Dear Wilma,
I don't even know where to start...
Papa hit mama. He hit her twice, with a chandelier. She's ̶f̶i̶n̶e̶- alive and doesn't need a doctor by the looks of it, thank god. I've been hiding in our room for the past hour, until just now when we were sure Papa had left the house, he never actually got all the way up the stairs so we were free from harm. Once we went downstairs she was unconscious, I ran to get Helga. She cried, we all cried, but mama is awake now so all should be good. I got so scared you have no idea, Frieda stopped him from doing any more, she went between them both. I've apologised to her now and I need to lie down, I'm still shaking, sorry for the messy handwriting.
Heidi.
It was raining in Berlin. That city was so goddamn grey, or at least my first impression of it was. I had travelled with Heidi's letter. I think I saw most of Germany's countryside that week. I wanted to see how Wilma was doing—but most importantly I wanted to speak with her soul adviser as Heidi had sent this rather concerning letter weeks ago and had gotten no form of reply—and I trusted Heidi enough to be sensible without my guidance.
Berlin was also crowded, really crowded compared to Heidi's hometown , which I obviously expected. It took me a while to find Wilma's apartment. It was in the west part of town, and the entrance was hidden in a sort of sketchy alleyway. When I arrived, I almost thought it was the wrong address. A woman with an almost white bob and some sort of hat pulled her keys out and opened the slim door into this strange apartment building. I followed her in and looked around and found the mailboxes.
One of them read: Wilhelmina Seide in very new looking letters compared to the other ones. Apparently she lived at the very top—which the mailbox also indicated.
I went up the stairs, The woman I had entered with had been quicker than me, I couldn't find her anywhere. On the fifth floor I was met by one little wooden door with a small sticker.
"Wilhelmina Seide" it read again, in brand new letters. I went right through it and entered a small room with wooden walls, decorated with some paintings I recognised as Heidi's. I floated through the narrow corridor until I noticed the shadow of a silhouette spreading across the slim corridor's floor and walls. I entered this small space where the shadow originated from. The woman I had seen earlier was just taking her hat off.
A few platinum blond locks escaped it, falling elegantly well above her shoulders. I recognised her as the woman who'd opened the door with her silver keys, but I wondered what on earth she was doing in Wilma's apartment. She looked up from the sink and when I saw her reflection in the mirror I froze. I would have screamed.
"Ugh, men." Wilma sighed, wiping some of her smudged lipstick with her hand and then pulling her collar down, revealing a reddish mark. She sighed again and reached into a small bag on her right. A makeup brush appeared out of it, and she simply brushed some powder over the mark with ease.
I could barely move, I did not–I could not recognise her. Nonetheless, Wilma walked out of her bathroom, floating through the corridor with elegance and ease and taking her coat off. She was wearing a lovely looking blouse, neatly tucked into a dark and rather long skirt. She looked fashionable, giving the impression that she'd really put some thought into her clothes, which she never did, or so I thought.
I followed her to the end of the corridor. A living room was an overstatement as to what I walked into. The space was very small, and had nothing but a tiny stove, a very small table and a bed that was on some sort of higher level that was barely big enough for the mattress to fit in. The whole roof was sort of slanted and its wooden surface would definitely let shards escape it. It did however look cosy, I'll give it that. I followed Wilma slowly as she grabbed a rusty looking kettle and put it over the stove, which she lit with a small match. She opened one of her small cupboards but before she could someone knocked on the door. The knock was strange, it formed a clear rhythm, was it a code?
The blond woman closed the cupboard with a sigh and in a matter of seconds, she opened the door. A young man with a grey coat walked in followed by a short woman. Wilma stared at them with wide eyes, but I didn't worry, it was obvious by her demeanour that she knew them
"Oh! I didn't know I was hosting a party, how lovely." She grunted, closing the door behind them. The both of them said nothing in return and sat down around the small table in the 'living room'. Wilma followed them with an accusing stare.
"A hello would be nice, guys." She sighed and sat down right next to the silent young man. She still got no word out of these two, who I already guessed were siblings, they had the exact same facial structure. Wilma grabbed the kettle that was surprisingly already boiling.
"Fancy a cup of tea? I have a few left." She asked, but again, her friends or whatever they were to her did not speak. She raised an eyebrow.
"Jesus, what on earth has happened?" She asked with an awkward chuckle, the woman started crying softly, just after one sniffle Wilma sat back down and repeated her question.
"What on earth happened, Amelie?" Suddenly her tone was far more serious.
The said Amelie suddenly burst out laughing, and her brother joined in soon after. Wilma's eyes widened.
"Oh you did not!" She gasped. "You seriously scared me, you idiots!"
They kept on laughing almost hysterically.
"That was sort of the point, Seide!" They both said in unison. I could see a twinge of annoyance on both their faces, which told me it was accidental. Wilma rolled her eyes once more with a sigh.
"You have to stop completing my sentences, Amelie."
"Nah, you have to stop stealing all my thoughts-"
"And this argument needs to end here!" Wilma exclaimed loudly, slamming the warm kettle on the table. "Sorry." She quickly apologised as she noticed she seemed to have scared the bleeding daylight out of them both.
"You're really scary sometimes, Wilma, did you know?"
"I take it as a compliment,'' she said "and I guess that makes us even? All the pranks you play on me are designed to do nothing but scare me to death after all."
She poured some boiling hot water into one of her very few cups, before popping a small tea bag into it.
"So, are you just here for some tea, or do you actually have something important to tell me?" Wilma eventually asked after silence had filled the room, Amelie's brother shifted in his chair.
"Will we be killed if-"
"No Oliver, not this time, I don't mind some company actually." Wilma assured with a small smile.
"I had a terrible evening."
Amelia leaned over the table, her face facing Wilma's perfectly.
"Who was it tonight?"
"His name was Hans, he's some sort of general." She grunted. "Absolutely terrible at kissing, might I add."
Amelie crossed her arms over her chest and raised her eyebrows at Wilma.
"Are you really sure you should keep this whole thing going?"
Wilma shrugged. "See, this is how we're different, Amelie." She leaned forward to grab her friend's hand on the table.
"I don't mind doing some questionable things if it gives me an advantage, whereas you're so set on being so good all of the time."
Amelie shook her head slowly and sighed.
"So, how much money did he give you?"
Wilma took a sip of her tea. "Nothing." She answered calmly. Amelie's eyes widened and she looked over at her equally shocked brother.
"What!?" They both exclaimed in unison once more.
"Oh come on guys, I never ask for money, I'm much smarter than that." She scoffed. "He gave me something better."
Amelie shook her head. "So, let me get this straight, you never get paid for this?"
Wilma conjured a strange satisfied smile and took another slow sip. Right then, with that facial expression I realised just how much she'd changed. I barely recognised her. She wasn't as adorable nor as innocent as she had been when she'd left.
"I didn't say that, I do get paid, just not with money." She clarified. Her friends slowly nodded, but I saw they didn't understand, I think Wilma was aware of it as well. She took pleasure in explaining it. She first ran back into her bathroom and came out clutching something in her hands and then she pulled out a small piece of paper from the small handbag.
"Here." She slammed it on the table. "It's not much, only very limited information, but it is enough to warn some people."
She rubbed her eyes, it was obvious she was knackered, despite her new tough facade, her permanent fatigue had stuck around for me to see.
I didn';t understand the paper I was looking at. It seemed to be some sort of plan, it had some loose drawing and a few words, but none of it made sense to me. However, Oliver and Amelie were studying it closely, I was clearly missing something, which I found infuriating. Wilma quickly left the flat to go check her letter box, which got my hopes up, finally she would read that damned letter that I came here for.
I recognised the letter immediately. The paper had a yellow tone to it, and was clearly stained with a few now dried tears. The young blond woman sat down, and for once, her face resembled the Wilma I knew. Her expression slowly morphed into a worried one. Her friends were muttering about the strange mysterious document on the other side of the table as she opened Heidi's letter.
It took a long while for her to even get past the first sentence, I saw her eyeballs going back and forth, reading it over and over again.
"What is it, Seide?" Oliver asked, looking up from that precious enigma of a paper.
A tear trickled down Wilma's cheek, and without answering her friend, she grabbed a piece of paper from the stack near the only window, and started writing.
In the end, it seemed I had come to Berlin for nothing, of course she was going to write back, despite how much she'd changed, her love for Heidi had not bulged.