Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(24)
He passes through the living room with its overcrowded collection of family photos—vacation shots, relatives, and “made” family, including a picture of one of Mama D’s best friends holding somebody’s newborn, the two of them caught in a shaft of hazy sunlight. He gives a spin to her ancient globe and runs his finger along its cracked surface, thinking about the places he wants to visit: Reykjavík. Kyoto. Sydney. Abuja. He wonders when they’ll be allowed to travel again, when Mama D will be allowed to come home, when it will be safe for Mom Lisa to return. When they will be a family once more.
A text from Mama D buzzes his phone: Hi, honey! What’s up? What did you do today?
Miles texts back: School. Dodger. Kraft Mac n Cheese. X-Box. #LifeInLockdown
MD: You’re sure you’re okay?
Mama D has a radar for when he’s feeling off. He doesn’t want to worry her.
Miles2Go: All good. Just doing homework. Can we talk later?
MD: You bet. Love u. Miss you so so so much.
She texts a line of all hearts. Miles texts a GIF of Han Solo: I know. She responds with three emojis: one laughing, another with its tongue sticking out, and finally, a big red heart.
Ten minutes later, a text, short and to the point, appears from Mom Lisa.
ML: Eat something other than box macaroni. It’s poison.
M2G: Ice cream counts as a vegetable, right?
Silence. Lisa never misses a chance to snark back.
M2G: Mom, you okay?
Three thin dots of connection float in the white space.
ML: I’m okay. Tired. Sorry, Iho. Gotta get back to the fight.
He doesn’t know what to say. What can he possibly say to her? She’s in a war zone, and his fear, that she will get sick, that she will die, that she will leave him, is the dark house he won’t enter.
M2G: K. Later, Mom
ML: Love you too
ML: Broccoli
Miles adds two pieces of microwaved broccoli to the carcinogenic cheesy macaroni and shovels steaming spoonfuls of it into his mouth. He opens his email. There’s a reply from the librarian at the university in Kleinwald. He’s written back to Miles’s German inquiry in English. Miles is both relieved and a little chagrined about it.
Dear Miles,
Greetings from Germany! Your email was well received. I am currently digitizing old records. It is an exciting project for me as well! I will assist you in whatever manner I can. I love New York City! In 2017, my boyfriend and I visited the SoHo and Chelsea and also the Hell’s Kitchen. Wunderbar! Below, I have provided links to help you. Please let me know if I can be of further assistance. I hope that you are keeping well in these unfortunate times. Leben ist kein Ponyhof, ja?
Sincerely,
Matthias P. Honnigman
Archivist, Kleinwald University
Matthias has included a stack of eight different blue links along with a picture of himself and his boyfriend, rainbows painted on their cheeks, as they march in the New York City Pride parade. The scene is alive with a joy from a time before they were all scared to go anywhere. Scared to hug or breathe or grab a bag of groceries. Miles’s throat knots up. He wants all of that back. He works out the translation on Matthias’s last sentence.
Life is no pony farm, yeah?
Miles spends three hours going through the first two links of Die Kleinwald Zeitung. When his eyes burn from translating old newsprint, he switches to the photo archive. There are black-and-white snapshots of kids walking to school, women hanging wash to dry, men congregating in clumps to smoke and talk. It all seems so normal except for the Nazi flags draped over balconies and the men in gray SS uniforms. It gives Miles a chill to think of all of it coexisting so easily.
A series of pencil sketches have been mixed in with the photographs—landscapes, street scenes, studies of people. Some of them are pretty good, others more rudimentary. One pulls at him. The style is eerily similar to the drawing in Mormor’s scrapbook. The same initials, EW, are scrawled in the lower right-hand corner. The drawings are dated. The first is from June 1941; the last, from October of the same year. Miles feels a tingle of excitement. It’s the first connection he’s been able to make. He magnifies a sketch labeled “Herr Muller und seine Buchhandlung.” Mr. Muller and his bookshop. Muller. Like Sophie? Below that is a drawing of a girl at a table, head bent in concentration as she reads. “Fr?ulein Einsame Herzen.” Miss Lonelyhearts. Miles feels as if he’s reading someone’s visual diary. There is a detailed drawing of soldiers marching through the town led by a man in a gray uniform. “Der Obergruppenführer und die Soldaten.” The commander and the soldiers. And there is one of a serious-looking man called simply “Der Mechaniker,” The Mechanic. But it’s sketches nineteen through twenty-five that take a turn. They’re all of the same pretty, fair-haired girl. Most look like practice drawings for more elaborate works—a Valkyrie, traditional dirndl, some kind of Norse-looking goddess. But the rest? They’re intimate, as if the artist was quietly studying the girl in them, capturing her unawares—the soft curve of a cheek, the bright shine to her eyes as she’s mid-laugh, and one in which she looks lost and scared and a little sad. One thing is for certain: The model is the missing Hanna Schmidt.
Miles makes another note and underlines it.
Who was EW?
He texts Chloe.
Miles2Go: Hey, Mystery Maven. Call me. I mighta found something.