Page 14 of The Girl with a Secret
“In America,” Sophie agreed after a pause, “or maybe somewhere in Europe—Paris? Somewhere wonderful. We can decide later, because we’re all going to stay in touch.” She gazed at each of them, a look of desperation in her wide blue eyes. “Aren’t we?”
“Yes, we are,” Hannah said quietly, before Rosa could reply. Her heart felt heavy, her stomach like lead. She wasn’t sure she believed any of it. If they were forced back to Germany… well, the chances were, they would never see Sophie again.
And yet… right now, they needed to believe. To hope.
Hannah raised her shard of emerald. “We’re the Emerald Sisters,” she quipped, smiling faintly, yet her eyes as hard as the jewel she held. “And the next time we see each other, it will be somewhere elegant in Paris or New York or who knows where, drinking champagne!”
“Or piña coladas,” Rachel added, with a small smile.
“I think Paris,” Rosa said decisively. She could enter into the spirit of the thing, she decided; sheneededto… for her own sake, as well as for Sophie’s and her other friends’. She needed to hope, tobelieve. “There’s a little café by the Eiffel Tower that I’ve been to,” she continued, recalling the place, its shabby comfort. “Henri’s. We’ll meet there on the same day as today, the second of June, at…” She glanced at her watch. “Four o’clock!” As if it were a date they could all pencil into their diaries. If only it could be.
“What year?” Hannah asked, sounding skeptical, and Rosa shrugged, determined to be defiant, even insouciant, much as it cost her.
“As soon as it’s safe.”
They all fell silent, not needing to acknowledge that none of them had any idea when that would be.
But itwouldhappen, Rosa thought. She would make sure of it. Slowly, deliberately, she raised her shard of emerald as Hannah had done, and after a second’s pause, Sophie and Rachel followed, lifting their hands high in the air, their expressions solemn, almost devout. They all stood there, their hands raised, the light catching the shattered jewels, and making them glint, the moment becoming something sacred.
“To the Emerald Sisters,” Rosa reiterated, and the others followed, turning the words into a solemn vow, and one that despite her own best intentions, Rosa already feared they could not possibly keep… especially if theSt Louiswas bound for Germany.
CHAPTER 7
TUESDAY, JUNE 6, 1939—SOMEWHERE OFF THE COAST OF THE UNITED STATES
Rosa startled awake, gasping for breath as if she’d been running a race—or been trapped in the claws of a nightmare, its talons sunk deep inside her. A shuddering breath escaped her as she blinked the sleep from her eyes and glanced around the cabin wildly, although she did not even know what she was looking for.Whoshe was looking for, she realized with a sickening lurch. In her dream—the nightmare—she’d been back in Germany, at their house on the Wannsee. She’d been in the garden…
Another shudder went through her. The room was completely dark, save for a sliver of moonlight from the porthole that slanted across the floor, but in her mind’s eyes, she was in their sunlit garden, with the lawn tumbling down to the lake, the birch trees in verdant leaf, the air full of birdsong. She’d seen Ernst standing by the shore, and her heart had leapt at the sight of his deep blue eyes shot through with gold, like sunlight dancing on the sea. She’d felt her spirits lift, her hands reach out, and then he’d caught sight of her, and his mouth had twisted…
Rosa fell back against her pillows, squeezing her eyes shut, but a tear trickled out anyway. A tear of shame, but also of grief.
Shemissedhim. How could she possibly miss him?
Against her own will, she found herself recalling Ernst as she’d first seen him, in the drawing room of their house, one elbow propped on top of the grand piano, a glass of schnapps in his long-fingered hand. His hair, the color of ripe wheat, had been brushed off his forehead; he wore it longer than most good Aryan Germans did, and certainly those in the army.
She’d been arrested by the sheer, careless beauty of him, even though she hadn’t wanted to be, because she knew what he was. At least, she’dthoughtshe knew what he was, simply by the uniform he wore.
But then he’d convinced her to think otherwise.
Oh, how he had convinced her…
Another groan escaped her, and she wiped her eyes, only to still feel as if the bed was shifting beneath her. No, not the bed, not even the floor, but the wholeship.
Rosa froze, her hands still covering her eyes, as she felt the ship move, like some great behemoth of a beast, slowly and inexorably turning its vast, lumbering body.
Yesterday, Captain Schroeder had set course to return to Cuban waters, with the hope that they would be able to disembark on the Isle of Pines, Cuba’s second largest island. The passenger committee had been told they might be able to stay there at least temporarily, until a final destination was arranged. Everyone had gone to bed with a sense of cautious optimism and relief, that there was a solution at hand, but through her father, Rosa knew the truth—approaches had already been made to Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Colombia, and Paraguay… and they had all refused to take the refugees.
President Brú had no intention, her father had told her, of allowing now just over nine hundred Jews onto the Isle of Pines if they didn’t have somewhere else to go. She hadn’t said as much to her friends, however, knowing they wouldn’t welcome the news, and not wanting to be the bearer of it.
Now, however, as she felt the ship shift, Rosa had a leaden sense of what the truth was. Another country had not been found. Surely they were heading east… back toward Europe.
She hurried out of bed, pressing her face to the beveled glass of the porthole, but there was nothing to see but dark, endless ocean, under a sky scattered faintly with stars. She threw on her dressing gown and stormed into her parents’ bedroom, heedless of her mother still lying in bed, asleep.
“What’s happening?” she demanded of her father, who was already out of bed, a shirt pulled on over his pajamas. Fear made her sound angry.
“You could knock, Rosa, really,” her mother harrumphed sleepily as she sat up in bed, looking rumpled and dazed, her dark hair loose about her shoulders; she’d been taking far too much of the sedative her father doled out to her whenever she asked, as well as often when she didn’t.
“We’re turning,” Rosa stated, her eyes on her father, who was buttoning his shirt. “We’re heading east.”
