by Sarah Rayne
If you went on to the death strip, you were shot, he used to say, sobbing from out of the bad dreams. Your blood and bones were splattered everywhere.
Christa put this determinedly from her mind and concentrated on reaching the appointed spot. She was starting to feel dreadfully shaky; this was the furthest she had walked since the birth, but that must be ignored. She would collapse when she was outside and free.
She crept forward. Her legs were starting to feel like cotton threads, and with every minute she expected the lights to blaze up, and to hear shouted commands and feel bullets tear into her. How close did she dare get to the death strip? Panic rose again, in a thick, near-choking flood, because supposing she had got it all wrong – supposing she was in the wrong part of the compound?
She could see the wire clearly now. She could see the death strip. Once she stepped on that she would be dreadfully, dangerously close to the wire, and if she touched it at the wrong point it would send a fatal jolt of electricity through her. Would it be better to fry on a wire fence than be shot by a dozen gunmen?
And then something moved in the darkness just beyond the fence, and Christa’s heart leapt again, but this time with hope. Was he there? It must be him. He would not let her down.
‘Christa …’ It was the faintest cobweb of sound, but it reached her, and she knew it was Jacob. She did not dare call back in case her voice was picked up by a nearby guard, but it gave her new strength and she went towards the sound.
The whisper came again. ‘We’ve neutralized part of the wire – it’s still a hell of a risk, but if we go we’ll go together. All right?’
Christa nodded. There was someone with him, apparently. This was reassuring.
And now she was walking on the death strip itself. It felt exactly the same as the rest of the compound, which was unexpected; she had thought it would be different. Harsh, hard, painful.
‘Kneel down as low as you can manage,’ said Jacob’s voice – it was much nearer now. ‘Get flat if you can.’
Christa thought she would burrow into the ground itself if it would get her to safety. She lay flat, ignoring the slight cramping pain in her stomach.
‘Good,’ said Jacob’s voice from the darkness. ‘We’ve loosened the wire, and made a bit of a hollow under it. You have to get through.’
Even though Christa had thought she would happily have burrowed into the ground, she had not realized she might actually have to do so. The cramping pains were increasing, but they had to be ignored. She began to inch her way into the hollow, which she could just about see.
‘Stay clear of the wires,’ said a second voice. Daniel? Yes. ‘They’re probably all right, but don’t take any chances.’
‘Can you see the guards looking towards us?’ That was Jacob again.
‘No, but the quicker the better,’ said Daniel. ‘Christa, you’re halfway there – are you all right?’
‘Yes.’ Christa resolutely bit her lip against the pain that was clenching at her more definitely. She thought she might be bleeding now, but that would have to be ignored, as well.
Sharp footsteps rang out on the compound, and Jacob’s voice said, ‘Freeze.’ Christa put her head down, and stayed motionless. There was the sound of someone calling out – one of the guards saying something about it being almost time for the next ones to come on duty.
‘We’ll be in the village, having a few drinks, within the hour,’ said the second man.
Then nothing.
‘It’s all right, he’s gone,’ said Jacob. ‘And you’re almost there.’
Almost there … Terrified and in pain, and probably bleeding all over the ground, but almost free … Christa gave a sob, and felt Jacob’s hands close around hers, firm and warm and infinitely reassuring.
‘I’ve got you,’ he said, and pulled her the rest of the way through the fence. The ground scraped at her arms and her legs, but she no longer cared. Then Jacob’s arms came around her. ‘I’ve got you,’ he said again. ‘And I don’t think I ever want to let you go.’
‘Please never do,’ said Christa and, to her everlasting annoyance, fainted.
She revived to discover she was in the Torhaus – she only found out a long time afterwards that Jacob and Daniel had carried her there, that they had taken her inside, and bathed her feet, and cleaned her up.
‘There was blood,’ she said, ashamed and embarrassed. ‘I had a child—’
‘We know,’ said Daniel. ‘We heard. That’s why we waited all these months to reach you.’
Jacob said, a touch awkwardly, ‘I think the blood’s stopped. I don’t think there’s any more.’
‘Not uncommon after a birth,’ said Daniel, and Christa remembered gratefully that he had a son.
She said, ‘What now? Aren’t there guards here?’
‘There were, but we neutralized them as well,’ said Daniel.
‘What do you mean?’
‘Once Brax was no longer here,’ said Daniel, ‘the guards weren’t nearly as watchful. And then Elsa left – that was two days ago. We don’t know where she went or why.’
Christa thought: I know why. She’s taken the child – my daughter. A pang sliced through her.
‘And so it was surprisingly easy to catch the guards unawares and knock them out. At the moment,’ said Daniel, ‘they’re lying in their own blood outside that window. No – don’t look.’
‘But we daren’t stay here any longer than absolutely necessary,’ said Jacob. ‘We can’t risk other guards turning up – or Elsa returning.’
Christa, who was starting to feel better, said, ‘What are we going to do then?’
Jacob smiled. ‘It’s all arranged,’ he said.
Christa thought that one of the most extraordinary things about this entire extraordinary experience was to find herself in the back of dear Herr Eisler’s familiar rattletrap car, and to be bouncing over the roads, with Herr Eisler himself at the wheel, Jacob beside him, and Daniel and Ben wedged in the back with her.
‘There is extra petrol in the boot,’ explained Herr Eisler, confidently. ‘It is against somebody’s law to carry petrol in that way, but we say pshaw and pish to laws.’
They had packed as much as they could into the car. Christa had gone into her father’s music room – there were not many of his things there, but there were a few. And there might be the music … As she opened the piano’s lid, her heart had been racing. Probably he really had burned it, but …
But he had not burned it. Both sets of music were there – the copy he had made to fool Brax, and the original – the one with Siegreich written across it, and the familiar ghost note at the foot. Christa held this music to her for a moment. She would take it with her, and if possible, one day send it to Velda for Stefan. She would like him to have that memory of their parents, that small, affectionate ghost note.
‘Is this the copy your father made?’ said Jacob, picking up the other one. ‘He’s put your mother’s name on it. Did you see? Giselle’s Music.’
‘Yes.’
‘Shall I put that in the box, as well?’
‘Let’s leave that here,’ said Christa.
‘For Elsa Frank to find? She’s bound to come back – her things are still in her room; Daniel checked.’
‘Even so, I’d like to leave it,’ said Christa. And thought: because it was written – or at least somehow compiled – by my mother. And one day Elsa might give it to my daughter.
‘What if we’re seen – stopped – questioned?’ asked Christa, as the car careered forward.
Eisler made one of his extravagant gestures. ‘I do not get stopped or questioned,’ he said, grandly. ‘I am known and loved, and I am famous. Today I am with my family, and we are going to a rehearsal of …’ He paused to think, then said, ‘A rehearsal of Wagner’s Tristan.’
‘Hitler’s favourite composer,’ said Christa, smiling for the first time for hours.
‘Indeed. During the Great War, Hitler carried the music of Tristan in his kna
psack. I shall be playing the overture at the rehearsal,’ said Herr Eisler, firmly. ‘I shall play it better than even Paderewski did.’
‘But where are we really going?’ asked Christa.
Herr Eisler half turned to look at her, and beamed.
‘We are going south,’ he said. ‘To Switzerland.’
‘And if the car gives up we’ll walk,’ put in Daniel.
‘I don’t care if we have to walk all the way,’ said Christa.
‘My car will not give up and we will not have to walk.’
THIRTY
Phin’s flat was welcoming and blessedly familiar. Miss Pringle was delighted to see Mr Fox and Mr Tallis again and – oh, and Miss Tallis, as well, how very nice.
‘I’ve kept an eye on both flats,’ she said. ‘And everything is perfectly fine.’
‘Thank you very much,’ said Phin, handing her the lavish box of German Spritzkuchen they had collected en route to the airport from the friendly Konditorei.
Toby contributed a large bottle of Kirsch, and Miss Pringle retired to the garden flat, overcome with gratitude.
Phin flung his case into the bedroom and set the kettle to boil. When he went into the study, Arabella was prowling along the bookshelves. She had donned a large pair of tortoiseshell glasses, which probably meant she had lost her contact lenses again.
‘Marvellous collection,’ she said. ‘Scholarly and solemn, but here and there a glint of frivolity. They say a person’s books reflect his or her personality, don’t they?’
Phin could not think how best to reply, so he simply said, ‘Tea?’
‘Yes, please, and – oh, here’s Toby. Is your flat all right?’
‘Sound as a pound – not that that’s saying much these days. Is that tea you’re making, Phin? Good man. I’ve unpacked the plum cake we got at the Konditorei. It’s travelled quite well.’
Phin, having handed round the cups of tea, propped up Christa’s portrait and studied it.
‘We still don’t know what finally happened to her,’ he said.
‘And we can’t ask Stefan, because we haven’t found out whether she really did kill their mother,’ said Toby, cutting into the plum cake.
‘I suppose the portrait doesn’t have any secrets to yield?’ said Arabella. ‘I mean the frame and the canvas—’ She reached for the painting.
‘Arabella, for God’s sake, you can’t start ripping the backing off!’
‘I’m not,’ said Arabella, with palpable untruth. ‘I’m just easing a bit of it away from the frame. In all the best books there’s often something secreted behind—’
‘There won’t be,’ said Toby.
‘There is,’ said Arabella, peering through the opening she had made. ‘Actually, it looks like a letter.’
It was a letter, and after a few moments, between them, Phin and Arabella managed to translate it.
Dearest Christa,
Here, finally, is the portrait I promised you that night the SS took you away after the death of the evil von Braxen.
For me this painting captures what you really are. Beautiful and good and courageous. I’ve painted in the music, but, as you wanted, I’ve shown the title as Giselle’s Music. I know your father died in Sachsenhausen because of the Siegreich, but I like your idea of remembering both your parents through this small secret memorial – especially since your mother made that extraordinary sacrifice. I shall never forget your story of how she took your place before the firing squad – of how she gave her life for you. Let’s never forget her, Christa, and let’s hope that somewhere in the future, someone might hear her story and that she’ll be remembered.
Daniel
‘So you see, Godfather, Silke got it right, but she also got it very wrong indeed.’
Arabella was curled into one of the comfortably battered chairs in Stefan Cain’s study, and Christa’s portrait was back on the wall in Stefan’s direct sight.
Phin said, ‘Christa was responsible for Giselle’s death, but not in the way Silke understood. Giselle died in her daughter’s stead, and she did so voluntarily.’
‘Silke was always light-minded,’ said Stefan. He was pale and his eyes were very dark, but Phin thought he probably always looked like this, and that it was not due to the recent bang on the head or emotion.
He said, ‘Do you know who von Braxen was?’
‘Oh, yes. We knew him just as Brax in Lindschoen. I can’t remember much, but I think he was what would today be called charismatic. But he manipulated my father and Christa like an evil puppet-master. And when he violated Christa—’
‘We thought it might have been that,’ said Arabella.
‘He terrified her and he assaulted her in the worst possible way,’ said Stefan. ‘That’s why she killed him that same night, and that’s why she was taken to Sachsenhausen. But all I ever knew was that she escaped – a musician friend of my father’s, called Erich Eisler, was part of that. Somehow he and his nephew, Jacob, got her to Switzerland. Once there, she never dared leave. She never really felt safe in the world – she had committed murder, you see.’
‘The murder of a man who had brutally raped her,’ said Arabella, quickly.
‘Yes, but the Nazis didn’t see it like that. Brax was almost a godlike figure to them – he was close to Hitler, and they would have brought Christa to trial if they had found her. I don’t think there was a hunt for her – too many of the Nazis were being hunted themselves in the years after the war – but if it had been known where she was … She believed she would have been hanged. I believed it, as well, and so did Jacob. Dear, kind Jacob. They married in Switzerland. They were very happy together.’
‘I’m glad,’ said Phin, fervently, and Stefan smiled at him.
‘I’m glad as well,’ he said. ‘But Christa kept her distance from almost everyone. And she was always afraid that she could be traced through me. I feared it, as well. I changed my name after the war, and I arranged for the Lindschoen shop to be sold in case it might give someone a lead. But even so—’
‘Even so,’ said Arabella, gently, ‘you weren’t going to risk drawing any more attention to her than you could help. You destroyed anything that might lead to her.’
‘Yes. There were whispers about her, of course. Murmurs of a vicious schoolgirl murderer. These things get out, and usually in a distorted version. But I always knew where she was and she knew where I was. When she died …’ He broke off, and a shadow seemed to pass over his face. ‘When she died,’ he said, ‘Jacob sent me the portrait. He said she had wanted that. He told me she said, “Tell Stefan to see it as the ghost note. He’ll know what I mean. He’ll know it means that even though he might not actually see me, I’ll always be around.”’
For a moment none of them spoke, then Arabella took Stefan’s hand.
Phin said, ‘Yes. She will always be around.’
It was as they were preparing to leave, that Stefan Cain said, ‘Phin – there’s one more thing, isn’t there?’
‘The music,’ said Phin, at once. ‘There’s one copy of it here, and there’s one in my flat in London.’ He glanced at Stefan, then said, carefully, ‘Christa wanted her parents remembered through the music, didn’t she?’
‘Yes. It’s a fragment of history, nothing more, of course, but—’
Phin said, ‘But it would be a small memorial to them all if we preserved it.’ He hesitated, then said, ‘Would you want it performed?’
‘No.’ The response was immediate and definite. ‘It symbolizes the badness – the evil of the Nazis,’ said Stefan.
‘But you’d want it preserved?’
‘Yes.’
‘I would, too,’ said Phin. ‘Some long-ago musician was forced to write that music – maybe tortured to do so. I don’t suppose we’ll ever know who it was, but he – or she – is owed some sort of recognition, even if we don’t have an actual name.’
‘You think it was my father who wrote the Siegreich, don’t you?’
‘Isn’t it possible
?’
‘It’s very unlikely. He was a gifted and a dedicated musician, but he was no composer.’
Phin said, ‘There are university libraries with music departments. They would value the Siegreich for what it is.’ He paused, then said, carefully, ‘But Sachsenhausen has its own museum nowadays. Arabella mentioned it.’
‘Sachsenhausen,’ said Stefan, thoughtfully. ‘The place where they both died – my mother and father.’
‘And perhaps also where the music’s composer died.’
‘I would like to think of the music being there,’ said Stefan, after a moment.
Phin said, very gently, ‘I would like it, too. I’ll see what can be done.’
As he and Arabella drove off, Phin said, ‘There’s only one loose end left, isn’t there?’
‘Margot Mander.’
‘Yes.’
‘She’s awaiting trial for her brother’s murder, isn’t she?’
‘Yes, and I think she’ll be found guilty. But I wonder what might be ahead for her after she’s served her sentence.’
‘More to the point,’ said Arabella, ‘I wonder what’s ahead for us after we reach London this evening.’
Phin glanced at her. She was wearing the tortoiseshell glasses again. He thought it might be with the idea of looking scholarly and serious. It had not quite come off, however.
He concentrated on the road for a moment, then said, ‘We could start with dinner tonight.’
Arabella considered this. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Let’s start with dinner tonight.’
MEMO FROM EDUCATION DEPARTMENT OF HM BRONZEFIELD PRISON, ASHFORD, SURREY.
I’m glad to report that the prisoner, Margot Mander, is adapting well, and has asked to join the recently-started language classes. She expressed a particular interest in learning German – apparently there was a great-aunt or an elderly cousin in her family who was German, and on her release Mander wants to trace the aunt’s background and a house she believes belonged to her.
