“Well…” David shrugged. “He works hard at the office and the Boss likes him well enough. Went to Harrow with Max’s father—the old-boy network.”
“Seems a bit hairy at the heel. And I’m going to have to needlepoint the moniker ‘Spinster Tartlet’ on a pillow someday. Speaking of Number Ten, any news from—” John.
“Mags, I’m not the best letter writer,” David admitted, “as you well know. But I’ve had a few postcards from our man in L.A.—cartoons mostly. He sounds well enough. You’re not in touch?”
Maggie gnawed her lower lip, recalling their breakup over the telephone in Washington. “We left things with a full stop this time.”
“Well, with you in London and him still in L.A., I can understand. Still, I always thought the two of you…”
Maggie’s smile was wan. “Like Jo and Laurie?” She’d given David a copy of Little Women for Christmas.
“Indeed! And not the horrible Mr. Bhaer. I shudder at the very thought. And while we’re on the topic of the shudders, are you still in touch with your American mick?”
Maggie poked his shoulder. “I’ve told you not to call him that! Tom O’Brian is quite well, thank you. And yes, we do write, occasionally. He’s stationed at Fort Bragg, in North Carolina, now. He says his unit will be shipped off soon.”
“Atlantic or Pacific?”
“Don’t know. I don’t even think they tell the boys until they’re on board ship.”
Sarah and Freddie reappeared, walking arm in arm. “That’s horrible!” Freddie was saying. “No wonder she couldn’t come back here—” He stopped when he saw Maggie. “Sarah told me why you didn’t return—” He gave a small bow. “You’re both extraordinary women.”
“I helped, too!” David interjected, taking two sausage rolls from a Vic-Wells dancer passing by with a plate. “I was downright heroic, you know!”
“Yes, you were,” Maggie agreed, patting his arm. “But you know, it’s getting late—where’s Chuck?”
“I told you, she’s a mother now,” David said, chewing his roll. “The minders of the tiny humans are never on time.”
“Chuck’s the most punctual person I know,” Maggie rejoined. “She’s never late. Ever. I’ll ring.”
“I already did, Mags, with the intention of telling her to buck up. But there’s no answer—she must be on her way.”
“Well, let’s try again, just in case.” But they didn’t have to. The doors opened, and there stood Chuck in her wool coat, holding baby Griffin in her arms, her chestnut hair windblown.
“Chuck!” chorused the group.
Her eyes were wild and her usually rosy cheeks ashen. She took a few wobbling steps forward.
Alarmed, Maggie ran to her. “Chuck! What’s wrong?”
The brunette couldn’t speak.
“All right, come sit down,” Maggie urged, leading the mother and child to the sofa in the library. She locked eyes with David. “A glass of water, please? And a cool cloth?”
David sprang into action: “Righty-o!”
“Here, let me take the baby.” Sarah reached for Griffin. He gave a gummy grin and grabbed for her dangling gold earring. “Oh, no, my young friend,” she chided, pulling away. She looked, and tucked in his blanket were two dolls—Mr. Punch and his wife, Judy. “I think these are much better playthings than Auntie Sarah’s earrings,” she cajoled, handing them to him.
When David returned with the water and cloth, Chuck stirred. “I don’t suppose you have any whiskey?” she managed. “Jameson’s, not that bloody Protestant stuff.” Chuck was Irish, and Catholic, and proud of it. And inordinately fond of profanity.
“I’ll see what we have.” David raced back to the kitchen.
“Gone.” Chuck fought back her tears. “Our home is gone,” she whispered. “Gone.”
“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Maggie was confused. The bombings were over, at least for the moment. What Chuck was saying didn’t make sense.
Chuck worried at the damp cloth with her fingers. “When we got home from the park this afternoon, there was smoke and we could see flames. There were fire trucks everywhere—and ambulances. Gawkers and reporters with cameras. There was such a crowd, I couldn’t see what happened at first. Then I realized—there was nothing to see. Our building is gone, just—gone. As in—poof.
“I never trusted our building’s owner,” Chuck muttered. “Always having problems with the gas. There were always inspections, and then his son, or whoever it was, would go down into the basement and ‘fix things.’ We knew something was a bit off. But with housing so dear nowadays—”
“What happened, Chuck?” Maggie demanded.
“Gone!” her friend repeated. “Aren’t you bloody well listening? I keep telling you—everything’s gone. We would be ‘gone,’ too, except”—her hands trembled as they twisted the cloth—“we were at the park this afternoon. Griffin wasn’t going down for his nap, so I thought I’d take him outside for some fresh air and push him in the pram until he dropped off—”
“Oh, God.” Maggie put her arms around her friend, realizing how close she’d been to death. And little Griffin, too. “You’re safe. You’re both safe now.”
David arrived with a glass of whiskey, and Chuck gulped it. “We don’t even have a change of clothes!” She shook her head in disbelief. “Everything we own, you see. Oh, I left the pram outside—but if someone pinches it, at this point, does it even matter?” She looked to Maggie. “How are we supposed to get letters from Nigel? If he writes us—the address doesn’t even exist anymore!”
“We’ll write to Nigel tonight and tell him you’re staying here. With me.”
“Griffin’s baby pictures,” Chuck moaned. “My engagement ring…”
Gently, Maggie said, “Chuck, you’re alive. Griffin’s alive. And you’re here, safe, and with us. Everything else can be replaced. Now, sip your drink.”
Chuck did as she was told.
“Good girl. Now, you can borrow my clothes and things, and tomorrow we’ll pool all of our coupons and go shopping. We’ll be flatmates, just like old times.”
“And Griffin?”
“And Griffin will be a flatmate, too. Small in body, but large in spirit.”
“Large in lungs. He cries at night, you know. Sometimes all bloody night.”
“I cry all night myself once in a while, dearest girl. Not to worry.”
“I think there are some baby things in the cellar,” David interjected.
Chuck laid her head on Maggie’s shoulder. “I don’t think we have a choice. But only for tonight—”
“Nonsense,” Maggie interrupted firmly. “Do you know how grateful I am to have some company in this big old manse? You’ll be doing me the favor—stay for as long as you’d like. Yes, and you, too, young sir,” she told Griffin, still in Aunt Sarah’s lap. He waved a chubby pink fist holding his Judy doll in reply. K had emerged from underneath the armchair and was up on his hind legs, sniffing delicately at the baby’s tiny feet.
“Surely there must be paperwork to file…” Chuck thought out loud, trying to put the pieces together. “And our bank account—that’s still untouched—”
“We can worry about it tomorrow,” Maggie declared.
Freddie nodded. “I’ll ring my solicitor first thing. He’s a predatory hyena of a man, and I loathe him with all my heart and soul—but he’ll get you what you deserve.”
David returned, his arms full of antique toys. “Look, Master Griffin,” he said, setting them down. There was an old-fashioned rocking horse, a puppet stage, and the board game Snakes and Ladders.
“He’s not old enough yet,” Chuck told them.
“Well, they’ll be standing by for when he is. In the meantime, let’s get you both upstairs. Is everything ready?” Maggie asked David.
“Absolutely.”
As Maggie, Chuck, and Sarah made their way up the heavy oak staircase, Sarah chimed in, “Just like old times.”
Maggie had Chuck hold on to her ar
m for support. “But you know what really gets my goat?” Chuck said. “After all we’ve been through—after everything we’ve been through—it wasn’t the Nazis who took us out. It was one of our bloody own. Some devil of an Englishman.”
“Not on purpose, surely,” Maggie said.
“Oh, the owner of our building would skin a flea for a halfpenny, that one,” Chuck muttered, “and his young minion, as well. Go ndéana an diabhal dréimire de cnámh do dhroma ag piocadh úll i ngairdín Ifrinn, as my sainted grandmother used to say—‘May the Devil make a ladder of your backbones while picking apples in the garden of hell!’ ”
They reached Chuck’s old room. It was lovely—plain but clean, repainted in pale green. “Here you go,” Maggie said, leading Chuck to the bed. “Just like old times. I’ll run you a bath, and you can take your drink and sip it in the tub. Like Joan Crawford.”
As Maggie went into the bathroom, Chuck lowered herself onto the edge of the bed. “It’s gone,” she repeated absently. “Our home—it was there this morning—and now it’s…”
There was the sound of the tap running and then Chuck gave a whoop of hysterical laughter. “Be careful! You’ll fill it past the five-inch line!”
“Sod the silly five-inch line,” Sarah said, hugging Griffin close and kissing the top of his fuzzy head. “You deserve a decent soak.”
Maggie returned holding a nightgown, a dressing gown, and a hairbrush. “We’ll figure everything else out tomorrow,” she decided. “But, for now, I think a bath and a good night’s sleep are in order.”
Sarah turned to Maggie. “I know this is terrible timing, kitten,” she said. “But may I stay here too? Just for the night….I have the meeting tomorrow. I was going to stay at some women’s residence hotel nearby—I put the card somewhere—but—”
“No! No—you must stay here, of course!” Maggie agreed. “See, Chuck, Sarah will be here as well. Just like old times. And then when Elise arrives, she can have the fourth bedroom.” Maggie turned wistful. “Do you think she’ll like it?”
“That one was Paige’s room, wasn’t it?”
Maggie nodded, eyes melancholy. “Time moves on, I guess. Everything changes.”
Sarah handed Griffin back to Chuck. The baby’s eyes drooped shut. “Well, I have no doubt Elise will love it,” she whispered. “She’s lucky to have you. And David and Freddie, of course.”
Chuck began to sing in an alto voice that was tender and true:
“I’ll tell me ma, when I get home.
The boys won’t leave the girls alone.
Pulled me hair, stolen me comb.
But that’s all right till I get home.
Let the wind and the rain and the hail blow high.
And the snow come travelin’ through the sky.
She’s as sweet as apple pie.
She’ll get her own right by and by…”
Griffin had fallen fast asleep, snoring lightly. As Chuck held him and continued to rock and hum, Maggie murmured to Sarah, “My half sister Elise and I didn’t exactly part on the best of terms.”
“Well, you’ll have plenty of time—and space—to become reacquainted when she arrives.”
Chuck looked up, distracted, and whispered, “Who the bloody hell’s Elise?”
“Elise Hess—Maggie’s German half sister. Keep up!”
Chapter Three
Elise Hess was being hanged from a tree.
At least, that’s what the guards at the all-female Ravensbrück camp named the tall wooden cross they’d built to punish prisoners—the Tree. Mock crucifixion was one of the most common camp punishments for the religious political prisoners, Resistance fighters like Elise.
The guards would tie the prisoner’s hands behind her back, palms facing out. Then they’d turn her hands in, tie a chain around her wrists, and raise her up onto the cross.
Elise’s tormentors had added a crown of thorns—barbed wire left over from building the camp’s high walls. They’d twisted it into a circlet and placed it on the young woman’s head, shaved after lice inspection. Her light hair, once so thick and lustrous, had grown in only an inch or so, and was dull and straw-like. Where once she had been all sparkling eyes—blue as Novalis’s mysterious Blaue Blume—with plump cheeks, a narrow waist, and womanly curves, there was nothing left.
The barbed wire dug into the bare skin of her scalp. Blood trickled down her forehead, stinging her eyes. She felt frozen to the marrow of her bones. She struggled to focus on the faint outline of the sun behind the sullen clouds. But the winter weather in Fürstenberg was unpredictable. It was already the coldest on record. Elise watched, her consciousness receding, as fat, lacy flakes began to fall.
Snow was loathed by the prisoners of Ravensbrück, for the guards had devised an exhausting way for them to dispense with it. The inmates were given boards for scraping, shovels, and wheelbarrows. The work had to be done at a quick pace, so the warmth of the sun couldn’t melt the snow prematurely and spoil the guards’ fun. The prisoners wore their winter clothing—dresses of the same blue and gray striped material as the summer uniforms, but slightly heavier, and “coats” of the same material. Although there were always rumors of gloves and socks to be distributed, none ever came.
Emaciated and mostly bald, all the prisoners looked identical. But an insider could recognize subtle variations on the uniforms. An inmate’s number was sewn onto the left breast, and above the number was a colored triangle. Like Elise, the women below wore mostly red triangles—they were political prisoners, brought to Ravensbrück because of work with their country’s resistance movements.
Up on the cross, Elise looked for anything to distract her from the pain. But the sheer ugliness of the camp was inescapable, even draped in freshly fallen snow. Rows upon rows of wooden barrack huts disappeared into the distance. Smokestacks choked out black funeral wreaths.
Even with her eyes closed, Elise couldn’t escape the horror. She couldn’t tune out the thuds of the prisoners’ wooden clogs on the frozen ground, the harsh shouts of the guards, the snarling of the dogs.
But despite the pain, she had no regret for what she had done. There had been a young Polish girl named Karolina in the camp’s infirmary, where Elise had been working as a nurse, a girl not yet ten, with sea-blue eyes. When Karolina died, the victim of one too many medical experiments, Elise had gone to find her body. It lay naked on a gurney in a narrow corridor.
Elise had used two fingers to close the girl’s eyes and fold her hands over her chest. She straightened the legs, too, disfigured as they were by vertical scars and cut muscle tissue taken during the Nazi doctors’ experiments. Elise prayed over the girl, who she knew was Catholic but had not received the last rites, then prayed for her soul. Surely, after all Karolina had been through, God would welcome this little one to heaven? A guard had found Elise making the sign of the cross over the body, and had shouted and dragged her away for punishment.
Elise was beginning to hallucinate. In her mind’s eye, she could see angels with soaring, feathery wings; she could see saints with sorrowful faces. St. Teresa bent and whispered in her ear: “With words, it is true, a soul can be instructed. But it can only be saved through suffering.” And only in hell can one prove oneself, Elise thought.
She swore she could hear heavenly voices in polyphony, singing Palestrina’s hymn “Sicut cervus.” In the camp, I’ve thirsted for God just as the deer thirsts for water—and finally I found Him, she realized, as God stands out so much clearer in misfortune. Perhaps the Almighty sent me here so I could learn the essence of things and teach it to others. I do not see torture, I see a proving ground for my soul. In this godless world, I see Christ. In my faith, I can help others see Christ. My being here in the camp, even my death, is a victory for God….
Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.
She was suffused with a feeling of peace, and swore she could smell the faint scent of spicy evergreen. From a great distance she heard shouting, taunting.
&nb
sp; Do you really believe there’s a God?
Then where is He now?
God is dead, you Jew-lover—the Übermensch has killed him!
Satan rules here!
And then, without warning, the pain stopped. She opened her eyes and looked around at the camp’s high walls covered with charged barbed wire, the guard towers with rifles and searchlights, the rows and rows of barracks, the thin, broken women bent over their work, the guards screaming and kicking them, dogs on leather leashes lunging and growling, their fangs bared.
I’m dying, she thought as she began to lose consciousness. Thy will be done….
“Get her down! Schnell!” the guard ordered. “Warden says she must be kept alive!”
“Will she make it?” she heard, as though from miles away.
“Doubtful.”
—
That night, her first back in her old house, Maggie dreamed about numbers.
She sorely missed math—its order, logic, and elegance. In her dream, she was in the library, a dusty chalkboard full of equations in front of her. Ah yes, she thought as she wrote down the formulae in a notebook, how beautiful, how graceful, how inevitable.
Her former flatmate Paige was there, just like in the old days, when they’d all roomed together in the house. In the logic of dreams, it wasn’t strange at all she’d be there, looking exactly as she had during the summer the Blitz began—cornflower eyes sparkling, blond waves impeccably coiffed. “Welcome home, Maggie,” she said.
She put a dainty hand with polished red nails to the chalkboard, and the lines of equations Maggie revered were suddenly the walls of her house, black against shadows. Then the numbers began to tip over and quiver, growing and morphing into huge insects, black flies with iridescent wings flashing green and purple. They came together in the form of a huge beast, with the head of a goat—with sharp, pointed horns—the legs of a bull, and the body of a man.
It bellowed and snorted, pawing the ground with cloven hooves. “Here,” Paige said, holding out an ancient-looking spear, carved with runes and strange symbols. “You’ll need this.”
Maggie accepted the spear; it was heavy in her hand. The beast circled, snorting and pawing the ground. As it charged her, roaring, she feinted to one side and stuck the point of the spear into its flank as it raced by. The beast bellowed in pain.
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