Life Will Have Its Way (3 page)

Since I needed to leave early for work, Anja decided she would take the girl home with her. I would have preferred that they’d just spent the night in my apartment to avoid waking the girl and moving her, but Anja was insistent on returning to her place before the night was through. I decided I didn’t have the energy nor the inclination to argue with her, besides, if there was anything I’d learned about the woman, it was the fact that once she’d made up her mind it was a useless endeavor to try to change it.

Anja had retired a few years before I moved into the building. I had no idea what she’d done while she was still working and even after a fair amount of effort and more than three years’ time, I was still as clueless about her former profession as I had been on the day I first met her. Initially, I hadn’t cared much about what it was she’d done for a living, but the more she refused to talk about it, the more my interest piqued and without any input from her I was forced to use my imagination to fill in the missing details. At times I would be comfortable with the notion that she’d been nothing more than a low level office worker, bored out of her wits but content to amuse herself after hours with gardening and a game of tennis every once in a while. But I have to admit, there were also times when I thought perhaps she was so reluctant to talk about her previous work because there
was
something to hide. Perhaps she’d had an incredibly powerful position. Perhaps she’d done things she wasn’t proud of, done things to make people’s lives miserable. Perhaps she was still in contact with her former employers and co-workers, and perhaps I was always saying too much.

“Okay,” I said, “but how can we get her to your place, without someone noticing?” I gestured back and forth in the direction of the apartments on the other side of the hall. The tenants across from Anja were an odd, older couple who gave me the same feeling Hansel and Gretel must have felt when they were confronted by the little old woman in the candy house. Both had an unnatural interest in everyone’s business and became immediately available anytime there was the slightest bit of activity in the hallway. They presented themselves under the cover of their small, yappy dog that always, conveniently, needed to go out. It
was Anja’s theory that they were paid with booze and cigarettes to report everything that went on in the building. I hadn’t yet decided if that was truly the case, maybe they were just bored and lonely, or maybe their dog just had a small bladder.

“I think we’ll be fine if we wait until it gets a bit later,” she said. “You know those two slushes in 1B will be passed out before midnight and I’m sure that little bitty in 1D still has her night job.” Anja smiled, seemingly amused by her unneighborly description of the neighbors.

She leaned over to brush the hair out of the girl’s face, then dropped into the chair next to the couch. She picked up the little blue coat draped across its arm and held it up by the shoulders, she tilted her head and squinted while she tried to read the tag attached to the inside of the neck. “Bremmer-Klein? Hmmf,” she shrugged, “that’s strange.” She folded the coat over itself and sat it on her lap, then ran her hand thoughtfully over the fabric. “That company hasn’t been in business for decades.”

“You think that’s strange? What about these?” I picked up one of the girl’s boots and passed it to her. “Check this out! I bet you’ve never seen anything like this before?”

Her eyes grew large as she took the boot from my hand. She ran her fingers over the fur trim, and into the lining, she pulled at the strings, and rolled them between her fingers, she turned the boot over to look at the bottom and moved her hand over the thick surface that covered the sole.

“What is it?” I asked, wondering what she’d seen that had so captured her attention.

“Oh nothing,” she answered, “It’s just that, well, believe it or not, I actually have seen boots like this before.”

“Where?” I asked skeptically.

“Oh, it’s been forever, and I suppose there’s a chance my memory’s just playing tricks on me, but I’d swear that some of the men that came to see my father wore boots like that.”

“Men? Who? What men?”

“From the Resistance,” she answered in a hushed tone, “they were in the Resistance.”

“But why? Why would people in the Resistance be coming to see your father?”

“Oh, I’m sure you can figure that out on your own dear,” she replied a bit sharply.

Over the years the idea of the Resistance had been highly romanticized and usually conjured up images of dashing young men rushing secretly about the city in the dark of night, organizing, arming one another and sabotaging the efforts of the enemy. But in reality, a big part of the underground consisted of extremely ordinary people, people like Anja’s parents.

She looked away, her eyes moved side to side while she thought, her face shifted while her head shook back and forth. “No. No. That can’t be. Can it?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“Oh nothing. Nothing,” she shook her head quickly. Leaning to place the coat over the arm of the couch she noticed the girl’s leather bag on the side table. “And what do we have here?” she asked while picking it up. Examining it closely she ran her fingers along the stitching at the edges and across the colorful threads that created a butterfly on the flap. She sniffed a few times into the air, looking around for the source of a smell she had just noticed. Realizing it was coming from the bag, she brought it closer to her face and inhaled deeply. “Ooh, that smell, I love that smell,” she took another deep breath. “Sometimes my grandfather would throw a bough of pine into his stove. The needles would catch fire then they would crackle and burst and emit the most wonderful smell.” She took another long drag of air from near the bag. “Everything in the room would smell just like this. Sometimes everything in the entire house,” she laughed, “even him.” 

“Well there we go,” I said half-joking, “now we just need to find a house with a wood burning stove filled with burnt pine needles.”

“Well, if this girl lives in a house with a wood burning stove… she isn’t from anywhere around here.”

Anja kept hold of the purse, she tinkered mindlessly with the closure, a narrow barrel shaped piece of metal that went through an opening then turned to secure the flap. When she finally went to set the bag back on the table it flipped from her hands and the contents spilled to the ground.

“Oh my!” her face flushed, as she scooped everything up and tucked it back in the bag. She looked nervously at the girl, hoping she was still asleep and hadn’t witnessed the violation.

Anja popped up from the chair and announced that she needed fresh air. She said she’d take a look around outside and see if someone might have returned for the girl. She suspected that anyone that might come looking for her would be from out in the country and predicted that they would be reluctant to go door-to-door in an unfamiliar neighborhood in the city. She stepped into her shoes, threw one of my jackets over her shoulders and slipped out the door. I listened until I heard the loud, hard slam of the outer door then dashed to the window where I watched Anja round the front corner of the building. It was quite dark outside and the street lamps struggled to cast enough light. She stopped to look in both directions along the street then stepped onto the path that ran across the grass to the arbor.

She waved in my direction, then held her palms in the air, tilted her head to the side and shrugged. There was no one there. She crossed the back half of the garden and disappeared into the alleyway that ran behind the buildings. I listened for her feet on the rear steps, for the heavy click of the back door, but didn’t hear either. Perhaps there had been someone outside after all. I strained to listen, the night had become unusually still. From the window Anja was nowhere to be seen. Where had she gone? What was she doing? If someone had been there looking for the girl, wouldn’t she have just brought them inside? I tiptoed into the empty hallway. The distance between the back of the garden where I last saw her and the door was less than 15 yards, just a few dozen steps. I couldn’t imagine how she could have disappeared so quickly in such a small amount of space.

A stamping noise coming from the back door finally broke the deathly silence, the same noise moved up the stairs and stopped at the top. I ran back to my apartment, feeling suddenly distressed about having left the girl alone inside. Just as I reached my door the latch to the back exit moved down slowly, a dark figure showed through the glass.

At the other end of the hallway, the neighbor’s dog sprang from behind their door, it raced toward me, whimpering with delight as it approached.

“Huh-low there, young lady,” the neighbor’s thick, scratchy voice yelled down the corridor. “What brings you out so late?”

The old man from 1B took a few teetering steps toward me, the dog’s leash hung loosely from his hand. His eyes were large, the whites covered with streaks of red.

“Oh, nothing. I just thought I heard something out here, but, it looks like it must have just been you!” I called back jovially toward him, hoping it was loud enough for Anja to hear on the other side of the door. 

“Come ‘ere girl, come on!” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small piece of shriveled jerky, moaning as he bent to lower the treat closer to the ground. The dog turned and raced back down the hall following the scent of the meat. I pretended to go back inside while 1B continued to fuss with his dog. I knew he would still be watching me. “Have a good night,” I yelled in his direction. 

Once he was convinced there was nothing more to see he connected the leash to the collar and tugged at the curious little dog, dragging her reluctantly to the entrance, the glass shook as the door slammed behind them. At nearly the same time the back door finally opened, Anja stood behind it, she continued to hold the handle for balance while she lifted her foot to examine the bottom of her shoe, she didn’t seem to notice I was standing there.

“Anja!” I yelled in a whisper, she looked up, nodded toward me, then lifted her finger to her lips. 

“What happened to you?” I asked once we were both back inside. “What took you so long?”

“Well,” she said, directing my attention to her dust covered shoes. “For some reason the cellar door had been left wide open. And… the lights were on.” She removed her shoes and walked to the trash to finish shaking them off. I’m, not sure that has anything to do with…” she looked toward the couch, “but….”

“What about the maintenance guy?” I asked. “Maybe it was him.”

“No, no, it wasn’t him. We haven’t used that old boiler for years and I can’t think of any other reason he or anyone else would need to be down there.”

“Maybe it was just some kids playing around or something.”

“Well, I certainly hope not,” she snapped. 

Anja was quite agitated and I couldn’t figure out why she thought it was such a big deal whether someone had been in the cellar. Unless it was the girl’s grandmother, frankly, I wasn’t sure I cared who’d been down there.

“So, no luck finding anyone in the garden?” I asked, hoping to get her off the subject of the cellar.

She tossed her arms in the air and looked sarcastically around the apartment, “Obviously not.”

“Well, maybe we just need to give it more time.”

Anja didn’t respond. She brought her hands in front of her, tapping her fingertips together while she thought. Her tongue clucked on the roof of her mouth a few time before her fingers abruptly stopped, “I’ll be right back,” she said as she moved toward the entryway. She slipped back into her dusty shoes and disappeared out the door, returning moments later with a small piece of scratch paper, several numbers scribbled across it. She went straight to the phone.

“Peter, this is Anja,” she spoke quietly, directly into the receiver, which was pressed hard against her face. “Are you free this evening?”

I couldn’t hear his response, but it must have been yes.

“Wonderful, wonderful, we’re having a delicious…” she looked anxiously toward me, fanning her hand in front of her as she searched for the right word.

“Cobbler?” I offered, holding up the can of peaches she’d brought when she first came.

“Peach cobbler! Yes, peach cobbler,” she shrugged and made a face. “I’ve had the good fortune of getting hold of a can of peaches today and we would love to have you join us for dessert.” She made sure he had the right address and finished up the call before placing the handset carefully in its cradle.

“What was that about?” I asked with curiosity.

“Well, I thought we might be able to get some help from an old friend of my father’s. But once I had him on the line I realized I couldn’t just blurt out what I really needed him for.”

Anja paced the floor by the windows, frequently checking outside. Each time the sound of a car could be heard she would rush to the window and draw back the curtain. When the car in question didn’t stop she would sigh audibly and resume the long rectangular pattern she was making across the edge of room. It had only been a matter of minutes since she’d hung up the phone, I couldn’t understand her impatience. When I suggested we start on the cobbler, hoping it might distract her until Peter arrived, she informed me that he would be well aware of the fact that he hadn’t really been given an invitation for desert. Then she laughed out loud at the thought of him trying to decipher the meaning of the phrase “peach cobbler” while he wondered what he was getting himself into.