‘Why can’t they leave us alone? She’s no threat to anyone.’ I felt sick.
‘Black marketeering’s a serious offence. When I looked into the complaint I discovered it was about the food parcels that Frau Kraus distributes around the community for Elya.’ He raked his hand through his cropped hair and shook his head in disgust. ‘Some bright spark from the village, I suspect at Mueller’s prompting, realised that Elya could never have supplied that many packages containing rationed items that aren’t sourced from the farm – biscuits, sugar and the like – without accessing the black market.’ I breathed a sigh of relief and sipped more champagne. Leo’s operations hadn’t been blown. ‘But my concern was that if anyone decided to investigate further, they’d find more.’
‘What?’
Julius briefly rested his hand on my leg. ‘I know that Leo’s been trading goods on the black market.’ I stared at him in surprise but not without some guilt. In the beginning, Leo had asked me not to tell him anything about the black market dealings and, although I trusted Julius implicitly, I wanted to keep my word. Besides, there had never been a reason to discuss it with him, even though I’d been tempted to tell him a few times. ‘It’s no surprise considering the lost contracts and it seems that he’s just like his father, resourceful and pragmatic. But any probing would implicate both Elya and Leo, and possibly Georg too, not to mention all those contacts that Leo’s made in the business.’
‘It would be catastrophic for all of them,’ I admitted.
Julius nodded. ‘And it could give Mueller the opportunity to take Gut Birkenhof for himself, especially if he’s the one behind it all.’
‘That can never happen,’ I said, shaking with fear and fury.
‘I couldn’t agree more,’ said Julius. ‘That’s why I had to nip it in the bud. Make no mistake, Mueller’s a powerful man with powerful friends but, lucky for us, I also have friends in powerful places. I was able to call in a favour and ensure that that report never sees the light of day. Elya, Leo and Georg are safe and any further complaint in that vein will conclude that supplies in those food parcels came from the pooling of rations from a variety of benevolent individuals to aid those in need across the community.’ My body sagged as the tension I’d been holding was released.
‘You did that tonight?’
‘Yes, it couldn’t wait. I didn’t want to risk it.’
I placed my hand on his. ‘You called in a favour, but what did it cost you?’
‘Nothing I haven’t already pledged.’ He took my hand to his lips. ‘Politics is a complicated game but as long as I’m aligned with the right people, I don’t expect there to be any problems. We’ll stay one step ahead of Mueller and keep your family safe.’
‘Julius, I don’t know how to thank you for everything you’ve done. You’ve helped with the contracts, ensured the seed and fuel orders arrived, kept me safe from Mueller and eliminated every threat against my family.’ I shook my head in amazement. ‘You’ve done everything you’ve promised to protect us and I’m so grateful…’ Tears welled in my eyes. ‘I can’t imagine what might have happened without your intervention.’
‘Then don’t imagine it. As long as I’m by your side, you have nothing to worry about.’ I nodded and picked up my glass but it was empty. Julius grinned. ‘Talking is thirsty work,’ he said, reaching for the champagne bottle.
‘No more,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘I won’t be able to stand up otherwise.’
‘A last toast,’ he said, filling up my glass before raising his. ‘To the future and to lasting happiness.’ I took another sip, knowing I’d regret it in the morning. All I could hope was that my shift the next day would be quiet. Julius leaned across and kissed my cheek. ‘Are you happy?’
‘Of course.’
‘With our arrangement?’
‘I never imagined it would be so easy with you. Sometimes I have to pinch myself to make sure it’s real. You’ve been so good to me, given me so much.’
‘It’s only what Georg wanted for you: safety and protection from the dangers surrounding your family and a life you deserve.’
‘But if he really knew.’ I smiled wryly.
‘He never has to know if we become a real couple.’
‘What?’ My head was beginning to feel fuzzy.
‘Don’t you know how ravishing you look?’ he said softly. His hand slid up the side of my thigh.
I grabbed hold of his hand. ‘What are you doing?’
‘Come on, Susie, let’s have a little fun. Don’t you want to find out what the fuss is all about?’
The yearning in his eyes made me confused and afraid. ‘Don’t be silly,’ I admonished.
‘I’m serious. We trust each other and enjoy each other’s company. Why not?’
‘Julius, we had a strict arrangement.’
He sighed and caressed my arm instead. ‘Susie, we’re in this now. Let’s make the best of it. I meant all those things I said to you tonight. What I want is you.’
‘But we can’t.’ I tried to move away but I only sank further into the lounge.
‘Is there someone else you have feelings for?’
I dropped my gaze. I couldn’t tell him how I felt about Leo. Somehow it didn’t feel right. Those emotions were intensely personal and my memories of him were what kept me going when I despaired of a future without him at all. ‘So there’s no reason for us not to try to have a full and meaningful relationship.’ He brushed loose hair from my face, securing it behind my ear. ‘I know you feel the connection we have and I’ve seen the way you look at me sometimes. You’re too young to know what love is, but I do, and I’m telling you it’s what we have.’
I frowned, trying to think through what he’d said, wondering if what I felt for him could be called love. He did make me laugh and I could be myself with him, the woman I was becoming, and there was no doubt that I was attracted to his power and the life he could give me. But it wasn’t as powerful as what I felt for Leo. It was nothing like it.
‘You really are beautiful and I would never hurt you.’ He dipped his head to kiss me and I tasted the lingering traces of the expensive cognac he’d been drinking. He gently pushed me back into the lounge, and his hands slid over my hips gliding over the satin of my gown, firm, steady and experienced. ‘Stay with me tonight,’ he said, his voice rough with need. ‘Do this one thing for me. Let me show you what love is.’
‘Julius… I,’ I said, feeling trapped. The room around me began to spin. He’d done so much for my family and this was all he asked of me in return. But it was the one thing I couldn’t give to him. All I could think of was Leo under the cherry tree and how I vowed to wait until we could finish what we’d started that night.
I was feeling so disoriented that when Julius scooped me off the lounge and carried me to his bed, I could hardly resist. The room was still spinning slowly and the bed was so soft. All I wanted to do was shut my eyes but then his hand was inside my gown. I pressed my hands against his. ‘Wait, Julius.’ He kissed me again, ignoring my protests and his hands caressed my body, not like the sizzling touch of Leo’s that ignited my desire, but still depleting my resolve with his insistence. Then his hand was between my legs and I knew it was too late to refuse. I would do what he wanted. He was our protector.
He spread my legs wide and he hovered over me as I felt a firm pressure thrusting against my softness. I clung to him until at last he slid home with a sharp stab of pain. As the pace quickened and the thrusting intensified, he drew into himself and I felt alone and adrift as he plunged himself deeper into me. All I could do was hold on until he collapsed, shuddering on top of me.
‘That was incredible,’ he said after a moment or so. ‘I’ve wanted this for so long.’ He rolled off me and lay on his side looking at me. I pushed my skirt down over my thighs and sighed shakily. ‘You’re so beautiful,’ he whispered, caressing my cheek. ‘I’m sorry it was rushed. I couldn’t help myself. Next time we’ll take our time and explore the delights we
each have to offer. I’ll show you what pleasure’s all about.’
‘But we’re not married,’ I whispered. ‘And there won’t be a wedding.’
He rested his hand on my belly possessively. ‘We’re engaged and it’s time for our relationship to become something more than a sham. What’s more believable than a couple in love who can’t keep their hands off each other? This is the modern day, you’re a modern woman, but you don’t have to worry, we’ll be discreet.’
‘Am I just another one of your women who you’ll use and then discard when our arrangement is over?’
‘How can you say that?’ He looked genuinely hurt. ‘I’ll always protect you and look after you, and I promise to give you a good life and treat you right. Just love me as I love you. That’s all I ask.’ He kissed my cheek gently.
Thoughts of Leo and the love we shared came unbidden into my head. What I’d done with Julius felt nothing like the night with Leo under the cherry tree. I’d responded to Leo with an uncontrollable passion that I didn’t experience with Julius. Where I’d felt close to Leo, I’d only felt dissociated from myself with Julius. I couldn’t change what had happened but I knew that I’d now stepped into the unknown and that everything was now different for me.
I nodded, feeling hollow and confused. ‘I have to go. I have a shift at the hospital tomorrow.’ All I wanted now was sleep and oblivion before Marika and I had to drive back to Beelitz.
Perhaps in the cold light of day I could make sense of what had happened.
* * *
Marika found me sobbing in the shower the following morning, sitting on the floor, curled in a ball and heedless of the water that was running over me. She turned off the water and wrapped a towel around me.
‘Come on. Let’s get you out of here.’ She helped me up and I followed her out, water dripping onto the tiled floor. Now that I’d stopped crying, I felt numb. She placed another towel on my head, twisted it and tucked the edges in like a turban. ‘There, no more drips,’ she said.
She took my hand and led me back to our room where I sat perched on the edge of a chair. I couldn’t speak. I didn’t know what to say. My eyes were raw from crying and my head hurt.
‘What’s wrong, Susie?’ Marika crouched down in front of me, her face creased with worry. I glanced at my gown, still crumpled on a heap on the floor by my bed. ‘Did something happen at the gala?’ I clasped both hands together tightly across my abdomen. It ached there and between my legs, reminding me of what I’d done. There was no escaping it.
I nodded. ‘I let Julius have me. I was waiting for Leo, but now…’
Marika dragged the other chair next to me and sat, draping her arm around my shoulders. ‘Tell me what happened.’
So I told her, haltingly at first, but then the words came and the emotions with it: anger, guilt, mortification at my stupidity and, finally, desolation. With Marika’s arms around me, fresh tears began to fall.
‘It’s my own fault, but I can’t take it back and Julius wants more.’ My shoulders slumped with wretchedness. I was so confused by what had happened. I’d always believed I had a strong sense of morality so the guilt at what I’d done seemed like a bottomless lake.
‘He took advantage of you. I don’t care if he says he loves you.’ She was angry too, and that helped, but I should have known better. How could I have been so naïve? ‘You have to break your engagement. Your aunt and uncle will understand… And Leo will break his neck,’ she said darkly.
‘I can’t.’ I shrugged helplessly. Her look of astonishment broke my resolve and I decided I couldn’t hide the truth from her any longer. I told her of my arrangement with Julius, how it had all started and the whole story since. ‘I’m trapped. He’s done so much for our family and I feel obliged to him. My family’s safety is worth more than anything.’
‘He’s no better than Kreisleiter Mueller,’ she said through gritted teeth. ‘He might be more handsome and charming, but he’s just as manipulative.’ She was shaking with rage. ‘He’s using your fear of what’s happening to the Jewish people to his advantage.’
I shivered in the wet towel, but it had less to do with being cold than the uneasiness that now crept up my spine at Marika’s words. I didn’t want to admit that I could have been wrong about Julius, about his motives. He was Onkel Georg’s most trusted friend and I’d known him since I was a little girl. I thought that I understood him. We had so much in common, we were both taken in by the Heckers… we were kindred spirits. But Marika was right. Julius had manipulated me into sleeping with him. That realisation allowed me to sit a little taller. I knew what I had to do.
‘I know he’s got what he wants, but I have to stay with him for their sake. He’ll do anything for me then.’
Her green eyes were wide. ‘How can you be so sure?’
Whatever I told Marika, I knew she wouldn’t understand, not really. There wasn’t always a right and a wrong. Life was more complicated than that. It was about the shades that lay in between. I was beginning to learn what people were prepared to do to for the right reasons.
‘Because he’ll be afraid of losing me and the only family he’s ever really had.’ I straightened in the chair, feeling more resolute now that I’d said it out loud. ‘If we’re together, he’s no longer the lost little boy, but a proper member of our family and a part of Gut Birkenhof, which has always felt like his home.’ It all made sense now that I’d articulated it. ‘I’ve learnt something valuable. I’m his weakness and that’s my power over him.’
‘So you’re going to play his game.’
Frau Kraus’s words came rushing back to me. Julius had manipulated me into sacrificing something precious, but although my feet were now firmly planted in his world, I could still regain my power. I thought again of how he had made the black market complaint disappear. He had the power to protect my family but I could use what he wanted from me to keep them safe. I would get what I wanted from Julius too.
I gazed into Marika’s anxious face. ‘I’ll give Julius what he wants and be the perfect fiancée if that’s what keeps my family safe. But my heart will always belong to Leo.’
10
On the night of the twenty-second of November air-raid sirens woke me. It was late when I’d gone to bed. Utterly drained from a busy night on the ward, I’d fallen asleep straight away, and it seemed only minutes later that the blaring forced me awake. I jumped out of bed, fuzzy-headed.
‘Come on,’ called Marika, pulling on her coat. I nodded, suddenly alert, and pushed my feet into my shoes and grabbed my coat from behind the door. We rushed down the corridor, now congested with bodies, and towards the air-raid shelter.
The Allies had begun their assault of Berlin four days earlier, forcing us into the hospital bunker for the first time in many months. The drone of aircraft overhead was our only indication of what was happening outside. Nobody knew what to expect, but as we crowded around the radio in the early hours of that first morning, we discovered that the cloud cover over the city had kept the damage to a minimum. We’d smiled and laughed, elated that we’d been spared, some even saying that Berlin couldn’t be touched. But they were wrong.
‘The government district suffered a direct hit,’ one of the nurses said over breakfast that morning. ‘Parts of the city are on fire.’
Murmurs of consternation erupted around the room, the same fear on everybody’s lips. Berlin had survived a number of air raids earlier in the year with no serious damage, but the dread following the firebombing of Hamburg had been almost suffocating. The evacuations from Berlin had left the city eerily empty and those left behind believed it was only a matter of time before the Allies turned their attention to the capital.
We had no idea of the scale of the disaster that had befallen Berlin until we were all called to a briefing later that morning. A skeleton staff would be left at Beelitz and all remaining medical and nursing staff were being sent to Berlin to assist with the aftermath: basic triage and emergency treatment before patien
ts were shunted off to various hospitals across the city. Marika and I were to join the team.
As we drove into the city, a nightmarish landscape unfolded through the back windows of the van. Roads were closed and the bombing had damaged streets, buildings, tram tracks, electricity lines and water pipes. A massive firestorm had ripped through entire suburbs. Marika and I held each other’s hands tightly but spoke barely a word as our van traversed the many detours and back streets. Blackened ruins greeted us, even in the affluent and beautiful suburbs of Tiergarten and Charlottenburg – blasted, gutted buildings and homes with collapsed walls, shattered windows and rubble strewn haphazardly across once beautiful gardens and tree-lined avenues. We saw the blank faces of people in shock. Fires were still raging in the distance, the red hue and black plumes of smoke reminding me of Dante’s Inferno. It was as though we’d descended into hell.
When we finally stopped, we were immediately directed to a cordoned-off area in a small park. Confusion reigned all around us, the air filled with the moaning and whimpering of unrecognisable creatures: bodies covered in burns; broken bones protruding through skin, pearly white against bloody wounds; other people visibly intact but covered in grime and most likely suffering from head knocks or internal injuries. These were obviously the worst cases and, as I unpacked bandages onto a trestle table that had somehow materialised, the park began filling with dazed residents, their faces blackened, wandering aimlessly. Others arrived, pale and anxious, clearly looking for their loved ones. I wondered whether Julius’s building had survived the bombing. Despite what had happened after the gala, I still needed his protection for my family. But there was no time to think about him now.
‘These burns are the worst I’ve ever seen,’ murmured Marika as we aided the patients assigned to us. Most of them were either lying or sitting on the ground in shock.
I nodded, trying not to breathe in the smell of burned flesh that enveloped us. Some people’s injuries were likely caused by burning, falling debris, others were from the engulfing firestorm, and others were from God knows what… I bent down to assess a woman in front of me. She was barely conscious with thick, black patches adhered to the skin of her feet and lower legs.
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