Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2) (15 page)

27

Backthenbackthenbackthen . . . down the years . . . back . . .

“You look so beautiful.” Gertrud looked at Hanna in amazement. “So beautiful.”

Hanna laughed. “Oh, you’re crazy! Me? Beautiful?”

“Yes,” Gertrud said. “Yes, you are.”

She reached out a hand and stroked Hanna’s hair. Hanna flinched.

“Don’t look at me like that, Gertrud! I don’t like it.”

She took a rapid step back, listened to the stillness, the pain she suspected Gertrud was feeling, and snapped the short thread of their togetherness. She turned. Turned on her heel like a spinning top with flapping arms and legs, and tore down the slope toward the river, with Gertrud
. . .
behind her, behind her, always behind Hanna.

“I’m an eagle,” Hanna cried, laughing, running, flying. “W
ho is the wind’s bride to carry me aloft?”

I will,
Gertrud thought.
I will, let me be the one . . .
But she knew, knew with absolute certainty
. . .

The river was still cold. It had rained a lot that year, with the temperatures well below the average, but the meadows were lush and green, and flecks of sunlight dappled their edges. Hanna jumped into the water, yelling and laughing to outsmart the cold.

“In the crimson waters the nettle banks sink deeper into the deeps!”

That was why Gertrud loved her—the way she yelled her word-paintings as she shook her wet hair like a dog and chased up and down the riverbank.

Gertrud loved Hanna because of her lightheartedness, her carefree nature, her courage, her generosity of spirit, and above all—above all she loved her because she had everything Gertrud lacked.

“I’m an eagle,” cried Hanna into the red gold of the setting sun, spreading her arms wide. “Where’s the wind’s bride to carry me aloft?”

To love someone,
Gertrud wrote in her red book during one of those glowing, hot summer nights that first year in Munich.
To love someone from the very first moment.
To belong to someone from the very first moment.
I have found the courage to let myself be touched by the facts, the realities.
I have at last become immersed in love, at last—in love and in life and in light.

The weather stayed hot and dry all summer long, but Gertrud rarely left the apartment. She only ventured out onto the streets and squares with Hanna, to explore the city in the twilight when it seemed golden and transparent.

In the mornings, after Hanna had left the house, Gertrud would slip into the bathroom, close her eyes and smell her. Only traces of her scent remained, but she breathed them in.
I will follow my beloved to the end of days.

In Hanna’s room she opened all the cupboards, boxes, drawers—touching nothing, only looking, driven to see, again and again, how, who, what
. . .

Sometimes Hanna had left notes lying on her desk—
On someone’s trail.
Since Gertrud
had
suddenly gotten on her trail, it shocked her, awakening guilt. Lying on the bed, she couldn’t get the phrase out of her head.
Hanna, get on my trail . . .

“Don’t get burned,” she begged herself. “Don’t get smothered. Remember nothing is certain.”

But it had already happened. If there had been a photo from those days, it would have shown how insubstantial Gertrud was.

28

A cell phone rang. A sudden ringtone, jolting Franza from her listening. It was the second time. Arthur again. It must be urgent.

“Excuse me, Frau Brendler,” she said, “but I have to take this call.”

She stood and moved a few steps away.

“I’m getting married,” Arthur said.

Franza’s eyes widened. “What? Have you gone mad?”

“Because I’m getting married?” he asked, sounding a little hurt.

She rolled her eyes. “Arthur, I’m really pleased you’re getting married. Really. It’s wonderful. But if that’s why you’re calling
. . .
”

“Oh,” he said. “Of course not.”

“Oh, get to the point, Arthur!”

“OK,” he said. “Sorry. The point, right. Ask Frau Brendler about Tonio.”

Franza hung up.
Fine,
she thought.
Tonio. Let’s give it a go.

“Tonio,” she said. “Tell me about Tonio.”

Dorothee Brendler looked up in surprise, shook her head. “Where did that come from
. . 
.
 
?”

“It doesn’t matter. Tell me.”

“Tonio,” Dorothee murmured, staring at the gravel at her feet. “He appeared out of the blue. A grown man. Almost thirty. Not a boy anymore, he’d made a life for himself. He came for Hanna.”

29

It was at a small bar near the university called Renate’s Inn. The place opened at noon and closed late at night. It was a students’ haunt. Vasco, Renate’s boyfriend, whom she had brought with her back from Spain, baked little cakes that were incredibly popular. They served Guinness, cola, water, and not much else, but the bar ran as if on well-oiled wheels, perhaps because of its simplicity. Its patrons said they played the best music ever. That was Vasco’s department. At night he played whatever he felt like. Sometimes they brought in live bands, and people could dance if they wanted, or simply listen.

Hanna and Gertrud went there often. And then so did Tonio. One day he was sitting by the counter. Hanna entered the room, and Tonio saw her straightaway. And then she saw him. That was it.

The next evening he appeared again, and the next, and the third. As soon as Hanna arrived, the agitation vanished from his body. On the third evening Hanna began to dance, something she had never done before. She grabbed Gertrud’s hand and dragged her onto the dance floor with her. Tonio sat at the bar, watching the girls, watching Hanna with penetrating eyes, a small grin on his lips. Hanna noticed and began to flirt with him over Gertrud’s shoulder, coolly, with only her eyes and a tiny twitch of her mouth. Gertrud felt the change, turned, saw Tonio, and her heart stopped for a fraction of a second.

So I’ve lost Hanna,
she thought. It hurt—really hurt.

“Hanna, is it?” said Tonio when he discovered her name and wound a strand of her red hair around his finger, raising it to touch his nose, his mouth.

She let him.

“I want to look at you, Hanna. May I?”

She let him. Later he sat five yards from her on his barstool, glass in hand, drunk, and she let him yell her name out into the thumping bass. Hanna smiled, and her teeth gleamed in the bright light.

30

It’s raining.

I understand things now. A little. But to understand is not to forgive. The years flicker back, a gleaming carousel.

It’s raining. The rain is warm and soft. I enter the water and swim out, the wetness enfolds me from above and below, the raindrops patter on the surface of the river, forming small circles and sinking into the depths.

Tonio. My Tonio. I hadn’t thought about you for a long time. For all these years you were merely a tiny shadow in my memory, and now
. . .

Nothing is lost, even if you shut it away in the depths of your memory and try to lose the key. At some point it all comes back. Stronger than before. What a mistake to believe that you can escape from your life.

Tonio was full of impatience. In everything. He lived life at such a fast pace. So different from me, so different from Gertrud. He came over us like a storm, unbridled, unrestrained. Wanted everything on the spot, unable to wait. Although
. . .
that’s not quite true. No. He waited for me. Three whole days and nights. Waited until I noticed him. Until I favored him with a glance. My smile. My longing. And yet
. . .
I gave him everything on the first day, in that first moment.

We were already away from home, we were already in Munich, Gertrud and I. There was this bar, like an enclave of our city, where we went on weekends. Renate’s Inn was where all our friends met up, all those who had drifted away from the claustrophobic small-town scene. It was where we pursued life with Guinness, Bavarian pretzels, and Spanish cakes, and it was where Tonio found us.

It’s difficult to remember. So many pictures in my head. The rain. Now I swim. The water bears me up so lightly, so naturally. It’s amazing, but I never lost my trust in the water. The water has always remained my element.

Since I got the letter, Tonio’s letter to me—one of his many letters—since his son, his son whom he never told me about, sent this letter back to me, the story has come to life again.

It’s as though the gate to my memory has opened wide—it’s all there again, every little thing, the tiniest detail.

Tonio was a good swimmer. He cut through the water with strong arms and legs. He was fast, much faster than I was. But he drowned. Now, at last, I know why.

You asked me whether I could understand it, Gertrud. Understand it? Understand that?

No. What can you understand in your head when there’s a deep wound in your heart?

Now everything is an open book. Now I know, Gertrud, that at some point you stopped loving me like a sister. I may have suspected it back then, but I couldn’t lose myself to you. Only to Tonio. Only to him. Only to his body.

Perhaps I should have said, “Go to Nuremberg, Gertrud! Or to Hamburg. Or to Cologne. Don’t pin your life to mine. Nor your heart. It’ll burn up.”

But I said nothing.

I know your mother did. And she was right, Gertrud. But even she couldn’t help us.

To understand means only to understand, not to forgive. Two people are dead now. But back—to the beginning. Or rather, to the middle. Back to Renate’s Inn.

31

Renate’s Inn.

Renate had to smile when she thought about it. It had been her first bar—the first bar of her own.

“What are you thinking about, darling?” Vasco asked, putting his arms around Renate’s shoulders from behind her. She leaned her head back and thanked God for this man and his strength, this man who had made her life so much easier.

“You remember Munich?” she asked. “Hanna and Gertrud?”

“Gertrud. The potter.” He pointed across the street. “The one who was killed. Of course I remember her.”

“No, I mean do you remember her back then. In Munich. When I was running the Inn. She was always there with Hanna. Her friend. Or her sister. Whatever.”

“Yes, you know I do,” he said without hesitation. “They were there every day. I remember it well. Hanna was cool. Distant, somehow. Not my type at all. Always kept Gertrud at arm’s length. And she found that difficult to cope with.”

“You remember all that?”

She turned and looked at him in surprise.

He smiled. “Yes, why shouldn’t I? I felt really sorry for her, that girl. She had no chance. Hanna really did have a heart of stone. Until
. . .
”

“Until Tonio came,” Renate said, nodding. “Until Tonio came.”

32

And then he danced, my Tonio. He really let go. He drank in the music, fell into it, moved beneath the flickering lights, saturated by the thumping beat.

Everyone around him was cool and alone—glittering, nameless night creatures. But not Tonio.

Tonio was
. . .
real.

I stood there as if struck by lightning. I stared at him, bewildered, stunned that someone could be so much himself and proclaim it so openly, shameless and unbridled. I was transfixed, unaware of time and space. It was as though he came from another world.

How lovely the water is, how beautiful this river is. I’d forgotten. How could I be away from here for so long? I’m only realizing now how much I missed it.

You were no longer very young, Tonio, and I liked that. I liked the fact you had a few years on me. I liked the traces of life in your eyes, in the lines on your face. I liked that.

And then, Tonio, you drew me into you. You took my hand and pulled me to you. But I had long since fallen in love with you, long since. In love with your cool, light hand that kept brushing the hair from my face, in love with your eyes. In love with you, Tonio. In love with you, body and soul.

Eventually we left the bar. You led me out, and we went down to the I
sar, and stopped under some bridge.

“Just imagine this is the Danube,” you said. “Just imagine this is our Danube. In our town. It’ll make you feel more at home.”

“But I feel at home anyway,” I said, thinking,
now, here, with you.
I turned to the water. I couldn’t bear your eyes on me any longer. They saw everything.

The Danube. The Danube, here, now. My river. I’m coming back to you. I’m leaving Jonas and coming back. Everything’s been done. There’s nothing new under the French sun. But here, by the cool Danube. Where it all began—even if it was actually the Isar. But he said: Just imagine this is the Danube. And it was the Danube.

I didn’t dare turn to him that night beneath that bridge. I didn’t dare turn from the water to him. He gave me time. He gave me all the time in the world. His eyes embraced me, singed the back of my knees, burned the nape of my neck. I felt it all. His eyes—like sharp arrows—hooked me fast, vertebra by vertebra, brushing my shoulder blades, over my neck, through my hair, transforming my brain into a mass of mushy thoughts.

You gave me time, Tonio, and then you didn’t—all the time in the world, and then none. The world was so big, yet only the size of an almond. There was so much time, yet only a moment. I loved you from the very first second.

Finally he approached me, quiet as a panther. As his hand touched me, cool, light, stroking the hollow between shoulder and neck, I stood still, because it seemed so familiar and right, because it fulfilled my desire.

“You’re so soft, Hanna,” he whispered in my ear. “So soft, like a fresh cake.”

I had to laugh, a little nervous, a little hysterical. The street lights were reflected on the water, breaking into dazzling orange pearls, as I felt his breath on my ear, as I heard him saying he wanted
. . .
he wanted so much
. . .

“My Hanna,” you said. “My Hanna, I’ve found you.”

“My Hanna,” you said, and your gentleness took my breath away.

And so it began.