Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(85)

Herr Jaeger nods to the guards, who allow Sophie to walk her bicycle through the blockade. For the price of her reputation, the lifesaving passports have not been found. As she pedals toward the road to the forest, the reassuring weight of the book pressing against her spine, Herr Jaeger calls after her: “Do not lose yourself to fantasy and foolishness, Fr?ulein. There is no such thing as magic.”

You’re wrong, Sophie thinks.





WEST BERLIN.


SUMMER 1980

The bus, like most things in Germany, is punctual. The doors open with a mechanical sigh. Lena saunters off and squints suspiciously at the sunny skies from beneath newly black bangs stiff with hair gel. She wears a loose white tee tucked into baggy black men’s trousers. The trousers have been cinched with a length of rubber tubing hidden beneath a wider silver studded belt criss-crossing her hips. Mia’s abandoned black duster hangs limply on her. It’s been “Lena-d”: decorated with various buttons both subversive and punk. The impression is of some anarchist bird-soldier, all plumage and politics.

“You made it.” Jenny feels so happy to see Lena. This is love. I am in love. She decides to let go of the jealousy she’s been nursing. She tells herself it’s probably nothing. She was wrong to snoop. And anyway, Lena is here now, and Lena doesn’t do anything she doesn’t want to do.

Lena looks around at the orderly rows of turn-of-the-century houses and elegant apartment buildings, untouched by war, all of it presided over by military lines of linden trees. Two elderly women in tailored summer suits stroll past and fall silent at the sight of Lena, who looks down at her combat boots. It’s the first time Jenny has ever seen Lena even remotely nervous. Jenny is nervous, too. She wants Lena to like Frau Hermann and vice versa. She wants Lena to behave and she feels guilty about wanting Lena to be somebody else, someone more “normal.”

“So,” Lena says, shoving her fisted hands deep into her pockets. “Where is the great witch Frau Hermann?”

They wind up the marble staircase of Jenny’s apartment building. Lena brushes her fingers along the banister’s polished wood. It’s a far cry from the splintery, paint-spattered stairs of the squat, and Jenny wonders if Lena is judging her for it. She’s glad that her mother is at the beauty shop this morning so there’s no chance of running into her.

Lena turns to Jenny. “If I think she’s lying, I’ll give you a signal.”

“What kind of signal?”

Lena faces forward again. “You’ll know.”

Frau Hermann greets the girls at her door. “You must be Lena,” she says in German.

Jenny looks anxiously from Frau Hermann in her conservative skirt and bland cardigan to punk priestess Lena.

“Guten Mittag, Frau Hermann,” Lena says softly.

Frau Hermann’s tone is warm, her smile noncommittal. “Come in. Sit. I’ll just get our tea together.”

The smell of cinnamon and butter scents the cozy apartment. Lena’s eyes are huge. As if she’s taking in everything in a gulp—the puffy floral chairs, the crystal vase of slightly drooping peonies resting on a side table, the shelves of neatly lined books.

“So bourgeois,” Lena whispers.

“Shhh, she’ll hear you. Be nice.”

Frau Hermann brings in the tea service and pastry. She is buzzy with a rare excitement. She half hums, half sings a sort of nursery rhyme song while she settles the china cups into their saucers and fills them with hot, aromatic tea. Frau Hermann may be a great therapist, but she is no singer. Hidden from the older woman’s sightline, Lena makes a face at Jenny, who does her best not to giggle.

“I am glad you are here to help me celebrate,” Frau Hermann says, easing her uncooperative joints into a chair. She spreads a white linen napkin across her lap. Lena copies her. Now Jenny does want to laugh—Lena, having formal tea. Lena with a damask napkin in her thrift-store lap.

“What are we celebrating?” Jenny asks.

Frau Hermann smiles and in it is a glimpse of the girl she must’ve been once. “My letter has been answered at last. A widowed baker in Bremen.”

“Herzliche Glückwünsche!” Jenny says. “Lena also works in a bakery.” She’s trying to draw Lena out.

“Oh? Which bakery?” Frau Hermann asks.

“I don’t plan to work there much longer,” Lena says, and Jenny doesn’t know what it means. Her jealousy is back, eating at her. Who is the blond?

Frau Hermann tells them about her correspondence. She and the widower with two granddaughters have spoken on the phone. They are making plans to meet. Jenny imagines what Lena will say later: Can you imagine two old people having sex? What if their arthritis gets them stuck? But Lena seems either ill at ease or bored and Jenny knows from experience that neither is good where Lena is concerned. It’s when she veers into blunt or outrageous. Jenny doesn’t want to be embarrassed here in Frau Hermann’s apartment.

“So. The famous Bridegroom’s Oak. Jenny says it’s magic, but I don’t believe in magic.”

“I tried to tell her about Sophie and Hanna and the oak,” Jenny says. “But you tell it better.”

“Jenny says they were from Kleinwald?” Lena says around a mouthful of pastry.

“Yes.”

“I’ve never heard of it,” Lena says. It feels like a challenge.