“But when did you tell him that you would find him again?” Josef asks. “What is your memory of that last time?”
“I don’t know.” The laugh that bubbles from my mouth this time is throaty and wild. I’m afraid to meet his eyes. This is the first time I’ve said any of this out loud. Not to nurses, not to the nothing-girls. I haven’t told anyone that I spent the war vowing to find my brother, and I can’t actually remember the last time we said goodbye.
“I don’t know how to answer your question. Because I actually can’t remember the last time I saw Abek. I’ve been trying. For months, I’ve been really trying. But it’s like my brain won’t let me. I remember goodbyes, but I don’t think they’re right. In my dreams, all the time, though, I keep seeing new goodbyes. I keep inventing them. There’s a block. There’s a big wall where that memory should be.”
“Why do you think there’s a block?” he asks. “In your memory, why do you think there’s a block?”
I swallow. My hands start to shake. “When we got to the camp—the chimneys were right there. The death was right there. Do you understand? I saw a soldier rip a baby from its mother’s arms and slam it against a truck because it wouldn’t stop crying. It went limp and crumpled like a piece of lace. I think—I can’t remember saying goodbye to Abek because I can’t stand to remember that day. I can’t stand to remember any more minutes of that day.”
I reach up and touch my face. It’s wet. I’ve started crying. The memory I’ve spoken out loud has dislodged something, and now instead of feeling foggy, I feel like I’m leaking, snot in my nose, tears on my cheeks.
“But what if the clue to finding my brother is in something I’m forgetting from that day? What if we made a new plan, or a new meeting place, and now I’ve forgotten it? What if I can’t find my brother because I can’t remember those things? What if I’m a terrible, terrible sister?”
Silently, Josef pulls a handkerchief from his pocket and hands it to me. He turns away while I clean my face, and he’s still facing away while he says the next part. “I don’t think that anything you did during the war because you were trying to survive could make you bad.”
His voice is throaty and full of emotion, more than I’ve heard the entire ride. His voice breaks on the last word. I see his hand dart up to his eye, swipe quickly. Stunned, I realize he’s crying, too, or close to it. For once, I’m drawn out of my own grief and into someone else’s.
“Josef. Do you have… experience with that?” I don’t know how else to phrase it; I don’t know exactly what I’m asking.
He draws in a breath, low and wavering. “I have experience with feeling guilty for the things I did to survive.”
A beat, two. We sit next to each other on this stump, on this gravelly dirt road in the middle of Germany.
“We should go now,” he says finally. “I’m sure you want to get to the Kloster Indersdorf.”
Josef puts his hands on his knees, readying himself, and the dirt crunches under his feet as he stands. In front of me now, he looks smaller than he did a few hours ago, and when he offers me his hand to help me rise to my own feet, I feel like I’m smaller, too.
WITH THE SUN RESTING IN THE MIDDLE OF THE SKY AND sweat pooling at my collarbone, Josef says we’re getting close. Houses pop up nearer one another; we’re no longer the only wagon on the road. Josef told me the Kloster Indersdorf is in the boundaries of a town, but when we slow to a stop near a building on the central square, I’m still surprised at how in the center of town it is: this displaced-persons camp for children is one old building, three stories of white stone taking up a full city block. At the far end of the side facing us, two square spires rise several more stories into the sky.
The windows aren’t clear glass but stained: At the top of a steeple, I can see a cross.
“This is the right place?” I ask doubtfully. “It looks like a church.”
“It’s a convent, actually. The nuns don’t run the camp, but they still live here. Why don’t you go to the door? I’ll tie the horses and then meet you.”
I climb out of the wagon, straightening my dress and smoothing my hair. “Zofia?” Josef calls after me. I turn, and he gives me a faint smile. “I hope he’s there. I really hope he’s there.”
I feel shy, somehow, going in the ornate main door, so I walk around the side until I find a smaller, plainer one marked OFFICE with a brass plaque. I knock twice, no answer, but as I’m raising my hand a third time, it swings open. I’m met by a woman in a black habit, a white veil covering her hair.
“Pardon me,” I say to the nun. “I was looking for the director?”
“Unfortunately, you’ve missed her. I’m Sister Therese. Did you have an appointment?”
“No, but I can wait. Will she be back soon?”
She shakes her head, apologizing. “A family emergency. She’ll be a few days at least.”
There was a convent not far from my school growing up, and those nuns all seemed to be a hundred years old, wrinkled as raisins. But I can see a lock of curly brown hair escaping from the corner of Sister Therese’s habit. Her cheeks are full, and on the shoes peeking out of the bottom of her habit, her shoelaces, impossibly, are untied.
“Maybe you can help me,” I try. “I’m looking for—”
Before I can finish my sentence, though, I’m interrupted by a knock. I look around, confused as to how there can be a knock at the door when I’m still standing in the doorway myself. But then I realize there’s another door behind Sister Therese in the back of the office, which must lead to the interior of the convent.
She beckons me inside and points to a chair. “Just a moment,” she calls toward the other entrance. The handle is already turning; I hear muffled giggling on the other side. Sister Therese sighs as she undoes the latch. “They all know when I’m in charge, and that I’m a soft touch. All right, you noisemakers. What do you want?”
The door flies open. Two boys, gangly twelve- or thirteen-year-olds, burst inside, and suddenly I’m struck mute.
They’re not Abek. They’re so clearly not Abek. Neither one looks a bit like him; their colorings are wrong. Not Abek, I tell myself immediately. But they could so easily have been.
“Sister,” the one in front says, the one with a dense moss of hair hanging low on his forehead. “Sorry, Sister, we didn’t know you had company. Frau Fischer keeps a bottle opener in her desk, and we came to borrow it.”
“Which drawer?”
“The top one.”
Sister Therese opens the drawer, rustling through pen cartridges and paper clips before she produces a small metal opener. Only as she’s handing it to the boy does she hesitate. “What’s this for, Lemuel?”
The boys exchange a conspiratorial glance, and then the silent one produces a bottle from his pocket. It’s curved glass and filled with a dark-colored liquid that appears to be fizzing. “It’s called a Coca-Cola,” he explains. “One of the American soldiers gave it to us. You can drink one sip, and your thirst is quenched all day.”