Her stomach growled in response to seeing and smelling something cooking on the stovetop. When was the last time she’d eaten?
A light rap at the door suddenly drew Adele’s attention. Forgetting her bandaged palms, she grabbed onto the sides of the cot and struggled to pull herself upright.
Dieter approached, his face grim. He appeared weary around the eyes.
“Miss Adele,” he said, and motioned to someone in the shadow of the hall. “You have a visitor.”
Her heart began pounding in her chest.
Was it her father? Surely not. The German authorities who had come to question her? No, they’d push their way in if that’s what they wanted. Perhaps it was another member of the orchestra. But who else knew she was there?
When the tall form stepped into the dim morning light, her questions faded and a wave of relief washed over her.
She finally exhaled. “Vladimir!”
In her joy at seeing him, Adele tried to stand but fell back on the cot. Her hands gave out in their support of the rest of her body. Yet he stood there, tall and handsome, staring back at her. Thankfully, he wasn’t as grim-faced as the doctor. His smile was faint but still welcoming, so much so that she could almost feel the warmth in it. It was akin to the usual smiles she lived to receive from him.
Dieter stood by quietly, a look on his face that she couldn’t read. He seemed distant somehow, and much more solemn than he’d been the night before. He looked from Vladimir to her and exhaled low.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Nicolai,” he said. “I can give you no more than five minutes. Then we’ve got to get her out.”
With steps that creaked upon the floor, he left them alone in the room.
Vladimir rushed forward and pulled her into a hug, burying his face in her hair. “Thank God you’re safe.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, loving the feel of his arms around her.
Thank God you’re safe too.
“I couldn’t come to this part of the city before now,” he whispered against her ear. “I had to find a place to keep Sophie. And I came back for you as soon as I could.”
“What time is it?”
“It’s early still. Just after seven o’clock.”
“You’re alive.” She whispered the words aloud, finally able to let her heart believe he was really there with her. Adele pulled back from his hug and brushed a bandaged palm over his cheek, rejoicing over the fact that they’d both run for their lives the night before and, by the hand of God, had survived.
He seemed to understand that she needed to look him over as she began checking his arms and hands and face while he knelt before her. She noticed a cut under one eye, but other than that she found no indication of injury. Truly, he appeared to be no worse for wear.
“What happened here?” She ran a fingertip along the skin beneath his cut, the feather-light touch upon his skin medicating to her frayed nerves.
“It’s from the glass of the shop windows.”
Adele felt breathless, affected by how close they’d come to death.
“How?”
“The shots.” She dropped her hand, having only just remembered her palm was covered in gauze that she didn’t want him to see. And he must have seen it, because his countenance changed.
“And that’s all?”
“Yes.” He offered a slight nod. “Just the one cut. I am well.”
“But what if they ask—”
He cut into her worries. “They won’t. Who would ask after a paltry cut on the face of a merchant’s son?”
She nodded, then immediately contradicted the action. “But if they do?”
“I’ll make an excuse.”
Was it that easy to erase such things?
The stove top sizzled and popped again, the liquid from the pot hissing behind them. It brought an uncomfortable silence to the conversation. She felt she had to say something, anything to keep her throat from closing up.
“Did you sleep?” Why was she asking trivial things?
“No.”
“And what about—”
“Adele, stop this idle conversation.” He cut off her question with the soft reprimand. Still kneeling beside the cot, he took her bandaged hands in his. “The doctor’s already told me.”
She attempted to pull her hands back but he held on, giving them a gentle squeeze. “I’m fine.”
“No,” he said, staring back with eyes that spoke only of concern. “You are not. How in heaven’s name will you play tonight?”
“I don’t know.” Adele shook her head at him, her thick blond waves falling soft about her shoulders. In her sleepy haze, she’d forgotten about the concert. Now she was faced with the fear of uncertainty again. What would she do?
“I’ve been speaking with Dieter. He thinks you shouldn’t play with your injuries. You risk infection or even permanent damage if the stitches come loose.”
Vladimir’s hazel eyes almost stared through her. He looked tired. For how upbeat he was attempting to appear, she could see now that he was exhausted. And worried. Though they’d been through a close call the night before, he looked like he was concerned about the cuts on her palms more than anything else.
“I must play,” Adele admitted, forcing a smile and shrugging her shoulders a bit. “I have no choice. My father expects me—no, he demands that I play. ‘It’s for Austria!’ he says. He’d never allow me to miss a performance, especially not one as important as this.”
“Adele, you don’t seem to understand the gravity of the situation.” A lock of dark hair fell across one of his eyes as he leaned in toward her.
She wished their world were different, wished she could brush the lock away from his face whenever she pleased. But in what world could someone of her family’s position offer their daughter’s hand to a merchant’s son, no matter how gifted he was musically? No matter how much she cared? Their relationship would have to stay secret.
“I understand. I saw the same things you did last night. I know what is happening, Vladimir.” She choked on the emotion of the night before. “I know what the risks are.”
“No, you don’t, Adele. You couldn’t possibly.”
Adele was confident she wasn’t misreading the compassion in his eyes as he looked over her bandaged palms. He still thought her innocent, didn’t he? And shielded. And unaware of what occurred outside of the perfectly arranged life her parents had created for her.
But all of that was gone now. In the blink of an eye, everything had changed.
“I put you at risk by coming here, but I didn’t have a choice. I had to know if you were all right . . .” Vladimir’s voice trailed off, as if the truth was too difficult to admit. “The Gestapo has questioned my father. I believe we’re all being followed.”
“No.” Adele whispered the single word, shaking her head, knowing full well what it meant. They’d landed their sights on him as a possible traitor to the Reich.
“And the doctor? What about his family?”
He shook his head. “They have not come to question him, thank God. They have no reason to tie him to me.” He glanced over his shoulder and lowered his voice. “But his wife pressures him.”
She almost couldn’t breathe. “To turn us in?”
“She’s scared,” he answered, looking a bit scared now himself.
“She wants us to leave, then?”
He nodded and began gathering the things that had been set upon a nearby chair. He shoved bandage rolls in his coat pockets. “We can only stay a few moments. We have to get you home and somehow sneak you in before breakfast. If you call for the staff to bring a tray to your room, you’ll be able to hide your bandages. You couldn’t do that at a dining table.”
“I feigned a headache as an excuse from dinner last night. I can carry that over to this morning.”
“Good.” He lifted her coat from the back of the chair and stopped when the bloodstains were washed in the soft morning light.
“You can’t wear this home. We’ll
have to get you another.” Vladimir turned his attention to the hall before he whispered, “I wonder if his daughter has an extra one.”
“And are you going to play tonight?”
He turned back, giving her a forced smile. “I think playing the cello for Austria is the least of my worries right now.”
“If you’re there, then I think I could play.” Adele held up her hands. “Despite this, I think I could do it if I knew you were across the stage from me.”
Thoughts of the upcoming victory ball were about as far away as one could get from the bloodshed she’d witnessed. Adele had no idea how they could go back to ball gowns and flutes of bubbly champagne. The luxury of the night ahead made her feel sick to her stomach. Even now, she could look back at Vladimir’s eyes and see that he was struggling with the same reality. They had to go. They had to perform. They had to sit and play and then mingle amongst some of the same men who may have pulled the trigger on her innocent friends the night before.
“I’ll go.” Vladimir brushed a hand across her cheek. “I will go if only to keep a watchful eye over you. Because all of this is my fault, you know.”
“How could what happened last night be your fault?”
“Not last night, Adele. I should never have allowed your stubbornness to overtake my better judgment. You never should have been involved from the beginning. And if I can help it, you never will be again.”
She chose to ignore the fact that he’d called her stubborn.
“Who is going to help you, then?” Adele challenged him, wishing her hands didn’t hurt so—they’d have fit nicely on her hips at the moment. “Someone has to help you get Sophie out.”
“You cannot. I won’t let you.”
“You can’t stop me,” Adele countered. “I was responsible for Sophie last night. Her mother—my friend Elsa—she trusted us. I can’t forget that trust just because she’s gone. How can you think I could go on without seeing her daughter out of this godforsaken place? Sophie is the last survivor of her family. We must help her.”
“I didn’t say I refused to help her.”
“She’s only a child.”
“And she is also a Jew.” Vladimir’s face revealed nothing but a stony resolve in response to her pushing. “For that, they’d kill you for even knowing she is alive, even with your family’s connections. They wouldn’t think twice about sending you to one of the camps or, God help us, doing something worse to you. I can’t let you go any further with me in this.”
“Where is she?”
Vladimir sighed and shook his head. “I can’t tell you.”
“So you expect me to go to that ball tonight, to wear some pretty dress and a smile and act like last night didn’t happen? Whether I play or not, you know me well enough to know I cannot stand by and do nothing.”
Adele could not believe he would try to shut her out now.
“Look at your hands, Adele. This was bad enough.” Vladimir kissed one of the bandages and braced an arm under her elbow as if to help her stand. “We had a close call last night and I won’t let that happen again.”
“You can’t protect me from everything,” she insisted, swinging her legs over the side of the cot so she could stand up to him on her own. “This is my life. I can do with it what I choose.”
“You’re correct. I can’t protect you from everything, but I can protect you from this. This is within my control.” Vladimir turned toward the doorway of the kitchen, their voices having alerted the doctor’s wife to come and check on them. He addressed her with a weary sigh. “My apologies, ma’am. We were just leaving.”
“That’s it? We’re supposed to go back to our old life like nothing’s happened?”
Adele had wanted to hug the life out of him when he’d walked through the door. Now she wanted to wring his neck. How dare he presume to shut her out! Didn’t he understand that she had more than a passing attachment to him? Didn’t he know that she wanted to do something meaningful with her life, and with him?
“You said you would play tonight, Adele, and I believe you will. You’re far too stubborn to let them ever get the best of you.” Vladimir tilted his head down in a formal nod to her. “But as for the rest of it? That was the first and last time I allow you to be put in harm’s way.”
She folded her arms around her middle, feeling a void that had opened up between them.
“You need a coat,” he said before stepping from the kitchen. He returned but a few seconds later with a long wool coat in a deep claret. “Here,” he whispered, and slipped it over her shoulders.
Adele looked at the pearl buttons that lined the front of the coat. She ran her wrist over the softness of the ivory satin lining. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s his wife’s.”
She nodded. “She’s taken great care with it. It’s probably from before the war, isn’t it? It looks like an opera coat.”
“It’s all they had.” His voice was quiet and unusually rough. It sounded laden with emotion.
“Vladimir.” Adele’s heart felt heavy. “I’ve taken her best coat, haven’t I?”
Vladimir didn’t acknowledge the truth. He looked back at her with an all-too-evident softness in his features and whispered, “Come on. I’ve got to get you home.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Marina Von Bron declared her daughter to be nothing less than a perfect vision in her ball gown.
The specially purchased champagne satin had been flown in for the occasion all the way from Berlin, and tailors had labored throughout the week to ensure the shoulder-grazing design had been perfectly stitched down to the very last shimmery detail. Now Adele stood in front of her boudoir mirror, feeling like a statue as her mother flitted about, dousing her with flowery perfume and touching up the last of her makeup for the concert.
“Here, my darling daughter.” She plucked a tube of lipstick from the vanity and motioned for her to push out her chin. “Pucker.”
Adele did as she was told and received a thick layer of cherry red to stain the natural pout on her lips. She rubbed them together and made a soft pop when she parted them.
“Lovely,” Marina declared, and turned to raid the jewelry box on the bureau. “You’re wearing cocktail gloves tonight?”
Her mother tossed the lighthearted question over her shoulder, her French accent bubbly. Adele couldn’t help but feel startled at the mention of the gloves and tried to cover quickly.
“Just until we go onstage.”
“Oh yes, they’re quite nice. Can you imagine appearing at a Vienna Philharmonic concert without gloves? I know you cannot play in them, of course, but they are proper to wear the rest of the time.” She made a tsk tsk noise under her tongue as she continued searching through the jewelry box and mumbled, “Ah . . . Cherie! Where are those pearl earrings?”
After a few seconds, she turned with a victorious smile, holding up pearl studs.
“Your grandmama’s earrings,” Marina chirped happily, and began tugging at Adele’s earlobes. “She wore them on a night like this—the very night she met your grandfather. I hope you should have as much luck as she did.” Her mother’s voice trailed off as the earrings were slipped into her lobes and attention was given to the last details of her hair. “There will be hearts breaking for you all over Austria tonight.”
Surely her mother could hear the audible beat of her heart. The woman was making idle conversation; how could she know that the words were cutting into Adele’s chest, frightening her all the more?
Marina leaned to the side, meeting her gaze in the reflection of the glass. “Adele? Have you a young man, then?”
Yes. His name is Vladimir.
His name is Vladimir and I’m dying inside because I don’t know if he’ll show up tonight . . . if he’ll stay in Vienna . . . if he’ll even be alive tomorrow.
When Adele shook her head, her mother turned to busy herself with brushing the back of her skirt, fearful as always that she should appear the least bit wrinkled in public.
>
“Ah well, do not worry. You shall have one after tonight. A young Austrian from the city. Or perhaps a German officer? I know that one or two have asked your father if they could come calling. Wouldn’t that be nice?”
Adele looked back at their reflection in the mirror, shocked at her mother’s nonchalance. There her mother was, preening as if their greatest worry in the world was planning a future wedding party. How delusional was she? Did she not know what was happening outside their window? Did she not hear the rapid cadence of gunfire tearing through the streets at night?
The horror Adele had witnessed the night before was just a taste, she was sure. If what Vladimir had told her was correct, then the Germans were not experiencing as much victory as they’d have the world believe, despite the lavish victory concerts they always hosted. Each public event added to the deception that they were not being increasingly routed by the Allies. Why, the Germans were feverishly building fortified watchtowers all over the city and had been since September. Why would they take such measures if they weren’t fearful that a wave of the Red Army was about to wash over them?
“There. Magnifique!” Marina clapped her hands together. “My beautiful, perfect girl. They shall be stunned by you tonight—every officer in the audience—first with their eyes and then their ears.” Her mother tapped a finger on the tip of her nose. “Mark my words, Adele.”
“Thank you, Mama.”
Adele looked at her reflection in the mirror, feeling dead inside. How could she be dressed in such finery yet know that there was so much suffering all around? The contradiction took her breath away.
“Why so quiet, pretty girl?” Adele’s mother always meant well, though her affections were usually placed in extolling the virtues of a polished and graceful persona. “Are you nervous about tonight?”
“No. I’m not nervous.” Adele admitted the truth. She’d played onstage a hundred times before. Her mother wasn’t likely to believe that nerves had overtaken her anyway.
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