“Then it’s good that you don’t know where I’ve taken him,” Eva told her. “You will be able to answer truthfully you have no idea where he is.”
They worked together the rest of that night to hide any evidencethat anyone had been digging in the garden. Days passed and the body was not discovered. After three weeks, the police finally ruled out any kind of foul play—Ernst Geller apparently had no enemies. After four weeks, it was determined he had likely died of accidental drowning.
His case was closed.
Not long after his memorial service, Louise asked Eva to sit down with her at the kitchen table. A thick envelope covered with foreign stamps lay on its surface.
“I owe you my life, Eva,” she said when they were both seated. “In more ways than one. I think Ernst would’ve killed me that night. He might’ve harmed you as well. I just wish we didn’t live in a day and age where we had to do what we did. And I wish I would’ve called the police and been believed the first time he was violent with me. I wish I had at the very beginning.”
They were both quiet for a moment, each surely aware that the past is always and will always be just what it is.
“Listen,” Louise finally said. “After what you’ve done for me, I wanted to do something for you.”
Eva thought perhaps Louise was about to ask her to come live with her now that Ernst was gone. Half of her wanted to be Louise Geller’s almost-daughter and make Munich her forever home. But the other half wanted to leave all of Europe behind and never look back.
“I found you a sponsor,” Louise went on. “In Los Angeles, in California. A friend of mine attends a Catholic church there that has decided to sponsor ten Displaced Persons. You can be one of those ten people, Eva. They have already chosen you based on my recommendation.” She patted the envelope. “I’ll go down to the immigration office with you tomorrow and show the American officials all the documentation. You have a job waiting for you anda place to live. You can leave as soon we can get your application finalized.”
Eva was so surprised, she found she could not speak. Louise mistook her silence for fear.
“I know it’s a big step, but I really do think you will be happy there. You can build a new life in America, far from this one. You will love living in the States, Eva. It’s a place of possibilities. Especially California. You need to trust me on this.”
Still Eva could not bring words to her tongue.
“I will never forget you,” Louise continued. “I promise you. And I will be forever grateful to you. But I don’t think we should stay in contact with each other. It would look…strange. And it would be dangerous for both of us for anyone to think they need to look closely at us, at what we mean to each other. Do you understand what I am saying?”
Eva nodded. She did understand.
“But,” Eva said a second later, “what will happen to you if the body is found?”
Louise shrugged. “The police have no reason to suspect me. Nor do my in-laws. If Ernst’s body is ever found, I will act surprised. Because I will be. I need to be done living in fear, Eva. I don’t want you to start living in it. I want you to go to America and be happy. Be free.”
Louise lifted the envelope off the table and extended it toward her.
“I don’t know what to say,” Eva said as she took it. “I won’t forget you, either. And I’m so sorry. I never meant for this to happen.”
Louise’s eyes began to shimmer with tears ready to fall. “I know. But you have given me a new life, Eva. And now I am giving you one. But I want you to do something for me.”
“What is it?”
“Open your heart to love again,” Louise said softly. “Please? Will you do that?”
Eva nodded even though she did not know how to do such a thing.
She knew how to run from the Red Army, how to hop a freight train bound for Kyiv, how to lie, how to survive on crumbs, how to clean toilets and bedding stained with human suffering, how to bury a bad man, and how to dig him up again.
But this other thing—opening her heart to love again?—this she did not know how todo.
December 25–30,1956
22
Eva awoke Christmas morning to a cloudless sky. An accompanying summerlike breeze seemed eager to convey a message, so intent was it to fit through the two-inch opening she’d left at her bedroom window.
She sat up in bed and listened to the wind’s subtle chant.Wake up, Eva,it seemed to say.Change is coming.
Eva had heard this California wind before, many times since she’d come to the States. It even had a name. Santa Ana. The first time she’d experienced it was five months after arriving. She had settled into a different rented room, that first one being in the home of an older couple, the Talbots, who attended the Los Angeles parish that sponsored her immigration. She’d already started her job at Marvelous Maids and was taking the bus each day from La Brea to upscale neighborhoods like Bel Air, Westwood, and Beverly Hills where the well-to-do lived.
She’d awakened on that day in early autumn, not late December, but hearing the same persistent wind. It had been tugging at the Talbots’ backyard furniture and scooting it around their smallpatio as if determined to rearrange the seating options. As the day had worn on, the wind had transformed into a super-heated gale as angry as a swarm of agitated hornets. It had snapped a power line in Topanga Canyon and fanned into flame a resulting wildfire that burned a thousand acres of brush before being extinguished.
