Sarah had spent years skulking. Hiding. Creeping. When that failed, she had run – faster, longer and, if necessary, smarter than her pursuers. Now suddenly she was famous. Watched. Whispered about behind small hands. Glances of jealousy, admiration and pity shot from one side of the school to the other. To Liebrich, she was competition. To the Mouse, she was a god. To the Ice Queen, she was a new test subject. For everyone else? Sarah couldn’t make sense of it. After the isolation of the last few years, the attention was overpowering. The school seemed very small and overwhelmingly full of girls. The corridors and classrooms, the halls and dorm rooms – wherever she went to be alone, someone was watching, with the Mouse trailing after her at a reverent distance. It was smothering, like a wet blanket.
She avoided the music rooms.
Only outdoors did she feel free. In this school, exercise was considered almost as important as propaganda. Every afternoon, they were chased into the grounds, whatever the weather, to march and dance, perform and stretch, in symmetrical rows. It was a gymnastic version of the flag ceremonies, chants and songs. As a tiny cog in this National Socialist machine, Sarah regained a certain anonymity. Dumb Monster with a hoop. Dumb Monster touching her toes. Dumb Monster smiles, moving gracefully. Hardy, pious, cheerful, free. When the possibility of standing out presented itself, Sarah intended to fail. She tried to spring clumsily, tumble awkwardly and jump inelegantly.
But the more she exercised, the more she stretched out her withered muscles, the more food she ate, the stronger she became. She found herself finishing, succeeding, winning. Excelling became a habit, and leaving the daughters of the master race in her wake was a deep-lying thrill that gave her power. She watched the weaker girls and found her first instinct was to sneer, snigger and scoff. It was easier not to fight it.
The cross-country run was a chance to both shake off her audience and belittle them. It was just too tempting. Sarah easily outran the others as the trail wound into the forest. The soil was hard underfoot, the path beaten clean of rocks and branches. The trees whipped by and each breath felt sharp in her chest, each exhalation billowing past her in the wind. She was running too fast, but Sarah felt calm. For a few moments she was in total control of everything. She counted the seconds, one, two…holding even time in the palm of her hand. Three, four…five.
She slowed, feeling the sting of the ground through her feet, the scratching in her chest and throat, the stitch developing in her side. She bathed in the sudden discomfort that she had held at arm’s-length until she was ready.
She rounded the bend.
Von Scharnhorst, Elsa and three other Final Year girls were blocking the path.
Sarah slid to a stop and saw Rahn coming out of the woods behind her. There was no strength left in her thighs to escape, even if she could get past them. Dumme Schlampe.
“Good afternoon, Haller. I’m glad to see you back on your feet.” The Ice Queen smiled and beckoned to Sarah. “Come, walk with me.”
Sarah glanced back at Rahn, ten metres away, playing with some fallen leaves with her foot. The Ice Queen beckoned again, an expression of wide-eyed encouragement lighting up her face, like she was calling a dog. Just as a hound will follow its owner, however bad-tempered they may be, Sarah followed.
“Come on, that’s right…”
Sarah glanced at Elsa. These moments were still her best chance to impress the Professor’s daughter, but the sensation that she was a moth dancing around a lit candle was unshakeable.
Elsa watched her the way a small child watches an ice-cream scoop begin its work. Sarah had to look away. The other girls feigned indifference as Sarah passed.
For a few moments the Ice Queen locked step with Sarah. “Your injuries were regrettable. I really should learn to use Rahn with more care.” Eyes front. “You see, she doesn’t think things through, and I suspect she enjoys her work a little too much.”
“And you don’t?” Shut up.
“No,” she replied, with a hint of admonishment. “This is all for the Fatherland. The end result is everything. The means are of no interest to me whatsoever. Even the Führer saw fit to make an alliance with the Bolsheviks because it served his purposes.”
Sarah swung around. “What’s the point of this? Aren’t we supposed to be just mothers and Hausfrauen?”
“There’s no just about it. Raising the next generation – nothing is more sacred or important. We must be fearless and bright as she-wolves.” Her eyes were fierce. “You think that fat mass of blubber Bauer and his staff of twisted rodents are the future of this country?” The Ice Queen pointed up the path. The sun broke through the low clouds behind her. “You think there’s anything to learn from them? With their rulers and their sticks and their wrath focused on the weak and pointless, like your friend the Mouse? That traitor Foch is the closest thing to a real National Socialist and he’s a jibbering wreck who should have had a bullet in his brain in 1934.” She stopped and softened. “No, what we do is the real lesson here. We find the strongest and purest. We don’t waste time on the chaff.”
The sun disappeared behind a cloud and the warmth vanished from the air.
But, thought Sarah.
“But we have a problem,” the older girl went on. “For some reason, the school has formed the idea that you’ve defied me somehow. It’s all my fault, of course, allowing Rahn to get carried away, but this is not in anyone’s interests. An experiment that failed. You understand that, don’t you?”
“No.” This was the logic of the madhouse. “I’m not sure I do.”
“It’s unfortunate, as you had potential, but I need to reestablish the hierarchy. The physical challenge, the River Run, would have suited you, but I’m afraid you will have to fail. You’ll have an accident, all very unfortunate, but you’ll live. You’ll probably be back next year while I’m walking through the ruins of Paris.”
Sarah stopped. Just let it go, let it happen, ask for forgiveness, beg for mercy. Instead the mounting bitterness and wailing hysteria deep within escaped the box, even as she pressed the lid down. She felt the heat in her teeth and ears and tried to keep her voice low.
“I won’t fail. Then what will you do?”
The Ice Queen smiled and raised her eyebrows. “Oh, interesting…but, no.”
The laughter of their approaching classmates began to fill the air. The Ice Queen cocked her head towards the school.
“Time to start running, Haller.”
They got chocolate cake for dessert. As a treat. It was foul.
Elsa, the Ice Queen and the others weren’t eating it. As the Mouse had suggested, they ate and exercised alone. However, today the elite of Rothenstadt were sitting on a table at the head of the hall, too remote, too beautiful and laughing too loud. Elsa was younger than the others but made up for that with volume, though her words were lost in the din of the hall.
Sarah looked at the rest of the school, at the merely average cream of German youth trying to enjoy dessert, and wondered if she should be feeling grateful that the Ice Queen had chosen her as a test subject. Certainly there didn’t seem to be any way of approaching Elsa Schäfer otherwise. The act of walking up and starting a conversation would have been beyond her, although Sarah was no longer sure if the mission was befriending Elsa or just surviving. Being Jewish in a Nazi school seemed almost beside the point.
The Mouse was talking. The Mouse was always talking. It should have been overwhelming and irritating, but Sarah found it oddly calming. Sitting with her was better than being alone. The Mouse didn’t ask many questions, but Sarah sensed that wasn’t because she wasn’t interested. She was giving Sarah space, in the only way she could.
Sarah interrupted her. “What is the River Run, Mouse?”
“It’s the last race of the term. There’s a trophy and everything, three kilometres to the bridge and three kilometres back on the other side. It’s for the big girls, really, but we’re all supposed to cheer them on. The Final Year girls organize it.” The Mouse prattled on. “They choose one girl from each class. Liebrich wants it to be her, as she’s the Schlafsaalführerin, but everyone thinks she’s too slow.” She giggled. “Not that it matters. The older girls will win…” The Mouse stopped, as an unpleasant idea occurred. “Oh…is the River Run your challenge?”
“It appears so.” Sarah pushed a sour cherry around her plate.
“I’m sorry, Haller.”
“I might win,” she said, with the confidence of a fox cornered by hounds.
“No. No, I don’t think so.” The Mouse fell silent and concentrated on trying not to make her fork shriek against the plate.
“What’s wrong with Sturmbannführer Foch?” Sarah changed the subject.
“I don’t know. He cries a lot. I think he wishes they’d shot him along with the others,” the Mouse mused. “I hear he did something to survive, something horrible.”
What could be worse than being an officer in the SA? Sarah nearly said out loud. She didn’t trust herself to talk further.
The Ice Queen’s retinue left the room with great ceremony. Some First Year girls even stood up as they went past.
“What do you know about her?” Sarah asked, waving a fork at Elsa as she left the room.
The Mouse made a face like they might be overheard and replied hurriedly, “I don’t know anything about her… Why?”
“No reason. She’s younger than the others…”
“It’s not about age.” The Mouse scraped her fork and drew reproving catcalls from the next table. “Really not very interesting,” she added. “How is your cake?”
Sarah made a face and sighed. “Why is the food so bad?” she mumbled to the gritty brown mess on her plate.
The Mouse brightened and leaned in towards her. “Apparently Herr Bauer is taking all the money – well, most of it, the money that comes from the Reich Ministry of Education. You see, the Napola schools were created in such a hurry there weren’t sufficient checks made, so Bauer managed to talk his way in, but he’s on thin ice now, so it’s only a matter of time before—” The Mouse stopped, panic in her eyes. She dropped her head.
“Mouse, how do you know all this?” The small girl was absurdly well-informed. A girl who liked secrets almost for secrets’ sake. A girl after Sarah’s own heart.
“Well, my father is…important…to do with schools and things like that…” the Mouse stammered.
Sarah looked around, but the conversation didn’t seem to have been overheard. She realized why the Mouse, so small, so limited, was at a school for the strongest, fastest, most intelligent. She closed in. “Mouse, are you here as a…spy?”
The Mouse was shaking gently behind her hair. “Just to notice things…”
Sarah laughed – a big, hearty chuckle – and couldn’t stop for a minute. “Hey, come on, it’s all right. I won’t tell anyone,” she whispered.
“Promise?” demanded the Mouse in a tiny voice.
“Promise. Would you like some of my cake?” Sarah proffered a dirty spoon.
“Really?” The Mouse brightened.
“Really.”
The two spies sat side by side and tried to enjoy the bitter, gritty brown lump and spoiled fruit, surrounded by oblivious monsters.
Sarah waited outside the door, feeling the need to catch her breath, as if she was about to dive into the Müggelsee on a cool day. But the air seemed false, inadequate. Sarah found Foch’s interest in her discomfiting. He was a stormtrooper, wearing the uniform of beatings, broken windows and fire, but that wasn’t quite it. He was also emaciated, coarse and ugly. In any normal circumstance, Sarah would have laughed at this. The evil that she had seen, and the wanton hatred she’d experienced, was often immaculately dressed and superficially attractive. But he felt wrong, broken, unpredictable and there was something else she couldn’t quite fathom that made his proximity unbearable.
She raised a hand to knock, but before she could make a noise, a voice ordered:
“Enter.”
She took one last gulp and turned the cold doorknob.
Sturmbannführer Foch was standing at the window, hands clasped behind his back. Sarah closed the door and stepped towards the piano, holding her music to her chest like a shield.
It’s a recital, just a recital.
When did I play a recital?
You’ve seen recitals. The audience applauds and wonders how the soloist can dare stand up in front of everyone. They feel embarrassed in the opening silence. They are frightened. Feed on their fear.
The lid was open, the music stand was clear. Everything was waiting. Her audience stood in silhouette at the window.
Don’t look at the audience, dumme Schlampe.
She sat on the stool, dwarfed by the instrument. She needed to adjust the height of the seat but wanted to get started. Sit, play, leave. Placing the sheet on the stand, she studied the staves, the notes, the accents. She let her brain slide through the melodies she knew so well, looking for the minute changes where her memory had blurred or erased the detail. She allowed herself to become irritated. She loathed notation. It was a corset that made music wheeze. Like someone explaining a joke.
She hammered the keys with mock melodrama, but there was no light and dark, just noise. She kept time with a vehement precision but couldn’t reach the pedals properly, so all the subtlety was lost. Here’s your damn music, Sturmbannführer.
“Lovely, Gretel. Slow down.”
His words, so close behind her, were like being doused with cold water. He had moved with a catlike silence once again and now his breath was audible between the notes. She slowed at his command, the scent of oranges filling the air.
Who is Gretel?
Ignore the audience.
“Ursula, sir.”
Had Gretel sat on this seat, played this piano?
She stared at the approaching forest of notes and ran for their cover. Laufen.
Had he stood this close to her?
“Slowly, Gretel,” he whispered.
She broke into the fast section and attacked the keyboard.
Make it stop.
Shush, dumme Schlampe. Shut up and play.
Something touched the top of her head and a chill ran down her scalp like a falling insect. Her shoulders tensed and rose to touch her ears. Her fingers kept moving, but her elbows retreated to her sides, shaking her rhythm.
His fingers ran softly down the outside of her hair, taking in the curves and bumps of her braids, brushing her loose strands flat and sliding towards her neck. The sensation was like hearing a steel knife across a plate.
Stop touching me.
She tried to move forwards, to shrink from his touch, but couldn’t seem to escape, as if she was being held. She began to lean over the keys.
Stop playing and run. Laufen!
Her neck grew warm as his hands reached its nape and began again at the top. She was still playing, now merely repeating the same phrases over and over. Her chin started to quiver, so she bit her tongue until it stopped, but to her mortification a slow gurgling whimper began to escape from her throat. She shut her eyes before any tears could appear.
Stop. Touching. Me.
She didn’t trust herself to speak without crying out.
Please. Stop.
Her hands were now shaking so much she couldn’t press the keys.
“Don’t stop, Gretel,” Klaus Foch whispered, his voice shaking.
Who is Gretel? What happened to Gretel? What is happening to me?
Sarah stopped her whimper. As she did, she heard the man behind her crying. She pulled her head away from his hands and retreated to the edge of the stool.
“Gretel…” he sobbed.
She slammed the lid of the piano closed with a smack. The strings protested with a cacophonous howl as she fled for the door. Papers were carried off the desk as she passed. The rug tried to slide away from her feet, but then she was at the door and pulling at the handle with sweaty fingers.
She was out of the room and down the corridor before the sound from the piano had faded.