The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  I don’t say anything.

  ‘I came to love you, Stella. I thought you were kind, and understanding. I felt you saw into people … Sometimes I’ve longed to have a different part to play. To have a bit more of a voice. Not just to drift along in the slipstream of someone else’s life…’ Her voice is tentative, uncertain, as though she’s feeling her way. She still has her back to me. ‘You saw that, didn’t you?’

  I nod wordlessly, though she isn’t looking at me. A tentative candle-flame of hope begins to burn in me: that she might overlook what I’ve done, that she might let me take Lotte.

  ‘But then you betrayed us, Stella.’

  Her words are too loud for the small room, and I hear all the steel in her voice. The flame in me is extinguished: I know there’s no hope for us now. Hearing Marthe’s harshness, Lotte starts crying again.

  ‘Rainer told me what you did,’ says Marthe. ‘How instead of being grateful you betrayed us. Betrayed both of us. Poking around in Rainer’s study. Doing everything that that man Reece asked you to do.’

  I know I ought to say I’m sorry. I try to force out the words, but my throat is thick and obstructed, as though it’s full of sand.

  ‘How could you, Stella, after everything we did for you? We took you into our home, we welcomed you … I’m so hurt by what you did. Deeply hurt, Stella.’

  It’s over. I know that. There’s nothing I can do, can say, to save Lotte. All I touch turns to ashes.

  Marthe is silent for a long time, looking out of the window. The room is so quiet I can hear the tiniest things – Lotte’s voiceless weeping; the heavy thud of my heart.

  Then Marthe turns back to face us. Her expression startles me – all the helplessness, the naked look in her face. She shakes her head slightly.

  ‘But I know how it feels to lose a child,’ she tells me. She’s speaking softly, feeling her way, and her voice has a catch in it. ‘As you know. You sensed that, Stella … And I think I can imagine how this child’s mother must feel.’

  I stare at her. Not breathing. Not daring to breathe.

  ‘I think, Stella…’ Her voice fades. She tries again. ‘I think I’m not going to tell Rainer.’ She has an air of surprise, as though she’s a little startled by the words that come from her mouth. ‘He’ll probably be out for most of the day. He has a lot to do now … I’ll bring you some food from the kitchen. I’ll tell Janika that you’re ill. You should stay in your room and the two of you will have to share the food. And I’ll fetch a camp bed for the little girl to sleep on.’

  ‘Bless you, Marthe.’

  ‘But you must leave tomorrow. You have to promise me. After that I can’t keep you safe.’

  ‘Yes. Yes, of course. We’ll leave tomorrow.’

  ‘Rainer and I will be out of the house tomorrow. There’s going to be a very great occasion in Heldenplatz,’ she says. ‘There will be speeches and flowers and so on … I’m going to pretend that none of this ever happened. I’m going to pretend that to myself as well. But you have to go tomorrow.’

  ‘Yes, we will,’ I tell her.

  ‘After you’ve gone, I’ll tell Rainer you’ve left, Stella. I won’t say anything about the little Jew-girl. It’ll be as though she never existed at all.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you so much. I’ll be grateful for ever.’

  She makes a little gesture, brushing my gratitude aside.

  On the threshold she turns: a thought has struck her.

  ‘Stella. Is there something you’d like to say to Rainer? A message I could give him after you’ve gone?’

  Is there anything I want to say to my father?

  My mind is full of precepts. I think of the fifth Commandment: Honour thy father and thy mother. I think how compassion is a great virtue, how we are enjoined to forgive. I think how he and I are bound by blood, how I am flesh of his flesh. All these thoughts and injunctions whirling around inside me, so I hesitate.

  But only for a heartbeat.

  ‘No, I have nothing to say to him. Not now, not ever,’ I say.

  77

  The train is filling up fast, but I manage to find some seats, with a window seat for Lotte.

  I glance around at our travelling companions. A young man and woman in the corner, in shabby workaday clothes. An elderly, white-haired woman, rather prim and exact, who clutches her hands together. A middle-aged man in the opposite seat; he’s heavy-jowled, with a well-fed look, and is wearing a grey woollen coat.

  The train moves out of the station. I have my fairytale book on my lap, but mostly we look through the window, and I point out things to Lotte. She seems a little stronger today. We talked for a long while yesterday, and I spoke to her almost as though she weren’t a child, not hiding things from her. Today she seems more self-possessed, more composed, looking out with interest at the world that rushes past our window.

  We pass through the Viennese suburbs, then through snow-covered vineyards and woods. The engine noise changes a little as the track beings to climb. It’s mid-afternoon, but already the shadows are long.

  I’ve told her how to behave. That she must be very careful not to call me by my name, because no child would do that to her mother. That we will talk slowly in German – as though I am teaching her the language. That she should speak as little as possible to anyone official. I’d worried they might think this suspicious – an English child who speaks perfect German with a Viennese accent. I’m hoping that when the officials come she won’t need to speak at all.

  I try not to think of Harri. If I think of him, I will cry; and I mustn’t cry, I tell myself; whatever happens, I mustn’t be emotional, mustn’t draw attention to myself. I have made my preparations. I have put on a hat with a brim that shadows my face, and a rather dark lipstick that makes me look harder and older. I have my mother’s ring on my ring finger. I am an ordinary traveller – a woman of the world, a woman travelling home to England with her child, in a time of international uncertainty. It’s appropriate to look a little worried; but I mustn’t seem like someone who’s been turned inside out by grief.

  I don’t understand the depth of the sorrow I feel. I have told myself: I will find him. There’s a bright, encouraging voice in my head, an English optimistic voice – that says that all will be well. Once Lotte is safely at my mother’s, I will search for him. There must be people I can speak to, things I can do. I will come back to Vienna if I have to. I will do whatever it takes, will search for him everywhere. I have resolved this.

  So why do I feel such sorrow? As though I know I have lost him. Last night, when Lotte was sleeping, I held him in my mind, remembering everything. His voice, his warmth, his hand on my skin. As though somewhere inside me, I know that, though I can see him, hear him, clearly now, it may not always be so. As though I have to cling to these things, to make them last a lifetime. And I cried so much, I hadn’t known a human body could produce so many tears.

  The daylight is thickening towards evening. To the west, behind us, the sky is hung with coloured rags of light, saffron, rose-pink, ivory. We pass frosted fields and naked trees. A shaggy black horse in a wide white meadow gallops away from the train. In the shadow of the mountains, there are small grey snowy towns, where swastika flags are flying at the stations; they flutter with the passing of the train. Mostly we don’t stop, and the station platforms are empty, except for a few bundled-up people, and swollen, ruffled pigeons, and thin dogs that skulk in the shadows. Lotte points; high up in the sky, there’s a tiny speck of a bird, that might be an eagle.

  I think of this morning – of saying goodbye to Lukas. I held him close against me, and thought how strange this was – that this little boy was my half-brother, and he’d probably never find out.

  ‘I wish you weren’t going,’ he told me.

  I cupped his face in my hands, looking into the pale washed-blue of his eyes.

  ‘I’m going to write you a letter,’ I told him. ‘A letter just for you. When I get back to England.’

  He
was quiet for a moment. He seemed rather guarded and reserved. I knew that he was thinking of Verity’s promise to him – that he believed she hadn’t kept. He looked unhappy.

  ‘I wish people didn’t leave you, Fräulein Stella,’ he said.

  Then I went to find Janika. The kitchen smelt of baking bread and was full of pale winter sun.

  ‘Frau Krause told me that you’re going now,’ said Janika.

  ‘Yes. But not to Baltimore. I’m just going back to my home.’

  She nodded.

  ‘So many plans are changing, in these troubled times,’ she said. ‘I shall miss you.’

  ‘I’ll miss you too,’ I told her.

  I put my arms around her. This startled her. She hugged me briefly, then pulled away. She lifted the hem of her apron and quickly wiped her eyes.

  ‘I’ve made you a picnic,’ she told me.

  She showed me the basket she’d packed. Bread, cheese, slices of Linzertorte, apples.

  There were two of everything.

  So I knew that she knew about Lotte, and what we were going to do. Maybe she’d known before Marthe found us; maybe she’d known all along.

  There are good people in this city.

  In the middle of nowhere, the train comes to a juddering halt. There’s a very small station, just one platform – no waiting room, no ticket office. Long shadows reach over the platform; a few lamps cast a thin light. Filthy shovelled snow is piled in heaps here and there; it has a ghostly glimmer in the light of the lamps. Swastika flags flap and flutter in the cold mountain air.

  Some men in dark overcoats are waiting on the platform.

  I see the couple in the corner glance at one another. The old woman has her fingers folded precisely in her lap; her expression is impassive, but her knuckles are white through her skin, like when you cling to something for dear life. There’s no sound but the hiss of steam escaping from the standing train. We sit for a while in silence.

  The carriage door opens. I feel my heart leap in my throat.

  There are two of them. They are wearing black rubber raincoats and they have swastika armbands. One has pale hair and a long, cadaverous face. The other seems almost laconic, but has penetrating eyes. They move through the carriage checking passports. They are courteous but cold. The carriage is entirely silent.

  I pull out the passport that Frank had had doctored for me. He’d frowned as he’d handed it back to me. He’d been worried.

  ‘I’m afraid this isn’t as good as I’d like. It may not pass close scrutiny. I wish I could persuade you not to do this, Stella,’ he’d said.

  I feel the fear surge through me.

  Then suddenly it comes to me – that this is a performance. No other performance has ever mattered so much. And I understand performance: I can do this. I hear Dr Zaslavsky speaking, almost as clearly as if he were here. There has to be stillness in it … You have to find that stillness inside yourself.

  I hand the passport over. My hand isn’t shaking at all.

  They stare at my passport. They stare at Lotte.

  ‘This is your daughter?’ asks the cadaverous man.

  I pat her arm, allow myself a slight smile.

  ‘Yes. Charlotte is my daughter.’

  I turn and look out of the window, at the empty station; beyond, the darkening sky, where all the colour is rapidly fading. My breathing is slow and easy. Dr Zaslavsky would be proud.

  But the two of them are still looking at us. I feel their gaze searing into me.

  They will notice how different we look from one another. They will notice that I’m far too young to have a seven-year-old child.

  I push these thoughts away from me. I hold to my teacher’s words, and I still myself, as he said.

  They hand the passport back to me.

  I smile.

  ‘Thank you,’ I say. Very matter-of-fact. As though everything has happened exactly as I expected. Careful not to sound too effusively grateful.

  They go out into the corridor, pulling the door closed behind them. The sound of that door shutting is the sweetest sound in the world.

  With the officials gone, there’s a slight stirring in the compartment, an almost audible thing, like a sigh; it’s as though we have, all of us, been holding our breath. The young couple in the corner kiss. The old woman’s lips move silently, perhaps in a prayer of gratitude. I wonder how many of us are travelling with dubious documentation.

  Responding perhaps to the lightening in the mood in the carriage, the heavy-jowled man in the overcoat leans forward and catches my eye. He has an ingratiating smile.

  ‘And where are you two heading, if I may ask?’ he says.

  ‘To Zurich.’

  ‘And after Zurich, where will you go?’ he asks me.

  He’s leaning a little too close. I can feel his breath on my face.

  ‘From there we’re taking the train to Calais, and then the boat to England.’

  He nods.

  ‘Ah. England. I thought so. I’d wondered if you were English. You have that English look. You were staying in Vienna?’

  ‘Yes, I was,’ I say.

  And now I am leaving. I am leaving Vienna.

  A stranger I arrived,

  A stranger I depart again …

  Shadows from outside move across the window. People are walking past us on the platform; everyone in the carriage swivels round to look. We see the two officials who inspected our passports. They have someone with them, in handcuffs: they must have pulled him off the train. A young man, not much older than me; he has his head bowed, but you can still see his terror. There’s a dark stain on his trousers, where he has wet himself, from fear. In the carriage, no one says anything. Everyone looks for a moment – and then turns carefully away, as though this weren’t happening.

  It could have been us, I keep thinking. It could have been Lotte and me who were pulled from the train. Everything feels so fragile.

  With a hiss of steam, a clank, a judder, the train gets going again. A slight smile moves round the carriage – a brief, bright thing, like a parcel passed from hand to hand in a game. We could be over the border now; we’ll be in Zurich soon.

  It’s almost dark outside; you can’t see far through the window. Those of us in the carriage could be the only people in the world, travelling on together to a future of utter uncertainty. If war is coming, as Frank predicted, how safe will Lotte be – even with me and my mother in England? How safe will anyone be? But these questions are too big for me. Maybe it’s best just to do the thing that is given to me to do; and not to think too far into the future.

  The man in the grey overcoat looks at me with a quizzical expression. He wants to continue our conversation.

  ‘Were you long in Vienna?’ he asks me.

  ‘Not long. Six months. But it feels like a lifetime,’ I say.

  But maybe that isn’t quite right. Those months feel like an age – and yet no time at all. Vienna seems remote as a dream – yet closer than my own body.

  ‘Six months can feel like a lifetime, when you’re young,’ he says. ‘When you have your whole life before you.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  But I don’t have my whole life before me. My life is over; the part that mattered is over. I have such a longing for Harri, in that moment. I feel it will rip me in two.

  I turn away, so the man won’t see the tears that start in my eyes.

  Through the window, beyond the light of the carriage, it is entirely dark now. It’s the dark of uninhabited country, of hidden valleys, of mountains. If you were out there in that depth of dark, you’d feel as though you’d gone blind.

  I must find my own way in this darkness …

  The man takes out his cigarettes, offers me one, lights it.

  ‘Thank you.’

  I breathe in gratefully. The smoke blots out the smell of the carriage – its stink of sweat, and fear.

  ‘And what did you think of Vienna?’ he asks me. The question easy, casual.
/>   How can I possibly answer?

  I clear my throat.

  ‘Well, it’s very beautiful, of course … Some of it was so beautiful. Being in Vienna…’

  I feel the tears spilling. I can’t carry on with this conversation.

  The man in the overcoat sees this. He tactfully turns away, and pulls a newspaper out of his briefcase.

  Lotte finds her handkerchief and pushes it into my hand. She’s looking after me now. I wipe my face. We sit quietly for a moment.

  ‘Shall we read a story?’ she asks me then.

  ‘We could do…’

  ‘I want a new story. One with a happy ending.’ She looks up at me, hopeful. ‘Can you find one like that for me, Stella?’ she says.

  ‘I can’t promise anything, Lotte.’

  But I reach across her to pull down the blind so we can’t see the night through the window, and I wrap my arm around her, and open the fairytale book.

  Here are some of the books that helped me in my research for The English Girl.

  Ilse Barea, Vienna, Secker and Warburg, London, 1966.

  Wibke Bruhns, My Father’s Country, Arrow, London, 2009.

  George Clare, Last Waltz in Vienna: the Destruction of a Family 1842–1942, Pan, 1982, London.

  Edmund de Waal, The Hare with Amber Eyes, Vintage, London, 2010.

  Tekla Domotor and Corvina Kiado, Hungarian Folk Beliefs, Athenaeum Printing House, Budapest, 1982.

  Patrick Leigh Fermor, Between the Woods and the Water, John Murray, London, 1986.

  Patrick Leigh Fermor, A Time of Gifts, John Murray, London, 1977.

  Sigmund Freud, The Interpretation of Dreams, Pelican, London, 1977.

  Sigmund Freud, On Murder, Mourning and Melancholia, Penguin Classics, London, 2005.

  Janet Malcolm, Psychoanalysis: the Impossible Profession, Picador, London, 1982.

  George L. Mosse (ed.), Nazi Culture, W. H. Allen, London, 1966.

  Jodi Shields, Hats: a stylish history and collector’s guide, Clarkson Potter, New York, 1991.

  William L. Shirer, The Nightmare Years, Bantam, London, 1985.

  William L. Shirer, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Pan, London, 1964.