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“They are like…water sprites who love singing and music. Their song lures humans into ponds and rivers, and once the foolish human is in the water, the nix drowns him or her. My sister would sit by the pond near our house, waiting to see one. When she was much younger, she was positive a nixie lived there, and she wanted to be friends with it.” A wistful smile spreads across his face. A smile of longing for simpler days, when war was something our parents survived and we hoped never to experience.
“Wasn’t she afraid the nix would lure her into the water and drown her?”
“No. My sister is two things. She is fearless and she is deaf. Even if a nixie had lived in the pond, it couldn’t have lured her into the water. Anja couldn’t hear its song.”
I can see how that would be an advantage, if nixie did exist. “Did you believe in the folklore?”
He chuckles. “Definitely not. Or at least not at that point. My sister is five years younger than me, so by then, I thought I was wise and worldly.”
“Is she in Austria?”
He looks away for a second to a tree near the water, its trunk twisted. The movement is quick, but not fast enough to hide the pain on his face. Was Dieter right about Johann’s sister? Did his mother and sister know something that made them dangerous to the Gestapo? Or is there another piece of the puzzle I’m missing?
The Nazis have been rounding up Jews in Paris. Does their dislike for Jews extend to other people they consider beneath them? Like individuals with a disability? Like Johann’s sister?
“What about you?” he asks, avoiding my question. “Did you or your sister ever believe in folklore?”
“My sister did. I was more of a realist. But she was older than me by almost two years and was positive the age difference meant she was right. About everything. She once sewed some tiny dresses and left them near a tree. She was certain the tree housed a family of fairies. Only she didn’t leave them for the fairies. It was to convince me they were real.”
Johann laughs. “Did it work?”
I flash him a sheepish grin. “Maybe a little. But then my father told me folklores were just make-believe. They were nothing more than stories that uneducated people believed in to explain the unexplainable. It just meant the individuals weren’t asking the right questions.”
“Yes, Monsieur Gauthier doesn’t seem the kind of man who believes in fairies and folklore.”
I inwardly cringe at my mistake. I’d been so focused on talking about my real sister, I’d forgotten we were talking about the sister who isn’t mine.
A realisation hits me. A realisation as clear as the reflection in a polished mirror.
I miss my sister. For what must be the first time since I turned my back on her, the connection we once shared now burns bright. I miss her. I miss how close we had been. I miss how I could tell her everything. How she was there for me after our mother died. How she wiped away my tears. How she shared in my sorrows and my joys.
The pain of her betrayal is still there, like a scab protecting the wound beneath. But once the skin is healed, the scab falls away, revealing something stronger, something new.
I study the grass and the reeds in the pond, all so familiar, all so far away from home and my sister. “Do you miss Austria?”
“Very much so. I love Vienna, but I also miss the small town I grew up in.”
“Small like where I live?”
Johann laughs once more. The sound is deep and almost musical, and it sends a shiver dancing up my spine. “Definitely not. It’s much bigger than your village.”
“Were you living in Vienna when the war broke out?” For some reason, I’m curious about the man Johann might have been if Hitler hadn’t come into power and declared war on Europe. The man who didn’t have to worry about the Gestapo arresting his mother and sister. The man whose best friend was still alive.
“Yes, I was. I had a good job in Vienna. It was my home.”
“How come you’re so fluent at French? You have a mechanical engineering degree, not a language degree.”
“I like languages. I’ve always been good at them, like I’m good at maths. But I decided I enjoyed building things more.”
I nod like that makes sense to a girl who grew up in a small village, married, then moved to a slightly larger town in Northern France, and lived with her husband until he passed away.
But the girl who went to university and studied languages, even though she had itched to study law, wants to know more. “How many languages do you speak?”
“German, French, and English. My mother’s parents were French-speaking Swiss. I grew up speaking both French and German. And understanding English is helpful in my field. But my English isn’t as good as my French. I read it more than I speak it. Even my French is pretty rusty.”
If he considers his French rusty, I imagine his English is better than he gives himself credit for. But I’m not about to test him to find out how fluent he is at the language. “I’m impressed. I only speak French.”
“What about your husband? Was he good at languages?”
