Eva had not been her mother’s favorite. A firstborn daughter was a disappointment back then. A daughter was for the third or fourth child, so as to have someone to take care of you when you got older. But then Willi was born, and he was the center of her mother’s heart. A healthy, noisy, troublesome boy. This is what people wanted then. They wanted sons.
But even if she had not been her mother’s favorite, her mother loved her. She was a big warm woman, and she had been very young when she had her children—not yet twenty when Eva was born. Her mother kissed and hugged but was also quick to swat and scold. She was not unique, not special in any way with her kids. But she was good enough. Good enough indeed.
When she got sick, of course, everything changed. Eva was old enough to be strong about it. Any fear and sadness she kept so well hidden she didn’t even remember feeling it, not even after her mother died. It was as if laundry and shopping for cheap meals and sewing the clothes and keeping the floors clean became her emotional life. And taking care of Liezel. Liezel was all hers then. And she loved that. That was how she remembered it. The house, particularly getting meals together was sometimes stressful and overwhelming. But Liezel was her prize.
Not that it had been so easy, winning Liezel away from her mother. But it hadn’t been so hard, either. As her mother became more sick and spent more time in the hospital, Liezel seemed to forget her. That’s how children are. They move on, so quickly it can take your breath away. They’re built for survival.
The older we get, thought Eva, the more we sabotage ourselves, our survival. The more all those things we handled so bravely as children come back to haunt us, tear us apart, render us frozen and useless.
Eva was awake but not out of bed. It was noon. She’d come back late the night before, after spending two quiet and uneventful days with Hans at the cabin. Strangely for her, she was happy when he dropped her off last night, happy to be away from him, and she had stayed up late listening to music.
A banging on the door startled her. “Eva,” Krista said. “Eva, the phone is for you.”
She wrapped her robe around her and went out.
“I’m sorry if I woke you,” Krista said, with a slight, weird smile on her lips. “I thought you would want to be woken for a phone call.”
“Yes, of course. I was awake. Just not up yet. Thank you for getting me.”
Krista smiled even more nervously, looking at her feet.
“Ja bitte?” Eva said into the phone.
“Eva? It’s Liezel. I’m so happy I caught you.”
“Liezel!”
“I’m coming to Berlin.”
Eva’s heart started to beat rapidly. She hadn’t had her coffee yet. It was all too much.
“I won’t stay long. But I may try and bring back Maggie. I know I can’t force her back, but I’m worried. You see, she called and asked for money. It appears Tom has gotten himself arrested.”
Eva felt the heat run to her face. How did Liezel know this and not her?
“Arrested? For what? Is Maggie okay?” She had a sudden feeling of anger at Maggie, for not calling her first, for not letting her know. Eva went back to her room to get a pen and paper to write down Liezel’s hotel info. Her room, her haven, glared at her cheaply; she did not want her sister to see how she lived.
“She didn’t tell me why Tom was arrested, just that he was. And that she needed money to get him out of jail. If I ask her questions, she doesn’t answer. That’s how it is with her. She thinks her life is none of my business.”
“I wrote you and told you that I agreed that perhaps Tom wasn’t the best . . .”
Liezel interrupted, “I know. I got the letter already. I appreciated it.”
“But I still am shocked about this.”
“I’m not,” Liezel said, grimly. “How often are you seeing Maggie? I mean, are you even looking out for her?”
Eva felt that blackness pour through her. She was supposed to take care of Liezel, now Maggie, and nothing she did was ever enough. And who takes care of her? Who ever took care of her? Her rich younger sister? Her dead mother? Her selfish dead husband? “Of course I’m looking out for her, but she’s not an infant whose diapers I can change like yours.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“She came here because she loves it here and not there, and I don’t blame her.”
“She doesn’t know what she loves. She’s a child. Jesus, Eva.”
The images of Liezel a bit younger than Maggie, the photos that Elena made her look at, came at her, her youth and beauty used as a weapon, her betrayal of her only sister, of the only person alive who loved her. Who truly loved her.
“Anyway, Eva, I’m coming to get her.”
“You knew she was a drug addict and so was her boyfriend and you let her leave? To move to Berlin?” Eva asked and closed her eyes, letting her head fall back. “I haven’t failed you. You failed her.”
“She bought the ticket without telling me! She did everything without telling me until after she did it! What was I supposed to do?” Liezel was yelling now.
It was as if Eva woke up. “I’ll go by there today.”
“I think she’s at work.” Liezel was breathing heavily.
“I’ll go by later, when she’s off of work. She doesn’t live far from me.”
“I know,” Liezel said. And now the crying. The sniffling. “She doesn’t love me, my daughter, but you know that already.” Eva then heard her take a deep breath. “I do think she needs me right now. I think she’s been humbled.”
Eva was at a loss. “Es tut mir leid.” The anger hadn’t gone, but it was washed over with shame. Remorse.
“Mir auch,” Liezel said, but Eva detected a flatness in her tone. She had never shown remorse for anything. It was as if when Eva left her, when she was abandoned, something in her shut down toward Eva. And yet, here she was. And here was her daughter.
“I’m going to the airport now,” Liezel said. “I’m just getting on the next plane to Berlin. See you soon. How long has it been?”
“A long time.”
“No need to pick me up at the airport. I’ll call you when I get to the hotel.”
“Wunderbar.”
Eva put her hands to her face after she hung up. Her face was hot, and she couldn’t see well out of her left eye. She went back to her room and lay down and tried to breathe slowly.
Krista knocked again. “Eva,” she said outside the closed door, “Ist alles okay?”
“Ja, ich habe Kopfschmerzen, nichts weiter,” Eva said loudly, shrilly, leaning her head toward the door. She hated that, talking through the thin doors. It was so uncivilized. She always stood up and opened it. But not today. She wanted Krista to go away. “Ich kann jetzt nicht mit dir sprechen.”
When evening came, Eva put on a record that she had bought a long time ago from an unknown blues singer from the East—not a Black person but a Romanian man named Alexei Bondy, singing in English. He sang in a very heavily accented English, and the album was very scratched up. She had listened to it a lot when Hugo had been alive. When she would listen to anything bluesy. It had been a long time. It was beautiful. What did it matter, who sang the blues? She rouged and powdered her face, and he sang about making peace with where he was, with a knife in hand and blood on the wall.
She lifted the needle from the record when the song was finished. Carefully, she put the album away.