The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

  ‘Despite the constant reminder I’m living with.’

  ‘Yes.’

  I nodded. My voice remained steady and even I could understand how rapid my toughening up had been since the night of my family’s death. ‘I want to live so that I can punish Ruda Mayek.’

  ‘You stagger me, Katerina. It’s easy to forget you’re still just fifteen. It will be good to see you and remind myself that you are still a child, despite …’ He trailed off but there was an undertone of something meaningful in that final remark. I realised only much later that Otto had made this comment as a reference for himself – a piece of advice he should observe, because his fondness was evident to me. He cleared his throat. ‘See you Friday night for dinner.’

  ‘I’m already looking forward to it,’ I admitted. ‘I shall cook for you.’

  He laughed gently but not mockingly. ‘What a treat.’

  ‘I’ll make the traditional Czech meal we were going to share on the evening my family was separated.’ That was my new way of referring to that terrible night. I hadn’t broken down into sobs since early winter and spring was around the corner now.

  ‘Mrs Biskup will bring you everything you need,’ he said.

  ‘She’ll interfere,’ I said affectionately.

  ‘Cook up a storm, the two of you. I’ll bring wine. You’re old enough to sip with me.’

  I gave a grin of brief pleasure. It seemed heinous to do so but I couldn’t help the glimmer of teenage happiness that rushed through me as a fresh sense of hope … like stepping out of cool shadows to feel the sun’s warmth.

  My scalp wound was well healed and any scarring could be disguised by my thick hair, which was the topic of our conversation now. Dinner was finished and the three of us were seated in arm-chairs around the fire. It was still fiercely cold.

  ‘If we make it dark brown, it could do the opposite of what we want,’ Otto admitted.

  I heard what he didn’t want to say aloud: that it would make me look more obviously Jewish.

  Mrs Biskup frowned. ‘Let’s lighten it, then, and cut it shorter.’

  I tried not to baulk. My mother had always loved my long hair but my attachment was purely an emotional response; whatever it took, I would agree to.

  ‘And I think some make-up will make Katerina look a lot older.’

  ‘Call her Severine. We really must,’ he said, as much for his own benefit as hers.

  She gave him a look of apology. ‘Leave her looks to me. I can do it. You will just have to trust us women.’

  ‘You can do it now?’

  She couldn’t help a smug smile. ‘Come with me, Severine.’

  I stood to follow, watching Otto stoking the fire and settling down to read a book that I recalled being a favourite in our family’s library. He noted my interest.

  ‘Have you read this?’ he asked.

  ‘No, but I know the story. My father told me about Manderley and the way Rebecca haunted the second Mrs de Winter.’

  He nodded. ‘The house is as important a character as the people who lived in it.’

  I could never tire of Otto’s smile and enjoyed watching it break. ‘You can rely on your father’s judgement. Without Manderley’s brooding presence, the story wouldn’t be nearly as sinister, or as powerful.’

  ‘Sounds like you know it well.’

  ‘I’ve read this several times. It reminds me of my favourite book, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Brontë, but that was written a century ago.’

  ‘And like a special piece of art, it never loses its lustre. Papa taught me that any sort of art should prompt an emotional response.’

  ‘Indeed it does. I read Jane Eyre each year for how it makes me feel. I think you’d enjoy it for its variety of themes, from spirituality to a young woman trying to establish her independence within a patriarchal society.’

  It intrigued me that his favourite book was about a woman. ‘Perhaps I could read yours while I’m here?’

  ‘Alas, it is in Germany but I shall acquire a copy for you.’

  Mrs Biskup returned looking vaguely exasperated. ‘Come on, Severine. This is going to take hours.’

  We disappeared, to re-emerge past midnight when we found Otto dozing in the armchair, the fire down to embers and Rebecca leaning on his chest, which just for a silly, childish moment I imagined was a soft spot that I might like to rest. He stirred at our murmuring and blinked several times before his mouth gaped.

  ‘Well, say something, Doctor,’ Mrs Biskup admonished him. ‘Isn’t she beautiful?’

  ‘I … I hardly recognise you, Katerina,’ he stammered.

  ‘Her name is Severine,’ she reminded him with a tutting sound. ‘And that’s good!’ she added, clapping with excitement. ‘Isn’t that just what we want?’

  ‘It is,’ he breathed, staring at me. He looked unnerved, as though he might be noticing me as an adult for the first time, although I had always sensed he liked me just as I was … and perhaps constantly fought the attraction.

  I enjoyed the sense of power. My blush intensified. ‘Are you both sure?’ I wondered aloud, hesitantly reaching for my hair, which had lost at least six inches and was now falling in gentle curled waves on one side, pinned at the top of my ear with a tortoiseshell comb. The other side was swept up into a soft roll and clipped to hold it in position. Its colour, with the aid of a bottle of magic, had turned several shades lighter to a hue like baled hay. Mrs Biskup had taken to my face with a bag of cosmetics. It felt like she’d been painting my skin for an hour, yet when I looked in the mirror I saw only dewy, pale colouring around my eyes. She’d plucked, shaped and darkened my brows into a neat bow. She’d blackened my top lashes but left my bottom lashes untouched.

  ‘Don’t want you looking like a harlot,’ she’d muttered beneath her breath.

  We lightened the foundation with some vanishing cream, not that I needed much on my young complexion, but we were trying to make me look older. We used lipstick to make do as a barely blushing rouge for my cheeks and to tint my lips.

  When I’d looked in the mirror I’d felt I’d aged a decade and I think Otto was feeling the same way now.

  ‘Now we have a new problem, Mrs Biskup,’ he finally said.

  ‘What’s that, Doctor?’

  ‘There isn’t a person who wouldn’t look twice at Severine now!’

  There was a moment’s horrified pause before we all shared a sad laugh. I was going to have to get used to the feeling of weight on my face and the gooiness of my lips. I had to tell myself not to pout. Every other woman seemed to get used to it; so would I.

  ‘But don’t let this worry you,’ he assured me. ‘Hiding in plain sight is sometimes the best ploy. People may look but they won’t recognise you and I doubt very much where we’re headed that anyone would be in a position to recognise you anyway. Mrs Biskup, are you expected home tonight?’

  She shook her head.

  ‘Then please, both of you, join me. Let me tell you about my plan.’

  After about ten minutes of explanation he stopped speaking and waited for us to respond, but I remained silent, half in shock, the other part of me excited at the notion of returning to Prague by the end of summer.

  Mrs Biskup filled the silence. ‘Dr Schäfer! You can’t expect this girl to walk around real hospital corridors pretending to be a nurse.’

  ‘She’ll be under my protection. She can be my administration assistant so she doesn’t have to work on the wards, and she knows enough now to get by.’

  ‘You know exactly what they’ll think she is.’

  ‘Well, let them! We know it isn’t true.’

  I let the debate fly around me. The truth was that I was reeling from the realisation that I was returning to Prague to work in the main hospital alongside Otto – where the patients were German. There was plenty to be achieved before I could go, of course. We all understood that.

  Mrs Biskup finally sat back unhappily and clasped her hands in her lap. ‘What if she is found?’

&nb
sp; ‘Found? She’ll be seen daily. No one has to “find” her because no one will be looking. Besides, it is far more dangerous if she is discovered here, alone, and we already know what will happen if she is. I’m at a loss too. None of us invited this problem but it’s ours and I think my plan has merit. I can keep my eye on Severine constantly. She won’t be alone as she is now and if I sense anyone prodding around with an unhealthy interest, I’ll take steps to get her away to somewhere else.’

  ‘Where?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ he snapped, the closest he’d come to showing his despair. ‘I don’t have all the answers. I have thought this through, though – two sets of forged papers are ready – and I’ve told the hospital I’ve found the right helper and she’ll be joining me in August, which should be around the right time …’ He trailed off. We both understood.

  I looked at Mrs Biskup. ‘Will you be all right?’

  ‘Yes, of course. You know I’d do anything for you, child.’

  ‘The hospital administration knows I’ve been needing someone to scribe notes for me. It will keep Severine away from patients and behind a desk.’

  ‘I can do that,’ I assured them. ‘I really don’t think I can hide out here indefinitely. Each day makes it more dangerous and we’ve still got the whole of spring and most of the summer to get through when people return to these parts.’

  ‘Agreed,’ he said. ‘I do think you should take your chances with me in Prague.’

  ‘But what about —’

  He hushed me with a hand. ‘We will trust Mrs Biskup. Once we have the first stage working, I will devise the next part of this plan, which is to find a way to get you both out of Czechoslovakia – somewhere neutral.’

  ‘Where is neutral?’ his housekeeper demanded.

  ‘Switzerland, but if not there, then we’ll find a lifeline, perhaps via Holland to Britain, or we may have to look at a longer, southern route into Italy and … perhaps onto one of her islands, and …’ As he ran out of ideas, he dragged a hand across his face to show his frustration. ‘I will find a way. I promise.’

  16

  Lost in Katerina’s storytelling, Daniel sensed Otto Schäfer falling in love with his charge and felt a trill of jealousy trace through him of a man he didn’t know. He felt envious of the stranger for knowing the young Katerina, as Daniel found himself increasingly powerless in the presence of the older, wiser version.

  In her company for less than an accumulated twenty-four hours, the hunter had somehow been stripped of his armour; her tears didn’t enfeeble her. No, they weakened him instead. Now there were two women he knew who had been ruined by Ruda Mayek. What had begun as a personal mission had, over the course of Katerina’s tale, become a crusade on behalf of all the lives lost or broken by him.

  Her voice trailed to silence and she stared at him as the weight of the stillness that had formed around their quiet conversation pressed in. The torment wreaked on the youngster of 1941 was evident in the woman she’d become. He understood that it explained so much about her distant air, the cool attitude, the seemingly impenetrable frostiness of her expression in repose. This was not a prickly or difficult woman, even though she might appear that way at first. This, he now grasped, was a damaged soul, a locked-up replica of the person she might have been had she been allowed to take the train to safety in 1939.

  If he’d been captivated by her while he’d studied her these past weeks, he was now certainly her prisoner.

  ‘Does every man who meets you fall in love with you?’ It slipped out before he could censure himself.

  She looked up, perhaps startled by the bluntness of his enquiry. ‘Why would you ask such an oddity?’

  He lifted a shoulder that felt heavy from being still for too long. ‘Mayek, Schäfer …’ He was reluctant to speak his own name aloud but it was on the list in his mind. He shrugged again as if to say, Isn’t that enough?

  Her gaze speared across the room. ‘Hardly a crowd worth mentioning.’ He felt embarrassed for revealing the truth of his thoughts. ‘Besides, what Mayek did was not about love. It was about power and it rose out of impotent rage. As for Dr Schäfer, his care for me came from a response to horror. On that first night he was not a German and I was not a Jew; he was a man more than twenty years my senior and I was still in my youth. He felt the normal reaction to protect the young. I see him as a humanitarian. If it turned to admiration of a different sort, he never acted upon his feelings – other than to be so true to me that he risked his reputation and his life for mine over and again.’

  Daniel tried to regain some ground. ‘Love of the most generous kind,’ he offered.

  ‘Indeed.’ She frowned. ‘I loved him, though.’

  He was surprised by this admission.

  ‘I loved him like a substitute father. I loved him as the brother that was taken from me. I believe, now I look back at that teenager, that I probably thought I loved him as a man too but I was too inexperienced to recognise it as anything but a crush, riding high on depthless gratitude.’ She looked around, as though for the first time feeling aware of how long she’d been talking. ‘Madame Bouchard must be getting suspicious.’

  ‘Such a notion thrills me,’ he said, bringing some amusement back to their conversation. ‘I want her to accuse me of having a beautiful woman share my bed.’

  ‘And you don’t mind lying?’

  ‘Not in the least.’ He widened his eyes comically as if enjoying the notion and it prompted her to laugh.

  ‘I doubt hers and my paths will cross again after today, anyway.’ She reached for her bag.

  ‘Do you have to run away immediately?’

  She nodded. ‘It’s turned late.’

  ‘Coffee, then. Let me walk you back and we can drop in to a café.’

  ‘All right, but you may only walk me part of the way,’ she compromised.

  He dared not push too hard. ‘Then you can tell me what happened in Prague.’

  They managed to dodge Madame Bouchard and Daniel pretended this was a blow to his self-esteem and won another half smile as they walked in a much more companionable way. Each time his arm brushed hers he felt a fresh flash of pleasure, and when she allowed him to gently cup her elbow to guide her across the road, Daniel felt the awakening of romance. It was a wraith through his body, electric and dangerous, bringing the ghost of the past to lodge itself in his throat and remind him of a near lifetime given deliberately to loneliness and regret. He had felt he needed both companions to stoke the flames that kept the glow of anger bright but now he glimpsed what his life had missed; what he had turned away from all these years.

  He cleared his throat. ‘Shall we walk around the park, take the longer route?’

  ‘Longer route to where?’ she said, entrapping him. He had nearly spilled a truth of knowing where she lived.

  ‘To however far you’ll permit me to accompany you,’ he replied, glad they were not facing one another or she might have seen the fear flicker across his expression at the potential revelation.

  ‘Les Deux Magots,’ she said. ‘Do you know it?’

  He gave a snort. ‘Yes, of course I know the famous café. I frequent it often.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That’s a good question,’ he acknowledged as they skirted the familiar gardens once again and turned left to join the grand Boulevard Raspail. ‘I told you my father was not sent to fight with the Allies because his skills were better suited to the essential service of espionage.’

  She cut him a side glance. ‘He was a spy?’ She sounded impressed. He hadn’t anticipated this.

  ‘Yes, of sorts. He worked at Bletchley Park. Have you heard of it?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ she said, tightening the scarf at the neck he was working hard not to imagine kissing softly.

  ‘Why should you?’ he admitted. ‘Anyway, he never spoke about his work, not even when the war ended. He described himself as being in administration, to be as vague as possible. I only learned a couple of years ago
that he was part of the team that ran the Allied spy networks in France. He helped with their training. There was one he spoke of fondly. He was impressed by her. They used her to set a honey trap to ensnare a ranking German.’

  ‘And?’ she said, sounding intrigued.

  ‘She got her man. But the twist to the tale is that no one counted on a French Resistance fighter falling in love with her too. He was a lavender farmer, turned maquisard.’ He frowned. ‘I can’t fully remember the story but what I do remember from my father’s tale is that it was incredibly dangerous.’ He spotted the spire of Église Saint-Germain-des-Prés. ‘Did you know the tomb of René Descartes is located in the church near the café?’

  ‘You are a well of trivial historical information this afternoon,’ she accused him with some affection.

  He shrugged. ‘Tell me when I’m boring you.’ He steered them towards the square and to the café. ‘Too cold for outside?’ He didn’t really want to sit in one of the red moleskin booths before a mahogany table, preferring the café furniture along its shopfront.

  While the café itself was filling with chilled patrons and becoming noisy, the clutter of small tables and chairs outside were still empty. It didn’t seem to matter to either of them that the crowding tables meant one could tap one’s cigarette ash into either neighbour’s ashtray. He was relieved to see in her expression that their loneliness appealed before she replied.

  ‘I don’t mind being outside.’

  They found a spot as far from the doorway as they could, and while they were still settling themselves the waiter arrived. Daniel glanced at Katerina in question; he already knew what she’d likely request but didn’t want to presume publicly. He sensed she would not enjoy such familiarity.

  ‘A black coffee, please,’ she said.

  ‘Hot chocolate for me,’ Daniel answered the man’s silent enquiry. At Katerina’s raised eyebrow he felt the need to explain. ‘Too much coffee gives me reflux.’

  ‘Your weakness for sweet things, more like,’ she said. The waiter disappeared with a simple ‘Merci’.