The Point of Vanishing by Maryka Biaggio (best e ink reader for manga .TXT) 📕

“Isn’t it cold?”

“Tingling cold,” she yelled.

In a minute, he was beside her. He bobbed with the waves, treading furiously and stretching his neck up as if the water offended. “This is beyond bracing.”

“Who needs a castle when we can have the whole island?” Barbara ducked under the water and emerged face first, wetting her hair away from her face. “This is the life for us. This, and no other.”

“Brrr,” Nick said, “It’s too cold for me.” Quick as a fish, he swam for the shore.

Barbara turned onto her back and butterflied parallel to the shore, watching Nick tug a cotton shirt out of his knapsack, towel himself off with it, and throw on his clothes. Back and forth, she swam, defying the cold, stoking the engine of her body.

When she swam ashore, huffing with exertion, she found Nick sitting, arms circling his pulled-in knees, staring at the sea as if he meant to bend it to his will.

She asked, “Can I use that shirt of yours?”

He nodded, his eyes still trained far away.

She fluffed her hair with the shirt. “Is something wrong?”

“Just thinking about your mother meeting us in Germany.”

“It’ll be fine. We’ll go on as usual.” She whisked the shirt over her arms and worked her way down her body. “I don’t let her tell me what to do anymore.”

“She doesn’t approve of us, though, does she? I mean, I don’t suppose any mother would.”

“If I don’t care what she thinks, why should you?”

He tugged his knees in closer. “You know we have to leave in October.”

“That’s months away. Why worry about it now?”

“I just want it understood. I might have a job waiting for me, a good one.”

Barbara slipped her blouse over her head and pulled on her shorts. She sat down beside Nick and pleaded with a cocked eyebrow. “What if we find work in Germany?”

“Waiting tables and scrubbing dishes? No, thanks. I want that Polaroid job.”

“My mother speaks German, you know. And I know it well enough to desist kinder, küche, and kirche.”

“I don’t even understand what you said.”

Barbara shrugged. “It’s too soon to make definite plans. Let’s just enjoy each day we have.”

“I’m telling you: I’m going back in October. You can come with me, or you can stay here by yourself.”

Why bother arguing, Barbara thought. She’d mount her best strategy—laughing in the face of adversity, surviving on her wits and resources—and challenge him to give himself over to life on her terms. For it was just this sort of living that nourished her, body and soul.

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

HELEN

The Black Forest, July–August 1933

Helen studied the scenery as her train labored up a rocky slope of the Black Forest, regained momentum on the trestle over Hells Canyon, and chugged into Freiburg station. Months earlier, when Barbara and Nick invited her to join them in Germany, she’d demurred. The American Jewish Congress had called for a boycott of German goods because of Hitler’s anti-Semitic views. And the violent outbursts in some German cities alarmed her.

Then her mother—Barbara’s Grandma Ding—died. Helen had barely gotten over the ache of divorce when this fresh grief overtook her. It made her want to run away and find a place where she could lose herself in her writing. She scoured news reports and uncovered no instances of trouble in the quiet hamlet of Freiburg. Besides, many claimed that after Hitler stabilized the country’s post-war financial slide, the unrest would fade.

By the time Barbara and Nick arrived in Freiburg, three days later, Helen had hiked miles of the byways streaming out of the quaint village—past fields of oats, rye, and red clover, along cow paths and streams, and beside forest patches. On one of her rambles, she discovered a lonely brown cottage nestled beneath a wooded ridge. When a passing cow herder confirmed it was for rent, her first thought was of Barbara. She’ll love it: the way its upright, compact profile stands out among the low farmhouses; how the patchwork grain fields flow around it; and the way the brook below meanders and burbles.

Upon greeting Barbara and Nick at the train station, she could hardly contain her excitement. “I’ve found the perfect cottage for us. We should look into renting it as soon as we can.”

Barbara grimaced. “Can we rest first? We’ve been on trains and in stations for the last 16 hours.”

Nick stood quietly beside Barbara, weighed down with gear.

“Yes, of course,” she said. “We’ve got rooms at Gasthaus Lafette.”

Helen led the way to their hotel and asked them to let her know when they were ready to explore. A few hours later, Barbara knocked on her door.

“Where’s Nick?” she asked.

“Organizing his photographs. He’ll meet us for dinner.”

Helen grabbed her coin purse. “I just have to show you the shops with cuckoo clocks. But first, let’s have a glass of beer. They make the most refreshing beer here.”

As they strolled to the beer hall and ordered, Helen struggled to put her finger on the curious change in Barbara—she was at once more childlike and mature. Her short-cropped hair flopped playfully around her face, but there was a discerning squint in her eye. Beneath her rugged brown tan, freckles flared. “You look different, Bar.”

“I suppose I am. Living each day as one pleases is transforming.”

“Nick doesn’t mind me showing up, does he?” Barbara had warned her, when they’d arranged to rendezvous in Germany, not to try to separate her and Nick. It won’t work, she’d written, for we completely inhabit each other’s souls.

“No, we were in perfect agreement about you coming.” Barbara fingered her glass of beer. “Perhaps he’s a little nervous.”

“Really?” she said, but it only seemed right. She’d learned from Barbara’s letters that Nick had been introducing them as Mr. and Mrs. Rogers with “uncanny ease.” Yes, she thought, he should be nervous about masquerading as a husband in front of the mother of his pretend bride—if, that is, he possesses