The English Girl (40 page)

‘They were police,’ she says.

‘Well, I’m sure it’ll be all right, if they were Viennese police,’ I say immediately.

I remember the scene on Maria-Treu-Gasse – the policeman kicking the woman. But that was an aberration, I tell myself; he was just one rogue element. The Viennese police are surely mostly on the right side …

‘There must be some misunderstanding,’ I say. ‘They’ve got Harri confused with someone else.’

She reaches across the table, holds my hand between hers. Her skin is icy cold.

‘They were police and SS men,’ she says. ‘You have to understand. Two police and two SS. They were Austrian police but they were working for the Nazis. I tried to tell you, Stella. I rang the flat where you live this morning, but nobody answered the phone.’

Rage sears through me – a startling rage with Eva, that she let this happen, that she didn’t stop them.

‘Where did they take him? Where is he?’

‘I don’t know, Stella. I can’t find out. I’ve talked to our Jewish organisation. Nobody knew anything. I’ve been out all afternoon. I kept asking. Then someone suggested Morzinplatz. The SS have their headquarters there, in the Hotel Metropole.’

‘Oh.’

I know the place. It’s by the Danube Canal.

‘Someone said that’s where they’re taking some of the people they’ve arrested. I’ve been there, but you can’t get into the building,’ she says. ‘The soldiers just wave their rifles at you and tell you to step away. No one would talk to me. No one would tell me anything.’

‘But – they can’t just keep him without any charge. They’ll let him go, won’t they? They’ll see they’ve made a mistake. I mean, Harri’s just a doctor, he’s not political at all … They’ll see that, won’t they?’

She shakes her head.

‘Stella, my dear…’

I hear all the sadness that drenches her voice.

And then I begin to understand, to let this knowledge in. And the thought slices through me, sharp as the edge of a blade: he’d have gone already if it hadn’t been for me – if I hadn’t got so upset when he said he was going with Ulrike. If it hadn’t been for me, he would have got out. If he hadn’t changed his mind for me.

I try to imagine him in prison. Will they hurt him? I think of him lying beaten up on the pavement – then flinch away from the memory. There must be something I can do. There must be a way to find him. But my mind is blank and empty; for a moment, I can’t think at all.

I say to myself, stupidly:
If only Harri were here, I could ask him.
Harri, who taught me about life and people: Harri would know what to do.

And then something comes to me, as though from nowhere. Something Lotte once said, when she was talking about the bullying at her school, about Gabi and the others, how they laughed at her.
I wish my father was alive, then he could stop them.

At once, I have a plan, a sudden clear, hard purpose. The only card that’s left for me to play.

‘Eva. There’s someone I could talk to. Someone who knows the people who’ve been involved in all this. Someone I could ask, who might be able to help.’

‘This person won’t tell you anything, Stella. They’re not telling anyone.’

‘I think he would,’ I say. ‘I think he might listen to me. There are reasons why he might listen.’

I’m suddenly full of a desperate energy. I can’t sit here any more.

‘I have to go. I have to speak to this person.’

I get up.

‘Stella – could you come back when you can, and let me know?’ she says.

‘Yes, I will, of course I will.’

She nods dully.

All the way home, I have an urgent conversation with God.
I’ll do anything – even
give him up, if that’s what You want me to do. It doesn’t matter if he doesn’t really love
me. It doesn’t matter if he loves Ulrike best. It doesn’t even matter if I never see him
again. Though I terribly want to. Just let him still be here, in this world. Just let him be
safe.

I wait in my bedroom: listening, pacing the room.

At last I hear Rainer come in. He goes to his study; I hear the door clicking shut.

I give him a moment, then go to knock at the door. He calls for me to enter.

He’s pouring a brandy at the drinks table. The only light comes from the green-shaded lamp on the desk; it falls on his thin, pale hands, and leaves his face entirely shadowed. Darkness seems to huddle in the corners of the room.

He turns towards me.

‘Stella.’

He raises his eyebrows slightly.

I’d thought I’d appeal to his fondness for me. With a tentative hope that he’d listen – that in spite of all the things he believes, he would make an exception for me. But suddenly, it’s so difficult. As he looks at me, all the purpose that drove me begins to leak away.

‘Rainer. I wanted to ask if you could help me.’

He sips his brandy, his eyes on me. He has a slight, crooked smile.

‘It’s late. I’d have thought it was past your bedtime, Stella,’ he says drily.

‘I need to ask you something. I’m afraid it can’t wait.’

He indicates one of the leather armchairs.

The stove has been lit. When I sit, I can feel all its warmth on my skin.

‘A brandy?’ he says.

‘Thank you.’ Though I don’t really want one.

He pours the drink, hands me the glass. The brandy’s too strong, and I cough, feeling stupid. The heat of the stove burns my face.

He stands there, watching me, waiting. He isn’t going to help me by asking what I want to say.

I clear my throat.

‘There’s this thing that’s happened…’ I swallow hard. ‘My friend – the close friend that I told you about. I know you didn’t exactly approve…’

He shrugs; and something about the gesture chills me.

‘He’s been arrested,’ I say. ‘They’ve taken him. The SS and the police.’

The words are like pebbles in my throat; it’s hard to force them out of my mouth.

Rainer’s expression remains impassive.

‘The Jew – the doctor?’ he says.

‘Yes. Harri Reznik. He was going to leave; he was going to go to America. He had a job there, waiting for him. He was going to fly out tomorrow, and take the boat from Le Havre…’

Rainer sips his brandy.

‘I went to his flat tonight, and I found he’d been arrested.’ I hate to say these words. As though in speaking them I make them real, when part of me still can’t believe them;
refuses
to believe them. ‘It was two SS and two local police. They came and took him away.’

There’s a moment of quiet between us. I’m intensely aware of all the tiny sounds in the room – the crisp tick of the clock, the creak of his shoes when he moves. These sounds seem crystal clear and dangerous.

He runs one finger slowly down the side of his face.

‘Well, things are changing in Vienna, Stella. You have to realise that. Things are being tightened up. It’s the end of the old order, in Vienna,’ he says.

‘But Harri hadn’t done anything,’ I tell him. ‘He’s not political at all. He wasn’t involved in anything … I wanted to ask if you could help me. You know – help me find him. Find out where they’ve taken him, and how to get him out.’

His wintry gaze is on me. There’s a faint frown etched in his brow.

‘And what makes you think it would be in my power to do that?’ he says.

‘I think you have connections. I think you
know
these people…’

And then I feel I’ve revealed too much: that I know more than I ought to know, about who he is, what he does.

In the silence between us, I can hear the pounding of blood in my ears.

‘And how do you know that exactly?’ he says. ‘Who my connections are?’

There’s a splinter of ice in his voice.

I don’t reply. But the brandy in the glass I’m holding trembles all across its surface. I hope he doesn’t see this.

He opens the silver box on his desk, takes a cigar, lights it. He turns to face me, blowing out smoke. His eyes are pale and cold.

‘I know you were spying on me, Stella.’

I hear my quick indrawn breath.

‘And, let me tell you,’ he says, ‘I think you should probably stick to piano-playing. I don’t think you’ve got a vocation.’

I shiver, in spite of the heat of the stove.

‘I kept an eye on you,’ he says. ‘After I saw that Englishman approach you at the party. The man from the British Embassy. Reece.’

The clotted darkness in the corners edges closer to me.

What does he mean – that
he kept an eye on
me
? Did he send someone to follow me? I remember the Zentral Friedhof, when I met Frank Reece there. How I kept looking over my shoulder; the insect-crawl on my skin.

‘Then I found a hair in my desk. Or, to be more precise, young Lukas found it,’ he says. ‘I was showing him some old books of mine, but he wasn’t paying attention. He was poking around with that blessed magnifying glass he has. He showed me what he’d found. He said it could be important: that a little thing can mean something…’ Rainer’s mouth curves, in a chilly ghost of a smile. ‘It was a blonde curly hair. Rather like leaving a calling card:
Stella was here…’

Something plummets inside me.

‘It’s not very admirable, is it, Stella?’ His voice is smooth, emollient, but his mouth is thin, like a scar. ‘We offer you a home so you can study here in Vienna. And you abuse our hospitality in this most unpleasant way.’

I don’t say anything.

There’s a sudden spark from the stove. I flinch: the sound seems violent to me.

‘You’re trembling, Stella.’

Him noticing this just makes me tremble more.

He’s looking at me as though I am a stranger: as though we never talked in the Rose Room, as though we never made music together. I remember the pistol I saw in the drawer of his desk: to get it, he would only have to reach out his hand. Fear seizes me. Is he going to kill me? But I can’t let him kill me – because if he killed me, who would there be to search for Harri, with Eva so despairing?

I know this is the moment, that I have to make my move. But it’s hard to speak: my throat is narrow as a needle’s eye.

‘You can’t hurt me,’ I say, in a crack of a voice. ‘I’m your daughter.’

For a moment, there’s absolute silence. The words hang there in the space between us, and cannot be unsaid.

He smokes his cigar, his eyes never leaving my face. I feel my skin flare hotly.

‘So. You know that, do you? You’ve worked that out?’ he says.

I nod, can’t speak.

He moves suddenly, startling me: reaches out to me, takes my hand, pulls me up to my feet. It’s as though my pronouncement suddenly gives him permission to touch me. He stands me in front of the little gilt-framed mirror on the wall; he has his hand on my shoulder. With his other hand, he angles the lamp to shine on us. I see our faces together – the colouring, the mouth, the set of the jaw. The likeness.

‘It’s obvious enough, I would have thought,’ he says.

I see an opening then – a sliver of a chance. I have to win him over, to make him feel something for me. If he cares enough for me, perhaps he will give me his help. Perhaps he will find Harri for me.

‘Did my mother know, when she sent me here?’ I ask him.

He takes his hand from my shoulder. He pushes a strand of hair from my face. It’s a gesture not without tenderness.

‘Your mother,’ he repeats. I see a softening in his face – almost a faltering. ‘Helena … Yes, I think Helena must have known. Well, women usually know, don’t they?’

He’s looking past me, remembering. I go back to sit in the chair. His voice is pensive, distant.

‘When we met, when we fell in love, Helena and I – well, we were both engaged to other people. Marthe and I were planning our wedding – all the arrangements were made. I had to do the right thing. If I’d called off the marriage, Marthe would have been heart-broken. So of course I put it behind me, tried to forget. I have always tried to do the right thing, Stella,’ he says.

I notice those words:
fell in love
. I’m surprised he’s being so open with me. But I don’t respond, don’t want to interrupt the flow of his thought.

‘She never told me what had happened … That she – that we – had a child. But of course, when you came here, I knew. From the very first moment I saw you.’

I remember that moment at the dining table, when Marthe introduced us: the moth that beat at the window, the sense of a little rip in the fabric of things.

‘And Helena would have seen that too, when you were growing up,’ he says. ‘The resemblance between us.’

He turns back to face me.

‘Yes, I’m sure your mother knew.’ He flicks ash into the ashtray. He’s suddenly brisker, coming back to the present. ‘But Marthe doesn’t know. Or maybe she suspects it, but she isn’t really
sure
. And I’d very much rather it stayed that way,’ he tells me.

The thought sneaks into my mind – that I could threaten him, to make him help me find Harri. Threaten to tell Marthe. Blackmail him.

His eyes are on me; he seems to read my fevered thought. It comes to me that he reads me too well – that he understands me so exactly.

‘It would be kinder that way, I think,’ he says. ‘Of course, it’s up to you…’

Appealing to my fondness for Marthe, and at once defusing my thought.

He’s leaning towards me, animated; his eyes are bright and intent. It’s as though he wants to explain himself; as though he cares what I think.

‘You know, Stella … I would have liked you to understand – you, my daughter – what all this is about.’ When he says
my daughter
, there’s a thread of tenderness woven into his voice. ‘The Third Reich – the new order.’ He makes an expansive gesture. ‘How things are going to change now. Here in Vienna. Across Europe. How very much better our life is going to be now.’

I think of the things I have seen.

‘What’s been happening on the streets of Vienna isn’t
better
,’ I say.

He shakes his head slightly.

‘You have to take the long view. Those incidents aren’t important. What matters is the bigger picture,’ he says.

It’s what Marthe also said.

I bite my tongue to stop myself protesting. I have to be quiet and careful. I need his help to find Harri. Nothing matters but that.