A Song Unheard

by Roseanna M. White

  Every afternoon was lazy now. Lazy and tense. Because they didn’t dare fill them as they once had and never knew when the next tragedy would strike. They’d gone to Madame Dumont’s church this morning for Mass—Maman with a black veil over her face lest anyone recognize her—and even the familiar Latin words had seemed all wrong. The priest had been too young, his voice too deep. His homily too . . . too . . . measured. As if he knew the enemy could well be listening and taking account of every syllable.

  Wise of him. But still. She wanted to hear old Father Pudois again. Speaking from the heart.

  In reply to Gottlieb, she said, “It is not completely boring.”

  He chuckled—which sounded all wrong coming from him. “Careful, fräulein, or you may make me think your hatred of me has dimmed a degree or two.”

  It pierced. More, probably, than he meant it to. She kept her gaze on the board. “I do not hate you. God forbids us to hate.”

  He snorted and set his white stone down in an utterly predictable spot. “You believe all that drivel, do you?”

  Her fingers curled around her next stone, her gaze darting to the sofa and chairs. Maman had gone to lie down with a bad headache. Madame Dumont was here still . . . but she had dozed off in her rocking chair.

  No one to scold her, then, for letting a few honest words slip past her lips. “You think God is drivel?”

  “I think the idea of God and morality is a construct of civilization meant to keep the masses in line. I think those of superior intellect are capable of moving beyond such constructs.”

  Now she snorted. “Why not just proclaim ‘God is dead’ and be done with it, if you are so fond of Nietzsche?”

  His stillness screamed for a long second. Then his “You are familiar with Nietzsche?” blistered her.

  One of these days, she would be old enough that people would not look at her like she was an aberration for being well educated. One of these days, she might even be respected for her mind.

  She longed for that day. How many more years? Two? Four?

  Assuming she survived that long. Which, if she kept saying foolish things with Germans around, she might not.

  She sent him her best scowl. “I have heard his works discussed. My father, God rest his soul, enjoyed entertaining his friends and debating with them. I would listen through the vents.”

  “Ah, yes. Your sainted father. He was a . . . ?”

  “History professor in Louvain.” It was the story they had agreed upon, the one they had decided was least likely to trip them up. Madame Dumont did have a nephew who had taught history at the university; he had run off to join the military outside of Belgium rather than evacuate to Brussels, and he had taken his family with him to settle them with distant relatives in France. If anyone bothered to check their story, there was enough fact there not to raise alarms.

  And it at least meant claiming her father was in academia. A bit of truth that made the lie easier to say.

  “Ah, yes. And he discussed Nietzsche with his friends?”

  “He did.”

  “And his conclusion?”

  “That a man who died of syphilis ought not to be the trusted voice on the value of ignoring morality.”

  His laugh boomed out, filling the room and rousing her false grandmother. Though Madame settled back down again in half a second.

  Gottlieb’s chuckle kept rumbling. “A clever man, your father.”

  She nodded and slid her game piece onto the board. It was, perhaps, a bit too smart a move. But by her calculation, she could make one or two too-smart moves a game and he would chalk it up to the luck of the ignorant.

  “He does have a point, that there are natural consequences for our actions. And that the constructs of morality are designed to spare us from some of them. Cages are always meant to keep their prisoners safe.”

  “Or to keep the world safe from them.” She rested her fingers in the bowl of stones and let their even, smooth surfaces soothe her. “Nietzsche may have claimed that only the most evolved men had moved beyond good and evil, right and wrong, but what man would not claim to be among the superior? And if everyone were to let his deepest, darkest desires reign, then . . .” She lifted her chin, met his gaze. “Then we would have a world full of selfish monsters stomping on anyone in their path. Destroying what society has worked centuries to build. Killing for no reason.”

  Joining the German army, in other words.

  He heard her silent accusation. She could see it in the narrowing of his eyes. “Careful, fräulein.”

  “Of course. My apologies. If you do not think it immoral to punish or kill a young lady for speaking her mind, then I could easily get into trouble, could I not?”

  He shook his head, a muscle in his jaw ticking. “You do not anger me with such words, Margot. But there are less measured men than I about, ja? I would not have you in trouble with them.”

  Right. Them. He would not punish her because it would ruin his chances of winning Maman’s attention. She grunted. “It is your move.”

  “I am thinking.” He settled a fingertip on top of his next stone and twirled it in a circle on the tabletop. “Something I am beginning to believe you do too much, my young friend. You should get out more often. Visit friends. Go to school. It is not healthy for a child to be trapped always in her own mind.”

  “My friends have been scattered. My schools have been closed.”

  “So make new friends. Enroll in a new school.”

  She opened her mouth to retort, but a loud growl from her stomach beat her to it. And made heat stain her cheeks. Their rationed stores were growing pathetically small already. What would they do when winter came?

  Gottlieb smiled—no doubt at the thought of having them at his mercy, reliant on what he could provide. “If you need a break to get something to eat, feel free.”

  “Need more time to think of your next move?” She forced a hint of teasing into her tone. Well, she hoped she did. “Or do you mean to rearrange the board when I leave? No, thank you. I’ll stay right here.”

  He pretended affront. Well, she hoped it was pretend. “Have it your way, then.”

  She folded her arms over her stomach in the hopes that it would hush up. Let the silence tick by for a long moment. Long enough that it wouldn’t seem strange to return to their previous topic. “I find your views on God and morality rather odd for a man whose very name means ‘God’s love.’”

  “It is just a name. Yours means ‘from the mountain.’ It hardly implies you can live nowhere else.”

  Actually, her surname meant simply “the wild.” And she could well resort to such behavior if nothing changed in the next few months. “Names can have power. If it were not so, we would not take such care with them. And you would not strive to earn new and better ones, Generalleutnant.”

  “A rank is different. I earn that. My name . . .” He waved a hand. “Something that perhaps an ancestor took seriously. But it has no meaning anymore.”

  “How sad that you think so.” She glanced again at the Madame, who was snoring softly now. At the window with its fading light. At the world beyond it, where soldiers marched without bending their knees, citizens avoided the streets, and neighbors whispered with disdain about those who had abandoned their homeland and taken refuge in other, freer countries.

  If their own neighbors were here rather than Madame Dumont’s, would their disdain be directed at Lukas? Or would they not believe he still lived and instead whisper that he had died trying to save them?

  No. He was alive, out there somewhere, and he would come for them. Somehow. Eventually.

  She pulled out a handful of stones to see how many she could stack before they tumbled. “It is a very convenient philosophy for a soldier, to be sure. To be able to do whatever you please, thinking yourself above such things as law and morality.”

  “You are a cruel judge, spatz. Just because I do not feel the confines of what others tell me is moral does not mean I have no compass inside myself
pointing me north. And it certainly does not mean I think myself above the law. I agree to abide by it when I accept citizenship, do I not?” He rested his elbow on the table and his head in his hand. His gaze remained glued to the board. “That was a very good move. I will need a moment.”

  Margot, deciding to ignore the sparrow endearment, balanced a fourth stone on top of the third, though the round tops were making it quite a challenge. “What, then, of when a whole nation breaks a law? An agreement between nations? Is it not right for them to be held accountable?”

  “You speak of Germany invading Belgium?” He tapped a finger to his chin but didn’t look at her. “We had no choice. Had we not done so first, France would have. It was Kriegsraison.”

  Her German was good, and she understood the two words that were put together, but that they’d created a new term for it gave her pause. “Excuse me?”

  “Kriegsraison. The right of a government to disobey a law if it is to accomplish a wartime objective or avoid extreme danger.”

  She just stared at him.

  Gottlieb glanced up long enough for their gazes to tangle, and he must have read utter disdain in hers. He sighed. “You obviously do not see it that way, being the unfortunate victim in this particular war. But Belgium . . . A nation has only the rights it is strong enough to protect. Yours, fräulein, cannot stand on its own. And so it can offer its people no rights.”

  It itched so much it burned. “It is God who gives us our rights.”

  “Nein. It is the state. And when your state is weak . . .” He shrugged. “But I do not see why the thought of Belgium being weak should upset you. Your people have no national pride beyond what is fashionable to tout on feast days.”

  Her hand curled around the stack of stones. She wished they were sharper, so they could bite into her palm and distract her from that terrible burning itch inside her chest. “Excuse me?”

  There was nothing hard, nothing taunting in his gaze. Just . . . fact. Or what he mistook for it. “We Germans fought for our unification. For our identity. Most countries did. But not Belgium—is that not so? You fattened and grew rich because of a peace others created for you. All the money you make off the delicacies you grow, all the bragging about your superior workforce, but the Belgians will not spend so much as a franc on their own defense.”

  Her nostrils flared.

  Gottlieb weighed his stone in his hand. A corner of his mouth pulled up. “Your country only exists at all because Europe agreed that it should, as a neutral land, so that no one country could claim its prime strategic location. If ever you had wanted to be more than that, you would have to be willing to fight.”

  “And yet if we try, you cite it as undue aggression and kill any civilian who looks at you wrong.” Her lips curled up. “Is that your Kriegsraison? Exception to the law?”

  His lips twitched into a smile. “Nein. That is our law. The ordinance of 1899 gives the military the right to kill any civilian who is assisting the enemy or their allies.”

  Her blood ran cold. “Define assisting.”

  He shrugged. “There is no definition. It is entrusted to the soldiers to determine that in the moment.”

  A chill wracked her. The killing was far from over, then. And they would do it with impunity. Killing any citizen who did not kowtow to them, able to say any resistance was aid to the enemy.

  Gottlieb chuckled. “Relax, little one. We are civilized men, not monsters.”

  “I must ask you to prove that, Generalleutnant.”

  Another laugh. “And so I shall. I will share my bread with your family. I will see no one harms the lovely ladies of the house of Dumont. I am a friend.”

  Ha. She clamped her teeth down on her tongue to keep from making a response. But a jumble of numbers, random and unorderly, clouded her mind.

  Silence rewarded her restraint. It stretched, uncurled, and would go on, it seemed, forever. Gottlieb had pursed his lips as he continued to study the board.

  A full minute later, raucous laughter from the street penetrated the windows. Margot frowned. The voices were shouting in German. And from the sound of it, they were jeering at someone, not just in general.

  Since Gottlieb would apparently take another century to decide on his move, she got up and went over to the window, looking down to see who the soldiers were tormenting now. Her breath caught when she saw the familiar brown curls. “No! Generalleutnant, stop your men!”

  “What is it?” He was at her shoulder, peering over her head to the street. He sighed when he spotted the four soldiers prodding at Claudette.

  What was she doing here? And alone?

  For a moment she thought Gottlieb would do nothing. But then he unhooked the latch and opened the window. “Klein! Schmidt!”

  The men—the two he named and their companions—snapped to attention.

  Margot didn’t wait to hear what he’d say to them. She dashed out of the room, down the stairs, and threw open the door to the street just as Claudette ran toward it. Margot pulled her friend inside. “What are you doing here?”

  Claudette’s cheeks were flushed a rosy pink, and indignation sparked her eyes into flames. “Just coming for a Sunday visit. I thought.”

  A Sunday visit? They both knew the days for those simple pastimes were long gone. She would have a reason beyond that.

  Of course, Claudette was no fool. She wouldn’t just shout her reason here, where German ears could overhear.

  Margot shut the door. “Without your mother?”

  “She’s ill today. And my sister is caring for her, so . . .” She glanced past Margot to the top of the stairs and made a little curtsy. “Good afternoon, sir.”

  Margot spun. Gottlieb was, of course, standing just outside the parlor door. And he was smiling. “Ah, you found one of your scattered friends! Gut. You need it. You two go ahead and visit, ja? We will finish our game later.” He started down the stairs. Perhaps he meant to go and join his men outside. Find another schoolgirl to harass.

  They stepped aside as he neared the entryway and then scurried past him, up the steps, as he aimed toward his room. Margot curled her fingers around her friend’s arm and tugged her toward her own room.

  Only once the door had clicked shut behind them did she dare to whisper, “What is it? Why are you really here?”

  Claudette gave her a dimpled grin and reached inside the jacket she wore, though the day wasn’t all that chilly. It had apparently, however, allowed her to conceal . . . treasure. Treasure, pure and simple.

  Manners forgotten, Margot snatched the newspapers from her friend’s hands. “Where—how?”

  Claudette laughed and sank down onto Margot’s small borrowed bed. “Lucille brought them home.” She leaned forward, making her voice the barest of murmurs. “Her beau is helping smuggle them into Brussels. There will be more, Margot.”

  More. Life. She sank down right where she was, onto the floor, and spread the first of the two out before her.

  They were both in English. It made her brows pucker. She could read English and speak it, but it required thought. And Papa had rarely ever hidden anything for her in an English paper, so she’d little practice at seeking codes in them. Though it was the same principle, regardless of the language.

  And irrelevant. Papa was not here to hide messages.

  Lukas, though. Wherever he was, he would know this was the safest means of contact. He’d still have the key she had devised. He may have thought it a game, but he would have kept it. Because that was Lukas—more sentimental and serious than he liked to let on.

  But the chances of anything being in these papers?

  Her heart sank. She didn’t know how many newspapers there were in the world, but even a rough estimate produced ridiculous odds for the right ones finding their way to her.

  Claudette knelt beside her. “Why are you sad? I thought you would love this.”

  “I do. I do.” To prove it, she leaned over and rested her forehead, for just a moment, against Claudette’s
shoulder. “It is just . . . how will we ever find him?” She didn’t dare to say his name.

  She didn’t have to. Her friend knew, and she sighed. “I don’t know. But you will. And he’ll get you out of here, away from all this.”

  “You can come with us—you and your mother and sister.”

  “Maman will not leave. She says it is our duty to stay in our home and make the best of what may come.” Claudette smoothed back one of Margot’s stray hairs. “It is different for you though. You must leave. As soon as he comes for you.”

  It was good to know that Claudette, at least, would not judge her if she did. But whether that could ever happen remained to be seen. She turned back to the paper, frowning at the headline. The Rape of Belgium!

  A rather crude choice of words. She read through the article—slowly, as she worked the rust off her English.

  Perhaps it was more than a little rusty, because the words didn’t seem right. Her brows knotted and then knotted again. “Did you read this?”

  “Maman translated it for us. It is nonsense, of course—exaggeration. Meant to sell newspapers. Maman said it was called . . . sensationalism? Something like that. But it is still news! And it is in our favor, isn’t it, for the world to think we’ve been treated so poorly?”

  They had been treated poorly—but this article made it sound as though no woman or girl was safe from the savage passions of the German soldiers. As if any citizen who dared to step into the street was attacked.

  She was no friend to the soldiers and would be the first to enumerate their cruelties—but it was nowhere near that bad.

  She shook her head. “When does exaggeration ever work out well, Claudette? When it is pointed out, people will then think it was a complete lie, that there is no truth to it.”

  And if Lukas saw articles like this . . .

  Act with reason, she bade him across the miles, praying God would deliver the message to him. Not on emotion. We are well.

  For now, at least.

  Fourteen

  It had taken Willa an hour to circle around to the back of her follower. To be sure enough of his position to know where to circle to—and to be tricky enough to make him think she was already inside the hotel for her lesson, which she had in fact requested be later than usual today.