by Sarah Rayne
Giselle, listening to the whispers, understood it meant that for that short time – perhaps no more than an hour – Christa would be outside. But would the women from Giselle’s own hut be taken out to the Appellplatz? She waited and listened, and it began to be whispered that they would. It was good for the women to see how their own kind were dealt with when they committed a crime.
Giselle immediately began to put her plan into action. In the guards’ hearing, she started to talk about von Braxen, making it sound as if she had known him very intimately indeed. It was unlikely that anyone would believe von Braxen had actually had a liaison with a Jewish female – it sounded as if he was far too deeply committed to Hitler’s anti-Jewish pogrom. It did not matter. They would regard Giselle as a fantasist, but that would make her actions believable.
As the day of the execution approached, she stepped up her talk, making it wilder and louder. Several times she railed against the creature who had killed the man she had loved.
‘It was two years ago – perhaps even longer,’ she said, several times. ‘But I have never ceased to think of him. If it had been a hundred years, I would still remember him.’
She was sure the guards heard her, and she thought there was a good chance that they would report what she had said to senior officers. Gossip was rife in Sachsenhausen, and every shred of information, no matter how mad or fantastic, was passed on. To make sure, she began to sketch in a few slightly more salacious details. Sex usually attracted people’s attention. With that in mind, she made von Braxen sound like a mixture of Casanova and Rudolph Valentino, although if von Braxen had raped her beloved Christa, Giselle would prefer to think of him as the twelfth-century Peter Abelard, whose eventual fate had been castration.
Two nights before the execution, she told two of the women in her hut what she was going to do.
‘You don’t need to be involved if you’d rather not,’ she said. ‘And I know you won’t betray me to the guards. But if I do what I’m hoping, will you keep Christa here?’
There was a bad moment when she thought they would refuse, because punishments for any kind of secret plotting were harsh and usually fatal. But then one of them reached for her hand, and she saw the other was crying, and they both said, ‘We’ll do it. Of course we’ll do it.’
‘It’s the maddest thing I’ve ever heard of,’ said the older of the two. ‘I don’t know if it will work, but I understand why you have to try.’
‘We’ll be with you all along,’ said the woman who was crying. ‘And if you succeed, we’ll keep your girl safe.’
Giselle cried as well then.
It was raining when the prisoners were ordered to the Appellplatz. Giselle welcomed this, because rain blurred things. She had lain awake for the entire night, going over and over what she intended to do, praying to whatever powers might be listening that she would have the courage to go through with it.
Once in the Appellplatz, she sensed very strongly the anger against what was being done. There were about a hundred prisoners, and they were all too frightened and too cowed to do anything, but they saw this parading of the victim ahead of execution as cruelty taken to the extreme. It was a show of power, of course; the commandant was showing the inmates of the camp what was going to happen to the one who had killed Freiherr von Braxen. The might and the vengeance of the Third Reich were being demonstrated.
Giselle had managed to stand on the edge of the line, hunching her shoulders, not looking at anyone, but keeping her eyes on the guards who would bring Christa out at any minute. There was a large contingent of guards, of course, because so many of the inmates were assembled. She risked a glance towards them. Yes, they were all there. Curiously, a woman was standing with them – a thin, square-shouldered woman with stern, hard features. One of the female guards? – no, she was not in uniform. It did not matter.
Giselle’s plan now hinged on whether Christa had been forced to wear the shapeless Sachsenhausen garb, which Giselle had had to wear since being brought here. If Christa were not wearing it, the plan would certainly not work. Her heart began to thump with fear and apprehension.
But when Christa was brought out, Giselle saw at once she was wearing it. She was pale and hollow-eyed, her hair was tousled and unkempt, and she had already acquired the dreadful hopeless anonymous look of most of the prisoners in there. Seeing this drove a fresh knife into Giselle, but she clung to the fact that – like this – Christa could have been any age.
Hideous doubts were flooding her mind now, because it was mad in the extreme to believe a woman of thirty-seven could pass for a girl who was barely seventeen – could switch places with her and get away with it. But this was not a normal situation. Giselle was thin after the sparse rations of Sachsenhausen, her face waiflike. Her hair was ragged and unkempt, and she thought that in a curious way it all made her look very much younger. She put up her hand as unobtrusively as she could to ruffle her own hair into the same outline as Christa’s, and she clung to the knowledge that, although the guards knew her, hardly any of them would know Christa. Only two or three of them would have been guarding her and, in any case, she had only been here for a week. It will work, thought Giselle, clenching her fists. I’ll make it work.
She waited for what would be the moment when the guards were looking at the prisoner, when their attention, however briefly, was not fully on the assembled prisoners. Now? No, wait another minute or two – let them start scanning the rows of prisoners to make sure everything was orderly; they always did that at any kind of mass gathering … They were doing so now – the thin, hard-faced woman was looking about her as well, as if wanting to claim a place alongside the guards. Was this the moment? Yes …
Giselle broke away from the line, and ran with all her power across the courtyard. With every step she expected to hear gunshot and feel bullets tear into her, but people were shouting and some of the prisoners had surged forward – was that her two good friends creating a diversion? – and she reached Christa unchecked. Christa turned, startled, and shocked recognition flared in her eyes. Giselle shouted, ‘You’re the one who killed my love!’ and seized Christa, clutching her hard and pushing her to the ground.
‘It’s an escape,’ she gasped, pulling Christa’s face close to hers. ‘When the guards grab us, I’m taking your place. You run back to the women behind us – they’re waiting – they know. You take my place.’
She thought Christa said, ‘No—’
‘Yes!’ They rolled over together on the ground, as if struggling. ‘Fight me,’ hissed Giselle. ‘We need to change places. But, oh Christa, never forget I love you.’
She was aware that the guards were all round them by this time, their rifles were raised, waiting for the order to fire. Giselle expected to hear it at any second, but an authoritative voice was rapping out a command.
‘Don’t shoot. The bitch who murdered the Baron von Braxen is to be saved for full execution.’
Giselle broke free then, and cowered back. Christa stood over her, and she heard, unmistakably, Christa saying, ‘I love you too … So much … Thank you …’
The child had understood. She was already turning to run back to the waiting women – Giselle saw her two friends dart forward, and she heard them shouting that she must come back – she must stop this madness. One yelled to the guards that it was only that mad creature Giselle again, and please let them get her back to the hut. They were dear, good friends, and Giselle knew she could trust them. Christa would be all right.
She was still on the ground, curled into a defensive ball, her hands covering her face, and she could sense the presence of the guards all round her. As they pulled her roughly to her feet, she saw a man detach himself from one of the lines of the prisoners, and run towards them.
The isolation cell was the grimmest place in the world, but it did not matter. The wild, impossible plan had succeeded, and even if Christa had to spend the rest of the war in Sachsenhausen, she was still alive.
And then th
e door was unlocked and two guards thrust into the cell the man Giselle had glimpsed running forward as she and Christa fought. He half fell against the wall, and they banged the door shut, turning the key in the lock. Giselle, huddled on the narrow pallet, stared at him, not believing, not wanting to believe, and yet if only it could be …
As the man sat up, she saw that it was Felix.
The isolation cell was still the grimmest place in the world, but to have Felix’s arms around her was the sweetest thing Giselle had ever known.
‘It’s agony to know you’re here,’ she said. ‘But even so—’
‘It’s agony to know you’re here, as well,’ he said, holding her against him in the never-forgotten way. ‘I think it’s the Gestapo’s last cruel twist. I’m to face the firing squad in the morning, and they wanted to – I suppose to turn the screw a bit by putting me with the girl they believed to be my daughter.’ He regarded her. ‘That was the maddest thing you ever did,’ he said.
‘I know. But it worked. What you did was even madder.’
‘I had no plan at all,’ said Felix. ‘I just wanted to snatch her away from them. Create a diversion, maybe. But I think you’ve saved her.’
‘There’s a good chance. Felix – where’s Stefan? Is he all right?’
‘He’s perfectly all right,’ said Felix at once. ‘He’s with Velda. She’ll look after him.’
‘One agony removed,’ said Giselle, gratefully.
‘Christa killed Brax – did you know that?’
‘Everyone in Sachsenhausen knows it. But Felix, what I shouted across that yard – about von Braxen being my lover—’
‘Was part of your plan,’ he said. ‘I know. You never even met him, did you? No, I thought you hadn’t.’
‘It was all I could think of.’
‘Brax raped Christa,’ said Felix. ‘That’s why she killed him. And I’m glad she did,’ he said, with uncharacteristic anger. ‘We had all trusted him. We believed he was going to take us to freedom …’ He hesitated, then said, ‘There was a Gestapo officer. They told me you had left me to go to him. There was a letter—’
‘Reinhardt,’ said Giselle. ‘He imprisoned me at Wewelsburg. Later, they forced me to write that letter. But there was never anything between us.’ As she said this, she knew it was not a lie, but she also knew it was not quite the truth. What did it matter now, though? She and Felix had only a few hours left.
Felix said, ‘When I saw the ghost note on the letter, somewhere in my heart I was able to hope I hadn’t really lost you.’
‘You never did lose me. You never will. Tell me about Brax,’ said Giselle.
‘Brax – or one of his men – murdered Reinhardt, and set the scene so it looked as if only I or Christa could have killed him. Then Brax got us both away to the Torhaus. But once we were there, he forced me to write music for the Third Reich. As,’ said Felix, ‘I think someone did with you.’
‘You knew about that?’
‘I found the music. I kept feeling I was getting closer to you.’
‘Felix, will Christa be safe?’
‘As safe as anyone can be in this place. She might even get away,’ said Felix. ‘I know hardly anyone escapes from here, but there’s a young man who was with us at the Torhaus – a nephew or a cousin or something of dear old Herr Eisler. Jacob’s his name. He and Christa rather took to one another. He’s a quiet boy, but very determined. I wouldn’t put it past him to stage something.’
‘I’d like to think she might have someone like that working for her in the real world,’ said Giselle. ‘But I’d just like to think she’ll live.’ She leaned against him. ‘We won’t, though, will we? Live, I mean?’
‘No. But I’ll be with you to the last moment,’ said Felix. ‘And it will be very quick indeed.’
‘We might even be making history,’ said Giselle. ‘Through that music, I mean.’
‘I’ll never forget how I felt when I saw the ghost note on the music. I knew it meant you might be quite near – that you might even be still alive.’
Giselle took his face between her hands. ‘Tonight I’m very much alive,’ she said, and began to kiss him.
‘My dear love, this is madness … And the guards could come in at any moment—’
‘I don’t care. And haven’t there been other lovers who spent one last night together – one gaudy night, isn’t that the line? – knowing they would die in the morning? They became little fragments of history, those lovers. Tonight, let’s make our own fragment of history,’ said Giselle, and pulled him down to her.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Phin had been slightly worried about driving to Paderborn and the Torhaus, but when it came to it he managed well enough. As he drove he listened to the Mahler symphony bought in the shop that had once been Felix Klein’s. It seemed appropriate to play it here, in these surroundings, engaged on this astonishing search. His grandfather had said it was a symphony that seemed to be almost a precursor of the Great War that had exploded eight years after it was written; that it was full of driving, relentless, militarist rhythms and mechanistic percussion.
Like the Siegreich? thought Phin. Only I don’t ever want to hear that music. He shivered slightly, and turned up the car’s heating. Had Felix Klein been brought along these roads after that last concert? Had he been frightened – not knowing what might be ahead?
Rain was falling by the time he spotted the turning that led off the main road and along a complexity of secondary roads. There was an occasional break in the trees, through which he glimpsed Wewelsburg Castle, remote and majestic. At least I’m going in the right direction, thought Phin, and saw the small side road that Toby had marked as leading to the Torhaus. Good.
The road was very narrow and uneven. There was certainly not room for two cars to pass if they met, although Phin doubted many cars ever came out here.
Or did they? As he came out into a small clearing, he saw a car parked close against a wall which clearly enclosed a fairly large building. The Torhaus? It must be. High gates were set into the wall, but no house was visible.
Phin glanced towards the parked car, which probably belonged to a pair of lovers, out for a bit of illicit love-making. All the way out here, and in this weather, though? Still, if you were keen enough, and needing to avoid a jealous husband or wife …
But as he drove cautiously towards the gates, he saw that the other car was empty. Might it belong to someone checking the place out – a surveyor or a builder? Someone from a letting agency or a forestry organization? Or, thought Phin, a burglar or potential squatters assessing the possibilities? Squatters did not usually own cars, though. On the other hand, they probably did not jib at stealing one either. He began to wish Toby had come with him after all, and he thought he would take a very brief look at whatever building lay beyond these walls, but that he would keep a wary eye and ear out for burglars or squatters. Or, of course, for any ghosts that might be wandering about, mopping and mowing their way through the rain. This last thought cheered him up. He was, though, starting to think that there would not be anything here to be discovered about Felix Klein or any of the other players in this strange story, and that being so he would soon be bouncing the car back down the uneven track, to civilization.
He was just preparing to get out of the car and try the gates, when his phone buzzed. It was Toby.
‘I’ve just got here,’ said Phin. ‘I think it is the Torhaus, but I haven’t got in yet, although it’s a grim old place from what I can see so far—’
‘Grim away, old boy, there’s great news here,’ said Toby, sounding so enthusiastic that Phin almost expected him to explode through the phone and materialize in the car.
‘What?’
‘Arabella,’ said Toby. ‘She’s in Lindschoen. Actually here and staying at the … Hold on, yes, at the Lindenbaum.’
‘How on earth—?’
‘I’m forwarding you an email she sent to Ottomar Volk here at the bookshop,’ said Toby. ‘That’ll expl
ain everything. What happened is that I got talking to Ottomar while he was looking for the old stuff about the shop. And he said that Tallis was an unusual name, and not one you’d expect to trip over twice in the space of a week. But only two days ago an English lady with that very name had been in his shop. He described her as a vivid lady,’ said Toby, and Phin heard the smile in his voice. ‘And then he said she had emailed him last night, and he would show me the email in case it was a relative. Well, by then I knew,’ said Toby. ‘Because vivid is exactly the word you’d use to describe Arabella, and it would be exactly like her to turn up in the last place you’d expect— Hold on, Ottomar’s forwarded the email to my phone, so I’m forwarding it to you now. Read it, then call me straight back.’
The email came pinging in and Phin closed the connection to Toby, and opened the email.
Dear Ottomar.
Thank you very much for your help in my search for people from my family. It was all extremely useful and interesting.
I’m sorry I lost a contact lens halfway through our discussion, but it was very nice of you to help me find it. I’m also sorry it meant crawling around on the floor for so long – your shop is beautifully clean, by the way. It was unfortunate, as well, that I knocked over your nice arrangement of CDs of some of Beethoven’s symphonies, and I do hope the cheque I posted last night has reached you by now, and that it will cover the replacement, and also the disruption. I think we managed to sweep everything up satisfactorily.
It was very kind of you to take me to lunch after the sweeping-up. I did enjoy that. What beautiful pastries that shop has. I’ve gained pounds and kilos in one day.
If you do turn up anything else about The Music House’s past I would be eternally grateful if you could let me know. It really does look as if my godfather is Felix Klein’s son.
Very best wishes,
