The English Girl (42 page)

‘I still think you should come and join us,’ she says. ‘As long as you’re still on your feet…’

I’m puzzled. She sees this, smiles indulgently.

‘Honestly, Stella. I can’t believe you haven’t heard. It’s such a special moment. The Führer is arriving in Vienna today. His motorcade is coming.’

‘Oh.’

‘Stella, where have you been hiding? You really didn’t know?’

‘Well…’

‘You ought to be there, you really should. It’s history being made.’

‘Yes, it is, I suppose.’

We stand there for a moment. I sense how she wants to win me over – to persuade me of the rightness of her opinions, to share in her world.

I hunt around in my mind for something else to say.

‘I like the flowers,’ I tell her, vacuously.

She nods. ‘They’re pretty, aren’t they? I was really lucky to get them. Business is brisk in there today.’ She indicates the florist’s with an extravagant wave of her hand. ‘He said he’d never seen anything like it. He thinks they’ll soon be sold out.’

‘Oh … And I see you’ve got your camera.’

She nods. Her eyes gleam. ‘The whole thing should look gorgeous – you know, all the soldiers and uniforms and people throwing flowers. If only I had a movie camera…’

I remember how she yearned to make films, like Leni Riefenstahl.
Not all our dreams are good dreams.

She puts her hand on my arm. ‘So how about it? I can’t persuade you?’

‘No. Really.’

She shakes her head a little.

‘Oh Stella. Sometimes I don’t understand you at all. I mean, we’ll be able to tell our children about it … Wouldn’t you like that? Don’t you want to be able to tell them:
Yes, I was there
?’ She looks in my face. Her voice hardens slightly. ‘No, you just don’t see it, do you?’

She moves a little away from me. She puts up a hand and adjusts her hat, so the veil falls over her eyes.

‘I suppose I’d better be going. There are people from the Academy that I’m meeting up with,’ she says. ‘They’re saying that the motorcade will be coming round the Ring, and we want to get a good vantage point. It wouldn’t do to be late.’

She walks briskly away from me.

I walk on to Eva’s, picking my way through the crowds. I think back over our conversation.

It’s history being made.

Anneliese was right about that, at least. Everything is different now; and this recognition feels important to me. Because you can only survive in this new world if you know that; if you know in the depths of your being how utterly everything is changed.

At the flat on Mariahilferstrasse, Eva calls through the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s me. Stella.’

She unlocks the door and takes me into the living room.

It all looks much as usual. Benjamin is sleeping, his newspaper propped against him. Lotte is painting a cat picture at the table; she has the paintbox I gave her for Christmas, and water in a jar. She looks up, doesn’t smile. Her eyes are red and raw from crying.

‘Lotte’s off today,’ says Eva. ‘The schools are closed for the day. Now, Lotte, I want you to go to your bedroom—’

‘No. I’m not going. I’m staying here. I want to talk to Stella.’

Eva makes a slight gesture of acquiescence; she’s too exhausted, too overwhelmed, to protest. We sit down at the table.

Lotte grasps my hand.

‘Have you found him?’ she says.

I see all the hope that burns in her eyes.

‘Not yet, but I’m doing my best.’ I try to keep my voice level. ‘First I asked a man that I know, but he said he couldn’t help me…’

I stumble over the words. I wonder if I should tell Eva that it was Rainer who did this, who had Harri arrested. But I can’t bear to tell her.

‘Then I went to the door of the Hotel Metropole,’ I say.

‘Goodness, Stella. That was brave,’ says Eva.

‘Why was it brave?’ asks Lotte.

‘There are soldiers with guns there,’ says Eva.

Lotte shrugs.

‘Maybe Stella wasn’t bothered. Maybe she wants to find Harri more than she’s frightened of guns.’

‘It wasn’t any use, though,’ I say. ‘It’s just as you said, Eva – they wouldn’t tell me anything. They wouldn’t let me inside. I’m so so sorry.’

Eva gives a small, sad shake of the head.

‘Well done for trying,’ she says.

We sit for a while, in a heavy, defeated silence. Outside, you can hear the people passing on the pavement, and all the bells of the city, ringing in the new world.

Lotte gives up on her painting. She’s moving the paintbrush round and round in the jar, making small waves in the water. Absently, as though she’s not aware of what she’s doing. Round and round. The water splashes.

‘For goodness’ sake, Lotte. Don’t do that,’ Eva says sharply. ‘It gets on my nerves.’

Lotte’s face crumples; she hates her mother’s stern voice.

She starts on her painting again, but there’s too much water on the brush and her painting is smeary and blurred. She throws the brush down, so it splatters.

‘It’s ruined,’ she says. ‘It’s all messed up.’

Her dark eyes glitter with tears.

I take out my handkerchief, mop the surplus water from the paper.

‘It isn’t ruined, Lotte. You just need more paint on your brush. When it’s dried, the picture will still look fine.’

Lotte frowns doubtfully, but she picks up the paintbrush again.

‘There’s something else,’ I tell Eva. ‘I can’t stay on at the apartment. Rainer’s told me to leave.’

‘Oh Stella. What will you do?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘I’d ask you to stay here with us. But that might put you in danger…’ She shakes her head a little, thinking; then puts her hand on mine. Urgent. ‘My dear, it’s obvious, really. You should leave this place and go home. Things will only get worse here. You should go back home and be safe.’

‘But I can’t. I can’t leave. Not till we find Harri.’

‘Stella…’

She glances at Lotte; she doesn’t want her to hear what she’s going to say.

Lotte mouths at her:
I’m not leaving
.

Eva turns back to me.

‘There are things I’ve heard,’ she says, in a small, ragged voice. ‘About what happens in Germany, when people are arrested. Bolsheviks, Jews, political prisoners. I’ve heard stories. Rumours, maybe. They just seem to disappear. People can’t find them, can’t trace them, however hard they try.’

I refuse to believe this.

‘But – there must be a way. I thought perhaps we could find somebody to write to.’

‘I don’t know, Stella.’

‘What about that Jewish organisation you talked about before – do you think they might have a name? Someone in the SS who’s in charge of all this?’

‘Maybe. I’ll go back to them. They’re terribly busy, of course.’

‘Another thing I thought of.’ The words, the desperate schemes, all rushing out of my mouth. ‘There’s a man at the British Embassy. Frank Reece. Well, you know him – he helped us when Harri was hurt.’

‘He was a good man, Stella. But what could he do for us? What could anyone do?’

‘I’ll speak to him – he might be able to suggest something.’

‘That would be wonderful, Stella,’ she says. But in a bleak voice, without hope.

We sit without speaking for a while.

It’s silent in Eva’s living room. Outside, the crowds, the church bells; but in here, it’s utterly still. No sound but Benjamin’s slow, sleepy breathing, and the splash of Lotte’s paintbrush as she dabbles it in the jar, and the strokes of the brush on the paper. It’s so quiet.

Into the silence, a new sound. Just a small thing, a footstep. Someone walking quite briskly up the stairs to the flat.

We don’t move.

More footsteps – rather loud, as though from booted feet. Several people. Voices.

I glance at Eva. I see all the fear in her face.

‘Eva – is that…?’

I can’t say it. My heart thuds.

The footsteps stop at Eva’s door. Someone knocks.

Eva doesn’t move.

More knocking. Rapid, percussive, so Lotte’s painting water trembles in its jar.

Benjamin wakes suddenly, startled, throwing his hands in the air, his newspaper sliding from his lap.

‘What’s that noise, Eva? Is it Harri? Has the boy forgotten his key again?’ he asks her.

Hammering. Shouting voices.

Benjamin is frowning.

‘That careless boy. What a racket. He’s always forgetting his key.’

My breath is coming in gasps that hurt me.

Eva goes to the window, pulls back the lace curtain an inch.

‘There’s a lorry in the street,’ she says. ‘Like when they came for Harri.’

We stare at one another. Panic flickers through the room, like wildfire.

There’s another volley of knocking. If Eva doesn’t respond soon, they will surely break down the door.

And then I know what I must do. The whole thought is there, fully formed in my mind – clear, exact, imperative. Because everything is different now. Because the world is changed.

‘Eva.’ I grasp her wrist. ‘Is there another way to get out?’

‘Only that way.’ She gestures towards the kitchen window. ‘You’d have to climb out of the window and onto the fire escape. There’s an alleyway from the courtyard that leads to Kirchengasse … But, Stella, what are you thinking? My father couldn’t possibly—’

‘Let me take Lotte. I could hide her.’ My voice cracks. The words are too big for my mouth. ‘I could take her to England with me.’

Eva stares.

‘But where would she live? We don’t know anyone in England.’

‘You know
me
. She could live with me and my mother. She’d be safe there.’

Lotte looks up, wide-eyed. Uncomprehending.

‘But how could you possibly do that?’ says Eva. ‘I don’t have papers for her.’

‘I’ll ask Frank Reece. He’s a British spy. He owes me. I think he would help.’

She thinks, for an instant. For half a heartbeat.

‘Yes, Stella. Yes.’ She turns to Lotte. ‘Lotte, you have to go with Stella,’ she says.

Lotte stares at her mother.

Eva puts her arms around her daughter. Clinging tight to her. Lotte doesn’t respond, doesn’t put her arms around her mother, just sits there. Her face is white and frayed.

‘I love you,’ Eva tells her.

Hearing the break in her mother’s voice, Lotte starts to cry.

‘Lotte.
Now
. We have to go now,’ I say. ‘You have to come with me.’

I take her hand, but she wrenches herself from my grasp.

‘But – my cat picture. I need my cat picture.’

‘We have to leave your picture. We have to leave everything,’ I tell her.

‘
No
. I spent all day on that picture.’

The banging is louder now. Someone is kicking down the door.

Eva grabs Lotte’s hand, we go to the kitchen, Eva opens the window. I look down into the courtyard, my heart in my throat – not knowing if there will be men down there too, in case people try to escape. The courtyard is empty.

I climb out onto the fire escape, trying not to think how far it would be to fall.

Lotte is crying quietly, not moving. I feel a surge of anger with her.

‘Lotte, you have to come with me. You
have
to.’

She doesn’t move. I reach in through the window, snatch her hand. She pulls away. Mute, frightened.

‘
Go
, Lotte,’ says Eva. She’s using her stern voice, the one that Lotte always hates. ‘Stop messing about. Just go. Just do as you’re told.’

I reach through the window, hold Lotte under her arms. Eva takes her legs. I haul her out through the window. She’s heavy. She slips from my grasp and lands on her knees.

‘Lotte. We have to be quick.’

I take her hand and we climb down the iron stairway. Rapidly, stumbling, me pulling hard on her hand.

There’s a sudden commotion from the flat above us – loud voices issuing orders, things thrown about, glass breaking. I know that Eva will have opened the door.

Lotte comes with me, weeping.

We cross the courtyard, and enter the alley that leads to Kirchengasse. Everything feels unreal. It’s as though I am floating high up, looking down on what’s happening.

In Kirchengasse I feel safer, amid the crowds of people. There are two policemen on the corner with swastikas on their arms, and my heart pounds as we pass them, but they pay us no attention.

I don’t have a plan; there’s been no time for a plan. I’m making it up as I go, feeling my way, one step at a time.

Lotte has stopped crying now. But her face is colourless as candle-wax and she holds very tight to my hand.

‘Stella. Where are we going?’

‘We’re going back to my flat – to the place where I live.’

‘Will Mama be all right? And my grandpa?’

‘I don’t know. I hope so, sweetheart.’

I have a terrifying sense of responsibility for her. She is all mine now – mine to keep safe. She’s become my sister, my child. I can’t believe how this has happened – so suddenly, in the blink of an eye, in a single beat of a heart.

On Maria-Treu-Gasse, I tell her to wait in the entryway. I go up the stairs, unlock the door to the flat.

I listen for a moment. It’s quiet. There’s no sign of Marthe; she’s probably gone to watch Hitler’s arrival. A phrase of music floats along from the kitchen, where Janika is singing to herself as she cooks, one of her songs of lost love from the Zemplén Hills. I wonder briefly if I should confide in Janika; she’s a good person: she’s kind, she hates what’s happening in Vienna. But her primary loyalty will be to Marthe, I know.

I fetch Lotte, and take her in through the door of the flat. She’s started crying again, and a sob escapes from her mouth. I put my finger to my lips, gesturing her to be quiet.

I’m jumpy; my heart is pounding. Little things startle me, the everyday sounds of the house. The rattle of pans from the kitchen. A little click behind me, from the cupboard where Janika keeps her dusters and brooms: so small, like a sound inside your own body. I turn: there’s nothing.

I take Lotte quickly along to my bedroom.

In spite of everything, she’s intrigued to see where I live. She trails her fingertips over the surfaces of things.