Second Fiddle (10 page)

“Okay, girls, let’s pack up your stuff and get in the van,” Mom said as soon as the other parents had gone. It was only ten after four.

“Quick,” I whispered to Giselle. “We need to stall for time. Get my brothers wound up!”

Giselle knew just what to do. “Climb aboard, cowboy,” she said. She knelt down so that Tyler could climb on her back.

“I’m not a cowboy. I’m a cavalry scout,” Tyler insisted as he locked his arms around Giselle’s neck and squeezed.

“Okay, soldier, hold on!” Giselle galloped in long-legged strides around the coffee table and down the hall.

“I’m a cowboy! Me!” Kyle shouted, tugging at the leg of my jeans.

“Vivi’s a much better pony than me, Kyle.” Vivian took the hint and made
clip-clop
sounds with her Keds and shook her silky, straight hair. Kyle climbed up on a chair and petted
her mane. She made a horsey sound, scooped Kyle onto her back, and galloped after Giselle.

“Bang! Bang!” Kyle shouted, shooting Tyler with his finger. “Gotcha!”

“No way! Giddyup, Giselle!” Tyler yelled.

Mom watched for a moment as they galloped around the coffee table and back down the hall, and then she said, “You know those boys are going to vomit if you get them all wound up.”

Giselle froze and Vivi’s mouth dropped right open. The game was over in a nanosecond.

While Mom was distracted, I took her keys off the hook by the front door and hid them under the pile of everybody’s shoes on the floor—poor Mom. We all spent the next fifteen minutes being helpful and concerned and looking everywhere for the lost keys, but the whole time I was thinking about Arvo. Was he okay? Did the Russians find him? What if he didn’t make it to the station? I kept an eye on the clock, and when it was four-thirty, I kicked the shoes to the side and shouted, “Here they are, Mom! They fell in a shoe.”

Mom didn’t exactly say a swear—but she was thinking one; I could tell. We were all out the door and in the van in less than a minute, and Mom took off. Kyle bounced around in his car seat and made siren noises. It’s what he did to help Mom drive fast. Tyler took out the very tattered and sticky street map of Berlin and started calling out directions to the
zoo, which was his favorite place to go. Mom squeezed the steering wheel very tightly and took many calming breaths.

It wasn’t fair. She was the kind of mom you could talk to. If I had told her three days ago that Herr Müller had canceled our trip, maybe she would have figured out how to skip her shifts at the hospital and packed up the brothers and taken us to Paris herself. But I didn’t want her to come. Next fall I’d have to go to whatever school she and Dad picked, and it was probably going to be one of those monster schools with eight thousand kids. And I’d live in a house they chose, in a town they wanted to live in, and go to the church they thought was best. Dad said that when we moved, I could paint my room any color I wanted except black—like I cared about the color of my room. I wanted to save Arvo from those men who tried to kill him. I wanted him to be free. I wanted to play music with my friends, and I wanted to go to Paris, not for a family vacation but just for me.

Still, I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Mom. When we got to the train station, she said, “Better hop out and run for it, girls, I’ll never find parking in time.”

I gave Mom a kiss, which I usually don’t, and said, “Really, Mom, thanks for driving us. Thanks for everything.” And I meant it.

Giselle and Vivian had already unloaded the violins and the cello, and they were running past the bright yellow U-Bahn entrance and into the main train station. There was a big old-fashioned clock in the middle of the station where
we had agreed to meet, and I scanned the crowds looking for Arvo. All I could see were strangers, and my heart sank. They found him, I thought. Those officers came back and took him away and I’ll never see him again. But then a skinny man with crutches and a very short mustache started walking toward us. He was wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt that said ARMY across the front in big black letters. I had to look three times to be sure it was him. The black eye and bruises were completely covered up with makeup; the mustache hid most of the cut on his mouth.

“Hey! You made it!” I said, and I wanted to hug him, but then it seemed like a silly idea, so I didn’t.

“Come on, let’s get tickets,” I said. “We only have a few minutes.” We stood in line, and Vivian counted out the marks for our train fare and handed them to Arvo.

“Oh, look! A spy guy!” Giselle said. She pointed to a man in a black turtleneck sweater and hat, and she slugged me on the shoulder.

“Think OPSEC!” I said, and slugged her back.

It was our version of the slug bug game. Whenever we were riding the commuter train to our lesson or walking around Berlin, we’d look for a German who was dressed in a black turtleneck sweater just like the spy on Armed Forces TV. There were army commercials on it all the time, and a bunch of them were designed to warn soldiers and their families not to blab about army stuff in front of civilians and foreigners. In the commercials, the spy was always a foreign-looking
guy in a hat and black turtleneck, and the spot always ended with the catchy slogan “Think OPSEC,” for Operational Security. The main result of the ads was that none of us would ever dream of wearing a black turtleneck in public.

Arvo was the next in line. I got a nervous wobble in my stomach thinking about what would happen if we got caught. It wasn’t like me to be sneaky. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d lied to my mom about anything bigger than who’d eaten the last cookie.

“Drei Jugend und ein Erwachsener Fahrkarte bis Paris, bitte.”

We all tried not to look guilty, but the ticket seller handed him three youth tickets and one adult ticket without a single question. It was almost disappointing. We ran up the escalator just as the train pulled into the station. Arvo trailed behind. We caught our breath as a few dozen passengers got off. I glanced back and the spy guy in the black sweater was getting off the escalator. Was he following us? No, I thought, I’m being paranoid. He’s a normal German in black clothes. Lots of people wear black.

Vivian took the tickets from Arvo and looked at the car number on them. “This way,” she said. “We need the first four cars on this train. The cars in the back are going to Amsterdam and Copenhagen.” We ran after her past three more cars to the one with the number that matched our ticket. Arvo lagged behind. His face was gray and he was sweating a lot.

“Giselle, wait!” I called as she disappeared into a train car.

“Come on, hurry!” Vivian said. She sprang into the car
and leaned out the door. I looked back. Arvo had stopped entirely. He stood head down with his arms dangling over his crutches.

“Here, take these,” I said to Vivian, handing over my backpack and violin. I hurried back to where he was standing. “Don’t stop now, Arvo. You’re almost there.”

He looked up, but he was too out of breath to speak. I stepped closer and whispered, “Get on that train and you’ll be free. Those officers will never find you.”

Arvo nodded, still looking down. I tugged at his shirt to get him to stand up straight. I took his crutches and held them in one hand. Then I pulled his arm over my shoulder so we could walk side by side.

“It’s only twenty steps.” This trick always worked with my brothers. “One, two, three.” We started moving forward.

“Chiteeree, pyatt.”

“Six, seven, eight.”

“Devyet, deysyet.”

The train whistle sounded.

“Jody!” Vivian yelled, still leaning out the door.

“Almost there, almost there,” I whispered to Arvo. He kept on counting. I could see the spy guy walking toward us quickly, and he wasn’t even looking at train car numbers. He was staring at us. We came to the door, and Giselle reached out and tugged Arvo up by the front of his shirt. He gasped in pain. I gave him a shove from behind just as the train
made its first lurch forward. Giselle took Arvo and set him up against the wall beside the door. I climbed aboard, and as the doors slid shut, I looked back at the platform. The spy guy was jumping onto the train two cars down from ours.

We were, all four of us, plus our instruments, packed into a space no bigger than my apartment closet. Through the window in front of us I could see rows of second-class seats, and behind us were the bathrooms and the oversize luggage compartment.

“We made it,” Giselle said, still holding Arvo by both shoulders because he looked like he was going to faint.

“What happened? Are you okay?” I said.

He was still breathing hard, and sweat ran down his face. “
Da
, walking—okay. Running—not so good for me.”

“Right. Well, let’s just make a note of that.” Vivian turned to me. “No running. Write that down, Jody, and probably no jumping or dancing either. A lot of fun you’re going to be, Arvo. I don’t think we’re ever going to take you on vacation with us again.”

Arvo gave her a nervous look, but Giselle let out a laugh so loud, half the passengers in second class turned around to look at us. And then I got an attack of nervous giggles, and Vivian, who is not the giggling type, laughed so hard she had to cross her legs and squeeze her knees together. Five minutes later, we were all three sitting on the floor gasping for breath and still laughing. Arvo was not nearly as pale as
before, but he was looking more worried about us by the minute.

“Perhaps we should sit down,” he said when there was the tiniest pause.

“Actually, Arvo—we are sitting down,” I said, and Giselle let out another huge laugh, and we were off giggling again. Even at the time, I thought, Every time I go on a vacation, this is what I’m going to remember—sitting on the floor with my friends in the doorway of a train laughing myself to tears and giddy with relief and anticipation.

laughed clear out of the station, and then I remembered the man in the black turtleneck.

“Hey, guys,” I said. “Do you remember the spy guy from the station? Do you think he could be following us? He was looking at us, and he got onto the train at the very last minute.”

“Huh,” Giselle said, looking up. “Arvo, is someone going to come looking for you when they discover you are missing from your unit? In America it’s the MPs who hunt down missing soldiers. Do you think the Soviet MPs are looking for you?”

“I don’t think the spy guy’s an MP,” I said. “Military police always work in pairs, and he was alone, plus no uniform.”

“I was followed,” Arvo said. “I left the bridge last night in the dark. I crossed under the Brandenburg Gate and hid in the park. This morning I went to the S-Bahn. A man there followed me, so I went to a store instead. In the bathroom, I shaved and used the makeup. I bought a cap. I went back to
the S-Bahn, but the man was still there looking at people getting on board.”

“Someone followed you? Oh my gosh, Arvo, who would follow you?” Vivian said.

“KGB.”

“What? No way! In Germany?” I said.

“Wait, how could you tell the guy was Russian?” Vivian said. “He could be anyone, right?”

“He had poor shoes,” Arvo said.

“Poor shoes? You have got to be kidding!” Giselle looked up at him from the floor where we were still sitting.

“No, it’s true,” Vivian said. “Russians have clunky-looking shoes, and they use bad leather.”

“So how did you get here?” I asked.

“I walked.”

“Walked? No! Arvo, that was miles. No wonder you’re hurting.”

“If it makes me free, it is the easiest walk I ever took.”

“You look terrible! Medicine! I forgot to give you the rest.” I pulled my backpack into my lap and got out the Tic Tac box with the last four pain pills I’d snuck from Mom’s desk. “Here you go. You’d better hold on to them in case I forget again. I’m really sorry, Arvo.”

He took the Tic Tac box, shook out a codeine, and swallowed it down. He closed his eyes and sighed like Mom does when she takes off her shoes after a double shift at the hospital.

“Do you really think the KGB is after you? You’re just a translator,” Giselle said.

Arvo rested his head back against the wall and kept his eyes closed. “I am a translator who knows that renegade officers are selling poison gas to Iraq. It is not a happy thing to know.”