Change [15/17] [The Sound of Music]
Change
Chapter 15
"Come on, Brigitta!" Kurt called. His sister was lagging behind the other two, just as she had been for the entirety of their walk. They had been fortunate that their father had given them permission to come out on their own, but perhaps the presence of himself and Brigitta was enough for him. Sooner or later, Kurt knew that he would have to allow them those same freedoms he had allowed to their older brother and sisters.
Or perhaps it had just been practical. He had gone to see Gunter another time before they left for America again in two days-none of them wished to sit and hear the two reminisce about Austria's past-and Sabina, still not feeling well, was in their hotel room, lying down. With Salzburg held by the Americans, what harm might come to them? Whatever the case, none of them had argued with the permission to take a walk.
"Do you think we can go to the gardens?" Gretl asked. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
"Of course not," Marta said. Kurt shook his head; she was turning into a girl who seemed too practical for her own good, hardly like the younger sister he remembered from years before. "They wouldn't have planted them again yet."
"That doesn't mean we can't go-"
"It doesn't make any sense-"
"But it can't be that ruined!"
"Brigitta!" Kurt said again, looking over his shoulder. He heard Gretl sighing, but didn't look back yet; at times, she behaved like the child she had been when they had first left Austria. But Brigitta, she had almost morose for the entire day, since the previous evening really.
She had stopped on the street, looking up at one of the buildings they passed, some ancient remnant that the bombs and war had spared. He nearly yelled out to her again, but the sounds of footsteps ahead of him turned his head. Marta and Gretl were running after one another, rushing on up the street without thinking of a thing. Cursing silently, he hastened his own pace. The American soldiers would surely do nothing if they found his sisters, but the thought unnerved him. He almost had to run to keep up with them, just glancing over his shoulder to Brigitta another time. But he went on ahead, looking down with every step for debris in his path; Brigitta could look after herself more than either Marta or Gretl.
"Brigitta!" he called with a quick glance over his shoulder, drawing her face. "Hurry up!" Looking back to his path, he skirted a pile of small pebbles, just hurrying after his youngest sisters with a few quiet curses under his breath.
Still along the middle of the street, Brigitta almost called out to them, wanting them to wait a moment, but Gretl was chasing after Marta, like they were playing the games of tag that had filled their childhood, and neither noticed that Kurt was jogging after them. She looked back over her shoulder to the cathedral rising in the background behind the walls of Nonnberg. Would they even let her near, let her in? She wasn't certain what the nuns would say, or did she even need their permission? Once or twice in the years before they had gone, Brigitta remembered going to the church cemetery with her father and siblings-and once even with her mother!-to visit the grave of a relative. Had they needed that permission? She didn't remember that they had.
And with this place being so near, the steeple with its bells rising like a man made mountain from the courtyard of the abbey, how could they just walk by? But she couldn't; she would not let herself!
Would they notice that she was gone? Brigitta wasn't certain, but at this time, she didn't truly care. They were almost at the other end of the street, Kurt throwing a word or two occasionally into Gretl and Marta's bickering, and in a moment, Brigitta darted back around the corner. What would her father say? She licked her lips, dry in the summer heat. He would surely disapprove, but did that matter?
She was alone here, the noise of her brother and sisters gone, just the pounding of blood in her ears to fill the quiet. It had seemed that they hadn't even noticed the abbey, as though the importance of it in their lives had faded when they had first crossed the border into Switzerland. She lifted a hand to the wall along the street, just wanting to touch it. Her pace was still slow, wanting to feel the rocks pass along her fingers, the rough grains slipping away beneath her fingertips. The only sound along the street was her own shoes on the pavement, the heels clicking with every step she took, and the pebbles that littered the still empty street scattering when she pushed them away from her toes.
The solid rock dipped a few feet before her, replaced by iron overhead, almost a gateway. Was that it? Trying to think back, she couldn't tell. Quickening her pace, Brigitta came to that opening, a yawning gap in the stone wall that revealed row after row of tombstones. When they had been out in the city one afternoon with Fräulein Maria, she had taken them past here as well, just looking out over the aisles of the dead. What had she said of them? That they were the righteous members of the church in Salzburg; the sisters of the abbey, though, they were buried within the abbey itself, deep in a courtyard filled with old stones and the silent contemplation of the sisters still living.
Did they mind her coming in? Who? she had to ask herself. The sisters in Nonnberg or the men and women whose abode she entered. Stepping cautiously down into the cemetery-it seemed just a courtyard, and perhaps it would be, if not for the rows and rows of stones that marked the places of the dead-Brigitta looked over her shoulder. The air was still in this place, heavier with the memories of those that rested within the masonry walls.
The patch of sky above was gray and the entire enclosure silent, as though the gloom of the war that had dissipated from the streets of Salzburg in the face of the noise of the city's people still lingered heavily between the headstones. In the rows, grass that had once been green was brown, dead patches here and there that were more mud than grass. Surely it had been well-tended before, but the times had transformed things that were once solemn into mere chores that might be neglected. Tangled vines and creepers crawled over the stones and at the base of a few, ivy chipped away at the corners of the ancient markers.
Where was the newer section, Brigitta wondered. Surely the abbey and the cathedral had not ceased to bury those who had perished in the war, a number that must be more than any person could ear. She just glanced to the dates on the stones she passed slowly; all were standing upright, tilting with age, bearing well-worn numbers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She hastened her steps. How long until one of her siblings did turn around and notice that she was gone? Not much longer, certainly. They were not entirely careless.
These dates were later she saw, the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of this...The ground was brown, now not with dead grass that had begun to putrefy in the summer sun but newly turned soil that had not yet sprouted forth any grass or lichen of its own. The numbers and letters on these stones, almost all of them flush with the earth and far smaller than those older stones, were clear. Fresh and new, nothing more than a name, the year of birth, and the year of death. Every date of death was clustered into the period of the war, from 1939 to 1945.
Not knowing what she was looking for, Brigitta walked along the series of markers quickly, just glancing to those dates. The later the period of the war, the more markers engraved with that year. So many had died so young, she saw. Children only a few years old, perhaps dead in bombing raid or from the poor food. How many times had they complained as sugar, spices, and their favorite sweets had vanished from the grocery store and the corner sweet shop? Brigitta tried to ignore the guilt creeping along her neck, that strange sense of being watched that perhaps she should have employed herself during the war, and just went faster.
She had not attempted to keep count of the number, but by now she would have no notion of the amount she had passed. Her eyes were just on the dates of the death, reading one after another until the last digit of one blurred into the first digit of another. Some were even past the end of the war, reaching into 1946-
Brigitta had to glance at one again. Near the end of this row, one stone was marked with 1938. A mistake, she thought. Or perhaps she had just seen the date of birth- No, that was carved as 1915. Her mouth was dry suddenly, and in spite of the summer, the breeze was cold on her skin as if winter had descended into the tiny yard. Crouching down, she looked to the top where the name was marked with quick chisel strokes. She brushed aside a bit of soil that was atop the name, perhaps from the digging of the marker beside it.
Maria Rainer. The letters were swiftly done, a few scratches here and there but clearly by a hand with skill, and so new Brigitta could not deny what she saw. Maria Rainer. She reached out toward those letters carved so deeply in the stone, to touch them deliberately and trace their patterns, but snatched her fingers back as she came nearer. Her breaths were already choking-and the sounds of Herr Zeller's words were echoing again. Did he mean to haunt her? Her ears were ringing as she stood, filling the silence that otherwise would have held his words. But she did not need to hear them; she remembered them well enough.
Brigitta had no memory of her journey back to their hotel room, of the streets that she ran along, the people that she passed, just the hot tears on her face. The touch of that stone beneath her fingers was etched in her mind, the words as clear in her memory as in that rock. Maria Rainer. Maria Rainer. The sights and sounds of the city blurred into a cloud of color and noise around her, rushing away as if she herself was standing still, pushing against a weight that did not permit her passage.
How she made it to the hotel again, she did not know, and in fact she nearly tripped on the steps of the hotel, not looking at the others around her. Did they stare at her? She didn't care, she just wanted to be away, in their hotel room, where Salzburg faded away into the background. Very nearly she left at the wrong floor, but the number smeared in her eyes was just visible enough that she found herself able to read it, just as the number on the door of their room.
Wrenching the door open, Brigitta nearly threw herself inside, not caring if another person saw her. Nothing more mattered, and all she wished to do was to cry until the pain was gone, until she had no more tears left to bleed. In the sitting area of their rooms, it was dark when she woke, just the gentlest light of the burning embers filling the room. Those hours before, she had just collapsed onto the bench where her parents had sat only the night before, so near to where she had sat knowing nothing. Her body ached, her nose and mouth felt like they were filled with cotton, dry and scratchy, and her eyes were dry, burning with the tears that she had cried before fading asleep. Wiping away a bit of grime from her eyes, she began to sit up.
"Are you feeling better?" The voice that spoke was quiet, gentler than she ever remembered hearing. Mother...But no, that wasn't possible, after all, her mother had been dead for nearly fifteen years, and the memories of her were nothing more than faded photographs and small reminiscences that she scribbled in a journal years before. Yet that sense was nearly identical to what she recalled.
"Y-yes," Brigitta said, feeling for the first time the hand on her shoulder. Not her mother, not even Fräulein Maria- No, she shouldn't think of her now Brigitta knew, feeling the wetness at the corners of her eyes, though how she wasn't sure. Not Liesl, so...Sabina. "What time is it?" she managed without stammering, rubbing a hand at her nose.
"Past nine," her mother said quietly, keeping a hand on her shoulder. "You've been asleep for quite a time."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kept you-"
"There's nothing for you to apologize for," Sabina said gently, now pushing some of Brigitta's long hair back from her face. "I just wanted to be here when you woke up."
Brigitta didn't answer, trying for a moment to swallow over the weight in her throat. Would she ask, did she even wonder. Sabina continued, "You should wash your face, darling, before you really go to bed."
"Oh." That had not been anything like what she had thought her mother would say, and it startled her. "All right." Straightening her rumpled skirt over her knees-glancing to Sabina's skirt, Brigitta could see the imprint of her profile on the dark fabric, and the even darker stains of her tears-she began to stand.
"Brigitta."
"Yes...Mother?" Still sitting, Brigitta looked to Sabina. Curious. In all the years, she had never noticed the resemblance she bore to her mother: both had dark hair, darker than any other person in their family, and pale faces despite the hours they ever passed in the sun.
"Please, tell me anything, darling. Anything if you wish to." Combing a hand through her daughter's longer hair, Sabina smiled in spite of the pain that she knew Brigitta felt. How many times had she heard the news of a friend's death, or of a loved one's? Smiling even as she sensed her daughter's weight on her own chest nearly brought tears to her own eyes. Perhaps a friendly face would be a single bright patch on a day that had clearly been miserable.
She wasn't certain how long she had sat with Brigitta, just feeling her daughter's face against her leg and the tears that she couldn't stop. Every now and then, the girl had shifted, her tears growing slow as if she dropped into sleep for a moment, but after a few minutes, they returned. Hours she knew, but nothing beyond that. Long enough to see her other children return, relieved to see their sister found, and for Georg to return from his meeting with Gunter, immediately concerned, but pushed aside with just a word from herself. But she would not have moved or woken Brigitta for anything at all, not when her daughter simply needed to cry. "Anything," Sabina went on, "or nothing if you want." One day it might be everything, she hoped, but it would be useless to pry.
Across from her, Brigitta just brushed aside a few tears again. What had it been now that she did not sense that Sabina was but an intruder? For years, that had been the way that her mother had seemed. Yet here and now, even as she stood, sniffling and feeling the tacky remnants of tears on her skin, she felt like something more, and far closer. Like a mother.
Turning her eyes up, Brigitta wanted to shout, I don't understand! But her throat was too dry, and she did not want her mother's eyes on her any longer. Going to the room that she shared with her siblings-God help her if they were not asleep; she did not want to talk to them about anything, let alone what they would inquire about!-she pulled open the door and closed it behind herself just as quickly. She still couldn't look back, not yet.
It was quiet in there, just the sound of the three of them breathing. Good, she thought, walking just as quickly to the bathroom on the room's side. She was already troubled enough, by this afternoon and this evening. After these years, it felt as if she had a mother again in something other than the name she spoke, as if the figure that she named Mother had being again. Flipping on the light in the bathroom after the pushed that door shut as well, Brigitta winced at the sight of the red and gray circles around her eyes in the mirror. Perhaps she might take her mother's advice and offer...
Her mother. It was a pleasant sound in her thoughts, one that at last had a ring of truth. Her mother. Leaning down over the sink in the tiny room, Brigitta turned on the tap, just a trickle of water gurgling through the ancient pipes. Filling her palm, she splashed a handful of that cool liquid over her skin. Everything had become so confusing here, when she had come hoping for and expecting clarity. As she twisted the tap closed, she wiped her hand across her cheek.
How long will it be? she wondered, patting her skin dry on the edge of her sleeves, not looking to the mirror again. She just wanted to be gone, at home with her family. Her father, her brothers and sisters, and her mother.
Chapter 15
"Come on, Brigitta!" Kurt called. His sister was lagging behind the other two, just as she had been for the entirety of their walk. They had been fortunate that their father had given them permission to come out on their own, but perhaps the presence of himself and Brigitta was enough for him. Sooner or later, Kurt knew that he would have to allow them those same freedoms he had allowed to their older brother and sisters.
Or perhaps it had just been practical. He had gone to see Gunter another time before they left for America again in two days-none of them wished to sit and hear the two reminisce about Austria's past-and Sabina, still not feeling well, was in their hotel room, lying down. With Salzburg held by the Americans, what harm might come to them? Whatever the case, none of them had argued with the permission to take a walk.
"Do you think we can go to the gardens?" Gretl asked. She twirled a lock of hair around her finger.
"Of course not," Marta said. Kurt shook his head; she was turning into a girl who seemed too practical for her own good, hardly like the younger sister he remembered from years before. "They wouldn't have planted them again yet."
"That doesn't mean we can't go-"
"It doesn't make any sense-"
"But it can't be that ruined!"
"Brigitta!" Kurt said again, looking over his shoulder. He heard Gretl sighing, but didn't look back yet; at times, she behaved like the child she had been when they had first left Austria. But Brigitta, she had almost morose for the entire day, since the previous evening really.
She had stopped on the street, looking up at one of the buildings they passed, some ancient remnant that the bombs and war had spared. He nearly yelled out to her again, but the sounds of footsteps ahead of him turned his head. Marta and Gretl were running after one another, rushing on up the street without thinking of a thing. Cursing silently, he hastened his own pace. The American soldiers would surely do nothing if they found his sisters, but the thought unnerved him. He almost had to run to keep up with them, just glancing over his shoulder to Brigitta another time. But he went on ahead, looking down with every step for debris in his path; Brigitta could look after herself more than either Marta or Gretl.
"Brigitta!" he called with a quick glance over his shoulder, drawing her face. "Hurry up!" Looking back to his path, he skirted a pile of small pebbles, just hurrying after his youngest sisters with a few quiet curses under his breath.
Still along the middle of the street, Brigitta almost called out to them, wanting them to wait a moment, but Gretl was chasing after Marta, like they were playing the games of tag that had filled their childhood, and neither noticed that Kurt was jogging after them. She looked back over her shoulder to the cathedral rising in the background behind the walls of Nonnberg. Would they even let her near, let her in? She wasn't certain what the nuns would say, or did she even need their permission? Once or twice in the years before they had gone, Brigitta remembered going to the church cemetery with her father and siblings-and once even with her mother!-to visit the grave of a relative. Had they needed that permission? She didn't remember that they had.
And with this place being so near, the steeple with its bells rising like a man made mountain from the courtyard of the abbey, how could they just walk by? But she couldn't; she would not let herself!
Would they notice that she was gone? Brigitta wasn't certain, but at this time, she didn't truly care. They were almost at the other end of the street, Kurt throwing a word or two occasionally into Gretl and Marta's bickering, and in a moment, Brigitta darted back around the corner. What would her father say? She licked her lips, dry in the summer heat. He would surely disapprove, but did that matter?
She was alone here, the noise of her brother and sisters gone, just the pounding of blood in her ears to fill the quiet. It had seemed that they hadn't even noticed the abbey, as though the importance of it in their lives had faded when they had first crossed the border into Switzerland. She lifted a hand to the wall along the street, just wanting to touch it. Her pace was still slow, wanting to feel the rocks pass along her fingers, the rough grains slipping away beneath her fingertips. The only sound along the street was her own shoes on the pavement, the heels clicking with every step she took, and the pebbles that littered the still empty street scattering when she pushed them away from her toes.
The solid rock dipped a few feet before her, replaced by iron overhead, almost a gateway. Was that it? Trying to think back, she couldn't tell. Quickening her pace, Brigitta came to that opening, a yawning gap in the stone wall that revealed row after row of tombstones. When they had been out in the city one afternoon with Fräulein Maria, she had taken them past here as well, just looking out over the aisles of the dead. What had she said of them? That they were the righteous members of the church in Salzburg; the sisters of the abbey, though, they were buried within the abbey itself, deep in a courtyard filled with old stones and the silent contemplation of the sisters still living.
Did they mind her coming in? Who? she had to ask herself. The sisters in Nonnberg or the men and women whose abode she entered. Stepping cautiously down into the cemetery-it seemed just a courtyard, and perhaps it would be, if not for the rows and rows of stones that marked the places of the dead-Brigitta looked over her shoulder. The air was still in this place, heavier with the memories of those that rested within the masonry walls.
The patch of sky above was gray and the entire enclosure silent, as though the gloom of the war that had dissipated from the streets of Salzburg in the face of the noise of the city's people still lingered heavily between the headstones. In the rows, grass that had once been green was brown, dead patches here and there that were more mud than grass. Surely it had been well-tended before, but the times had transformed things that were once solemn into mere chores that might be neglected. Tangled vines and creepers crawled over the stones and at the base of a few, ivy chipped away at the corners of the ancient markers.
Where was the newer section, Brigitta wondered. Surely the abbey and the cathedral had not ceased to bury those who had perished in the war, a number that must be more than any person could ear. She just glanced to the dates on the stones she passed slowly; all were standing upright, tilting with age, bearing well-worn numbers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. She hastened her steps. How long until one of her siblings did turn around and notice that she was gone? Not much longer, certainly. They were not entirely careless.
These dates were later she saw, the end of the nineteenth century, the beginning of this...The ground was brown, now not with dead grass that had begun to putrefy in the summer sun but newly turned soil that had not yet sprouted forth any grass or lichen of its own. The numbers and letters on these stones, almost all of them flush with the earth and far smaller than those older stones, were clear. Fresh and new, nothing more than a name, the year of birth, and the year of death. Every date of death was clustered into the period of the war, from 1939 to 1945.
Not knowing what she was looking for, Brigitta walked along the series of markers quickly, just glancing to those dates. The later the period of the war, the more markers engraved with that year. So many had died so young, she saw. Children only a few years old, perhaps dead in bombing raid or from the poor food. How many times had they complained as sugar, spices, and their favorite sweets had vanished from the grocery store and the corner sweet shop? Brigitta tried to ignore the guilt creeping along her neck, that strange sense of being watched that perhaps she should have employed herself during the war, and just went faster.
She had not attempted to keep count of the number, but by now she would have no notion of the amount she had passed. Her eyes were just on the dates of the death, reading one after another until the last digit of one blurred into the first digit of another. Some were even past the end of the war, reaching into 1946-
Brigitta had to glance at one again. Near the end of this row, one stone was marked with 1938. A mistake, she thought. Or perhaps she had just seen the date of birth- No, that was carved as 1915. Her mouth was dry suddenly, and in spite of the summer, the breeze was cold on her skin as if winter had descended into the tiny yard. Crouching down, she looked to the top where the name was marked with quick chisel strokes. She brushed aside a bit of soil that was atop the name, perhaps from the digging of the marker beside it.
Maria Rainer. The letters were swiftly done, a few scratches here and there but clearly by a hand with skill, and so new Brigitta could not deny what she saw. Maria Rainer. She reached out toward those letters carved so deeply in the stone, to touch them deliberately and trace their patterns, but snatched her fingers back as she came nearer. Her breaths were already choking-and the sounds of Herr Zeller's words were echoing again. Did he mean to haunt her? Her ears were ringing as she stood, filling the silence that otherwise would have held his words. But she did not need to hear them; she remembered them well enough.
Brigitta had no memory of her journey back to their hotel room, of the streets that she ran along, the people that she passed, just the hot tears on her face. The touch of that stone beneath her fingers was etched in her mind, the words as clear in her memory as in that rock. Maria Rainer. Maria Rainer. The sights and sounds of the city blurred into a cloud of color and noise around her, rushing away as if she herself was standing still, pushing against a weight that did not permit her passage.
How she made it to the hotel again, she did not know, and in fact she nearly tripped on the steps of the hotel, not looking at the others around her. Did they stare at her? She didn't care, she just wanted to be away, in their hotel room, where Salzburg faded away into the background. Very nearly she left at the wrong floor, but the number smeared in her eyes was just visible enough that she found herself able to read it, just as the number on the door of their room.
Wrenching the door open, Brigitta nearly threw herself inside, not caring if another person saw her. Nothing more mattered, and all she wished to do was to cry until the pain was gone, until she had no more tears left to bleed. In the sitting area of their rooms, it was dark when she woke, just the gentlest light of the burning embers filling the room. Those hours before, she had just collapsed onto the bench where her parents had sat only the night before, so near to where she had sat knowing nothing. Her body ached, her nose and mouth felt like they were filled with cotton, dry and scratchy, and her eyes were dry, burning with the tears that she had cried before fading asleep. Wiping away a bit of grime from her eyes, she began to sit up.
"Are you feeling better?" The voice that spoke was quiet, gentler than she ever remembered hearing. Mother...But no, that wasn't possible, after all, her mother had been dead for nearly fifteen years, and the memories of her were nothing more than faded photographs and small reminiscences that she scribbled in a journal years before. Yet that sense was nearly identical to what she recalled.
"Y-yes," Brigitta said, feeling for the first time the hand on her shoulder. Not her mother, not even Fräulein Maria- No, she shouldn't think of her now Brigitta knew, feeling the wetness at the corners of her eyes, though how she wasn't sure. Not Liesl, so...Sabina. "What time is it?" she managed without stammering, rubbing a hand at her nose.
"Past nine," her mother said quietly, keeping a hand on her shoulder. "You've been asleep for quite a time."
"I'm sorry, I shouldn't have kept you-"
"There's nothing for you to apologize for," Sabina said gently, now pushing some of Brigitta's long hair back from her face. "I just wanted to be here when you woke up."
Brigitta didn't answer, trying for a moment to swallow over the weight in her throat. Would she ask, did she even wonder. Sabina continued, "You should wash your face, darling, before you really go to bed."
"Oh." That had not been anything like what she had thought her mother would say, and it startled her. "All right." Straightening her rumpled skirt over her knees-glancing to Sabina's skirt, Brigitta could see the imprint of her profile on the dark fabric, and the even darker stains of her tears-she began to stand.
"Brigitta."
"Yes...Mother?" Still sitting, Brigitta looked to Sabina. Curious. In all the years, she had never noticed the resemblance she bore to her mother: both had dark hair, darker than any other person in their family, and pale faces despite the hours they ever passed in the sun.
"Please, tell me anything, darling. Anything if you wish to." Combing a hand through her daughter's longer hair, Sabina smiled in spite of the pain that she knew Brigitta felt. How many times had she heard the news of a friend's death, or of a loved one's? Smiling even as she sensed her daughter's weight on her own chest nearly brought tears to her own eyes. Perhaps a friendly face would be a single bright patch on a day that had clearly been miserable.
She wasn't certain how long she had sat with Brigitta, just feeling her daughter's face against her leg and the tears that she couldn't stop. Every now and then, the girl had shifted, her tears growing slow as if she dropped into sleep for a moment, but after a few minutes, they returned. Hours she knew, but nothing beyond that. Long enough to see her other children return, relieved to see their sister found, and for Georg to return from his meeting with Gunter, immediately concerned, but pushed aside with just a word from herself. But she would not have moved or woken Brigitta for anything at all, not when her daughter simply needed to cry. "Anything," Sabina went on, "or nothing if you want." One day it might be everything, she hoped, but it would be useless to pry.
Across from her, Brigitta just brushed aside a few tears again. What had it been now that she did not sense that Sabina was but an intruder? For years, that had been the way that her mother had seemed. Yet here and now, even as she stood, sniffling and feeling the tacky remnants of tears on her skin, she felt like something more, and far closer. Like a mother.
Turning her eyes up, Brigitta wanted to shout, I don't understand! But her throat was too dry, and she did not want her mother's eyes on her any longer. Going to the room that she shared with her siblings-God help her if they were not asleep; she did not want to talk to them about anything, let alone what they would inquire about!-she pulled open the door and closed it behind herself just as quickly. She still couldn't look back, not yet.
It was quiet in there, just the sound of the three of them breathing. Good, she thought, walking just as quickly to the bathroom on the room's side. She was already troubled enough, by this afternoon and this evening. After these years, it felt as if she had a mother again in something other than the name she spoke, as if the figure that she named Mother had being again. Flipping on the light in the bathroom after the pushed that door shut as well, Brigitta winced at the sight of the red and gray circles around her eyes in the mirror. Perhaps she might take her mother's advice and offer...
Her mother. It was a pleasant sound in her thoughts, one that at last had a ring of truth. Her mother. Leaning down over the sink in the tiny room, Brigitta turned on the tap, just a trickle of water gurgling through the ancient pipes. Filling her palm, she splashed a handful of that cool liquid over her skin. Everything had become so confusing here, when she had come hoping for and expecting clarity. As she twisted the tap closed, she wiped her hand across her cheek.
How long will it be? she wondered, patting her skin dry on the edge of her sleeves, not looking to the mirror again. She just wanted to be gone, at home with her family. Her father, her brothers and sisters, and her mother.