Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(30)
“I think you read too much,” Klara said.
Hanna lobbed a dirt ball. It splatted against Klara’s white shirt.
“Hanna! My shirt!” Klara shrieked.
Hanna turned to Sophie, eyes twinkling. “Oh, lamentation!” she cried, and the others giggled until Klara was quite put out, which was perfect.
Fr?ulein Volker returned from her nature’s call with a spring in her step. “All right, girls. Let’s continue! You’ve had rest enough!”
She clapped her hands and set a brisk pace.
“Ugh,” Gerda complained.
* * *
“Does Karl have a sweetheart?” Klara asked. They were deep in the woods. The distant hills, curved and sensual as hips, were visible through the coy fanning of trees. Sophie quit lagging and walked closer.
Hanna pushed away a face-threatening branch. “Karl? No. He’s only interested in three things: books, mechanicals, and sport.”
“Is he going to university?” Klara asked.
“Yes. Unless there’s a war. Then he’ll go into the Wehrmacht.”
“I’ll bet he’d look very handsome in a soldier’s uniform,” Klara said. “I would like to have a soldier boyfriend.”
Hanna turned and walked backward, her feet somehow knowing how to avoid the pitfalls of rocks. “You want any boyfriend!”
“I do not! I’m very particular!”
“Admit it: You’re sex-mad!”
Sophie couldn’t hold back her snort.
Klara’s eyes flashed. She shoved Sophie, who stumbled backward under the weight of her pack. “At least I don’t have to resort to writing letters to the Bridegroom’s Oak like some pathetic old spinster!”
Hanna grabbed hold of Klara’s arm. “Don’t talk to her that way.”
“Let go of my arm!”
“Not till you apologize.”
“All the girls talk about the two of you going off to play games in the forest like children. Isn’t that true?”
The other girls looked away, which was proof enough.
“It’s embarrassing, Hanna. Do you want the older girls in the BDM to make fun of you? Because they will. You need to put away babyish games—the fairy tales, the Norse witches—”
“Priestesses,” Sophie corrected her, unable to stop herself.
“It’s time to grow up. Decide where your loyalties lie.” Klara leaned in close but not so close that Sophie couldn’t hear. “She’s going to be the ruin of you, Hanna. Mark my words.”
Klara marched forward and the other girls followed without looking back.
“I’m sorry,” Sophie said to Hanna.
Hanna only shook her head in disgust and ran to catch up with the other girls, leaving Sophie behind.
* * *
Sophie peered out her window at the dusky sky. It took longer for sunset in summer, of course, and the anticipation, the long slide from orange and pink to purple and indigo, made it all the sweeter. The stars were just waking up. She could make out the bright white W of Cassiopeia. She liked knowing you could turn myths into stars or stars into myths. Fireflies winked along the quiet streets. The silence was interrupted by the clack of approaching footsteps. Down below, Oskar Gerber stood outside the Schmidt house. He blew breath against his hand and sniffed it. Adjusted his uniform just so. Slicked back his hair with two handfuls of spit.
God. Oskar.
“You must be kind to Oskar,” Sophie’s mother had told her whenever the girls complained about him. “He is like a little fox cornered by dogs. That’s why he shows his teeth so much. It’s because of his father, you know.”
Sophie did know. Everyone in town knew the story of Herr Gerber. It was said that he could fix anything. Clocks with corroded springs. Pocket watches that refused to keep time. Automobiles and threshers and rusted engines. There was no mechanical thing on earth that could not be coaxed back to life under his patient care. Such a man with such a gift was invaluable to the war effort and so, in 1916, as Germany starved, Herr Gerber was drafted into the army, where he was captured, imprisoned, and tortured. After Germany’s defeat in 1918, he returned to Kleinwald as a changed man. His hands shook. Sometimes, he would be in the middle of fixing a broken clock or restoring an automobile engine and suddenly walk out of the shop, not to be seen until well after his dinner had grown cold. Other times, he might be gone for a day or two. So it was not until he had been gone for four days—and the discovery of the missing rifle—that anyone thought to be concerned. In the base of the clock Herr Gerber had fixed that morning, a note was later discovered. It said I am sorry. Please forgive me. Herr Gerber, the man who could fix anything, could not fix himself. The clock, it was said, ran perfectly, even better than before.
The shame of his father’s suicide hung on Oskar like a coat he could never seem to take off. He became known as Der Tragische Junge—The Tragic Boy. Oskar did everything he could to prove that nickname wrong. He was easy to provoke, quick to jump into defensiveness.
“That boy’s hands were born half-fisted,” Sophie’s mother would say with a shake of her head. “But I guess he needs it.”
After Herr Gerber’s death, the family struggled to stay afloat and keep food on the table. Sometimes, Sophie’s mother would drop off extra bread to Oskar’s mother with a breezy, “Oh dear, Annalise—I seem to have made too much and it will go bad before we can eat it. Will you do me the favor of taking this loaf?”