Nightingale (28 page)

Talk? About what? But she had no bones to move, to protest.

Linus reached for his crutch. His father went to help him as he struggled to his feet, but Linus slapped his hand away. “I don't need any help.”

The judge pulled back. Glanced at Esther, then back at Linus. “No, I guess you don't.”

Linus bore a sweetness, almost, to his smile when his father closed the door behind him. He leaned against his father's desk, pushing the ashtray away. “I hate the smell of his cigarettes. Always have.”

She let herself smile, but it fell away fast. Just in case.

Linus's eyes softened. “I
am
sorry, you know.”

She wanted to know. To believe him, right down to her bones. And perhaps, yes, the way he started to reach out, then let his hand fall, perhaps yes.

“You don't love me.” She tested the words more than declared them.

“No. I've always loved—”

“Rosemary.”

He nodded. “But, to be honest, you don't love me either. We never did, really.”

“No.”

His chest rose and fell. “War. It turns everything over, makes it urgent, desperate. I was feeling invincible—and terrified that night. And you—” He met her eyes then. “You are so beautiful, Esther.”

It made her forgive him, just a little. More forgiveness would take time. But she would find that inside too.

“Have I broken your heart?”

Still the arrogant Hahn inside him. However, she shook her head, a warmth in her eyes. “No. You've set me free.”

He reached down, took her hand. “Good. Because I want you to be free. And I will help you. Whatever you want. Wherever you want to go.”

“And Sadie?”

He ducked until he met her eyes. “I will learn to be a sort of father, if you let me. And pray that Sadie will someday have a proper father.”

She caught a tear on her fingertips.

“I—I probably shouldn't ask, but… What about Peter?”

Linus tightened his grip on her hand. “Like you said, he saved my life. Twice. And I still have some pull with the local law.”

Thank you.
The words breached her lips, but she couldn't mouth them. Instead, she returned his touch, her hand tight in his, fast, and it was enough. However, “Linus, that night we were together, I—I lost a part of myself.”

He let go of her hand. “Me too.”

Outside the rain had died, the sun bearing through the gray dawn.

“Do you think it's possible to find that person you were again?”

She shook her head. “I think maybe, with God's love, we can find someone better.”

Peter had expected to be shot at dawn, like the villain in a Ringo Kid comic of his youth. After all, the mob that carried him away—if it
hadn't been for the Roosevelt police, he might have been drawn and quartered on the front lawn of the hotel—threatened all manner of execution by daybreak.

And the way Linus had looked at Esther… Peter lay on his cot all night, drawing her name into the ceiling with his prayers.

But the sun had found the morning, parting the night and drawing stripes through his cell by the time he heard footsteps down the hall, the jangle of keys against the leg of his guard.

The deputy appeared. “You have a visitor.”

He hoped it might be Bert, ready to transport him back to camp.

“Linus.”

The man appeared, clean shaven, his hair slicked back, wearing his uniform—gray-green jacket, insignias on the collar, leaning on his crutches.

Linus stopped before the cell, looked at the guard, and nodded.

“Are you sure?” the guard said. But Linus just brushed past him, down the hallway, and nudged open a door at the end. He had already found a seat across from the pine table when Peter followed him in.

The guard shut the door behind him. The bolt slid into the lock.

Peter stood before the table and couldn't help the mental comparison. He knew he appeared rough—he'd caught his reflection in the window and noted that he'd fared better in town than he had with his fellow Germans. Then again, he'd never call Fritz and Ernst and Hans his fellow Germans.

Also, he looked like a prisoner of war. Linus looked like a hero. A man worthy of Esther, if Peter didn't know the truth.

“Sit down, Peter.”

Linus gestured to the seat and Peter pulled it out. Linus worked
something out of his jacket pocket. “I brought you some of my mother's zucchini bread.” He laid the waxed paper package in front of Peter.

Oh, how he wanted to inhale it, his stomach roaring to life, but he kept his hands knotted on his lap. “Why?”

Linus offered a smile—something quick, even apologetic? “I thought you might be hungry.”

“How's Esther?”

Linus's smile dimmed, and in that moment Peter saw himself coming over the table, wrapping his hands around Linus's throat. “This wasn't her fault.”

“Calm down. She's fine. She and Sadie have moved to her friend Caroline's house, for now.” The way he said it, without a fragment of anger…

“I don't understand.”

“I think you do.” Linus nudged the bread toward him. “Have some breakfast. You must be hungry.”

Peter considered Linus for a moment. Something…seemed different. Healed, or perhaps set free. And a sudden warmth in the texture of his eyes made Peter reach out for the bread.

He held it in his hand, broke off a piece, and willed himself not to turn into a fool.

“I should have known that you and Esther would find each other. That you'd see inside each other that compassion that makes you people who would race
into
a fire and rescue a coma patient.”

“How is Charlie?”

“I don't know. But I was referring to me. I was stuck inside the chaos and heat of what I saw in battle, what I suffered. Most of all, the future looked gray to me. I came home to my shame and couldn't break free.” He pulled out a picture, handed it across to Peter.

“I thought you'd like to have this.”

Peter slid it toward him. Yes. A picture of Esther in her nightingale uniform, probably taken before the war.

“Where did you get this?”

“Esther gave it to me before I left. It was in my gear when it was sent back.”

“You had another woman's picture in your helmet.”

“Yes.” Linus took off his hat, ran his fingers along the brim. “I love Rosemary. And, if she will still have me, I want to keep my promise to her.” He closed his eyes for a moment, his shoulders rising and falling. “I hurt her pretty bad with my behavior.”

And Esther? Linus still couldn't see—

“But I hurt Esther worse.” Linus put his hat on the table. “I used her and called it love, but of course we as men know it was nothing of the sort.”

His words weren't helping calm the rising simmer inside.

“You should know that I could have loved her. And, I think if I had my right mind overseas, I would have never written that letter. And yesterday I would have married her. Because, even when I couldn't see her, she was there, late at night, early in the morning. Deep down, I knew that she could help heal me, if I let her.”

Yes. He knew exactly how Esther could do that. Give a man back the pieces of hope that have slipped from his grip.

“But we both know who really loves her here.” Linus looked up at him. “Who would die for her.”

Peter folded the bread up in the paper, his appetite gone. He set it on the table. “It doesn't matter. They'll probably have a trial. Shoot me or something.”

Linus nodded. “They planned that.”

Peter closed his eyes.
May your God whom you serve continually, deliver you
. He breathed in the words, swallowing back acid in his throat.

“But I told my father that you saved my life. Twice. That you deserved a second chance. Like you gave me.” He put his hand on the table. “Like you gave Esther.”

Peter closed his eyes.

“They caught two other escapees, by the way. With the Janzen girl, outside of town. She managed to get away from them, get help from a local farmer. He called the police.”

Two? Oh, please don't let Fritz have gotten away. “Only two?”

“Only you three escaped.”

Peter churned the words over. Maybe Fritz hadn't escaped… “I'm sorry I didn't tell anyone about what I overheard. I didn't believe them.”

Linus shook his head. “No one would have believed you either.”

Peter stared at his hands. He still reeked of smoke, his hands grimy from the sodden yard.

“I gave the army my testimony—told them you were innocent, and how you saved me on the battlefield. Then my father worked out a deal on your behalf, at my request. The army is sending you to Fort Robinson, in Nebraska. From there, you'll eventually be sent home.”

Except, his home was here.

Linus stood up. “After that, what you do is, of course, up to you.” He stood, held out his hand.

Peter stared at it. Reached out. Clasped it. Linus held it tight, and as Peter looked up, Linus's eyes glistened.

“
Tausend Dank
, Peter.”

“You're welcome, Linus.”

His guard let him wash, change clothes, fed him lunch. Then, as evening fell softly into his cell, Bert came into the prison.

“I'm just here on official business,” he said. “But if I weren't, I'd say that I'll miss you.”

Then he led him out into the summer night and down the street to the train station.

Bert left him on a wooden bench on the empty platform as he retrieved his ticket.

Stars tumbled across the murky sky, the moon an eye of fire, watching him in the blackness. He shivered as the wind scoured up the creosote and tar from the tracks. From far away, he heard the blow of the incoming train, searched down the tracks to find it.

That's when he saw her, standing below a streetlight, her hands hidden in her trench coat. Still beautiful, her hair down in waves over her face, her eyes shiny, her pretty red mouth in a sad smile. She lifted a hand.

He waved back, a small gesture with his shackled hands.

Then, while he watched, she turned and gestured to the sky. Reached up and plucked a star.

She turned, then she blew it to him.

Sometimes that dream feels like trying to catch a star, hold it in my pocket.

The train rolled in then. Exhaled black smoke, coughed.

When he looked back, she was gone.

Good night my love,
You'll be dreaming soon,
And you'll never know
Where your dreams will take you.

Return to me
In your memory,
And know that I
Was your sweet, sweet lullaby.

Peter had returned home to find hell.

Indeed, the soul had been stripped from Dresden.

The blackened rubble of the Zwinger palace, the Semper Opera House, and the charred skeletons of the city clawed the gunmetal sky, had possessed the power to reach deep, tear jagged swathes through him, and turn him, bleeding, outside of himself.