Sophie forced herself to eat a croissant, then stepped into the car that Herr Feinberg had sent for them. All cars had been confiscated by the Soviet leadership, but the new coalition government seemed happy to hire, or sell, cars to wealthy citizens, especially those who, like Herr Feinberg, might keep their troops and citizens fed.
The car took them to a private home, not an office. Frau Feinberg herself let them in, apologising for the informality of doing business away from an office. ‘The troubles . . .’ she said, waving plump hands vaguely, as a maid led Jones to the kitchen and Herr Feinberg emerged from his study to welcome Sophie and Georgina.
They were offered coffee ‘mit Sahne’, the cream thick on top of their coffee cups, a three-layer nut cake, again ‘mit Sahne’, and an even more excellent contract, larger than the French and Belgian ones, and this one definitely all hers, not thanks to Mr Slithersole’s connections.
‘But I must acquire the agreement of my colleagues,’ said Herr Feinberg in English, sampling his cake. Sophie had hardly needed Georgina’s German, even at the hotel, but it was still useful to have her take notes of the meeting. ‘A small consignment I can take regularly, but if we all order together it will be more efficient I am thinking.’
‘Indeed, Herr Feinberg.’ She sipped the coffee, forced herself to take six polite bites of cream cake with apricot jam, and promised the initial agreement with Herr Feinberg could be extended to his colleagues — it was not as if Higgs’s Corned Beef would have a shortage with the army contacts ending.
She and Georgina settled back in Herr Feinberg’s motorcar, Jones sitting next to the driver. Sophie allowed her eyelids to close. She had not been sleeping well . . .
The car braked suddenly, hurtling her forwards.
‘Are you all right?’ demanded Jones, just as the driver said, ‘Schau nicht!’ Do not look . . .
Sophie looked.
Eight men in assorted uniforms blocked the road, holding rifles. Three men and a woman faced them, their hands bound. A volley of shots, and the prisoners fell to the pavement. One of the uniformed men strode over to the car and thrust his rifle at the driver.
The driver unleashed a torrent of words, gesturing at Sophie and her companions.
‘He is saying you are an important supplier of corned beef,’ said Georgina softly. ‘That we will leave Germany tomorrow or the day after, have no interest in politics, that we saw nothing, will never speak of this. Have you money?’ she added urgently.
Sophie held out a bundle of marks. The man took them and began to count. One of his colleagues strode towards them.
‘Tell the driver to reverse away slowly,’ said Jones quietly. ‘Stop only if they order him to do so.’
Georgina spoke clearly and precisely The driver glanced uncertainly at Jones, who nodded. The driver then put the car into reverse. The uniformed man said something sharply, but it did not seem to be a command.
‘Tell him to accelerate if I yell “Schnell!”’ said Jones, pulling a pistol out of an inner pocket of his coat. Sophie reached for hers too. Georgina stared at it, but to Sophie’s relief, quietly relayed Jones’s order to the driver.
Their car turned the corner. They were free.
Chapter 14
How will you deal with tragedy? For you will all face it, my dears. Everyone who loves must face loss too.
So hold loss gently, and tragedy as well. Hold it out as if it is a ball in your hand, so that you can also see the beauty all around. For even at the worst of times there is beauty. And when the senses are sharpened you may see it even more wonderfully than before.
Miss Lily 1914
They did not refer to the incident when the driver left them at the hotel, both pistols hidden again. Sophie tipped him well.
‘Coffee,’ she said.
‘Brandy,’ said Jones. ‘Or schnapps or whatever it is they drink here.’
Sophie nodded her agreement. She sipped the small glass of clear liquid, and forced herself to eat a ham sandwich — thinly sliced ham, pungent mustard, rye bread with caraway seeds — as she studied the map of Munich’s streets that the proprietor, Herr Süss, had given Jones, her heart beating not just from the shock of what she had seen, but what she must do that afternoon.
It was time to call at the address on the envelope of Dolphie’s letter.
But first she must write to James Lorrimer, keeping the bargain they had made. She knew now, even more than before, how dangerous this quest might be. If she did not return from the afternoon’s walk, James must have his letter.
The hotel ink was thick, probably pre-war, and blotted easily, but the pen nibs she had brought from England were still sharp. The hotel notepaper was pre-war too, thick and only slightly yellowed.
Dear James,
I hope you are as well, as we all are.
She paused, trying to find phrases that sounded casual, but would still convey her meaning.
We have been having a surprisingly excellent time. Everyone here is friendly and hospitable now the recent troubles are over, and especially anxious to begin trade again and establish good relations with England. Higgs’s Corned Beef seems more important than any politics, and likely to remain so.
Have you heard how Uncle Alec is?
(This was the name they had chosen for the Kaiser.)
I’ve have had no news of him, or cousin Hannah. I hope he has recovered from the influenza — it can be nasty for a man of his age.
(She hoped James would not read anything into what was purely a desire to pad out the letter with inconsequentialities.)
I know you said that he’d like to come home, but I’m fairly sure he’ll stay at the seaside now he is there and settled reasonably comfortably, where the air is far better for a man of his age and health. Your idea of a comfortable seaside resort and mine though differ considerably — I wish you could see our (warm!) Australian beaches! I am looking forward to my first swim at home.
My meetings have all been good. Everyone, it seems, is as anxious as Higgs’s Corned Beef that life resume normality, and each contract has been most satisfactory.
(A way to tell him, she hoped, that the hunger in Germany was indeed as bad as that of France and Belgium.)
Each has been for five years, with an option of indefinite extension, which I am reasonably confident will be taken up.
Munich is most interesting.
(For surely any reader would expect her to mention some politics at least.)
Much is happening here, for it is said that the situation in Berlin is too volatile for political negotiations to take place there, and Munich offers the stability the capital lacks. It is so beautiful too! I hear that Herr Ebert advocates reform not revolution. Imperial Germany has indeed gone, and in its place will be a democratic, not a socialist, state. This promised stability is comforting to those of us who are doing business here.
No more news now! I will write from the ship, if not before.
Always yours,
Sophie
She handed the letter to Georgina to post. It was as true an assessment as she was able to make. Things did indeed seem stable, despite the incident that morning. Europe had experienced four years of killing without the formalities of a trial, and Munich had also just had a revolution, but its people wanted the rule of law again, wanted prosperity. This was the tail of chaos, with a new political animal entirely emerging, one plump and content on schnapps and cream cake, or at least sausage and beer.
And yet . . . and yet . . .
The crags above Munich were cold and so were its streets, despite the coming of summer. She imagined that before the war, or even before the revolution, the city had been bustling — their hotel was on Promenade Platz, but no one promenaded now. Was it hunger or caution, as the inhabitants waited to see how stable their new government may be, and if the proposed elections actually happened, changing Germany from a monarchy or soviet state into a mildly socialist democracy, promising reform of the gentlest and most needed kind, not r
evolution, confiscation and execution?
And each night too, and even through the day, you could hear short volleys of shots. How many communists must be killed, she thought, before the new regime felt stable? Surely true normality would begin soon, if the eagerness of Herr Süss and Herr Feinberg were a guide.
She rang a bell for Green.
‘Inconspicuous clothes, I think,’ she said.
Green nodded. ‘I took the liberty of bringing an old trench coat I used to wear, miss, and boots a little worn. With a scarf you should not be noticeable. I put knitting needles and wool in one of the pockets. No one questions a woman dutifully knitting socks or an undervest. But a knitting needle can be a useful weapon. Go for the eyes if you can, or the kidney, or about three fingers down from the breastbone, angled upwards. But the last two need strength and practice.’
And a degree of . . . determination, thought Sophie, that Green assumed she possessed. Did she? On reflection, probably yes.
‘You may also leave messages in lengths of knotted wool, the kind of scraps that might be moth eaten and discarded.’ Green hesitated. ‘I have similar clothes for myself. Two women are safer and less conspicuous than one alone.’
Sophie was touched. ‘You are very kind.’ And four knitting needles more potentially lethal than two. ‘But Jones will follow me. And this is my duty, not yours.’
Green smiled. ‘You are my duty now.’ Another pause. ‘Miss Higgs, I am afraid that Mr Jones may not have given you my . . . full . . . background when you hired me.’
Sophie stared. ‘You were born on the Shillings estate, became Miss Lily’s maid and then worked for La Dame Blanche . . .’ And I am fairly sure you spend your nights with Jones, and not playing tiddlywinks, she thought. ‘I’m not doubting your ability. But I don’t have the right to risk your life a well as my own.’
Green met her eyes. ‘But I have the right to risk my life if I wish to. The war was not my first experience of . . . challenges. Some of my times with Miss Lily were more . . . varied . . . than a lady’s maid is usually exposed to. I believe I might be of help if the situation becomes difficult,’ said Green calmly.
No wonder Green had not hesitated to leave what might have been a well-paid job as a lady’s maid, and agreed to live across the world. She had lost her position at Shillings once Miss Lily . . . retired. Sophie was sure Nigel would have offered her continued employment, but there was no other suitable job at Shillings with the same status for a woman like Green, apart from the already filled job of housekeeper.
The war had given Green another life, and other companions in it — and then she had lost them. She was possibly as eager as Sophie to leave the war behind — and as unwilling to accept the potentially stultifying roles to which women were expected to return. And if Green wished, for whatever reason — loyalty, friendship, adventure — to be part of the search for Hannelore, Sophie had no right to prevent her.
‘Ask Jones if you can walk with him, innocently arm in arm, staying well away from me,’ she said. She tried to grin. ‘I am just going for a walk. If you two care to go for a walk together, who am I to object?’
‘Our employer,’ said Green dryly.
‘There is that,’ said Sophie. She held out her hand and took Green’s work-roughened one, like hers scarred from so many infections during the war. ‘When your youngest sister Doris was my maid I think we became friends. I would be honoured if one day we might become friends, as well. I know as an employee you can’t very well refuse,’ she added. ‘Or maybe Miss Lily taught you how to do that? Perhaps you have a tactful way to repel advances of friendship from an employer.’
Green smiled. ‘Perhaps I have. But in this case, I don’t want to use them.’
Sophie noticed she did not add ‘miss’ or ‘madam’. ‘Time to go,’ she said.
Chapter 15
You may know someone for ten years, then suddenly realise, ‘They are my friend.’
Miss Lily, 1914
The house was built in a style that in England she would have called Tudor: wood and plasterwork, the latter once whitewashed but now dingy with the last of the winter mould. The doorstep too had not been recently scrubbed, as respectable doorsteps had been each morning before breakfast, before the war. She knocked, aware of the shadows, the unlit cobbles, glad of Jones and Green walking casually along the street behind her.
The door opened. A woman stood there, sunken bodied, her dress loose on what had once been sturdy shoulders, her head covered in a peasant’s scarf.
‘Entschuldigung,’ said Sophie, hoping she was remembering Georgina’s language lessons properly, ‘Ich bin Fraülein Sophie Higgs. Meine Freunde Hannelore bleibt hier vielleicht?’
The woman looked at her with blank-faced suspicion. ‘Sie sind Englisch?’
‘Nein. Ich bin Australien.’
‘Ah.’ The woman’s face relaxed into what might be its normal expression, a combination of fear and sadness. The question had been a trap.
So friends had been there before — or not friends — looking for Hannelore. And this woman knew Hannelore had an Australian friend, a fact only those who knew her well might have been told.
‘Kommen Sie bitte herein. Schnell,’ the woman added in a hurried whisper.
The door shut behind her, bringing her into the scent of old cabbage and fresh mouse.
‘Do you speak English?’ asked Sophie hopefully. If Hannelore was not there, there was no way she could follow instructions in German, and yet this woman might well hesitate to write them down.
The woman looked at her consideringly in the dim light coming through the single window above the door. At last she admitted, ‘I am speaking some English. You wish to know where your friend is?’
‘Yes. Please! Is she here? Is she all right?’
‘I cannot tell you.’
‘Please! I truly am her friend. I wish to help.’
‘I cannot tell you,’ the woman emphasised. ‘I do not know. But I can perhaps be finding someone who does know. You are staying where?’
‘The Bayerischer Hof, on Promenade Platz.’
‘That hotel I know.’ She appeared to calculate again. ‘Tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock, walk along the promenade. A man will come. You will go with him, and he will take you to . . . your friend. If no one comes, it means she is not to be found, or does not wish to be found, or it is most unwise to find her, and you will leave München. You are understanding?’
‘Yes.’ Though Sophie certainly would not leave Munich if this approach failed, but would try to find Hannelore’s aunt or old army colleagues of Dolphie’s . . . ‘There will be three of us.’ She would not risk Georgina, and risk leaving her child motherless; nor was this Georgina’s quest.
‘No. Only you must go.’
‘I must insist.’ And Green and Jones had far more experience, it seemed, than she did.
The woman stared at her. ‘Your friend is in danger. You understand? Dangerous to know. The communists wish her dead as an example. The Freikorps . . .’ The woman shrugged. ‘Who are the Freikorps? Do they even know, except that they are not communist? Do they wish aristocrats like the Kaiser dead too? So many blame the aristocrats for the war, and for agreeing to end it too, when we might still have won. To you, your friend is just a friend. To others she is,’ she shrugged again, ‘I do not know the word.’
‘A symbol?’
‘I do not know what that may mean. Perhaps soon, your friend may live in safety. But now, yes, even to be knowing her is risky.’
‘Then she is safe?’
‘I told you, I do not know. If she is alive, she is risky. Danger for her, danger for you. You still wish to see her?’
‘Yes.’
‘Tomorrow afternoon, then. Be on the promenade at two o’clock, for they will not stop. Now, please to go, and quickly from the door.’
‘Why? Is it forbidden to speak to foreigners?’
The woman stared at her. ‘Forbidden? Of course it is not. But we have been a
t war with Engländers for four years, have now been betrayed by Engländers to the French. I do not want my neighbours knowing an Engländer has been here.’
Or an Australian, thought Sophie.
‘Thank you,’ she said. She pressed a roll of money into the woman’s hand. Probably, hopefully, this woman had been and still was loyal to Hannelore. If not, well, need was still need.
Chapter 16
Never use commercial rouge, unless you wish to look like an actress or a woman from a bordello and wish to signal that a quick seduction would be welcome. But a small amount of raspberry juice — never beetroot — mixed with almond oil and beeswax and rubbed into the highest point of your cheeks will take away years or the marks of sleeplessness or worry. Your maid will make it for you, but all women should know the recipe, and how to apply it themselves if necessary.
Miss Lily, 1914
‘I am coming with you,’ stated Jones, as they sat with her in the garden, Green joining them now as she always did for what Sophie privately thought of as tactical discussions. ‘His lordship would never allow —’
Sophie shook her head. ‘The contact will leave without me if anyone else appears.’
‘They could be taking you for ransom,’ Green pointed out. ‘Or as a hostage.’
Sophie thought of the rag-tag soldiers today. One of them could have followed their car, asked where the strangers were staying. A wealthy foreigner would indeed be worth ransoming. But they would not have known she would go to that particular house . . . only Dolphie would have known that — or someone he had told, either willingly or because he had been tortured. Or, just possibly, to exchange her money for Hannelore’s life.
And what were her options? To ask Herr Feinberg and his colleagues how they might find Dolphie? As an army officer there should be a record of his whereabouts or, if he had been demobilised, an address. But that address was most likely in Berlin, and Berlin was just as dangerous as Munich, probably even more so than here, where at least one party seemed currently to be in control.
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