Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(69)

“How do you stand him? He’s such a snob,” Sophie said. It was a Saturday late in April. She was working in the bookshop. Hanna was there to help. She’d become more interested in books of late. Works of philosophy and history. In the corner, the Lottes were coloring. They were in a good patch, though Sophie knew those two could fall out with each other at any moment.

“He’s not so bad,” Hanna said, leafing through Sophie’s giant book of fairy tales. “And he’s been very kind to Karl.”

“He wasn’t very kind to me.”

“No. He wasn’t. But neither was Karl. And you’ve forgiven him.”

She had. Because he was handsome? Because she had always had a crush on him? Because he was a bit damaged and lost? All of it? How arbitrary was her own kindness, then? Her forgiveness was ambiguous at best.

“Leon is no Karl,” she said.

“And Karl is no Baron Wilhelm Alexander, no matter how tragically romantic he seems to you,” Hanna said.

A shouting argument erupted between the Lottes, complete with accusations and tears.

“Lieselotte! Charlotte! Quiet!” Hanna looked up from her book with annoyance. “Can we drown them both in the river?” she asked Sophie.

Sophie hurried over to the fighting girls. “What’s the matter?”

“Lotte said the Bridegroom’s Oak isn’t magic! That you made that up!”

“Is that so?” Sophie said playfully. “Well, then. Who wants to hear a story about the oak and its magic, hmmm? It starts with two sisters who were as close as could be…”

Now that Karl was able to work again, Sophie’s visits to him were less frequent, which saddened her. She’d come to look forward to them; even though Karl didn’t say anything, it still felt like a communion of sorts, their worlds joined by a book. One Sunday in May, as the lengthening days stretched toward the languid promise of summer, Sophie had just finished her reading and was readying to leave when Karl spoke for the first time. His voice, scratchy and barely above a whisper, was a shock after so long. “The river is everywhere,” he said, quoting a passage from Siddhartha. “Do you suppose that’s true? That time is an illusion and we are a part of everything, always and forever?”

Now Sophie was the one struck mute. “I … I don’t know.”

Karl nodded, less to her unsatisfactory answer than to some internal question. She stood uncertainly for a moment, waiting, but he seemed to have exhausted his words for the day. As she left his room, he shut his eyes and murmured something over and over, a word so quiet that it was more hum than speech.



* * *



Sophie woke shivering. The room had a damp chill. Liesl had left the window cracked again. With a sigh, Sophie rose to lower it and spied Hanna lurking outside her house, partially hidden in the shadows. It was well after midnight. Hanna watched the street as if waiting for someone, and in a moment, a man bundled in a scarf and hat approached from the other direction. Sophie strained but it was too dark to see. A solitary streetlamp caught his face as he moved past. Leon. Hanna emerged. They embraced. She cupped his face in her hands and nodded. No words were exchanged. And then Leon was on his way again. Hanna slipped quietly back into her house. Sophie could scarcely believe it: Hanna and Leon. It wasn’t quite as bad as Oskar but almost. And why was she keeping it a secret?

“How is Leon?” Sophie asked the next day. They’d taken Fritz out for a walk in his carriage.

“Fine, I suppose,” Hanna said.

“I thought I saw him at your house last night.”

“He came to see Karl,” Hanna said.

“Not from what I could see.”

“Well, things aren’t always what they seem, are they?” Hanna said acidly.

Fritz squawked for attention.

“It was very late. There were no lights on,” Sophie said in a singsong voice while playing peekaboo with her little brother.

“Are you interrogating me? Have you joined the Gestapo?” Hanna said with the same singsong voice.

“Fine. Forget I asked.”

“Suits me.” Hanna grabbed Fritz’s hands and clapped them together in patty-cake and the baby began to cry.



* * *



Summer arrived at last. Summer was what they lived for. It was a hike day. Fr?ulein Volker had insisted that the girls be in uniform and ready by eight o’clock sharp. Hanna was not present. It was the second time she’d missed a hike that month.

“Sophie, give us a word of the day,” Hedy urged. She was already bored and had been singing an old folk song, “Der Hase und der Hirsch,” until Klara had barked at her to stop.

“Synchronous,” Sophie said after a moment. “From the Greek synkhronos, meaning ‘happening at the same time’ and ‘the arrangement of historical events to indicate coexistence.’”

“Oh!” Hedy said, wide-eyed. “What is coexistence?”

Gerda, who had been forced to hike alongside Fr?ulein Volker, fell back into the group with a burst of news she’d been itching to share. “Have you heard? Leon is home and he has a friend from university living with him. His apartment was bombed by communists!”

“Leon’s apartment was bombed by communists?” Hildegard said.