Orphan Monster Spy

by Matt Killeen

  “I can play that piano.”

  Everyone looked at Sarah. She’d had enough of being talked about like she wasn’t there. She pointed at the grand piano in the corner of the office.

  Herr Bauer snorted. “I can play the piano.”

  “Not like me.” She stared right into his tiny eyes and wanted to retch.

  Herr Bauer licked his lips slowly, then clicked a pudgy index finger toward the piano. “Be my guest.”

  Sarah got up from her chair slowly, remembering to smooth her skirt as she did so, and then clasped her hands demurely in front of her. She’d felt goaded by the man’s disdain and was now unsure of herself. She felt her legs moving heavily as if through syrup, and the air seemed stale and close. She could see now that there was no music on the stand, nothing to suggest what might be acceptable. What did she know by heart? She went through her repertoire, rejecting each piece as unsuitable, an endless string of cabaret numbers penned by Jews and undesirables. Wagner, wasn’t it the Führer’s favorite? Something you know, idiot. She arrived at the piano without an idea in her head.

  It was a beautiful Grotrian-Steinweg just like her mother’s—polished, dusted, and untouched. Sarah could almost see the golden-haired toddler looking back at her from its flawless curves.

  She reached out and let her fingers brush across it as she passed. Little cloudy trails blossomed and evaporated in their wake. Think. She lifted the front top board and slid the music shelf aside. The elegant golden plate shone back at her. Someone’s life had been made miserable to keep the inside of the instrument this spotless.

  As her mother had slipped slowly down into bitterness and depression, their piano had suffered at her hands. The always-open top board had caught the spills and refuse of a dozen tantrums; the strings had clogged with fluff and cigarette ends. When they finally fled to Austria, it had become an unrecognizable pile of empty spirit bottles and overflowing ashtrays. Sitting down in front of this fiercely clean instrument was like stepping back in time to when her mother smiled more and snarled less, when the apartment was full of laughter instead of broken glass. The thought was a spear through Sarah’s heart.

  She lifted the lid, and her hands hovered over the keys. She thought she could see her mother’s face in the music stand, warmer, calmer, and younger than it had been, head rocking gently back and forth, each motion timed to the left-hand chord and imperceptibly circling from side to side to the motion of her right hand.

  Sarah found her fingers playing and her foot marking time on the pedals. A gentle and slow waltz was emerging, melancholy and darkly vague, punctuated by almost random drops of high notes, like falling spring rain across the minor bass chords. Raindrops that streak across the windowpane, barely making their presence felt, but ruining the day. The notes sustained into the distance and fell away but reappeared with a slicing suddenness, in the wrong places but at the right time. As the jagged circular melody spiraled round her arms, Sarah felt the box deep inside her split open, and the fear, the sadness, and the loneliness seeped over the edges. She caught her breath and wanted to stop, but couldn’t. The notes unpicked her stitches as her fingers traveled right and left. In her mind’s eye her mother’s head was still rocking to the slow offbeat tempo, but above her hairline her deep red locks were now a mess of blood and glass.

  A hand slammed down onto the music rack with such force that Sarah jumped back with a yelp.

  The thin uniformed officer was standing over her, a look of disgust on his face. Sarah tried to calm her quaking shoulders as the last discordant notes resonated in the silence.

  “Satie was a French degenerate. His experiments in Modernism and Dada were a sickness, the fumblings of a Bolshevist. Where did you learn such filth?” the officer barked.

  Inside Sarah was rapidly stuffing, closing, locking, and hiding the box, desperately putting her fears away, conscious of a much more immediate threat. She could not admit to any more weakness. Attack is the secret of defense; defense is the planning of an attack.

  “My father always said that. This is my mother’s favorite piece, but she was a very sick woman,” she said quietly and waited, unblinking. Captain Floyd’s voice could be heard on the other side of the room.

  “Ursula’s mother was a long time away from the Fatherland. You see now why I’m so insistent that she gets an appropriate National Socialist education.”

  The uniformed officer looked back at the headmaster and spoke. “You will ensure that this girl learns only German music. Music appropriate to her talents.”

  Herr Bauer shrugged and looked away. “If you insist, Klaus.”

  “I do.” The officer turned back to Sarah, who didn’t know if she had been dismissed. After a moment, he held out a handkerchief. She regarded the fold of white cotton but found she couldn’t move, unable to square this action with the distaste in his expression. Eventually, he tutted and reached for her face. She screamed on the inside as he clasped her chin firmly between his thumb and forefinger, and he deftly wiped her one errant tear away.

  He stepped aside and strode from the room. Sarah realized he smelled of oranges.

  The headmaster sighed and stared at his desk. “Taking a new girl so far into the term, most inconvenient . . . unprepared for expenses, extra bed and board . . .”

  “If money were an object, Herr Bauer, I would leave Ursula in the local Realschule,” declared the Captain, standing. “Make the arrangements.”

  “Klaus will be delighted to have another pianist attending,” the headmaster mumbled wearily.

  * * *

  • • •

  Outside, the early evening sun was especially bright, the breeze especially wholesome, as if it were made for the cream of German womanhood. The Captain turned away from the car, where a wizened old man was struggling with Sarah’s suitcase.

  “Ursula, a little walk, I think.”

  “Certainly, Onkel.”

  They ambled with an intense casualness along the front of the school. It was bereft of flower beds, bushes, or anything colorful. Even the grass seemed muted.

  “You play very well. I didn’t know that about you,” the Captain said, something approaching admiration in his voice.

  “There’s lots you don’t know. I think it might be comforting to know you have limits. Anyway, a lady must have some secrets.”

  “I just wish you’d played something else. Wagner or something?”

  “Oh yes, Wagner is very big in Jewish show business families.”

  “You were lucky that our new friend is a patron of the arts.”

  Sarah shivered. “Who is he?”

  “I don’t know,” he replied with unusual candor. “I haven’t come across him before.”

  “More ignorance. Mmm . . . this isn’t so comforting after all.” She spoke with more humor than she felt.

  “I’ll find out.” He placed a hand on her shoulder. “In the meantime, keep him sweet. Learn your Wagner.”

  They turned the corner of the building. “You’re leaving me here, then,” she said softly.

  “That was the plan.”

  She felt she was being lowered into a pit of snakes. She needed reassurance from the person holding the rope.

  “That man—he’s one of your unnecessary uniforms.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  “And that’s why I’m here?”

  “In a way.”

  They followed the path as it angled away from the school toward a chapel. The courtyard was deserted, but Sarah still felt the need to look over her shoulder.

  “What I’m doing here . . . if I stay in this place . . . I’m freeing Germany?”

  The Captain was about to be flippant, she could see it in his eyes, but something in her face gave him pause.

  “You want to leave?” he asked gently.

  Sarah took a deep breath and pushed her hands deep
into her coat pockets, eyes on the ground. “I didn’t say that. I just—” She looked up and tried to make sense of his glazed eyes. “I just want to be sure that it’s important.”

  “How important do you want to be?” The flippancy leaked out.

  Sarah stamped a foot and hissed, “I don’t want to be some skeleton’s piano monkey unless you really need me to be. Does Germany really need me to be? Getting in this man’s house—it’s that important?”

  He held his palms out. “There’s nothing in Hans Schäfer’s office. He’s moved everything to his estate. It’s locked down tight. Guarded day and night.”

  “And he’s making the Grapefruit Bomb?” she insisted.

  “Maybe. Whatever he’s doing, it scared Professor Meitner. Nothing scares Lise Meitner. That . . . disturbs me,” he finished softly.

  “And you really think I can walk up to this Elsa Schäfer and get you an invitation to her father’s house?”

  “Maybe,” he conceded.

  She rubbed at her forehead with the tips of her fingers. “That’s a lot of maybes.”

  “There always are.”

  A cloud passed over the sun. Sarah bit her lip. “What if I mess up?”

  “Then I take you home.”

  “Home?” Sarah laughed. A box room and a fake name. Not enough. “No, I mean what if they discover who I am?”

  “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

  “More maybes?”

  “Yes.”

  So many uncertainties. Sarah pulled a shoe through the gravel into a long line. “Have you ever used the floating edge?”

  “I have no idea what you mean.”

  “What is it in English? The . . . balance beam.”

  He shook his head. She stepped onto the mark she had made and moved her arms behind her, palms up. Slowly, she raised one leg to head level so she was balancing on the other, her foot motionless on the line.

  “Just eight centimeters wide, the width of your foot if you’re lucky . . .” she explained.

  Raising her arms above her head, she swept the leg down and behind her, until it stood straight at right angles to her body.

  “It moves as you do, so you have to predict it. Ride it.” Her voice sounded strained, tense even to her own ears. “You’ve walked it endlessly, eyes closed, fallen off over and over, until you can move through the program seamlessly . . . readjusting your balance with your muscles, your toes, never your feet . . .”

  She arched her back and bent her outstretched leg. Reaching over her head, she closed her hands over her foot.

  “All the while you’re being watched, judged, dismissed,” she continued. “It’s tempting to rush it, but you can’t, and you have to commit to the move. If you panic, you’re gone.

  “Normally, you’re a meter from the floor, high enough to break or snap something if you don’t fall well. But I used to practice on the banisters at home once they threw me out of class. I had to finish, had to be perfect, because the fall was three meters on one side.”

  She released her foot and tipped forward, until she was leaning over, balanced by her outstretched leg, before straightening up.

  “That’s where I am now, aren’t I? Except the banister is wet. And the floor is on fire.”

  “Very poetic.” He didn’t seem to know what else to say.

  “‘Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth,’ Captain Floyd.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, a big bright thing that echoed off the school building. It made Sarah smile for its unexpectedness.

  “Sarah of Elsengrund, play your part with more care. Good National Socialist girls don’t quote Picasso, or play Satie. You’ve got to be a good dumb little monster now.”

  “Yes, sir.” She clicked her heels together. Playing a part. Doing it well. This was familiar ground.

  The sun re-emerged from behind the chapel. Sarah noticed something and walked toward it. Attached to the front of a dark glass window in the transept was a stone carving of three hares. They were running in a circle, each chasing the tail of the next, somersaulting up and over one another so that their ears were connected at the center.

  “Oh,” she chirped. “The three hares. It’s on . . . it was on the synagogue in Karlshorst.”

  “I thought you didn’t go to the synagogue.”

  “I didn’t go to synagogue, doesn’t mean I never went to a synagogue. Why is it here?”

  “For Christians it stands for the Trinity—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. In the Kabbalah, the three levels of the soul. You can find them on churches and shrines from the Silk Road to Great Britain.”

  Sarah sang quietly.

  “Der Hasen und der Löffel drei,

  Und doch hat jeder Hase zwei.”

  “Three hares sharing three ears, yet every one of them has two . . .” She shivered again and cocked her head to one side before continuing. “You know, the Jews are supposed to be the hares. I guess the National Socialists are the dogs. The Jews are persecuted, hunted, hated, but they can run and dodge and you can’t wipe them out.”

  “I suspect they’re going to try.”

  NINE

  “TWO PERSONAL OBJECTS only on the night table. The suitcase will be removed. This is an example of how your cot will be made.” The Schlafsaalführerin Liebrich waved her hand across the bed. The sheets were murderously clean and folded into sharp corners. The bedding looked thin. Something must have revealed itself on Sarah’s face, because the dormitory leader screwed up her nose in disdain. “You will find it quite adequate. The room is warm enough, even in the winter. We are not permitted to become soft. Luxury is a weakness. We must be hardy, pious—”

  “Fröhlich, frei,” Sarah chimed in.

  The girl carried on as if she hadn’t heard. “We wake at six. Wash and report for exercise before breakfast. You will follow the others.”

  “Cold showers, I assume?” Sarah spoke almost under her breath. She looked away to the duplicate cots and white cabinets. Bare floorboards, immaculate washstands, and the omnipresent portrait of the Führer, rendered in cheap oils—it had all the charm of a hospital ward.

  “Of course. You aren’t going to cause us any problems, Haller?” A question, but not a question.

  Sarah fixed her eyes on Liebrich’s. “Not at all.” Give ground. Nod, something.

  “What happened to your nose? Are you a troublemaker?” Liebrich sneered. Sarah resisted the temptation to touch it. The faded bruising must still be visible. She had grown used to it.

  “Only if someone gets in my way.”

  Dumme Schlampe. This was going all wrong. The girl was taller, bigger, even though she was two years younger. She would make a difficult enemy, and besides, Sarah was on her ground. Whoever occupies the battleground first and awaits the enemy will be at ease.

  Concede, withdraw.

  “I’d be very careful, Haller,” Liebrich threatened.

  “Just fair warning.” Sarah extended a hand. “Ursula.”

  “Heil.” Liebrich jerked her arm into a salute. Sarah felt her skin warm like she’d been slapped, but she slowly, deliberately raised her arm and extended it, letting each muscle tighten until it, too, made a salute.

  “Heil,” she said, very clearly and with as neutral a tone as she could muster. “I’m still Ursula. Ursula Haller.”

  Liebrich ignored her. “The vigil is at seven. Someone will collect you. Do everything they say and do not embarrass us, Ursula Haller.” She turned on her heel and marched away. Sarah waited for the door to slam, but the handle was oiled and it closed noiselessly. No slamming of doors here . . . and no noises of approach. She looked at the floorboards. Thick, old, but there would be creaks. They would have to be learned.

  Sarah sat on the bed, the heat of her exchange fading away like the daylight in the windows. A show of strength? Mayb
e. A new enemy? Maybe that, too. Not even a first name. The cot was hard and cold. It might as well have been a stone slab. She had a stomach-cramping longing for the camp bed in the Captain’s airless little box room, with its musty blankets. It was the realization that she had, for a short time, been safe. Virtually untouchable.

  Sarah seized on this longing and strangled it, squeezing its pitiful and pathetic neck. She was not safe. She had not been safe for as long as she could remember. Safety was an illusion. Forward motion was everything; to hesitate meant losing balance. Commit. You have a job. A role to play. The audience is arriving and you are hidden away, already in costume. The overture has started. This is the waiting time before the curtain. Who are you going to be?

  I am Ursula Bettina Haller, she answered. Good little dumb National Socialist monster. Nobody’s enemy. Everybody’s friend.

  Alles auf Anfang. Places, please, the voice replied.

  “Are you Haller?” asked another, tiny voice. It took Sarah a moment to realize that someone had spoken out loud. At the door was a small and fragile-looking girl. She had untidy braids and absurdly large and frightened eyes. “I’m Mauser, but everyone calls me die Maus.”

  “I wonder why?” Sarah smiled.

  “Me, too,” the Mouse replied. The girl was so insubstantial that had the doorway been empty, it would have left a greater impression. If there was a less persuasive argument for die Herrenrasse, the master race, Sarah had yet to see it. She wondered how someone so weak had gained entry to the school. Maybe she, too, played the piano.

  The Mouse squirmed and continued. “Are you ready to join the others?”

  “I hope so.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Sarah had seen vigils before. Catholics in May, with torches, banners, and candles, processing the streets in the twilight, singing hymns to Christ’s mother. This was just the same, but with a new messiah.