The Words I Never Wrote

by Jane Thynne

  “Followed by whom?”

  “The secret police. The Gestapo. Ask your sister. Irene.”

  The name was like a blow to the solar plexus.

  “What does Irene have to do with this?”

  “I imagine she brushes up against plenty of Gestapo in that fool’s paradise she inhabits. She’s met Heydrich, for Christ’s sake. There’s no way she could live among the upper ranks and not be acquainted with the way they work. She’s chosen to ignore what’s obvious to everyone else. She’s made a decision to stay in Nazi Germany.”

  “She’s not responsible for her husband’s friends!”

  “Of course not. But if she manages to stay in a place like that, then perhaps she doesn’t deserve your concern. You’ve listened to the refugees. You’ve heard the reports.”

  “She says we shouldn’t allow events to come between us. We should agree to disagree. No ideology is strong enough to split a family.”

  “Then she’s grossly underestimating the power of ideology. Tell that to Adolf Hitler. Or Joseph Stalin.”

  “Irene thinks we should simply not discuss it.”

  “The coward’s way out!” His eyes were bright with fury. “You might as well not discuss life. Politics is life, Cordelia. It’s the air we breathe. Political convictions aren’t trivial cultural tastes, like whether you admire that Schiaparelli woman you talk about or, I don’t know, whether you think Georges Braque is superior to Picasso. Politics matters. Sometimes—like now—it’s a matter of life and death.”

  “My sister would say there’s much more to life than politics.”

  “But what do you say? Is that what you believe? That family niceties should be preserved no matter what vile convictions a person might possess, simply because you happen to be related to each other? That we should all pretend we’re at a dinner party, where politics is a dirty word and the only topics up for discussion are cricket and gardening?”

  “Of course I don’t, but—”

  “Your beliefs are your identity,” he cut in. “A moral person will always pin their colors to their mast.”

  “You’re saying Irene is not moral?”

  He shook his head, distractedly. “No. Sorry. Forget I said that. It was arrogant of me. We never know each other’s minds and your sister’s decision is not your concern. It’s late, I’m tired, and I’ve been worrying about this for days. The fact is, it’s me who’s the coward. I was a coward not to tell you immediately that I was going. I just wanted to be with you a little longer.”

  She was silent, swallowing every bitter word before she could say it.

  Torin continued, his voice taut. “I went over and over it in my mind. Part of me thought you might approve. You might think it was the right thing to do. Understand my motives.”

  She was too stunned even to shake her head.

  “I know that’s a lot to ask when I hardly understand them myself—”

  A tear rolled languidly down her cheek. He leaned over and wiped it away.

  “You’re angry,” he said, softly.

  “No.”

  “Well, you’ve every right to be.”

  He rose, pulled on his shirt, and buttoned his jacket.

  “It’s probably best if I go now. I won’t be in the office tomorrow. Franklin will send out my replacement. I’ve booked my train. It leaves at dawn.”

  When he laid a hand on her cheek, she felt the heartbeat jumping in his palm.

  * * *

  —

  FOR HOURS AFTER HE left Cordelia wept, before pulling off the Molyneux dress and crawling into bed. In the anguish of that night the darkest protests arose. Why should a civil war between Spaniards affect their happiness? What did it have to do with her and Torin? Why couldn’t the Spaniards settle their own squabbles without the help of outsiders? Who cared what happened to Arthur Koestler? She heard the jagged cry of the baby in the downstairs room, as though it was calling out for her, yet while it tugged at her consciousness, she was too deep in her agony to stir.

  Perhaps it was sleeplessness or groggy confusion shot through with pain that caused her the next morning to take out her typewriter. The sorrow that engulfed her over Torin hardened to anger against Irene, who lived among these people, partied with them, and loved them. Who ignored any ugly truth that threatened her sheltered little world of money and marital bliss.

  Hotel Britannia,

  Rue Victor Massé,

  Paris

  May 29, 1937

  Dear Irene,

  The last time we spoke properly, on the evening of your wedding, you promised we would share everything. Well, you certainly broke that promise pretty quickly. It’s obvious to everyone here that truly terrible things are happening under the Nazis in Germany, most particularly to the Jews, and I refuse to believe you don’t know about it. Can it really be true you spend all your time painting and partying without noticing what’s taking place right under your nose?

  I don’t want to quarrel, but politics matters. At times like these it’s a matter of life and death. You can’t want to stay in a country that perpetrates such injustices on its own citizens. If things carry on as they are, you’ll soon need to choose between Germany and England. So please, Irene, tell me what you know and what you plan to do…

  Villa Weissmuller,

  Am Grossen Wannsee,

  Berlin

  June 6, 1937

  Darling Dee,

  Could we not just agree to disagree? We’re sisters after all, never forget that. I have not seen an injustice here that I didn’t want to put right. And I love both my countries.

  That said, I do have a confession. Remember that poem that goes “There’s some corner of a foreign field that is for ever England”? Well, in my case the foreign field is the garden of the Villa Weissmuller. I’ve spent ages designing a rose walk and herbaceous bed that are exact copies of the ones at Birnham Park, and now that they’re coming to fruition, I admit I’m rather pleased with them. My next project is to re-create the honeysuckle wall. Do you remember it—the place at the far end of the garden where we would hide? How I loved standing, completely concealed by the leaves, breathing in the blissful honeysuckle scent, with no one knowing where I was until, eventually, you would come and find me!

  Truth to tell, I often have a hankering to go back there.

  Your loving sister,

  Irene

  Hotel Britannia,

  Rue Victor Massé,

  Paris

  June 14, 1937

  Irene,

  You say we should agree to disagree. As far as politics is concerned, you love both your countries. I say there’s no such thing as staying neutral. By refusing to take sides, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. Yes we’re sisters, and I will never forget that, but if you intend to stay in Berlin, then we can’t be in contact.

  I mean this.

  You need to make a choice.

  C

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Irene had been in Ernst’s study many times. There was no reason to feel that she was trespassing.

  She entered cautiously, and closed the door softly behind her. On the wall, among a series of gilt-framed lithographs, hung one of her own compositions. It was the painting Ernst had bought from her graduating exhibition, and in the heightened lucidity of the moment she looked at it afresh. Cordelia, painted on a sticky summer’s day at Birnham Park, leaning against the honeysuckle wall, a mass of vivid yellow flowers amid dense green foliage. The intensity of the color gave the composition a dreamlike vividness, and each impressionistic brushstroke produced a sense of beauty so deep one could almost step into it. Against the wall Dee stood impatiently, looking away, as though unwilling to be captured in a world she had not herself created.

  In Irene’s initial surge of sexual attractio
n to Ernst, his purchase of this picture had seemed a form of seduction. It had felt as though she herself was being chosen and admired. It was, she realized now, the whole reason she’d married him. She’d thought that admiring her art, her beating heart laid bare on the canvas, meant Ernst understood her. Whereas in fact he had seen nothing at all. He had seen only what he wanted to see.

  A girl in a garden, leaning against a honeysuckle wall.

  Irene put her hand on one of the desk drawers and felt the cool slide of the handle. The contents were in meticulous order. Notepaper, with the heading WEISSMULLER AND SONS, ESTABLISHED 1858. Envelopes, ink, typewriter ribbons. And stamps. The stamp of the Weissmuller factory, contained in its hinged wooden box. An ebony handle and the oblong stamp with its reversed letters picked out in bronze.

  Another letter had arrived from Cordelia that morning, and at the sight of the flimsy envelope, Irene had pounced on it. Cordelia’s letters were always the highlights of her days, yet she had somehow known from the moment she touched it, peeled back the flap, and extracted the single sheet of paper that this one would be different.

  She had read it in front of Ernst at breakfast, and it was a testament to her absolute composure that he had not discerned a flicker as she took in the short, impassioned message, the inky staccato of the typeface perfectly suited to the edge of sleep-deprived hysteria in Cordelia’s tone. She absorbed it very fast, then folded it back in the envelope as though she could make it disappear. Yet there was no preventing the closing sentence from ringing through her mind, again and again.

  You need to make a choice.

  Well, now she had chosen.

  * * *

  —

  THE TRAM TOOK HER along Unter den Linden, and she got off at the corner of Friedrichstrasse, beside the Café Kranzler, onto the rain-washed street. It was ten minutes to twelve. The exhaustion of a sleepless night had given way to a piercing clarity, and while she had been unable to eat a thing, she had fortified herself with coffee, with the result that now she walked fast, her legs trembling with nervous energy, her heart hammering. She was wearing a sprigged cotton dress with a navy jacket and matching hat. Beneath one arm was sandwiched her bag, and in her hand a rolled-up copy of Moderne Welt with the stamp securely taped to the inside.

  Friedrichstrasse was a good choice for a meeting. It was one of the busiest streets in the city—the stretch where business, shopping, and entertainment converged in a gaudy splash of neon billings, posters, and advertisement billboards. Whereas Berlin’s boulevards were generally so wide as to seem empty, here a brisk traffic of pedestrians thronged the pavement. Shoppers jostled with workers on an early lunch break, squeezing between those queuing for trams and others dallying alongside shop windows. Above head height, billowing Nazi banners alternated with the garish colors of advertising posters. The slogans blurred before her eyes. TRINKT BERLINER KINDL. ESST MEHR FRÜCHTE. Eat more fruit. Fine chance of that. The lack of food had prompted the government to issue households with Reich menu cards—Monday, leftover soup and oat pudding. Tuesday, fish baked in cabbage. Wednesday, milk soup and Brussels sprouts. Thursday, baked heart. No mention of fruit. The staples of most people’s diets were Pervitin and Veronal, the first a pick-me-up and the second a sedative.

  Although it was broad daylight, Irene could not stop glancing behind her as she walked. She had developed a kind of hypervigilance in public, every muscle and nerve taut, always conscious that she might be observed. At the slightest sound—the smash of a bottle, the slam of a door, or the shriek of a child—stress pumped through her veins. And today, her nerves sang with a high note of alarm.

  Something felt wrong.

  She scanned the street ahead, looking out for anyone who might be watching her, assessing everyone for any characteristic that might mark out hidden intent. A ten-foot poster of a storm trooper loomed, proffering his knife. 1933 TO 1937. HONOR AND WORK. Rain, clinging onto a neon sign, fell like drops of blood. As an artist Irene was trained to be attentive to detail, yet this was observation of a quite different order. She was seeing afresh, assuming herself observed, imagining what others might make of her. What would they see? A young woman in a well-cut navy jacket, blond hair tucked up beneath a matching felt tip-tilted hat. The breeze had stung roses into her cheeks. Not a shop worker, but a Hausfrau on a visit to her dressmaker perhaps, maybe even a well-dressed secretary, taking an early lunch break from her desk at a solicitor’s office.

  The rain was gone, but she hugged the inside of the pavement, keeping as much as possible under the shelter of the shop awnings. Leiser shoe shop. A stocking repair shop. Stopping at the Admiralspalast theater, as though to study the bill, she stared without absorbing the news that Marianne Hoppe was starring in Kapriolen. A few feet further along, outside the Wintergarten, a brownshirt in uniform was leaning against an official car, smoking a cigarette. His eyes followed her lazily as she passed, giving her the once-over, but as his gaze traveled down her stockings then up again to her breasts, she understood instinctively his interest was merely sexual.

  Studying the Old Masters had schooled her in reading a scene, noting incongruities, decoding details in a view of apparent ordinariness; the half-burned candle signifying transience, the pomegranate that meant fertility, the small dog that was a painter’s trademark. Yet now it was danger that attuned her artist’s eye.

  Halfway along Friedrichstrasse a viaduct stretched over the road carrying trains from out of the station’s vast glass vault, trailing soot and steam. Beneath the cover of its thunder she chanced a glance behind and saw what her nerves had already informed her. Ten feet back, sandwiched between two pedestrians, there was a man. A very ordinary man.

  That was the point.

  She had seen him on the tram, sitting opposite a few seats along. He was youngish, early thirties, perhaps, and otherwise entirely anonymous. Dust brown coat, brown hat, brown hair. A face had come into her mind; the face of Axel Hoffman.

  You know the little sparrows that dance around your feet at a café? They come from nowhere and you never give them a second glance? That’s how a watcher will be.

  The young man was brown and gray, like a bird, and utterly nondescript. Nobody in Berlin’s vivid pedestrian canvas was less likely to stand out.

  Dread sank in her like a depth charge.

  She walked on, then slowed, and the man’s steps slowed too, a tiny deceleration that was undetectable to all but her straining ear, but she could not risk a second glance. To show an awareness of being watched would surely heighten suspicion.

  She dawdled to a halt, and for a second it was almost impossible to move, as if her whole body was filled with lead. There must be ways to do this, but no one had taught her. Ahead loomed the façade of the station, with its blood-dark ceramic tiling and Neumann’s newspaper kiosk, plastered with magazines, many of them offering front-page versions of the Führer, his features strangely indistinct, as though sculpted and left unfinished. She thought of buying a B.Z. am Mittag but found her fingers were trembling too much to pick the coins from her purse. She turned away with nothing.

  When she entered the station concourse, a wall of noise rose up instantly. The shriek of rails clashed with banging doors, whistles, calls, and the great shuddering screech of a departing train. In the periphery of her vision, a jaunty sign danced in jittery purple neon.

  KONDITOREI AM BAHNHOF.

  If she made contact with Oskar’s friend, and the man behind her was Gestapo, she risked compromising everything. They would find the copy of Moderne Welt with the stamp inside, and immediately Ernst would be involved too. Across her mind flashed the police car, the interrogation desk, the uncomprehending fury of her husband as he too was arrested, shouting protests, alternating the names of his contacts with dark threats of reprisal.

  But how could she check without alerting the man to her worry? Should she go ahead? She couldn’t afford to loo
k behind her again, and there were no windows to afford a reflection. The blood was rushing in her ears. Every inch of her body vibrated with nervous tension, even the paving beneath the soles of her shoes.

  You need to make a choice.

  She stopped a passing Hausfrau, gripping a squalling child by the upper arm.

  “Could you tell me where the waiting room is?”

  The woman yanked the child to a halt and jerked her head. “Can’t you see? It’s straight ahead of you.”

  The pair hurried on, and Irene took the opportunity to spin on her heel and call out, “Thank you!”

  That swift glance revealed that the brown and gray man had gone, swallowed in the crowds.

  The clang of bells sounded above the station’s clatter, ringing midday. In the distance, with imperfect synchronicity, the city’s other bells rang out, their leaden toll ballooning outward before dissipating in the air. There was the whistle of a departing train, and the crowds opened and closed around her.

  She crossed the concourse swiftly and pushed open the café door.

  Pendant globes hung above dark wood tables, separated by partitions. A bar ran along one side, with a coffee machine issuing puffs of steam that mingled with the smell of damp tweed rising from the hat stand by the door. Above were shelves stacked with sweets and a billing for the Entartete Kunst exhibition, with a leering African head, sandwiched incongruously amid a series of saccharine advertisements. COCA-COLA: THE SWEETEST TASTE. Salem Gold, Camels, Fanta. TRUMPF SCHOKOLADE BESTRIDES THE WORLD. Behind them a pocked strip of mirror afforded a jaded view of the clientele.

  There was no sign of the man she was supposed to meet.

  Torn scraps of language floated in the air. A fat man coughed with sharp significance, but when she glanced he had bent to pet his equally rotund dog and feed it a biscuit.