Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(72)

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Hanna wouldn’t tell Sophie where they were going. She led Sophie to Wilhelmstrasse, a street bordering the river on the edge of town, to a medieval stone building that was mostly used for storing porcelain from the nearby factory. Hanna took out a key and twisted it in the lock. She pushed open the heavy door. Inside, the air was thick with dust and shadows.

“This way,” Hanna said, winding up a narrow staircase to the top floor and a closed door at the end of a long hallway. She knocked out a rhythm—one-two-pause-three—and waited. When there was no answer, she used a different key and then they were in. The space was small, more of an attic, with sloped ceilings and, in one corner, a coal-burning stove. A pair of large windows let in light and offered a perfect view of the town, the bridge, and the castle. An easel had been set up in the center of the room where the light was strongest. Several canvases of varying sizes were stacked against a wall.

Sophie lifted a delicate, point-tipped paintbrush. “What is this place?”

“You know that I love you more than anyone,” Hanna said.

Oh, really? Sophie wanted to say. I suppose that’s why you’ve been avoiding me? This felt like performance on Hanna’s part and Sophie bristled at being thought naive.

“Hanna, why have you brought me here?” she said coldly.

“I’ll show you.” Hanna slipped her hand behind the stove and worked out a loose brick. She retrieved something wrapped in linen from the hollow space and clutched it against her stomach as if it were holy.

“Here,” she said, passing the bundle to Sophie.

“What is this?” Sophie asked.

“Hope,” Hanna said.

Sophie unwrapped the cloth. Inside was a set of papers: A birth certificate. Work papers. Passport. All for someone named Jürgen Kruger. “Who is Jürgen Kruger?”

“A phantom. A man who didn’t exist until today.”

“Hanna, you’re talking in riddles,” Sophie said.

“A forgery,” Hanna said.

The papers in Sophie’s hands felt suddenly heavy. “Hanna, you’re with the resistance?”

“You asked me about Poland. Well, I will tell you: I saw the resettlement camps, the ghetto. These are not places for human beings. So dismal. You can’t imagine. They don’t have enough food—maybe one boiled potato and some rancid bread. One day, I was passing by. Behind the gate, there was a little boy. He was half skeleton, Sophie. His legs like two little matchsticks. He looked at me…” Hanna stopped, swallowed hard. “He looked at me as if he knew he was already dead. And that he wanted me to know, too. I can’t stop seeing his face. Once you see, once you know, how do you go back to our lies? How do you pretend you don’t know? It’s like Egon says: ‘There is no such thing as neutrality. To cooperate is to be complicit with evil.’ You remember, you taught me that word.” Hanna let out a shaky breath. “I don’t want to be complicit anymore, Sophie.”

Sophie swiped her finger across the forgery, feeling the raised stamps and watermarks, the perforations along the bottom. The paper even looked worn. It was indistinguishable from a real passport.

“It was selfish of me to tell you. But I couldn’t go on keeping it a secret from you. I couldn’t bear thinking that you believed I didn’t love you. It was you who gave us our name, by the way.”

Sophie gave Hanna a quizzical look.

“We call ourselves Die Eichel. After those acorns you’re always planting,” Hanna says. “I suppose in our way we’re planting small bits of hope.”

“Oh” was all Sophie could manage. Her mind whirred as if the whole world had tilted sideways in a moment. She examined a slip of paper where someone had been practicing t’s and n’s to match the original document. None of them were quite right, the strokes too firm where the original was feathery and slightly curved.

“They’re pressing too hard here,” she said. “See? It needs to be softer. Like this.” Sophie copied the signature carefully, matching the light, halting cross of the t.

“That’s very good! I can’t tell the difference,” Hanna marveled.

Through the open window, Sophie could see the calm, red-tiled roofs of their home and the castle housing the soldiers rising in the distance. “Hanna. If anyone knew … I’m frightened.”

Hanna wrapped her arms around Sophie’s waist, the point of her chin balanced in the groove of Sophie’s collarbone like summers past. “Me, too.”

Sophie leaned her head against Hanna’s soft, damp cheek. “My penmanship is very good.”

“Sophie…”

“Like you said, once you know, how can you go back?”

Hanna squeezed Sophie tighter. “I couldn’t bear it if anything happened to you. I’d have to become a completely different person and forget my entire life.”



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It is at this moment that Sophie feels a shift in the world, all of her cells colliding, rearranging, shaping themselves with purpose. As if she has been stumbling through the fog of dreams and has just awakened into a sharp, clear morning. As if she has never been alive until now. She doesn’t care if Hanna was performing earlier or not. It doesn’t matter. How has she managed all of this time without her? The world had been gray and suddenly there is color again. There is only one thing left to know.