Midnight Train to Prague - Carol Windley Page 0,89

bullshit over and over: there was no information. Go away, Frau, she was told. She continued to work at her millinery shop, making hats for people who were, she said, without compunction or shame.

Why does God allow these things? Anna asked her mother.

I think God is not here now, her mother said. He had to turn away, out of sorrow, I think. It’s up to us to help each other. She cupped Anna’s chin in her hand and kissed her forehead.

If a stranger is harmed, her mother said, we are all harmed. If a man is persecuted, so are we all. You can pray for us, Anna, and for the victims of this brutality. But for the murderers, you don’t have to pray. They don’t deserve forgiveness. Forgiveness is not possible. We can’t pretend life will ever be the same. The scars might fade but will never go away. For this, you must prepare yourself.

For Anna’s mother there were two truths in the world. There was prayer, and there was science. Anna thought sometimes one took precedence for her mother and sometimes the other. Or rather, faith and science were two sides of one greater truth. One day not long after the reprisals had begun, Magdalena came home with three vials of typhus vaccine from the hospital and vaccinated Anna and Franz and Reina. Not because she believed they were in danger of being sent to a concentration camp, but as a precaution. Just in case. The vaccinations gave Anna and Franz sore arms for a few days, and Reina developed a fever. A slight fever was normal, Magdalena said. A little soreness in the arm was to be expected.

It wasn’t often that Franz and Reina had a break from work at the same time, but two days after Magdalena had administered the typhus vaccines, they were both at home. Reina was still complaining of feeling unwell; she said she thought she had typhus. Franz said her forehead was cool, she didn’t have a fever. He made her a cup of tea. Anna poured one for herself and sat at the table with them. Franz and Reina didn’t seem even to know she was there. She saw Franz take Reina’s hand and kiss her fingertips, slowly, one at a time. Better? he said. Reina smiled.

Anna got up from the table and took her tea to her room and drank it while she read Madame Bovary. She wished she could tell Dr. Bovary to worry less about Madame Bovary and more about his profession. Madame Bovary she couldn’t comprehend at all. She put the book down and thought of Franz kissing Reina’s fingers. It hadn’t seemed very cousinly. It had seemed like something Madame Bovary’s lover would do. A few days ago, she had seen Reina standing behind Franz’s chair in the living room, and Reina had bent over him to say something, and he had reached up and put his hand on her neck and he had gently pulled her closer. Anna had stared at them for a moment and then had gone away. She told herself it meant nothing. Franz and Reina had always been good friends as well as cousins. But she was the only one unsurprised a few weeks later when Franz announced that he and Reina intended to get married. He was standing near the balcony door in the living room and Reina was on the other side of the room. Anna was at the piano, practicing Czerny studies. Franz asked her to stop. Why should she, she said. He gently lifted her hands off the keys and held them, both of her hands in his. His hands were cold. He said it again: he and Reina planned on marrying as soon as possible.

Anna heard her mother’s quick intake of breath. “May I remind you, Franz, that you and Reina are cousins. As you both well know, the church forbids marriage between first-degree cousins, for good reason. From any perspective, legal, medical, ethical, that is a preposterous idea.”

Reina went to stand beside Franz. “We are not actually first cousins, Aunt Magdalena,” she said. “My grandmother Eva was not related to you by blood.”

“You are first cousins, Reina. You can’t pretend otherwise. And in any case, you’re too young to marry.”

“How much time do any of us have? No one can answer that, can they?” Franz said impatiently. “Listen. I applied weeks ago for permission to marry from the Reich office. An application is usually rubber-stamped if