Where Shadows Linger (Intertwined Souls Series Book 2) Page 3

  “Well,” Peabody said quietly after a moment, “even krauts need jobs.” A fleeting glimpse of softness invaded his steady stare.

  Eva simply nodded.

  Peabody dropped his gaze, and then loudly cleared his throat. Eva had the impression he was embarrassed at showing any understanding of anyone.

  “So, Miss Muller, what was your last occupation?”

  “I have not been working since coming to this country.”

  Peabody grunted. “What did you do before coming here?”

  Eva licked her lips and sighed. “I was in Egypt for a year after the war ended.” She deliberately omitted to say she had also been recovering from a gunshot wound. “Hmm, all that nasty business with the Jews...”

  “I’m not Jewish, sir.”

  “You’re not?” Peabody asked with a slight look of surprise on his face.

  “No, sir, I’m a Christian.” Eva wanted to shake her head at the man’s inability to notice the obvious. Peabody was quite shortsighted if he hadn’t noticed the gold cross that hung around her neck.

  “Ah,” Peabody said, as he took off his glasses again. He rubbed them with the tip of his necktie. “Well, many people are displaced. You’re not a Nazi, are you?”

  “No, sir, I’m not.”

  “My oldest boy was in Egypt when the war ended.”

  “I met quite a few Australian soldiers. Very brave men.”

  “Good.” Peabody nodded and his double chin wobbled. “So, can you start on Monday?”

  Eva stood there for a long moment before she found her voice. “Doing what?”

  “You’ll take the biscuits off the conveyor and stack them,” Peabody replied. “It’s good, honest, hard work. You’re not afraid of hard work, are you?”

  “No, sir,” Eva said, shaking her head slowly. This was not what she’d had in mind. A job in a factory was not something she would have chosen, but they needed the money. She knew that if she wanted to give Zoe a chance to fulfill her dreams, then the job was necessary. She had not had much luck elsewhere. “All right,” she said.

  “Good, good.” Peabody nodded, walked over to the door, and yanked it open. He stuck his head out in search of the nearest supervisor. “Where is that woman when you need her?” After failing to find who he wanted, he spotted someone else and called out. “Wiggins! Get yourself over here!”

  Chapter Two

  “I hate washing dishes,” Zoe muttered as she tried to wipe the sweat from her eyes with the back of her hand, which was covered in suds. To add to her woes, another stack of pots, pans, and plates had been put on the pile next to her. For eight hours a day, five days a week, the steamy, busy kitchen of Hatton’s By The Sea was her own personal hell. She didn’t mind hard work, but a dishwashing job was the last thing she had ever thought she would be doing. It was supremely ironic that she should be washing dishes for a living. She had hated doing this chore as a child, and was certain her mother, God rest her soul, must be laughing at how things had turned out.

  She was nearly done for the day, since the restaurant was going to close at lunch and she could go home. She glanced at up the clock and smiled.

  The door to the kitchen opened and Zoe looked up to see her best friend Elena walk in carrying a tray of empty plates. Elena was a slim woman, a bit taller than Zoe, with caramel-colored eyes and long brown hair that she braided to keep it restrained on her neck. Zoe muttered curse words in Greek as she scrubbed at a stubborn pot stain, which made Elena stop mid-step. Zoe was sure Elena knew her words were not very complimentary, since they both knew the assistant cook always managed to burn something at least once a day.

  Zoe and Elena were close friends. In fact, they were kindred spirits. Elena was a concentration camp survivor and the last remaining member of her entire family — a family that had been big, proud, and loving. The others had all perished in the killing fields of Germany, Poland, and Austria. Elena’s childhood had been spent in Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. She was lucky that, for a while at least, she had had her mother with her until she too had been killed.

  Zoe turned back from the pot to see Elena add her tray of dirty dishes to the rest. “Oh, no! Not more!”

  “It’s nearly over, Zoe.” Elena put her arm around her and gave her a friendly squeeze. “Come on, I’ll help. The lunch crowd has left anyway.” She put on an apron and joined Zoe, scraping the dishes and stacking them in neat piles. “How is Eva’s job hunting going?”

  “I think Evy is going to go insane from being in that flat all day if she doesn’t find something,” Zoe replied as she rinsed a pot.

  “I do not understand why they do not give her a job. She’s so smart—”

  “She opens her mouth and they instantly don’t have a job anymore,” Zoe replied. It was disgusting the way Eva was being treated because of her accent. This resulted in Eva retreating into her shell. Zoe wasn’t surprised by Eva’s doubts in her own abilities. Every day she got assaulted by people’s prejudices and it was destroying her confidence.

  “I don’t understand.” Elena washed, then rinsed a plate and set it aside. “I didn’t have a problem.”

  “You’re Jewish.”

  Elena stared at Zoe. “Since when did this become such an advantage?”

  Zoe turned to her. “Eva isn’t Jewish, so people assume that if she’s not Jewish and is a German, then she must be a Nazi.”

  Elena scowled. “That’s stupid.” She attacked another dish with a bit more energy.

  Zoe shrugged. “You did. Why shouldn’t complete strangers?” Elena had taken a long time to become comfortable with Eva around, even though they were both German.

  “Yes, well...um,” Elena stammered. “I never thought she was a real Nazi.”

  Zoe shook her head at the incongruous idea of her sweet and gentle partner belonging to the death merchants.

  “So that’s why they don’t give her a job?”

  “Yep.” Zoe nodded and went back to her scrubbing.

  “What job did she have before the war?”

  “She didn’t.”

  Elena turned to Zoe with a perplexed look on her face. “She didn’t have a job?”

  “No. Eva was a university student.”

  “Must have been nice to go to university.”

  “I suppose it was. I never finished school, so I don’t know.” Zoe wanted to turn the conversation away from Eva. Eva’s past was never discussed with anyone else, not even Elena. Zoe had no qualms about revealing her own history to her friend, but she didn’t discuss Eva’s life. It wasn’t something Eva had asked Zoe not to do, but Eva was a very private person and Zoe respected that.

  “Zoe?”

  “Yes?”

  “Off limits?”

  “Yep, off limits,” Zoe replied. She gave Elena a smile and then rinsed the soapy plate in her hands.

  Elena looked at Zoe for a long time before resuming her washing.

  Zoe wiped her hands on the dishrag and looked at her fingers. “I’m going to get dishcloth hands.”

  “Dishpan hands,” Elena corrected.

  “Whatever you call it, I’m going to get it,” Zoe muttered. “Come on, El, I want to get home and see if Eva got one of the jobs she went for today.”

  They smiled at each other. They went to the time clock, took their cards, and punched out for another day. Along with other people, they waited for the bus to arrive. Zoe waved goodbye to Elena, who boarded a different bus to go on an errand.

  She sat down at the now vacant bus shelter seat. Her thoughts went to Eva and her attempts to get a job just because she wanted Zoe to go to art college. Ever since Eva saw an advertisement for refugees being able to gain entry, it had stuck in her mind.

  Eva hated the idea of Zoe working in a kitchen and was even less accepting when she found out it was to wash dishes. Her mother used to say that it was the little things that made the difference, and here was an example of something so small that spoke to Eva’s character. Another of her mother’s sayings w
as ‘Blessings are those special moments when life gives you all that it has to offer, asking nothing in return.’

  Meeting Eva in Larissa was a miracle to Zoe. The fact she had not killed Eva was an even bigger miracle in her eyes. It was ironic that her desire to avenge her mother’s death had turned out to be what brought her and Eva together. Zoe thought she had been given an opportunity to inflict the same grief that had befallen her when Major Muller had shot her mother. She had wanted to see his pain, to be the one to inflict it, to rejoice at the taking of a German life.

  Again, it seemed Fate didn’t share the same desire. Instead of killing Muller’s daughter, she had gone to work for Eva as a maid — at the village priest, Father Haralambos’ insistence. Over the next year, she realized that she had fallen in “heavy like” with Eva. According to Zoe’s beloved brother, Michael, once one fell into “heavy like” there was no hope. He told her that she would know she was going to marry the man of her dreams if she ever found herself in that frame of mind about someone.

  Zoe chuckled. Michael had been wrong about the man of her dreams. The woman of her dreams had come into her life, and Zoe had fallen into “heavy like” over the course of the year. Even though it was over a year before their first kiss, Zoe knew there was something about Eva that didn’t fit the idea she had over her in her mind. However, everything else Michael had told her was absolutely true. There was no hope. No matter how hard she had tried not to let her heart rule her head, she had soon found herself hopelessly, and without hesitation, in love.

  Zoe knew exactly when her heart had begun to overrule her head. It had been May 1, 1943, a day that would remain burned into her mind for all eternity. She was outside her house when Eva was walking up the street. Without thinking, Zoe had picked up a stone, and when Eva went past her, she threw it with all her might. It had hit Eva on the back of her head. When Eva turned around, Zoe saw her for the first time — a shy and sad woman, not at all what she had expected. That had been quite a revelation.

  Zoe had scoffed at some of the village girls who had fallen for Italian soldiers stationed in Larissa with the Germans. She had been appalled that they would collaborate with the enemy, thinking of them as traitors. What Zoe did not know at the time was that their hearts were controlled by Fate, and they had absolutely no say in the matter. It was so easy to judge them and yet she had fallen for “the enemy” as well.

  As her feelings for Eva began to grow, she had tried very hard to understand what she was experiencing. She had never been in love before, and no boy in the village had ever set her heart racing. Even when the village matchmaker had tried to pair her up with the local boys, Zoe resisted they were too fat, too thin, too short, too dark, or too tall. The real problem was that they were too male.

  Zoe could not explain it, and she did not want to know why God made her that way. She knew the attitude of the Church towards homosexuality and how it taught the faithful that those who were “that way” would burn in hell. She often heard the old women gossiping about a man who was “that way” or about a woman that they thought was “different.” She had not understood it at the time. There were lots of things she didn’t understand. Sometimes she wished it would stay that way.

  Looking back through the eyes of a grown woman, she knew there were others like her. Like Eva. They lived quietly in the shadows, trying not to make too much noise or attract any attention. In a small farming community like Larissa, where getting married early was the norm, there were women who were considered to be “on the shelf” and who sometimes were stigmatized as being lesbians.

  Zoe and Eva’s relationship was a very slow burn, not like Zoe had imagined true love to be, like she had read in stories. There were no fireworks or earth shaking moments. They started off hating each other, barely able to talk to one another without either of them insulting the other. How it went from insults to friendship, Zoe didn’t know. It just happened slowly. The more she learnt about Eva’s past, the more she felt sorry for her and marveled at her courage. Their friendship started to develop slowly, and then Zoe found herself inadvertently flirting with Eva. Again, Zoe didn’t know how this happened or when it happened.

  Zoe wasn’t sure why no boy ever attracted her attention. She reasoned it was because of the war. Who thought of love in the middle of a war zone? She had more pressing problems to deal with, and falling in love wasn’t even in her mind. It may not have been high on the list, but then one never plans on falling in love.

  Zoe had fully expected a bolt of lightning to descend from heaven when Eva kissed her. It didn’t happen, but by then it didn’t matter because God and lightning were the farthest things from her mind. She was brought back to earth when she saw Eva collapse in pain at the mere act of kissing her. It was her introduction to the struggle Eva would endure to be with her.

  The war which shredded Zoe’s life finally gave something back. Yet, even when Fate had given Zoe this gift, she had to work hard to keep Eva in her life. Or more specifically, she had to keep Eva alive. Saving Eva’s life, by killing Jurgen Reinhardt, the man whom Muller ordered to kill Eva, was the easiest thing Zoe had ever had to do. Eva’s death would have been the end of Zoe as well. Without Eva, she would have not wanted to continue to struggle on alone. As melodramatic as that sounded, it was the truth. They survived and, with Eva recovering from her injuries, they went to Egypt with other refugees.

  Egypt was a respite from the constant anxiety of being discovered as Resistance members or lovers. It also was the place where Eva’s mental healing had to begin. Zoe had overheard a conversation between two refugees about a psychiatrist, herself a concentration camp survivor, who was helping at the Refugee Center. Zoe was in no doubt who she had to go and talk to. She was off on a mission to find this Doctor Koch and convince her Eva needed her help.

  Zoe was fidgeting. She had been sitting in the same seat for nearly two hours. Waiting. Nothing but waiting and hoping the nurse would call her name. The hospital waiting area was busy. Zoe took the opportunity to sketch. She had time and was willing to wait. Eva was back at the hostel helping out as an interpreter. This gave Zoe the chance to follow up on the conversation she had overheard about a psychiatrist who was helping survivors.

  “Miss Zoe Lambros!”

  Zoe quickly put aside her sketchbook and stood up. She followed the nurse into a room where she was told to sit and wait. Soon the door opened and a tall middle-aged woman entered. Her hair was silver, but it was her amber colored eyes that made Zoe stare. She saw compassion in the doctor’s eyes even before she told her story to her.

  “Miss Lambros, I’m Doctor Hannah Koch. How can I help you today?” Zoe noticed Doctor Koch’s eyes never left her. She didn’t fidget, and she didn’t look away.

  “I’m not here for me,” Zoe said, her German a little hesitant.

  “You’re not?”

  “No…” Zoe stopped, unable to articulate what she wanted to say in German.

  “Are you Greek?” Doctor Koch asked in Greek, which caught Zoe completely by surprise.

  “Yes,” Zoe replied with a beaming smile. “You can speak Greek?”

  “I speak English, German, Greek, and French.”

  “I don’t know English all that well.”

  “You’ll get there, it just takes time. Now, let’s start this again. How can I help you?”

  “I’m here for a friend of mine and she needs your help.”

  “I see. Is she Greek?”

  “No, Eva is German and she needs someone like you.”

  “She does? Why is that?”

  “You are a psychiatrist, right?”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Do you help concentration camp survivors only?”

  “No, the center helps all those who need our help.”

  ”What do you know about lesbians?”

  Doctor Koch didn’t blink or seemed fazed by Zoe’s question. “I’ve treated women who are lesbians.”

  “What do you know about conversion th
erapy?”

  “It’s not a therapy.”

  “What is it?”

  “Torture,” Doctor Koch replied succinctly. “Why do you ask?”

  Zoe took a breath. “My friend Eva is a lesbian.”

  “All right.”

  “Do you know how to treat people who have undergone this type of torture? Can you help my friend?”

  “Of course I can help her. Why isn’t she here today?”

  “I didn’t tell her about you. I overheard two women talking about you and thought I’d speak to you first and see if you could help my Eva. If you couldn’t, Eva would be disappointed, but now that you can, I can tell her,” Zoe said without taking a breath.

  “Is she your lover?”

  “Do I love her? Yes. Am I her lover?—No. We can’t kiss without her being in pain. I want you to fix this. Can you fix it?”

  ”It would be a problem for someone who has been subjected to that torture to even think about having a sexual relationship with another woman.”

  “Eva is the most courageous woman I’ve ever known. She was in the Resistance with me back in Greece. You have to meet her, Doctor Koch. She is amazing.”

  “You love her enough to come here to see me and ask for my help.”

  “Yes, can you help her? Please?”

  “Of course I can. Ask her to come and see me.”

  ”She hates doctors and won’t step into a hospital.”

  “It’s not uncommon for people who have suffered like that to avoid hospitals. Would you like me to come and see her?”

  “Can you do that?” Zoe asked, a smile spreading across her face. “Eva needs your help.”

  “It’s not a switch we can turn on or off. I will need to work on this with Eva for some time.”

  “I know, but starting this will help. I know it will.”

  “When can I come over and speak to her?”

  Zoe smiled at the memory. She had been so nervous, but Hannah had made her feel at ease. Doctor Hannah Koch, a saint in a white coat. Somehow Hannah gained Eva’s trust—something that was extremely difficult to do— and they worked on undoing the damage that had been done.