folded neatly, the gas mask with its regulation pamphlet, the military identity card Jakob had mentioned, Elisa’s name and address there as he’d said. The ledger was next. She set it on the crate and leafed through, Jakob pointing out the inventory, the list of meals, his calculation about just how long Willy had been using the supplies. There were no dates, but the sheer number of meals convinced her Jakob told the truth.
“God,” she said. “Almost two years. Who ordered him down here? What demented Hitler Youth leader? I’ll skin him alive.”
“Willy acted like he was waiting for somebody. He said he had to be relieved of duty.”
She slammed shut the ledger, and the corner of a photograph slid out from between the pages: Elisa, Willy, and Reinhard at Sophienhof. She took the picture to the lantern, tried to see something in Elisa’s face. She didn’t know what. Happiness. Misery. A sign of the secrets she had kept so deep inside not even Clara had seen them.
“Elisa isn’t here.” Clara replaced the photograph and put Willy’s things back in the footlocker. “Maybe Willy has some idea where she is.”
“He came down here when she was arrested. The same day.”
That fact unsettled her. It raised the possibility that Elisa had told him to come here, but Clara couldn’t imagine her wanting her son to live underground like this even given the alternatives. She concentrated on her search for Willy’s coat, tearing through crates filled mostly with tins and cutlery. Everything was stacked and dusted. The tins, she noticed, were in alphabetical order. She approved and would have done something similar in his situation.
She looked under Willy’s bed and spotted a bundle of field-gray wool. Tugging it out, the coat seemed heavier than it should. Unfolding it, she found something wrapped up inside.
“Jakob, look.” The wooden leg gleamed, polished, and so precious it was something only Jakob should touch now.
“Holy Mother of God.” He ran his fingers down the wood and tugged gently at the straps. “The kid fixed it.”
He began to wriggle out of his trousers, and she felt an odd sense of unreality when she saw his bandaged leg stop at the knee. Embarrassed, she turned her back, and he said, “Yeah, it’s still strange to me too. I don’t blame you for looking away.” The comment offended her. She wasn’t so delicate as to recoil at what the war had done to him. But she caught only a glimpse of Jakob’s pale thigh and the brownish scars before he rewrapped the bandage quickly up his leg, bending over as he did so, blocking her view. Then he pulled on the prosthesis and busied himself with the straps. When he was finished and dressed, he held out his hands to her. She hauled him onto his two feet.
“My shoes don’t match,” he said. One slow step at a time, he hobbled to the opposite wall.
“Does it hurt?” she asked.
“Chafes. I’ve lost weight. But it’ll do.” Once Jakob had found his sea legs, as he called them, he began to hum a tune she didn’t know, held out his hand to her and they did a lurching dance in the corridor to a waltz beat—one-two-three, one-two-three. She was proud of Willy. Proud he’d done this kindness for a good man.
FOR THE REST of the day and into the next, she cared for Willy as best she could, never leaving his side except when Jakob took over the more intimate tasks involving what he called man stuff. Willy was fifteen and she didn’t want to embarrass him. She waited outside the curtain, hearing Jakob say, “Come on, kid, you’ll feel better after a good piss.” Listening to them reminded her painfully of her brothers.
Once he was on his feet again, his head brushing the ceiling, Willy was as cautious and reserved with her as he used to be. Hat in hand, little bows of respect. Yes, fr?ulein. No, fr?ulein. I’ll get that for you, fr?ulein. Not servile exactly, but the well-mannered boy Elisa had raised. Now Clara noticed it for what it was: a reflection of the distance between them. It was as if Willy still saw her as some kind of a princess up in her tower at the Works. She didn’t want that. He was her nephew. By the way he treated her, it was clear he had no idea.
“Willy, I think you’re well enough to leave now,” she said on her second morning in the mine.
“I won’t desert