Page 84 of The Pianist's Wife
‘Mind? I would have been horrified if you’d gone anywhere else,’ Gisele said. ‘Don’t you remember me telling you that this would always be your home, too?’
‘But your mother, is she—’
‘She’s not here. It’s just me, I promise.’
They’d presumed someone else would have moved in to their old apartment, and besides, it wasn’t as if they still had a key, even if it was theirs. But Gisele’s house did feel like a second home to Amira in a way, and it was the only place they could go.
They walked down the hallway, and Amira started to cry; she couldn’t help it. Just being in Gisele’s house again, finally believing that they’d escaped, that it was all close to being over... after so long hoping for a miracle, she felt as if she’d finally received one. Amira reached out to steady herself against the wall, all of a sudden feeling so light-headed she wasn’t sure she could walk another step.But Fred was there to put an arm around her waist, guiding her as Gisele fussed and hurried ahead, opening the door into the front sitting room, and carrying the broken cup that she’d dropped when answering the door.
‘I’ve been so worried about whether you had enough to eat and how you were being treated, and Hans refused to tell me anything more than that you were alive and he was providing whatever extra he could.’
When Gisele paused for breath, Amira glanced at Fred, who looked as exhausted as she felt. To someone like Gisele, who’d lived the entire war in a safe home surrounded by her children and protected from the worst of everything, it would be almost impossible to explain to her what they’d been through; the kind of bone-tired exhaustion and starvation that they’d experienced not something she could possibly understand. The fear they’d seen in the eyes of others, the smell of death in the camp, the terror of helplessness that swept through every single human being kept behind the wire. But none of that was Gisele’s fault, and one day, when she found the words, Amira would do her best to explain.
‘We’ve had very little to eat this past week, so we would both be very grateful for some food,’ Fred said. ‘Do you have anything to spare in the kitchen?’
‘It’s truly been so bad?’ Gisele’s eyes were wide as she stared at them. ‘I kept trying to tell myself that it couldn’t be as terrible as I was imagining it to be. But yes, of course, please help yourself to anything, anything at all.’
‘Hans made sure we had food in the camp, but it’s been almost a week since we left,’ Amira told her, not about to share the truth about the camp, most especially the main camp. It had taken Amira seeing the dead bodies at the crematorium to understand why Hans had believed she wouldn’t survive it; and he’d been right. ‘You haven’t seen him in all that time?’
‘I haven’t. But please tell me that he was responsible for your escape? He promised me that he had a plan, but he hasn’t been home and there hasn’t been so much as a letter from him or—’
‘Gisele,’ Amira said, fighting past her own exhaustion to stop her friend from talking as Fred disappeared in search of food.
‘Please tell me that he’s been doing everything he could,’ Gisele continued. ‘I told him that there was nothing more important than—’
‘Gisele,’ Amira said again, forcing her voice, her tone making it clear that she needed to speak.
Gisele stopped and looked at her, and Amira noticed the dark shadows beneath her eyes, the weight loss in her face; the manic way she had spoken, her hands trembling as she kept hold of the broken cup. She was a shadow of the woman Amira had left behind. And that was when she realised – Gisele may have lived in relative safety all this time, but she had suffered in her own way, waiting for news and fighting for them from the home front, no doubt terrified that her best friend was going to perish and they would never see each other again.
Amira touched her arm and gently rubbed her fingers against the fabric of Gisele’s dress.
‘Gisele,’ Amira said. ‘I need you to listen to me.’
‘I’m talking too much, and all you both want is a cup of coffee and something to eat,’ Gisele said. ‘I’m so sorry, just having you here, safe... I just can’t quite believe it. I don’t know quite what to do with myself.’
‘Gisele, Hans gave me something before we escaped the camp,’ Amira said. ‘I didn’t realise how much it meant, but now that you’ve said he hasn’t been home...’
‘What would he have to give you that he couldn’t give to me himself?’ Gisele asked. ‘I keep telling the children that he’ll be homesoon, but it’s been well over a week since we’ve seen him. It’s just not like him at all.’
‘He gave me this, to give to you,’ Amira said. ‘He told me that I was to make sure you received it as soon as we found our way to you. It was his only condition for helping us.’
Gisele seemed surprised, or perhaps she was suddenly nervous, Amira couldn’t tell. ‘Surely he could have either come home to tell me whatever he had to say, or given it to me directly.’
Amira reached inside her coat pocket for the letter, not able to shake off the sense of foreboding. She’d known when he gave it to her that the contents were for his wife’s eyes only, but something hadn’t sat right with her this entire time, and suddenly she wished she’d read it first, simply so she knew how best to support her friend. She couldn’t stop thinking of the way they’d stood there in the rain, the way he’d passed it to her, the sadness in his gaze. She’d touched her pocket countless times since, reliving that night over and over again.
‘Did he say anything to you?’ Gisele asked. ‘Before he gave it to you, did he say why he had to write? Was there a reason he couldn’t come home?’
‘He told me to give you the letter and to stay with you while you read it,’ Amira said. ‘It was dark and he pressed it into my hand and made me promise that I would guard it with my life. But he was insistent that you not open it alone.’
Gisele reached for the envelope, staring down at it as if she didn’t want to open it, as if Amira had passed her something that she didn’t want to have in her possession. It had been perfect and crisp when Hans had given it to her, but after getting wet that first night and then being hidden for so long in her pocket while she was hiding and travelling, it was now crumpled and slightly dog-eared, as well as being smudged with dirt.
‘I’m sorry it’s not as pristine as it should be, but I’m hoping that the words are still legible and not smudged.’
‘Would you read it with me?’ Gisele asked. ‘I don’t know why, but I don’t want to read it on my own. Hans has never written to me before, not even when he was first courting me, and I just...’ She shook her head. ‘He wasn’t in a good way last time I saw him. I’ve been so worried about him.’
‘Of course,’ Amira said, as Gisele finally slid her nail beneath the seal and opened the envelope, taking the single folded page out. Her friend’s hands shook, and Amira reached out to place her fingers over Gisele’s to steady them.
Gisele opened it and held it between them so they could both read it, and Amira knew as soon as she read the first line that the letter she’d been carrying all these days was going to break Gisele’s heart. It was not from a man who intended to come home; far from it.
