The Goddess of Warsaw

Chapter Forty-Five

THE NEXT MORNING, Sienna insists that her personal driver and security guard—a former Secret Service agent—take me to see Anna, and she would wait with him in the car. No cameras, no filming, she promised. But she refuses to let me out of her sight. You are still Lena Browning. No one knows Bina Blonski, but everyone in the world knows you.

My heart and head pound in sync as we pull up in front of the ballet studio, now renovated with white brick and bright aqua shutters. My heart skips a beat when I see the same pale-pink sign hanging front and center over the doorway: BALET SOSIA. All these years and Anna kept up the studio, honoring the memory of her beloved mentor.

Sienna looks worried as she accompanies me up the studio steps, but that’s all I let her do. I stand at the doorway and wait until she gets back in the car. I turn the doorknob first, and it opens easily. I forgo the knock. Anna is expecting me.

Entering the studio, I remove the Hermès scarf covering my real hair. I had tossed that godforsaken wig into the garbage bin as soon as I returned to the hotel last night. The truth is, I want Anna to see me as Lena Browning. Yes, I am vain, but it’s much more than that. I want her to know that the risks she took to keep me alive were worth it.

“Anna,” I call out softly. “Petra,” I correct myself.

“I’m here,” she says warmly, walking toward me, hand outstretched. She is still so lovely. Age has certainly taken its toll on both of us, but there are still strong remnants of the young women we once were. We are both wearing black slacks and neutral-toned blouses. We laugh at our similarity, and revel in the lightness of the unfamiliar sound. It’s a first for us. There was no laughter back then.

“Tell me everything,” she says, leading me to a quaint bistro table in the corner of the studio preset with coffee, tea, and pastries. “I wasn’t sure if you had had breakfast. Please.” She gestures to the chair. “And don’t leave anything out.”

For the next hour or so, I spill it all, not necessarily in order, but as each image appears inside my head. The uprising, the escape, Vladek, returning here to the studio, looking for her. She says she found the pearl hairpin that I attached to the costume and knew I had been here and taken the suitcase.

My eyes well up at the mention of the suitcase. I thank Anna for the identification card that saved my life and tell her that I held on to the suitcase filled with precious items, including Jakub’s manuscript, for as long I could, but was forced to leave it behind when I joined the resistance in the forest. I managed to save only two photos from the past: my wedding day with my whole family surrounding me, and the one with Aleksander and me by the sea.

Anna is silent, then softly says that she still has the hairpin. But that was the last she knew I was alive until several years later, when she saw me splashed across magazine covers, in newspapers, and of course—she smiles while touching my arm—in every one of my films. She has seen them all.

“I wanted to reach out to you one hundred times but...” she says apologetically, the sentence trailing off to nowhere. Just like Dina, I think. The “but” is loaded. War makes you want to forget what was and focus only on what is, what will be.

I tell Anna how I escaped Warsaw by masquerading as a Nazi escort to get over the border, using her impeccable documents, first making my way to the forest near where I grew up, and then finding refuge on a small farm, where I hid until the war was over. I then tell her about the farmer, enduring his nightly rapes—until I stopped him for good. She holds my hands in hers, eyes closed, not surprised. She would have done the same thing, her hands say.

“Lukas,” she says finally.

Just his name. It is enough. We sip our tea quietly.

I tell her how he hunted me down in the ghetto, killed my husband and others. I recount everything I can remember. Even... about Aleksander. I talk about my feelings for him in a tiny whisper, and she leans forward, her face near mine, never asking me to speak louder. The deepest pain is always the quietest.

Finally, I fill her in on the details about Lukas’s brother, Michael Müller, whose sole purpose was to control and destroy me in Hollywood, and how I put an end to his blackmail—the only person outside of Sienna and Stan to learn the truth. And that’s when she stops me. She holds up her hand like a traffic patroller.

“Lukas Müller shot me,” she reveals in the same hushed tone I used when discussing Aleksander, “right after he dropped you off that night in the alley. I haven’t spoken about this to anyone since it happened.”

I keep my eyes focused on her tortured expression. “He thought I was dead,” she continues. “I should have died with the two bullets in my chest. He shoved me out of the car and threw his bloodstained coat over me.” She sighs heavily. “I still have that bloody coat as a reminder, up in the attic.” She points to the ceiling of the studio, indicating that remnants of the war are hidden up there.

“I lay bleeding to death on the side of a road when a young man found me, carried me back to his family’s apartment nearby,” she continues. “He was a medical student—can you imagine my luck? His name is Antoni. He saved my life, and I married him. We have two children and five beautiful grandchildren. I made him swear to never discuss it. Because I wanted to live, experience joy, and forget the damn war. That’s why I hung up the phone every time I thought to reach out to you. Each time I saw your face on-screen, I saw the war.” Her eyes well up. “I couldn’t... I’m so sorry.”

The morning passes quickly as we shed our skin for each other. Finally, I peer out the studio window and see my loyal blond lieutenant in her dark-haired wig and sunglasses still waiting patiently for me in the car, not budging. It is time.

“I must go now,” I tell Anna. “This has been...”

Her face drops, her mouth tightens into a thin, resolute line, and I can tell she has more to say. “Lukas Müller is still alive. He lives in Buenos Aires. He is—”

“Armand Arias.” I finish her sentence and her mouth drops open. “A director. A celebrated enigma. No one sees him, just his movies.”

“Yes... so, you saw it then too?” Her voice trails in disbelief.

I nod. “That’s how I knew for sure it was him, that he is still alive. I have been searching for him for decades with no luck, no leads. And then, that movie. The Impostor. The minute I saw the last scene, I knew.”

Her gaze is unblinking. “Yes. Two women, a corrupt member of the Argentinian aristocracy, and an ‘impostor’ in a getaway car after a bombing occurs in a nightclub. Every word of that conversation was ours—the exact same dialogue.”

I nod again, having watched the movie at least a dozen times, as Anna continues to describe the last scene. “The aristocrat is shot dead by the woman in the back seat. The driver lets that woman out of the car, gets rid of the aristocrat’s body, then shoots the other woman still in the car, throws his bloody coat over her dead body, then pushes her out the door and drives off. The End.” Anna pops off the chair. I can see the trauma in her eyes. “I could barely breathe, Irina. I’m sorry, I mean, Lena. My husband took me to the hospital the night I saw the film. They called it an anxiety attack.”

I had previewed the movie before it even hit the theaters, after all the critics hailed The Impostor a shoo-in to win at Cannes and every other international award. My agent had sent me an early copy of the film. Right after viewing The Impostor I began devising a plan for Lukas Müller, and then Sienna and her biopic came into my life, and I knew the perfect plan had found me.

Anna interrupts my thoughts. “Do you think Lukas wanted you to know that he lived his life to the fullest and got away with everything?” Her cobalt eyes search mine like burning torches.

“I’ve wondered the very same thing,” I say carefully.

“Do you think he knows you killed his brother?”

“Yes,” I say unequivocally. “I’ve often speculated why he never came after me again all these years, and then I realized that a narcissist cares more about himself, preserving his own life more. I think this film is—”

“His way of showing you that he won.” Anna finishes my sentence, parroting my thoughts.

“Exactly.”

She folds her arms and assesses me, eyeing me just as she did back then in the tiny safe house after bringing me supplies and giving instructions. “I found some older photos of him,” she says. “His face has been surgically altered, those crazy-colored eyes are darkened with contacts, but...”

“You never forget the face.” I have those same photos.

“Never.” Anna is smart. Not just smart. She is an animal like me, all instinct. She leans forward. “I can see it in your eyes... Is there something more I need to know about Lukas Müller?”

I feel light-headed. A woman who I have not seen in sixty years sees through me as though I’m translucent. A woman who saved my life. A woman who was shot and left for dead while risking her own life against the forces of evil. She merits the truth, deserves to know my final plan. I clear my throat, slowly sip some water first. “I have spent my life as an actress. It is the only way I could breathe. Like you, I kept my past hidden from everyone. But on the side, I did what I had to do—serving justice while the world looked the other way. It is the only thing that has given my life meaning... purpose. Do you understand what I’m saying?” I search her timeless oval face, her still-sparkling eyes, fierce mouth, flared nostrils, and I know she does. “The war is long over, Anna—I hope you don’t mind if I call you that. But not for me. Never for me. Not while Lukas Müller is still breathing.”

Anna’s voice is practically imperceptible. “Müller finds me too often in my nightmares. He is living as a celebrated filmmaker and his criminal past has been buried. This movie, I hear, is up for many awards.”

“Yes, it is,” I say coldly, my eyes never veering from hers. She begins to see exactly what I’m not telling her.

“And I also heard that he has been nominated for a major prize at the Venice Film Festival, and by all accounts, that undeserving bastard is slated to win. They say the Venice event will be his first public appearance in years.” Her eyes are scorching. She opens and closes her fists. “Müller has lived too well, too long.”

“I promise you... he will not win that award.”

She nods with tacit approval.

I rise from the bistro table and so does she.

“Wait,” she says, holding me back by my arm.

She moves across the room with the agility and grace of a much younger woman, and I can picture her here once again, the girl dancing her heart out with Madame Sosia clapping in time. Anna stands in front of the small desk in the corner of the studio, unlocks a drawer, and returns to me. “Take this—our good luck charm. Do what you must do.”

I stare at the jeweled hairpin reclining in my palm, sandwiched between my hand and hers. I hold her gaze, squeeze the pin, and allow its slim sharpness to prick at my skin. My last act is for both of us.