I imagine you must feel some sense of loss, and yet maybe all you felt for them was buried when you stepped foot on that ship so many years ago. Regardless, I wish I were there in person to deliver this news. Most especially because the next bit might be harder to bear.
Catrin is alive.
I stopped reading, my mind and body growing cold and numb.
Catrin. Kitty Cat. Little sister.
Alive.
Images flashed through my mind. Her small hand in mine. Her long pale hair across my arm as she slept beside me, having once again escaped her bed for mine in the middle of the night. Her giggle when I teased her as we ran around the back garden. The sound of her cry when our mother once again smacked her, merely for laughing too loud. For being filled with joy. A child, yearning to play and sing like other children got to.
But not us. There were rules. We were to be barely seen, rarely heard. And if we needed to speak, then we must do so quietly.
I stared back down at the letter, my eyes taking in the rest of the words, but my brain unable to comprehend them, the previous words still swirling in my head.
My father was dead. My mother was ill and dying. After all the grief, abuse, and neglect we’d suffered because of them, did I care?
I waited for a stirring inside me. A sadness. Something that let me know I still cared, even just a little. But all I felt was anger. Fury that I even had to think about them. I’d have been fine to never know what fate befell them, wishing since the day I left that I’d never have to see them again.
But Catrin...
The plan had been to get her out too. Two years after me so that it wouldn’t seem so suspicious and she’d be twelve and better able to keep a secret and remember the information that would keep her from falling under suspicion. But when the time came, the plan fell apart. Contacts were compromised. And then there was the explosion.
Those able to escape watched the family for days...weeks. But all the reports were the same. Catrin Holländer had been killed in the blast that had also claimed the lives of four other children and two adults at a small gathering for one of the children’s birthdays. There were arguments about who planted the bomb, and fingers pointed. My father at that time had been the target of several attacks. This was the first time his only known living child had been targeted. And as far as the attackers, and the country knew, it had been a successful mission.
I had been shown an image of the funeral cut out of a newspaper, my sister’s name in stark letters below, a gleaming casket at the center with my parents beside it, their heads bowed.
I’d been inconsolable for months, and never spoke her name aloud again. I’d failed her. I never should’ve left without her.
My mind went back to that day. I’d been on edge for weeks, and my hands shook that morning as I picked at my breakfast, trying to breathe normally, my eyes flitting from my plate to my sister, taking in her features, the way her hair had been tied back that morning by our nanny, the collar of her blouse, the way she chewed her lip in-between bites of her food as she concentrated on getting an appropriate amount on her fork.
She’d sat in my room with me, playing with one of my old dolls, while Nanny Paulina finished packing my bags.
“What do you think you’ll do there?” she’d asked. “In California.”
She’d practically whispered the last part, in awe that I was going to a place so far away it almost didn’t seem real.
I’d forced a smile. “We’ll go to the beach, shop...” I’d trailed off with a shrug, trying to downplay the lie that had been advertised to my parents as a fun, sun-filled time with my American pen pal. For them it was a chance to spread their ideologies through their child. For Catrin, it meant losing her sister and best friend for a few weeks. Something that had never happened before. Little did she know she’d be losing me for much longer.
As soon as I was all packed, Nanny Paulina, Catrin, and I stepped one by one down the grand staircase of my parents’ Hamburg apartment to the main floor where they waited with my mother’s good friend, Alina, who would be my escort for the trip.
“You’re going to have such a wonderful time,” Alina had said, embracing me. “I love California.” She’d looked to Catrin then. “Next time we’ll take you too.”
“Perhaps next time,” my mother had said. “We’ll all go.”
I’d swallowed hard, pasting a smile on my face and trying to seem as carefree and excited as Alina. I didn’t know how she so effortlessly acted as though we weren’t doing something bad. As if she weren’t essentially kidnapping me—and wouldn’t be killed on sight were we to be found out.
At Nanny Paulina’s urging, I hugged each of my parents and then turned to Catrin, whose eyes were glossed over with tears as she reached for me.
“You’ll be back soon?” she asked.
“I’ll see you again,” I told her, pulling her closer and breathing in her fresh, soapy scent.
“Promise?” Her wide blue eyes implored me.
“I promise, Kitty Cat,” I whispered.
20
