The Ring

by Steel, Danielle

  Walmar looked at Max then. He had a plan. Yes, I'm very serious. I think you should go now.

  Tonight?

  Perhaps you shouldn't leave tonight, but as soon as possible, as soon as papers can be arranged. I think that you should disappear tonight though. And then after another sip of cognac, What do you think?

  Max had been listening carefully to Walmar's words, and he knew that what the older man was saying made a great deal of sense. What reason did he have to cling to a country that had already destroyed everything that he held dear?

  Silently he nodded. And then after another moment, You're right. ll go. I don't know where or how. His eyes never left Walmar's, but now the elder man looked at his daughter. This was a turning point in all three lives.

  Ariana, would you like to leave now?

  For an instant none of the three stirred in the room, and then she looked questioningly at her father. Do you wish me to, Papa? But she didn't want to. She wanted to stay here with him and Max.

  You may stay if you like. If you understand the importance of keeping all this quiet. You must discuss it with no one. No one. Not Gerhard, not the servants. No one. Not even with me. What will happen, will happen in silence. And when it is over, it never happened at all. Is that clear? She nodded and for an instant he questioned the insanity of involving his daughter, but they were all involved. Soon it could be happening to them. It was time she knew. He had thought that for some time. She had to understand how desperate the situation was. Do you understand me, Ariana?

  Perfectly, Papa.

  Very well.

  He closed Ms eyes for a moments, and then he turned to Max. You will leave here this evening, by the front door, looking even more troubled than you did when you came in, and you will very simply disappear. Walk toward the lake. And then later you will come back. I will let you in myself after the house is dark. You will stay here for a day or two. And then you go. Quietly. To the border. Into Switzerland, And then, my friend, you are gone for good. To a new life.

  And how am I supposed to finance all this? Can you get my money out of the bank? Max looked worried and Walmar shook his head.

  Never mind that. All you have to worry about is getting back here tonight. And then getting to the border after that. Let me take care of the money and the papers.

  Max was impressed, if somewhat surprised, by his respectable old friend. Do you know anyone who can do that sort of thing?

  Yes, I do. I researched it about six months ago, in case ' the need ever arose. Ariana was astonished but she kept quiet. She had no idea that her father had ever considered such a thing. Are we clear, then? Max nodded. Do you want to stay for dinner? You could leave rather obviously after that.

  All right But where will you hide me?

  Walmar sat silent for a moment he had been wondering the same thing. This time it was Ariana who had the answer. Mother's rooms. Walmar looked at her in quick displeasure, and Max watched the exchange that passed silently between their eyes. Papa, it's the only place no one goes near. Except that she and Frau Klemmer had been there only that day. It was what had brought the rooms in question so quickly to her mind. Ordinarily the family and the household almost pretended that Kassandra's rooms were no longer a part of the Von Gotthard house. Papa. It's true. He would be safe there. And I could tidy up again after he's gone. No one would ever know.

  Walmar paused for what seemed an endless moment. The last time he had been in that apartment, his wife had been lying dead in a bathtub filled with blood. He had never entered her rooms again. He couldn't bear the pain of those last memories, that bruised face and those desperate eyes, the breasts shattered from the belt buckle of the Nazi who had almost raped her. I suppose there is no choice. He said it with an agony that only Max understood. They both knew what the Nazis were capable of.

  I'm sorry to be a problem for you, Walmar.

  Don't be ridiculous. We want to help you. And then, with a small wintry smile, Perhaps one day you will help us.

  There was a long silence in the room then and at last Max spoke. Walmar, do you really think of going?

  The older man looked pensive. I'm not sure I could. I'm more visible than you are. They watch me. They know me. They need me more than they need you. I am a source of funds to them. The Tilden Bank is important to the Reich. It is the albatross around my neck, but it is also my salvation. One day it may prove to be the gun held to my head. But if I have to, I would do the same as you are doing. Ariana was shocked to hear him say it. She had never suspected that her father thought one day to flee. And then, as though by exact prearrangement, Berthold knocked and announced dinner, and the three of them left the room in silence.

  Chapter 9

  Walmar von Gotthard tiptoed silently through his own house and waited in the front hall. He had warned Max Thomas to come barefoot through the garden. It would make less noise than walking on the gravel in his shoes. And he had given him his own key to the front gate. Max had left them around eleven and now it was a few minutes before three. The moon was round and full and it was easy to see him, running quickly across the expanse of lawn. The two men exchanged no greeting, only curt nods as Max Thomas carefully wiped off his feet with his socks. The dirt from the flower beds would have left tracks on the white marble floor. Walmar was pleased with Max's clear thinking. He was a different man now than the one who had sat sobbing and broken in his study only ten hours before. Now that Max Thomas was fleeing, his very survival would depend on his quick wits and cool head.

  The two men walked rapidly up the main staircase and in a brief moment reached the door at the end of the long hall. For an instant Walmar paused there, waiting, as though not sure whether he should go in. But Ariana had been waiting for them and now, sensing their presence, she opened the door a crack to peek. Seeing Max's intent face in the doorway, she opened the door wider to let them in, but Walmar only shook his head as he stood there, as though he could not yet force himself to go in. Max quickly entered. Perhaps it was time for Walmar to open the doors again; perhaps, like Max, it was time for him to forge ahead.

  He closed the door soundlessly behind him and followed as Ariana beckoned them into the small room that had been her mother's study, now faded into a still softer pink. The chaise longue still stood in the corner, and Ariana had put warm blankets on it so Max could sleep there.

  She put a finger to her lips and whispered softly. I thought if he slept there he'd be safer. Should anyone look in, they won't see him from the bedroom, Her father nodded and Max looked at him gratefully, but there were lines of fatigue crowded round his eyes. Walmar looked at him one last time, nodded, and then left the room with Ariana following quickly behind. Walmar had promised that he would get the papers as quickly as possible. He hoped for Max's sake to have them by the next night.

  Ariana and her father left each other in the hallway with their own thoughts and no words. She returned to her room then, thinking of Max and the lonely journey he was about to undertake. She still remembered little Sarah, a tiny woman with dark, laughing eyes. She had been so full of funny stories, and she had been kind to Ariana whenever they met. It all seemed so long ago now. Ariana had often thought of her over the past three years, wondering where she was and what they had done to her ' and the boys ' Now they knew.

  They were the same thoughts Max was thinking as he lay quietly on the pink satin-covered chaise longue in the room of the woman he had seen only once when he first met Walmar. She had been a dazzling woman with golden, almost copper-colored hair. He had thought her the most striking vision of his lifetime. And shortly after, he had learned that she was dead. Of flu, they had told him. But as he lay there, he sensed that there had been some other reason for her death. Some odd feeling had communicated itself from Walmar, as though he knew, as though he, too, had suffered at the Nazis' hands. It didn't seem possible, but one never knew.

  In his own room Walmar stood looking out at the lake in the moonlight, but it was not the lake he saw ther
e, it was his wife. Golden, shining, beautiful Kassandra ' the woman he had loved so desperately so long ago ' the dreams they had shared in that room. And now it was empty, solemn, draped, forgotten. It had torn a part of him away that night, crossing that doorway with the man they were hiding, and Ariana with those same bottomless lavender-blue eyes. He turned away from the moonlight in sorrow, and at last he undressed and went to bed.

  Did you ask him? Frau Klemmer asked her after breakfast when they met in the hall.

  About what? Ariana had other things on her mind.

  The room. Your mother's apartment What a strange girl she was, so distant, so withdrawn at times had she already forgotten? Frau Klemmer ofter wondered what mysteries lay behind the deep blue eyes.

  Oh, that ' yes. ' I mean no. He said no.

  Was he angry?

  No, Just very definite. I guess I'll just stay where I am.

  Why don't you push him a little? Maybe he'll think about it some more and give in.

  But Ariana shook her head with determination. He has enough on his mind.

  The housekeeper shrugged and moved on. Sometimes it was hard to understand the girl, but then again, her mother had been strange, too.

  When Ariana left for school that morning, Walmar had already left the house in his Rolls. She had wanted to spend the day at home in case, because of Max but her father had insisted that she go on with her life as always, and to be sure of Max's protection, Walmar had himself relocked Kassandra's door.

  It seemed hours before she could get back there, but at last it was time to go home. She had sat in school all day, distracted, thinking of Max and wondering how he was. Poor man, how strange it must feel to him, to be a captive in someone's house. With a calm step, Ariana walked down the main hallway, greeted Berthold, and went upstairs. She declined Anna's offer of tea and went into her bathroom to comb her hair. It was another fifteen minutes before she dared walk back downstairs to the next floor. She paused for a moment at the door of her father's bedroom and then glided past it with the key she had borrowed from Frau Klemmer only two days before.

  The door opened easily as she turned the key and then the handle, and she slipped quietly inside and disappeared. On silent feet she ran through the bedroom, soundless, breathless, and then she stood there, in the doorway, a smiling vision in front of the tired, unshaven Max.

  Hello. It was barely a whisper.

  He smiled and invited her to sit down. Have you eaten? He shook his head. I thought so. Here. She had brought him a sandwich hidden in the deep pocket of her skirt. I'll bring you some milk later. That morning she had left him a pitcher of water They had told him not to run the taps. The pipes would be too rusty after so many years, and they might squeak horribly, alerting the servants that there was someone in these rooms. You're all right though?

  I'm fine. He gobbled the sandwich quickly. You didn't have to do this. And then he grinned at her But I'm glad you did. He looked younger somehow, as though years of care had been dropped from his face. He looked worn, and different now that he was unshaven, but still, he didn't have the gaunt, pained look he had worn yesterday. How was school today?

  Awful. I worried about you.

  You shouldn't have. I'm fine here. It was odd, he had only hidden there for a few hours, but already he felt cut off from the world. He missed the buses, the noise, his office, the telephone, even the sound of boots goose-stepping down the street. It all seemed so remote here. As though he had drifted into another world. A faded, forgotten world of pink satin, in the boudoir of a woman long since gone. Together they stared around the small study and their eyes met at the same time. What was she like ' your mother?

  Ariana looked around her strangely. I'm not sure. I never really knew her. She died when I was nine.

  For an instant she remembered Gerhard at the cemetery and then standing in the rain beside her father, holding tightly to his hand. She was very beautiful. I'm not sure I know much more than that.

  I saw her once. She was incredible. I thought she was the most exquisite woman I'd ever seen. Ariana nodded.

  She used to come upstairs to see us, in evening clothes and smelling of perfume. Her dresses made wonderful sounds as she crossed the room, the swishing noises of silk and taffeta and satin. She always seemed terribly mysterious to me. I suppose she always will.

  Ariana looked at him with her big sad eyes. Have you thought about where you're going? Speaking to him in the whisper they had to use to converse, she seemed like a child asking him a secret, and he smiled.

  More or less. I think your father's right. Switzerland first. Then maybe when the war is over, I'll see if I can get to the States. My father had a cousin there, I'm not even sure if he's still alive. But it's a start.

  Won't you come back here? She looked shocked for a moment as he shook his head. Never, Max?

  Never, And then he sighed softly. I never want to see this place again. It seemed strange to Ariana that he should cut himself off forever from what had been his whole life. But then, perhaps he was right to shut the door so firmly. She wondered if it was like her father's never reentering her mother's bedroom until the night before. There were places one simply never returned to. One couldn't bear the pain. When she looked up at him again, he was smiling gently. Will you and your father come and see me in America after the war?

  She laughed softly. That seems a long way off.

  I hope not. And then, without thinking, he reached out and took her hand. He held it for a long moment, and then she bent slowly toward him and kissed him softly on the top of his head. There were no more words needed between them; he only held her, and she gently stroked his hair. Soon he made her leave, telling her it was dangerous for her to be there. But the truth was, he was thinking the unthinkable while hiding out in his old friend's house.

  Later that evening Walmar came to see him, and he looked far more tired and subdued than Max. He already had the travel papers and a German passport in the name of Ernst Josef Frei. They had used the picture from Max's passport, and the official seal they'd stamped on it looked real.

  Quite a job isn't it? Max stared at it with fascination and then glanced back at Walmar sitting uncomfortably in a pink chair. What now?

  A map, some money. I also got you a travel permit You can make it close to the border on the train. After that, my friend, you're on your own. But you should be able to make it he paused for a moment with this. He handed him an envelope filled with money, enough to keep him handsomely for several weeks. I didn't dare take out more than that, or someone might have wondered why.

  Is there anything you didn't think of, Walmar? Max stared at him in admiration. What a remarkable old man Von Gotthard was.

  I hope not. I'm afraid I'm a little new at this. But I think it might be good practice.

  You really think of leaving? Walmar looked pensive. Why you?

  A number of reasons. Who knows what will happen, at what point they'll lose control. And I have Gerhard to think of now, too. In the fall he'll be sixteen. If the war doesn't end soon, they may draft him. At that point we go. Max nodded quietly. He understood. If he still had a son to protect from the Nazis, he would do the same thing.

  But it wasn't only Gerhard that worried Walmar, it was Ariana too. The flood of uniforms in We city worried him almost all the time. She was so delicately pretty, so enticing in her quiet, distant way. What if they were to harm her, to grab her, or worse, if some high-ranking officer were to take a fancy to his only female child? It frightened him increasingly now that she was older, and in a few months she would no longer be in school. Knowing that she was doing volunteer work at Martin Luther Hospital terrified him most of all. He sat there thinking while Max looked at his new passport again.

  Walmar, what can I do to thank you?

  Be safe. Start a new life. That's thanks enough.

  It seems nothing at all. Can I let you know where I am?

  Discreetly. Just an address. No name. I'll know. Max nodded. The train leave
s from the station at midnight. Walmar fished in his pocket and handed him the keys to a car, In the garage behind the house you'll find a blue Ford coupe, an old one. It was Kassandra's, But I checked it myself this morning. Miraculously, it still works, I think the servants still drive it around from time to time to keep it running. Take it, drive it to the station, and leave it there. I'll report it stolen in the morning. You'll be long gone. We'll go to bed early tonight, so there shouldn't be any problem.

  Hopefully by the time you leave at eleven thirty, everyone will be asleep. And that, my friend, takes care of everything except one thing.

  Max couldn't imagine anything more. But Walmar had thought of one thing further. He walked quietly into Kassandra's bedroom and Kited two paintings from the wall. With his pocket knife he pried them from the frames that held them, and then sliced them carefully from the wood stretchers that had held them taut for twenty years. One was a small Renoir that had been his mother's, the other a Corot he had bought his wife in Paris on their honeymoon twenty years before. Without saying anything to the man who watched him, he rolled both canvases tightly and then handed them to his friend. Take them. Do whatever you have to. Sell them, eat them, barter them. They're both worth a great deal of money. Enough to start you on your new life.

  Walmar, no! Even what I'm leaving in the bank here would never cover those. He had spent much of his money trying to find Sarah and the boys.

  You have to. And they do no one any good hanging here. You need them ' and I could never bear to look at them again ' not after they were here. They're yours now, Max. Take them. From a friend.

  Just then Ariana slipped quietly into the room. She was puzzled when she saw the tears in Max's eyes and then, when she saw the empty frames beside her mother's headboard, she quickly understood.

  Are you going now, Max? Her eyes grew wide.

  In a few hours. Your father has just ' I don't know what to say, Walmar. .