by Helen Grant
We had come to a T-junction. Michel stopped the car at the line and glanced at me, his brown eyes clouded with irritation.
‘If you’re looking for a hundred thousand pounds, you won’t find it.’ He didn’t say what he meant by it – the money or the glass.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Michel hardly said another word to me for the rest of the drive to the school. I bit my lip and looked out of the window at the changing vista of trees giving way to country roads and eventually the streets of Nordkirchen, a town with all the rustic old-world charm of Slough or Watford. I was irritated with Michel, not just for saying that my father would never find what he was looking for, but also because he was annoyed with me, quite unfairly. After all, I had not wanted to come to Germany in the first place; I would much rather have been at home in England, where I had friends and plans.
When we got to the school I was expecting Michel to put as much space between me and him as he possibly could. He had been so taciturn in the car that I guessed he was regretting his offer to drive me. To my surprise, however, once he had parked the little Volkswagen in a street near the school he made a point of walking with me into the school.
‘It’s OK,’ I said to him in German. ‘You don’t have to look after me. I can find my way around.’
Michel shrugged and then shot me a sideways grin which I did my best to ignore. I had no idea which of the other students who were walking into school with us were my future classmates, but I had a horrible feeling that people were already jumping to their own conclusions. There was something just a bit too nonchalant about the way Michel greeted some of the others; I began to feel like one of the barbarian princesses whom Roman generals used to display in their triumphal parades. It was exasperating. I was not his property, and I did not like the way that people were looking me up and down.
My sister Polly had naturally fair hair – it had not been artfully spun into gold by an expensive hairdresser like Tuesday’s. But I take after my father; I am jet to Polly’s amber. My hair and eyes are dark, and I have also inherited my father’s power of pleasing, which is not the gift you might think it is. At that moment I wished I had been mousy and nondescript. Also, looking at the scruffy jeans and scuffed shoes that everyone else seemed to be wearing, I began to suspect that I was horribly overdressed.
Once inside the building, I scanned the walls in vain for a notice-board which might tell me where I should be going. What seemed like hundreds of students were crossing the large foyer in all directions, some striding purposefully, others lingering to turn off mobile phones or chat with each other. The general effect was similar to that of a busy railway terminus at rush hour. I found myself hesitating to accost anyone to ask them how to find my class. I needn’t have worried, though; Michel was at my elbow again.
‘You’re in Frau Schäfer’s class, right?’
‘Mmm-hmm.’ I nodded.
‘Come on, I’ll take you up there.’
Reluctantly I followed him across the foyer and we began to climb the main staircase. Michel was saying something to me about Frau Schäfer, and I was looking at the logo on the faded T-shirt of a boy in front of me and wondering who on earth Rammstein were, when something made me turn round and look back towards the ground floor.
Instantly my gaze picked out a tall figure entering the foyer, a figure I recognized. I couldn’t help myself; I stopped short and touched Michel’s arm, feeling my face tingle and praying that I was not blushing.
‘Who’s that?’ I asked, pointing.
Michel’s gaze followed the direction of my finger. ‘Him? That’s Father Engels.’
I watched as the Catholic priest we had met outside the castle in Niederburgheim strode diagonally across the foyer and opened a door on the far side. He had on a black suit instead of the old-fashioned soutane he had been wearing on the day of the funeral party, and he still looked impossibly handsome. I could not tear my gaze away until he had entered the room and closed the door behind him.
Stop it, I told myself. You can’t possibly have a crush on a priest.
‘What’s he doing in the school?’ I asked Michel, making a titanic effort to keep my tone casual.
‘He teaches Reli,’ said Michel without interest.
‘He does?’
‘Well, he teaches the Catholic kids. Look, are you coming or not? The bell’s going to ring.’
Reluctantly I followed Michel to the top of the stairs. I couldn’t resist one more glance behind me, but there was no sign of Father Engels. Still, it was a thrilling and slightly delirious thought that we were sharing the same building. I might run into him every week – perhaps every day. He might even speak to me – if he recognized me as the English professor’s daughter. The thought of standing there listening to his questions about my father’s research while I bathed in the glory of those wonderful good looks made me feel quite light-headed.
It was only later that this brief sighting seemed to have been an omen – the single magpie that signifies sorrows to come.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
How do you dress for your own execution? was a question I might have asked myself that morning as I walked into Frau Schäfer’s classroom and found myself facing the twenty-five strangers who were to be my new classmates. The answer was, wrongly. I knew it the moment I entered the room. I heard the buzz of voices change pitch and volume as they all looked up and checked out the newcomer. If I had known where to sit I would have scuttled to my place, but from where I stood I couldn’t see a single free seat. Instead I stood there by the door, uncomfortably shifting the weight of my school bag from my shoulder to my hip, and thinking that I was having the most monstrous case of déjà vu ever. I knew this feeling; this was the one you got when you dreamt you were walking down the high street of your hometown stark naked.
I had thought that I would be creating a fabulously cool first impression when I had gone through Tuesday’s things the day before and picked out an outfit which oozed bohemian chic – the designer jeans and jacket, the hippyish top and the killer boots. But what would have been enviable back home in a university town was about as inconspicuous here as a belly-dancer at a chess tournament. Everyone else was dressed down, from the two gum-chewing blonde girls in the front row to the enormously fat boy with spectacles at the back, whose sweatshirt had the dimensions of a small marquee. They were all looking at me, and I could almost feel the gaze of twenty-five pairs of eyes moving up and down my outfit. I made a mental note that if I got through the day without actually dying of embarrassment, and if I had to come back here again tomorrow, I would wear something less conspicuous, like a chador perhaps.
‘Guten Morgen, class,’ said a severe voice behind me, and I heard the door close. Clearly this was Frau Schäfer. Hardly anyone bothered to even mutter a greeting in return; they were all too busy examining the strange new creature who had landed among them.
I turned and found myself eye to eye with a stern-looking woman of about fifty, with a helmet of black hair and heavy features which were not enhanced by thick-framed glasses and a strident shade of red-brown lipstick.
‘Frau Schäfer? I’m Lin Fox,’ I said.
‘Lin?’ She shot me a disapproving look and began to open the register she had been holding to her not inconsiderable bosom. She ran a finger down the column inside. ‘Do you mean –’ she began, but I cut her off before she could say it. My problems were bad enough without that.
‘It’s Lin,’ I said hastily. ‘Just Lin. That –’ I fumbled for words. ‘That’s a formal name. Nobody uses it.’
Frau Schäfer gave me a distrustful look and glanced back at the register, but in the end she decided to let it drop; perhaps she was not confident of the pronunciation. She scanned the room with a gorgon look which petrified all conversation, and eventually fixed her gaze on a spot towards the back. ‘There’s a place free over there, next to Johanna.’
I followed her gaze and saw a tall red-headed girl looking at me with the kind of trepida
tion you might have expected to see on the face of an Aztec required to sit down with a Spaniard. I made a move to go to my place and get out of the combined glare of twenty-five pairs of eyes, but Frau Schäfer grasped me by the shoulder.
‘Not yet, Lin.’ She faced the class. ‘This is Lin Fox from England. She’s joining the class for a year.’ There was an interested buzz of conversation at this. ‘Lin, would you like to introduce yourself?’
It did not seem possible to say what I would like to have said, which was Absolutely not, so with an inward sigh I put my bag down on the floor and prepared to do my best.
‘Hi, I’m Lin…’ Stupid, they know that already. ‘I’ve come to Germany because my dad has to do some…’ Under the gaze of so many eyes I found myself floundering; I couldn’t think of the German word for research. In the end I had to content myself with saying, ‘He has to do some work here. He’s a… he works at a university in England.’ I glanced heavenwards as if for inspiration, but I couldn’t think of anything else to say at all.
‘That’s interesting,’ said Frau Schäfer when it became obvious that I was not going to proffer any more information. ‘And what is your father working on?’ Evidently she was from out of town; everybody else we had met since we arrived seemed to know the answer to this question already.
‘He’s interested in the stained glass from the Allerheiligen Abbey.’
I saw something pass among the other students as I said it, an indefinable reaction, less obvious than a glance exchanged or a whispered phrase – something like a ripple spreading subtly through the class. I did not think for a minute that this meant they were all gripped with a mania for medieval art. I was not sure, but I had the impression that what they were expressing was recognition, as though they had suddenly put a face to a very ugly rumour. I was relieved when Frau Schäfer gave me up as a bad job and let me slink to my seat.
The red-headed girl called Johanna gave me a friendly enough look, but I noticed that she moved away slightly as I sat down in the space next to her. I gave her a smile that felt as unnatural as a mask and then busied myself hauling books out of my bag. As well as embarrassment I felt annoyance. Was there so little to do here that our arrival was such a big event?
Who cares? I thought, as I put my books down on the desktop with a slap. Let them talk about me, see if I care. I looked up defiantly, daring anyone to stare at me, and saw a couple of heads hastily turn back to face the front. So what if the whole of Baumgarten and all of Nordkirchen knows why we’re here? What harm can it do?
On that I was wrong, however. It could do a great deal of harm – I just didn’t know it yet.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
That first day at school seemed interminably long, though the school day ended earlier than it did at my school in England. I could understand most of what was said, but it was tiring; at the end of the day’s lessons I felt as I might have done if I had spent the day watching foreign art films back to back. I could not really be bothered to talk to Michel as we drove back towards the Kreuzburg. Instead I slumped low in the passenger seat and stared out of the window at the scruffy streets of Nordkirchen unravelling past us. It was strange, living in a place where as yet I knew only a handful of people. The mind plays tricks; every so often I would see someone on the street, a boy of my own age with fair hair going into a shop, or a gangly-looking girl dragging an unwilling dog along the pavement, and for a moment I would think, I know you. I would think I recognized someone from my hometown, a friend or classmate or neighbour. Then he or she would turn and I would see that it was someone else completely – a stranger, with an unfamiliar face, with just a fleeting resemblance to someone from home. How could it be otherwise? Still, the mind tries to make patterns, to pick up the familiar threads of a life woven in another place and time.
I was pondering this as the streets melted into countryside and we passed the yellow sign which told us we were entering Baumgarten. All of a sudden Michel braked so sharply that I was thrown forward, and felt the seat belt lock painfully across my shoulder.
‘Scheisse.’
We were about three centimetres from the back bumper of the car in front of us, a smart red Audi whose owner would not have been thrilled to have a tonne of tatty Volkswagen rammed into its gleaming boot. Judging by the scream of tyres, followed by the irritable bleat of a horn, the driver behind us had had a near miss too.
‘Are you OK?’ said Michel, but he didn’t listen to my reply. He was peering out of the windscreen with his brows drawn together in a frown.
I saw him reach up and brush his dark hair out of his eyes, squinting at the road ahead.
‘What’s she…’ He sounded distracted.
‘Michel?’
He wasn’t listening. Evidently something was happening up ahead, but from where I was sitting I couldn’t see anything at all, just the back of the Audi, vertiginously close. There was another blare of horns and then someone swung out into the middle of the road to try to pass us. The Audi was moving again, nudging forward, the driver evidently piqued at being overtaken.
‘Michel?’
I was starting to feel annoyed at the way he was ignoring me. He put the car into gear again and it slid slowly forward, but instead of following the Audi he suddenly pulled on to the grass verge at the side of the road. There was an agonizing creak as he yanked on the handbrake.
‘Why are we stopping?’ I demanded.
I couldn’t hear any sirens and there were no blue lights flashing. All I could see were cars nosing at spaces in the narrow road like fish clustering around bait.
‘It’s Frau Roggendorf.’ Michel unclipped his seat belt.
‘Who?’
‘Frau Roggendorf. She used to run the bakery in Baumgarten.’
‘Well, what’s she doing?’
He wasn’t listening to me. He already had the car door open and was climbing out. There was nothing else to do, so I undid my seat belt and got out too. It was a warm day and with so many cars idling in this small section of road the air was thick and poisonous with petrol fumes. Michel was already threading his way purposefully between the cars. Up ahead I could hear something. It sounded like a woman yelling. No, she was not yelling; she was screaming. I wondered if this was Frau Roggendorf.
Now people were winding their windows down and adding their loudly delivered advice to her shrieks. More horns sounded. As far as I could tell, though, Michel was the only one who had got out to see what the matter was. Everyone else just wanted the blockage removed so that they could drive on.
When I caught up with Michel he was pulling someone to the side of the road. It was a woman of about seventy, shorter than I was and with an impressively solid build firmly upholstered in blue and brown floral cotton. She had a quantity of wispy grey hair which had been caught up in a tight little bun but was now escaping in big tufts, so that she had rather the appearance of a large dandelion clock. I had no clear impression of her face other than a gaping maw from which a stream of hysterical screeches spewed forth.
A car accelerated past me, a little too close for comfort and I hopped on to the pavement. I could see the dirty looks we were getting from the drivers as they passed us; perhaps they assumed we were relatives of Frau Roggendorf’s – or her keepers, I thought nervously, looking at the wild eyes and distorted features of the old lady.
‘What’s the matter?’ I asked Michel.
He shook his head. He had taken her arm to steer her out of the road, and now he was holding on to stop her stepping back out into it. He looked like a man trying to drag an ox to the slaughter; clearly Frau Roggendorf was desperate to get away. The old lady’s shrieks rose to a crescendo and then suddenly, shockingly, she burst into tears. The fight seemed to have gone out of her. She allowed Michel to guide her away from the edge of the road. There was a row of large chunks of stone on the grass to stop drivers from parking on it. Michel led the old woman to one of them and helped her sit down. He looked nonplussed. The traffic was clearing a
nd now I could see his little Volkswagen sitting on the verge at the other side of the road, waiting for us.
‘Frau Roggendorf?’ said Michel loudly. ‘What happened?’
There was no coherent reply. Michel and I looked at each other helplessly. Clearly she could not be left alone, but we were right on the edge of the town; there was no other person in sight and not even a house nearby. I looked both ways up and down the road but we were quite alone. We were standing close to a stone wall which ran for a considerable distance in either direction; it was high enough that I could not see over it, but I thought I could make out a gate further along. If there were houses on the other side we might ask someone for help.
‘Michel?’ I said. ‘What’s in there?’
He turned to me. ‘The cemetery.’
‘The cemetery?’
I looked at Frau Roggendorf, hunched on the chunk of stone with tears streaming down her papery old cheeks. In spite of the warmth and brightness of the day I felt a sudden chill. It struck me that there was something unnatural about seeing an old woman like that without a handbag or any of the other paraphernalia old ladies like to take about with them – fold-up umbrellas and embroidered handkerchiefs and peeling tubes of cough sweets. Of course, she might be one of those poor old souls who wander about towns seeing the streets through some overlay of the past invisible to everyone else, and talking to the long dead; but I thought it more likely that something had upset her, and she had dropped everything she was carrying in her effort to get away. I looked up at the wall.
‘Michel? Will you stay with her if I go and look around?’
‘What for? We should call someone.’
I shrugged, not keen to tell him that I wanted to reassure myself there was nothing alarming on the other side of the wall.
‘There might be someone who could help.’
