The Last Dance

by Fiona McIntosh

  Joseph lifted an eyebrow. ‘Let’s put this dear boy into his cot, then, my love, so we can climb into ours.’

  Gitte chuckled and put down her sewing, realising that there would be little more achieved with her needle and thread this evening. ‘Here, let me take him.’ She stood, moved to his armchair and lifted the sleeping infant. ‘He’s like a miniature of you, Joseph. This is what you must surely have looked like in your mother’s arms.’

  ‘I wish I could remember her,’ he said, standing to kiss her cheek and then bending to kiss the forehead of his son. ‘But I was lucky to be blessed with another woman who made me feel loved, gave me a family. He’s fortunate that he’ll have you, my darling, all through his life until he’s so old he’ll need spectacles to see your beautiful face.’

  ‘Oh, go on with you, you old charmer,’ his wife said, giving him a push. ‘Check that fire before you come up.’

  The sound of their front doorbell startled their sleeping son, who flinched awake, letting out a soft wail. They shared a look of pained annoyance.

  ‘Who can that be at this time?’ Gitte admonished, looking down again to soothe her child with soft noises.

  Joseph glanced at his watch on the end of the fob he pulled from his waistcoat. ‘Someone with no manners, clearly,’ he grumbled. ‘It’s nearing nine.’

  The boy was moaning and Gitte gave her husband a glance of gentle misery. ‘I’d better get him quietened with a feed.’

  ‘And I shall go chase away this caller because we’re on a promise, right?’

  She giggled. ‘I promise. Give me half an hour.’

  He watched his wife leave their sitting room and he reached to put on his jacket, glad now that he hadn’t changed into comfortable clothes this evening. It had been another long day at the office and the girls had launched at him as he’d come home, demanding he play with them, and then dinnertime came and went, then reading with his daughters . . . hours had flown.

  This time there was an insistent knock at the front door. Joseph decided the visitor must be deaf if he hadn’t heard clearly that the bell had sounded.

  ‘All right, all right, I’m coming,’ he called, wondering at fate’s wit that this was the one night their housekeeper had to herself. She had gone out with friends and wouldn’t be back until ten. ‘Typical,’ he muttered to himself.

  Joseph flicked on the porch light and saw the silhouette of a person immediately shift. ‘Who is this?’ he called, taking precaution not to open his front door yet. A dog barked distantly.

  ‘Herr Altmann?’ said a hesitant voice.

  ‘Yes? Who is this please?’

  ‘It’s Bergheimer, Herr Altmann, Sir. Er, your children’s former teacher.’

  Joseph paused with the door chain. It had been six days since the unsettling visit from the middle-aged woman at his office, long enough to convince himself she was deranged and he’d hear no more about it. It felt as though a ball of ice had suddenly frozen hard in the pit of his belly. He took a deep breath and opened the door, recognising the younger man instantly despite the grey flecks in his beard and the new haunted look behind those wire-framed spectacles.

  ‘Herr Bergheimer,’ he said, ‘what time do you call this?’

  ‘I need to speak with you, Herr Altmann, Sir.’

  ‘So your mother informed.’ It sounded like an accusation and precisely how he meant it to sound.

  The man looked down. ‘May I come in, please?’

  ‘I suppose you’d better, although I was just heading upstairs with my wife and infant son. I planned to turn in early.’

  ‘I shan’t keep you long, Sir.’

  ‘Leave your hat, Bergheimer,’ he said, nodding at the stand nearby, trying to disguise the anxiety that the man’s worried expression and the memory of his mother’s intensity provoked. He led the way back into the sitting room. ‘Can I pour you a brandy or something to warm you? I’m afraid the fire is dying.’

  ‘I’m fine, Sir, thank you,’ the man said in a flat voice, following him into the room.

  ‘Take a seat,’ Joseph gestured, closing the door quietly. ‘Now, what is this all about? I haven’t seen you in years and suddenly your mother turns up at my office unannounced. It’s most unusual, Bergheimer, and may I say, disconcerting.’

  ‘You are a powerful, senior man in government now, Herr Altmann.’

  ‘All the more reason I’m frankly annoyed,’ he admitted. ‘Look, is it money? If you —’

  The man looked aghast. He stood abruptly. ‘Herr Altmann, this is nothing to do with money. We are not a family with many assets but we are nonetheless a proud family. My father died two years ago but we manage as best we can.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Joseph conceded. ‘That was insensitive of me. Sit . . . it’s David, isn’t it?’

  His guest nodded glumly.

  ‘Why did you send your mother to me?’

  ‘We were being cautious. We felt she was . . . well, less conspicuous than myself. An older woman, she can slip beneath people’s notice more easily.’

  ‘But why? What is this about?’ His exasperation was not well concealed.

  Bergheimer actually looked around the chamber as if hidden eyes might be observing. Joseph watched in astonishment and only just held his tongue. He waited as the man reached beneath his coat into a jacket pocket and withdrew two creased pages that looked as though they’d been crushed before being pressed out flat again.

  ‘What is this?’ he said, more out of something to say and relieve the tension because presumably these were the notes that Mrs Bergheimer had referred to.

  ‘Herr Altmann, there is no recording equipment in your house, is there?’ his guest suddenly whispered.

  ‘Good heavens, man. Get on with it!’ he snapped.

  But Bergheimer looked terrified just to be touching the pages. ‘Are you familiar with our Chancellor’s handwriting?’

  ‘What sort of a question is —’

  ‘Answer me, Sir,’ the man demanded, although his voice was even and remained low.

  Joseph drew a deep, silent breath. ‘Of course I am,’ he scowled.

  Bergheimer held out the two crumpled pages. ‘Would you recognise this as his handwriting?’

  Joseph leaned in, not wishing to touch the scruffy pages. Heavy black ink scrawled in an almost illegible tiny hand, including the instantly recognisable affectation that the German Chancellor had adopted of an unnecessary vertical bar on certain letters.

  ‘This could be a forgery,’ he denounced before he’d read any of the content.

  ‘It could be but it was retrieved by my mother from the wastepaper bin in Adolf Hitler’s office a fortnight ago. She is a cleaner at the government offices in the Reich chancellery. My mother is one of the trusted few permitted to clean and tidy Herr Hitler’s monstrously large office, as she puts it.’

  ‘Your mother thieved papers from the Chancellor’s office?’ Joseph said in a hissed whisper. He watched Bergheimer swallow. ‘Do you have any idea of the penalty for such theft?’

  The man licked his lips. ‘Read it, Herr Altmann.’

  Joseph batted the pages away. ‘I don’t wish to. I want no part of this.’

  Bergheimer stood and, visibly trembling, waved the pages at his senior. ‘I have thought of nothing else since I read these notes. My mother said she was waiting outside on instructions from his staff for the Chancellor to leave before she was permitted to enter his office. The assistant who entered with her first checked that his desk was clear. Neither of them noted these pages screwed up and tossed carelessly that had missed the bin, remaining hidden behind it until my mother began to clean. She brought them home more as a souvenir to say she had some of the handwriting of the leader of our nation – for posterity, you might say.’

  Joseph blinked, his mouth dry, tongue feeling thick and far too warm but unable to swallow as the man continued.

  ‘She showed it to me for amusement. She couldn’t read it, Herr Altmann, but I could. You must also re
ad it.’

  ‘I will not!’ Joseph snapped. ‘Get out, Bergheimer, before I call the police and have you arrested.’

  Bergheimer nodded. ‘I’ll leave. But you’re a fellow Jew. You must act. I don’t know anyone else of your seniority or influence. Your wife’s —’

  ‘I said get out. If you so much as mention my wife or my family again, I shall not be responsible for the consequences of what happens to you. Now you have a mother to take care of, David, and out of respect for her age and for the fact you were one of my daughter’s favourite teachers, I am going to ask you once again to leave and never again make contact. Do you understand? I will denounce you.’

  ‘I understand, Herr Altmann, Sir.’ He turned to leave. ‘Please, I shall see myself out.’ Bergheimer moved quickly, hurrying to the sitting-room door, turning briefly. ‘I am sorry for the trouble.’

  ‘Go,’ Joseph said wearily, his mind already reaching towards a calming cognac. He would pour himself a big slug and take it upstairs where his wife’s willing, soothing arms awaited. She would take all this nonsense away with her kisses and tender touch.

  He heard the front door close and duly walked into the hallway to lock up, suddenly fearful that Bergheimer might have a sudden change of heart. He bolted the door, checked it twice and then shifted to look out of the glass panel just to be sure that his unwanted guest had gone. There was no one on the stairs up to the porch or on the pavement outside handily flooded with light from the street lamp. His front gate was shut, Bergheimer had disappeared from his life and he sighed with relief.

  ‘Joseph?’ He swung around and the sight of his wife in a daring negligee at the top of the stairs instantly helped his mood. ‘Is everything all right?’

  ‘It is now, my love, especially glimpsing you through that skimpy lace.’

  She laughed throatily. ‘If you keep me waiting much longer, I’ll be asleep.’

  ‘Nightcap?’

  ‘Why not,’ she said with a glinting smile. ‘Hurry.’

  He blew her a kiss as she lifted the hem of her flimsy gown and disappeared off the landing into their bedchamber. Joseph stretched and heard a satisfying click. With an anticipation of beckoning pleasure, he turned back to the sitting room to pour the drinks and check the fire before he would switch off the downstairs lights but was halted in these steps by the sight of David Bergheimer’s hat on the credenza.

  Joseph helplessly felt a pang of regret at the younger man’s wasted journey and the bad feeling that now existed between them. He lifted the hat to place it on the hat stand’s hook; maybe Bergheimer would call back for it. If so, he would see to it that only Frau Muller dealt with him – she would send him packing. But as he lifted the hat onto the hook he was disturbed to see revealed the crumpled pages of the notes that Bergheimer had brought. They had been deliberately secreted, the hat intentionally left behind to hide the notes. No wonder the man hurried away from the sitting room.

  ‘Damn you, Bergheimer,’ he cursed.

  Even as late as when he’d poured two glasses of best French cognac into their Czechoslovakian crystal glasses that had been a wedding gift, Joseph fully intended to throw the pages into the dying embers, where they would turn to ash and float up the chimney so that he never had to confront the stolen contents again.

  But over that nip of amber liquid, the fumes hovering about him and with a curiosity that was stronger than his resolve or the flames, he read the small, looped writing and knew as the sweetness of the cognac turned bitter in his throat that his life would never be the same again.

  9

  KENT – MAY 1933

  Stella was standing in her nearly empty wardrobe in Kent, wishing now that she had brought her black dress with her that so easily doubled for dinner wear. Her main luggage was yet to be delivered and she stared, embarrassed, at the two outfits hanging before her. She was certain a family such as the Ainsworths would dress for their evening meal, but she had nothing suitable.

  She breathed loudly through her nose and it came out as a deep sigh. Stella reached for a navy afternoon dress which had bell sleeves from the elbow with a floaty navy and white polka-dot chiffon overlay and a small soft waterfall bow to one side of the collar. It was starkly simple despite the touch of whimsy and yet she’d loved it on sight in the department store for its effortless prettiness. The dress was sewn in sleek panels that were supposed to hug her hips narrowly but she could feel the room in the dress now. Never mind, she was eating three proper meals daily suddenly and had no doubt she’d fill it neatly again. She had brought this dress as an afterthought, having originally planned to mix and match the couple of day dresses, two cardigans, skirt and two blouses she’d been able to pack easily. Amongst her peers Stella knew she was considered well attired but she could only imagine the range and choice that Beatrice Ainsworth could select from. She dismissed any further pondering on the subject as being wasted energy.

  She had bathed quickly, and having stood at the wardrobe for what must have been several minutes of indecision, clambered into fresh underwear and the navy dress. No, it was not as snug as it used to be, and Stella realised as she closed the door to regard herself in the long mirror that she had dropped more weight without being aware of it.

  He’d noticed, though. She shook her head. Rafe was here and Rafe was her new boss; the man she’d been secretly thinking on in her private moments, mostly not admitting how disappointed she had become at the notion that after such a fleeting encounter she would likely never see him again. And yet while she’d been pining he’d been plotting, pulling strings behind her like a puppeteer . . . He’d wanted to help her – had made that clear that evening – but she’d treated his offer too casually . . . with disdain, almost. But he’d been true to his word. And Stella couldn’t deny the difference his help would make to her family but especially to her life, enabling her to shake off the dark burdens that had pressed upon her shoulders in London.

  Nevertheless, was she always going to feel as awkward as she did now? As she regarded her reflection, Stella finally allowed herself to admit that she felt as though she was being coerced into keeping a secret. He hadn’t said anything but then he didn’t have to; she’d picked up on all of his silent signals that he didn’t want anyone to know they had met previously. What if his wife found out? How ugly would that look if it were proved Stella had lied? She lifted and dropped her shoulders with irritation. He had made her angry on their first meeting and here he was doing it again on their second.

  Even so, he had seemed to understand her from that first awkward five minutes together. In the taxi to her house, though, it had felt as though they were removed from the reality of their worlds and that somehow in the dark of the vehicle while London streamed beside them they had created a world within a world that belonged to them. They had both been honest with each other, hadn’t they? Or had they? Stella smiled. He hadn’t directly lied but it was now clear that she hadn’t asked the right questions. She knew better now.

  She had no doubt there had been a special connection between them that she had felt for no other person. She’d dated men; she’d kissed enough to not feel too much like the yearning spinsters of novels, and also slept with one, disappointing though it had been.

  If she were honest, Rafe’s brief kiss of her gloved hand had been infinitely more arousing than Harry Farmer’s dinner at the Falcon pub in Clapham and his subsequent fumbling, anxious weight atop her in a darkened hotel room afterwards. She shuddered now to remember it and awkwardly tucked a curl of hair behind her ear as she admitted to herself that the ride with Rafe, their shoulders and thighs touching, provoked a tense, even romantic, air that was so lacking in Room 6 that night with Harry.

  Stella’s gaze raised itself to meet the eyes staring back in the reflection and guilt was mirrored in their blueness. She knew she had to lose any aspirations she may have romanced about in her daydreams. There was no future to it and nothing but pain for her if she allowed herself to imagine anything but the ob
vious – that he was in London, living out of his club most weeks, and likely charming every pretty young woman he met. She was surely one of a line. And he was married with two daughters! Stella set her shoulders and straightened. Grow up, she mouthed at her image and walked to the bathroom.

  She combed through her dark hair, wondering now whether she should have washed it again. But it was still glossy and the soft finger wave curls were holding their shape perfectly. She wouldn’t need it trimmed for a while. She pinched her cheeks and smudged a hint of a light rose lipstick on, careful to blot the colour back from her lips. Her father had always detested her wearing make-up but working in the store meant she had to keep up with fashions and when Didi had approved her light touch with the cosmetics, Evan Myles had shrugged and let it go. She was no longer that employee, though, and it didn’t feel right to wear too much colour as a governess – or tutor, as Mrs Ainsworth preferred to refer to her as.

  She gave herself a final check over, twisting both ways to ensure she had no loose threads or marks on her dress. Stella dabbed a tiny spot of perfume at her neck from her mother’s bottle of Arpège by Lanvin and felt her reassuring presence as she checked her watch.

  It was two minutes to seven. She didn’t want to be late but not overly eager to intrude on the family evening either. She hurried now, quickly closed the door behind her and took the back stairs at a steady clip to get down the levels, while trying not to make too much of a clatter. She emerged into one of the lobbies and nearly bumped into Hilly.

  ‘Whoops a daisy, sorry,’ she said, stepping back just in time. ‘Hello, Hilly.’

  ‘Good evening, Miss Stella,’ Hilly said, using the more formal language of above stairs that Stella instantly noted had been absent during luncheon.

  ‘I . . . er, I’ve been invited to eat with the family tonight,’ she said, words falling out as she tried to gauge the mood of her colleague.

  ‘So we’ve been told. I am just about to set another place.’ A smile was forced and Hilly glanced at her tray. ‘They’re in the winter drawing room.’