The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  I tell myself I’ll be only half a moment. I open the diary again, flick back to 8 September, the date when I came, to see what it says. He’s just written Stella.

  I put the diary down on the desk; I turn my attention to the remaining contents of the third drawer. I’m fastidious, very aware of how the things are arranged, so I’ll be able to put them back exactly in their right positions. It’s hard to see in here, but I don’t dare put the lamp back on, in case Janika should see the thread of light from under the door. I push at my hair impatiently where it falls in front of my face, so I can see what I’m doing. It’s as though my beating heart has moved up into my throat.

  Outside, the bell tolls on, slow, measured. It has a funereal sound. Somebody’s done for.

  There’s not much else in the drawer. Expensive notepaper. Envelopes, ready for use, arranged according to size. An unused notebook, bound in ivory silk. Everything orderly.

  Some letters. A whole bundle of letters tied up with red ribbon.

  I pick them up, heart pounding, peer at the handwriting on the envelopes. But then I see, with a surge of relief, that it looks like Marthe’s writing. The letters have Rainer’s name on, and a Salzburg address. These must be love letters from Marthe, from when she and Rainer were courting. They’re of no interest to me. I put the letters aside.

  Beneath the letters, at the bottom of the drawer, the shiny white back of a photograph. Face down, as you’d place a playing card. So no one can see what it means or tell how the game will play out.

  I take it in my hand and turn it over.

  The room lurches around me. I hear the hard, dull thumps of my heart.

  The picture is of my mother at Gillingham Manor – the same picture I found in her bureau, that she’d hidden and never got framed. That she too had secreted away, but couldn’t quite bear to discard. The picture in which she’s standing in a rose garden, smiling, so happy, the summer wind blowing on her. And I understand her smile now, in a way that I couldn’t when first I saw this photograph – before I met Harri, before I learned about love. Seeing how she’s gazing at the one who holds the camera, her face, her eyes, all luminous. Smiling at this man, the one who makes her feel so alive; the one who completes her.

  I put everything back very carefully, place the desk key back in the tray. No one would guess I had been here. I open the door an inch, and listen. Janika is back in the kitchen; I can hear her singing one of her songs of lost love and sad young women buried beneath willow trees. I leave the room as quiet as a ghost or shadow. I fetch the key, lock the door, replace the key on its hook.

  And go to my room and lie on my bed and bury my face in the pillow. I want to weep – for myself, because of what I have learned; I would weep as well for the gentle, kindly man who brought me up, who loved me as his own daughter. But no tears come.

  Images move across my closed eyelids – moments with Rainer. All the times I’ve felt that shivery sense of connection. The moment when we spoke together, saying the same words. The time just before Marthe’s party, when he started to reach out to me. The unnerving way he looks at me. I picture our faces together in the mirror, his and mine – our eyes meeting, the likeness between us. And I realise that others must have been aware of this likeness. The man I met in the hall, who said I’d obviously inherited my father’s musical ability. Frank, when he said, You may notice things that you’d rather you hadn’t found out …

  And I think about my mother, with a hot surge of rage. I remember how she behaved, when it was arranged for me to come here. How uncertain she seemed, the faltering in her. I have such a feeling of betrayal. Why didn’t she tell me? She must have known – as women always do. I had a right to know this; I had a right to be told. Was she ever going to tell me? Would I have lived my entire life not knowing this about myself?

  I think: No one can be relied on. Everyone has secrets, everybody lies – even the ones you love the most. Even your own mother.

  And then I start to wonder what on earth I should do. I know I have to talk to Rainer – some time, somehow. But I can’t envisage it – can’t begin to imagine what I could say. I can’t tell him how I found out – that I was spying on him. I try to think of a way to start the conversation; try to imagine how he might react. What if he turned from me, rather shocked, and said I was making it up? Would it be better to say nothing?

  But I know that isn’t possible. I can’t be silent – not for ever. I can’t undo what I’ve done here this morning. I can’t unsee what I saw.

  58

  At last I get up. I wash my face in the bathroom; then I put on my coat and my hat. There’s only one person who can help me. Only Harri will understand these thoughts that rage and war in me. Harri, who holds the hidden things up to the light; who knows about the hosts of absent others who come between us.

  The sun is already low in a clear cold sky, as I walk to Mariahilferstrasse. We hadn’t planned to meet this afternoon – he was going to spend it studying. He might be at the hospital library: I’m praying he’ll be at home.

  People pass me in the street, all muffled against the chill wind. People with children, parents, lovers. A mother talks to her child as they trudge home with bags of shopping. A couple kiss and whisper, their arms inside each other’s coats. Yet what is left unsaid, in these intimate exchanges? There are words that are never spoken, that fill up our mouths like stones, that choke us. Everybody lies. What lies are these people telling? All the time and every day, till they become habitual. What secrets are circling beneath the placid surfaces of their lives?

  ‘Stella.’

  I see the contradictory feelings in him. His pleasure in seeing me there; his concern at what he immediately sees in my eyes.

  ‘What is it, Stella? What’s wrong?’

  But now I’m here, I can’t speak.

  He reaches out, holds me.

  ‘My darling – I’m so sorry that I have to leave you like this…’

  ‘Yes. Me too.’ I have my mouth pressed into his shoulder; I can smell the warm smell of the wool of his sweater, of him. My voice is muffled against him. ‘I so wish you didn’t have to. But I know you have to go. You have to be safe. That’s what matters…’ I pull a little away from him. ‘But it’s not about that. It’s something else, something that’s happened,’ I say.

  My throat dries up. He waits. I don’t know how to begin.

  ‘Is your grandfather in?’ I ask him.

  ‘Yes. And Lotte. And my mother’s in the shop.’

  I just stand there, helplessly.

  He gives me an anxious look.

  ‘We’ll go out,’ he says. ‘Would that help?’

  ‘Yes. Yes, it would.’

  ‘We’ll go somewhere quiet.’ He thinks for a moment. ‘We could go to Schönbrunn. Just hang on while I fetch my coat,’ he says.

  We take the tram to Schönbrunn Palace. He holds my hand; we don’t speak.

  Schönbrunn is beautiful in the winter light, the vast lawns smooth as white linen. Above, there’s a dazzling sky, a great wash of daffodil light. But it’s far too cold to stay out in the open: the air has an edge like a knife. We go into the Palm House, to escape from the wind.

  The contrast as you go through the doors of the Palm House takes your breath away – the heat, so you feel the immediate trickle of sweat on your skin; the mingled flower pollens – azalea, lily of the valley. The nonchalant jungle whistle of the parrots sounds all wrong, when beyond the glass walls it’s winter. There’s nobody else in the place.

  I remember when we were here before – how he slid his hands under my clothes, how sweet, how daring, it felt. I was a different person then – young, trusting. I want to be that person again.

  By a bank of scarlet azaleas he turns me round to face him.

  ‘Tell me, Stella.’

  I don’t know how to begin. But I know he will help me make sense of it – Harri, who understands everything.

  ‘There’s this man – the Englishman, the one who help
ed us…’

  Harri is puzzled.

  ‘Frank Reece. Of course,’ he says. ‘I wrote to him, to thank him.’

  ‘I haven’t told you all about him,’ I say. ‘After I met him at Marthe’s party…’

  I have to stop. My mouth is suddenly dry; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.

  Harri waits for me.

  ‘He asked me to meet him for a drink,’ I say.

  I see the question in Harri’s face. I put my hand on his arm.

  ‘It’s not what you think,’ I tell him. ‘He wasn’t flirting or anything. He wanted me to tell him things – to notice who came to the flat. To identify the men who Rainer meets with.’

  I hear Harri’s quick indrawn breath.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he says.

  ‘I thought you might hate me,’ I say. ‘I thought you might think that it was a horrible thing to do. To spy on the people who took me in.’

  He puts his hands on my shoulders, holding me there. His touch is so comforting. He shakes his head a little.

  ‘At first I wouldn’t do it,’ I say. ‘I absolutely refused. Rainer and Marthe had been so kind to me. But then – things happened. I saw two men leave the flat one night and they gave the Hitler salute. And I realised what they believe in – these men who meet Rainer there…’

  He nods slightly. I remember when we talked about this, in the café at the cemetery: his intent look. How in the light of the candles, the bones in his face seemed too clear.

  ‘You suspected something, didn’t you? When I talked about Rainer?’ I say.

  ‘I wondered,’ he says.

  ‘And then you were beaten up, and Frank helped us … I felt I owed him. I said I’d do what he wanted,’ I say.

  ‘Oh, my darling. How awful for you. And you would have been putting yourself in danger.’ He pushes my hair from my face. ‘But, Stella, you did the right thing. If these men are as Frank suspects – and that certainly seems highly likely…’

  I shake my head impatiently.

  ‘But that isn’t it, that isn’t the thing I wanted to say.’

  There are frown-lines pencilled between his brows. He’s aware that there’s something he’s missing.

  I move away from him. My voice is shaking.

  ‘I looked in his desk – in Rainer’s desk. This morning.’ I swallow hard. ‘Frank asked me to look at Rainer’s diary. At first I wasn’t going to, but then I thought that I would…’

  The air is thick and sickly with flower pollens. I feel as though I can’t breathe.

  ‘And I found a photograph of my mother in Rainer’s desk,’ I say. ‘It’s a photograph my mother has, too. From when she was a young woman. It was taken at a house party, just after the Great War. She keeps hers hidden as well…’

  Harri’s eyes are suddenly wide.

  ‘He’s my father, Harri.’ I can’t control my voice. The words come out too loud. ‘Rainer Krause is my father.’

  ‘Oh Stella.’

  He takes me in his arms. I’m trembling. He strokes my hair, so tenderly.

  ‘I think in a way I knew it before, but I tried to close my mind to it,’ I tell him. ‘I’d felt – I don’t know – something. That we were very alike in some way.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says.

  ‘Something in me wondered…’

  I’m silent for a moment. I think of trying to tell him the other thing – the thing that shocks me the most. That sometimes I’ve felt an attraction between us – between Rainer and me. That thin whisper of desire. But I can’t say it. Not now. I’m worried he might be appalled – even Harri, who delves into the silences between people, who knows about the darkness in us, the strangeness. One day I’ll tell him, I think. Perhaps one day he could explain it to me – him and Dr Freud.

  ‘And I thought how my mother had seemed a bit reluctant to send me here – even though the arrangement seemed perfect.’

  He holds me.

  ‘There was just this little thread of suspicion in my mind,’ I say. ‘And I tried to push it away, I didn’t want to think it. It was like that thing you told me – how you can know something and not know it, both at the same time.’

  ‘Yes,’ he says quietly.

  ‘I feel so … lost. I don’t feel like me any more.’ I struggle to find the right words. ‘I want you to help me find out who I am,’ I say lamely.

  ‘Oh Stella. You’re just the same sweet person,’ he tells me, so gently, his hand moving over my hair.

  ‘I don’t feel it, I don’t feel the same. It just seems to blow away everything I’ve ever known. My childhood – my life in Brockenhurst … It’s like none of it was real. It’s like all my memories have been taken away.’ I think how everything seems different, when I look back to my childhood. Fractured. As though I’m looking at a family photo, but there’s a crack in the glass. ‘And Daddy – I mean, Ernest – his name was Ernest, the man who brought me up…’

  It’s so strange to call him by his name. And now at last I cry.

  Harri runs his finger tenderly down the side of my face.

  ‘You’re still the same person,’ he says again. ‘And Ernest is still your father, Stella. He loved you – that wasn’t a lie. Nothing changes that. Your true family are the people who love you – it isn’t just about blood. Ernest gave you a father’s love. That’s what matters.’

  ‘But why didn’t my mother tell me? She must have known, and yet she never said. She lied to me all those years. My life, my entire childhood, has been founded on a lie.’

  A hot rage surges in me, as I think this.

  ‘I know how angry you must be,’ he says. ‘But’ – hesitantly – ‘I can understand why she didn’t tell you. Sometimes there are things that are too hard to say. And the longer you leave it, the harder it gets.’

  ‘She should have told me.’ My voice is hard. ‘I feel I never want to speak to her again. She should have told me…’

  ‘Perhaps she was waiting for the right moment, and it never came.’

  But I can’t forgive her. I feel so angry with her.

  ‘I just keep thinking of what it all means,’ I tell him. ‘Keep thinking of more and more things. That little Lukas who I’ve been looking after – Lukas is my half-brother.’

  ‘Have you talked to Rainer?’ he asks me.

  ‘Not yet. It’s too soon. But I will. For now it feels too difficult.’

  He holds me close, wrapping me in his smell and his warm touch, till I stop trembling.

  He murmurs into my hair.

  ‘My dearest, you’ll find yourself again. Truly. I promise you,’ he says.

  At last I pull away, scrub at my face with a handkerchief.

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I say. ‘I know we haven’t got long – before you go. I don’t want to mess up these days we still have together. I don’t want you to think of me like this, when you’ve gone. All teary and blotchy.’ I manage a weak smile. ‘I want you to think of me being happy … Thank you for listening to me.’

  I blow my nose. I feel a little better already. Relieved at having told him. As if the very act of telling has healed me in some way.

  It’s as though I become aware of my surroundings again – the great fretted shadows of palm trees falling over the path, the sounds of water dripping, the scarlet azaleas, lavish as a woman’s lipsticked mouth. Through the glass roof of the Palm House you can see the winter sky, as bright as if it’s burning.

  ‘Sweetheart. You mustn’t apologise. It’s such a huge thing for anybody to have to deal with,’ he says.

  All at once, I think of him – of what he is facing. Leaving Vienna, crossing the ocean, going to a new life. Leaving everyone he loves. It’s so hard for him, it utterly dwarfs the things I have to deal with. Suddenly I feel I’ve been so selfish, so self-centred.

  I put my drenched handkerchief in my pocket. I pin a smile on my face.

  ‘Let’s talk about something else,’ I say. ‘I’ve been going on and on about me. Let’s talk about yo
u…’

  He shrugs slightly.

  ‘You’re got so much to sort out,’ I say. ‘Are you definitely still going on Friday?’

  ‘That’s the plan,’ he tells me.

  ‘And do you know where you’ll be living yet?’

  ‘It’s more or less organised. I’m going to stay in Mount Vernon to start with,’ he says.

  I feel a small dark swoop of something at the edge of my mind. I realise how little he’s told me. That I don’t yet have a clear picture of what his life will be like.

  ‘Oh. Where’s Mount Vernon?’

  ‘It’s a district of Baltimore – quite central. I’ll be staying with an anaesthetist and his wife. They’re being very kind to us.’

  To us?

  ‘How did you meet them?’ I ask him. ‘The anaesthetist and his wife?’

  ‘Oh, I haven’t met them yet. They’re people that Ulrike knows.’

  My heart lurches.

  ‘Ulrike?’ In a little torn rag of a voice.

  ‘She’s Jewish too, Stella. Didn’t you know?’

  ‘No. Well, why would I? You never told me.’

  ‘She would be just as much at risk as me. If it does happen—’

  ‘Ulrike? Ulrike is going with you?’

  ‘She’s been offered a post at Johns Hopkins as well.’ His voice steady, careful. ‘We both feel it could get too difficult here.’

  He looks in my face, reading me.

  ‘Oh Stella…’

  He puts out his hand to touch me. I push his hand away.

  ‘You think we’re—’ He stops, tries again. ‘I mean, Ulrike and me…’

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘Look – we aren’t, we’ve never been … She’s a work colleague. I’ve told you, Stella, I love only you. How can you doubt that?’

  The jealousy seizes me, moves through me: hot, blinding. Everyone has secrets, everybody lies. Even those you love the most.