I jumped at the sudden noise of Catrin’s chair scraping against the floor as she slid it back and stood.
“Shall we take our glasses of wine upstairs and visit with Mother?”
I had no idea what she had planned, but feared what she might do or who she might call should I say no. I nodded and stood, then picked up my wineglass with a trembling hand and followed her from the room.
40
I was surprisedto see the bedside lamps on, and realized Paulina must’ve turned them on when Catrin and I were finishing up dinner.
“Good evening, Mother,” Catrin said, taking a seat in one of the armchairs near the fireplace. “You missed a most interesting dinner.”
I could see our mother watching us behind half-closed lids, and I wondered what she felt, if anything, about her two once-dead daughters under her roof at the same time once more.
“Gisela thinks I should move to New York with her,” Catrin continued, crossing one slender leg over the other, and bobbing it up and down as though this conversation was nothing but a casual chat between old friends. “I can’t possibly abandon my post in Berlin, of course, but it’s an intriguing thought—being the one to bring our ideas to Manhattan. Can you imagine?”
My mind immediately went to my aunt and uncle’s many Jewish neighbors and my stomach turned over.
It was horrific looking at this young woman I’d once doted on. Had she always been this way and I’d been blind to it because I’d loved her? If I had stayed, would she still have turned out this way? Making it three against one in our household? Would I have had to leave eventually, unable to reconcile my relationship to them? Or, God forbid, would their influence and threats have turned me into whatever this creature was my sister had become? This icy, cruel woman with evil at her root.
There was a knock and we turned to see Paulina standing in the doorway, her eyes moving from me to my sister to our mother—and then back to me.
“Is everything okay?” she asked, still staring at me. “You’ve left your dinner.”
“I lost my appetite,” Catrin said. “But it was a lovely meal, Paulina. Thank you. You may go now.”
I looked desperately at our childhood nanny, pleading with my eyes for her not to go. Trying to convey that she’d been right, and I knew it now—and was frightened.
“Of course,” Paulina said. “I’ll just clear the dishes then.”
I listened as her footsteps receded down the hallway, the growing distance filling me with dread.
“I found something interesting today,” Catrin said. “While you were helping Paulina.”
I closed my eyes for a moment, preparing myself, and then turned to meet her stony gaze.
“Yes?”
“I thought it might help you with your decision.”
To my horror, she pulled the cloth bag I’d been using when I left the house out from behind the chair and retrieved both passports from inside.
“One might think you are a spy,” she said, opening first one, then the other. “Kate and Lena? How common of you, Gisela. You couldn’t come up with something a little more exotic?”
I wanted to fire back, but we both knew she held all the cards, quite literally, in her hands.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I told you. Your allegiance.”
“And if I give it to you? To Germany?”
“Well then, I won’t have to have you arrested.”
“For what? I could easily say I was abducted, brainwashed, threatened...”
“These would say otherwise,” she said, waving the passports back and forth. “Tell you what...”
And as I watched, she threw one of the passports into the fire.
