by Sarah Rayne
Alice said, ‘We are relatives of the child’s mother. You can tell us what happened.’
The clerk hesitated, but he enjoyed a gossip as much as the next man, and he did not really mind retelling the story that had provided such good headlines for his newspaper. There had been, they were to understand, some small infraction of a rule. Perhaps homework had not been done for the next day’s school. Perhaps a bedroom had not been tidied properly or a house task not performed. And so there had been chastisement. A small smacking of the bottom, or the withholding of pudding after the evening meal perhaps. Certainly it would have been nothing large, for Herr Stultz was known to be a kindly man. Ah yes, once a Nazi, everyone knew that, and it was not a thing for pride. But that was in the past, and Herr Stultz was a man of warmth, always ready to contribute to charity and to give of his time for others. And so proud of his small nephew who had been orphaned in the war. The two of them had often been seen in the little town, said the clerk, the good Herr buying toys for the child, the two of them chattering away together. Uncle and nephew, so good to see.
But the small chastisement, whatever it had been, had created a violent rage. Ungovernable fury. And there had been some form of skewer lying to hand – perhaps meat skewers, the clerk was not too sure of the details. What he was sure of – what everyone living here was sure of – was that the boy had snatched the skewer up and driven it straight into Herr Stultz’s face.
‘The eyes,’ said Alice, almost to herself. ‘The boy stabbed Reinard Stultz’s eyes.’
Ah yes, it had been so, said the clerk. Shocking.
Fifteen minutes later Alice and Ilena had reached the house and requested admittance. Within half an hour they were driving back to the railway station, with Alraune.
‘No one questioned us,’ said Alice to the four people listening to her. ‘No one tried to stop us. We just walked into the house, and found him. He was in the kitchen, drinking soup that the girl had made for him. We simply said we were his mother’s family, come to take him away, and we took him.’
‘Did he know you?’ asked Lucy. ‘I mean – did he recognize you?’
‘Not immediately, I don’t think. Auschwitz was three years behind him, and he was still very young. But after a while he did recognize me, and he smiled and allowed me to hug him. But he was a detached child – there was always the feeling that he performed any act of affection purely because it was expected of him.’
‘You brought him back to England?’ said Francesca.
‘Yes. It was a circuitous route we took, Ilena and I – we wanted to be sure no one was following or watching. Perhaps we were both a little paranoid after the years in the camp. And I thought Alraune could live with us all, that we could be a family. He had two sisters who would love to have him, I said.’ She paused. There was no need to say that beneath everything she had been frightened of the child’s self-possession and his dark history. She had thought: This is a child apparently responsible for viciously blinding a man – a man who, according to the reports, had shown him only kindness.
‘Ilena stayed in England,’ she said. ‘By the time I was given the Ashwood contract she had qualified as a doctor, and she obtained a post in a hospital nearby. We were pleased to think of being so near to one another. And I was delighted with the Ashwood deal, which was for two films – interesting work and very profitable. The studios were hoping to rival Alfred Hitchcock’s productions – he had already made The Thirty Nine Steps and Rebecca, and he was only a couple of years away from Dial M for Murder – and the films in prospect were glossy murder mysteries, very typical of that era. Quite good screenplays though,’ said the lady who had known and worked with von Stroheim and Max Schreck, and sparred with Brigitte Helm and Dietrich. Despite herself Lucy smiled.
‘And the thought of living in England again after so long – it was another of those moments of extreme and intense happiness,’ said Alice. ‘I had money again – not a fortune, but enough to buy a house near to the studios. Ilena stayed with us often, and her family came to England regularly. We travelled a little – it was possible by that time. I took the children abroad for holidays.’
‘On Howard Hughes’ Stratoliner?’ said Lucy involuntarily.
‘Yes. How on earth did you know that?’
‘I found an old newsreel,’ said Lucy. ‘Pathé News.’
‘There were usually cameras around,’ agreed Alice. ‘But altogether it was beginning to be a good life again. Conrad was there, of course; he loved the idea of living in England: he thought he would be an English gentleman and he wanted to write music to rival Elgar and Vaughan Williams.’ She stopped again, and Lucy felt her heart bump with nervousness. We’re coming to it, she thought. We’re coming now to what really happened at Ashwood.
But it was Liam who leaned forward, and said, in a voice far more gentle than Lucy had heard him use before, ‘Baroness. We know that Edmund Fane’s father killed Conrad. But who killed Leo Dreyer?’
For a long time Lucy thought Alice was not going to reply. We’ve overdone it, she thought in horror. It’s been too much for her – she’s over ninety, for goodness’ sake, and she’s relived half her life for us tonight!
But then she saw she had been wrong; the lady who had survived Auschwitz, and who had survived God knew what other hardships and atrocities, sat up a little straighter.
‘Michael, dear, I believe I will have a small brandy with my coffee,’ she said. And, when Michael had poured it, and had added glasses for himself and Liam, Alice said, ‘This is what really happened that day.’
Alraune had been well-behaved and apparently normal after Alice and Ilena brought him to England, and if the killing of Reinard Stultz had affected him he did not show it. Alice had dared to believe him innocent; to think there had been someone else in the house that day – perhaps someone with a grudge against former Nazis, someone who had been in one of the camps, or who had lost a loved one there. There would be plenty such people, for goodness’ sake!
He had a bright intelligence that pleased Alice, and he seemed to be fitting into the household smoothly and easily, although he was wary of Conrad. Or was it that Conrad was wary of him? Alice had not told Conrad about the rape – she had been too afraid that Conrad would hate Alraune because of it, and Alraune had had more than his share of hatred in his life already. And Conrad had appeared to accept Alraune amiably enough. ‘One day perhaps you will tell me what happened in Auschwitz,’ he said once. ‘But only when you wish to and only if you wish to.’
‘Will you ever tell him?’ Ilena said one day.
‘No. He would mount a vendetta or a crusade to find the men who raped me, and challenge them to a duel or something equally ridiculous,’ said Alice. ‘Whatever he did, he would never be able to look at Alraune without remembering.’
Ilena said, ‘And you? Can you look at Alraune without remembering?’
‘I can,’ said Alice, and thought: I must. And in the meantime was grateful that Conrad seemed perfectly happy for Alraune to be part of the family.
Deborah and the small Mariana accepted Alraune unquestioningly. They called him Alan as they had been told to do, and Alice tried to call him Alan as well, although she found it difficult. And dozens of times during those first weeks in England, she found herself watching the boy covertly, and thinking: have I brought a murderer into the house? A killer who might turn on Deborah and Mariana?
And then she would remember how Alraune had witnessed men blinded in cold blood inside a German concentration camp, and how he had been hidden away in a dank wash-house and in the roof spaces of huts so that Josef Mengele should not find him. She would remember the swivel-eyes of the searchlights constantly raking the compound as she carried him into hiding, and the feeling of fear and urgency because it was vital to dodge the lidless white glare if they were to remain alive…
Alice did not often take the children to the studios, but she had taken Alraune with her on that last day, and she had taken Ilena and Deborah as
well.
‘To shield you from the besotted Crispin Fane?’ Ilena had said, grinning.
‘Perhaps. It’s nothing I can’t handle,’ said Alice.
‘Serve you right for seducing him when you were bored,’ said Ilena, who knew Alice very well indeed by this time.
‘Well, I couldn’t have known he would be so intense.’
‘All boys of that age are intense,’ said Ilena.
Whatever the reasons, Alraune and Deborah had gone to Ashwood that day. Alice had thought it would be all right; granted it was a murder mystery they were shooting, but no especially gory scenes were being filmed that day, and Deborah, who had been there several times, liked watching the filming and talking to the people who worked at the studios. Alice thought Alraune would like it, as well; she thought he would be fascinated by the bustle and the air of make-believe. And Ilena, who was on leave from the hospital for a couple of weeks, had never been to a film studio; she would enjoy the novelty, and Alice would enjoy giving her this unusual afternoon.
When Conrad said he would come along to collect them all later on, Alice was relieved, because it was unlikely that the besotted Crispin Fane would stage one of his emotional, embarrassing scenes with Conrad around.
CHAPTER FORTY
At first it had seemed all right. Alraune did not say very much, but he sat quietly with Ilena and Deborah, and accepted an orange drink one of the cameramen brought him, and watched everything that was going on with apparent interest.
There was a flurry of extra activity that day because visitors were expected. Alice did not take much notice of the flurry; there were often guests at Ashwood – people who must be flattered and given lush lunches. Sometimes local dignitaries from the nearby town were given a guided tour so that they could feel themselves on familiar terms with the exotic world of film-making, and could report favourably on it to local people.
But she did take notice of the fact that Crispin Fane was here, trailing along in the wake of his employer. There must be meetings with the legal department again; Crispin would be here to take notes as he often was. But halfway through the afternoon he found his way to Alice’s dressing-room while she was changing for the next scene. They were working in the small Studio Twelve and Alice had been allotted a dressing-room that opened almost directly off the main section. It made quick changes easier to cope with and it meant people did not have to wait about for her. Unfortunately, it also meant Crispin knew exactly where she was. He came in without knocking, as if he had a right, which annoyed Alice. What was even more annoying was that he had broken into her concentration. She was no disciple of Stanislavskian method or symbolism but it was distracting to be interrupted immediately before an important scene.
But she said, as levelly as she could manage, ‘Crispin, dear, it’s so nice to see you, but I can’t talk just now. I’m due on the set. And the children are here today.’
Despite herself it gave her a sharp pang to see the disappointment in his face – like a child deprived of a longed-for treat. But the disappointment vanished and was replaced by a petulant anger. Why had she no time for him these days? he said. Why, when they had meant so much to each other? He adored her, he would die for her—
He was overwrought, and in another moment he would tip from melodrama into outright hysteria, but somehow he would have to understand that the brief, rather irresponsible little affair was over. I’ll let him down gently though, I really will, thought Alice guiltily. Regret, that’s the keynote. And renunciation – I can do a good renunciation scene, and it would salvage his pride. She was just saying that they would meet later, when the door opened and Conrad came in.
French farce, thought Alice, torn between despair and a jab of hysteria on her own account. One lover wringing his hands at my feet, another entering upon the scene and registering shock and horror. Except that Conrad would never be shocked at anything and he had known her far too long to be horrified at finding a lovelorn youth in her room. Still, it was to be hoped he would not treat this poor child, Crispin Fane, to one of his grand displays of arrogance and temper.
He did not. He was a professional and he knew that a dressing-room minutes before a performance – never mind whether the performance was on a stage, a concert-hall, or a film-set – was no place for an emotional scene. He said, quite amicably, that he and Crispin should go somewhere else to discuss things; somewhere quiet where they could talk man to man.
It was the ‘man to man’ that tipped the scales, as Conrad had probably known it would. Crispin squared his shoulders and flung back his head – at one level of her mind Alice noted the gesture as rather a good one – and then marched out, head high.
Alice, deeply grateful for Conrad’s tact, got into her outfit for the scene, checked her make-up and her hair, slipped on her shoes, and went out into the main part of the studio. The working lights had been quenched and the heavy spotlights were angled to shine directly on to the small set; they were bright and strong to depict the sunlight of a summer afternoon, and the working areas were swathed in darkness. For a moment Alice had a brief shutter-flash of déjà vu: a darting vision of the compound inside Auschwitz when searchlights had lit parts of the camp with just that harsh brilliance, and when it had been necessary to avoid the unblinking stare if you did not want to be caught…
The image vanished as quickly as it had come, but Alice glanced uneasily across to where Alraune was sitting. Would the spotlights and the surrounding darkness have sparked a similar flare of memory for him? No, surely he had been too young to remember it. She was about to go across to him, to say something light and frivolous, when she was beckoned across to a group of men standing near the door.
Clearly these were the visitors for whom those preparations had been made earlier, and equally clearly they wanted to meet the infamous Lucretia von Wolff. Bother, thought Alice crossly, now I’m a tourist attraction, but she began to pick her way across the lit set to the far side.
She had reached the edge of the set and was about to step into the dark area outside it, when the tallest of the men turned to face her. Alice stopped dead, half in and half out of the light, because the memories were swooping down again. The hut in Auschwitz, lit by the glow from an iron stove. The sofa in the corner of the room, the men watching her with furtive lechery, and the dreadful awareness of sexual excitement filling up the hut. And all the while a tall man standing behind the stove, so that the firelight turned his eyeglass to a burning disc of flame…
The man watching her walk across Studio Twelve was Leo Dreyer.
‘It wasn’t until a long time afterwards,’ said Alice, sipping her coffee, and looking at the absorbed faces of her listeners, ‘that I understood that Leo Dreyer was one of the financiers of the film.’
‘You knew him?’ Lucy could not think why this should surprise her.
‘I knew him in Auschwitz and also in Buchenwald,’ said Alice. ‘He was a vicious man with the greatest ability for hatred I ever encountered. He and I had a – what today you would call a “history”.’
‘Is that why he came to England?’ said Liam. ‘To find you?’
‘He didn’t come for me,’ said Alice. ‘He considered matters settled between us. Leo Dreyer came to England for Conrad.’
Alice was never able to remember shooting the scheduled scene that day and returning to her dressing-room afterwards. She had no idea what kind of performance she had given for the cameras or whether the scene might have to be reshot; her mind had been jerked back into the memories again, to the night when she had endured Leo Dreyer’s brutal rape – the hammer blows inside her body, on and on…
When the door was pushed quietly open, and he slipped into the room, she was not in the least surprised. If you try to touch me this time, I’ll shout rape, and see you gaoled, she thought.
But he was perfectly courteous; he was murmuring an apology for disturbing her, and saying something about wanting a few private moments with an old friend.
‘We wer
e never friends, and I have no wish to be private with you,’ Alice said, glaring at him. ‘What do you want? Why are you here?’
‘I’m here entirely legitimately,’ said Dreyer, leaning back against the closed door and studying her. ‘I have a number of investments these days – finance is very rewarding, I find – and a few months ago I added Ashwood Studios to their number.’
‘You have invested in Ashwood?’
‘Very substantially. I am probably paying your salary, my dear,’ he said.
There’s something here that I’m missing, thought Alice, and said, ‘Why would you invest in a film studio? It’s a risky business at the best of times.’
‘I was curious about you,’ said Leo Dreyer, and Alice thought, nonsense. You never possessed such an emotion as curiosity in your life!
After a moment, she said, politely, ‘Weren’t you content with merely spreading rumours that I spied for the Nazis?’ and saw him smile slightly.
‘What a hell-cat you are,’ he said softly.
‘You did spread them though, didn’t you? Those stories?’
‘Things have a way of getting out,’ he said, off handedly. ‘Did you know that Nina died last year?’
‘I didn’t know. I’m very sorry,’ said Alice after a moment.
‘She committed suicide.’
‘That’s extremely sad. A very great waste of a life.’
‘You were the one who caused the waste,’ he said. ‘You began it – you and Conrad.’ The smile was suddenly and eerily the one from Auschwitz and from Kristallnacht, and Alice stared at him in dawning horror. Leo Dreyer had not come to England – to Ashwood – for her; he considered that he had redressed the balance with her in the camps. And although he had sent Conrad – the faithless lover, the betrayer – into Dachau, Conrad had spent the years with his beloved music, and Dreyer had known that. And now Conrad was out in the world again, and looking set to become successful all over again. Dreyer must have felt cheated; he must have felt that Conrad had in some way eluded the punishment he had intended. A tiny part of Alice’s mind wondered why Dreyer had not taken the opportunity to deal with Conrad while he was held in Dachau, but the Nazis had worked on the closed-cell principle – each camp had been a unit unto itself, and unless Dreyer had had friends in Dachau as he had had in Auschwitz and Buchenwald, he might have found it difficult to penetrate the bureaucratic regime.