Now all of her senses were on edge. Her inner radar tuned into every little sound. Stepping off the path and behind a tree to listen, she closed her eyes. Behind her, a twig snapped. Two footfalls shuffled to a stop. She was definitely being followed.
Frantically, she tried to think what to do. If it were a Nazi, there would need to be an excuse, a reason for being this deep in the woods. Worse still, it could be someone who wanted to hurt her or attack her. If someone was just taking a walk, why would they stop? Surely they would keep moving past her.
Her heart pounded as her mind scrambled, trying to figure out what to do. Making a decision, she continued on in haste, brazenly picking up a stick along the way. It probably wouldn’t be much good for protecting her, but at least it made her feel a little more secure.
There it was again. There was definitely somebody behind her. With her breath coming in fast, ragged spurts, she spun around. But she could see no one there.
She took off, striding faster. The other steps also sped up. She began to run. So did the person behind her.
All at once, two hands were upon her shoulders. As she started to scream, a hand covered her mouth, turning her quickly about. She held up her branch, ready to strike, but dropped it to her side when she saw who it was. A broad smile across his face, he dropped his hand from her mouth.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to frighten you, I didn’t want you to alert the Germans.”
“Helmut,” she said with some relief. “You scared the life out of me. What are you doing here?”
“I followed you,” he responded playfully.
“Why?” she asked, her heart rate still struggling to return to normal.
Viewing him in this environment, she realized how out of place he looked walking through the ice and mud in his suit and expensive Italian shoes. “I noticed after work you never leave in the direction of your home and I wondered what you did with your time. So today I decided to see.”
Elke felt invaded. “I like to be alone,” she said curtly. “It’s how I clear my head.” She moved away from him at a clip.
“Please, Elke,” he implored, taking hold of her arm. “Don’t push me away so much. What is it? What is it that I’m not doing right? Please tell me what it is, so I can change.”
His blue eyes were blazing and desperate.
What she wanted to say was, “You’re not Michael. You’ll never be Michael.” Instead, she shook her head. “You haven’t done anything wrong, Helmut. I’m just not…” She tried to find an excuse. “It’s this war,” she lied, shaking her head. “I just can’t think about such things during such a difficult time.”
“Surely,” Helmut said, becoming exasperated, “that’s exactly when we should be thinking of—taking care of each other, loving one another.” She noticed that he said the word “loving” in such a glib way that it sounded disingenuous.
She continued to walk, and he followed her.
Over the last eighteen months, he had persistently pursued her whenever he was in town. Inviting her to parties and get-togethers, which she had politely attended at the insistence of her boss, though declined whenever possible. Fortunately, he was often gone with his work, though who could be buying art at this point in the war was a mystery to her. It had been a hard time at the gallery, and if it hadn’t been for Helmut’s regular purchases, she was pretty sure they would have gone under. For that she was grateful, and at least he was pleasant company, but that was all. She always felt there was something about him she couldn’t trust with her heart. It felt to her that he wanted her like he wanted one of his art pieces—something to put in his apartment to look shiny and beautiful. Or that he wanted her because she had told him he couldn’t have her. He never seemed to be sincere. In some way, she didn’t blame him. It was the world that he’d grown up in. He wasn’t a bad person, but there was definitely something wanting.
Elke and Helmut carried on walking in silence for a while, side by side. As she approached Michael’s tree, her heart started to pound. She knew Michael wouldn’t be there, but just being in this place, with Helmut, took her back once again to a time when this spot had meant so much to her.
Helmut kept up with her stride as she hurried past the tree to the end of the path. All at once he spun her around to face him. “I just feel you need to learn to trust me,” he whispered. “Please give me a chance. That’s all I’m asking.” Then, without any warning, he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately on the lips, taking her breath away.
She didn’t fight him. It was an incredible kiss. Warm and intense. She tried to close her eyes to enjoy it. Maybe she just needed to go with it. Why couldn’t she just let herself go? Why couldn’t she just accept this guy? Then the true weight of realization washed over her. No, she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t be cruel to him, never mind herself or her own heart. She was in no place to love anyone else.
Gently, she pushed his face away and spoke to him quietly. “Helmut, we can’t do this. Not now, not here.” She really meant: not here—in her and Michael’s place. The place that had been so special to them. She felt her face flush.
Helmut looked crushed. “Will there ever be a right time and place for you? I don’t know what else I have to do to convince you to at least give us a chance.”
She shook her head, there was no good reason she could give him without telling him about Michael.
As they started walking again, she felt as desperate as he appeared, but for different reasons. They walked along in silence back toward the city. Then one last time he implored her, “Will you please think about it? Please think about us. I think we’d be really good together.”
For once, she saw some sincerity in his eyes, but it wouldn’t be fair. “I’m sorry,” she responded. “I can’t do this now.” She stroked the side of his face with her hand. “Thank you for asking. It was the nicest thing that’s happened to me all week.”
Then, moving away from him, she pulled up the collar of her coat and started on her way home, flattered but also a little unnerved that Helmut had become so bold as to follow her.
How long would she be heartbroken? she wondered. How long would this pain last? She didn’t know. What she did know was that her heart was a long way from being able to accept someone else.
“Damn you, Michael Blum,” she whispered. Warm tears started to stream down her face. “Where are you?”
Far in the woods, near a tree carved with sweetheart initials, Michael stood concealed and shivering where he had just watched two people kissing. He knew exactly who one of them was. He would have known her from across a crowded room of a thousand people. Suddenly Michael’s legs gave way and he dropped to the ground and started to sob. He had no words, no thoughts, just anger and pain. He punched the ground repeatedly with his fist as he screamed. He knew that wasn’t wise. He could bring Nazis to him in a second, but he didn’t care. He was going to surrender right here and just die or let them take him. He didn’t care anymore, nothing mattered. He knew he had made Elke promise to move on and be happy and she had, but he hadn’t realized how much the thought of her had been keeping him alive. He hadn’t realized how much his faith and their love had been the hope he held onto, the things that he’d been able to count on all the years in the attic.
As he lay on the grass sobbing, he thought about the last time they’d been here, and the pain of it wrenched his heart in two. As his wailing subsided to racking sobs, he whispered her name over and over again. “Elke, Elke, Elke…”
Chapter 26
Sitting by Heinrich’s side in his car, Ingrid looked blankly out of the windows, eyes still stinging and puffy from the night before. Crying herself quietly to sleep had now become a regular occurrence as she thought of the increased strain in their relationship.
She glanced across to her fiancé, who was staring out the opposite window, and wondered what was happening to them. They’d had their first serious argument. On Saturday, they’d been out to a party, and even though
Heinrich had gotten raucously drunk, they’d enjoyed themselves. He had been more like his old self. The person she had known at the beginning of the war.
Then, on Sunday morning, there had been a phone call. Even more of his troops were being pulled out of the Netherlands for a new German offensive towards Antwerp in an attempt to break through the Allied lines, which left Heinrich’s own forces depleted in Amsterdam. Angry and raging that more of his soldiers were being sent away, he’d ended up taking it out on Ingrid, who had only asked about setting a date for their wedding. Why didn’t Heinrich ever want to talk about their future? He’d become incredibly hostile with her, accusing her of being selfish when he had so much pressure at work.
After a huge argument, Heinrich had walked out and not returned until very late that night. Ingrid had already gone to bed, and it was apparent when he rolled in that he had been drinking. When she’d stretched across her pillow to find him, to put things right, he had pushed her away, and that had hurt. She just wished this war would be over so she could finally settle down.
Leaving the car, Ingrid shivered at the cold winter day. She lifted a pile of working files as they headed into the building. The office taken over by the Nazis at the beginning of the war used to belong to a lawyer and had the look and feel of old Holland. Heavy wooden doors and Dutch craftsmanship at its best. Their office was now assigned to handle the deployments of the troops in the city and also the logistics of the transportation of fuel and supplies in and out of Amsterdam. Heinrich strode ahead, not even pausing to hold the door open for her. She once again attempted some small talk with him in the lift, but he shut her down and they continued in the elevator in silence.
Exiting the caged doors, she galloped to keep up with her fiancé’s long strides as he marched down the corridor. Approaching the office, she sensed that something felt different. Something lively that met her in the doorway. A buzz, energy, levity. She was intrigued and also a little annoyed, bearing in mind her mood.
As they entered the room, high-pitched laughter and plumes of blue cigarette smoke greeted her in the doorway. From a normally clinical, studious office, this was highly irregular. Two officers sat casually on top of one of the desks but stood up awkwardly and respectfully nodded in Heinrich’s direction as he passed them. Ignoring them, Heinrich marched into his office and slammed the door, his anger echoing its presence throughout the room.
Once Heinrich was gone, the soldiers continued to converse with a woman seated with her back toward Ingrid. Her thick, curly, black hair shimmered, and her head was thrown back in laughter as she joked with the two men hovering over her.
Ingrid was livid. Who was this stranger, this woman, who had come into their office to monopolize all the other staff? Though she’d never have said it out loud, Ingrid was stung with jealousy. As she sulked to her desk, she remembered that, when she’d first arrived, soldiers had surrounded her for conversation. It struck her again how isolated she’d felt in the last few months.
Slamming down the files she’d taken home over the weekend, Ingrid glared at the woman, who still hadn’t acknowledged her. As she swiveled around in her chair, Ingrid was at once taken aback by this stunning, raven-headed beauty. Luminous green eyes, dark and thick lashes, and skin as white as alabaster. A chin that hinted at elfishness gave way to a broad grin that illuminated her whole face.
Jumping to her feet, the newcomer shooed the men away from her desk and turned back toward Ingrid. She was tall, maybe five or six inches taller than her, with long, slender legs. She wore her uniform with such flair; it looked as if it had been tailor-made for her slim waist, full breasts, and curvaceous hips.
“You must be Ingrid,” she stated with delight, offering her hand. “I’ve heard so much about you.”
Ingrid shook it limply and withdrew quickly, trying not to be drawn into this woman’s enthusiasm. She kept her eyes on her desk and shuffled around her files, trying to emanate importance as she nodded absently.
Not the least bit intimidated by Ingrid’s flagrant dismissal of her, the new arrival continued to chat as she organized her desk. “I’m so glad to have some female company. The last office I worked in was nothing but men. And when the Major told me I’d be working with Ingrid, the Ingrid, the famous Ingrid, I was so looking forward to meeting you, and also having a good old-fashioned chat with a girlfriend.”
She leaned across her desk, and Ingrid got a hint of Chanel perfume.
“I do hope we’ll be great friends. Because good friends are hard to find at the moment.”
Her last statement tweaked at Ingrid’s heart.
The raven beauty turned her attention to her desk. “My name is Violette, by the way, but everyone calls me Vi.” She smiled broadly, apparently attempting to disarm her.
“Nice to meet you,” Ingrid responded, reluctantly. But inwardly, she was quite intrigued by this woman.
“Let’s go out together for coffee later this morning,” Vi said, picking up a stack of files and starting to move them into a pile. “I have a lot of work to do, as you can see. I need to get caught up, and it would be wonderful to have an ally.”
“I don’t go out in the day,” Ingrid stated, coldly.
“Well, maybe it’s about time you did.” Vi lifted her perfectly penciled eyebrows. “I’ll show you some great places in Amsterdam. It will be fun.”
Ingrid didn’t respond straight away, but as the morning wore on, she started to warm to the idea. When there had been more food, she and Heinrich always used to go to lunch, but lately she often just sat in the office alone during her lunchtime, hoping Heinrich would want to spend some time with her. But he seldom did.
As the morning wore on and Ingrid interacted with Vi, she had a sense of excited anticipation, flying with ease through the list of equipment and weapons array that was her daily chore, as Vi peppered her with funny stories and jokes. By midday, she was ready to go on her new adventure as Vi announced, “Come on, Ingrid, time for a break!”
Ingrid rushed to catch up with Vi’s long, high-heeled strides out the door and into the street. Feeling inconspicuous and apprehensive, Ingrid moved beside her new friend, looking carefully about her. She had barely been out alone on the street since the unfortunate incident a few years before, when people had spat at her and called her names. She preferred to just use Heinrich’s car to get to and from work when he wasn’t with her, and she had requested that her uncle visit her at home.
But now she was out walking during the day, so brazen, wearing her Nazi uniform. As the usual stares and snide comments came at them, Vi seemed oblivious to all of it and marched off toward the place she had picked out for them. All the while, she reminisced to Ingrid about the office she’d come from and seemed buoyant about her morning’s work.
“I had to move to Amsterdam because your office was so short-staffed and the Major in Rotterdam no longer needed me.” She paused to breathe in deeply. “I love this city, so I was happy to come.” She grabbed Ingrid’s arm as they crossed the road. “They, of course, lost my transfer paperwork—in a bombing raid, I believe—and told me it could be weeks before they could organize it all, so I decided to come to work anyway. I hate being idle. Especially when there is so much to do.”
Ingrid nodded her agreement. “It’s been hard. I’ve been worked off my feet for months.”
Vi shuttled Ingrid down a street before continuing. “And with the significant loss of life to our forces, and people being reorganized for the latest deployment, there were a lot of positions that needed filling. I was more than glad to pitch in.” She turned to smile at Ingrid. “But when they told me I might get a chance to work with you, I asked if I could be assigned here. I have heard so much about you and Heinrich in the party. You are both highly thought of.”
Ingrid glowed. She’d had no idea that people spoke about her and her work, and she was glad Heinrich was getting the recognition he deserved. Maybe they would send him more soldiers.
Vi headed into a brightly co
lored café, passing an older woman dressed in black who glared at them and spat out something about the enemy. Vi turned on her and snapped back aggressively. Ingrid was impressed, and she suddenly felt proud again, as she had at the beginning of the war. Proud to be a member of the Nazi Party.
Inside the restaurant, a couple of German soldiers passed them and made eyes at Vi. She batted her eyelashes, saying something dismissive, whispering to Ingrid on the side, “If he thinks I want to have a date with him, he’s got another think coming.”
Ingrid giggled as they found their way to a table.
There was no food, but there was good coffee and as Vi talked about her dreams, Ingrid felt pathetic beside her. She hadn’t thought about anything apart from going to Germany with Heinrich, marrying him, and having his children. Vi, on the other hand, had full plans of all she wanted to do, she told her new friend, including traveling the world and learning to fly.
Finishing their drinks, Vi lit their cigarettes and tentatively asked Ingrid about her relationship with Heinrich. “It can’t be easy for the two of you, having to live and work together with all the tension in the Reich right now.”
Ingrid was surprised to feel tears well up, but she didn’t feel comfortable enough to share what was really going on between her and Heinrich. He would be angry at her, always wanting to give the impression to their friends that everything in his life was perfect, so she just nodded.
“Yes, it is hard on all of us.”
Vi grabbed her hand. “But we will win, don’t you worry. The Führer will not be beaten.”
Another couple of women walked past them and stared. Vi glared back until they walked away, then crushed out her cigarette.
A View Across the Rooftops: An epic, heart-wrenching and gripping World War Two historical novel Page 17