The Lily in the Snow

by Jackie French

  The door opened. Sophie had expected stairs leading down to a cellar, like the one Ruffi had taken them to that morning. Was it only that morning? It seemed as if the world had turned a dozen times since then. Maybe time was eating itself and no one had yet noticed.

  Instead she saw a conventional anteroom, with hooks on which to hang coats and umbrellas. A woman stood there in the customary black dress and white apron of a maid, red cheeked, plump, the smile motherly. It was only if you were expecting it that you saw the faintest sign of an Adam’s apple. ‘Kommst du?’ she said, using the familiar pronoun. She took their coats, led the way through the anteroom and opened the next door.

  It might have been a parlour for extra-large memsahibs. Round tables set with chintz tablecloths, coffee cups and sherry glasses, plates of cakes or small savouries, and men and women at each table. There was no semi-nudity, no rouged knees, no obvious drug-taking. So quiet and so normal . . .

  And it is normal, thought Sophie, thinking of Dr Hirschfeld’s words. Normal not as in ‘everyday’ or even usual, but normal as in natural, not like the frenzy of that morning, for Herr Hitler was right in at least part of what he said about the decadence of 1920s Berlin. The displays Ruffi had shown them pushed beyond the boundaries of what humanity should be, caring for each other, civilised.

  This room was civilised.

  The woman showed them to a table. They sat. Hannelore looked tense, but not especially shocked, Sophie thought, at the sight of what were — probably — a clientele as well as staff mostly comprised of men dressed as women, and women as men, or rather, dressed as they knew their true selves to be. Yet despite Hannelore’s words, Sophie suspected that even if she did not acknowledge it to herself, Hannelore was indeed prejudiced. Would she have stooped to blackmail if she had found out that Sophie had perhaps had an illegitimate child, or even was not legitimate herself, and so not the Higgs fortune heir? She did not think so.

  But Hannelore would keep the secret. If they helped her and her Führer.

  Nigel ordered whisky. Sophie longed for a cup of tea. As unobtainable here, probably, as in other Berlin cafés. Even coffee would come with a mountain of whipped cream.

  ‘Pfefferminz Tee, bitte,’ said Hannelore. Sophie nodded that she would have the same.

  She looked at her friend. ‘Herr Hitler would not like this café.’

  ‘No,’ said Hannelore stiffly.

  ‘He will not like that you are here with us. He would like the fact that you lunch with Dr Hirschfeld even less. But that gossip does not worry you?’

  Hannelore gave a weary smile. ‘Herr Hitler does not like my title, the one I officially do not have but everyone still uses. He accepts my rank is — helpful. Herr Hitler does not like my political influence either — a woman should be for Kaiser, Kirche, Küche, her husband, her church, her kitchen. He most certainly knows that Elizabat’s husband was Jewish. Adolf . . .’ it was the first time she had used the man’s Christian name to them ‘. . . does not demand that those who support him be perfect, only that we agree on what matters most.’

  Hannelore’s smile grew almost amused as she turned to Nigel. ‘The Führer probably even knows that your mother was not Jewish, but he will understand why you lied.’

  ‘You know who my mother was?’

  ‘Of course. Did you . . . forget . . . that I came to Shillings to study with Miss Lily? Of course I looked up your family in Debrett’s, and asked about it too. Your mother’s uncle was an Anglican Archbishop.’

  ‘Every family has its skeletons in the cupboard,’ murmured Nigel. ‘So why did I lie?’

  ‘As defiance. To say, “I will not support you; I will warn His Royal Highness not to support you.” But you see, David hates all that is Jewish almost as much as the Führer does.’

  ‘And you?’

  Hannelore shrugged. It was still the most graceful of shrugs. ‘Very well, as you insist. Yes, I knew my uncle’s family. They are not the monstrous creatures the Führer or David and even Dolphie talk about.’

  ‘Dolphie didn’t like your uncle?’

  ‘He didn’t approve of him.’

  ‘You’ve given yourself away, you know,’ said Sophie.

  Hannelore looked at her queryingly.

  ‘You said “I knew his family.” You do not see your uncle’s family now.’

  ‘No,’ said Hannelore slowly. She smiled at the waitress as she placed teapot, china cups and saucers, then Nigel’s whisky on the table. Nigel sipped it. He had hardly spoken. Why does he look at me like that, thought Sophie, as if he is drinking me in more deeply than the whisky?

  ‘It is not, ah, tactful to know my late uncle’s family now. Elizabat understands that too, though she is not political. Sophie, is there any politician, any king, with whom you agree in every way? Must a politician be a saint of perfect judgement?’

  ‘Wanting to kill twenty-three thousand citizens is not a small misjudgement,’ said Nigel quietly. He looked at his watch then took Sophie’s hand under the table.

  The café was filling up. A small group came in and spread themselves around a table nearer the wall. Sophie glanced at them, then looked again. Jones! And that young woman, looking a decade older than her real age, in lipstick, subtle rouge, a low-cut dress and pearls twisted fashionably around her arm — My pearls! thought Sophie — was Violette.

  She glanced at Nigel. He must have seen them and knew that she had seen them, but carefully made no sign. If Hannelore had noticed the group, she had not recognised those who would have been almost invisible to her as servants.

  Hannelore leaned forward earnestly. ‘Is there no way I can persuade you to change your report to the Prince of Wales?’

  ‘I don’t think it matters what Nigel reports,’ said Sophie.

  Both Nigel and Hannelore looked at her questioningly. Across the room a beautiful woman, or a beautiful man, began to waltz with another, just as lovely, to music only the two of them heard.

  ‘Herr Hitler has great personal magnetism,’ said Sophie carefully. ‘He promises you what you want, what you have not admitted you want, even to yourself — regaining the estates in the parts of Germany Russia took after the war. He promises to give you back the influence you lost with those estates. But Hannelore, his party may win headlines with their private army, but they do not win votes. Herr Hitler appeals to the lost, the bitter. The more prosperous Germany grows, the less appeal his party will have. He himself . . .?’ She shrugged. ‘I would not be surprised to see him elected. He is persuasive. But to have all of Germany under his sway? It would need a cataclysm almost as great as the war itself.’

  Hannelore said nothing.

  ‘How fast is the party growing?’ asked Sophie gently.

  ‘Not quickly. That is why we need contacts.’

  ‘You think the patronage of an English Prince of Wales will help?’

  ‘No,’ said Hannelore frankly. ‘But I needed David to get Miss Lily here. It is her contacts — her German and Austrian contacts — who will be far more useful.’

  ‘Less than you think, probably,’ said Sophie. ‘You and I were once Miss Lily’s lovely ladies. Miss Lily taught us charm, political savoir faire. But she also taught us to think for ourselves, instead of letting our fathers, husbands or brothers think for us. Miss Lily might convince her friends to listen to Herr Hitler. But surely most know about him and either support or reject him already.’

  She laid her hand on Hannelore’s. ‘My dear friend. This is 1929, not 1919. It is not the time for a party of loss and bitterness. People want pleasure, not politics and fighting in the streets. Not more fighting, please.’

  Nigel sipped his whisky again, still holding Sophie’s other hand. ‘Hannelore, this may be our last evening together. You and I can meet Lily together tonight, and discuss with her whether she will see Herr Hitler. I’ll advise her it is a waste of time but, as I said, she will probably go anyway.’ He smiled. ‘Lily takes her own advice and does not let her brother construct her politics f
or her.’

  His eyes were bright, his skin slightly flushed. I have seen men look like that before, thought Sophie. Men who had been getting well, but who had smelled the first faint sweet whiff of gangrene and knew that by the morning they would be dead. Men waiting to ‘go over the top’ by moonlight, sipping each bright second of life.

  Suddenly she was desperately scared. She glanced up at Jones and Violette again. They seemed to be quietly talking to each other, drinking mint tea.

  Nigel flicked his eyes down to his wristwatch, then back to Hannelore. ‘You wanted a hero for Germany. You found one. But the man we just met will promise everyone what he intuits they want, so he can gain power. Once he has power in Germany he will not stop. Those who love power for its own sake never do. He will want not just Russia, starving and war-torn, but all of Europe, including England and her Empire and the Empire’s resources.’ He smiled at Hannelore again, that strangely too-bright smile. ‘A man who has himself called the Führer? Who compares himself to Saint Paul on the road to Tarsus? No matter what power that man gains, he will be hungry for more.’

  ‘That is not true! You do not know him. You cannot know him after a single meeting.’

  Nigel ignored her. ‘Sophie, my darling, I have something in my eye. A smut from one of the motorcars, I think. Would you mind going to the ladies’ retiring rooms to dip my handkerchief in water?’

  ‘Let me see!’

  ‘No, truly, I just want to wipe it, but I might trip if I try to find my way myself.’

  And you want to say something privately to Hannelore, thought Sophie. Something perhaps you do not want her friend to hear, or maybe that you do not want Hannelore to know that I know. A counter-blackmail, perhaps.

  She would ask him later. And keep asking until he told her. She had no fear that he would lie to her. Nigel might not always tell the whole truth, even letting a listener assume something quite different from the real story. But if he didn’t refuse to tell her, he would not make up something in its place.

  She squeezed his hand as a signal to say she understood what he was doing, then stood and made her way over to the discreet sign saying Damen, though exactly who might be Damen here she was not sure. Nor did it matter, in the privacy of a cubicle . . .

  The room exploded. The door first: it splintered. She saw the glint of an axe. Men in brown uniforms thrust into the café, boots pounding, hands punching faces, pushing over chairs.

  Not the axe, she thought. Please do not let them use the axe again. She tried to make her way back to their table, but customers were standing, running, shouting, screaming . . .

  She could no longer see Nigel, nor Hannelore. Jones was gone from his table too, and Violette . . .

  ‘Your ladyship, stay here.’ Violette’s voice was calm, only as loud as it must be to be heard by Sophie. Sophie felt firm hands around her wrist.

  ‘I must get back to Nigel,’ said Sophie desperately.

  ‘Stay here.’ A command. Violette’s knife was in her other hand, but to protect her, not threaten her. A man in brown with a brown cap over short brown hair strode towards them, saw the knife, retreated.

  ‘Nigel!’ cried Sophie.

  Violette expertly pulled them back towards the shelter of the corridor to the toilets. ‘My father is with his lordship. Please, your ladyship. I must keep you here.’

  And suddenly large men with large muscles were surging through the room. The men in brown were retreating. A man in a pink chiffon tea dress and a waxed moustache sat up shakily, rubbing what would probably become black eyes. Waiters and waitresses were straightening tables. The splintered door shut.

  ‘Call an ambulance,’ said Jones’s voice.

  ‘Go to his lordship now,’ Violette told Sophie quietly, though she went first, clearing a path for Sophie among the broken chairs, the bruised bodies, none, Sophie registered automatically, having suffered any real damage. The brown-uniformed men had just been making their displeasure at such quiet, well-mannered ‘decadence’ felt, thought Sophie, as she stepped over a broken platter and saw Nigel —

  Nigel. Nigel lying on the floor. Nigel with blood streaming bright red down his face. Nigel with blood seeping from his stomach where Jones pressed hard with a reddening cloth.

  ‘No time for an ambulance.’ The speaker wore an immaculate black Chanel suit, red high heels and the hint of a five o’clock shadow. ‘There is a clinic around the corner. I am Dr Andreiss.’

  The doctor looked around. ‘We need a stretcher. There, that tabletop will do. Don’t release the pressure,’ he added to Jones. ‘Careful! There may be head injuries . . .’ That to Sophie, kneeling, taking Nigel’s hand.

  ‘Nigel,’ she whispered.

  ‘In thee I’ve had mine earthly joy.’ The words were almost too soft to hear. His eyes closed. His breathing shallowed.

  ‘You are not to die,’ said Sophie shakily but fiercely. ‘I flew across the world so you would not die. You have to live! For me! For Rose and Daniel. You have to live for Shillings. Please.’ She found her sobs impossible to stop. ‘Please, just don’t die.’

  Arms about her — Violette’s. Who could have known such a spiky girl had such comfort in her arms.

  Four waiters lifted the tabletop, Jones still pressing down on the bloody cloth.

  Sophie followed them out, Violette’s arm about her waist. Hannelore was . . . somewhere. She did not care about Hannelore now.

  Nigel. Nigel.

  A waiting room. A Berlin private clinic’s waiting room should be different from one in London, Sydney or Paris, but this was not. Wooden floor, a carpet not quite Persian, but doing well, chairs of astonishing hardness and discomfort, paintings of hills and trees that were meant to give comfort or, at least, not add to the anguish.

  Waiting rooms. Places where one waited. In the hospitals she had founded, in the surgery she had created for Nigel at Shillings, she had had the authority to don a gown and mask, to enter any room she liked, as long as she did not disturb the surgeon or the team, not that men and women who operated under shelling that within seconds might create a cater where they were standing were likely to be put off by a lone woman standing quietly and still. Praying quietly. Waiting quietly. A waiting woman.

  I am a waiting woman, she thought. It is a woman’s traditional role, but I refused to let it apply to me. All through the war, women waited while I did things. And now I am the one who must wait and there is nothing I can do, no preparations, no organisation, no ‘Wouldn’t it be better to . . .?’

  I am a waiting woman in a waiting room.

  Jones waited also. Did Elizabat know? Probably not, for she had no telephone, unless Hannelore had sent the driver with a message. Miss Lily was supposed to arrive tonight, Sophie remembered. Perhaps Green was even now pretending to be a travel-weary Miss Lily. But whatever Nigel had planned would not happen now.

  And when it did not happen, Hannelore’s suspicions would be confirmed. For surely if the sister of an earl, in surgery, situation critical (such a good word — critical . . . it is critical that you give my message to . . . it is critical to keep stirring to make a good white sauce . . .) was in the same city then she would come here to hold his hand as soon as a message could be sent to her, be here as Nigel convalesced, because of course he would convalesce, there was no alternative. None. Sophie had flown to England so he would not die and so he would not die, would not die. It was critical that Nigel wouldn’t die . . .

  ‘Tea,’ said Jones, and suddenly he sounded like the batman he had been when Nigel had first known him, the batman who had decades later accompanied him to the Great War, the only way a commoner could stay with an aristocratic friend. And when Jones said ‘tea’ in that voice you drank it and found it warm and, even if it tasted bitter, it was a miracle, finding tea here. Miracles happened and so Nigel would not die . . .

  How long had it been? Sophie glanced at her watch. But she hadn’t looked at it when they first came in so she had no concept of how much time had passe
d.

  Green should be here too, she thought. Green loved Nigel too. It was not fair that Green and Jones had lived decades with Nigel, and she’d had less than four years.

  ‘Sophie.’ Hannelore tried to hold her hand. Sophie had hardly even registered her presence, nor Violette’s, sitting quietly next to her father. Sophie clasped her hands hard in her lap so Hannelore could not touch them.

  ‘You did this,’ she said.

  Which was both totally unfair and totally incorrect, for surely Hannelore did not support the brown shirts. Nor would she have asked them to raid that café that particular night to eradicate a British envoy who might turn the Prince of Wales against der Führer. Surely she would not have suggested that Nigel be killed before he could report back to England. For Hannelore knew, even if Herr Hitler did not, that Sophie was as capable of reporting to the prince as Nigel, and as close to him.

  All this must be the work of others, probably the fox man Goebbels in his armchair, with his young men like brown-clad marionettes.

  But Hannelore had brought Nigel to Berlin, blackmailed him to Berlin. Hannelore invited the doctor to lunch who had mentioned the existence of this café, a place where Nigel had been tempted to spend just a short, defiant time in the company of others like him, the man who was a woman, the woman who was a man, people who were both, or neither, and in that small place, for that small time, that did not matter.

  Nigel had not even had time to finish his whisky. No time to meet, observe, to feel, perhaps for the first time in his life, that he was surrounded by those who understood the anguish on which his life was based.

  I understand, she thought. Then realised: I do not. For she had never wanted to be anyone but Sophie Higgs. Even knowing her father longed for a son to take over his business, had merely made her determined that he accept that a daughter could do as well, or better.

  She did not understand. And now, perhaps, she never would.

  No! Nigel would live . . .

  A man in a white gown, white scarf about his head, a mask pulled down, emerged from the door opposite. ‘Her ladyship?’ he asked in strongly accented English.