Under the Same Stars by Libba Bray(86)

“Because it no longer exists. Our home was one of several places bombed in the war. Razed to the ground.”

Under the table, Lena presses her knee against Jenny’s. The code. Lena thinks this is a lie.

“Frau Hermann, will you tell Lena about Hanna and Sophie?” Jenny says. She needs to know the truth.

“Were they lovers?” Lena asks boldly with a quick glance to Jenny.

If Frau Hermann is shocked by the question, she doesn’t show it. “I believe there are some friendships that transcend the categories we have for love.”

“Were they Nazi spies?” Lena says, blunt as usual. She doesn’t take her gaze from Frau Hermann.

Frau Hermann calmly pours more tea. “No. In fact, they were part of the resistance.”

“You never told me that before,” Jenny says.

“I didn’t?” Frau Hermann says with an air of nonchalance.

“No.”

Lena’s knee presses Jenny’s again. Maybe it really did slip Frau Hermann’s mind or maybe, like any good storyteller, she embellishes her tale depending on her audience. But doubt has crept in. What if it’s all a lie?

Lena leans forward. “What did they do?”

“They made forgeries of documents to help people escape. To keep them alive if they couldn’t leave Germany. Very dangerous work. And Sophie and Hanna were at the center of it. At least, that was what I was told.”

“What you were told?” Lena says, her tone skeptical.

“It was some time ago, but I still remember,” Frau Hermann says with a bit of edge that unsettles Jenny.

“Will you tell us?” Jenny says, playing peacemaker.

Frau Hermann unspools the story as if they were sitting around a campfire late at night. This time, there are new details. First, about the SS officer—“They called him ‘the hunter.’ He was said to be very skilled. He always had meat when everyone else was starving. And chocolate, which was a great luxury during the war. They said he smelled of it like a cologne.” About the girls: “There was a rumor that one of the girls was with child. Who knows if that was true or simply gossip? It was a dangerous time, and rumors were an anxious currency. People began to disappear. Neighbors who had been there all their lives were suddenly—pfft!” She waved her hand up like a bird taking flight. “Gone. People were suspicious. And afraid.”

“Like the Stasi,” Lena says.

“Yes,” Frau Hermann says a few seconds later. “Like the Stasi.” She is watching Lena very carefully.

“So. Then. What happened to them?” Lena asks.

“They were betrayed,” Frau Hermann says softly.

There is something to the new telling of this old story that feels dangerous. “Who betrayed them?” Jenny asks.

“Someone they knew. Someone they underestimated.” Frau Hermann is quiet for a moment. “Do you know about the winter solstice? It is the longest night of the year. The dark comes down early and seems as if it will never leave. That is why we sing and light candles—to remind us that the light will come again. The pagans believed that during the solstice, the veil between worlds was thin; it was a time when magic was possible.”

“Magic isn’t real,” Lena scoffs.

“You don’t believe in magic.” Frau Hermann says this calmly, neither statement nor question. Jenny can picture her in her office working with troubled people.

Lena’s fork makes tiny stab wounds in her pastry. “Magic is like religion. It’s what you tell people to sedate them.”

“Don’t people need to believe in magic just a little to dream? To survive?”

“Did they survive?” Lena asks.

“I don’t know.”

“Someone has to know!” Lena’s lips are tight with anger.

Frau Hermann holds Lena’s gaze a few seconds longer. Her face gentles into a weary expression. “Perhaps they boarded a boat to Ireland or Switzerland, to New York. If you like, you can picture them there, riding their bicycles together, laughing, gathering acorns or flowers, with new names, new lives.” Frau Hermann pauses. “But I like to dream that the Bridegroom’s Oak saved them with its magic, like in a myth, a fairy tale. That is my favorite.”

There’s steel in Lena’s voice. “I don’t believe in fairy tales, either. If there were magic, if people learned anything from fairy tales or history, there would be no wall.”

Frau Hermann sits quietly, the way, Jenny imagines, that she does with patients at Die Eichel.

“Why didn’t anyone stop them from building it? If they knew already from the war about authoritarianism? Fascism?” Lena demands. Her mouth is taut. She’s on the verge of tears.

“People did try,” Frau Hermann says sadly. “Do you know the story of the frog in the pot?”

Lena shakes her head.

“The frog is in a pot of water on the stove. He doesn’t know that, just thinks he’s in a pond. It’s water, after all. But slowly, very slowly, the heat is turned up. So slowly that the frog doesn’t realize he’s in danger. He might think, Boy, this water has gotten warmer. But he gets used to the warmer temperature soon enough. He accepts it as normal. Until the heat is increased again. Now it’s very uncomfortable. Still, he adjusts. On and on it goes, degree by degree, until at last the water is boiling. The frog is starting to cook. I’ve got to get out of this boiling pot now! the frog thinks in a panic. But of course, by that time, it is too late. He is done for. That is how they do it. They take away someone’s rights. Well, you think, it’s not my rights. And maybe that is a bad person. Maybe they did something wrong. People go on with their lives. They adjust. The first outrage seems so long ago, so benign now that they have gotten used to all the others that followed until they can no longer remember a time when what they call normal used to be considered outrageous, immoral, and brutal.”