“If she keeps to the schedule she’s been on, then yes. But with the way the war is going, who knows. It could be longer. You need to think not just of her now, but of the baby growing inside you.”
The baby.Mybaby. Mine and William’s.
I looked at Paulina with desperation in my eyes. “I can’t give up. Not yet.”
“We’ll give it two more weeks,” she said. “If Catrin hasn’t come, you must reach out to your contact. For the sake ofyourchild, Gisela, not the one you feel guilty about leaving behind so many years ago.”
I was about to say more, but then my mother screeched my name from her bedroom, startling us both. She didn’t often wake this early and it made me wonder if this was it. By the look on Paulina’s face, I could see she was thinking the same thing.
“I’ll go,” she said, starting for the door.
But I placed my hand on her arm to stop her. “She’ll just insist you get me. You know how she is. It’s fine. You start breakfast, I’ll call if I need you.”
The room stank of the bile I found spewed across the bedside table, her glass of water, and the lamp that was rarely turned on.
“Mutter?”I said, my voice low. Her back was to me, her spine protruding grotesquely through her layers of clothes. It seemed impossible that she’d lost even more weight since I’d arrived, but where she used to be able to walk across the room with help, she now had to be carried, her body a mere skeleton, her skin stretched so thin it looked like it might break.
When she didn’t respond, I walked to the other side of the bed and checked the pulse at her wrist, staring down at the veins and tendons running up the inside of her arm, and realizing for the first time that she wore no jewelry.
Her pulse was weak but there, and I noticed that despite her many layers and the fire burning in the fireplace across from her, she was shivering. I wanted to walk away. Pretend I hadn’t noticed. She had never lifted so much as a finger to help me as a child, instead leaving me for the nanny to deal with. She had humiliated me, abused me both verbally and physically. Neglected me. And never, not for one day, had she made me feel loved or accepted.
And yet, I could almost forgive that if those were her only sins. But they were not. She and my father had donated millions to the Nazi Party. It was that which they gave their time and attention to, throwing parties, fundraising, and attending function after function. The destruction of a community was what they’d chosen to focus on—not their own flesh and blood.
But would I be no better if I stood here, staring down at a dying woman, and did nothing to help comfort her?
An animal-like groan escaped my throat as I pushed myself to my feet. I hated her for making me question my feelings. The right and wrong of them. I owed her nothing. And the painful, ugly death she was dying was exactly what she deserved.
Exhaling angrily, I strode to the bathroom for the cleaning supplies Paulina kept handy in a bucket. Grabbing a bottle of cleaner and a rag, I entered the bedroom again and gagged at the smell that seemed stronger in this part of the room where it had no place to escape.
Not caring about the cold that would rush in, I swept open the curtains covering the nearest window and threw it open, inhaling at the rush of cool, clean air, the nausea building in my throat subsiding.
“Oh! Lena, no!”
I turned to see Paulina rushing in and grabbing one of the extra blankets from the foot of the bed. She unfolded it and threw it over my mother before hurrying across the room and slamming the window closed.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“It stinks,” I said. “I was going to be sick.”
“The cold will kill her,” she said and I stared back at her with unblinking eyes.
Her own eyes filled with tears and her shoulders slumped.
“Give it to me,” she said, reaching for the cleaner. “Go downstairs. Breakfast is ready.”
Shame filled me. Not because of my mother, but because of Paulina, who had spent the last several years caring for my mother. She had sacrificed and endured, and if my mother lived long enough, she would no doubt put her body in front of her employer’s to protect it should the Allies take the city. I knew she also carried guilt because of these things. For tending to a woman who had contributed to the imprisonment and deaths of thousands while hiding her own beliefs in order to protect and watch over Catrin and me until she felt she had no other choice but to stay.
“I’m sorry, Paulina,” I whispered.
She sniffed and gave me a sad smile.
“Go,” she said. “Before the food gets cold.”
Two weeks later I was sitting at the kitchen table eating soup and what was nearly our last slice of bread.
“I’ll go out today,” Paulina had said, pushing the bread toward me when I’d argued we should save it for my mother.
“What if the baker doesn’t have any more?”
