The Ring

by Steel, Danielle

  She did not see either man again until the end of the next week. By then she had been locked in the cell in their dungeon for exactly one month. And what she feared most was that her father and Gerhard had been killed. Still, she couldn't accept it She only allowed herself to think of the present moment Of the enemy. And of getting back at them.

  An officer she had never seen before came to get her and dragged her roughly from her cell. He pushed her up the stairs when she stumbled and cursed her when she tripped and fell. She was barely able to walk now, from fatique and hunger and the lack of exercise that left her legs eternally stiff and numb. When she reached Dietrich von Rheinhardt's office, she was a different young woman than the one who had sat there so self-possessed and poised only a month before. Von Rheinhardt stared at her with something akin to revulsion, but beneath the filth and tangles he knew precisely what was there. She was a beautiful young woman, well-bred, intelligent, she would have been an enchanting present to give any man of the Reich. Not for him though, he had other pleasures, other needs. But she would make a handsome gift to someone. He was not sure yet whom.

  He no longer wasted time on the fr+nuleins or on the fancy speeches. She was of no further use to them. And so, I'm afraid you've become useless. A prisoner held for ransom when there is no one to pay that ransom is not a valuable possession, but a burden instead. There is no reason why we should feed and house you any longer. Our hospitality, in fact, is at an end. Then, they were going to shoot her. That was it, she decided. But she no longer cared. It was a better fate than the other possibilities. She didn't want to become a prostitute for the officers and she was no longer strong enough to scrub floors. She had lost her family, her reason for living. If they shot her, it would be over forever. Listening to him, she was almost relieved.

  But Von Rheinhardt had more to say. You will be driven home for one hour. You may collect your belongings and then you may leave. You may take nothing of great value from the house, no money, no jewels, only whatever personal possessions you may need in the immediate future. After that, you can take care of yourself.

  Then, they weren't going to shoot her? But why not? She stared at him in disbelief. You will live in the women's barracks, and you will work like everyone else.

  I'll have someone drive you to Grunewald in an hour. In the meantime, you may wait in the hall. How could she wait outside, in view of everyone, in her disgraceful condition? Half-naked, in the clothes that Hildebrand had torn off her body a week before. They were truly animals.

  What will happen to my father's house now? Her voice was a croak in her throat, so seldom had she spoken in the past month.

  Von Rheinhardt busied himself with the papers on his desk and at last looked up. It will be occupied by General Ritter. And his staff. His staff consisted of four willing women he had collected carefully over the past five years. I'm sure he'll be very happy there.

  I'm sure. So had they been. Her father and her brother, and once upon a time her mother, and she. They had all been happy there. Before these bastards had arrived to smash their lives, and now they were stealing the house in Grunewald. For an instant there were tears swimming in her eyes. Maybe she thought hopefully of the air raids she'd grown so used to maybe the bombs would come and kill them all.

  That's all, fr+nulein. Report to your barracks by five o'clock this afternoon. And I might add that the barracks arrangement is optional. You are free to make other ' eh ' living arrangements within the confines of the army ' of course. She knew what that meant. She could offer to be the general's mistress and he would let her stay in her own home. She felt a stab of indignation as she sat numbly on a long wooden bench in the hall. Her only consolation was that when she returned to Grunewald, her clothes in tatters, her face scratched and bruised, filthy, hungry, beaten, then Hedwig and Berthold could see what they had done. This was the precious Party that the old fools loved. This was what you got with Heil Hitler Ariana was busy with her thoughts and her fury and she didn't see Von Tripp approach.

  Fr+nulein von Gotthard? She looked up in surprise to see him. They hadn't met since the day he had saved her from Hildebrand and his whip. I understand that I'm to take you home. He didn't smile at her, but he no longer averted his eyes from hers.

  Do you mean that you're to take me to my barracks? She looked at him icily. And then, regretting her anger, she sighed. It wasn't his fault. I'm sorry.

  He nodded slowly. The captain said I was to take you to Grunewald to get your things. She nodded silent assent, her eyes huge in her hungry face. And then, as though he couldn't help it, he seemed to unbend a little, and his voice was kind. Have you had lunch yet? Lunch? She hadn't even eaten breakfast or dinner the night before. Meals in her stinking dungeon had arrived once a day and were never worthy of a name, breakfast, lunch, dinner. It was pigslop no matter what time they served it. Only the prospect of total starvation had in the end forced her to eat. She didn't answer him, but he knew what she was thinking. I understand. And then he gestured her to leave her bench. We should go now. He said it somewhat sternly, and Ariana followed him slowly from the brightly lit hall. Her knees felt weak for a minute, and the sunlight briefly blinded her eyes, but she stood there, breathing deeply, and when she slid into the car beside him, she turned her head away as though to look out at the rows of houses being used as barracks so he wouldn't see her cry.

  They drove on for a few minutes, and then he pulled the car over and sat staring for a moment at the back of her head. Ariana only sat there, staring, totally unaware of the tall blond man with the gentle eyes and the aristocratic dueling scar. I'll be back in a moment, fr+nulein. Ariana didn't answer, she only lay her head back against the seat and pulled the blanket he had given her more tightly around her. She was thinking again of her father and Gerhard, wondering where they were. She hadn't been this comfortable in over a month, and she didn't care what happened now, she was out of that stinking cell at last.

  Von Tripp was back in the car again a moment later with a small steaming bundle he extended toward her without words. Two fat bratwurst wrapped in paper, with mustard, and a large hunk of brown bread. She stared at it as he handed it to her, and then at him. What an old man he was. Like Ariana, he seldom wasted words, yet he saw everything; and again like her, there was a kind of sorrow in his eyes, as though he felt the world's pain in his own flesh, and now her pain as well.

  I thought you might be hungry.

  She wanted to tell him that it was nice of him. Instead she just nodded and took the bundle in her hands. No matter what he did, she couldn't forget who he was or what he was doing. He was a Nazi officer, and he was taking her home to pick up her things ' her things ' which things? Which of them was she to take with her now? And after the war, what then? Would she get the house back? Not that it mattered anymore. With her father and Gerhard gone, she didn't care. The thoughts and questions ran maddeningly through her head as they drove along and she took small bites from the bratwurst Von Tripp had bought for her. She wanted to devour them but she didn't dare. After living for so long on bread and meat scraps, she was afraid that she would be sick if she ate the pungent sausage too quickly.

  Is it near the lake in Grunewald? She nodded. In truth she was surprised that they were letting her come home for anything at all. It was odd how suddenly she was no longer a prisoner.

  And horrifying to realize that the house was theirs now. The art, the silver, whatever jewels they found, even her furs would be given to mistresses of the general, and of course there were all of her father's cars. His money and investments had been appropriated by them weeks before. So on the whole they were not unhappy with their profits in the deal. And Ariana she was merely an extra, a pair of hands to perform whatever work she could, unless of course she struck someone's fancy. Ariana herself had figured that much out. But she would rather have died than become the mistress of a Nazi. She would spend the rest of her life in their stinking barracks rather than do that.

  It's there, a littl
e farther down the road, on the left.

  Ariana's eyes widened and once again she turned her head to hide her tears. She was almost home now ' ' the home that she had dreamed of so desperately in those dark hours, lying in her dark cell, the home where she had laughed and played with Gerhard and waited for her father to return at night, where she had sat and listened to stories for hours, as Fr+nulein Hedwig read to them by the fire, and where she had stolen glimpses of her mother so very long ago ' the home that now she had lost. To them. The Nazis. In seething hatred she glanced at the man in uniform at her side. To her, he was part of what they represented. Terror, loss, destruction, rape. No matter that he bought her food and had saved her from Hildebrand. In truth he was simply part of a terrifying whole. And given the opportunity, in time he would do the same things to her as the others.

  There it is, there. She pointed suddenly as they rounded the last bend, and Von Tripp slowed the car as they saw it, as she stared at it with sorrow and regret, and he with respect and awe. He wanted to tell her that it was lovely, and that he, too, had once lived in such a home. That his wife and children had died in the house near Dresden during the bombings, that now he, too, would have nowhere to go. The schloss that had been his parents' had been borrowed by a general at the very beginning of the war, leaving his parents virtually homeless until they had joined his wife and two children at the Dresden home. And all of them were gone now. Dead beneath the Allies' bombs. While the general went on living at their castle, he had been safe there, as would have been Manfred's children, had his parents been allowed to stay.

  The Mercedes Manfred was driving crunched along on the gravel, making the sound Ariana had heard ten million times before. If she closed her eyes, it would be Sunday and she and Gerhard and her father would be returning from their drive around the lake after church. She would not be sitting here with this stranger, sitting here in the rags of what had once been her dress. Berthold would be standing at attention. And once inside she would serve tea. ' never again ' She said the two words softly to herself, stepping down onto the gravel, staring up at the beloved house.

  You have half an hour. He hated to remind her, but they had to be back, and those had been Von Rheinhardt's orders. They had wasted enough time on the girl already. Von Rheinhardt had been clear about Manfred's spending as little time as possible on the project and then hurrying back. ' and watch her! he had told him, lest she try to spirit something of value out of the house. Also, it was possible that there were hidden safes and secret panels, and whatever Manfred could discover would be of some help. They had already had teams, skilled in just those pursuits, go over the house, but nonetheless it was possible that Ariana would lead them to something more than they had already found.

  Uncertainly, Ariana rang the doorbell, wondering if she would see Berthold's familiar face, but what she saw instead was the general's aide. He looked very much like the man who stood just behind her, but somewhat sterner as he stared down in horror at the girl in rags. He glanced from her to Manfred, the two men saluted, and Lieutenant von Tripp explained.

  Fr+nulein von Gotthard, sir. She's come to fetch some clothes.

  There was a brief further exchange between the two men.

  There's not much left, you know, He said it to Manfred, not to Ariana, who was looking up at him in shock. Not much left? Not much, from four closets filled with clothes? How wonderfully greedy they had been, and how quick.

  I don't think I'll be needing muck There were sparks of anger in her eyes as she stepped inside the front door. Everything looked the same, yet different. The furniture was in the same place, yet, intangibly, some quality of the house had changed. There were no familiar faces, none of the sounds of the people she and the house had always known. Berthold's aging shuffle, Anna's increasing limp, Gerhard's constant slamming and running, her father's dignified progress down the long marble hall. Somehow she expected to see Hedwig after all her devotion to the Party, surely they would have kept her on but even Hedwig's familiar face was not among those who stared at Ariana as she made her way upstairs. There were mostly uniforms hurrying in and out of the main study, and several more waiting outside the main salon; there were orderlies carrying trays of schnapps and coffee, and there were several unknown maids. It was like coming back in another lifetime, after everyone you'd known had long since died and another generation had repopulated all the places you had once loved. Her hand touched the familiar banister as she quickened her step and ran upstairs with her eternal shadow still behind her; Lieutenant von Tripp maintained a discreet distance, but he was always there.

  She stopped for a moment on the first landing, staring at her father's bedroom door. Oh, God, what could have happened to them?

  In there, fr+nulein? Von Tripp's voice was soft behind her.

  I beg your pardon? She wheeled on him, as though she had just discovered an intruder in her home.

  Is that the room where you are going to fetch your things?

  I ' it ' my room is upstairs. But I'll have to come back here later. She had just remembered. But perhaps it was too late. The book may already be gone. Or maybe not. But she didn't really care now. With the loss of Gerhard and her father, and then the house, all was already lost.

  Very well. We haven't much time, fr+nulein ' She nodded and ran up the last flight of stairs to the room where Hedwig had betrayed her, the doorway through which the officer had first walked. Hildebrand, with his arrogant gait, strolling into her sitting room as she prayed for her father's return. She pushed open the first door, and then the door to her own room, keeping her eyes averted from Gerhard's doorway across the hall. She didn't have time for nostalgia, and it would have caused her too much pain.

  After a moment she hurried out of the room to find a suitcase in a storeroom above them, on the floor where the servants' rooms were, and it was there that she found her, the traitor, hurrying with bent head toward her own room.

  Like a dart cast at the woman's retreating back, Ariana hurled the word. Hedwig! The old woman stopped and then hurried on, never turning to face the girl she had raised since birth. But Ariana would not let go of her now. In fact, she never would again. Can you not face me? Are you so afraid? The words a venomous caress, an invitation to drink poison, a machete concealed in a gift of fur. The woman stopped and slowly she turned.

  Yes, Fr+nulein Ariana? Calmly, she attempted to face the girl, but her eyes were fearful, and her hands trembled on the stack of linens she had been taking to her room to mend.

  Sewing for them, are you? They must be grateful to you. Just as we were. Tell me, Hedwig. No more Fr+nulein, no more respect, only hatred now; Ariana stood with her hands clenched, her fingers tensed like claws. Tell me, after you sew their clothes for them, after you take care of their children, if they have any, will you betray them, too?

  I did not betray you, Fr+nulein von Gorfhard.

  My, my, how formal. Then it was Berthold and not you who called the police?

  It was your father who betrayed you, fr+nulein. He should never have run away as he did. Gerhard should have been allowed to serve his country. It was wrong for him to run away.

  Who are you to judge that?

  I am a German. We must all judge each other. So that was what it had come to. Brother against brother. It is our duty, and our privilege, to watch over each other and see that Germany is not destroyed.

  But Ariana spat her answer at her. Germany is already dead, thanks to people like you; people like you have destroyed my father and my brother and my country she stood there with tears pouring down her face, then, unable to go on as her voice sank to a whisper "and I hate you all.

  She turned away from her old nurse, stormed into the storeroom, and took a single valise in which she would pack her remaining belongings from the house. Silently, Von Tripp followed her back to her room and lit a cigarette as he watched her hurriedly stack sweaters and skirts and blouses, underwear and nightgowns, along with several pairs of sturdy shoes. There was no roo
m for frills now. There were no in frills in Ariana von Gotthard's life.

  But even what she was packing was of a finesse and caliber that was hardly suited to a life in an army barracks the skirts she had worn to school, the shoes she wore when she went to watch Gerhard play polo or walk slowly with her father around the lake. She cast a glance over her shoulder as she threw a silver and ivory hairbrush into the suitcase. Do you suppose they'll mind if I take that? It's the only hairbrush I have.

  Manfred looked momentarily embarrassed and shrugged. For him, it was odd to see her packing. The moment she had walked into the main hallway, it was evident that this was where she belonged. She moved around with an assurance, an authority, that made one want to bow slightly and step aside. But it had been that way for him in Dresden, too. Their house had been only slightly smaller, and in fact even more impressively staffed. The house had been his wife's father's, and when he died two years after they married, it had become theirs. A handsome addition to the schloss he was to inherit when his parents died. So Ariana's life-style was not unknown to him, nor was the pain of her fate as she left home. He could still hear his mother crying, when she got the word that she would have to give up the schloss for the duration of the war. And how do we know we'll get it back? she had sobbed to his father.

  We'll get it back, Ilse, don't be silly.

  But now they were all dead. And the schloss would belong to Manfred, when the Nazis finally left it after the war. Whenever that would be. And now Manfred didn't really care. There was no one to go home to. No home where he would care to be. Not without them ' his wife, Marianna, and the children ' he couldn't bear to think of it as he stood there, watching Ariana put another pair of walking shoes into the bag.

  You're planning to take up hiking, Fr+nulein von Gotthard? He used a smile to force the pain from his own mind. She had certainly packed a good supply of rugged equipment.

  I beg your pardon? You expected me to wash out bathrooms in a ballgown? Is that what Nazi women do? Her eyes widened sarcastically as she threw another cashmere sweater on the pile. I had no idea they were so formal.