Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(29)

At last the weary hikers stopped so that Fr?ulein Volker could “heed the call of nature” again. Armed with a handful of newspaper, she set off into the woods and the girls relaxed, knowing she would be gone for some time. Fr?ulein Volker’s bowels were impertinent and possibly even impudent.

“I hate these hikes,” Klara said, brushing a wayward leaf from her careful plaits.

“At least it gets us out of the house and away from our mothers,” Gerda said.

“Not my mother,” Klara complained. “She still makes me look after Lotte.”

Klara made no secret of resenting her little sister’s presence. Like most neglected children, Lotte was needy and difficult—“Klara, watch me turn this cartwheel! Watch me run to the bridge! Watch me, watch me, watch me!”

“Poor Lotte,” Sophie’s mother would say with a shake of her head when she’d see the little girl dancing alongside her sister, tugging at her sleeve, Klara pushing her off with an angry, “Lotte! Leave me alone! Go play with someone your own age!”

“Poor Lotte is a pest,” Sophie would answer. “You don’t know, Mama. She can be mean.”

“Everyone can be mean. She’s just lonely. She knows she isn’t wanted. When people feel ignored and unwanted, they do things for attention.”

Sophie was glad Lotte was Klara’s burden and not hers. Sophie liked looking after Lieselotte, who was seven and full of imagination. In the evenings, she would read to her sister from her book of fairy tales until she could hear the girl’s soft snoring against her pillow in the room they shared. For a short time, Sophie had a brother, too. Heinrich, a sweet-faced boy who sputtered out first words with shrieks of delight and cooing burbles of spit. He had died of influenza on a bitter March morning when Sophie was eleven. She had hated March ever since, hated the way she could feel the whole house tense at the shadow of its approach; it was a month to be endured.

The girls lay back on sun-warmed rocks. Sophie stretched out on the ground and pressed her ear to the soft earth. There was a feeling of a slithering underground, a network of roots and fungi communicating silently to each other. A whole world unseen.

“Did you see? They are housing soldiers at the old castle. It’s become a barracks now,” Hedy said.

“My mother told us that Frau Wiedenhammer told her at the Women’s Auxiliary—did you know they have cookies there? Well, they do. They don’t have enough sugar, I hear, but still—”

“Get to the point, Gerda,” Hanna said.

Gerda’s stories were like a winding path through the woods in which you couldn’t help but feel lost.

“She says there are at least fifty soldiers there. And they’re going to train the Hitler Youth and pick the best ones to join.”

“Fifty! There have to be some handsome ones. It’s just the odds,” Hedy said.

“I hear their commandant is quite handsome. I would like to be an Obergruppenführer’s wife. I heard Magda Goebbels has all of her clothes made by her own personal seamstress,” Klara said.

“Sophie and I met him,” Hanna offered.

“What? No! Tell!”

“When?” Klara pressed.

“A few weeks ago now. His car almost killed Sophie.”

“Is he as handsome as they say?”

Sophie looked at Hanna as if to say, Really? That’s Klara’s response to my near death.

“I suppose. If you like that type.”

“What type is that?” Hedy asked.

“Predatory,” Sophie said. She was still irritated that no one had been concerned about the almost-dying part. “It’s his eyes.”

“I’m not interested in his eyes. Tell me about his muscles!” Hedy laughed.

Klara’s expression was skeptical. “Where was this?”

“On the road by the forest,” Sophie said.

“Ach! Are you still going to the forest?”

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” Hanna said briskly. “Sophie, give us a word of the day.”

“Yes, what’s today’s word?” Gerda said.

“Lamentation,” Sophie said with great ceremony because it was that sort of word.

Hedy wrinkled her nose. “What does it mean, lamentation?”

“It’s a Fromm’s,” Gerda giggled, and Hedy laughed so hard she announced that she had peed herself a little, to which Klara rolled her eyes and called her “common.”

Sophie blushed. She knew about Fromm’s condoms. All the soldiers had them and even, she’d heard, some of the local boys. But she had obviously never seen one, wouldn’t know what one was if someone showed her.

“Gerda? Don’t be immature. Go on, Sophie,” Hanna said, and Sophie didn’t know if Hanna had scolded Gerda on her behalf or because she was put out that Gerda had made the joke before Hanna could.

Sophie continued, “Lamentation. A passionate expression of grief, sorrow, or regret.”

“Why not just say sad?” Gerda asked. She wasn’t one for complications.

“Well, because it’s grander than sad. It’s a sadness that has to be expressed. In the Bible, Lamentations is a book about suffering but also of justice and apology. It’s about learning from your mistakes so that you can change and make better choices going forward. I think it fits nicely with the tragically romantic, don’t you?”