The Viennese Girl

by Jenny Lecoat

  What kind of mind, Kurt thought, divided the human population up into such categories? ‘So?’

  ‘So, we must make sure there are no ancient parasites lurking. One thing about me, Kurt …’ He smirked, a cobra that had spotted a wounded mouse. ‘I am often commended for my scrupulous cleanliness.’ He patted Kurt on the shoulder then disappeared through the doorway and down the corridor, his blond head bobbing through the crowd.

  Kurt watched him go with an indifferent sniff. Wildgrube had no more information about Hedy eight months on than he had in the week of her disappearance – he merely enjoyed the power of menace. If he had discovered anything new he’d have taken great delight in hauling Kurt into the notorious Silvertide building for questioning. Kurt decided there was enough to worry about this week – real, imminent dangers that far outweighed the niggling irritation of this idiot.

  Kurt forced his way into the grey flannel mass of the corridor, pushing past the other officers, watching their reactions to the morning’s briefing. Some were grimly silent; others opted for fake bravado, braying about finally seeing some action. He stuffed his hands into his pockets to imply endeavour and urgency, and instantly felt the lining of the right pocket, loose for some time, give way under the weight, allowing his hand to slip through to the inner layer. Glancing at the large mirror in the reception hallway to see if it was noticeable, he took in his whole reflection. Weight loss was causing the uniform to hang off him, like a schoolboy in his father’s clothes. There was a grass stain on the knee of his trousers, picked up on an awkward repair job last week, which Mrs Mezec’s half-hearted laundering had not removed. And now he noticed a button missing from the front of his tunic, causing the fabric to gape instead of giving a crisp, smart line. The thousand-year Reich, he reflected with irony, was literally starting to fall apart at the seams.

  ‘But my absolute favourite part …’ Dorothea’s eyes shone with excitement as she recalled the moment. Her palms ironed flat the open pages of the scrapbook on the table. ‘ … is where she dumps Westley at the altar and rushes for her car. It’s Peter she really loves, you see, and she realises that true love is more important than anything.’

  ‘And her father approves?’ Hedy traced the outline of Claudette Colbert’s face with her finger. The edges were starting to curl for want of fresh paste, and her right ear had already disappeared.

  ‘Her father is the one who tells her to go! He knows she doesn’t really love Westley, you see, and he wants her to be happy.’ Dorothea turned the page. Shafts of golden-pink evening light slanted through the kitchen window and onto the table, creating patterns on the frayed paper and highlighting every line of Dorothea’s face. ‘When all this is over, I’ll take you to see it. It’s my favourite movie.’

  ‘I’d like that. It sounds wonderful.’

  Hedy slowly gathered up the two plates and spoons they had used for their evening meal of unsalted potatoes, and carried them across to the draining board. The potatoes had been hard in the centre, and sat heavy in her stomach; now that the gas supply was shut off and they were forced to rely on the communal bakehouse, it was pot luck whether what Dorothea picked up at the end of the day was cooked through at all.

  ‘Dorothea, do you ever think about your own parents?’ The question was out of her mouth before she’d had time to weigh it, and she instantly regretted it. Dorothea always neatly sidestepped any reference to her family, making it clear that the subject was out of bounds. But Hedy had noticed, in recent weeks, they had both been voicing more direct, personal questions than they would have dreamed of asking six months ago. Perhaps it was the sense that the end to this bizarre, enforced marriage might not be far away, though neither of them dared to venture what that end might look like.

  Dorothea kept her eyes on the scrapbook. ‘Sometimes.’

  ‘You ever think about going to see them?’

  ‘Waste of time. My stepfather wouldn’t allow it.’

  ‘Are you sure? It’s been so long.’ A long silence. Dorothea slowly turned another page. Claudette Colbert gave way to Katharine Hepburn posing with a besuited Cary Grant. ‘Kurt says lots of older people are starting to get sick, with the shortage of food and medicines.’

  ‘I know.’ A strip of paper bearing the words Bringing Up Baby in curly, romantic lettering escaped completely from its ancient paste and fell to the bottom of the page. Dorothea caught it and stubbornly tried to force it back into position, to no avail.

  Hedy returned to her chair. ‘Only… I know if I had the opportunity to see my parents just once more, no matter how painful—’

  ‘Hedy, I tried, okay?’ Dorothea slammed the book shut, her voice uncharacteristically loud. ‘I went up there in February, on my mother’s birthday. My stepdad wouldn’t come to the door, said if my mother didn’t come back into the house he was done with her too.’ She shrank back, ashamed of her outburst. ‘My grandmother wrote to them, he tore the letter up. Like he said – I’m dead to them.’

  Hedy placed a hand on Dorothea’s arm. ‘I’m sorry. You never said.’

  ‘You have enough problems of your own.’

  ‘It was brave to try.’

  Dorothea raised her finely plucked eyebrows, held the thought for a moment, and let them fall again. ‘I loved Anton so much, and I really believed that was all that mattered. But now …’ She looked towards the window, and the last tips of the sun’s rays coloured her eyes an extraordinary blue. ‘Now I’m not so sure. Even if he does come back. At least you and Kurt have each other now. Sometimes, when I see the two of you together …’

  ‘I’m sorry. We’re not trying to—’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I know. You would never try to hurt me.’

  Hedy felt a flush of shame as a dozen memories rushed in: her resentment and dismissal of Dorothea at the start, her hope that she and Anton would cancel the wedding. Dorothea must have sensed at least some of it, yet in those wide, trusting eyes there was not a speck of resentment. Hedy had just begun to phrase some kind of apology in her head when Dorothea leaned back in her chair and began to cough.

  ‘Do we have any mustard powder left?’

  ‘I don’t know, why?’

  ‘I’m having trouble breathing.’

  Hedy rushed to the larder and scrabbled through the shelves looking for the bottle. Sure enough, at the back was a small tin with a spoonful of mustard powder inside – she grabbed it and returned to Dorothea’s side. ‘I’ve got it. Give me one minute.’

  Hedy shook out some of the powder onto a saucer. From the tap she added a few drops of water, dripping it in with her fingers, and stirred it into a yellow paste. Dorothea was by now leaning back in her chair, the wheezing of her breaths coming in short, strained gasps. Hedy pulled Dorothea’s blouse open and smeared the paste onto her chest. Dorothea recoiled a little and began to whimper. ‘Burns!’

  ‘I know.’ Hedy deliberately kept her voice low and steady. ‘But it will help. Try to keep your breaths regular. Count with me – in for five and out for five. One, two …’ Her mind raced ahead. If Dorothea turned blue or began to lose consciousness, what was she to do? Kurt would not call till tomorrow at the earliest. Asking the neighbours was impossible – Hedy had never even seen them, far less judged whether they could be trusted with the sudden appearance of a foreigner on their street. ‘… And five. Now the same, going out. Come on, Dory, you can do it.’ She scrabbled for a plan. Perhaps she could drag Dorothea onto a neighbour’s path, bang on the door then run back to the house before anyone saw her? The hospital was less than ten minutes away, surely someone would go for help? Though even there, the chances of them having any medication to help her were almost zero. ‘And again. You’re doing well.’

  The breaths grew shorter and more tortuous. In the fading light of the kitchen, Hedy peered at Dorothea’s features, and saw that the shade of lilac ash she most feared was now blooming on her lips. Her eyelids were drooping a little and she was starting to slump down on the tabletop. Hedy sat her back
in her chair and held her upright to keep the airways open, all the while stroking her hair and keeping up a constant muttering of encouragement. But as the minutes crawled by and the hissing breaths grew weaker, Hedy knew she had to make a decision.

  ‘Dory, I’m going to have to go for help. Just try to hang on.’ She turned to go, but felt a sudden clamp on her wrist. For a moment she barely believed it was Dorothea, so strong was the grip, but it pinned her where she stood. Then Dorothea, clinging to the struggling outbreaths as they fought their way through the fog of her lungs, pushed out the words: ‘No! Dangerous!’

  ‘I know, but the hospital is the only place we have any chance of help.’

  Dorothea’s hold, using only her thumb and forefinger, actually increased. ‘No! Not worth it!’ She extended the fingers of her right hand and held it towards Hedy’s face. ‘Five minutes.’

  Seeing that the suggestion was simply causing more stress, and afraid that Dorothea wouldn’t survive her absence for longer than a few minutes, Hedy dropped back into her seat, dreading that she was making the wrong choice. Dorothea hauled in breath after breath, her face scrunched with concentration, each inhalation a private war with herself. The moments crawled by, the golden rays replaced with dim blue haze and purple shadows, and still Dorothea sat there, clay-faced, battling, until at last Hedy sensed the breaths grow fractionally looser, and the grip on her wrist released a little. Dorothea raised a finger from her limp hand on the table to indicate that change was afoot, and within a few minutes a little colour returned to her lips and forehead.

  ‘It’s okay.’

  Relief bubbled up until it hurt Hedy’s throat. ‘Thank God. But next time …’

  Dorothea shook her head. ‘No! Never! We’ve come this far. We must reach the end now.’ Then it was Dorothea’s turn to comfort Hedy, as she dropped her chin to her chest and sobbed like a baby.

  The spider crab, wrapped in newspaper and then in a torn pillowcase, was pressed so hard against the side of his body that Kurt could feel it wriggling. He had watched the fishmonger bind the claws tight with string, but it was still an unnerving experience to feel the creature strain and fight against the confines of its human prison. It had cost him a huge chunk of his wages and a proportion of his pitiful tobacco allowance, but none of that mattered. Kurt kept his arm firmly in place as he walked up Cheapside, imagining how Hedy’s face would look when he presented her with it. There’d be no mayonnaise, of course, probably no bread either. But the ingenious contraption Kurt had set up on a recent visit, involving an old metal paint tin suspended over the fireplace, would enable them to boil the crab at home, provided they had enough wood, and eat it fresh from the shell. He thought about the two women cracking the claws, licking the delicious meat off their fingers, and smiled.

  At the corner of the road, Kurt was forced to admit to himself the suspicion that had been nibbling at the edge of his consciousness for several minutes. He was being followed. Glancing around as if checking for traffic, he scanned for a visible figure engaged in any kind of suspicious activity, and caught a glimpse of a man in a mac and trilby-style hat, fiddling pointlessly with a newspaper in a doorway. He couldn’t tell from here whether or not it was Wildgrube – the hat suggested otherwise – but the behaviour certainly suggested one of his henchmen. Either way, heading straight for West Park Avenue at this point was clearly out of the question. Kurt doubled back into the little park, following the tarmac path towards its centre then suddenly swerving back towards the north end of Elizabeth Place. If this guy was following him, these twists and turns would surely force him out into the open. Kurt knew that he was clean – the crab had been legitimately bought and there was nothing about his person that couldn’t be explained – and on that basis he felt confident about tackling the spy head on. He began to prepare a stinging rebuke in his head, a righteous indignation at the waste of resources, snooping on German officers in their precious free time.

  As he cleared the park and headed up the street, he turned to look behind him. The man was still following, some distance away, but now making little attempt to hide his intent. He was moving slowly, and it occurred to Kurt that this might be a consequence of poor fitness, rather than incompetent subterfuge. Recent rations had been atrocious; perhaps the TB currently running rife through the local population was starting to infiltrate the sanctity of the secret police. Serve the bastards right, Kurt thought. But the thought gave him another option: to pick up his pace and make a clean getaway.

  Kurt accelerated his stride until he was in a rapid march, his long legs moving like pistons across the paving stones. Reaching the corner of Parade Road, he took a speedy left and jogged past the terraced houses. He knew that coming up on the left was the entrance to the alley that ran parallel with the backyards of West Park Avenue. If he managed to put enough distance between them, he might be able to slip down there before his pursuer figured out where he’d gone. But as he was about to do just that, he glanced behind him and saw that the figure was still on his tail.

  Kurt recalibrated. He was too close to the house now to take any chances. It wasn’t beyond the power or will of Wildgrube’s cronies to turn a whole street over, if they thought they might find something that would earn them credit or promotion. Kurt decided to return to his original plan and confront the spy – from here, he looked exhausted, giving Kurt an additional advantage. Pushing back his shoulders and stretching himself to his full height, Kurt walked back to where the man was now standing quite openly on the public pavement, his arm outstretched to the nearby wall for support, breathing heavily. His head was dropped in an attempt to recover, his face obscured beneath his hat.

  Kurt assumed his most officious tone. ‘What the hell do you think you’re playing at?’ As the man raised his head, Kurt gasped. It was more than two years since he’d seen those craggy features, but even with the man’s weight loss and significant ageing, he recognised him instantly. ‘Doctor Maine!’

  ‘I’m sorry …’ The doctor waved his hand to indicate he needed an additional moment, then pulled himself upright. ‘I would have gone straight to Miss Le Brocq’s – I mean Mrs Weber’s – house, but I was uncertain of the situation. One doesn’t want to draw unnecessary attention to delicate circumstances, you understand?’ Kurt nodded. ‘Then I recognised you walking up Cheapside, and suspected you might be on your way there.’

  ‘Has something happened?’ Kurt glanced around, anxious; there was no one on the street, though he feared any number of eyes might be peering through twitching curtains at this very moment.

  Maine nodded. ‘I’m afraid so.’ His exhausted brown eyes stared up at Kurt from beneath the brim of his hat. ‘Something very serious.’

  ‘But I don’t know this man. I don’t understand?’

  Dorothea was on the edge of her seat, her fingers in her mouth, chewing at what was left of the fingernails. Hedy looked from her to Kurt, trying to control the violent thumping of her heart. The spider crab he’d donated lay forgotten in the kitchen sink, twitching and squirming through its stay of execution.

  ‘Fintan Quinn was pulled in by the secret police last week for further questioning – part of Wildgrube’s “housekeeping” policy,’ Kurt explained. ‘They must have found a way to put pressure on him, because this time he offered up the doctor’s name, linking him to the coupon theft. Next day they pulled Maine in for questioning too.’ Hedy thought of the gentle, exhausted doctor in an interrogation cell, and closed her eyes in horror. ‘Maine told them nothing, of course,’ Kurt went on, ‘and they have no evidence, so he’s in the clear. But they checked his list of patients and found Dorothea’s name. Now they’re trying to join the dots, hoping it leads them to Hedy.’

  Hedy swallowed. ‘So they plan to search here?’

  ‘Maine couldn’t be sure – what he overheard was through a doorway into the corridor, and his German isn’t that strong. But he thinks he heard the word “Freitag”.’

  ‘Friday! That’s tonight!’ Dorothea�
��s eyes were liquid with panic.

  ‘That’s why there’s no time to waste.’

  ‘Should we move Hedy into the attic?’

  Hedy felt sick. The room was spinning a little. A cold toxicity seemed to be building in her veins. The moment had finally come. She had ceased to be a person; she was now a problem, a living liability to be discussed and hidden away like an illegal wireless or a pistol. She opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

  ‘The attic’s far too dangerous for a targeted search,’ Kurt was saying. ‘It’ll be the first place they look.’

  ‘But where else can she go? If Maine is under suspicion too—’

  ‘I think I’ve got an idea,’ Kurt cut in. ‘First, we need to get the wireless set out of the house. Is there anyone you could leave it with?’

  Dorothea nodded. ‘My grandmother. I could hide it in her garden shed.’

  Kurt nodded. ‘Take it round there now in the wheelbarrow. Make sure you cover it – leaves, an old blanket, anything. Go now, while the early shift is changing; the streets will be quiet.’ Then Kurt turned to Hedy and looked her dead in the eye. ‘And you – you, we need to get dressed.’

  ‘Dressed?’

  ‘It’s dangerous, but it’s the best I can come up with. And it might work.’ He bent down and revealed a canvas satchel he had brought with him, undoing the straps as he spoke. ‘I want you to put this on.’

  Hedy watched as Kurt pulled out the bag’s contents and laid the garments on the kitchen table. She heard Dorothea gasp, and felt her own legs grow weak.

  ‘Kurt, you can’t be serious? Have you lost your mind?’

  On the table lay the drab grey woollen uniform of a Wehrmacht staff sergeant.

  11

  What do you think?’

  Hedy glanced at Kurt, then at the jagged section of mirrored glass in front of her. It sat propped up on a stool, leaning against Dorothea’s bedroom wall, and the angle made her look even shorter. She took in her new outfit – the heavy tunic with its neat metal buttons, the loose trousers with the tapered ankles and reinforced seat – and marvelled at the imagined power that could be gleaned from a suit of clothes. She thought of the soldiers in the concentration camps, pulling on the same garments, believing themselves to be supermen, a superior species. All she saw was a stick-thin Jewish girl playing a tasteless game of dress-up. She pulled a face.