K is for the KinoTeatr, where I take you when Mama needs rest, where we sit in the balcony and count the hats of the men below, where we watched the inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, because Mama needs rest, so we go to the KinoTeatr, because it has a balcony, where we watched the Inauguration of Franklin Delano Roosevelt because Mama needed rest.
“KinoTeatr?” Josef repeats.
I snap back.
Damnit. Damnit. Shit and piss. My face flushes a deep magenta as I realize with complete horror that I’ve said at least some of that out loud. I wonder how much.
“KinoTeatr?” he asks again.
“Sorry,” I mumble.
“What were you reciting?”
“Nothing.” But obviously, it wasn’t nothing. “It’s just an alphabet game my brother and I used to play. A name for every letter. I don’t know why I said it out loud. Sometimes my brain gets stuck.”
“You said that when I met you,” he says. “It was one of the first things you said—that your mind must have been playing tricks on you.”
I flush again, even deeper red if possible. “It’s—it’s hard to explain,” I stammer. “Sometimes timelines get mixed up in my head. Or I’ll think I remember something that didn’t happen, or I’ll forget something that did. I’m better, though. They wouldn’t have discharged me from the hospital if I wasn’t better, and I’m still getting better every day.”
Even though I’m trying to put Josef at ease, I’m realizing, with fragile pride, that the sentiment is true. I have gotten better. I arrived in Foehrenwald two days ago, and before just now, my brain has gotten stuck only once: when I watched Josef get in that fight. I don’t know whether it’s because I’m in a new place that’s not haunted by memories or because I’m on my own, but until now, I managed not to act crazy in front of Josef, or anyone else for that matter. I made him laugh. He saw me be quick-witted. He saw me be a person. “I’m getting better every day,” I repeat.
“You don’t owe me an explanation,” he cuts me off indifferently.
I wince a little at his nonchalance. “I’m sorry. I apologize for boring you with my health.”
“All I said was, you don’t owe me an explanation.”
“Well, I don’t owe you anything, apparently.” This, I meant to sound like a joke, but it comes out caustic, too. He looks at me quizzically. “What you said yesterday,” I explain. “That you didn’t want us to feel beholden to each other.”
“That’s true.”
His answer doesn’t sound as though he’s trying to joke. His tone of voice is serious, which I find both reassuring and frustrating for reasons that are hard to articulate. I shouldn’t want to feel beholden to him, after all. I should be glad he’s specified that I don’t owe him anything. But at the same time, I just did something strange in front of him—I recited something odd about an old movie house—and told him I’d been in a hospital. Shouldn’t he want an explanation? Even if I didn’t want to give one, shouldn’t he be concerned or at least curious?
“The horses. How did you learn to work with them?” I ask now, trying to find a thread from before.
“I grew up working with horses,” he says.
“Did you grow up on a farm?”
“No. I grew up in a city.”
“A city in Germany?”
He hesitates a bit. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“Where I’m from, the people who still drove wagons were mostly the farmers who came into the city on market days.”
“It wasn’t a farm.” It’s clear he means that to be the end of his answer, his eyes are back on the road, and I’m still trying to put my finger on what it is about Josef and this conversation that’s throwing me so off-kilter.
“I’m sorry if I’m—I’m really not crazy,” I tell him.
“So you said. I just prefer to keep to myself.”
“Because I know I was odd the first day we met, and if you’re afraid of me, then—”
“My family had stables,” he interrupts. “All right? That’s how I know horses. At our summer house, where we would go on holidays. I took riding lessons, and the groundskeeper used to let me drive the wagon when he did chores.” He turns to me and raises an eyebrow. “Happy? I’m not afraid of you or worried about you. I don’t think you’re going to tear off your clothes and run screaming down the road or do something else insane. My family had stables, and I used to help the groundskeeper.”
This is the first interaction I can remember having in months where someone didn’t ask if I was okay. That’s what was confusing to me. That’s what made me feel strange and off-kilter. Josef is responding to my prying questions as though they’re legitimately prying questions, not like they’re symptoms that my brain isn’t working.
Josef is not acting like I’m something that needs to be worried about.
Mentally, I fill in the blanks of what he’s just said. The “house” where he went on holidays must be a grand estate. Only the wealthiest families would keep stables and employ groundskeepers. And his family had a house in the city, too.
“The summer house sounds nice,” I say.
“It was nice. Summer was my favorite time of the year.”
“Why don’t you—” I start to ask.
“Why don’t I what?”
Why don’t you go home, is what I was about to say. Nazis didn’t burn down estates. They occupied them and preserved them; they loved the art. Josef could have tried to go home. But there’s such a defensiveness in his response that I back off without finishing my sentence. “Why don’t you like to eat with other people in the dining hall?”
He shrugs. “I told you. I just prefer to keep to myself. Not all of us in Foehrenwald hope to make new friends. Some of us are trying to leave as soon as we can. Like you. You’re going to get your brother, and then you’ll probably want to go back home and try to run your family’s factory.”
I bite the inside of my lip to hide a smile. I didn’t tell him about my family’s factory; he must have asked Chaim or Mrs. Yost.
“Look for him,” I correct.
“What?”
“You said we were going to get my brother. But I’m going with you to look for him.”
“You don’t know that he’s at the Kloster Indersdorf?”
“I have reason to believe it’s a logical place to start looking for him.”
“Then I hope he’s there,” Josef says. “And that he wants to be found.”
The last half of his sentence catches me off guard. “Why wouldn’t he want to be found?”
Josef keeps his eyes on the road. “Lots of reasons. He could have painful memories of before the war. He could want to start completely over. He could decide that’s easier to do if he’s not around you.”
The back of my neck bristles. I shift a little on the wooden bench. “Of course he wants to be found. He’s a little boy.”
Josef presses his lips together.
“Josef, of course he wants to be found,” I repeat. “Why would you say something like that?”