Page 39 of The Pianist's Wife
Only moments earlier, she’d wanted to spend every last second of his final day in Berlin with him, but now she just wanted to get off the streets and back to the relative safety of home. Because no matter how well hidden she was, she would never feel safe, not out in the open, not on the streets where Jews and their supporters were being hanged for all to see.
And she couldn’t help but feel a fool for the risk she’d taken in being out in public with Maxi. If one person had seen them, if she’d mistakenly touched him in a way that was too familiar or... She folded her arms tightly around herself.
If he came home on leave again, she wouldn’t see him. She suddenly understood very clearly that it wasn’t worth the risk, no matter how much it would break her heart.
‘Goodbye, Maxi,’ Amira said later that day, wrapping her arms tightly around him, her face to his chest, inhaling the smell of him, absorbing the feel of him and trying to lock it in her mind forever. They’d gone back to the apartment because she knew Fred wouldn’t be there, spending their final hours together drinking coffee and talking, and showing Maxi the separate bedrooms they kept, convincing him that he truly had nothing to worry about.
She couldn’t walk with him to the train station or stand there on the platform waving until she couldn’t see the carriage anymore, so this would have to be their final goodbye until he was home again.
‘These days I’ve had with you, they will keep me going for months to come, and as much as it pains me to say, I’m pleased you have someone to look out for you while I’m gone. Truly Iam, despite what I said earlier,’ Maxi said. ‘All I care about is your well-being.’
‘I wish you didn’t have to go, though,’ she whispered, kissing him again.
Maxi touched his forehead to hers, and they stood like that, breathing, not saying another word. Because he didn’t want to go any more than she did, but he didn’t have a choice.
‘This war, what we’re seeing out there, what we’re going through...’
His tears touched her cheek as they fell.
‘I just want all this to be over,’ he whispered. ‘I want to come home and marry you. I want us to have a family. I want to go somewhere far away from here.’
Amira hugged him again, and they stood like that for what felt like forever, as if they were one, before he finally let her go.
‘Walk me to the door?’ he asked, as he bent to pick up his bag.
She wrapped her palm around his and they walked slowly through the apartment. When they reached the door he dropped the bag again and folded her back into his arms.
He stroked her hair, his thumb gently sliding down her cheek. Maxi kissed her one last time, a sweet, slow kiss that she felt all the way down to her toes, before finally pulling away.
‘I love you,’ she whispered, as he pressed his lips to her forehead and then stepped back.I love you more than you’ll ever know.
‘I’ll be home before you know it,’ he said with a smile, but she could see from the fear in his eyes that he didn’t believe his own words. They both knew how long it might be before they ever saw each other again, not to mention the chance that he might not return.
‘I know you will be,’ she said, trying to sound bright even as her heart was breaking.
Chapter Seventeen
Late that night, Amira rose from her bed to get a glass of water, tiptoeing from her room and walking through to the kitchen.
She was surprised to find Fred sitting at the kitchen table when she walked into the kitchen, and even more surprised to see his shoulders shaking. Amira went straight to him, hugging him without thinking, her chin on the top of his head.
‘You couldn’t sleep either?’ she asked, as the trembling slowed.
His shoulders stilled as she held him. ‘Night time is always the worst.’
‘Even when Maxi was here, lying beside me, all I could think about was what would happen when he leaves,’ she said, placing a hand on Fred’s thick hair. ‘Sometimes it seems impossible to imagine that we might all survive, that it’s even something we can wish for.’
‘I keep wondering where he is. Whether he’s even alive,’ Fred murmured. ‘It’s the not knowing that’s the worst.’ He glanced up at her. ‘You know, it was worse without you here. Being in the house alone.’
‘Well I’m here now, and I won’t be leaving you again,’ she said.
He gave a solemn nod.
‘Coffee?’ she asked, deciding that she would rather nurse a cup of something hot and stay up with Fred than return to bed. ‘I think we could both use one.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘But you don’t need to sit up with me.’
‘I want to. It’s not like I’d be able to sleep anyway.’
