Maja went to her office exactly opposite the study. She was just about to sit down when Helen called out to her.
"Do you have some aspirin? Baron Marechal is feeling ill."
Maja went into the medicine cabinet, took out a bottle of aspirin, and got a glass of water.
Entwined 375
The baron was very pale. He thanked her profusely. She smiled kindly and said it must have been a very difficult afternoon for him. She had been gone from her desk no more than five or ten minutes. When she sat down she saw that her purse was missing. She looked around her office, then in the reception area. She was sure she had left her purse by her desk, but went in the viewroom just in case. It wasn't there. As she looked through the glass into the study she realized with a shock that Vebekka was gone.
Maja ran back to the office. She called Helen, her voice in a panic. "Is she with you'"
Helen came out to the corridor.
"She's not in the study Helen ran into the reception. "Has the baroness been through here?
The new young nurse looked up and smiled. "Yes. about five minutes ago."
"Did she leave the building'"
"Yes, yes, she said her taxi was waiting. Is there something wrong?"
Dr. Franks ran into the reception. "Maja has just told me. Is it true? Vebekka has gone, just walked out and nobody stopped her"'"
Helen said that she could not have gone very far. She had no purse, no money on her. Then Maja explained that her purse was missing.
Louis looked up, his head pounding, as Helen walked in.
"We have to look for her. Vebekka just walked out. Nobody knows where she has gone, she's taken Maja's purse. We'll get a taxi and start searching the streets, Dr. Franks will stay here."
Vebekka got out of the cab at the Grand Hotel. She handed Maja's purse to the driver. "Would you return this to the clinic — but in about an hour — they'll pay the fare for the delivery, thank you."
Vebekka walked to the reception desk and asked for her key. She hurried to their suite, locked the door and ran into her bedroom, took out a purse and then rifled through Louis' bedside table for some cash. She raced to the lobby where she asked the doorman to call her a taxi.
"Magda's, Mama Magda's, quickly please, I am in a great hurry."
She knew they would be looking for her, she had little time before she would be found, but she had to know why the big fat woman had called her Ruda... She knew Ruda was free now, she had released her, and she felt a strange new sensation. The feeling of loss was disappearing because, she was sure, Ruda was alive.
Chapter 18
Luis had let Ruda sleep, sitting by her at first, almost as if guarding her. He kept an eye on the clock; she had already missed the chance to have a pre-show rehearsal. He had explained her absence by saying she had a migraine. Would she be capable of doing the show that evening? Her first spot was eight-forty-five, and he knew that if she did not feel any better, he would have to withdraw the act.
"Luis? What time is it?" She stood in the doorway, her face very pale. She was shaking badly. He rushed to her and helped her sit down. "You've missed the rehearsal, sweetheart, but don't worry..."
"Oh God!"
She let her head droop as he slipped an arm around her shoulders. "They've been fed, and after last night's workout they won't need a run today. You just rest, I've made you a hot chocolate."
She closed her eyes, leaning on the bench cushions. He held out the steaming mug. She smiled, and pushed it aside with her finger. "You always burn the milk."
He crouched down in front of her. "What happened?"
She sipped the chocolate, and gave a wan smile. "Ghosts."
"You want to talk about it?"
She shook her head. He went and sat opposite her. "Will you be fit enough for the show tonight?"
"Try and stop me!"
He chuckled, but he was very concerned; she seemed to have no energy, her body was listless, her eyes heavy.
"Is it about the box? The tin box? I wasn't prying, I was looking for my old albums. I found it, I know maybe I shouldn't have opened it, but to be honest I didn't think you'd find out."
"You shouldn't have opened it, but you did, so that is that." She put the mug down. "I'd better check on the cats."
"No, I've done it, there's no need, and the boys are there. You just rest, gather all your strength for the show."
She nodded. He was disconcerted; it was unlike her to agree to anything he ever suggested. He snatched a look at his watch; there was still time. She stared through him, beyond him, her eyes vacant.
"I found you all curled up in the shower, I carried you in my arms like a baby. Bet you haven't let anybody do that to you for a long time, huh?" He was trying to make light of it, attempting to draw her out.
"Nobody ever held me when I was a baby, Luis, nobody, only... only my..."
He waited but she bowed her head. "Sister?" he interjected. "You said you wanted your sister. I've never even heard you talk about a sister before. I mean, were you dreaming?"
Ruda shuddered, and she clasped her arms around herself, staring at the floor, her voice so soft he had to strain to hear her.
"You know when we went to the Grand Hotel, after we'd been to the morgue? Something happened inside me. I had a feeling... so many years, Luis, I've tried, tried to find her, but — she was called Rebecca. We were taken in a train, hours and hours on a big dark train. Rebecca slept, but I kept guard over her, I watched out for her, she... she didn't talk too well, I used to talk for her."
She leaned back with her eyes closed, remembering the noise of the iron wheels on the rails. She could hear the rat-tat-tat of the wheels and everyone crying, howling, screaming... they were crushed and pushed and trodden on as the big doors were inched back. Had it been days or hours? She lost count, but at last the rat-tat-tat had stopped.
Rebecca was crying because she had messed her panties, done it in her panties, she cried for Mama, but they had no Mama, she was gone, and then they heard the voices, screaming.
"Women to the left, men to the right, women and children to the left, men to the right. Neither of us knew right from left."
"Any twins... twins over here, twins here, dwarfs, giants... twins..."
Ruda was picked up and thrown into a group of shrieking women. Rebecca fought and shouted to her sister, and the guard had picked Rebecca up by her hair and tossed her across to another group. The screaming went on and on. Pushed and kicked, they were herded toward a long path, at the end of which were gates, big high gates. Fences, with barbed wire as high as the sky, surrounded hundreds and hundreds of huts.
Ruda dodged between legs, squeezed under the weeping women and screeching children. At the gates she caught up with Rebecca, holding a strange woman's hand. A guard started shouting orders, Ruda tugged at his sleeve.
"My sister, my sister!"
The guard looked from one to the other, then grabbed them and hauled them into the back of a truck, just inside the perimeter of the gates. "Twins... Twins!"
The truck rumbled and swayed over potholes and ditches, a truck filled with children, boys, girls, all shapes and sizes, identical faces clinging in terror to each other.
Luis sat next to her, he wanted to hold her, comfort her, but she kept leaning back with her eyes closed. He heard only part of what she was saying; she lapsed into silences, and then odd words came out, some in Polish, Russian, Czech, and German. She was seeing with her adult's eyes what she had seen as a tiny child: the carts of skeletons, the strange eerie women with their shaven heads... the screaming women giving birth on a stone slab, and the babies snatched away, the afterbirth still covering their tiny bodies, thrown onto a seething mass of dying babies... the weeping and wailing never ceased, and the cold icy wind never stopped, the snow and ice freezing the memories like crystals.