I met her gaze and held it.
“You’re welcome,” she said.
34
I woke thefollowing morning confused at where I was at first, which happened a lot these days after all the traveling I’d done. It was surreal to look around and find I was in my childhood bedroom. It felt like a dream and a nightmare all rolled into one.
Grabbing the heavy robe from the foot of the bed that Paulina had brought me the night before, I stood and pulled it on, tying it tight as I shivered from the cold.
Quietly, I opened the bedroom door, waiting...listening. But other than the wind whistling through the boards that had been nailed to the ceiling, there was no sound.
I hurried on tiptoe down the hallway to the staircase, my socked feet a whisper on the stairs.
“Guten morgen,”Paulina said when I entered the kitchen. The smell of eggs cooking made my stomach turn.
“Good morning,” I said, glancing into the pan. “Have they gone bad?”
“The eggs?” she asked, frowning and leaning forward to give them a sniff. “I was told they were laid two days ago. Do they smell bad?”
“I think I may have a touch of the flu,” I said. “My stomach has been turning all morning. Is there bread?”
She pointed to the bread box on one of the counters. “Freshly baked yesterday.”
My mouth fell open. I hadn’t had bread that fresh since I’d last been in New York.
“How?” I asked.
She pointed in the direction of my mother’s room and I nodded. It paid to be one of the wealthiest families in Germany. The thought sickened me further. While others got small chunks of old bread to share with their families, we, because of my parents’ wealth and stature, got fresh-baked bread. There was even real coffee, not the diluted stuff so many others drank. The icebox had meat. There were fresh vegetables. And though there wasn’t a lot of it, it was plenty for three, especially since my mother barely had an appetite.
I picked small pieces of the bread, placing it gingerly in my mouth as I watched her cook, and feeling relieved when my stomach calmed some.
“Do you have a plan for today?” Paulina asked, scraping the eggs onto a plate.
“I thought I’d go back to the street where the safe house is,” I said. “I imagine my contact heard what happened and will be watching for me.”
“And then? If you find him? You will head to Berlin?”
“Yes. Maybe? I don’t know. If he won’t take me there, I will have to find my own way.”
The thought terrified me. At least with Max there were contacts, safe houses, and options. On my own... I didn’t trust that someone wouldn’t get hold of my belongings and find the documents that would reveal me as a traitor.
“You must be careful,” Paulina said. “If anyone is watching that house and saw you yesterday...and then again today...”
I nodded.
“Maybe we disguise you a little?” she asked. “A scarf over your hair...some padding around your middle? A different coat and bag?”
And so that is what we did. While my mother slept, Paulina removed several items from her closet and then met me back in my room.
I slipped the nightgown over my head and reached for the items she’d brought one by one. A thick pair of stockings, another pair to go over the first, a pale pink camisole, a long-sleeve top in my mother’s signature blue that she’d probably worn in the Alps during a ski vacation, and a cashmere dress in a beautiful beige color.
“Cashmere?” I asked, raising my eyebrows at Paulina, who merely shrugged.
“It’s the warmest thing she owns,” she said. “I’d give you one of my wool dresses, but you’d drown in it.”
“What if someone sees it? Realizes it’s expensive?”
“You’ll be wearing that over the top,” she said, pointing to a black coat. “It was your father’s.”
