The ceiling was an intricate flower whose petals wove up and under one another into concentric shapes, drifting out from its centre like a circular tide. It was very white and very bright, except for one dusty strand of cobweb sailing in an unseen breeze.
Sarah stretched and a piercing ache cut through her head. It was replaced by a throbbing twinge, like her brain was wearing an undersized, rough shirt. Daylight bathed the room, but the window was too intense to look at.
She was somewhere…didn’t remember how…
The door burst open and Elsa walked in carrying a tray, dressed in riding gear.
“Wakey-wakey! I have breakfast and a remedy to cure many ills.”
Sarah opened her mouth, which was dry and crusty. She smelled of vomit.
“I threw up?” she croaked. She coughed and a bitter taste filled her mouth.
“Never has French couture been so comprehensively ruined,” Elsa proclaimed. “You threw up on my father, too. That suit was Italian, so you’ve offended the fashion houses of our allies as well as our enemies.”
“Oh…no. I don’t think I remember that.” Sarah felt shame that was barely distinguishable from her nausea.
“That’s why men drink wine, to forget. Sit up.”
Sarah’s body ached like a dose of flu and queasiness rippled through her as she moved, but her head was the centre of her misery, its stabbing pain consuming her. She tried to piece together the flashing fragments of the previous night, but there were lengthy gaps and an incomplete denouement.
Elsa plumped a pillow behind Sarah and placed the tray on her lap. “So, we have, in order – water, fruit juice and a pill for your headache; milk for your stomach; fried sausages and sugary black coffee for energy; and finally, the finest cognac, now denied to the Reich by French aggression.”
“More alcohol?” Sarah suppressed a heave.
“Naturally! That is how the upper class functions. It’s a Katerbier, or as they say in the British Empire, the hair of the dog that bit you.”
“Disgusting thought,” complained Sarah as she worked her way along the line of glasses and plates. Elsa patted her head and stood up.
“When you’re done, please bathe. You smell of red wine vomit. Then you have riding clothes on the chair. Everybody’s left for Christmas, we have the whole place to ourselves and I have to ride my baby. Brandy now, please.”
The dark liquid smelled of burned sugar. Sarah held her breath and drank it in one gulp. It burned all the way down and it brought tears to her eyes, but it delivered a vaguely pleasant buzzing behind her nose.
“Is your father angry?” Sarah asked, trying to remember. “He is, but not for the reason you think.” Elsa wrinkled her nose and smiled. “It’s his fault completely, so don’t worry. So” – she cocked her head to one side – “did you enjoy the tour? I get the feeling you didn’t finish it.”
“I’m not sure I remember.” Or understand.
“Then you didn’t. You never forget.”
Sarah lay in the warm water and tried to remember. She hadn’t been able to take baths at Rothenstadt. There was very little hot water, the baths were too dirty and besides, it would have left her open to attack. The showers were quick, but the water in her face and mouth made her anxious and she often found herself panicking. So this was the first soak she’d managed since leaving the Captain’s apartment. But it couldn’t make her feel clean. Self-loathing stuck to her like dried vomit. She couldn’t wipe it off or shake it away.
She remembered the greenhouse…dead plants, thousands of dead plants…the machines that made the right kind of uranium…something about Norse mythology? The bomb. A bomb that could make people disappear. Sarah’s imagination filled in the blanks with all kinds of terrible, mission-destroying moments.
What did she do? What did she admit to?
What did she say?
I’m a smart little girl.
Did she say that? What else came out of her mouth? Were the Gestapo already on their way? Had the little girl proved herself to be an older, Jewish, British spy as she wandered drunkenly through a secret laboratory – incapable, foolish, an embarrassment?
The water was beginning to make her feel uneasy, like she shouldn’t be in it. She gripped the sides of the bath.
There was something else, something important. Something that didn’t make sense at the time. What was it?
The notebook. His notebook, the tattered, much-repaired notebook. It had his notes and thoughts.
She wondered about the sabotage part of her mission. Clearly the Captain had no idea of the scale of what she’d find. There had to be a million ways of breaking the apparatus, but realistically there was very little she could do to make it go away. And it had to go away. Sarah felt this very, very strongly, especially now Professor Schäfer had been good enough to show her everything. But the notebook, that was something she could do—
“HALLER! Raus!” screamed Elsa outside the door.
There were no guards and no servants anywhere. The corridors and halls were deserted. Even the stables were empty of humans, so the horses were happy to see Elsa and Sarah. They whinnied and snorted their greetings and approval, with Elsa striding between the stalls calling out to them in turn.
“Who needs food? Good day to you, Thor – no, you’ve plenty, I know, harsh but fair. Freyr, what a good boy! A bit more for you later. Freyja! You’re going to carry my friend today, so ride gentle. Hello, Sigyn and little Loki, Christmas dinner for everyone, then…hey, little girl, Mutti’s home, yes, I’ve missed you too.”
Sarah found her in the final stall wrapped around her horse’s muzzle. The mare looked at her as if she were an interloper.
“They all have Norse names. Why is she called Anneliese?”
Elsa let the horse go and fetched a bale of hay. “Here, make yourself useful.” Elsa dropped the hay into Sarah’s arms, nearly flattening her. “Give this to Freyr, the dappled one. Go on.”
“Does that mean spotty?” Sarah guessed.
Elsa tutted as she lumped another bale into a stall. While Sarah dragged hers along the floor, she heard Elsa’s voice. “I named her. Anneliese was my nanny.”
“Oh, that’s nice.” Sarah was struggling. Her headache had returned and the smell of dung was making her feel queasy.
“She always protected me, and Father made her go away.”
“Uh-huh.” Sarah couldn’t figure out how the bale fitted the manger, which was almost as tall as she was. She heaved the hay up and toppled it into the cage. It stuck out like an ice-cream wafer.
What was that? About her father?
“Come on, Haller. Let’s teach you to ride.”
“You really don’t have to.” Given a choice she would rather have curled up in the straw.
“Yes, I do. I won’t have you riding that mangy beast back at school.” She pushed open another stall to reveal a friendly-looking brown mare waggling her ears at her. “So meet Freyja. She’s no Arabian like Anneliese, but she’s zuverlässig, solid and reliable.”
Sarah looked at the beast. It was also fed and housed in exchange for work, so she smiled at it. We need to stick together.
The horse nickered.
“It’s going to kill me!” Sarah screamed.
“She. She is going to kill you.”
The two horses trotted side by side around the paddock in perfect sync. Elsa held onto Sarah as she slipped around on the horse’s back. She hated not knowing things but hated being taught more.
“Do not pull on the reins when you’re falling. Do not pull – Jesus, Haller—”
“How do I stop falling off then?” Sarah complained. This was unlike any balancing trick she had ever done.
“The mane, grab her mane.”
“The hair, right?”
“No, the mane, you moron. They have hair all over.” Elsa slapped her leg. “Toes up. Up!”
“Why does it matter what my feet are doing?” Sarah wanted a book, not a teacher.
“Because you need your heels to change direction, like this.” She slid her right foot back, and Anneliese veered to the right.
“Don’t let go,” Sarah screamed as she leaned to the right. “Can’t I just have a saddle?”
“No. It teaches you bad habits and it’s less comfortable.”
“Falling off is more comfortable?” Sarah regained her balance but closed her heels on the horse’s flanks. It broke into a canter.
“Don’t kick your heels together, she’ll speed up. Freyja! Easy girl.” The horse slowed.
“Just tell her what to do, if you can talk to the verfluchtes thing,” Sarah shrieked.
“I can, you can’t, so learn the cues. Steady.” The horses formed up. “Good, now you’re level. Toes up, draw your left leg back.” Sarah concentrated on keeping her toes up and shifted her foot down the horse’s flank. “There!” Elsa whooped.
Sarah peeled left, held the mane to keep her balance with her good hand and then straightened out. She felt her thigh muscles begin to respond, to adapt their hard-earned memory to this situation. Her inner ear began to make predictions, to provide useful feedback. This was just another piece of apparatus. Commit to the move.
She wheeled the horse round to face Elsa. “What do you mean by your nanny protecting—”
“Now you’re riding! Look at you!” cried Elsa.
“I still want a gottverdammten saddle.”
As the girls walked back to the house, a young SS guard emerged from the kitchen door. Sarah instinctively slanted away from him, but Elsa waited for the right moment and shoved her into his path. Sarah shrieked and staggered into the guard. He caught her arms and straightened her up. She looked up at him to apologize.
He was barely old enough for the uniform, barely old enough for his size. Sarah’s mouth fell open.
“It’s you,” he said, amazed.
For a moment, Sarah thought of ignoring him or denying that they’d met. His name appeared in her head. “Hi – Stern, wasn’t it?” she asked, polite but friendly.
“Yes, Fräulein.” He looked confused, but Sarah knew his brain was only slow-moving, not incapable. “Are you a guest of the Schäfers?”
“Well, obviously, boy,” sneered Elsa.
“Of course, apologies – but I thought you were—” Stern stammered.
Sarah interrupted him. She had to get rid of Elsa. The less she knew about their history the better and Sarah needed to be able to lie with impunity now. “Elsa, would you give us a minute? Please?”
Elsa was confused, then she winked before flouncing away. Sarah saw her hover by the kitchen door.
What did he need to know to go away?
Sarah thought of her mother. How did she move at parties? How did she behave around men? What would she say? The memories were dim and painful, but distinct enough.
Alles auf Anfang. Beginners, please.
“It’s good to see you.”
Smile, flutter your eyes, twirl your hair.
“I thought you were a farmer’s daughter?” He seemed unmoved.
“I am, but I go to the same school as Elsa.”
“You go to the Napola? Really? That’s a boarding school—”
“Oh, I get to go home often because it’s so close.”
“It’s also expensive.”
“My uncle pays. He’s a bit rich.”
“What was your name?” He sounded like an interrogator.
Make light of it, don’t accept it. He’s just a silly boy.
“Are you going to arrest me?” Sarah laughed. Now…knees together, right leg out, rock head from side to side. Then she imitated him with a deep voice. “What is your name?” She laughed again and put her finger in her mouth.
This is not working.
Stay calm.
He smiled at her, his shoulders relaxing. He sagged out of a military stance.
“I’m sorry, I was just confused… These horses are very different from your nag, huh?”
Bullseye.
“Oh, yes, I’m not any better riding them, though.” Dumme Schlampe, you’re a farmer’s daughter! “I mean, you know, I’ve never been very good at riding, just setting up carts and things…”
“You really don’t sound like you come from a farming family.”
Joke? Criticism? Interrogation? Sarah couldn’t decide.
“That’s what they say, too. They think I’m weird.”
“I don’t think you’re weird,” he said gently.
It was half a compliment, but she became breathless…
Beautiful…
She wanted to hit him, to run away. She began to hyperventilate. He was a threat.
“Are you all right?” He reached out to her and she flinched away.
“Just leave me alone,” she hissed and then ran past him towards the kitchen.
He stood, hands on hips, bemused in her wake.
“You little Metze,” said Elsa in astonishment as Sarah pushed by.
“Shut up,” Sarah cried.
Sarah spewed into a trough-like sink. The vomit was bitter, full of bile and chewed sausages. Elsa clapped her on the back unhelpfully.
“Jesus, Haller, I feel funny when I see a cute boy, but this is ridiculous.”
“It’s the alcohol,” Sarah breathed, but in truth she wasn’t sure. This sudden and dangerous lack of self-control frightened her. Not knowing what she’d said or what she had done, now not understanding what she felt…it was all potentially ruinous. All it would take was for her to use her real name or get her cover story mixed up to be exposed as a spy, as a Jew. For the Gestapo to come for the Captain sitting wounded on his threadbare mattress, so weak and alone.
She ran the taps and watched the evidence wash away.
“Come on, let’s make some food.” Elsa began pulling packets out of the larder. “We have to do our own at Christmas, but we don’t have to dress for dinner, which is good.”
Sarah pushed herself from the sink and settled into a chair by the huge timber table, watching the ingredients stack up in front of her. It was a mishmash of components that didn’t quite amount to a meal. One pot of light-brown, mustard-looking paste caught Sarah’s eye. The label was in English, but the words made no sense. She held it up for Elsa to see.
“What is this?”
“Oh, that’s brilliant. Father brought it back from America on his last trip. It’s called peanut butter. Here, smear it on bread, go on.”
Sarah manoeuvred some out of the pot with a butter knife and onto a Brötchen. It was so sticky and lumpy that half of it stuck to the cutlery and most of the rest landed on the table. The roll became soggy with oil. Sarah looked up, unconvinced.
“I know. Just try it,” encouraged Elsa.
Sarah bit into the roll. The paste instantly stuck itself to the roof of her mouth and as she tore the roll with her teeth, she needed to contort her tongue to prise the mouthful away. She sucked in her cheeks and went wide-eyed with the effort. Elsa slapped her thighs in amusement. Then Sarah turned the bread over in her mouth and the gunk engulfed her tongue. She groaned as the nutty, sweet, strangely salty flavour had the run of her mouth. It went on long after it should have diminished and even after Sarah had swallowed, there was a glorious aftertaste, with a residue to lick away and peanut fragments to crunch. Sarah had simply not known its like.
“Thath ith…” Sarah sucked at one half of her mouth. “Tremendous.” Something occurred to her. “What was your father doing in America? I thought everything he did was all hush-hush. Aren’t they the enemy?” She crammed the remaining bread into her mouth and went to work on it.
“Oh, he’s got more friends there than here. America’s chock-full of Nazis. If anything, they’re more rabid than they are here, more…insidious, because they’re all pretending otherwise.” Elsa was scathing. “They’re all too happy to give my father money for his little experiments.”
“They know what he’s working on?” Sarah felt cold at the idea that the bomb might not be a secret.
“Maybe. Who cares?”
“Sounds like a secrecy problem for the Reich—”
“Haller, you haven’t fallen for all that Käse, have you?” Elsa sneered. “It doesn’t matter what we do or what we worry about, it’s not going to change anything. The Reich doesn’t care about us and it won’t look after us either.” She was ranting now. “Look at that gottverdammte school. No one was bothered about what was going on there. It took one of us to stop Langefeld. That’s what Von Scharnhorst recognized about you. Der Werwolf isn’t there to protect the Reich, it’s there to protect us.” She smacked her chest. “It’s about getting ready for this whole thing to come down in flames.”
Sarah felt overwhelmed by the outburst and was too tired to dig further. So she just kept applying peanut butter to bread.
“I mean, no one looks after you. That’s why you’re here,” Elsa continued.
Sarah was putting bread to her mouth as these words sunk in. “What does that mean?”
Elsa’s lips twitched. “Nothing. It means nothing. Ignore me.” She pushed a casserole dish holding the remains of the Sauerbraten towards Sarah. “As the man says, ‘Life is hard for many, but it is hardest if you are unhappy and have no faith.’”
Sarah picked up a dry dumpling before replying with more words from the Führer. “‘The time of individual happiness is past.’”