The sitting room was small in comparison to the rest of the house, but it was still palatial. It had a thick carpet and a roaring fire. It conjured a picture of intimacy, yet Sarah noted the lack of things. There were no personal items here, as if the Schäfers were, like her, just pretending.
Dominating the room was the biggest Christmas tree Sarah had ever seen. It was grander than the ones they erected outdoors in town squares, festooned with glass baubles, lights and tinsel. It was inevitably topped by a silvered swastika, as if something so joyful could only exist under their control.
Beneath it were strewn dozens of presents, wrapped and bowed with precision in red, black and white. Elsa whispered to Sarah as they entered the room.
“Most of them are fake. He likes how it looks. Christmas was never the same for me once I knew that,” she said bitterly. “Like a lot of things.”
To Sarah, it looked like something from a picture book, a wonderful spell cast over the room by a benign sorcerer. She had always coveted Christmas and could never see why they shouldn’t be able to join in, especially since her mother didn’t observe any Jewish holidays, either.
They’re so gottverdammte miserable, Sarahchen, always with the atoning and the woe-ing. You’re missing nothing, darling.
Getting cross about this always seemed easier to Sarah than getting upset about anything that mattered.
“But some of them are for you, right?” Sarah asked, unable to voice the thought that occurred the moment she had seen the tree. Was there something for her?
You stupid little girl.
“Yeah, something pointlessly expensive, as if that’s what matters.”
Professor Schäfer stood and beamed at them both. “Ladies! Thank you for joining me. Fräulein Haller, you look much better.”
Sarah needed absolution, reassurance. “Herr Professor, I must apologize—”
“Not at all, I won’t have it. We all feel ill from time to time. Science has not provided an infallible panacea, so until then we must bear the brunt of nature’s occasional displeasure. I’m only sorry that your pretty dress was ruined.”
“I’m mortified, I should replace it…” Was this really the extent of her humiliation?
“You can if you wish, but the dress was yours to ruin. A gift. I won’t accept any form of restitution.”
“That’s very generous.” Had Sarah got away with it, completely?
Elsa butted in. “I want a drink.”
“Naturally, my dear. I’m forgetting my manners.” He returned to a side table. He held up a bottle and made a theatrically sad face. “Regrettably, this is the last champagne for some time. Deliveries from France have, for obvious reasons, ceased.” He busied himself with the top. “You would think that I would have planned ahead, but alas, no. My dear, shall I open it like a philistine?”
Elsa jumped to her feet and clapped her hands. “Yes, yes, please do.” She pushed Sarah backwards to the centre of the room.
“What?” Sarah cried.
“We have to catch it! It’s good luck.”
“What’s good luck?”
An explosive pop made Sarah jump and Elsa backed up, her eyes scanning the air. Sarah looked up at something dark arcing across the white ceiling. She took a step back and neatly caught the cork, to delayed applause from Elsa and Professor Schäfer.
“Congratulations, Ursula. And here is your prize.” He proffered a champagne flute.
“No, I shouldn’t, I was so ill…”
“No, please, have some…”
Elsa went to take the glass, but he pulled away and moved it closer to Sarah.
“Erm…” Sarah couldn’t decide if this would be repeating last night’s error or if refusing would be an insult.
“Please, I insist.”
“Take the bloody drink, Haller,” Elsa interrupted.
Just take the drink, dumme Schlampe.
Sarah felt she had no choice. “Thank you, just one.”
The Professor passed a flute to his daughter and made a toast. “Ladies, to the Führer.”
Sarah raised her glass, and then she watched the others drink. He stared at her and nodded as he drank.
Drink. Sarah put the glass to her lips and felt the effervescence tickle her nose. She was in the clear. With some sleep and another day to get back into the greenhouse – she could remember so much more now – she could get that notebook. Could she call the Captain? He’d be impressed with her progress… The liquid fizzed on her tongue and immediately disappeared, leaving a faintly sour aftertaste. She felt it in her cheeks and it brought an involuntary smile.
The Professor beamed. “Come! Gather next to the tree. We have dates, oranges and chocolates, and, of course, presents for all the good children.” His voice was soothing and Sarah was thrilled. A gift! The espionage could wait for tomorrow.
The Professor found the first present. “For my first-born and only, Elsa.”
Elsa took the red parcel and slipped off the white ribbon. She tore the paper away from a leather case, opened the lid and made a half-smile.
“Thank you, Father.” Elsa drew the necklace from the velvet and held it up for Sarah to see. It was a silver chain with what could only be a diamond pendant. Its facets winked as it swung in the firelight. Sarah wondered just how many people in Leopoldstadt you could feed and for how long with just half of what it might have cost…then buried the thought as Elsa looked at Sarah and rolled her eyes. Something pointlessly expensive, as if that’s what matters.
“And for our guest,” the Professor said softly, handing Sarah her own white box with a black ribbon.
She was delighted. It had been so long since she had been gifted anything face-to-face that she had to take another drink to cover her blushes.
She carefully untied the ribbon and slipped a fingernail under the lip of the paper to peel it away without tearing it. It was too immaculate, too perfect to be destroyed. It revealed another leather box. Surely she wouldn’t receive the same thing? She opened it.
Inside was a diamond necklace. Not a pendant, but an elaborate web of stones, almost crammed into the box. Sarah closed the lid. “I can’t – I mean…it’s too much, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. Our good fortune is yours.” He laughed.
Sarah looked to Elsa. There was no envy on her face, just that look. Shame, sympathy and disgust. All at once. The stones must be fake. Had to be.
“Let me help you put it on.” The Professor took the box.
“Thank you – I don’t know how to thank you enough,” Sarah said, going to hold her hair out of the way and realizing it was already up. She laughed at herself. She was funny.
He drew the chain around her and touched the back of her neck. She felt queasy and a little dizzy, so had to take another mouthful of champagne to settle her stomach. The hair of the dog. There was that sour aftertaste again. Wasn’t champagne supposed to be better than wine? It tasted like a doctor’s office.
“There,” he said proudly. “What do you think, Elsa?”
“I think she’s the new princess,” Elsa said deliberately.
Sarah couldn’t see the necklace past her chin and made herself laugh trying to move it out of the way. It was very amusing, all of a sudden. Such a big chin she had! She moved it again like it wasn’t part of her. She giggled.
Elsa made an angry noise and seized Sarah’s champagne glass, throwing the contents into the fire. Sarah made a noise of protest.
I was drinking that! she wanted to say. Cheeky. I want another one. No, another two.
She tried to see herself in the polished surface of the dark marble fireplace, but she couldn’t quite focus on her reflection, so she turned to see Elsa open another gift, a board game called Juden Raus! It was about deporting Jews. Sarah wanted to be angry but knew she shouldn’t be. Why shouldn’t she be angry?
“If you manage to see off six Jews, you’ve won a clear victory!” Sarah read from the board. “S’lovely.”
Elsa didn’t reply. She put the game on the floor.
“And a second present for the guest.” The Professor handed Sarah a much bigger box.
This time she tore off the paper. There seemed to be so much of it. Underneath was a white box similar to the one from the French couturier the day before. With difficulty she dragged the lid open to reveal a folded piece of red silk and lace. She prodded it before looking up.
“Issa nightdress?” What a strange gift. Sarah had a nightdress, although the Professor wouldn’t know that…
“Oh God,” muttered Elsa.
“Yes, a very special one,” he answered softly. “Like the champagne, the last for a good while.”
“Erm…thanks…” Sarah felt tired. She was having trouble remembering words and wrestled with her eyes. Sleep, she needed to sleep. “I’s sorry, I seem to be a little…I think I need to…lie down.”
“Elsa, would you take Ursula to her room?” An order. “I think she needs to be there now.”
Sarah closed her eyes and then she was in Elsa’s arms.
“Don’t,” said Elsa to someone. “Please don’t.”
Sarah mumbled an apology, not knowing what she was doing.
“Do as you’re told, girl.”
“Drink this, quick.”
Elsa held up the mug to Sarah’s lips and poured the syrupy coffee dregs into her mouth. Sarah coughed.
“Disgusting,” she uttered. “Sleepy…”
Elsa emptied the rest of the drink into Sarah’s mouth and then put her head under Sarah’s arm. They hobbled out of the kitchen and up the staircase, Elsa crushing a box under her other arm.
Sarah had to get into bed. She was feeling detached. Her thoughts were trailing away and she was forgetting things. She found herself on the landing with little idea of how she’d got there. Everything seemed dim and mundane, where it had been amusing and fascinating before.
Where are you and what is happening?
She was leaning against a wall.
Elsa was making her swallow something small and white. Holding her mouth closed. “Take this. It’ll counteract it. You’ll need it to fight.”
“Fight who? Counter what…?”
Elsa was crying.
A corridor.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
The bedroom.
The shock of cold water. In the river, tumbling in the river. Sarah thrashed about, panicking and tried to get away, but something was pushing her head under the tap. Then she was free and breathing, water pouring down her neck. Elsa was holding her shoulders. “Haller, look at me.”
Sarah looked but didn’t see. There was a smack, a dull snapping pain on Sarah’s face. Elsa had slapped her. Why? Sarah looked at her and saw fear, pain, shame, sympathy and disgust.
“You have to fight, even if it makes no difference, you understand? It makes it easier afterwards.”
Sarah’s head grew cold. Elsa’s words didn’t mean anything.
“I’m sorry.” It was the softest, warmest and sweetest that Elsa had sounded, but also the saddest. She touched Sarah’s face.
Then Sarah was alone in the darkened room. A spark of life arced within her brain. It babbled of trouble, of danger. She couldn’t find anything to connect it to. She couldn’t find her luggage. She needed to lie down. She needed to be careful. She needed to fight. Her riding clothes were tight and uncomfortable. The boots hurt. She sat on the bed and struggled to get them off her feet. She needed something to wear. Where were her clothes?
Wake up.
Sleep.
Wake up.
She peeled off her riding gear and looked for her luggage again. Somebody knocked on her door.
“Elsa?” Sarah called out. She realized she was naked and this was wrong. She found the twisted shape of her jodhpurs on the floor confusing, so she pulled the nightdress out of the crumpled box and held it in front of her.
“Ursula.” A man’s voice. “Can I come in?”
Sarah needed to be dressed. She shuffled the nightdress on over her head. It got damp as she pulled it over her wet hair. She had a moment of clarity.
Why is he here?
She realized that she did not want Professor Schäfer on her side of the door. At all.
“I’m going to sleep,” Sarah shouted.
“Please, just for a moment,” he implored.
“No.” Sarah felt the power of the word. It gave her strength. Her brain was crystallizing. The fragments were coming together. Something was happening, more dangerous than being a Jew at a Napola or being a spy in a bomb laboratory. She had to wake. To fight.
The door opened, spilling light into the room. His silhouette filled the space.
“What do you want?” Sarah kept her voice level even as her terror grew.
Show no weakness. Fight, dumme Schlampe.
Schäfer closed the door behind him. “Still awake? That’s good. I worried you’d be asleep already.”
Sarah felt her consciousness rise slowly from the mire, pulling away the tendrils of fatigue. She saw the pieces of the evening’s events and began to assemble them.
Sarah put all of her concentration into her voice, clinging to this one certainty. “Please go away. I want you to go away.”
“I don’t think you do,” he teased.
Sarah took a step back and hit the foot of the bed. She sidled along it until she reached its edge. “Yes, I do.”
“Then why are you dressed like that?”
What am I wearing?
“I couldn’t find my clothes,” she explained.
“You’re wearing my gift.”
“I forgot. Go away.” Sarah tried to pull the necklace off but the clasp held.
“You are so beautiful, Ursula. Did you know that?”
Sarah wanted to vomit. The coming fury was like a shrieking in her ears, but it was swamped in fear. Her mind was clearing and the danger was unmasked. She could see the door, but she wouldn’t make it over the bed before he caught her. She took another step back. “You said that last night. I remember now.”
“How did that make you feel?”
“Sick. Frightened. I don’t care.”
“Oh, Ursula, that’s not true.” His tone was patronizing. “Every girl wants to know that she’s beautiful. Desirable.”
“Go – away.” She wanted to scream, but would not show weakness.
Another step. Another step back.
“Elsa wanted to know she was desirable. It made her very happy.”
“I don’t believe that.” Sarah became aware of a swollen, growing boil of revulsion, of terrible reality and understanding.
“It’s true. She’s sad that she’s no longer beautiful to me. I’m sad.”
The horror split open and doused Sarah in a disgusting knowledge of things as they were. She was soaked in appalling empathy. Sarah thought she might be sick, but every moment was precious and she needed every instant. She felt what must be Elsa’s last gift passing into her blood, waking her – she couldn’t lose it.
Sarah took another step and clattered into her breakfast tray. She dropped to the floor and ran her hand over the tray, looking for the plate. She moved awkwardly, but her hand closed around something sharp. She rose and held the knife out in front of her.
“Oh, Ursula, what have you got there?” he mocked.
“Get back, or I’ll cut…stab you.”
“You don’t even know what to call it.” He was scornful.
“I will hurt you.”
“I don’t think you can.”
Sarah pictured herself drawing blood. She envisioned the movement – a quick stab, a rapid slash. But all she could see was Rahn’s eye socket cracking, her teeth tearing through Rahn’s skin, and the nightmares that followed.
“Back,” she ordered.
He took another step forward into the light, revealing a face of total confidence. She gave ground again, and he kicked the tray under the bed with a clatter of crockery.
She drew back her arm and commanded it to follow through. Now. Now. Now…
But he was right. She couldn’t. She was defeated.
He pulled the knife by the blade and it slipped through her fingers. She couldn’t hold onto it. She stepped back into the bedside table. She was trapped. Holding it up, he started to laugh. “This is a table knife, Ursula. You couldn’t have hurt me if you’d tried.”
He tossed it aside and reached out with a finger to touch her collarbone. It felt like an invading parasite. Sarah went cold. She didn’t know what was going to happen. She did not know what it was, so she feared it.
Even now Sarah couldn’t accept he had no compassion at all, that he would do this to someone so young.
“I’m just a little girl,” Sarah stammered, one hated teardrop sliding down her cheek.
“I know. That’s what makes it so good.”
She closed her eyes.
The noise was only pop, but its sheer unexpectedness, its proximity, the bright flash in the dark terrified Sarah. Something hot and wet hit her face. She opened her eyes to see Schäfer twitching as he crashed into the wall and sank, gasping, to the floor. There was a hole torn in his throat and his blood was pumping out of it in long, vivid streaks on the cream carpet.
Elsa was at the foot of the bed, revolver still raised, a wisp of smoke curling away from the shaking barrel. Her dishevelled hair was like a halo against the open door.
“Elsa.”
“It didn’t make me happy and it didn’t make me sad when it stopped, Dreckskerl.”
Sarah felt clear-headed, as if the noise had woken her from a daydream.
“Elsa, put the gun down—”
“What makes me sad and angry is having to bring you sacrificial lambs…”
Sarah ignored the unfolding wretchedness on the floor, watching only the shaking revolver barrel. She rounded the bed, stepping over the choking Professor.
“Elsa, it’s over…”
“Watching you destroy life after life, like you ruined mine…”
“Elsa,” Sarah snapped.
Elsa flinched and her face softened. “Hey, fellow Werwolf,” she whispered, tears welling up in her eyes. “I remembered, very late in the day, that we’re supposed to protect each other. My nanny couldn’t and my mother wouldn’t. I thought maybe I could do things differently.”
The Professor made a gurgling noise and shuddered on the carpet. Elsa tightened her grip on the butt of the gun and corrected her aim.
“Give me the gun, Kleine. He’s gone.”
“I’m sorry, Haller. I’m so sorry.”
Sarah put her hands around Elsa’s and looked up into her eyes, so bloodshot, so wild, so sad. Sarah couldn’t imagine where Elsa had been made to go, so she didn’t want to judge how she’d made her way back.
“It’s all right, Elsa. Let go of the gun.”
Sarah prised Elsa’s fingers away from the metal. The gun was warm and the grip was sweaty. She had no idea how to make it safe, so she placed it carefully on the bed. Elsa sagged in front of her father.
“Oh, Vati, what have I done?” She sat in the spreading pool of blood and began to wail.
Now would be a good time for a plan, dumme Schlampe.
Shhhh.
Elsa grew hysterical while Sarah’s fractured mind looked for connections, sought answers, solved problems. She shushed her inner voices that fizzed at her. Fizzled…
The plan arrived, fully formed. With Schäfer dead, the mission had changed. If she was quick. The Captain – Sarah stopped. There were a few loose ends.
“Elsa, who else is here apart from us?”
“What?”
“There’s nobody else here, is there?” Her voice was urgent.
“No…”
“Right, Elsa, listen to me. Get up…” She had to get rid of Elsa.
“What…”
“Up.” Sarah pulled Elsa to her feet and around to face her.
“You have to get out of here. Go, get on Anneliese and ride out of here. Go to the gate, tell them there’s been a terrible accident, but don’t tell them anything else. Just cry. Do you understand?”
Elsa nodded frenetically.
“A terrible accident and cry, got it?”
“On my horse…”
“Yes, your horse. You’ve earned that horse, she’s your baby and you have to take her away,” Sarah soothed. “Wait for me at the gate, got it?”
“Ride away, terrible accident, wait…”
“Good, leave the gun and go.”
Elsa stared down at her father who was no longer moving, blood no longer pumping.
“What are you going to do, Haller?”
“I’m going to make it look like he killed himself, but you have to leave now. Trust me. I’m going to make it all go away.”