Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(80)
By July, they’ve more than doubled their production, from forty documents a week to eighty. Sophie’s fingers cramp from holding the pen so tightly. One tiny mistake—a stamp whose letters aren’t flat enough from use, a signature that doesn’t match—and they doom the holder and risk exposing the entire operation. Sophie reads the notes on the boy for the false document. Jacob Kushner. Age six. Six years old. And without these traveling papers she holds, he will die. Her hands tremble until she has to put the paper down.
Hanna looks up from her sewing machine. Their friendship has deepened to the point that they can sense each other’s thoughts. It’s as if they share one limbic system. “What’s the matter?”
“I’m afraid I will make a mistake and doom this boy to … to…” She shakes her head.
Hanna rises from the machine and slips an arm around Sophie. “Darling, you can’t think of it. You have to think of the hope. Or else we are all as good as dead inside.”
Sophie nods and wipes away her tears. Suddenly, she laughs.
“What is so funny?” Hanna asks.
“Usually, I’m the one telling you it will be better and you’re the one telling me not to be such a dreamer.”
“You’re rubbing off on me. If I’m not careful, you’ll make me into one of those horrible optimists.”
Hanna kisses Sophie’s cheek and bends her head in concentration again. The stop-start drilling of the sewing machine rattles off the walls. Sophie turns back to the certificate. Steady, she thinks, and soon, the job is done, and little Jakob Kushner is on his way to being Josef Keller.
He is on his way to being saved.
* * *
On Sundays, they rest. Not because they want to but because they need to be seen. It is still summer, and there are picnics and rowing parties on the lake. Egon often skips these gatherings.
“Better I should stay and paint,” he says, making small strokes on a scrap of paper, sketching out a tiny replica of the garret down to the view from the window.
“You’re going to miss out on watching Klara preen and Oskar crow,” Hanna teases.
“Don’t let that handsome little Nazi sweep you off your feet, Liebchen,” Egon says on a stream of smoke.
Down by the lake, the day is hot and fine with a soft breeze pulling the lace-hemmed tide in and out. There is talk about the war, of the blackouts and Germany’s invasion of their former ally, the Soviet Union. Everyone seems to think that the war will be over soon now and a German victory assured. Out on the lake, Karl, Leon, and the other young men row out a distance and take turns knifing into the water for competitive swims. Hanna and Sophie stretch out on blankets with their friends. They keep the conversation light, listening for any information that might be helpful to the resistance.
Klara flips onto her stomach and fixes her catlike smile on Hanna, never a good sign. “We don’t see much of you, Hanna. Where are you keeping yourselves these days? Rumor has it you spend a lot of time posing for Egon,” she says, answering her own question. “Is that all you do—pose?”
“You’ve found me out, Klara. I’m making mad, passionate love to half the soldiers in the garrison and capturing it all on canvas,” Hanna says, sloughing away dry skin at her elbows with a handful of wet sand.
Sophie stifles a giggle. Hanna the Barbarian. Taking full pleasure in being shocking.
“Don’t be vulgar,” Klara tuts. She’s taken on a primness that doesn’t suit her. “Well, all I can say is that Oskar has noticed and I don’t think he’s happy about it. We all know you’ll marry one day. Unless he gets tired of you and becomes interested in another girl. He’s gotten to be quite handsome, you know.”
Hanna leans forward, her face teasingly close to Klara’s. “Perhaps I’ll have to invite him up to the garret for a special painting session,” she says meaningfully.
“Oh, you’re impossible, Hanna! And you’re blocking my sun,” Klara gripes.
Hanna leans back onto her elbows and lifts her face toward the warm sun.
* * *
The next day, it rains. A proper summer soaking that dampens the air of the already musty attic and makes Hanna and Sophie worry about the papers hidden behind the brick. Sophie reads the newspaper, frowning.
“What are you brooding about over there?” Hanna asks, pouring them cups of weak tea.
“A report about a man’s death. It says, ‘The bullet’s flight ended his life.’ Why must they call it a flight? How can they equate a bullet’s destruction with the beauty of a bird on the wind?”
“You’re too soft, Sophie.”
“Yes. I suppose that’s true.”
“But it’s why I love you.”
It’s an instruction day. The students have settled at their canvases to paint a vase of wildflowers when Oskar arrives. He’s never shown a bit of interest in art. No doubt, he’s heard the gossip going around that Hanna is often seen in the company of Egon, laughing easily at something he’s said. There have been a few evenings when Sophie has climbed the stairs to the garret to find the two of them sitting close at the little table, tea gone cold, as they discuss politics and ideas, so lost in conversation that Sophie has to clear her throat to announce her presence.