Bluebird, p.5
Bluebird, page 5
Anger, pride, derision, disappointment. Determination.
And fear. So much fear.
She drops her eyes before Mama can catch her looking. Before Mama knows what she has seen.
Is Mama a good person?
The question makes Inge’s stomach ache. She closes her eyes.
I am Inge von Emmerich. I love Papa, and … Mama …
The engine roars and whines in turn up the steep road. Tree branches scrape the car roof, and then they are circling into the drive of a timber house with steep gables and rough-sawn furniture on the covered porch, pearly in the light of a rising moon. The windows are boarded up.
Inge shoots a glance sideways, but Mama looks like Mama again. Kurt turns the key, and the rattling engine sounds grateful to die. He rubs his neck.
Mama hadn’t given Kurt one direction while he was driving. So she must have told him where they were going before they left. Maybe Mama told him something else, too. Inge needs to get Kurt alone, to ask him.
But Mama is already out of the car, giving orders. Kurt goes to pry the boards off the kitchen door so they can unlock it, and Helga gets the suitcases for the boys. Patches of snow and ice still dot the ground up here, clumps beneath the trees and in the shadowed places on the roof. Inge carries her own suitcase, stepping over the slush, dancing on the balls of her feet until the kitchen door creaks open. Then she hurries through the dark, threading her way through the familiar furniture to the little bathroom in the servants’ wing.
When she creeps out again, the lights are on in the kitchen. The room is dusty, damp, and smells like it. Papa isn’t here. There’s nobody in the house but them.
“Mama,” whispers Inge, “the toilet isn’t working. It won’t flush.”
“Kurt can help you,” Mama snaps, “since you have so little control.”
Kurt moves toward the back hall. “The water valves are probably off,” he says in passing, and Inge starts to follow him, to ask her questions. Then she wishes that she’d thought to shut the toilet lid and stays where she is.
“Unload the car,” Mama says to her, turning to check the faucet at the kitchen sink. Her purse is on the table, the corner of the envelope peeking out. Inge takes a step forward, but then Mama turns back and snatches up her purse.
Inge nips out the door into the sharp air and starts emptying the trunk. Boxes and baskets. Bread, eggs, vegetable cans, dried fruit, and tinned meats. Sacks of flour. Much more than their rations. More food than they could eat in three days.
They’ll be gone longer than three days.
There’s enough food here for a month.
I am Inge … I am Inge von Emmerich. I love Papa … I love … Mama …
But her mind won’t let her think the words.
If Mama is this afraid, then there’s something to be afraid of.
They hook up a bottle of gas to the stove, and Helga warms milk mixed up from a powder. There’s no chance to speak to Kurt, because Mama has him checking the house, making sure the doors and windows are secure, that the water valves are on in the other sinks and bathrooms. There’s a boiler in the cellar, but only a little coal in the hopper. Mama says they will do without, since the weather will be warming up, anyway, and everyone is to go straight to bed. The boys are not ready for this, not after their long ride in the car, but they would never say so to Mama. It’s Helga who will have to deal with them.
Helga hands Kurt a mug of cooling milk on her way out with the boys, and Kurt looks at Inge over the rim. He wants to say something to her. She can see it straining at the edges of his eyes.
“Come, Inge,” says Mama.
Inge picks up her suitcase, looking back again at Kurt.
“Now, Inge!”
Kurt’s gaze drops into his milky water, and so she follows Mama, circling through the cold house. The stairs creak beneath their feet, and at the top, Inge turns automatically to the third room on the right, the bedroom that has always been hers. But Mama has followed her. Instead of taking the big front room, Mama is opening the little door next to Inge’s instead. A small bedroom, almost a closet, plain with a single-size bed, meant for a maid or the nanny. Mama stands in the doorway, waiting until Inge pushes her own door shut with a click.
Inge can’t leave her room now. Not without being heard.
The bulb isn’t working in the overhead light, so she sets down the suitcase and feels her way through the dark to the lamp beside the bed. The glare makes her blink. The room looks dingy without the rugs and the ruffled curtains, no blankets or even sheets, the windows a blank wall of boards on the other side of the glass. It feels like a cage. And then she hears noise. On Mama’s side of the wall. Muffled. Static. Low and humming.
Inge reaches down and slips off her shoes. She creeps to the wall she shares with the bedroom next door, toe to heel, and leans toward the peach-flowered wallpaper. A voice is crackling on the other side.
A radio.
There’s a radio in the room next door. There’s one downstairs, too, a big one, in the living room, but Mama doesn’t seem to want it. Inge presses her cheek against the wall. She can’t hear what the voice is saying. But Mama can. Inge listens, hard. She listens to what she can’t hear for a long time.
And when she wakes up in the morning, chilled on the bare mattress beneath her coat, crumpled in her League of German Girls uniform because she’d forgotten to pack a nightgown, there’s a note on the floor. Slipped beneath her door in the night. It says:
For when you need it
No signature. No other words. But on top of the note is a key.
The car key.
And Inge thinks she knows what it means.
Kurt is gone.
FOR A LITTLE while, Eva thinks the man in the shiny shoes is gone.
And then she catches a glimpse of him over Brigit’s brown hat, still crammed sweaty against her cheek. He’s beside them in his rusting beige car, then a little behind as Bets muscles through the traffic, and then beside them again. There’s a small blue feather in the band of his hat. He turns his head, and for one brief second, two dark eyes lock onto Eva’s. Then Bets zooms through a yellow light and leaves the beige car behind in a burst of exhaust.
Eva hasn’t seen him since. But they haven’t turned, either. So he is back there, somewhere.
Coming.
She needs more time.
The traffic thins, and Bets slows the car, easing it into a parking space on a much quieter street.
“Home sweet home!” she says.
Eva has the car door open before the engine is off, purse in hand, urging a dazed Brigit out onto a neatly swept sidewalk. Brigit’s hat is askew, but Eva doesn’t have time to straighten it. She looks up and down. The buildings here are four and five stories tall, of stone and brick, running one into the other, with tall bay windows. Wide, clean steps, lined with pots of roses and ivy and geraniums, leading up to glossy doors. Every tree with its own little fence.
It’s lovely. Like her life before.
She doesn’t belong in her life before. And it will be so easy to be noticed here.
Unless the man misses their car in the endless row of parked cars. Unless they can get inside before he catches up. But she doesn’t know which door they’re going to. She doesn’t know which set of steps.
She doesn’t know how to ask them to hurry.
And then Eva spins around. Brigit is off the curb, darting into the street.
“Whoa. Not that way,” Jake says, blocking her with an arm. A car honks as it putters by. It’s not the beige one. “Hold that harmonica for me while I get your stuff.”
Brigit blinks, rediscovering the harmonica in her hand as Eva threads an arm through hers, guiding her back to the sidewalk. Bets is still in the front seat, looking for something in her purse, while Jake saunters around to the trunk, fumbling with the key. Everything today has happened so quickly, and now, exactly when she needs them to be fast, it’s like someone put the film on the wrong speed at the cinema.
Eva shifts her feet and breathes. Breathes. Traffic hums and honks in the distance. A scratchy recording of Vivaldi drifts down from an open window. Then the trunk slams shut with the sound of weighty metal.
“Over here,” Jake says, a suitcase in each hand. He ducks his head toward a set of steps. There’s a pair of bright green double doors at the top, half glass, and a brass sign screwed into the stone that says POWELL HOUSE.
Eva urges Brigit up the steps behind Jake, trying to keep her from stumbling in her hurry. Jake sets down a suitcase, gets a hand on the doorknob, and then Bets comes dashing up, yanking off a glove with her teeth, snagging a note tucked neatly behind the brass sign.
“Well, drat,” she says. “Mother Martha had to go put out a fire in the sewing room, and now I’m supposed to be hosting Friday coffee …”
Eva looks back over her shoulder, and there it is. The rust-and-beige car. And here they are, standing high and unmissable on the steps. The man with the shiny shoes peers at her as he passes, turning his head until Eva thinks his neck might snap. And when the car motors on down the street, Eva feels calmer.
There’s no reason to hurry now. No reason in the world.
Jake is watching her when she turns, his dark brows drawn a little together. But he smiles and opens one of the doors.
“Welcome to Powell House.”
She helps Brigit through a little entryway and into a foyer with green walls, heavy white trim, and a parquet floor, a staircase with wrought iron railing sweeping up from one side in a graceful curve. Cups clink in a room to the left, where a crowd of men and women—some nicely, others badly dressed—are milling in front of an ornate marble fireplace. And in a little chair set back beneath the stairs, a woman with curly gray hair, round porcelain cheeks, and a corsage pinned to her jacket sits alone, intent, sewing on what looks to be … underwear. Lacy, silky underwear.
“Hello!” Bets calls, breezing through the door. “Hello!” She tosses her purse and gloves on a little table.
“Hello,” the sewing woman murmurs, biting her bottom lip. The underwear looks expensive. And large. Very large.
Jake sets down the suitcases and shuts the front doors. But he doesn’t lock them. He puts his hands in his pockets. “Everything good over there, Mrs. Thomas?”
“Of course, Jacob,” she replies without missing a stitch. “Why do you ask?”
A telephone rings from somewhere below them, and on the other side of Mrs. Thomas and her underwear, coming up a plain staircase neatly hidden beneath the rising curve of the more elegant one, Eva hears a set of brisk footsteps. A head appears, graying threads pulled back into a curling knot, and then a body in a yellow print dress set off by skin that is a deep, shiny brown. The woman smiles. Like she’s just about to laugh.
“Mrs. Angel!” says Bets. “We’ve had a dustup with Mr. Gabertelli, and so we’re putting these two nice girls upstairs until we sort it all out. Is the blue room ready, do you think, or should I do a little laundry?”
“The blue room is fine, but you can’t do laundry, Bets,” says Mrs. Angel, “because you’re supposed to be doing the coffee. In the meantime, I’ve been doing the coffee.” She holds up a little bowl and a bottle of milk. And then she eyes Jake. “Mr. Jacob Katz. Are you sick or something?”
Jake steps up and kisses her cheek, making a rude smacking sound when he does it. Eva feels her eyebrows rise. The woman does laugh this time. Loudly. Then he gives her a real little peck on the cheek before going to grab the suitcases again.
Eva wonders what Hitler would have said about that kiss.
Probably a lot. In Germany, Katz is a Jewish name.
“Blue room, then, Jake,” says Bets, unfazed. She glances once toward the stairs, and says, “What’s Peggy doing?”
“Mrs. Turgonov’s bloomers,” replies Mrs. Angel, still chuckling.
“Well, sure she is. Is Olive here?”
“She’s answering the phone and washing the cups.”
“Right.” Bets takes the milk and sugar from Mrs. Angel and sails toward the parlor full of people. “I’ll come up and get you two sorted in three ticks!” she calls over her shoulder.
And when Eva looks around, Brigit has reached out a finger, touching the brown skin of Mrs. Angel’s arm.
“No, Brigit,” Eva whispers, pulling back Brigit’s hand, but Mrs. Angel offers up her arm.
“Pretty, isn’t it, sweetie?” she says. “Now you go upstairs and take a rest and I’ll bring up some milk for you. You like milk, don’t you? And cake? I bet you like cake.”
Brigit dimples, but Eva knows they can’t afford cake. She glances back at the unlocked door. And Jake is watching her again. He smiles and says, “Follow me.”
He takes the stairs in a rhythm. Like he has music in his head. They climb the curve, and at the first landing, there are two large rooms, much like downstairs. “Library and music room,” Jake says. Up another set of stairs, and there is a little hall with three closed doors. Jake walks to the one at the far end, sets down a suitcase, and turns a blue-and-white china doorknob.
There’s a bedroom on the other side. With tall windows across the front of the house and white curtains. A mirror stands on its own in a corner, and Eva catches a glimpse of Brigit in her crushed brown hat. There’s a girl holding Brigit’s arm, with hot cheeks and hair blown wild by the wind. The girl is thin, very thin, her skirt shabby against the bright blue cornflowers of the wallpaper, her eyes dark and much too big for her face.
Eva looks away. She doesn’t know that girl. And she’s left her hat in the car.
She might just leave it there. It was an ugly hat.
The room has a chest for clothes, a wardrobe for clothes, and a bed big enough for two with a thick mattress and a soft rug on the floor. The tiny cabin on the boat had seemed like luxury, and this room makes the cabin look like a prison.
She won’t be able to pay for it.
Then Brigit tugs herself free from Eva’s arm. She trots forward, leaving one shoe, then the other in a trail along the floor. She pulls back the blue-stitched quilt and gets in the bed, eyes closing as soon as her head settles on the pillow.
“Time for a nap, then,” Jake observes. He sets down the suitcases. “Bets will be disappointed not to do the laundry.”
Eva turns. “You say strange things.” The dark brows go up over his lovely eyes.
“Do I? You don’t say much at all.”
Eva doesn’t reply. She goes to Brigit and unpins the brown hat, easing it off her head. The scratches on her hand are thin and a little angry, her breathing already slowed. She looks like a child with her blond hair spilling all over the pillow. Or a fairy. She still has the harmonica. Eva glances back at Jake, and he shrugs.
“She can have it for as long as she wants it.”
It’s like the drinking tab at a restaurant. When you only have so much to spend, and the people just keep ordering and ordering. The feeling is tight. Sickening. What will happen when they find out that she can’t afford this room? Or much of anything at all?
She brushes a strand of hair from Brigit’s cheek and pulls the quilt over her legs—it’s too hot to cover her any more—careful not to let her skirt rustle, and picks up her cast-off shoes. Jake goes to a window and starts working it upward.
“So you’re from Berlin?” he asks.
“Yes.”
“I had a grandfather in Berlin. But he came to America a long time ago.”
That was probably wise of him, Eva thinks. Jake moves to the next window, and Eva peeks around the edge of the curtain now moving with the barest breath of a breeze. She can see the street, but no shiny shoes. Not yet.
But they are coming.
Why didn’t someone lock the front door?
The next window squeals as it moves up its frame. “How’s your English?” Jake asks. Eva turns.
“It is not … correct?”
“Oh, no. You seem like you’re doing great, from what I’ve heard. Lots better than most that come. But you said I say strange things. We have a class for that. For all the crazy things Americans say that don’t make sense when you think about it. Like ‘dry up’ or ‘hit the road’ or ‘this is a swell joint.’ Things like that.”
Eva bites her lip. She doesn’t know what any of that means.
“You can take it if you want to. It’s called Slanguage. They meet on Thursday nights in the library.” The last window slides up with ease. Jake turns around and puts his hands in his pockets.
“So, I’ve been assigned to be your friend,” he says. “It’s my job to help you with anything you need, so all you have to do is ask.”
“Your job? You are paid to help me?”
“No, not paid, exactly. I’m a volunteer. I answer questions, point somebody new to this country in the right direction. It’s a job I want to do, but I don’t get money for. A volunteer.”
Eva can’t imagine being able to work for no money just because you want to. But what does he get in return? If this was Germany, she would know how it works. Like getting an aspirin on the ship.
Jake shrugs. “So, whatever you need, that’s what I’m here for. Do you … need help … with anything?”
He’s looking at her very intently with those pretty eyes.
“No,” she says, turning back to the window. “Thank you.”
“You’re sure?”
What she needs is to be careful.
“Okay,” he says. “I’ll just go down and grab some coffee, then. Let you settle in.” She hears the doorknob turn. “I’ll see you later.”
She waits for the door to shut. For the sound of Jake’s feet to fade away down the stairs. Then she moves. To the smaller dresser drawers first, opening one, two, and then the drawer of the bedside table. She finds handkerchiefs and some sewing scissors. She hides the scissors. Brigit sighs in her sleep. Eva drags a chair to the doorway and climbs up, running her fingers along the little ledge of wood trim framing the top.
And she smiles. Her fingers come away dusty. And with a key.
