Katrine never begrudged Annaliese’s successes over hers, something Louisa found odd.
“How does Katrine feel about you having won that role over her?” Louisa asked when the girls were fourteen and Annaliese was chosen for the lead in a Bonn production of Hansel and Gretel.
“She’s happy for me,” Annaliese answered.
Her mother had murmured something about how ridiculous it was for Katrine’s grandparents to have spent all that money on lessons if the girl didn’t care whether she won a part or not.
“But she did want that role,” Annaliese had insisted. “She did want it. That doesn’t mean she’s not happy that I got it. I would’ve been happy for her if she got the role instead of me.”
That same year, Germany invaded Poland, and two days later England and France responded by declaring war. Annaliese was unsure what those events meant; it didn’t feel like Germany was at war, but she could tell that her father was suddenly very worried about the future. She overheard a hushed conversation between her parents in which her father declared that the new president, Adolf Hitler, didn’t like the rich. His Nazi political party, which was gaining ground in terms of popularity, influence, and power, consisted mainly of lower- and middle-class individuals with a bone to pick with the wealthy. It would be prudent for a banker like himself to keep a low profile. Annaliese had heard of the Nazi attack on Jews in Munich the year before—anyone in earshot of a radio had heard about the Night of Broken Glass, when hundreds of Jewish homes, businesses, and synagogues were destroyed or set on fire. She knew the word Nazi was a word to fear if you were Jewish. Her father’s concern about their own welfare had surprised her.
A month later, in October, Madame said there would be no more lessons for a while, and Annaliese and Katrine had cried when they said good-bye. They only lived twenty-seven kilometers from each other, but tensions were tight between Belgium and Germany. Louisa insisted there would be no more visits to Katrine’s house either, nor would she allow Katrine to come visit Annaliese.
“I will write to you!” Katrine said as her grandfather drove away from the studio on the last day of class. With tears in her eyes, Annaliese promised to write back.
The months went by as the girls wrote their letters and the Nazi regime continued its march across Europe, gobbling nations. In the span of just two weeks in the spring of 1940, Holland, Belgium, and Norway all surrendered to Germany. And on the fourteenth of June, German forces entered Paris.
There would be no more letters from Katrine, even though much of German-speaking Belgium was reannexed to Germany. Gunter and Louisa didn’t allow Annaliese to maintain contact with Katrine for fear of arousing suspicions that they were sympathetic to the Belgians’ plight. Annaliese could only hope that the war would be over soon and she and Katrine could go back to the way things were.
Annaliese’s parents were on edge sitting in what had been a quiet town near the Belgian border. Gunter made inquiries among his colleagues in Bonn and learned of an opening as the chief accountant at a large industrial company. Louisa bristled at the thought of leaving the prestige of the bank in Prüm for an office in a factory, but Gunter assured her the position would pay him nearly as much. The difference was he would seem more of a sympathizer to the Nazi Party’s ideals rather than an elitist outsider who had no compassion for the common man.
“We have to appear to be more than just compliant,” he’d said. “We have to look like we’re supportive.”
Annaliese hadn’t wanted to move; she liked Prüm, and she liked the idea that Katrine was close, even though she was allowed no contact with her. But her father accepted the job and they took just what they needed from the house in Prüm, leaving most of its furnishings covered in bedsheets, and settled into a furnished flat in Bonn. Annaliese would have found the entire situation intolerable except for the fact that in Bonn, ballet lessons were still being given at various studios throughout the city. Louisa enrolled Annaliese in lessons and it was at the barre that Annaliese could forget that the whole world seemed to be at war.
Three years later, in the spring of 1943, and just days after Annaliese celebrated her eighteenth birthday, she won the lead role in a production of Sleeping Beauty. Despite the Allied bombings over Berlin, Hamburg, and even nearby Cologne, the ballet companies still performed, concerts were still held, galleries were still open. The Reich Ministry for Public Enlightenment and Propaganda contained a division devoted to art, music, and theater. Control and manipulation of the fine arts was a part of the reshaping of culture as much as the removal of the Jews. Cologne’s residents continued to flee to safer places, but tens of thousands still lived in both the damaged and undamaged parts of the city.
Annaliese didn’t care about any of that. She only wanted to dance and take her mind off how much she missed Katrine’s friendship and the carefree days of their youth.
For her, ballet was an escape, a retreat from reality. When she danced, she put her heart and soul into every movement, drawing from deep within remembrances of life at a simpler time, when she and Katrine would practice in toe shoes and braid each other’s hair and giggle about boys.
She performed on opening night to a decent-sized audience, but the number of filled seats didn’t interest her. Only the swell of the orchestra, the shimmer of the lights, the sheen of the ribbons that crisscrossed her ankles, and the movement of her body mattered to her.
Annaliese danced with exquisite grace that evening, completely unaware that in the third row, a Nazi named Rolf Kurtz sat enthralled with her performance. He was the son of a highly placed ministry official who was following along in his father’s footsteps. He had come to the ballet to report on its cultural contributions—or lack thereof—to the Third Reich’s new world order.
When the performance concluded, he turned to his assistant, a ferrety wisp of a man, and said, “I want to meet the ballerina. Make it happen.”
Pleased to have played a part in impressing a ministry official, the stage manager escorted Herr Kurtz backstage to meet Annaliese. She had just changed into street clothes, and her parents were in her dressing room with her, telling her how wonderfully she had danced, when a knock sounded.
“Annaliese, this is Herr Kurtz from the Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda,” the stage manager said when she opened the door. “He enjoyed your performance tonight and wished to meet you.” Annaliese could only stare back in stunned amazement. No one had ever come backstage to meet her before. The man stepped into the room and held out his hand.
“Fräulein Lange, it’s a pleasure to meet you.”
She hesitated a second before taking his hand. He pulled hers to his lips and kissed it. A tremor of delight coursed through her.
He was of average height, in his mid- to late twenties, she thought, with an angular build, penetrating blue eyes, and wavy blond hair that had been slicked into submission.
“Thank you for coming to the show, Herr Kurtz,” she said.
“Please, call me Rolf.”
Annaliese withdrew her hand, smiled, and said nothing. Her heart had begun to beat a little faster at his flattering words and the charming style with which he’d uttered them.
“You dance like an angel, Annaliese. May I call you Annaliese?”
She glanced at her father, but his tight gaze was on Rolf Kurtz, a nervous smile plastered to his face. It was obvious to Annaliese that her father’s heart was beating faster, too. “Thank you, mein Herr,” she replied.
“Rolf, please. I would like very much to take you out to dinner, Fräulein. The skies are beautiful and quiet tonight.” He referred to Allied bombing, which hadn’t taken place in force over Cologne since February. “That is, if it is all right with your parents.”
Equal parts amazement and trepidation somersaulted inside her. The man was a Nazi Party official and here he was, resplendent in his uniform, asking her to dinner.
&n
bsp; Her father nodded, wide-eyed, and said, “Of course, mein Herr.” Annaliese could not tell if he was pleased or perplexed.
“I promise to have her home at a decent hour,” Rolf said with a laugh, as he took Annaliese’s arm to lead her to the stage door. “Even angels need their rest.”
Annaliese had not been out to dinner with a man before. Her experience with the opposite sex had consisted of what she had seen in romantic movies at the cinema with Katrine, secret high school infatuations, and practicing the art of kissing on her bed pillow. She didn’t know what to say to Rolf as his driver took them to a restaurant—the assistant had been summarily dismissed—and she was grateful that he carried the conversation, not just in the car but at the restaurant, too. He seemed quite at ease being in complete control, and content to talk about himself when he wasn’t asking her questions about her so that he “could get to know her better.”
He was keenly interested in all her answers, especially when he asked her how many boyfriends a beautiful girl like her had had and she’d replied—red-faced, she knew—that she’d had none. He grinned at her and jokingly accused her of lying to him.
“I haven’t had a boyfriend!” She attempted a playful tone. “There have been boys I liked, but they were never . . . I never let them know I liked them.”
Rolf’s grin widened and he leaned forward. “So. There were boys you liked, then? Who were they?”
His continued interest thrilled her. “Just boys at school. No one special.”
“You’ve never been with a man, then?” he murmured.
Annaliese was poised to take a bite of food and her hand holding the fork froze. Words failed her as fresh heat rose to her cheeks. Rolf Kurtz was still smiling congenially but there was a hardness in his eyes, as though he was prepared at that very moment to execute whoever might have robbed Annaliese of her innocence. That look both scared and mesmerized her and she could not speak.
After a moment he cocked his head and nodded; a happy nod. “I can see by your face that you have not, my dear. You really are an angel, aren’t you?”
“I . . . I am just me,” she finally said.
“And a delightful one at that.” He raised his wineglass as if to toast her beauty, talent, and poise, but Annaliese would realize much later that he was congratulating himself for having found her.
RMS QUEEN MARY
SIXTY KILOMETERS OFF THE COAST OF IRELAND
OCTOBER 1942
The helmsman zigs the bow toward the sun one moment and then zags it away the next. Over and over, he does this. “We are being hunted,” the captain says. Fear and dread are as thick as mist. Thousands of soldiers crowd the decks like anxious schoolboys, always looking out over the water.
An escort ship that sails in our wake hovers close. I see what will happen before anyone else and I can do nothing to stop it. The escort is too near, the zigzagging is too abrupt.
I hear the cries, the shouts, and the long moans of the escort cruiser being ripped in two. Our helmsman has driven us like a spear into the other ship. Everyone on the bridge is scrambling or shouting or cursing. I can only hover over them to see what they will do.
There is blood and oil in the water and those who felt the collision are running to the decks to see what has happened. “Have we been torpedoed?” one man asks. He is so young; he is but a boy. “No,” says another. “We hit the Curacoa.”
Men are streaming to the railings, and their mouths drop open when they see the riven escort ship spilling her contents into the sea. Our captain has not given the order to stop, to turn about, to pull up the living from the debris or the dead before they sink. He mustn’t stop. Enemy submarines are looking for the Queen, they are searching for her, he says. His orders are to continue. His hand trembles as he motions to the men at the instruments to hold steady the forward course.
“Why aren’t we stopping?” yells a soldier at the railing. “We can’t,” says another. “Orders.”
Lost souls are calling out as we sail past them, and with all the force I can muster I bid whoever is willing to come join me.
I will do what the captain will not.
Fourteen
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA
PRESENT DAY
Brette used the fifteen minutes Trevor Prescott needed to drive from Solana Beach to her Carmel Valley condo to tidy up the living room, run a brush through her hair, and put on a pot of decaf. Wine was for intimate conversation between close friends; coffee was the better choice for two acquaintances who hadn’t seen each other in more than a decade. While the coffeemaker sputtered and dripped, Brette used her phone to Google the RMS Queen Mary coupled with ghost sightings and was surprised by the number of results. She had barely glanced at the first batch of hits when the doorbell rang. She stopped at the hall mirror for one last look at herself. Keith had always said that her splash of freckles made him smile, and her pixie haircut framed her face perfectly. She had worn her hair long in high school. As she reached for the doorknob, she idly wondered if her old high school classmate would remember that.
She swung the door wide and the man standing on her welcome mat smiled.
Trevor looked relatively unchanged. Underneath the conservative haircut, the fifteen or so extra pounds, and the Oxford button-down shirt was the same man from high school. The only discernible difference was that his youthful charm had been replaced with a more mature bearing, and there was a lingering sorrow in his mocha-brown eyes that had not been there all those years ago.
“Brette,” he said as he stepped in. He leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. “You look great,” he said warmly. Believably.
“Come inside,” she said. “We can sit in the living room. I’ve made some decaf if you’d like a cup.”
“That sounds great.” He smiled appreciatively. It was clear he was already banking on her coming to his rescue when all she’d said was that he could come over and they’d talk.
When she came back into the living room a few minutes later with mugs, Trevor was standing at the fireplace, looking at her wedding portrait.
“Beautiful photo. What’s his name?”
Brette set the mugs down on the coffee table and took a seat in an armchair. “Keith. He works for a biotech firm. He’s in Chicago this week. I’m sorry you missed him.”
Trevor turned away from the photograph. The sadness in his facial features had subtly intensified.
“I’m sorry, too.” He sat down on the sofa across from her. “And where are you working these days?”
“I’m an admissions counselor at a hospital. You?”
“Sales. Electrical components. I’m based out of Austin. I was in LA for a long while, though.”
“Oh.”
He reached for his cup and sipped from it. “No kids?” he said when he set the mug back down.
“No. We’ve, uh, only been married two years. So. You know.”
He reached into his pocket and pulled out his cell phone. He swiped the screen and handed the phone across the coffee table. A cherub-faced little girl with sunny-blond curls smiled at Brette.
“That’s Emily,” he said.
“She’s adorable.” Brette handed the phone back.
“Spitting image of her mother,” Trevor said, a tight smile on his face.
“I’m so very sorry, Trevor.”
He nodded and silently slipped the phone back inside his coat pocket. “We had just sold our house in Los Angeles and were getting ready to move to Texas when it happened. A guy in a truck going sixty fell asleep at the wheel. Caused a four-car pileup on the 405. Laura was the only one who didn’t survive. The coroner didn’t think she suffered, though. She was already gone when the first responders got there.” He blinked back the threat of tears.
Emotion gathered at the back of Brette’s throat. “I really am so very sorry. I can’t imagine what it must have b
een like.”
“It was getting better for Emily and me. Time had been helping,” Trevor said with a tender shrug. “We eventually made the move anyway and I started the new job a few months late. My mother thinks maybe I should have found a way to stay in LA, but I honestly thought the change would help Emily. I worried that if she was constantly around places that reminded her of Laura, it would be too difficult. And she was . . . she was starting to come around, I think, but then we came out here to visit my mother before school started up and we visited the Queen Mary. Emily thinks she heard Laura speak her name and felt her arms around her while we were on the ship. I didn’t know the Queen Mary is rumored to be crawling with ghosts. I just decided to take my mom and Emily to see the Princess Diana exhibit and then have lunch. I’ve never been okay with the idea of ghosts, to tell you the truth. The idea that they could be real freaks me out a little.”
Brette stiffened slightly. “Yes. I remember that about you.”
He had been staring into his coffee cup, but now he raised his head to look at her. “Hey. I’ve always felt bad about how we all treated you. I didn’t know what to say to you after Kimberly said what she did.”
“You wouldn’t even look at me after that day.”
“I was an ass. I’m sorry. The whole thing just took me by surprise. You had always seemed to be the one person in school who wasn’t putting on a show. You know, you were authentic, down-to-earth, normal. You were different from everyone else in my group of friends, but in a good way. But then—”
“But then you found out my little secret and you realized just how truly different I was.” The collective rejection of her high school peers still hurt, she realized. They had shunned her for something she’d had no control over, and it still stung.
“Like I said. I was an ass. I was young and stupid. I didn’t know what to make of what Kimberly had said. I thought maybe you were . . .”
A Bridge Across the Ocean Page 10
