A Trace of Smoke (Hannah Vogel)

by Cantrell, Rebecca

“Not much of a party for children,” I whispered to Wilhelm.

  “I’ll ask Röhm to dance,” Wilhelm said. “Then you can talk to Anton.”

  Wilhelm walked across the room to Röhm, his head held high and his face an expressionless mask.

  As soon as they were safely out on the dance floor, I hurried to Anton’s side. He looked as pale as the day I met him, as remote as the little boy who climbed into my wardrobe and closed the door, ready to wait quietly until his mother’s workday ended.

  I touched his shoulder.

  “Hello, sir,” he said politely. He looked up at me, but I could tell that he did not recognize me.

  “Indian greetings, Anton,” I whispered. “It’s Hannah.”

  Anton gasped. “Are you dead?”

  “Alive but camouflaged,” I said. “I had to sneak into this encampment to see you.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and hugged as hard as his tiny body could. I gritted my teeth against the pain in my side and hugged him back.

  “I wanted you to be alive,” he said. “Winnetou saved you.”

  “He did,” I said. I pried his wiry arms off me. “Anton, I don’t have much time. Are you well?”

  “My father hit me when I told him I was an Indian.” Anton’s lip trembled. It looked swollen. Had Röhm hit him in the face? “He says Indians are dirty.”

  “Do you want to stay with him?” I glanced over my shoulder at Röhm. He had not noticed us. “I would not ask like this, but I have no time, and no choice. But think it through quickly.”

  He shook his head immediately. “I want to go with you.”

  “I don’t know where we’re going, yet. And there may be danger.”

  “The brave can trust his chief.” He stuck his small hand in mine. “And you are not only my chief. You are my mother too.”

  I opened my mouth to correct him, as I had so many times before. Instead I said, “I am your mother, in all ways that matter.”

  Across the room, Röhm turned toward us and beckoned to Anton.

  “Go to your father now.”

  “No.” Anton’s grip on my hand tightened.

  “Listen carefully, these are orders,” I said. “Go to your father now. As soon as he is not watching you, go out the front door, but walk slowly so no one is alarmed.”

  “I will not spook the deer.” Anton let go of my hand and clasped his hands together in his lap.

  “Do you remember Herr Krause’s automobile?”

  He nodded.

  “It is across the street. Herr Krause is in the front seat. Get in the backseat and lie down on the floor. I will come for you.”

  Anton nodded.

  “Now go to your father.”

  Wilhelm hurried over to me while Röhm lifted Anton and introduced him to a group of black-uniformed SS officers.

  “You have assured him that you are well. Now go. It is not safe.” Wilhelm drew a red silk handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped sweat from his forehead.

  “I won’t leave without Anton.”

  Wilhelm paled and tucked the handkerchief back in his pocket. “Röhm will hunt you if you take him.”

  “Anton wants to go.”

  “Nowhere in Germany will be safe.”

  “Anton wants to go.”

  Wilhelm’s eyes widened, and I turned. There was Ernst Röhm, walking toward us. “You have not introduced this little pigeon, Wilhelm,” he said, beaming. “A terrible oversight.”

  “Captain Röhm, may I present Helmut Fischer?”

  Fish and fowl. “How do you do?” I kept my voice low and rough.

  “Better now.” Röhm took my hand and led me to the dance floor. “Do you waltz, pigeon?”

  I raised my hands into position.

  “Good, you know the girl’s part,” he said. “So many men have only learned the boy’s part and we can’t both be dancing that.”

  “I can dance many ways.”

  Röhm pulled me closer to him, roughly. “I bet you can.”

  I traced his thick pink scar with my eyes, trying not to stare at his badly mended nose. He smelled like the love letters he’d sent Ernst. I tried to imagine him dripping cologne onto the pages. Had Ernst actually loved this man?

  As if reading my thoughts, he said, “You look much like someone I once knew. Someone who meant a great deal to me.”

  “Should I be him?” Behind his head Anton marched toward the door, looking neither right nor left.

  Röhm leaned in and kissed me. His kiss was confident and cruel, and his arms tightened around me like iron bands. Pain shot down from my wound, and my knees buckled. Anton disappeared from my vision.

  I shuddered in revulsion, but Röhm smiled. “You are a quick one, pigeon.”

  He pressed his hips against me, and I turned my leg so that he could feel my sock, glad that Wilhelm had stuffed it so tightly.

  “After this dance,” he said. “The dark room.” He inclined his head toward the back of the room.

  “As you wish.” My stomach heaved. I had to get away from him, and soon.

  We waltzed around the floor, and Röhm stared hypnotically into my eyes. He was an excellent dancer. Strong, in control. A natural leader.

  After an eternity, the music ended. Röhm grabbed my hand and began to lead me back to the dark room. I knew what would happen in there if he found out who I was. And what would happen if he didn’t.

  Oliver appeared at Röhm’s elbow. “You have a call, Captain,” he said. “I believe it is from the Führer’s office.”

  “Wait for me,” Röhm said. I nodded and clicked my heels together, bowing the traditional soldier’s farewell.

  Röhm reached down and squeezed my bottom so hard I yelped. That would leave a mark. “Don’t run off.”

  He swaggered to the bar.

  “If you go to the leftmost dark room, Hannah,” Oliver said quietly, “there is a back door that leads to the makeup rooms and out the back.”

  I was shocked into silence. Oliver recognized me. What if Röhm did too? I gulped.

  “Hannah?” Oliver said. “You must hurry.”

  “Thank you,” I said. “For everything.”

  Oliver smiled tightly. “I knew you would work things out. Your brother deserved that.”

  “When did you know he was dead?”

  Oliver glanced over his shoulder at Röhm. “When he did not show up for work after the night at Wilhelm’s I suspected the worst. Now go.”

  “I have a suitcase.”

  “I will tell Wilhelm to leave it by the front door. I don’t know what you are planning, but leave at once. I cannot help you further. Röhm is a very dangerous man.”

  “Thank you,” I said again.

  “Your brother would have wanted me to help.”

  I walked to the leftmost dark room, my legs shaking. As I closed the front door, Röhm waved to me. There was no lock. In pitch darkness, I felt my way along the walls. My shoes stuck to the floor. I shuddered.

  My hand found a door handle on the back wall. It was locked. I felt along the handle to see if I could unlock it from this side. My fingers were wet with sweat and slipped off the handle.

  I took a deep breath to steady myself, and the front door opened. Röhm stood silhouetted in the light. I turned quickly, door handle hidden behind my back.

  Röhm lit a candle and placed it on the bench. In the flickering glow his scarred face looked almost normal. He swiftly took two steps across the room and put his palm flat against the back door. There would be no escape that way. I released the door handle.

  “Come,” he said. “Kneel down.”

  I stared at him, unable to move. If I ran, I could not get away. His men were all around us. But I had to leave soon. All of my plans depended on it.

  He pulled a cape off his shoulders and spread it on the sticky floor in a practiced, courtly gesture from another era. The room was so small that the cape covered the floor.

  He took my left hand and gently pulled me away from the ba
ck door. We took an awkward step, and we were standing in the middle of the cape. He knelt and pulled me down to a kneeling position next to him. Even through the cloak, the wood was hard under my knees.

  “I am not a barbarian,” he said softly. He leaned forward and kissed me gently. I could not think. I was paralyzed. He held my wrist loosely.

  He reached one hand up and ran it across my cheek, as gentle as a butterfly’s wing. “You look like someone I loved much.”

  “I . . . I . . . I,” I stuttered, realizing too late that I had forgotten to deepen it to sound like a man.

  “But you of all people know that,” he said with a sad look. “Hannah.”

  When I tried to lean back, his fingers tightened around my left wrist. “I came only to see Anton,” I said.

  “To see him, or to take him?” he asked. “I saw him leave. My man watches him even now.”

  I bowed my head so that he would not see my tears. I would show no weakness in front of him. Even now that I had lost.

  “You are merely one woman, Hannah,” he said. “I command many men. There is no shame in losing to a stronger adversary.”

  “Anton would say that a true warrior can defeat all his enemies, no matter how strong.”

  “He loves you very much,” he said. “He thinks you are his mother.”

  “I did not tell him so.” Until a few minutes ago.

  “A boy needs a mother,” he said. “I worshipped my mother. Ernst despised yours, though, didn’t he?”

  I stared at him in shock. Sorrow etched his face. “I don’t know how Ernst felt about our mother.”

  “He loved you like a mother.” Röhm caressed my bottom, and his eyes glazed over. “You look so much like him.”

  “Let me go.” I struggled to keep my voice steady. I reached behind me and removed his hand from my bottom. He let me.

  Never letting go of my wrist, he moved from a kneeling to a sitting position. He ran his eyes over my face thirstily. “Do you find me repulsive?” He licked his lips, the candlelight shining off his sweaty red face.

  “No,” I lied. I tried to pull my wrist free, but he tightened his hand around it. I cried out in pain.

  “Do you want the boy?” he asked, ignoring my cry.

  I nodded. He toyed with me like a cat with a mouse. I would not give him the satisfaction of watching me struggle in vain.

  “Then be his mother.” Röhm smiled as if he had found the solution to all of our problems.

  A chill ran down my back. “How?”

  “Marry me.” He hauled me into his lap, one hand under my knees, the other behind my neck. His cock was hard against the backs of my thighs. The buttons of his uniform pressed against my bandages. Hot pain shot down my side from my wound.

  “You will mother the boy, live in comfort and ease, and I will have a wife, to satisfy the party. You’d make a better party wife than an ex-prostitute. And your brother would have wanted you to take care of the boy. Marrying me solves many problems.”

  “It might solve problems. But it also creates them.” I took a deep breath. Ursula would counsel me to accept the offer. Money, power, and the boy. But also Röhm, a brutal Nazi. I would rather take my chances on my own, with the money from the ruby.

  “It doesn’t have to.” He peppered my neck with sweaty kisses.

  I struggled to get out of his arms.

  “You look so much like him,” he said, in a dreamy voice. “If you would consent to wear that uniform sometimes, we might even produce children.”

  “I consent to none of this.” My arms were pinned against his chest in a lover’s embrace. He was so much stronger that he seemed not to notice that I struggled. He turned me around so that my back faced his stomach. He reached around to my belt buckle. “I don’t need your consent, pigeon.”

  I struggled against him, but he was as implacable as stone. He pulled off my belt buckle, and I felt his strong fingers on the button to my trousers. Panic filled my mind, and I screamed. Röhm clapped his hand over my mouth and nose. I could not breathe.

  “This doesn’t have to be unpleasant,” he said. “But it can be.”

  One hand held my mouth and with the other he stripped off my trousers and underwear. Tears ran down my cheeks onto his fingers.

  He turned me around and looked into my panicked eyes. “I will let go of your mouth if you promise not to scream.”

  I nodded. After he let go of my mouth I gulped a few breaths of air.

  He ran his hand up and down my naked legs and lay me down on his cloak. The wool was scratchy under my bottom. He seized both my wrists with one hand and undid his belt buckle. It made a muffled clink when he dropped it on the floor.

  I closed my eyes, trying not to feel his hands on me, his body on me. “I have the letters,” I blurted out.

  His arms tightened around me. I could not breathe. Shooting pains ran up my side from my wound. Lights danced across my eyes. “Where?” he asked.

  “Can’t . . . talk,” I croaked.

  He loosened his arms, and I sucked in a lungful of air. Hot pain flashed across my chest, and I gasped. I pulled the letter out of my pocket. “Here is one.”

  Röhm snatched it out of my hand and skimmed it. “And the others?”

  “They are in a safe place. A place where they will be published if I do not contact them in one hour.” It was a week, but I did not want Röhm to know that.

  “You have fire, pigeon.”

  “And I have your career. Probably your freedom. ‘Ode to Bootsie’s Cock’ would read well in court.”

  He loosened his grip on my wrists. “The rhyme scheme is well thought out.”

  I sat and pulled my legs up under me. I longed to cover my nakedness.

  “So.” He smiled, devilishly. “Where are we now?”

  “Let me go with Anton.” My voice was ragged. “And I will destroy the letters.” It hurt me to say those words. How could I live with Sarah, or myself, if Röhm gained more power?

  “Marry me first,” he said. “With photographers. Then I will let you both go.”

  “No.” I shook my head. “I do not trust you.”

  “But I should trust you?”

  “You have thousands of men to follow me, to keep me in line. I have only myself.”

  “And the letters.”

  I shrugged.

  “I need to be seen as a father, even a husband right now. I can’t give that up.”

  “Those letters make it clear that you are not.”

  He put one hand on my windpipe. “With blackmailers,” he said. “You pay forever.”

  I jerked my head back, but he tightened his grip. “You have no time to break me,” I said. “The afternoon papers go to press in an hour.”

  “An hour can last longer than you can imagine.” His eyes glittered in the flickering candlelight.

  I closed my eyes.

  He released my windpipe, shaking his head. “I can’t hurt you if I look at your face. I see Bootsie. It’s as if he’s in the room with us. Sometimes in the war . . .”

  I rubbed my neck.

  “I loved your brother,” he said. “More than you can understand. He . . .”

  I said nothing. There was nothing more for me to say. It was his game, now.

  “He spoke of you.” Röhm ran his fingertip across my eyebrows, one after the other. “He trusted you.”

  “He would not want you to hurt me.”

  Röhm’s eyes were dreamy again. He cupped his hand around the back of my head and stroked my hair with his thumb, almost unconsciously. His eyes filled with tears.

  “He’s gone,” he said. “Just like that.”

  “I miss him.” I shifted on the scratchy wool cloak. I longed to be dressed again.

  “As do I.” Röhm stared into the candle flame. “He trusted you. Said you were honest. And a bad liar.”

  I smiled.

  Someone knocked on the door. “Telephone,” a voice said. “Urgent.”

  Röhm rolled his eyes. “Le
ave,” he called out. The man did not knock again.

  “I will let you go today,” Röhm continued. He reached one hand up and ran it through my short hair. I gritted my teeth. “With an escort. He will help you to retrieve those letters. You will marry me. You will give me one week for the photographers. I want a wedding, with a bride in a white dress. And I want a honeymoon on the North Sea. After that you may live separately from me.”

  I slumped.

  “If I need you again, for publicity purposes, I will call, and you will come. In return, you and Anton can live where you choose.”

  He tilted my face and stared at me with his hard blue eyes. “If you publish those letters, you destroy all three of us. I will find you and kill you. Do I have your word?”

  “You do.” I pushed the words out of my mouth like vomit.

  “Dress and go retrieve those letters,” he said. “My men will follow you. There are more men than you know. And more than you can evade.”

  He leaned forward and kissed me. I knew he was wishing I was Ernst. And pretending that I was. His mouth ground against mine, and I tasted blood. His or mine. Or both.

  31

  I wiped Röhm’s kiss off my mouth and dressed with shaking hands while he watched. He’d forgotten the ruby ring. The ruby ring that would buy me a new identity and freedom. I would not publish the letters. On that I would keep my word. But I would not marry him and chain myself and Anton to him forever. We would escape from Germany and run so far and so fast that he would never find us. I would never go back into a dark room with Röhm. Not for love, money, or safety.

  My suitcase, containing two precious rubies and all of my money and clothes, rested by the front door. I picked it up and hurried across the street, hoping I was not too late. I noticed that Boris had removed the numbered plates from his car. A sensible precaution. Boris had a talent for undercover work. He had unexpected depths.

  A man in SA uniform stood next to the Mercedes. I assumed he must have searched the suitcase and found the train tickets to Hamburg I’d purchased earlier in the day. I hoped he’d been worried enough about me finding out that he’d repacked everything carefully.

  He tipped his hat at me. “Fraulein Vogel,” he said. “I am to follow you and bring you back.”

  I nodded to him.