Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(2)
“This is the Kurfürstendamm. Good for shopping,” the driver announced.
Kurfürstendamm, Jenny repeated to herself silently, testing out the feel of the new word. The remains of a battered church caught her eye. She raised the Canon and clicked.
“Entschuldigen sie, sir, was ist das für ein Geb?ude, bitte?” Jenny said to the back of the driver’s head.
His brows lifted in surprise as his eyes met hers in the rearview mirror. “That is the Kaiser Wilhelm Memorial Church. It was bombed during the war so we call it the ‘Hollow Tooth.’”
They took a series of turns and suddenly, an ominous ribbon of concrete topped by coils of barbed wire came into view.
“And that … well, that is the wall.”
Jenny pressed closer to the window to get a better look. On the eastern side, soldiers kept constant watch from the looming guard towers, rifles at the ready.
“Are the Communists going to shoot us?” Alison asked their mother.
“No, sweetheart. We’re Americans.”
“They do shoot people, though. Debbie’s mom told me.”
“Thank you for that, Barbara,” Jenny’s mother muttered under her breath. “Only people trying to escape East Berlin, sweetheart. But we’re in West Berlin. We’re safe. Jenny.”
Jenny looked over to see her mother shaking her head at Jenny’s bent arm resting against the window. Jenny put her hands in her lap like she’d been taught at Miss Fox’s Finishing School. Outside a U-Bahn station, a group of punks held court, smoking cigarettes and passing a bottle of beer around. Jenny stared, fascinated by their spiked hair, torn clothing, and leather jackets. They seemed impossibly cool and slightly dangerous. She itched to get a picture.
“Hooligans,” the driver hissed. “No good.”
“They certainly are strange looking,” Jenny’s mother said in that polite way that judged without announcing itself as judgment—well, isn’t that interesting.
“Where are we?” Jenny asked the driver.
“Kreuzberg,” he answered with distaste.
Jenny looked back at the punks. Kreuzberg, she repeated to herself.
* * *
“There are only six apartments in the whole building and we have the top floor, which is the nicest,” Jenny’s mother said as they wound around the elegant marble staircase of their new home, the driver following with two of the suitcases.
A woman in an aproned uniform answered the door. Her dark blond hair was tucked into a severe bun revealing a square face. “Guten Abend, Frau Campbell. Did you have a good trip?”
“Yes, thank you, Helga. Oh, Otto, you can just leave the luggage there…” While their mother paid the driver, Jenny took in the old-world splendor of the apartment—tall windows, expensive rugs, a velvet sofa, and bookcases filled with leather-bound volumes. There was a stereo in a walnut cabinet and a color TV, which was a luxury, Jenny’s parents had told her. It felt much more formal but also more welcoming than their house in Dallas, which was an enormous, red brick faux Tudor with a pool in the backyard on a street of nearly identical houses in a neighborhood where most of the kids were sent to private schools and spent Christmas break skiing in Aspen.
Alison ran immediately to her room, shouting, “It’s got a canopy bed!”
Jenny’s room was narrow but sunny and there was a record player. She wondered what her friends back home would be doing now. Probably driving to the mall. Maybe hitting the Jack in the Box drive-through. She could practically taste the hot salty fries, feel the sugary burn of a Dr Pepper sucked through a straw. There would be parties all summer. New friendships would be cemented. And she wouldn’t be there. She would be forgotten. Erased. Jenny who?
She unpacked her clothes, placing her pastel Izod and Polo shirts in the armoire along with her shiny penny loafers and a gingham party dress her mother had insisted on even though Jenny hated wearing dresses and this one in particular. She hung up her one cherished piece of clothing: a jean jacket she’d begged her mother to buy for her birthday.
“It just seems so … tomboyish,” her mother had said, wrinkling her nose. “I think that sweater would be more becoming on your build.”
Not figure—build. Like she was a house under construction.
The refrigerator—Kühlschrank, Jenny had learned in her immersion course—was half the size of the one back home and filled with German brands she didn’t know. She pulled out a yogurt with a picture of a strawberry on the side: Joghurt mit Früchten.
“There you are! Settled in okay?” Jenny’s mom called. She had put on a fresh dress and lipstick.
“Mm-hmm,” Jenny said, searching for the silverware drawer.
“Guess what?” The last time Jenny’s mom had smiled at her like that it had preceded the announcement about moving to Germany. Her mother liked to paste a happy-face sticker on her bad news as if that might trick Jenny into accepting it as good.
“What. There. I guessed.”
“Very funny.” Her mother tapped her playfully on the arm. “Helga tells me there’s a family in the building on the second floor and they have a daughter exactly your age. And—she’s been studying English! Her name is … oh dear. Mary? Marsha? Something with an M. I hear she’s very cute. She plays tennis. Maybe she can teach you to play!”