The Rabbit Girls

by Anna Ellory

Faces.

  People.

  She turns each page, scared at what she will find. Scared of what she is looking for. She looks at every one, at every face. Looking for Dad and for Mum. But after a few pages, she feels sick. Each person was a mother or a father, a brother, sister, son or daughter. She has never looked at them this way before and each page she turns makes her feel worse. Her head is spinning, yet she doesn’t look away. Just trying to absorb something that cannot be comprehended.

  ‘Excuse me.’ A woman appears at her shoulder. The same woman who was at the desk. ‘You’re sitting on my coat.’

  Miriam springs up out of the chair, apologising profusely.

  ‘That’s okay,’ the woman says. ‘Hard stuff.’ She nods to the book on the table.

  ‘I’m just . . .’ Miriam starts, but cannot finish the sentence.

  ‘You just come over the Wall?’ the woman asks.

  ‘Oh no, I . . . I . . .’ Miriam blunders. The woman has cropped hair, white but with some blonde of youth. Her skin is bronzed and she has a hard look.

  ‘I was one of the first over,’ she says. ‘I lived in Leipzig, I thought I’d see what all the fuss was about.’ She straightens her white top under the deep-pink cardigan and Miriam sees a beautiful red beaded necklace that gets tucked into the top as she adjusts.

  ‘Fuss?’ Miriam asks.

  ‘Yes, the West is Best attitude . . .’ The woman wears no make-up but looks strong and healthy. Miriam pales in contrast and pulls at her sleeves, scratching at the skin along her inner wrist as she crosses her arms. ‘Not sure I believe it. This library is built on lies, built on the back of the Nazis’ pillage. These books are stolen from the people.’ The intensity of her gaze makes Miriam look away to the book on the table. She picks it up and puts it back on the shelf.

  The woman continues: ‘It’s hidden away, forgotten. All of it. As Stalin said, one death is a tragedy, one hundred thousand a statistic and six million . . .’

  ‘Six million,’ Miriam says to fill the silence.

  ‘Indeed. Anyway, I’m sorry, I will leave you to it.’ And before Miriam can say anything else the woman walks away.

  Miriam looks at the shelves and shelves and shelves, wondering how many books were in this library. She drags her fingers across the spines; how many homes must these books have had before landing here?

  She walks down aisle after aisle, past students studying at tables that run along the width of the room in rows. As she passes, many look up. Their glasses bigger than their faces, they resemble baby owls blinking in the daylight. Others remain bent double, their focus on their notebooks. Their studious faces remind her of her father at his desk.

  She thinks back to the images in the book and a curl of anger balls in her stomach. He must have been rounded up, put in a cattle wagon and then . . . As she looks around she thinks if every book was a person . . . But the sheer volume is incomprehensible.

  The library is too big, and now, all she wants is to go home.

  6

  MIRIAM

  The stale smell of wet coats and damp people rises in a condensing fog. She wipes the window with her sleeve and contemplates removing her coat, but her entire body is fatigued. She allows herself to be rocked as the bus moves along. Her thoughts lost on the faces and the stripes and something intangibly hollow about the way they looked into the camera, almost begging, but angry, looking for . . . something: recognition, or maybe just a record.

  Dad has a number. He was there too. But he survived. And in her mind, she sees him twisted up and on the floor. Calling out for her. Shouting her name. Needing her. Sweat trickles down her back, and she shifts impatiently in her seat as the bus struggles its way through traffic.

  She starts chewing the skin along her fingernail and picking at it. The shopping bag twisted and twisted in her hands. As the bus chatters, Miriam counts the stops for home. She has five stops to go, when the same woman from the library gets on. Miriam shifts to make space for her and smiles. ‘Hello again.’

  ‘Hi,’ the woman says and Miriam returns to looking out the window as the traffic stalls around the main junction to Brandenburg Gate. There are so many people milling around she can hardly see the Wall. She watches people with their cameras taking pictures. Once a concrete wall, now a tourist attraction, and the thought makes her sad. History made into show.

  Miriam puts all her concentration on keeping her hands still in her lap. On breathing in and out. And not thinking about her father.

  Four stops until home.

  ‘Did you find what you were looking for?’ the woman asks.

  Miriam shakes her head. ‘I don’t really know where to begin.’

  ‘Something in particular?’

  ‘Sort of, but not really. I just . . .’ Miriam shifts her weight closer to the window under the scrutiny of the woman next to her.

  ‘I’m Eva.’

  ‘Miriam,’ she says, shaking Eva’s warm hand.

  The bus jerks to a halt and the driver swears loudly. A giggle runs through the bus and both Miriam and Eva smile.

  ‘To be honest, I’m not sure what I am looking for. I feel really stupid that I don’t know what they went through.’

  ‘The victims of the Holocaust?’

  A feeling drifts over Miriam like a haze that won’t lift. Victims? How could her father have been a victim? Tears fall unbidden and, as Eva sits and gives her the space to cry, a calm comes over Miriam, her hands relax and she says, ‘I found a number on my father. I think he was in a concentration camp. I suppose I wanted to find out more, but . . .’

  There’s a very long pause in which the bus stops and people exit and enter in a jumble of bodies.

  Three stops.

  When the bus rattles on again, Eva says gently, ‘Only Auschwitz tattooed.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘Your father would have been in Auschwitz at some point if he has a tattoo,’ she says.

  ‘Oh God.’

  ‘No, no God.’

  The bus is full, yet more people mill on to it, despite the lack of seats. They stand and sway as the bus heaves along.

  Two stops.

  ‘Auschwitz,’ Miriam repeats.

  ‘The books in the library will have some details about Auschwitz for you, if that’s really what you want to know.’

  Miriam looks up.

  ‘I don’t know. It’s just so horrific,’ Miriam says, and feels Eva’s hand on her shoulder. Tears fall from worn-out eyes. They keep falling and Miriam cannot find a way to make them stop. Eva rustles in her coat pocket and hands Miriam her handkerchief. It is grey with lace along the outside, folded neatly into a square with a blue flower on its front.

  Auschwitz.

  ‘Eva?’ she asks as the bus slows. ‘How could my father have been in Auschwitz? I mean . . . he isn’t Jewish, nor was our family.’

  ‘Not all prisoners were Jewish.’ She perches on the end of the chair, her feet in the aisle. ‘In fact, the camps were homes for asocials, criminals, political activists, gypsies. You name it. If they didn’t agree to Hitler’s regime, they went in a camp.’

  ‘Would they have stayed together? My parents?’ she probes. ‘They were married before the war.’

  ‘No. In all circumstances men and women were separated.’

  ‘My mother never spoke of any of this. She didn’t have a tattoo though,’ Miriam says with certainty.

  ‘There were other camps. Ones that didn’t tattoo their prisoners. Camps specifically designed for women.’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know anything about this.’

  ‘That’s okay. Where is the tattoo?’ she asks.

  Miriam looks confused.

  ‘On his body,’ Eva clarifies.

  ‘His wrist.’

  ‘That means it would have been after 1942, they stamped the tattoo on the chest before that.’ Eva sounds so matter-of-fact it makes her head spin.

  ‘They did?’

  Eva nods and pushes the arms of the chair to raise h
erself to her feet. ‘This is my stop.’

  She has learnt more about her father’s past in a short bus journey than she had in her entire life to date. She wants to thank Eva, but cannot find any words, so just looks up at the woman. Her eyes are bright and unframed and Eva, aware she is being studied, smiles and offers her hand.

  Miriam in confusion passes her the handkerchief back. Eva pockets it and walks off the bus. She lifts her hand as if to wave from the pavement as the bus blunders on.

  One stop.

  The palace, and the River Spree is on her left as the bus swooshes by, the evergreen trees painting a striking contrast to the grey canvas around them.

  HENRYK

  Exactly a week after I left the university I headed to the Palace Gardens. Completely absorbed in my own troubles and weary beyond thought, I didn’t see Frieda until I had almost walked past her. She was sitting on a park bench overlooking the Spree, in the shade of tall evergreen trees, just off the main path. She held a cup in her hand and another was by her feet. She wore a sky-blue dress and her brown leather shoes. Her hair was tied up, plaited, and weaved around itself into a knot. She relaxed into the back of the bench and the pine, the grass and the hint of flowers in the air made me feel dizzy.

  ‘How did you know I would be here?’ I asked.

  ‘I didn’t.’ She looked at me until it was my turn to blush.

  ‘Sorry, I was being presumptuous. That one is not for me, is it?’ I said, indicating the second cup on the floor. She shook her head. ‘My head is a little full and . . .’ I continued, ‘I’m not making sense. I’ll leave you to your . . .’ My words drifted off.

  ‘That’s okay. Here.’ She offered me the second cup. ‘You can join me, if you like. Felix seems to have forgotten our arrangement.’

  I took the cup, the one that hadn’t touched her lips, and she poured coffee from a flask into it. I tried to shake my thoughts into something cohesive. Admiring a beautiful woman was fine, slavering over a beautiful woman like an ape was not. She drank from her cup, her lips full and wide, and when she took the cup away, she smiled as I sat next to her.

  ‘It’s coffee,’ she said as if I had looked uncertain.

  ‘Thanks.’ I took a gulp. It was warm and strong.

  ‘What happened to Felix?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s off doing his own thing.’

  ‘You two are a couple though?’

  She took a considered sip of her drink and I watched her lips close over the rim again. She took the cup away.

  ‘You’re staring,’ she said.

  I cleared my throat and caught her eye. I watched her lips part as she brought the cup to them again. She smiled, lowered the cup and licked her bottom lip deliberately. She laughed, a boom of pleasure, and caught up in its contagion I laughed along with her.

  ‘Couldn’t resist,’ she said.

  ‘Neither could I.’ Then, desperately trying to gather back some clarity, I said, ‘You were talking about Felix.’ I turned away from her to face the Spree and, across the bank, leaves were emerging from skeletal branches. Leaning back into the bench, we were side by side. Close, but not touching.

  ‘I was? Felix and I look like we are together. We are good friends. But for all appearances, looking like a couple is mutually beneficial.’

  ‘Why? If you don’t mind my asking?’

  ‘Parents. Both of ours. So being together keeps our parents’ “plans” at bay.’ I must have looked puzzled. ‘Marriage,’ she clarified.

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘Did your parents push you into marriage too?’

  ‘No, my parents died when I was a boy. They were political activists after the war and were at rallies or marches more than they were at home. Although she never said so, my grandmother was ashamed of my mum, but she loved me. I was born somewhere in their war between love and duty,’ I said, nerves turning my thoughts into speech without pause. ‘I don’t remember them. It was my grandmother who wanted me married, but she wasn’t so keen on Emilie.’

  ‘Because . . .?’ she prompted.

  ‘My grandmother was . . . conservative, Emilie isn’t.’

  ‘Ah, but you married her anyway?’

  ‘I did. It’s been eight years now and . . . she is . . .’

  ‘You love her?’

  ‘Very much.’ The truth made it more bearable, to be saying this to the most intriguing person I had ever met. Sitting next to Frieda didn’t diminish how much I loved Emilie, nor did she cease to exist.

  ‘I’m sorry your parents are being difficult, it must be hard for you,’ I said, trying to turn the focus away from myself.

  ‘I think they are worried I’ll end up like my Aunt Maya. A dyke.’

  I laughed, but she looked unhappy. ‘Is that the reason for Felix?’

  ‘To hide my sexuality? No. His? Maybe.’ I must have looked shocked. ‘Don’t tell me you are as conservative as your grandmother?’

  I laughed. ‘No. What happened to Maya?’

  ‘We were so close. She was a linguist and she taught me everything.’

  ‘So that’s where the languages come from?’ I asked.

  ‘Yes. Aunt Maya travelled and returned with language; I was a willing student. But they killed her, I’m sure of it.’

  ‘Your parents?’ I said, alarmed. My mind faltering, trying to make sense of what she was saying. She was close to me. Next to me. When she lifted her cup, she brushed my arm with hers.

  ‘No.’ She turned on the bench so we were face to face again. ‘The “cleansing”. She would have been arrested long ago; she stood up for what she believed in. I wish my family would do the same. Cowards, the lot of them.’

  ‘Everyone deals with times like these in different ways,’ I said, trying to be supportive.

  ‘Sure, but I’d have more respect for them if they had some backbone.’

  ‘I’m sorry about your aunt and your parents.’

  ‘I’m sorry about yours.’

  ‘Surely your parents can see you’re too young to marry.’

  ‘Am I? You are married.’

  I nodded. ‘I suppose I must have been your age when I married Emilie.’

  ‘What’s your wife like?’

  ‘Small, dark, sharp tongue and even sharper mind,’ I said with a smile.

  ‘How did she take your news? Being fired?’

  ‘Not well.’ The understatement seemed hilarious and I laughed.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, laughing too.

  ‘Don’t be, it’s me who will be sorry.’

  Her laugh gravitated towards me like a hug and I instantly felt better. As if the depth of her laugh had taken some of the weight off my shoulders.

  A light shone in her eyes, like an incredible force pulling me closer. Towards those eyes and those lips. Our laughter stopped.

  I placed my cup on the ground and raised her chin with my fingertips as I had before, though this time the jolt didn’t make me jump back in alarm. I saw myself in her eyes. And there was something else there. Something I couldn’t understand. Her skin under my fingertips grew warm, an electrostatic wave of heat that charged me somehow, as I tried to understand if what was happening in me was happening to her.

  ‘What are you doing?’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t know.’ But as I said it I did know, I knew as sure as my heart was beating. This was something new. Something unfounded in me reflected in her. Something I could not walk away from.

  She was framed in my eyes. The scenery obliterated by the contours of her face. I moved my fingertips across her jaw, her pulse jumped as I brushed past her neck and cupped her face in my hand.

  She had a tiny mole almost hidden behind the curve of her upper lip.

  I watched her reaction as I tilted my head towards her, she didn’t move. She questioned me with her eyes, but her lips parted the tiniest amount and her bottom lip was moist. I moved towards her mouth, capturing her top lip in both of mine.

  I shifted back to where I could se
e her eyes again. As my hand skimmed the back of her head, into the nape of her neck, I pulled her forward and she melted into me.

  She brushed both her lips along mine, a touch feather-light on the surface, but it resonated deep in me.

  It was a power that eradicated any other thought.

  Her lips on my lips.

  She pulled away first and a heat crawled through my limbs, to keep her close to me. I moved in to kiss her again, but she caught my eye and somehow shut me out, so I shifted my hand around her shoulders and drew her into my arm. We faced the park together.

  ‘You are married,’ she said.

  My heart buzzed in my throat. But when she said nothing more I swallowed.

  ‘The country is at war,’ I countered.

  ‘What does that have to do with anything?’ She slipped out of my embrace.

  ‘They are facts, are they not?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘A fact is an absolute,’ I said.

  ‘What am I then?’

  I paused for a nanosecond, because I knew, instantly. ‘Frieda, you are light itself.’

  Our eyes connected and although she didn’t say it, I could see her thinking, and she flushed. I wanted to kiss her again. I wanted to touch her.

  ‘I have to go back to the university,’ she said, getting up. ‘Or I’ll be late.’

  I stood up with her and tried to arrange my thoughts cohesively. She smoothed her dress and put the cups back in her bag. ‘Thanks for the coffee,’ I said.

  ‘I enjoyed talking to you, Henryk.’

  Goosebumps travelled up my arms and tingled over my neck as she said my name.

  ‘Maybe again?’ I offered. ‘Same place?’

  ‘Same time?’

  ‘Tomorrow?’

  She smiled her assent and left.

  7

  MIRIAM

  ‘Auschwitz,’ she says. Leaving the shopping in the kitchen, she offers her father water and moves him as he rests.

  She spends a long time washing her hands, thinking of the word, ‘Auschwitz’. Three fingernails bleed by the time she has finished and she feels sick from the pain of the water.

  Exhausted beyond words she pulls a blanket over her knees in the chair and falls into a dead sleep.