Stolen Beauty: A Novel by Laurie Lico Albanese

Author:Laurie Lico Albanese [Laurie Lico Albanese]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781501131981
Publisher: Atria Books
Published: 2017-02-07T05:00:00+00:00

MARIA

1938

A sharp pain woke me in the dark. The bedroom felt small and close, and the air smelled like rust. Rain was tapping at the window with long, hard fingers and there was thunder in the distance. I’d been dreaming of Landau and Fritz, the two of them singing a terrible, screeching opera. My head was pounding, and my heart was beating too fast.

I dragged myself out of bed and into the bathroom. I was dizzy. The tiles felt cool and sticky on my feet, and I started to cry because I was sick and alone. I’d had tomato soup for dinner, and it came up into the sink. The overhead light was blinding: I snapped it on, and quickly off again. In the flash, I saw a dark smear on the floor. My nightgown was wet, and when I put my hand down to feel what it was, my fingers came back covered in thick, clotted menses.

I sank to the floor and wept in long, gulping sobs: my bleeding was a week late, but it had come.

When the birds began to sing outside, I crammed my soiled bedsheets and nightgown into the bathtub and watched the water turn pink.

It rained all day, and all day I bled as if I was turning inside out. But I knew I would survive. Of course I would. Nature was doing what had to be done, ridding my body of every last shred of Landau.

In the lonely days that followed, I did everything for myself. I did my laundry in a yellow basin in the bathtub. I baked potatoes for breakfast and boiled the peels with an onion for my evening meal. I sold my silver pieces one at a time, and checked in on my mother. I trained myself not to cry about what happened in Berlin, and if I dreamt about it, I washed until my skin was raw. Whenever I saw Landau, I held my chin high and asked him about Fritz.

He always told me the same thing. “Trust me, Frau Altmann. I am a man of my word.”

“I hope that’s true,” I always said.

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