Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(68)
Sophie didn’t know what to say to this. She changed the subject. “I’m so glad to hear that Karl has been found.”
“Yes. It’s … yes.”
“And do they think he will make a recovery?”
“The doctors can’t say.”
“We must remain hopeful,” Sophie said.
Hanna’s eyes brimmed with tears. Impulsively, she threw her arms around Sophie and hugged her tightly. “Oh, Sophie, Sophie. Give me a word for today, please? Something to hold on to?”
For once, Sophie seemed lost for words. She searched the archive of her mind and plucked one. “Ambiguous: Having more than one possible meaning. Open to interpretation. Uncertain.”
Hanna withdrew her arms and hugged herself. “I don’t think I like that word.”
“Funny. It’s a lot like you.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s one of the most honest words I can think of.”
* * *
At the end of the week, Sophie stopped by to visit with Karl. He sat slumped in a chair in his bedroom by an open window that let in the last of the daylight. An angry constellation of welts pockmarked his skin. Sophie had heard that, when found, he’d had a full beard and long hair matted into knots; they’d needed to delouse his body with kerosene before they could even approach him with the shears. He was thinner; his face, chiseled by war into something as hard and lifeless as the bronze statue of Baron Wilhelm Alexander. The air in the room was as still as a church.
“Hello, Karl. It’s wonderful to see you.” When Karl didn’t answer, Sophie continued. “I thought I might read to you for a bit. If that’s all right.”
She perched on a small wooden stool and opened the book she’d brought. “I remembered that you liked Siddhartha,” she said. “Part One. ‘The Son of the Brahman’…” While Sophie read, Karl gazed out the window. She couldn’t know if he was staring at the wet street below or at the blue-gray world of naked trees beyond it or perhaps into some void she did not know, might never know.
After half an hour, she found a stopping place. She put her book away and rose from the chair. “I could come again in a few days. If you like.”
Karl said nothing.
It had become December again. There were no festive Christmas markets, and the traditional cookies, the gingery Lebkuchen, were in short supply. But there were candles in windows on some nights when it was allowed, and the children still buzzed with excitement that defied the constraints and terrors of war. Sophie, Hanna, and the other girls had been tasked with collecting money for the war effort and coats for soldiers. It was a damp, in-the-bones cold. Klara wore the beautiful fox-fur-trimmed coat her mother had taken from the Schafers’ house, which seemed to annoy Hanna. She shot Klara dark looks, and under her breath, where only Sophie could hear, she’d mutter, “Look at her in that coat. The impudence.”
Hanna had been in a mood all day. In fact, she’d been moody since returning from Poland. Sophie didn’t know if it was because of Karl’s condition or if she had been angry to be pulled back to Kleinwald. It was unlike her to be jealous of Klara or a coat, and Sophie couldn’t help being pleased that Hanna had cooled toward Klara, whom she viewed as her competition for the coveted position of Hanna’s best friend.
Klara pranced over, her donation can rattling with new coins. “I got two reichsmarks from Hans Becker. I think he likes me. I might let him take me walking sometime.”
Hanna glared at Klara with a rare, open hostility. “Does it bother you to wear a dead girl’s coat?”
“She’s not dead. They relocated. And she left it behind—what should I do, let it go to waste?”
“You’re an idiot.”
“I beg your pardon!”
There was a feeling of violence in the air. Sophie was afraid Hanna might slap Klara or vice versa.
“Hanna! Can you help me with the ledger? I’ve gotten my numbers mixed up again.” Sophie tugged gently at Hanna’s sleeve and the moment passed, but something unsettling had been left in its wake, the shape of which Sophie could not yet see.
Now every Sunday afternoon after the supper dishes had been put away, Sophie crossed from her house to Hanna’s, where she read to Karl. He never acknowledged her presence, but she noticed that the tremors in his hands lessened by the end of her visit and she thought this a good sign. Hanna had said that he’d begun sitting at his desk and fixing things again. When he was hunched over a piece of machinery, his hands seemed to find their purpose and didn’t shake. Already, he’d repaired the hinges for Frau Binder’s cupboard door and rebuilt the engine of Herr Sommer’s truck. He’d even gotten his mother’s faltering radio to work like new. He did this all silently.
Sophie still hoped for a letter from Nobody, but after the weeks turned to months, she accepted that the romance—if it could be called a romance—had ended and it wouldn’t do her any good to mope about it. At least she had Hanna in her life again, though there was still a strange distance between them that, no matter how hard Sophie tried, she couldn’t seem to close. As if Hanna had locked up some part of herself and swallowed the key.
The winter dragged on. Germany had pushed into North Africa, and by April, they had invaded Greece and Yugoslavia. Every few weeks, Leon took the train from Berlin back to Kleinwald to see his parents and to visit with Karl. Leon had never been one of Sophie’s favorites, especially after the Miss Lonelyhearts incident. She tolerated him at best.