October 1956
South-east of Victoria, Texas, USA
Catherine lay motionless among ferns, damp leaves and the shallow roots of a sprawling tree, staring into the pallid grey before dawn. William had advised her not to wait in the car. Too visible. Too close to the road. Too close to everything that would be checked first in the event of a search. So she had made her way a little off into the woods, far enough that she could no longer see the car, close enough to reach it quickly if needed.
The night receded. First black turned to grey, then shapes emerged: trunks, foliage, low bushes that looked like crouching figures. With the light came life. Somewhere a frog croaked. Birds called in the branches. Insects hummed, as if they had merely tolerated the darkness and were now claiming their due again. It was not a peaceful sound. It was a foreign one. One that told her this was not her country, not her forest, not her world. Alligators, she thought. Or crocodiles. She no longer even knew for certain what lived in which water. Snakes, certainly. And other things whose names she did not know and did not wish to know.
She drew her knees closer. The fabric of the dress felt wrong against her skin. It had belonged to a woman who was now dead. She still had that woman’s face before her eyes as it had been, and what it had become. Catherine looked down at herself, as if the fabric itself might accuse her. Strange seams, strange cut, strange smell. She wore the shell of another life because her own had to be erased.
Her son.
The thought hit her so suddenly that she closed her eyes for a moment. Her son, whom she was now forbidden to see again. Not write to, not watch from afar, not chance upon somewhere, not even ask after. Everything in her that was still a mother had to fall silent so that the rest could survive. So that he might keep a father. Her only chance was that they believed her dead, not for weeks, not for months, but for good. There was no statute of limitations. No later perhaps. No clever waiting until grass had grown over it. Dead was safe. Anything else was pursuit.
Something cracked in the undergrowth to her right.
Despite her exhaustion, her body reacted faster than her mind. Catherine turned her head, but saw only leaves, damp twigs, something dark that vanished among the shadows. She waited one heartbeat, then another. Nothing. But it was enough. With a haste she both cursed and needed, she pulled herself up by the trunk, braced one foot against the bark and climbed onto the lowest branch. It was broad enough to carry her, and low enough that she could still half hide herself in the foliage. There she crouched, one arm around the trunk, and forced herself to be still.
If he had planned this and left her here, then it would be safe enough.
She repeated the thought until it almost sounded like truth.
Then she heard engines.
At first only one. Then several. Tyres on the road. Doors. Voices, too far away to make out words. Shortly afterwards came another sound, sharper, more urgent. A siren. She saw no flashing blue light, only the shifting glow between the trunks, but it was enough. Police, ambulance, perhaps both. Many cars. She pressed herself flatter against the trunk.
If they came looking for her, she would leave the car behind and disappear. If they came with dogs, water would help. If the dog was set on her scent, then the dead woman’s clothes might help. Perhaps. Perhaps not. Perhaps dogs smelled fear more strongly than perfume and blood. Perhaps it was all nonsense. Her thoughts raced, found no hold, ran in circles and grew sharper with every turn.
He had said something about a passport in the cupboard.
She narrowed her eyes. Had he long had an escape in mind and simply said nothing? Or only then, when everything was already collapsing anyway? If the Americans believed her dead, then her own people probably would too. Sooner or later they would see the report. Her name. Her death. Her son without a mother. Perhaps even her grave. She was not important enough for them to go on searching for her beyond death, not if everything looked orderly. Not if, on paper, all was quiet.
So stay dead, she thought. Not to Washington. Do not touch any money. No other passport until she had to.
She thought of her driving licence. The only identification she had with her. She felt for it, only briefly, only to make sure. Keep it or bury it. If she was stopped and the details were checked, the cover was gone. If it was found in a search, likewise. But without identification she was, at any check, merely a woman without a history. She knew by heart the details of three women who looked like her and were roughly the right age. Names, places of birth, dates. But one could know much by heart and prove very little. A police check was a gamble, with good odds, but no guarantee.
Land of the free, she thought bitterly.
She only hoped to reach the hunting lodge unnoticed.
Time crawled. At first she still saw headlights between the trees, dim and unsteady. Later she heard the vehicles only, by daylight, back and forth, sometimes nearer, sometimes farther away. No one ever came in her direction. No one pushed through the undergrowth. No one called out. No one seemed even to suspect that less than a mile away a woman was crouching on a branch who was no longer allowed to exist. For all the noise they made, they did not seem to care. Or was she only more alert than usual because of her fear?
More than once she wanted to climb down, go to the car, drive off, at once, finally movement, finally away. But perhaps the road was blocked. Perhaps they were only waiting for someone in a panic to make the mistake that gave everything away. So she stayed where she was, then lay down, then sat up again, until her back hurt and her legs went numb. The exhaustion weighed heavily, but the tension bit almost into her flesh.
Midday came and went. Clouds drifted across the sun. The air grew heavier, the colours duller. When the first large drops fell, Catherine raised her head. They struck leaves, bark and earth with a rich, heavy sound. Then there were more. Out of separate impacts came a patter. Out of the patter, a curtain.
She smiled for the first time in hours.
This was no longer weather for a search. The rain washed away traces, footprints, scent, doubt. It drowned all motivation. Catherine did not wait long, then slid down from the branch, nearly stumbled, caught herself and went back to the car in a crouch. The rain ran down the back of her neck. Within seconds she was soaked through. She did not care.
Inside the car it smelled of damp fabric. She closed the door, sank onto the seat and thought at first that she was only closing her eyes for a moment. Sleep fell on her like a blow.
When she woke, it was the middle of the night.
For a moment she did not know where she was. Then she heard the rain on the roof, and everything came back. She breathed in, out, sat up a little straighter and peered outside. Almost nothing to see. Darkness, water, now and then the pallid glow of distant headlights. She waited. Watched. Listened. An hour, perhaps longer. No engine directly in front of her, no voices, no light that stayed put.
They are probably gone, she thought. In weather like this, and with no living person to look for, a roadblock made little sense. The locals would only be angry.
She turned the key.
The engine started. No shout. No light. No shot. Nothing.
She drove off slowly.
Despite the headache and her thirst, she did not dare stop at once. Only after she had put a fair distance behind her did she pull in at a small shop. The morning commuter traffic was already beginning, and that was exactly what suited her. One more woman in an impatient mass trying to get to work. Do not stand out, do not shine, just keep going.
She bought water, lemonade, tablets for the headache and bread, though she had no appetite. In the car she swallowed a tablet with a few hurried gulps of water and forced herself to eat a few mouthfuls of bread. Afterwards she drove on.
With every mile, her hope grew a little. Not quickly. Not brightly. More like warmth creeping back into hands and face after a cold night. By the time she had left Houston behind her, not only had the headache gone. The pressure on her chest had eased as well. The temptation was great to press the accelerator further down, to tear away at last, but she did not. The proper speed. Enough distance. Move calmly with the flow. Those who escaped did not do so through haste, but through self-command.
She stopped once more and bought enough for several days. The hunting lodge was remote. Perfect. Not a place to live, but a place where no one asked questions, so long as one stayed quiet and kept the smoke down.
The next night she quietly broke into his house. She drove past first. No light, no movement. She parked a little way on and walked past the house into the garden as if it were the most natural thing in the world. No one there. He had described exactly where the passport was, and she found it exactly there, along with a driving licence and several other documents. Anna Violet Smith. She also took five cheques from his chequebook. No more. It would not hurt him.
The following morning she went to the hairdresser. She had her hair dyed the colour noted in Anna Violet Smith’s passport. Straight afterwards she had passport photographs taken. When she collected the pictures the next day, she bought everything she needed from a stationer’s to replace the photograph in the passport. Scissors, glue, a blade, little things that seemed harmless so long as no one thought of them together.
As a trial, she wrote herself two cheques and cashed them at two different branches. With the passport. With a calm face. Without problems.
After that she bought clothes. The bare essentials for a journey, unobtrusive. Everything that was still Catherine, she got rid of. She burned what could be burned and watched as fabric, photographs, remnants of habit and self collapsed into black ash. It was not a solemn moment. Only a necessary one.
Now she was Anna Smith.
She left the car in an alley not far from the station, in an area she would not have wanted to cross on foot after dark. She left one window slightly open and the key in the ignition. Something for some thief, some boy, some stroke of chance. So long as it was away from her. So long as it was no longer her problem.
Then she took the train to New York.
While waiting to change trains, she also cashed the remaining cheques, one here, one there, never two in the same place, never too hurriedly, never hesitantly. With every successful step, fear became something new. Not yet safety. But the stage before it. Something that almost felt like balance.
When the ship finally cast off and New York grew smaller behind her, Catherine, who was Anna now, stood at the rail and watched the city vanish into the haze. Only then did she understand that she had escaped.
And in that same moment she understood the price.
Her son had been left behind.
William, she thought, don’t cock it up.
Then she thought of the grown William and the little one, and that both now had to go on living without her. One with memory, one who would one day have only stories.
In England she found herself a small flat on the outskirts of London and began to look for work. It was not a new life. Not yet. More a narrow footbridge over deep water, where every step had to be placed with care.
When she realised she was pregnant, she stood for a long time in front of the mirror, her hand flat on her stomach, and said nothing.
Remaining dead was one thing.
Remaining dead with a new life in her womb was another.
She looked at the passport for a long time.
Anna Violet Smith.
At first it had only been a tool, a key, a way out.
Now it was clear that it had to be more than that.
Catherine could not one day return and put her old name back on like a coat from better days. Catherine was dead. On paper, in reports, perhaps soon even on a gravestone.
What remained was this other woman.
Anna Smith.
Not a wife. Not before God, not before the law. And yet with his name.
And the child was to bear it too.
If everything had already been taken from her, then not that.
Not this last thread.
She ran her thumb across the letters, as if that might make them firmer.
Catherine was allowed to mourn.
Anna had to live.