bother asking what happened, whether her baby lived or died.
Erich didn’t go straight to the barn. He went first to see Genevieve. And she was there, crying for her mother, arms outstretched from the side of her cot in the living room, and Rosalind had felt the hardness inside her give a little. She breathed in deeply and suddenly, as if brought back to life, and she saw with clarity and revulsion what she had done.
She told Erich that Monique was still alive, that they had to do something to help her. And she followed him as he crossed to the barn, watched him lean down to check on her and report that she was dead. Rosalind had asked if he was certain, and she had wailed and said she wanted to see her, to check her, to make sure she would live, and Erich had shouted at her to get the shovel, and she did because she had no better plan, no way of stopping what she had started.
She then followed Erich a short way as he began his ascent of the hill behind the house, and he had stopped and turned to look at her, warned her to stay away with just a glare, and she remembered what he was capable of, what he used to do. Rosalind could hear the child crying, and she reluctantly returned to the house. She tried to comfort Vivi, but the child was calling for her mother, and she wouldn’t listen.
Erich came back to the house to clean the dirt from his hands and did not look at either of them but made to leave without his daughter. Rosalind couldn’t let him do that. She could not look at Genevieve every day, after what had happened, and she told him to take her away. And he picked up the child and took her, though he didn’t want to. He said it was important for Rosalind’s own sake to never talk of what happened, to tell no one. It was a threat, veiled. And he had left with Vivi.
The next day she had walked along the ridge that eventually ran into deep woods, until she found Monique’s grave, and then she had returned and sat near the other grave, above the houses, that had a cross and a name, “Georg,” which she had given the boy, the name that Monique had carved. She had cried then, grieved for losses. Grieved for her meaningless life.
Present-day 1945
She stares, trying to remember the past days, Erich’s betrayal. It wasn’t the first time. First there was the taking of Georg, who was not his to take, and now injecting her. Why not just kill her? There is nothing to tie her to him anymore. He has broken the bindings.
Where did he go? She no longer cares. He can’t hurt her anymore. She won’t let that happen.
The door of the hut opens again, and she blinks back the fog that is in her eyes. It is the tiny boy, Michal, with his basket over his arm.
“I’ve come back to get my basket,” he whispers in his peculiar accent.
And she is wondering where he has been, if he has been in the house, what happened to him.
“Are you leaving here?” she asks.
“Yes. They’re taking me to a new town.”
“Who?”
He looks to the side and fiddles with his fingers before his eyes settle on hers again. He is still wary of questions, of adults who ask them.
“I hope it’s nice there, wherever it is.”
“I have to go now,” he says.
“Goodbye then.”
He puts down the basket, steps into the hut, and wraps his skinny arms around her neck. He squeezes her so tightly that her face is pressed hard against his, and she breathes in the scent of youthful innocence. She closes her eyes to burn the touch and smell into her memory. A child. How beautiful to have a child. When she opens them again, Michal is gone.
He was never there, she thinks, and she weeps because nothing is real anymore and everything is gone. It is the needle. It is the medicine. She has imagined sweet Michal, and Monique’s forgiveness. She cries because she so wants to tell Monique she is sorry. Monique, who was loyal to everyone she loved, who cried for Rosalind’s dead baby, genuine tears and genuine pain. She can see the sadness now. See Monique crying, wishing that her baby had lived, while she bathed Rosalind through her fever, her madness, her paranoia, her misunderstanding of everything.
She remembers now the violence in the attic. It was Rosalind, the cause of Monique’s pain. She wishes she’d had the chance to tell Monique she loves her. That jealousy does strange things to people. That she is flawed, badly. She wishes she had been the daughter her mother had loved, and wonders briefly about Vivi, where she is, whether she will have her mother’s nature, her smile.
Her feet meet the river. She used to be afraid of the cold, but now she welcomes it. The sensation says that this is real, not imagined.
She treads briefly, then sinks below the surface. Through the water she can see the pink sky that swaddles the remains of the sun, before turning to float with the current, like Monique used to do.
She imagines that her name is being called, muffled by the water above and the sound of her bubbles. It is better here, she thinks, in the cold, in the shadows where she is hidden from ghosts. And the current pulls her downward and toward the bend where she can disappear forever.
CHAPTER 32
MONIQUE