“Jeez,” Charlie whispered, as he steered her away. “What were you doing?”
She tried to reply but her mouth had gone so dry she could barely speak. When they were safely back on the train, she told him that all she had been doing was copying down the price list outside the shop.
“He probably thought you were a spy.”
“What? But I’m in uniform!”
“Makes no difference.” Charlie shrugged. “You’re from the West—that’s all that matters.” He glanced out the open door of the empty boxcar. “The sooner we get out of this place, the better.”
On the way out of Poland, they were waved across the border without anyone climbing on board. But as she watched the Russian soldiers at the station recede into the distance, Kitty couldn’t help worrying about the DPs now heading toward Warsaw. What if the rumors were true? What if, in leaving Seidenmühle, they were going out of the frying pan and into the fire? For some of them, she thought, it would be a price worth paying: those who were lucky enough to find their loved ones would no doubt be prepared to put up with any amount of hardship, as long as they remained reunited. She thought of what might lie ahead on her own journey. She was going back to a city she remembered as a series of snapshots—a city she would barely recognize if the destruction she’d witnessed in Munich was anything to go by. And yet, if by some miracle her parents were there somewhere . . . She would sacrifice just about anything to be with them again.
Kitty and Charlie left the train at Brno. His fellow GIs whistled and cheered as they waved them off. Kitty felt her cheeks burning. She and Charlie had done nothing to suggest that there was anything going on between them. And yet the others clearly thought there was. Perhaps it was because he had been so attentive during the trip—always looking out for her, bringing her things to eat and drink. At the Victory Dance back in August, he’d held her very close during the last waltz, but nothing else had happened. She hoped he hadn’t been bragging about her to his friends. Or that he was hoping for something more now that they were going off alone together. Because however much she liked him, she couldn’t think about that right now. And if he really cared about her, he ought to understand why.
They had a long wait for the train to Vienna. There was no regular service—all departures were controlled by the military. They sat on the platform, drinking something that looked like coffee but tasted of nothing Kitty could identify. The drink was just about bearable if she dunked one of the sweet Czech pastries into it.
“What time do you think we’ll get there?” She glanced at Charlie, who was brushing crumbs off the lapel of his uniform.
“Probably not until this evening.”
“Will it be too late to go looking for Clara?”
“It could be difficult after dark. The problem is the whole city is divided into military zones. I was looking at a map before we left Bavaria: the district the train takes us to—and the area where Clara lives—is in the Russian zone. It wouldn’t be a good idea to go wandering about there at night.”
Kitty’s cup was halfway between the saucer and her mouth. The bite of pastry she’d just swallowed felt like a lump in her gullet.
“Don’t worry,” he said. “It’ll be okay as long as we wait until morning. We just have to get across to the American zone and check into the hotel.”
She nodded. He’d told her they could get rooms at the Hotel Regina—the place the US Army had taken over as their headquarters in Vienna. The name of the street was familiar to her. She remembered her father pointing out the big Bank of Austria building as they’d traveled through that part of the city by tram.
It was hard to imagine the Vienna she’d grown up in now divided among the Americans, the Russians, the British, and the French. If Clara’s address was in the Russian zone, that meant Kitty’s old neighborhood probably was, too. The thought of having to get past men like the one who’d tried to arrest her at the station in Poland made her stomach flip over.
“We won’t be able to get right into the city on the train,” Charlie went on. “The station at the end of the line was bombed, so we have to get off somewhere on the outskirts. I guess there’ll be taxis around.”
“There used to be trams,” Kitty said. “I wonder if they’re still running?” It seemed a forlorn hope. The bombs that had ruined so many buildings had no doubt ruptured tramlines, too. The train station where they should have gotten off was just a short walk to the place where her parents’ shop had been—and to the street where Clara now lived. It was both tantalizing and utterly frustrating that she couldn’t go there tonight. She told herself she would just have to be patient. What was one more day when she’d waited so many years? But right now, sitting on this dreary platform, watching—hoping—for a train to come, it seemed like an eternity.