The English Girl (44 page)

‘I’ll be back tomorrow. Thank you.’

I pull on my coat. He watches me.

‘It all happened just as you predicted,’ I tell him. ‘Hitler, and Austria…’

‘Yes. Sadly.’

‘I didn’t believe you. I wish I had,’ I tell him. ‘I wish I’d listened. Desperately wish it.’

He nods slightly, tiredly. ‘War is coming, Stella.’ His voice is heavy, resigned. ‘Sooner or later. Anyone can see that. Anyone with eyes and a bit of a brain. Which sadly my masters in England sometimes seem to be lacking.’

‘Still?’

He nods.

‘They still think Hitler will stop here. They’re persuading themselves he’ll be satisfied with what he’s grabbed so far.’

‘I found that date you wanted,’ I say. ‘But I suppose it’s irrelevant now.’

‘It is. But thank you so much for what you did, Stella…’

I pick up my bag and my gloves.

‘You know how to thank me,’ I say.

I go home via the flat on Mariahilferstrasse. I have to be certain. Maybe the men just searched the flat and left Eva and Benjamin there. Maybe by some miracle Eva will open the door, and we’ll hug, and I’ll feel embarrassed about my melodramatic gesture, in taking Lotte.

I ring and ring: nobody comes.

At last, the door of the neighbouring flat opens, and a woman looks out. Her cardigan is crookedly buttoned. She has a cat in her arms; she cradles the cat like a baby, clasping it close to her chest.

‘Do you know where they are?’ I ask her.

She leans towards me, speaking in a hoarse stage-whisper.

‘They’ve gone – Frau Reznik and the old man. They took them. I think that the little girl wasn’t with them,’ she says.

‘Right.’

‘They took some of their things, the men who came. It’s quite a mess in there…’

‘Oh.’

Loneliness seems to hang about her. She hesitates, as though she’s torn – wanting to retreat, to shut her door on the world, yet also curious about me.

‘I’ve seen you before, haven’t I, fräulein? You were stepping out with the clever young man – the doctor?’ she says.

‘Yes, I was.’ I feel a sob rise in my throat. ‘I
am
,’ I tell her.

She opens her mouth to say something, but then thinks better of it. She stands there for a moment, open-mouthed, staring at me.

‘Well, thank you for your help,’ I tell her.

She presses the cat to her face, rubbing her face in its fur, for comfort.

‘In times like these,’ she says, ‘it’s better not to know anything. In times like these, it’s best to keep yourself to yourself. D’you understand what I’m saying?’

‘Yes.’

‘Don’t tell anyone I spoke to you.’

‘No, don’t worry, I won’t.’

She leans a little closer to me. She has indigo shadows like bruises underneath her eyes.

‘They say there’s going to be a war,’ she tells me.

‘Yes, some people do think that,’ I say.

‘What do you think, fräulein?’

I hesitate.

I think of Frank, of what he just said to me.
Anyone can see that
.
Anyone with eyes and a bit of a brain
. I think of Janika.
Sooner or later, someone will have to get out his fists. Like it or not, that’s how the world works
.

‘Yes,’ I say then. ‘Yes, I think there’s going to be a war.’

She looks at me thoughtfully for a moment.

‘Well, you’d better be on your way,’ she tells me. ‘You shouldn’t go getting involved.’

She closes the door abruptly.

I’m frightened, coming back into the house. But there’s nobody around. I can’t hear Marthe or Janika.

My bedroom looks empty. I go to the cupboard, my heart in my throat, and gently open the door.

A small scream. I’m so relieved to hear it.

‘It’s only me,’ I tell her.

She’s hunched in a corner of the cupboard, her arms wrapped round her knees.

‘I had to hide,’ she says. ‘I heard the housekeeper coming. But I couldn’t tell when she’d gone again, so I had to stay in here. It’s really dark, Stella.’

‘You’ve been so brave,’ I tell her. ‘My brave girl.’

I give her my hand and help her out. She sits on the edge of the bed.

‘Can we go and see Mama now, Stella?’ she says.

I wish we didn’t have to talk about this at this moment, when she’s so scared from spending all that time in the dark. But I can’t lie to her.

I sit beside her, put my arms around her.

‘Lotte – I don’t know where your mother is. I went back to your house, but nobody answered the door.’

‘Have they taken her to the prison?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

Her eyes fill up with tears. Then a sudden light comes in her face.

‘Well, my grandpa could look after me then.’

I shake my head a little.

‘Sweetheart, I think they took him as well.’

Her face dissolves. Her body shakes with weeping. I hold her. We sit like that for a long time.

I become aware of a shadow falling across us. I feel the chill move through me, even as I turn.

Marthe is there, in the doorway. Her eyes take us in: me, and Lotte.

‘Stella.’ Her voice is stern and troubled.

She looks at us for a long moment. I feel my heart banging against the walls of my chest.

‘We were going to see the Führer arrive in Vienna,’ she says. Her face is shuttered. ‘Everyone was very excited, of course … But my varicose veins were hurting me, so I thought I’d come back home. And Lukas said he’d heard something.’

I remember the little click from Janika’s cupboard.

‘Marthe—’

She interrupts.

‘He was playing with his detective kit in the cupboard in the hall, and he heard something. A sound like a child crying.’

I open my mouth to speak, but she talks over me.

‘He said it was just a tiny thing, but a tiny thing can mean something. It can show that something’s happened that shouldn’t have happened, he said. I thought that was rather clever, actually … And it seems that he was right, Stella.’

Her eyes are hard as stones.

Dread surges through me. I know there’s no point in pretending.

‘This is Lotte,’ I tell her, my voice serrated with fear. ‘She’s Harri’s sister. Harri, my friend, who I told you about. He and his family have been arrested.’

Marthe doesn’t say anything. Her eyes narrow.

‘Marthe – you know what we saw in the street. The way they treated that poor woman.’ I’m desperate, pleading. ‘I don’t want anything to happen to Lotte,’ I tell her. ‘She’s only a child.’

Marthe’s face is a mask, white and still and ungiving. I know with a clear hard certainty that she will do what Rainer would want. She always does what he wants. This is the principle that she has built her life on: to do what Rainer tells her, always to be guided by him. Rainer, who had my lover arrested. Who says it’s important to aspire, and to be firm in your opinions; to face up to the logic of what you believe, however uncomfortable that may make you. Rainer, who looks necessity in the face, who does what needs to be done.

I sit there, my arms around Lotte, wait for the blow to fall.

Marthe takes a step towards us.

‘Stella. Are you telling me you’re trying to hide this little Jew-girl here? To hide her from the authorities? To hide her from
me
?’

Her voice is harsh with outrage, with accusation.

‘It was just for a day or two,’ I tell her.

‘And what then?’

‘I was going to take her home to England with me.’

There’s silence for a moment. Marthe stares and stares at us with unrelenting eyes.

‘So how did you imagine you would get her out of Vienna?’ she says then.

‘Someone was putting together some papers for us,’ I tell her.

I talk about it in the past – because I know it’s in the past now.

‘Mr Reece, presumably?’

Her lips are pursed, as though something in her mouth tastes bitter.

‘Yes.’

‘So – explain to me. How exactly were you going to feed the girl, while she was here?’

‘I hadn’t worked that out yet.’

‘And when were you planning to leave?’

‘Tomorrow, or the day after. As soon as we got the papers organised. We were going to take the train to Switzerland,’ I say.

I feel Lotte start in my arms.

‘But Switzerland is another country, Stella,’ she says.

‘Yes.’

‘I don’t want to go to Switzerland. I want to go back to Mama. I want to stay in Vienna. I want to stay in my home.’

Lotte is crying, angrily. She hits my chest with her fists.

‘Shh,’ I say. ‘Shh.’

But she won’t be silenced.

‘I don’t want to go,’ she says again. ‘I
won’t
go.’

Marthe watches Lotte, her face working.

‘This child’s mother,’ she says. ‘What happened? What did she say?’

‘People were knocking at her door. I think they were SS and the police, like the people who came for Harri. I said I could take Lotte. That we could escape the back way.’

‘And the mother? What did the mother say then?’

‘Her mother let her go. It was hard for her: she had to decide in an instant. I said that I could take Lotte and her mother told us to go. She had to scold Lotte to make her leave.’

Marthe thinks about this for a moment.

‘Stella. Presumably you’re aware what Rainer would do?’ she says then. ‘You know he’d call in the authorities, if he found the Jew-girl here?’

‘Yes, I know that.’

Marthe turns from us. She goes to stand by the window, looking out over the street, not looking at us. She’s no longer blocking the doorway. I have a quick crazy thought, that I could grab Lotte and go. Run out into Maria-Treu-Gasse, run far away from this room. But where on earth could we run to – with no money, no passports, no coats?

Marthe is moving her finger across the window, as though she is writing some invisible word. I can hear the faint squeak of her fingertip on the glass. She thinks for a long moment.

‘I guessed you were Rainer’s daughter,’ she says then, slowly. Her voice sounds different – fragile and ephemeral as dandelion seeds on the wind.

I feel my pulse skitter away.

‘I could see it,’ she goes on. ‘To be honest, I think I saw at once, when you came.’

She still has her back to me – as though she can’t say these things to my face.

I don’t say anything.

‘But for a long time I shut my mind to it. I tried not to think about it. I didn’t want to think – about Helena, about how it happened. Because Rainer must have been engaged to me then. When they…’ She swallows. ‘Did you realise that?’

‘I don’t know the details,’ I say.

Lotte is crying more quietly now, her lashes stuck down, clotted with water. I hold her.

‘I was angry at first, I can’t deny it,’ says Marthe. ‘Angry with Rainer. Angry also with you. You were beautiful, and looked just like this woman my husband had loved. And with your piano-playing, you had the whole world at your feet. I think, to be honest, I was a little jealous of you. A little envious … But in spite of all that, I welcomed you here, I gave you a home. We both did. In time, I knew, the secret would be told, and Rainer would have embraced you as his daughter. And I would have let him, Stella.
I
would have let him…’

I don’t say anything.

‘I came to love you, Stella. I thought you were kind, and understanding. I felt you saw into people … Sometimes I’ve longed to have a different part to play. To have a bit more of a voice. Not just to drift along in the slipstream of someone else’s life…’ Her voice is tentative, uncertain, as though she’s feeling her way. She still has her back to me. ‘You saw that, didn’t you?’

I nod wordlessly, though she isn’t looking at me. A tentative candle-flame of hope begins to burn in me: that she might overlook what I’ve done, that she might let me take Lotte.

‘But then you betrayed us, Stella.’

Her words are too loud for the small room, and I hear all the steel in her voice. The flame in me is extinguished: I know there’s no hope for us now. Hearing Marthe’s harshness, Lotte starts crying again.

‘Rainer told me what you did,’ says Marthe. ‘How instead of being grateful you betrayed us. Betrayed both of us. Poking around in Rainer’s study. Doing everything that that man Reece asked you to do.’

I know I ought to say I’m sorry. I try to force out the words, but my throat is thick and obstructed, as though it’s full of sand.

‘How
could
you, Stella, after everything we did for you? We took you into our home, we welcomed you … I’m so hurt by what you did. Deeply hurt, Stella.’

It’s over. I know that. There’s nothing I can do, can say, to save Lotte. All I touch turns to ashes.

Marthe is silent for a long time, looking out of the window. The room is so quiet I can hear the tiniest things – Lotte’s voiceless weeping; the heavy thud of my heart.

Then Marthe turns back to face us. Her expression startles me – all the helplessness, the naked look in her face. She shakes her head slightly.

‘But I know how it feels to lose a child,’ she tells me. She’s speaking softly, feeling her way, and her voice has a catch in it. ‘As you know. You sensed that, Stella … And I think I can imagine how this child’s mother must feel.’

I stare at her. Not breathing. Not daring to breathe.

‘I think, Stella…’ Her voice fades. She tries again. ‘I think I’m not going to tell Rainer.’ She has an air of surprise, as though she’s a little startled by the words that come from her mouth. ‘He’ll probably be out for most of the day. He has a lot to do now … I’ll bring you some food from the kitchen. I’ll tell Janika that you’re ill. You should stay in your room and the two of you will have to share the food. And I’ll fetch a camp bed for the little girl to sleep on.’

‘Bless you, Marthe.’

‘But you must leave tomorrow. You have to promise me. After that I can’t keep you safe.’

‘Yes. Yes, of course. We’ll leave tomorrow.’

‘Rainer and I will be out of the house tomorrow. There’s going to be a very great occasion in Heldenplatz,’ she says. ‘There will be speeches and flowers and so on … I’m going to pretend that none of this ever happened. I’m going to pretend that to myself as well. But you have to go tomorrow.’