by Sarah Rayne
There was a faint dry crackle, then the document was out, and Marcus was cautiously unfolding it. It had been typed on an old-fashioned typewriter, and the paper was spotted with brown and partly split where it had been creased.
‘It’s not in English,’ said Margot, staring at the typed lines. ‘What—?’
‘It’s German,’ said Marcus. ‘Good thing I’m reading languages, isn’t it?’ He gestured impatiently for the torch, and Margot went to sit on the window ledge, not wanting to disturb his concentration.
After a few moments, Marcus said, ‘God, of all the things—’
‘What? What? Marcus, if you don’t tell me what it says—’
Marcus was still staring at the paper. Then he said, ‘It’s dated March 1945, and it’s addressed to the old girl herself.’
‘To Lina?’
‘Yes. 1945 – she’d only have been about four or five then, wouldn’t she?’ He frowned at the letter, then began to read.
‘“My dear Miss Lina, A few years ago, a house in Lindschoen was ceded to your father by Gift, in recognition for, and appreciation of, his work. This means it was given to him for his own.
‘“As your father’s only surviving relative, one day that house will pass to you. However, the law will not allow you to own a house until you are twenty-one, so I have created what is called a Trust until then. Documents about that will be kept at these offices, and you can look at them if you wish, or ask a grown-up to do so for you. But please be assured that we shall keep the house for you until your twenty-first birthday.
‘“If I can give you any more information or guidance about this, I will be very pleased to do so. It is a very important thing to own a house, but we will help you to understand and to make decisions about it when the time comes.
‘“I am yours very truly—” And there’s a squiggled signature that might be anything,’ said Marcus, screwing up his eyes to try to decipher it.
‘A house,’ said Margot, trying out the words, distrustfully. ‘A house that Lina inherited. At least – was set to inherit when she was twenty-one. Where’s Lindschoen?’
‘In Germany. I don’t know where, but it’ll be easy enough to check.’
‘What’s the address at the head of the letter?’
‘It’s somewhere in Berlin. It says, “Established in 1920”.’
Margot considered, then said, ‘Could Lina really own a house in Germany? Somebody might easily have got the wrong information, or the wrong person.’
‘Or the – what do they call it? – the ceding of the house might not have happened after all. Or it might have been cancelled. March 1945 – that’s just before the Second World War ended. There was a lot of confusion about who owned what at that time – especially in Germany, I should think. And if Lina had inherited anything, I would have thought we’d have known,’ said Marcus, getting up to investigate the piano again in case there was anything else to be found.
‘Also, the house might not have amounted to much, even if she eventually got it,’ pointed out Margot. ‘It might have been a hovel. Only worth a tiny amount.’
Marcus had closed the piano lid dismissively. ‘Or it might have been bombed and destroyed in the war,’ he said, ‘I don’t think it would have been a hovel, though. I think Lina’s father would have turned up his nose at a hovel. He always sounded a greedy old devil.’
‘Lina might have sold the house years ago, and stashed the money away.’
‘Or got through the money,’ said Marcus. ‘It’s a hell of a long time ago. But if she did sell it, there’d have to be a record somewhere, wouldn’t there? Something like a Land Registry. But to check that, we’d need the property’s address, and we haven’t got it. I want to know more about this, though, don’t you?’
‘Could we talk to those solicitors?’
‘I’ll try to find out if they’re still going, but 1920 is very far back.’
‘What about documents actually here? In this house? Deeds or something?’
‘Um, that’s a possibility. Could you look, after I’ve gone back? Without letting Ma know?’
‘Yes.’ Margot would have taken the house apart, brick by brick, if Marcus had wanted. ‘Aren’t we going to tell Mother?’
‘No,’ said Marcus. ‘This is going to be ours.’ He was brushing away the sprinkling of dust that opening the piano had created, and he came to sit next to her on the window ledge. ‘One day,’ he said, putting an arm around her, ‘we’ll find that house. Because one day it could be ours.’
‘It would have to go to Mother first though, wouldn’t it? She automatically inherited everything of Lina’s – she said so.’ It was marvellous to sit here in the semi-dark with Marcus’s arm around her.
He said, in a soft voice, ‘But one day Mother won’t be here. And if a house in Lindschoen really was made over to Lina – and if it’s still there – after Ma, it’d belong to us. Lina didn’t have any other relatives. We’re next in line. All we need—’
‘Are the legal documents proving the house was given to Lina? And then to Mother?’
‘Well, yes, certainly that. But I was going to say that all we need is for Mother not to be here any longer.’
Margot turned her head to stare at him. Before she could speak, he said, ‘We had this conversation once before, didn’t we? About knowing what has to happen before we’re really free.’
In a whisper, Margot said, ‘Yes, we did.’
‘Good girl. One day we’ll get that freedom.’ He stood up. ‘And now, I really am going to bed.’
Margot stayed where she was. Marcus’s words were still echoing in her mind. All we need is for Mother not to be here any longer, he had said. We both know what has to happen …
She knew, of course, what Marcus wanted. And she knew that what she had done once – here, in this room – she could do again. Had Marcus known what she had done? Had he guessed she had somehow caused Lina’s death?
Margot already knew she could do what Marcus wanted, and she also knew she would do it. She did not yet know how, but that would come.
She knew, as well, that whatever she did she would be quite safe, because Marcus would protect her. Brothers always protected their sisters.
SIX
Lindschoen, Germany, March 1939
Giselle Klein tried to believe that Christa would always protect Stefan. She had explained it to Christa very carefully, saying that sisters had to protect their younger brothers.
Christa, the dear intelligent child, had understood. She was so bright, so intuitive – a daughter to be proud of. Felix often said so, as well, his face soft with love and pride. People sometimes said Christa resembled Giselle, even down to the flyaway hair and the wayward cheekbones, they said. And Stefan would turn out exactly like Felix. Gentle and unworldly and vulnerable.
Told by her mother that she must always look after Stefan, Christa promised, which was reassuring, because as far as Giselle knew, Christa never told lies. If only … No. Don’t think like that. Think instead that giving Christa this small responsibility was a very good thing.
Yes, but if only there was not this feeling of a darkness somewhere within Christa. Giselle had tried to find another word to describe it, and she had tried, as well, to find an explanation as to why she should have this sense of something menacing. Something there in Christa that ought not to be? Something missing? Or – this was deeply worrying in a wholly different way – was it the feeling that something might be waiting for Christa somewhere in the future? But that was absurd. Giselle believed in a great many things, some of which were laughable, and others which were fantastical, and a few which were probably illegal, but what she did not believe in was the concept of premonition.
And so, because you could not worry about things that were so vague they defied definition, Giselle gave to Christa this small responsibility of taking care of Stefan. Not that Christa would ever need to shoulder the task, of course, but you never knew what might be lying in wait for you, and Christ
a’s father was just about the most impractical person you could meet. Dearest Felix. People who came to the house – neighbours and Felix’s pupils and his musician friends – all said, affectionately, what a dear good man Felix Klein was. A bit unworldly, of course, but that was part of the charm.
Unworldly was exactly the right word for Felix. It was also the right word for most of the musicians who came to the shop that was called The Music House. There was a notice on the door saying that Klein’s closed at six o’clock, but it never closed entirely, because they lived behind and above the shop, and Felix’s friends were always turning up at all kinds of odd hours, and ensconcing themselves in the big room with its bow windows and deep old fireplace – the room that was the shop during the day and their sitting room on most evenings. Velda, Giselle’s cousin, and also most of Giselle’s family, found this custom untidy and undisciplined, and wondered at Giselle putting up with it. Surely she realized those people were nothing but a set of scroungers?
Giselle did not bother to tell any of them that Felix’s friends were not scroungers, they were gifted musicians – at least most of them were – and all of them were splendid company. When they came to The Music House, they brought wine, or food – cheeses or meat, or somebody’s wife or daughter had baked a cake. Often the wives and daughters came along, too. But whoever came, they all sat around happily, drinking and eating, arguing about music, and planning concerts. It was remarkable that any of the concerts ever got on to a platform, but they usually did, and to very good audiences. Giselle always helped with the concerts, which meant she went out and about, meeting people, arranging the printing of programmes and orchestra parts, making sure there would be flowers in the foyer and people to sell tickets and usher everyone to their seats, enjoying the liveliness and the glamour of performance nights. Also, it was perfectly acceptable – you might even say it was obligatory – to wear an evening frock on those occasions. Giselle enjoyed that; she did not in the least mind the jealous mutters that she was overdressed, nor did she mind people speculating as to how such frocks had been afforded, and spikily observing that Felix Klein scarcely noticed anything beyond his music and his work.
Giselle knew quite well that Felix did not always notice what went on in the world, but he was certainly noticing the turmoil and the momentous events in Germany – and in the whole of Europe – at the moment.
The children were noticing it, as well, but in a worryingly distorted way. Christa, huge-eyed with fearful fascination, had several times had to be reassured about the danger of men forcing their way into people’s houses. People at school talked about it, she said. The men could hide in bedrooms, waiting to snatch up the most beautiful of the children so they could carry them off to terrible places where dreadful things were done. The men had what they called skewer eyes that could see through the dark and find all the hiding places. Terrible, said Christa, her small face pale. Because didn’t Mum think Stefan was just the kind of beautiful child the skewer-eyed men would like?
Stefan, so much younger than Christa, knew some of the stories as well. Even at four years old he had the same fears. He had curious nightmares, as well – humpbacked surgeons who could pull the bones from your body to make bead necklaces, and about someone called the scissor man who stitched live babies together in order to watch what happened to them when they grew bigger. It was true, he said, clinging to Giselle after one of his nightmares, pleading with her never to let the scissor man or the humpbacked doctor find them.
He was heartbreakingly small, sitting up in the bed, tear-streaked from the bad dream, but so trusting and vulnerable, and so beautiful with his dark eyes and his hair like thin black shavings from a raven’s wing. Giselle could not bear seeing him like this. She hugged him to her, and promised that she would not let any of those things happen. She would always be here to protect him, she said, and so would Father and Christa. As for the things he feared – none of them could happen anywhere in the world. They were nightmare phantoms, that was all. Things to be blown away like thistle heads.
Felix, coming in after one of these nightmares, sat on the edge of the bed, and said Stefan – Christa too, for she had come into the bedroom – should remember that although there were a lot of things going on in Germany at the moment, none of them would affect the lives of unimportant music teachers. They certainly would not affect the lives of children.
Giselle glanced at Christa, and yet again had the impression of a darkness gathering behind her daughter’s eyes. But this was absurd; fifteen-year-old girls were notoriously moody and strange. She thrust the feeling away, and joined with Felix in telling the children that they were all perfectly safe in their warm snug house overlooking the square. Life would continue quietly along for a great many years.
There was, though, a slight interruption to the quiet life that spring, when Giselle was invited to a cousin’s wedding. It meant a long train journey, and although Felix was included in the invitation, he did not think he could close the shop or ignore his pupils for an entire week. Bills had to be paid, he said, ruefully. Giselle must go, though. She would like to see her family – she had always been so close to her cousin, Silke, and Felix would enjoy hearing all about it when she came back.
Giselle thought, but did not say, that Felix was secretly quite pleased to find a reason to stay at home with his music and his work and his pupils. And he might be impractical, but he was quite able to manage without Giselle for four days. He could give Christa and Stefan their breakfast – in fact Christa was perfectly capable of getting breakfast for them all, and taking herself and Stefan to school. Velda would probably help out, anyway.
Velda, approached on the matter, said that of course she would look after Felix and the children. Giselle managed not to remind Velda that Christa was now at an age where she could hardly be classed as a child.
Velda did, though, express doubts as to the wisdom of Giselle’s journey.
‘All that way when there’s so much disruption, and travelling such a nightmare. But I suppose you were up to your eyebrows in gin when the invitation came, and you didn’t think about that.’
Giselle had not been up to her eyebrows in gin when the invitation came, and it was ungenerous of Velda to suggest it.
‘And I don’t see that travelling’s any more difficult now than it’s been for ages.’
‘Of course it is,’ said Velda. ‘I hear the Schutzstaffel are starting to board trains to ask about people’s journeys—’
‘I can’t think why the Schutzstaffel would be interested in a perfectly ordinary family wedding—’
‘—demanding to see people’s papers and poking into innocent folks’ backgrounds,’ finished Velda.
‘Oh, pooh to the Schutzstaffel. My papers are perfectly in order, and you’re exaggerating. In any case, I’ll only be away for four days, well, five at the most. I daresay I can trust you with Felix for such a short time, can’t I?’ Giselle said this last a bit slyly, because everyone in the family knew that Velda had fallen helplessly and hopelessly in love with Felix from the moment she saw him.
Still, it had to be acknowledged that Velda had uncomplainingly taken on the role of good friend and loyal cousin, although it had been vaguely annoying when she had moved into an apartment so near the shop. Giselle had sometimes felt a bit smothered, especially in the early days of the marriage, when she liked to lure Felix up to bed for the afternoon. At such times you did not want people knocking on the door because they were worried as to why the shop had the ‘Closed’ sign at three o’clock in the afternoon, or they had brought over a freshly baked cake. To say the very least, it spoiled the romance if you had to open the bedroom window and shout down some excuse about a headache, especially with Felix urging you to get rid of whoever was interrupting them, and come back to bed.
Giselle sometimes wondered, with a pleased chuckle of satisfaction, whether anyone ever guessed how extremely passionate Felix was under the diffident, scholarly exterior. Once or twice she ha
d even wondered if Velda, who to Giselle’s certain knowledge had never had any kind of sexual or romantic relationship whatsoever, had unconsciously sensed it, and if that was the reason for her infatuation. Still, all credit to Velda, she was generous with her time, and the cakes were delicious.
Most of Felix’s musician friends came to The Music House to say farewell and safe journey before Giselle set off. Velda, who came in to bring a wedding gift for the cousin and stayed to have a glass of wine, said you would think Giselle was travelling to the farthest reaches of Outer Mongolia or the Russian Steppes.
‘It’s only Salzkotten,’ said Velda, a bit grumpily, probably, Giselle thought, because she had not been invited to the wedding. ‘Not far.’
‘The best part of a day’s journey, though.’
Dear chubby Herr Eisler, who liked to think he was a bit of a father-figure to them all, recited the Tefilat HaDerech, which was the Jewish travellers’ prayer. It did not matter in the least that he got so carried away with emotion he spilled an entire glass of wine on the carpet, and forgot the last lines. After the wine had been mopped up and Eisler’s glass refilled, a lively discussion sprang up about the programme for Felix’s next concert. Some of the musicians were all for defying Herr Hitler’s disapprovals and his bans on composers, and said firmly that they should play whatever they wanted.
‘Because we don’t care about bans,’ said Giselle, who had been drinking her own share of the wine.
‘Nor do we. For heaven’s sake, they’ll have musicians fleeing the country next.’
‘They already are fleeing the country. Hindemith went last year. Where have you been living?’
‘It’s true that Hindemith went,’ said Felix’s cellist. ‘And only last week Karel Ancerl was sent to …’ The cellist broke off, and looked uneasily round the room. ‘He was sent away,’ he said, in a quieter voice.
‘I heard that too,’ said the first speaker. ‘But there’s a lot of exaggerated gossip around.’
