Even from the corner, Gisela could see eyes widen as visitors took in the sight of scraggly, malnourished strays standing a little straighter, smiling a little toothier, eager for a bed and a seat at any table. She feared she and her sister would never have a turn, especially since Elisabeth had made a stink when the nuns who oversaw the children had tried to separate the two of them. Only one week before, a woman in a fine coat the color of cornflowers, with a hat and purse to match, had spotted the two of them and said she’d take Elisabeth, who was slightly smaller. Gisela had imagined the castle where Elisabeth might go to live, the hounds with silky coats, tea served from silver pots. But Elisabeth had gripped Gisela’s arm, stomped her foot, and said, “No,” over and over until the fine woman changed her mind and chose a quieter girl from the crowd of eager orphans. Gisela had scolded Elisabeth later.
“What were you thinking, Bit? You should have gone with her! You could have won her over then maybe she would come back for me!”
“And what if some other family took you away before I could get back? Did you think of that? Then what? Where would we be?”
Gisela had shrugged but thought again about that fine woman’s castle, the long quiet corridors, silken curtains, and feasts of roasted bird, far away from war and famine and the stench of death.
The din rose as the old nun Johanna shouted names and waved children over.
“We should go closer,” Elisabeth said. “So they can see how nice and sweet we are.”
“These people don’t want two mouths to feed,” Gisela said. “Look at them.” Some of the men wore coats or vests, others only suspenders and shirtsleeves. The wives were rosy and plain in their frocks and flat shoes and worried glances. “They look like they have barely enough for their own. I told you. You should have gone with the blue lady.”
Johanna’s deep voice boomed their names. Elisabeth gripped Gisela’s hand. “I have a feeling,” she said, as they made their way through clots of children.
“These are the Flanagans,” Johanna said, gesturing to the sturdy couple. She thumped the woman on the chest first. “Hannie. Hannie.” Then the man, “Hugh. Hugh.” Words flew between the women, English words that Gisela could hardly understand. Beside her, Elisabeth had gone stiff, steeling herself, Gisela knew, for disappointment. This time, though, Johanna raised her hands then lowered them. “Easy now. You’ll go together. No fears.” When she said “together” and Hannie nodded, Elisabeth grinned.
She and Elisabeth were plucked like weeds from the refugee center and plopped into the Flanagans’ car. “Off to your new home,” the old nun said with a final wave, her marble-knuckled fingers waggling like iris stems caught on a breeze.
After hours in the jerking car, they arrived in West Cork. From the ragged back seat, Gisela caught glimpses of wild seas, rock cliffs, inlets dotted with fishing boats, villages with capped men hauling bags into stores, kegs into pubs, bustling on streets that had not been bombed. She and Elisabeth had been in Ireland for months now, this place of sun and rain and peat-smoked skies and singing birds in the trees. This place that had not seen their horrible war. Hazy purple rhododendrons bloomed on the hillside flecked white with sheep and every shade of green to the gray of stone. Gisela exhaled heavily. It had been war for so long. War and marching, war and yelling, war and worry. War and war and war. War was all she knew. It had been less than a year since the bombing, since Gisela had lain pinned in the Cologne rubble next to her sister. Her teeth and jaws and eye sockets had ached from grimacing, from calling for help, so much so she had wanted to never hear her own voice again. She had felt too young to feel so old. In the eerie quiet of the bombed-out street, leaflets and ash billowing on a sour breeze that smelt of flesh and misery, it had been a relief to give up, to wait with her sister for death, to imagine heaven.
Was Ireland that heaven?
Elisabeth poked and pointed and fidgeted next to her as the gruff man, Hugh Flanagan, coaxed the car down the rutted township roads like he was driving a plow mule. Hannie put a doughy palm on her husband’s arm in a way meant to calm him. His shoulders dropped, and his breathful cursing ceased. Gisela smiled tightly when this Hannie glanced over her shoulder to check again on her little German charges. “Almost home,” she said. This word Gisela knew.
Hugh maneuvered down a twisting dirt path carved from sea-swept sedge and low trees. The car jolted to a halt at a farmhouse. “We’ll walk the rest of the way,” Hannie said, motioning dramatically for the girls to get out of the car.
From the well at her feet, Gisela grabbed a cloth bag the size of a cabbage that held all their possessions. She scooted out behind Elisabeth, who shaded her eyes with her hand, squinting and blinking as if she’d been kept in a box. Gisela tilted her head back, stuck out her tongue like she was catching snowflakes. Sweetness and damp, soil and manure, no trace of metal or gunpowder. No trace of war.
“It’s green here,” Gisela whispered into Elisabeth’s ear. “It tastes good.”
“We are good girls in a green place,” Elisabeth replied. “God will care for us now.”
Gisela pulled back sharply and pressed three fingers into her own forehead, a gesture of worry and annoyance she inherited from their beleaguered father.
“You are doing it again,” Elisabeth said, careful not to attract Hannie’s attention. “I know what you’re thinking.”
Gisela flicked her eyebrows at her sister, pursed her lips. Elisabeth was correct. It was something their father would say, reading news of that monster Hitler’s rise.
“No,” Elisabeth said before Gisela could speak. “We can’t afford more despair.” She grabbed Gisela’s hand, squeezed it tight. “We’re together here. That’s what matters.”
I don’t know what matters anymore. “Gott ist tot.” Vati said so.
Hugh shook a man’s hand in the doorway as a gaggle of red-haired children pushed around to stare. Gisela played nice, though she wanted to stick out her tongue, to make devil horns with her fingers to ward off whatever ill will might be directed at her or her sister.
“The Dalys,” Hannie said. “Good family.”
“Good family,” Elisabeth repeated.
Hannie looked pleased. “Yes! Though—” And she tapped her head. “Not so bright.”
“Dummkopfs,” Elisabeth offered.
“Sounds about right,” Hannie said. “And they’ve got the only car around.”
Elisabeth’s ingratiating eagerness made Gisela flutter her eyes. Her sister. So quick to please. It was the reason Gisela had chosen to sleep between Elisabeth and their bilious cousin Herbert back in Germany—she was afraid Elisabeth wouldn’t know how or when to fight back. Who was to say what these Irish people might do if they understood that the girls had nothing?
The sun had gone, and there was little light save for a rising moon. The girls walked on either side of Hannie behind Hugh, who led the way down a mud path with a berm of grass raised in the middle. Gisela hopped puddles and manure pies, jerking Hannie’s hand.
