The Fragile Hour

by Rosalind Laker

  “You poor kid!” Margot exclaimed. “What happened then?”

  “I didn’t know my way, ‘cos I’d never been out of the house since I arrived. After a bit, I came into this street as Herr and Fru Halstad went by in the army truck. They didn’t see me in the crowd. Neither did you, fröken,” he added to Anna, “when you were standing outside with Margot and two other people. The door out there was open.” He indicated the direction of the staff hall. “I darted indoors and, as there was nobody about, I kept going until I reached the top floor. I hid in the storeroom there.”

  “Have you been there ever since?” Anna asked incredulously.

  He shrugged. “It was all right. There’s a big cupboard across a corner and I hid behind that whenever somebody came in, which wasn’t often. I slept in one of the sleeping-bags stored on a shelf there. Being hungry was the worst part.” His gaze went yearningly towards the loaf Anna had left on the kitchen bench. “At night I came downstairs to find something to eat in the kitchen.” He looked anxiously at her again. “I tried not to choose anything that would be missed. I didn’t take much.”

  “We know you didn’t. How long did you think you could go on like that?”

  “I hoped to hang on until the autumn and then get away on a boat.” He looked at Anna hopefully. “Could I still do that?”

  “That’s something that has to be discussed,” Anna said, exchanging a look with Margot, “but in the meantime I think we should find you a meal more substantial than what you’ve been having up till now.”

  Margot grinned and replied in a sing-song voice, “Edith isn’t going to like this.” Then in a normal tone she added, “I’ll look in the pantry and see what I can find.”

  Away from the kitchen in the dimly-lit lobby, Klaus had let himself into the hotel. He was tired and irritable, having had an uncomfortable journey over mountain roads. He had intended to stay overnight at the comfortable Grotli Hotel, which had been requisitioned early on in the Occupation, but a message had come through from headquarters that had necessitated his more immediate return to Alesund. He had missed dinner, for there had been nowhere to eat on the way.

  He had already decided to wake Emil. The fellow could make him a coffee and produce a snack as on a previous occasion when the rest of the staff had gone off duty. It meant going through the kitchen regions, but he knew where Emil slept, having been shown his room during a routine inspection some while ago.

  Dropping his hat and gloves on to the hall table, he strode off in the direction of the kitchen. Seeing light coming from under the door, he was pleasantly surprised that somebody was already on the spot. As he reached the door, he heard Anna’s voice and paused with a smile that she should be there at this unlikely hour to wait on him. Perhaps one of his fellow officers was also being given some late refreshment. Even as he would have reached for the door-handle, he caught some of her words.

  “... sure that we won’t let the enemy get you, Magnus...”

  For an incredulous moment Klaus thought he must have misheard, but as she continued he knew there had been no mistake.

  “You may not be able to stay on in hiding here,” she was saying, “but there are a number of safe houses in Alesund where you wouldn’t be found. Somehow we’ll find a way to get you to one of them...”

  Klaus was consumed by a gush of fury that corded his face and made his fists shake. The bitch! She’d led him by the nose with her tricks and lies. In an instant all he had felt for her was replaced by an unremitting hatred. So she knew of safe houses, did she? The Gestapo should get a list of those from her!

  He drew his revolver from its holster. The Resistance member with her would be armed, but unprepared. Taking a deep breath, his nostrils already dilated by temper, he pressed down the handle and flung the door wide.

  To his total astonishment Anna sat at the table with an unknown boy. Although the colour drained from her cheeks, her only move was to clamp her hand over the boy’s wrist to keep him seated beside her. But in panic the child tore himself free, terror in his eyes, and sprang to his feet, knocking his chair over with a clatter. Before Anna could reach out to stop him, he had snatched up the bread-knife from the kitchen bench and held it defensively.

  “I won’t go with you!” he shrieked wildly.

  “What’s going on here?” Klaus demanded contemptuously, advancing into the kitchen.

  Anna, thankful that Margot was out of sight in the pantry and hoping she would have the good sense to stay there out of trouble, answered him with a sharpness that came from her own strained nerves. “I could ask you the same question! What a fright you’ve given us. Bursting in here for no reason with a revolver in your hand. No wonder my nephew thought you’d come to arrest us.” She twisted in her chair to speak to Magnus. “Come and sit down again. Major Schultz has been away. He didn’t know that you were coming to stay with me.”

  Magnus did not move, although Anna had set his chair upright again. Terror seemed to have dulled his hearing and his wits as he continued to clutch the knife defensively.

  “So he’s come to stay here out of the blue just as you did, Anna,” Klaus remarked with angry sarcasm. “Until you can find a way to move him to a safe house? That’s the plan, I believe.”

  Wretchedly, Anna wondered how much he had overheard outside the door, but still she bluffed. “Did I say that? I meant a home away from the military. This is no place for children.”

  “Stop lying, Anna!” Klaus exploded. “There’s only one reason why you’d want to hide this boy.” His flinty gaze went to Magnus. “You’re a Jew!”

  Anna stood up quickly and moved in front of Magnus. “Don’t bully him!”

  She thought for a moment that Klaus was about to strike her. She had never seen such hatred in another’s eyes, his features congested with temper, but he kept himself under control and only thrust her aside to glare furiously at Magnus.

  “Put down that knife!”

  Anna was afraid Magnus might lunge at him in panic. She addressed the terrified boy quietly. “Give me the knife, Magnus. You’re in my charge and nobody is going to hurt you. Please.” She unlocked his fingers from the handle and, as she took it from him, he burst into tears, clinging to her. After putting the knife down on the table, her arms went around him protectively as she looked at Klaus in appeal. “Couldn’t you forget you’ve seen him? He’s only a child.”

  “You amaze me, Anna,” Klaus sneered sarcastically. “You must have inflated ideas about your attraction for me to suppose I’d let him escape the net! How many others have you smuggled through? I think I’m beginning to see what’s been going on in this hotel. What better place to hide somebody wanted by us than under our very noses! How long have you and the others in this hotel been deceiving the German Command?”

  “You’re wrong! Nobody else is involved!” she cried, bluffing desperately. “I had arranged it all secretly.”

  He did not believe her. “You couldn’t possibly house such a young enemy of the Third Reich in this hotel without the co-operation of others!”

  “But I did! You’ve no idea how long he’s been here, being fed at night and sleeping by day in the storeroom opposite my room. I thought the time had come for him to move on. That’s what he and I were discussing.”

  Her persistence was exacerbating his anger to a pitch that made his finger quiver against the trigger of his gun. “You’re both under arrest as Greta Sande and her daughter and the staff will be! Now I’m going to wake the whole hotel.” He indicated sharply that she and the whimpering boy, clinging to her like a limpet, should go ahead of him out of the kitchen. “Go on! Move! Into the lobby!”

  He did not see or hear the iron saucepan that Margot crashed down on his head. His knees sagged and he reeled, all expression wiped from his face, the revolver dropping from his hand. Even as he fell, he caught the back of his neck with a thud against the black rim of the stove and tumbled into a sprawling position full-length on the tiled floor.

  Anna thrust M
agnus away from her and darted across to kneel beside him. She felt his pulse, put her ear to his chest, and then checked again. She looked up at Margot, who still stood holding the saucepan by its handle, her face ashen. “He’s dead!”

  “Good!” Margot exclaimed on a shrill note.

  Anna rose quickly to her feet. She could see that both Margot and Magnus were in shock and she felt shaky in the legs herself, but she had to keep a clear head and decide what to do. When Margot had loomed out of the pantry, holding the heavy saucepan high above her head, it had all happened so swiftly, and the situation must be solved with the same speed.

  “Wash that saucepan, Margot!” she instructed as a first practical move. “Make sure there’s no blood or hairs left on it.”

  Margot stared at her in horror. “I can’t.”

  Anna snatched it from her by the handle. “Then hunt for Edith’s bottle of brandy. It’s hidden somewhere.”

  “I saw it yesterday tucked behind some blocks of green soap in the laundry room.”

  “Then get it.” Anna turned in time to see Magnus about to pick up the revolver. “Don’t touch that! Put some wood on the stove. I want a fire going.”

  After placing the saucepan in the sink under a running tap, she took a clean cloth to pick up the revolver itself, having seen enough Hollywood films to know about incriminating fingerprints. Still keeping the weapon wrapped, she knelt once again beside the dead man and slid it back into its holster, which she fastened afterwards through the cloth, giving it a wipe for good measure. Then she examined the back of his head, seeing some blood, and cleaned the back of his broken neck in case a tell-tale mark remained from the stove.

  As she lowered his head again, she was overcome by nausea and remained bowed over, struggling against it. Margot thrust a glass with a little brandy into her hand.

  “Drink this! I’ve had some and I feel better now. What are we going to do?”

  Anna gulped the brandy down and it helped. “I’m trying to work that out.”

  She looked at the kitchen clock. It was almost three o’clock and far too light outside to deposit the body in the street as if Klaus had been attacked there. In any case, that would bring reprisals down on innocent townspeople, which must be avoided at all costs.

  Magnus crouched down to bring his worried face on a level with hers. “The fire is going well.”

  “Well done.”

  “I am hungry,” he said wistfully, suddenly unable to think of anything else but the hollow aching in his stomach.

  Anna could see that with the German dead his fear had diminished and his trust in Margot and her to protect him would be absolute. “Help yourself to bread and cheese as you did before. Later today I’ll find you something more substantial.”

  Wearily she rose to her feet. How incongruous it was to talk of food at such a time! Especially as an idea was forming in her mind as to how to cover up what was virtually a murder, even though Klaus might not have died if he had not fallen against the rim of the stove. It was fortunate it was not alight at the time, for nothing could have disguised a burn on his neck.

  “The saucepan will be clean now, Margot. Take a fresh cloth from the drawer, dry it and put it back where it was. After that we must drag Klaus to the foot of the stairs. It has to look as if he fell backwards down the flight.”

  “That’s crazy!” Margot exclaimed in dismay. “Nobody would be taken in by that.”

  “Have you a better idea?” Anna countered angrily. “Or do you want him left here on the kitchen floor?”

  Margot looked shamefaced. “No. It’s whatever you say.”

  While she dried the saucepan, Anna threw the cloth she had used into the flames of the stove. Leaving the kitchen, she went to the lobby to look up the steep flight and down again to decide exactly how Klaus might have fallen and where he should lie. Returning to the gruesome task awaiting her, she found Margot waiting to take one of his arms while she took the other. After she had placed a kitchen chair cushion under the heels of his jackboots to avoid any scrape marks they proceeded to drag him away to the lobby. They left Magnus staring fearfully after them as he tucked into bread and cheese.

  “We ought to have woken Emil to help us,” Margot whispered breathlessly, for Klaus was heavy to pull.

  “No,” Anna whispered back. “I wouldn’t want him or anybody else to be involved.”

  Nervous of making the slightest sound, they arranged Klaus’s body at the foot of the stairs. Anna dismissed Margot’s idea that they sprinkle the rest of the brandy over him as if he had been drinking, for if there was an inquest it might come to light that he was sober when he fell. Finally Anna took his hat and gloves from the lobby table and stooped to skim them across the floor as if they had flown from his hand.

  They were careful to erase all trace of his having been in the kitchen, wiping the rim of the stove and cleaning the floor tiles where his head had lain. The cloths they used all ended in the flames. Last of all the remains of Magnus’s meal were cleared away. Margot noted that he seemed to think their presence had given him carte blanche to eat as much as he liked. Tomorrow there would be no hiding from Edith a missing half a loaf or the disappearance of a large amount of cheese. Magnus had even drunk a full glass of milk.

  Upstairs, after seeing Magnus back into his secure hiding-place, Anna and Margot embraced each other in silent commiseration at what they had been through together. As they went to their own rooms, both wondered what they might have to face in the days ahead.

  Chapter Seventeen

  Anna was dressed and ready, as she knew Margot would be, when the commotion started as Klaus’s body was discovered. There were shouts as well as footsteps running up and down. She went out on to the landing, Margot doing the same, and saw Greta half-way up the flight to them. Her face was stricken.

  “A terrible thing has happened! Major Schultz fell down the stairs last night! He’s dead! Someone has phoned the medical officer and he’s coming at once. Wait where you are for a few minutes. The Major is being carried to his room and we don’t want to get in the way.”

  Margot turned pale. It was a sight she did not want to see. She exchanged a look with Anna when Greta signalled that they could follow her. All the officers in the hotel were out of their rooms, some still in pyjamas, others partly dressed, their faces grave. When they saw Anna their gaze followed her, believing that she would be particularly distressed as she and Klaus had formed a relationship. One detached himself from a group outside the dead man’s room.

  “I’m so sorry, fröken. I can guess how you’re feeling.”

  She made the most suitable answer possible in the circumstances. “Major Schultz died in the cause of the Third Reich even if he was not on a battlefield.”

  “Most aptly said!” he endorsed fervently.

  Greta and Margot had gone ahead. Anna was alone on the stairs leading down to the lobby when the medical officer arrived. She had to wait while Hauptman Bauer, fully dressed, explained how the body had been found.

  “Why was it moved?” the medical officer demanded testily. “I should have made a preliminary examination of it first.”

  “It was a natural reaction not to leave him lying there. He was carried up most carefully.”

  “So I should hope! Any blood?”

  “Just a small patch where his head was lying.”

  Both men peered down at the dried stain. The medical officer gave a grunt of satisfaction. “That’s not enough for an attacker’s blow with a sharp instrument.”

  Hauptman Bauer looked surprised. “We’ve never experienced any aggression in this hotel. There are only three women here at night and an old man.”

  “I was thinking more along the lines of the Major being set upon outside and staggering in, but that seems unlikely. Who found the body?”

  “The hotel’s handyman, whom I’ve just mentioned.”

  “I’ll want to question him later. Now I’ll go upstairs.”

  Hauptman Bauer led the way up
past Anna, enabling her to continue on her way. She guessed Greta and Margot were in the office together, but she did not join them. It had been agreed the previous night that Greta should be given all the facts, but Margot was the one to do it.

  On the way to the kitchen she met Emil with a bucket of water and a cloth. “Is it all right to clean up the floor now, do you think?”

  She nodded. “Did you hear Major Schultz fall down the stairs in the night?”

  “No, I can’t hear anything where I sleep, I’m pleased to say. Only the bell if one of the officers has forgotten his key. I found the Major when I came through to draw back the black-out curtains.”

  “I need to see Rolf about what happened here and something else. It’s urgent. Could you make contact today?”

  “Leave it to me.”

  It was not yet half-past six, but Edith was already making porridge, for there were always officers wanting breakfast before early duties. Two part-time waitresses were tying on aprons and discussing the Major’s death, but not with any regret. Next to Hauptman Bauer he had been the one the staff had most disliked. All three women looked askance at Anna, never having been entirely sure about her association with him, even though they knew Fru Sande would never employ a traitor.

  “There’s one Nazi less for breakfast, Edith,” Anna said as if his absence was due to some mundane reason.

  Her words were enough to reassure them. The two waitresses suppressed a giggle and Edith looked relieved, but she had something else on her mind, far more impor-tant than the demise of an enemy. Even as she opened her mouth, Anna went across to press her arm meaningfully.

  “Did you want to discuss the bread? It’s my day for collecting the ration. I’d like to talk about it later and anything else in the pantry that you want replenished.”

  Edith could tell by Anna’s tense expression that at last she was to be given an explanation for the missing food, including the fresh loss discovered this morning. She just had to wait until the two of them were on their own. She gave a nod, unable to resist a surreptitious glance at Anna’s flat stomach. It didn’t show, but that Major Schultz with his brutish good looks wouldn’t have been above rape if it had suited him.