The injustice was too much. Sarah threw her head back.
“What?” she howled in frustration. “Tell me!”
The Captain opened his hands slowly to reveal one small porcelain cup containing golden foam.
“Cappuccino,” she sang and clapped her hands together in delight, before wrapping them around it. She could feel its heat through her bandages, but she stuck her lips into the froth anyway, inhaling the sweet darkness.
“There’s no rush,” he said with good humour.
Sarah looked at him over the rim of the cup and made an incomprehensible noise. She slurped, letting the gentle buzzing in her cheekbones and the back of her teeth play in her head as the final drops slipped away. She felt the chill of the air on her cheeks, but she wasn’t cold in her fur-lined coat. Her stomach was full and tingling.
She looked around. Copenhagen was apparently unruffled by its martial and aggressive neighbour. Here you could imagine that Europe was contemplating a holiday, not already at war. The tables outside the cafes and restaurants all along the Nyhavn were virtually empty, even in the midday winter sun. It was simply too cold. This served the Captain’s purposes: they wouldn’t be overheard. And Sarah wanted to sit outside because the houses and boats on the canal were painted an array of bright pastels and deep colours. They had a doll’s-house quality, like something from a dream. A good dream, with no dogs.
Pretty. Fresh. Full. Warm. Comfortable. Safe.
Sarah allowed herself to bask in the moment. Just for a second. Then she took that moment and tidied it away for safekeeping. She now had two new boxes.
She regarded the swirly pastry in the middle of the table. “Is that for me, too?”
“Yes, it’s a Wienerbrød, a Vienna bread. I thought it would make you feel at home.”
Sarah laughed. “It’s a Kopenhagener Plunder, a Danish pastry, in Vienna. That’s what we called it.” She pursed her lips. “One of these days you’ll make an error like that, something you really should know as a real German, in front of someone who realizes and then all that” – she waggled a finger around in the air – “sophisticated cover will blow away like paper. Does that scare you, Captain Floyd?”
“Would it make you happy if it did?” he proposed.
“Not at all,” she replied quickly. “But the question still stands.”
“I’ve forgotten how to be scared. It just makes me careful.”
“You like it, you mean.” She grinned.
“And you, Sarah of Elsengrund, do you get scared?”
For a moment the new box of horrors popped open and a cold shaft of memory cut through her. The predatory scientist, the rain, the monster, Rahn and the Ice Queen, the bleeding, the station, the dogs, the soldiers, the back of her mother’s head…and then it was gone. The effect was like a static shock after walking on a thick carpet. I know what that is, so I will not fear it. She took a moment to recover and then all was still.
Sarah thought about Gretel, about how no one could ever make Foch’s piano clean again, about the million tiny places where the crime would remain for ever. Would the owners of that piano years from now smell that something was wrong with it? Would the future Germany have any evidence of its crimes? Would it smell bad and would people even know why?
“I want to try an espresso now,” Sarah said, reaching for the pastry. “Two. With more sugar.”
At that moment a woman arrived. She was dressed head to toe in black, like a widow, but with a wide white collar under her coat. Her hair was tied back sensibly, old-fashioned but oddly timeless. Her face was lined, but behind her tired eyes, and the dark rings around them, Sarah could see a vivid spark. She found it impossible to tell her age.
They stood.
“Helmut,” the woman said, with a thick Austrian accent.
“Professor,” he said, bowing. “This is my niece, Ursula Haller.”
“Really? Helmut, you’ve spent so long lying you’ve forgotten how to tell the truth,” the woman complained.
“Ursula,” said the Captain, ignoring her. “This is Lise Meitner.”
Sarah curtseyed. Professor Meitner waved the gesture away as she sat. “I’m very pleased to meet you, whoever you are.”
“I’m Sarah,” she said.
The Captain rolled his eyes and replaced his hat.
“A Jew. Splendid. You’ve grown soft. This is your new thing? Rescuing waifs and strays like me?” She laughed. It was a curious thing. “So, you had something to show me?”
“Ursula.” The Captain sat. “Would you give Professor Meitner the notebook?”
Sarah reached into her pocket and pulled out Schäfer’s journal. She felt a ripple of disgust and fear as she handed it to Professor Meitner, but also a desire not to let it go. She had sacrificed and suffered so much for it. She’d nearly given up…something greater, something she didn’t even understand properly. This book was the spoils of war, the grail, a treasure. But the contents were a mystery in a language she couldn’t read. It was an affront to her intelligence.
The spots of Foch’s blood on its cover had faded to a dull rust, like they might just brush away. Professor Meitner opened the notebook and began to read, not with the relaxed air of someone flicking through a magazine, but with the concentrated effort of someone meeting a challenge, succeeding and finding the solution endlessly surprising.
“I would like a pot of tea…and a very large cognac. If such a thing can be found,” she said without looking up.
“Espresso,” chimed Sarah as the Captain stood and left the table.
A gust of wind brushed her cheeks, cool against her skin. It set the boats on the canal bobbing and creaking. She made a start on the pastry, cramming the sweet flakes into her mouth with some satisfaction.
Professor Meitner glanced at Sarah’s face. “Where did you get sunburned at this time of year?” she asked as she read.
“There was a fire.”
The woman made a noncommittal noise. “Where is he dropping you?”
“We’re going back to Berlin,” Sarah answered, chewing. “He’s not dropping me anywhere.”
“Why would you go back?”
Sarah swallowed. “I work for him.”
Professor Meitner looked up sharply. “You ‘work’ for him?”
“Yes, I work for him.” This was a distinction that she had earned. She didn’t feel like having to justify it.
Lise held up the book. “You got this? From Hans Schäfer?” she asked. Sarah nodded. “He sent you to him?”
She knew. The unfinished pastry sat on the plate, now unpalatable.
“Did he know?” Sarah asked after a moment.
“I didn’t mention it. Why would I? I had no idea he had children on his payroll.” She was ashen.
Sarah tapped her feet on the cobblestones.
Where would you go if you left him?
“He promised me he didn’t know.”
“You need to be very careful, Sarah, Ursula, whatever. Very careful indeed.” Professor Meitner turned the notebook over in her hands and indicated the dark stains on the cover. “Did something happen to Schäfer?”
“He’s dead. His lab is destroyed. That’s all that remains. I’m very thorough – and careful,” Sarah added.
“I see.” She opened the book again, this time with more care.
The Captain reappeared with a tray and fussed around the table, laying out cups. To Sarah’s eyes, he had never looked more English. Finally he turned a seat next to Professor Meitner and sat on it backwards, leaning over the chair back.
“So?”
“So…it’s all here. The theories, experimental data, calculations. He understood it all. This even suggests he built a diffusion plant?” The Captain nodded. “A working device?” Another nod. “Jesus Christ. Thank God he was so secretive.”
The Captain frowned and shook his head. “He had friends in the United States who he worked with. There’s the wreckage of his house to pick over. He had guards who are now dying of a mystery disease…not to mention a catatonic daughter in an asylum who…might have all kinds of tales to tell.” He glanced at Sarah, who met his gaze with a fierce intensity. She had not done this to Elsa and knew there was nothing they could do for her. But knowing that didn’t give her any absolution. He propped his chin on the chair back. “Someone will put two and two together eventually.”
“But for now, this is all there is?” Professor Meitner held the notebook in the air.
The Captain put his hand on her sleeve. “Lise, let me take you to England. You can have a lab, staff, anything you need.” His tone was urgent, pleading. “This is your chance to stop this war before it can start.”
“At what price?” She put the book down and placed an accusing finger on it. “Do you understand what this is? Do I save the Poles by cooking German children? Do I burn cities full of innocent people? What’s an acceptable number of civilian casualties? Ten thousand? A hundred thousand? The machine gun didn’t end the last war, Helmut. It just made it more bloody. The ends” – she tapped the table in front of Sarah – “do not always justify the means.”
“This war is going to be about more than the Poles. Britain and France have no conception about what’s coming and they aren’t listening. Not to me anyway. They might listen to you.” Sarah had rarely seen him so animated or expressive.
Professor Meitner laughed again. She lit a cigarette and shook her head. “Nobody listens to me. A woman? Jew or Christian? I’m ignored, despised. I could arrive in England with a working nuclear device and no one would pay any attention.” The bitterness landed like rain.
“I listen to you.” He put a hand on her sleeve again.
“You, Helmut, are smarter than most men.” She put a hand on his for a moment, then patted it, before pulling her arms away. “But trust me, that isn’t what the world wants. They hear what they want to hear, what they already know.”
“And if the Nazis make the bomb before the British?” he said softly.
“You won’t let that happen, will you? That’s your business, isn’t it? Your real business, I mean.” She took a long drag on the cigarette. “They probably think they need pure carbon or heavy water – deuterium oxide – and you need to make that impossible.”
Professor Meitner pulled Sarah’s plate in front of her and, pushing the remains of the pastry onto the table, placed the open book on it. She poured her cognac slowly onto the pages, making the ink run.
“I could have it reconstructed, you know,” the Captain began.
“But you won’t,” Lise said, lighting a match. “One child, maybe.” She glanced at Sarah. “But thousands?” She shook her head.
Sarah wasn’t certain what was happening, but she didn’t want to take part in this conversation. More bombs, but for the right people? Who were the right people? The ones who had left a trail of corpses behind them and a teenager strapped to a hospital bed? The monsters who ran the country, or the monsters who battled them?
Lise lit a match and held it over the notebook. “I’m putting the genie back in the bottle, for now.” The match dropped and ignited the cognac. The blue flame danced over the paper for a few moments until a gust of wind fanned it and with a puff of smoke, the open pages blackened and vanished.
Sarah could feel the heat of the fire in the winter air as she swallowed the syrupy golden crema, thick with sugar and with an exciting, bitter aftertaste. It was heaven in a cup.
The book was halfway consumed.
She reached into her pocket and removed a torn, folded piece of paper. She had taken it from the notebook the night she had found the page. It was a list of girl’s names, with Ursula Haller at the bottom. The name above that was Ruth Mauser.
She placed it into the fire and watched it turn to smoke.
“Professor, I would advise that you don’t stay in Copenhagen any longer than you have to. I’m not sure that Denmark will be allowed to be neutral for much longer,” the Captain said.
“Yet you’ll take this girl back to the belly of the beast?”
“She has work to do.”
“Is that right, Sarah?”
Sarah considered the question, but there wasn’t any doubt.
“Yes. Yes, it is.”