by Sarah Rayne
‘We might do one of your own pieces at the concert, Felix,’ said a violinist, clearly with the idea of changing the subject, and Felix looked up, and mumbled, embarrassedly, that his music was nothing very special, and he had not known anyone realized he had even composed anything.
It was all friendly and safe. The window shutters were not completely closed, because Felix liked being able to see out to the cobbled square. Giselle liked that, as well. At this time of the evening the lamps had been lit, and their light fell across the old buildings, making it almost possible to believe that you had stepped back into Lindschoen’s past. It was comforting and reassuring, and Giselle almost wished she were not going away tomorrow. From her chair, she could see the sign outside that hung over the door, and that told people this was The Music House of: Felix Klein, Music lessons by appointment, musical instruments and sheet music sold and bought. Hours of business: 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.
A little flurry of wind blew on the streetlamps and the sign creaked slightly. The fire in the room flared up as if something outside had huffed its breath down into the chimney. It was ridiculous to suddenly feel that the room and some of the people in it might no longer be safe.
Giselle liked train journeys, and she would like this one. You did not often see ladies travelling alone, so it was possible that people might speculate as to who she was and where she was going. She would be a mysterious lady, keeping a romantic and illicit assignation. Or she might be a foreign aristocrat fleeing from some nameless menace – no, that was not a good image to seek; in fact it was a very tasteless idea altogether, with all those poor souls in Czechoslovakia being dispossessed of their homes on account of Herr Hitler laying his greedy hands on the country. Giselle would stay with the illicit love affair idea.
It would be good to see Silke again, and meet the man she was finally going to marry. Giselle hoped the marriage would turn out well, because Silke had been quite a lively girl over the years. There had been several adventures – some of which Aunt Friede and Uncle Avram had known about, but some which they had never so much as suspected. And there had been one man in particular … Giselle knew perfectly well that Silke had never got over that, and that probably she never would, but there was nothing that could be done about it.
The train rattled cheerfully along. Giselle had brought a notebook, because she thought she might keep a journal of the trip, like one of the nineteenth-century ladies who recorded their travels for posterity, confiding all manner of scandalous experiences to the pages. She would not have any scandalous experiences, of course, but if she did, she would not record any of them, because Felix might read the journal, and he was apt to get quite jealous over the most trivial of flirtations. He had got in quite a fluster about dear old Eisler once, because he had seen Eisler give Giselle a kiss on her birthday. Giselle had told him there was nothing to worry about, because the wife of the second violinist in Felix’s orchestra had once had a brief affair with Eisler, and had reported to Giselle that Eisler could not achieve a crescendo worth mentioning. This, said the violinist’s wife, crossly, was the trouble with dedicated musicians; they were apt to pour their passions into their music, leaving nothing to spare for their wives and lovers.
‘I didn’t tell her that wasn’t a criticism that could be levelled at you,’ Giselle had said to Felix, who was laughing. ‘I didn’t want to sound smug.’
She stopped thinking about Felix, and instead contemplated, with pleasure, her costume for the wedding. It was green shantung, with a clinging waistline and it had cost far more than Giselle could really justify, so there had been no need to tell Felix the exact cost. But there would be a great many smart and prosperous people at Silke’s wedding, and Giselle was not going to have the family eyeing her disparagingly, or snarky aunts telling one another that poorest Giselle looked very down-at-heel, but what could you expect, with the silly girl marrying a penniless musician.
The train bumbled cheerfully along, and Giselle made a few notes about the scenery. Here was Brandenburg, considerably more citified than she had expected, but still with glimpses of its medieval past. She recorded this, adding a couple of sentences about how Bach had presented bound manuscripts of his marvellous Brandenburg Concertos to the Margrave of Brandenburg – and how the Margrave, miserable old miser, had never paid Bach. Reading this over made her feel pleasantly scholarly. She would make sure Felix saw that part.
It was infuriating when Velda’s gloomy prognostications turned out to be right, and six or eight Schutzstaffel men boarded the train at the next station. It was even more infuriating that Velda had also been right when she said they demanded to see papers and identification. They worked their way along the train, and when they reached Giselle’s compartment, she assumed her best aristocratic air, and languidly handed over the requisite documents. The SS man looked at them coldly, then handed them back, with a curt word of thanks. He might be regarded as good-looking if it had not been for his eyes, which were frosty. Stefan and Christa had been right to talk about skewer eyes.
But the SS man asked, equably enough, about her journey, and Giselle said she was travelling to Salzkotten to attend a cousin’s wedding. There seemed no reason not to give Silke’s name, which was information that anyone could easily find, although it was slightly disconcerting to see it written down. Giselle was relieved when the Schutzstaffel left the train at the next station and got into several jeeps that were waiting for them. The jeeps drove away with a lot of engine-revving and unnecessary spinning of tyres, and the train trundled on its way again.
Silke had promised that if she could not be at the station to meet Giselle, someone would be waiting for her, but when the train chugged in, the platform was deserted. Still, Giselle could easily hop on a tram that would take her to the end of Silke’s road, within a few steps of the house. A porter wandered up and helped carry her case to the tram stop.
It was nice to be coming here again. Giselle pressed eagerly against the window as the tram rattled along, so as not to miss the familiar landmarks. Here was the park where the Hederauenfest was usually held. She and Silke used to go to that if they could – it was marvellous mix of music and market stalls and specially written one-act plays, and interesting people. They had met two boys there one year, and Aunt Friede had been furious when they were late getting home, and even more furious to see that Giselle’s lipstick was smudged, and Silke’s blouse was wrongly buttoned up.
Giselle smiled at these memories, which, at a distance of years, seemed almost innocent, then looked across at the other window. The frivolous thoughts vanished at once, because in the distance was the grim outline of Wewelsburg Castle. She and Silke used to make up stories about it: how ogres might live inside it, or prisoners be kept chained in its depths for numberless years. All nonsense, of course …
Even so, the castle was a place, in which any number of macabre Grand Guignol atrocities might have taken place. Silke had said it was rumoured that Heinrich Himmler had acquired it and was intending to turn it into some kind of cultural centre for SS officers. They were bringing in political prisoners from the nearby Sachsenhausen camp to work on the remodelling, said Silke, which scarcely bore thinking about, because Herr Himmler would be a cruel overmaster. As for the cultural centre, Silke did not believe it would ever materialize. Giselle, who had once seen Herr Himmler at a rally, and who did not think he would know culture if it smacked him in the face, did not think so either.
She reached for her notebook. The tram journey would only be a short one, but there were several stops along the way, so she could scribble a note to Felix to let him know she had arrived.
There were SS men on the train, and the officer who came into my carriage had the coldest eyes I have ever seen. He was wearing one of Herr Himmler’s death’s head rings – all grinning skull and runic symbols and cold-looking silver. I remembered how it’s strictly forbidden for those rings to be bought or sold, and how they must never fall into the hands of anyone not entitled to wea
r them, so I thought the SS man must be quite a high-ranking officer, and I was polite and very nearly demure.
We’ve just trundled past Wewelsburg Castle. It’s like a crouching nightmare, that place. If anyone were to write music about it, it would be the kind of music that’s filled with menace. Sonorous and with a feeling of approaching danger. Mussorgsky’s Night on Bald Mountain, perhaps, or Mars from Holst’s Planet Suite.
Even from the road you can see the stone walls, and visualize dank underground rooms … I think that once, people were left in those rooms and forgotten, and I think more people might be left there in the future and they’ll be forgotten, too.
Are you smiling as you read all that? Thinking, ‘She is so dramatic always, that Giselle.’ But I’m only really dramatic for you, Felix, my love, because you’re the only one who understands.
The tram’s just approaching Silke’s road, so I’ll seal this up, and coax an envelope and a stamp from somebody.
Very much love.
She did not sign it; she put their private symbol which was the mark known in music as the ghost note. Felix had once tried to explain this command to her, and Giselle had laughed, and said whatever it meant to musicians, she would always be the ghost note in his life and in the children’s, because she would always be around. Even though they might not actually see her, she would be close to them, so they had always better behave. Since then she had used it as a signature, even if it was just a note saying she would be late back from shopping, or to ask Christa to switch on the stove to heat their supper.
SEVEN
The wide, tree-lined avenue where Silke’s family lived was in quite a prosperous part of Salzkotten, because Silke’s parents were quite prosperous.
‘My father buys and sells and loans everything and anything – including money – and he always makes a profit,’ Silke once said, and Giselle had never been able to decide if Silke meant this admiringly or even affectionately, or if she was being disparaging.
As Giselle got down from the tram, and set off along the street, she was already imagining the turmoil that would greet her. Family would be calling at the house, rabbis would be discussing last-minute details … Caterers and florists and dressmakers would be delivering satin-striped boxes. And Silke would be at the centre, loving the fuss and the attention.
The gates were partly open, but the big double doors at the house’s centre were closed. No cars or vans were visible, but across one smooth lawn were tyre tracks – tracks that had gouged such deep ruts in the grass that only a very heavy vehicle could have made them. Giselle felt a stab of unease at this, because the lawns were mowed and practically manicured all year round.
She began to walk slowly towards the house, but the nearer she got, the more her unease deepened. There was something very wrong. It was not just that evidence of a large vehicle – several vehicles? – having been driven across the grass; there was something sinister. She took several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Nothing would be wrong. At any minute Silke or her mother would come running out of the house, laughing, telling some story about a disaster, holding out hands of welcome.
As she approached the house, she kept to the narrow grass edges, so as not to make crunching footsteps on the gravel paths that might be heard. This was absurd, and in another minute her mind would start working again, and she would know what seemed to be so dreadfully wrong.
And then she did know. Across the front door, drawn in thick yellow paint, was a symbol that had been part of Giselle’s life for as long as she could remember. A symbol that was in synagogues and houses – a symbol that came down from medieval Arabic literature, from the days when it had been used in talismans and protective amulets, and that once had been known as a Seal of Solomon … A familiar and ancient outline that illuminated the marvellous sacred manuscripts of the Jewish faith.
But it was also a symbol that the Nazis had seized on with brutal greed, and that they painted with vicious hatred on the doors of Jewish families and Jewish businesses after they had dragged them away to the labour camps. Then, the mark was as damning as the red cross on a plague house or the brand on a murderer’s forehead, and the sight of it was as chilling and as frightening as the chime of a leper’s bell in the night.
The Star of David.
The Schutzstaffel had broken into the house.
Fear and horror engulfed Giselle in a sick, smothering wave; then she began to run across the last few yards towards the house, dropping her suitcase, not noticing she had done so. A voice close to her was repeating, ‘Please let them be all right – please let them all be safe,’ and she realized with a shock that it was her own voice.
But even from here, she could see that beneath the crudely painted hexagram were the words, Die Juden sind unser Unglück! ‘The Jews Are Our Misfortune!’
It might still be all right. They might still be in there – Silke with her mischievous grin and her warm charm might be perfectly safe. Silke’s mother, who was a plumper, softer version of Silke, would surely be unscathed. As for Uncle Avram – it was impossible to think of him being cowed by anyone, even the Schutzstaffel.
Giselle stumbled breathlessly across the last couple of yards, and half fell through the unlocked door. The familiar scents of the house came at her instantly; polish and potpourri, with beneath it a faint drift of food, because Aunt Friede would have been overseeing the preparations of all the traditional dishes. Silke had written that the menu was going to be so lavish, she would probably put on at least five kilos and people would start nicknaming her Dumpling or Pudding Face.
The square hall with the black-and-white chequered floor was silent, but a small table had been overturned, and a vase of flowers lay in fragments, amidst spilled water. Through the open dining-room door a caterer’s trestle table was partly laid with white damask and gleaming silver for the wedding breakfast.
Giselle opened the doors into all the other rooms, doing so tentatively, not knowing what she might find. But they were all empty, although there were traces of disturbance everywhere: overturned chairs, mirrors smashed, rugs ruckled.
In Uncle Avram’s study there was a stench of burning, and the fireplace was crammed with a tumble of books, charred and burned beyond recognition. Giselle stared at this with anger and pain, then went back to the hall. If she walked out of the house now, she could retrieve her suitcase, and get a tram to the railway station. She could be back with Felix and the children by this evening.
But first she must find out what had happened to Silke and to her aunt and uncle. She climbed slowly up the wide sweep of stairs. Silke’s bedroom was ahead, and Giselle went inside fearfully. The room was undisturbed, and she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to think what to do. Who did you go to if you wanted to find out whether your cousin had been taken away to a labour camp? Could she get a telephone call through to Felix? No, she could not do that, because he would be worried to death to think of her in this situation. Had Silke been worried about Giselle arriving and finding this desolate emptiness?
With this thought, something brushed the surface of her mind. She and Silke had always been close, closer than some sisters, even. They had shared all their secrets – not even Felix knew of some of those secrets. ‘Better not,’ Silke had said.
And now, Giselle had a picture of Silke coming up here to get away from the flurry of the wedding preparations. Lying on the bed with a book for an hour, perhaps? Whatever she had been doing, she would have heard the jeeps roar across the drive, and looked through the window to see what was happening.
There would have been no time for her to run away, and in any case she would not have abandoned her parents. But she had known Giselle would shortly arrive – was it possible she had had time to leave a clue? Giselle had a sudden strong sense of Silke wanting to let her know what had happened and where they were being taken. But what kind of clue could she have left in those last frantic moments? She stared round the room. There was a big wardrobe against the wall
with Silke’s clothes inside, all on hangers. Nothing in there. The dressing table had only its usual slight untidiness – boxes of face powder, scent bottles, hairbrushes. The drawers contained a froth of under-things and silk stockings.
But on the bedside table was a small reading lamp, a little clock, and the book Silke had been reading with the bookmark still in it …
Giselle snatched the book up, and opened it at the marked place. The bookmark was an embroidered one, silk tasselled, and scribbled across the top was a single word.
Sachsenhausen.
Sachsenhausen. Something hard and cold closed around Giselle’s throat. Sachsenhausen was the labour camp that lay almost in the shadow of Wewelsburg Castle. It was the place about which it was whispered that torture was practised, and where brutal executions of political prisoners took place. But before she could think any more, downstairs in the main hall a door opened, and footsteps crossed the hall. As she thrust the bookmark with its telltale writing back on the table, the footsteps came up the stairs. They were sharp steps, like steel claws on the ground, and Giselle shrank back on the bed, staring with panic at the door.
Dust motes whirled in and out of the light spilling into the room from the big landing, and then a tall, black-clad figure stood in the doorway looking at her. One hand rested on the door handle, and even through the sick panic, Giselle saw the dull glint of the death’s head ring.
The voice she remembered from the train said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
It was infuriating to be so powerless and so feeble that he could twist her hands behind her back, and tie them together with cold efficiency. His fingers felt as if the bones were steel.
Giselle swore and kicked out, feeling a savage satisfaction when he winced. But already there were sounds of other SS men downstairs, and she wanted to weep with frustration and fear. She did not, though. She clung to the anger because she would not let these men see how terrified she was.
