“Bed,” she said. “Not so loud, you’ll wake Erich.” She nodded at the couch, where the boy lay curled up under a sheet. Brian’s sleeping arrangements answered, in shifts.
“What about you?”
“You want me to share the bed?” she said, unexpectedly short, lighting a new cigarette from the stub of the other. “Maybe I should go to Hannelore. To live this way-” She looked up. “He says you won’t let him leave. He wants to go to Kransberg.”
“He will. I just need him for one more day.” He brought one of the table chairs over and sat next to her so they could talk in murmurs. “One more day. Then it’ll be over.”
She tapped the cigarette in the tray, moving the ash around. “He thinks you took advantage of me.”
“Well, I did,” he said, trying to break her mood.
“But he forgives me,” she said. “He wants to forgive me.”
“What did you tell him?”
“It doesn’t matter. He doesn’t listen. I was weak, but he forgives me-that’s how it is for him. So you see, I’m forgiven. All that time, before the war, when I thought- And in the end, so easy.”
“Does he know that? Before the war?”
“No. If he thought that Peter- You didn’t tell him, did you? You must leave him that.”
“No, I didn’t tell him.”
“We must leave him that,” she said, brooding again. “What a mess we’ve made for ourselves. And now he forgives me.”
“Let him. It’s easier for him this way. Nobody’s fault.”
“No, yours. It’s you he doesn’t forgive. He thinks you want to ruin him. That’s the word he uses. And poison me against him. Anything crazy he can think of. So that’s the thanks you get for saving him.” She leaned her head back against the chair and closed her eyes, blowing smoke up into the air. “He wants me to go to America.”
“With him?”
“They can take the wives. It’s a chance for me-to leave all this.”
“If they go.”
“We can start over. That’s his idea. Start over. So that’s what you saved him for. Maybe you’re sorry now.”
“No. It was in my cards, remember?”
She smiled, her eyes still closed. “The rescuer. And now here we are, all your strays. What are you going to do with us?”
“Put you to bed, for a start. You’re talking in your sleep. Come on, we’ll move Erich, he won’t mind.”
“No, leave him. I’m too tired to sleep.” She turned and looked at the boy. “I sent one of the girls to see Fleischman. He asks, can we keep him a little longer? The camps are so crowded. You don’t mind? He’s no trouble. And you know, Emil doesn’t like to talk in front of him, so it’s good that way. It gives me some peace.”
“What about Texas?”
“They want babies only. Before they become too German, maybe,” she said, more dispirited than angry. She rubbed out the cigarette. “All your strays. You take us in, then you’re responsible. You know, he thinks you’re going to take him to his mother. What do I say to that? After prison, maybe?”
“Not even then,” Jake said quietly. “She killed herself last night.”
“Oh.” A wounded sound, like a faint yelp. “Oh, she did that?” She glanced again at the couch, then down into her lap, her eyes filling. Jake reached for her, but she waved him away, covering her eyes with her hand. “So stupid. I didn’t even know her. Someone from the office. Don’t look. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
“You’re tired, that’s all.”
“But to do that. Oh, how much longer like this? Boiling water, just to drink. The children, living like animals. Now another one dead. And this is the peace. It was better during the war.”
“No, it wasn’t,” Jake said softly, pulling out a handkerchief and handing it to her.
“No,” she said, blowing her nose. “I’m just feeling sorry for myself. Boiling water, my god. What does that matter?” Another sniffle, then she wiped her face, the shaking subsiding. She leaned back, drawing a breath. “You know, after the Russians there were many-like her. I never cried then. You saw the bodies in the street. Who knew how they died? My friend Annelise? I found her. Poison. Like Eva Braun. Her mouth was burned from it. And what had she done? Hide until some Russian got her. Maybe more than one. There was blood there.” She pointed to her lap. “You didn’t cry then, there were so many. So why now? Maybe I thought it was over, that time.” She gave her face another wipe, then handed back the handkerchief. “What are you going to tell him?”
“Nothing. His mother died in the war, that’s all.”
“In the war,” she said vaguely, looking at the sleeping boy. “How can you leave a child alone?”
“She didn’t. She left him to me.”
Lena turned to him. “You can’t send him to the DPs.”
“I know,” he said, touching her hand. “I’ll think of something. Just give me a little time.”
“While you arrange things,” she said, leaning back again. “All our lives. Emil’s too?”
“Emil can arrange his own life. I’m not worried about Emil.”
