Butterfly and the Violin (9781401690601)

by Cambron, Kristy

  The rest of the girls looked on from their perch in the corner, like a gaggle of frightened birds that couldn’t hope to ever find themselves uncaged. They kept their eyes fixed on her, despite Omara’s repeated order for them to lower their heads, and stared back as the truth suffocated all shreds of hope.

  “What are you saying, Omara?”

  The older woman closed the door to a miniscule crack when some of the activity again came closer to their door. “I am saying, Adele, that a prisoner revolt has begun. The members of the Sonderkommando at Crematorium IV made plans to fight back. They learned that they were to be executed and a new group brought in to take their place.”

  She shook her head. “But why? Why would the SS do that?”

  “It is simple logic to them. I don’t pretend to understand evil. But the Sonderkommando have seen too much. These prisoners can be elected to die the moment they step from the train or five months in the future. What choice do they have? They are charged with cleaning out the gas chambers and feeding the ovens with the evidence. They are witnesses to death, and a witness is a dangerous thing to the Nazis. The prisoners decided the time was right. The time to fight back is now.”

  It was shock all over again for Adele, but this time it connected to a memory—the memory of a night at the SS guards’ Solahütte resort and the strange behavior of her usually wise and controlled friend. She thought of a morning the summer before when she’d snapped a string on her violin and come rushing back to the block, only to find that the odd behavior had returned with a visitor in the music block.

  And it all became clear. Omara was involved in the revolt.

  “You have been planning this, haven’t you?”

  Omara looked her square in the face and without hesitation nodded just once.

  “Women have been smuggling supplies, weapons, and gunpowder from the ammunitions factory since before you arrived. Little bits here and there—whatever could be hidden with the bodies of prisoners who died and were being carried back to the camp at night. They were smuggled to the men in the adjoining camp, on the bodies being carried to the crematorium. It was the only way.”

  Adele’s heart sank.

  They weren’t saved. No one was coming to free them. No one was there to fight for them, except sorely weakened prisoners with makeshift weapons. And Omara, the only person she could rely on anymore, was involved. If they lost, which they would, the Nazis would surely take her to the gas chamber for it.

  Oh God! I lost my family, my Vladimir . . . Am I to now lose the only person I have left in the world?

  The physical pain caused by the heartache in her chest shocked her. As they stood by the cracked door, with hell erupting outside, she could see no way out. Except to fight.

  Adele wiped at the tears that had been free-flowing from her eyes. “Fine. We fight,” she said, and stepped up to Omara. “Give me a weapon.”

  “No.”

  “I’m ready, Omara. Let me fight with you.”

  Omara’s face softened. As a mother might feel proud of her child, she raised her hand and brushed it over the lifeless hair hanging down at Adele’s shoulder. Her fingertips brushed the strands as if they were made of the finest spun gold. The action inspired hope that she’d relent, but still Omara shook her head.

  “No, Adele. Not this time. You must stay here.”

  “But I can do this! Let me help you,” she begged as her hands curled around to pinch the skin of Omara’s arms until her nails dug into the woolen fabric of her dress. “We’ve made it this far together. Don’t you understand? There’s not the least bit of hope left in this place. It has been snuffed out by evil. Surely your soul feels the absence of God in this place. Must I cry out to Him that . . . I cannot go on?”

  She screamed the words with vehemence and, instead of showing courage, revealed anguish. She felt her hands ball to fists as the truth finally came out.

  It had been building up for so impossibly long, through every march at the gates and the viewing of each family torn apart before her very eyes, that her soul had withered beyond repair. No amount of water could save it. And no revolt could make her fear death. She’d overcome losing everyone and everything that had mattered to her. She’d played. Practiced for the final performance that was now just days away. She’d even recovered from her illness with a renewed fervor to play in her final concert. But with the hail of gunfire popping outside the block, all melted away. Now she was ready to go down fighting instead of playing music.

  Adele’s chest rose and fell with such a ferocity that she wasn’t sure she’d be able to keep breath in her lungs at all.

  “Take me with you,” Adele demanded. “I know you’re going out there to fight. I beg of you to let me fight at your side.”

  Omara surprised her then, for her lips curved into the faintest hint of a smile. Even in moments of triumph—when they’d played at the SS guards’ party or had reveled in the particularly beautiful moment of the music having carried them into communion with God—she’d not allowed it. The only time Adele had caught a ghost of a smile was in the shadow of the painted room.

  “You have your whole life ahead of you.” Omara’s eyes seared as she spoke. “And I’ll not allow that to be snuffed out, not when I can prevent it.”

  “I have no life ahead of me . . . I am already dead.” Adele’s sobs racked her body and she collapsed, face buried against Omara’s shoulder.

  “You are not, child. Hush. Hush now,” she whispered, and ran a hand down the length of the hair at her nape. She continued soothing with honeyed words as the world exploded in fire around them. Adele clung to the older woman, her dear friend, their camp mother, and finally allowed the last two years to escape from the suppression of her walled heart. She cried for what seemed like hours, though the world had not stopped warring around them as mere seconds ticked by.

  Omara whispered in her ear, speaking soft words of hope and restoration.

  “You have been chosen for a special purpose.” Her hand, trembling though it was, brushed over Adele’s forehead until she was forced to look up into her friend’s eyes. “Hear me, child. I never had a daughter. And I never had lofty dreams like most. I hoped to marry for love and perhaps, one day, to be gifted a child of my own . . . to find beauty in God’s creation and worship Him all the days of my life.” She stared off at some distant point on the wall, as if the memory of a dream had somehow come alive on the back wall. “But it wasn’t to be, was it? I came here. Life never asked me what I wanted, so I gave up on those dreams. And because of the loss of them, because of the loss of so many others in this place, I now entreat you to listen to me as you’ve never listened before.” She put her hands on Adele’s shoulders. “Adele, you must go and make me proud by living . . . because God makes no mistakes. He gifted me with my heart’s desire, here, in this place. He gifted me a daughter like you.”

  The words pierced Adele’s heart.

  Marina Von Bron was but a distant memory in Auschwitz. Adele had not thought of her in so long, but she pictured her now. Hearing the words solidified the fact that Omara was more a mother to her than she’d ever known, or would ever know again.

  “You must promise me—you will live. That is all I ask. That is all that will make me happy and put my soul to rest,” she said, and then turned to the group of trembling musicians in the corner. “This is your family now. Keep them safe, hmm? I charge this orchestra to you. You will play for both of us. You are their mother now.”

  “I can’t . . .” Adele’s heart wept right along with her eyes.

  “You must. Lead them. Protect them. Stay together,” Omara charged, her voice unwavering. “Do you hear me, Butterfly?”

  Adele’s head shot up at the mention of the nickname Vladimir had given her so long ago. Omara knew she’d taken her butterfly clip out each night, had turned it over in her hands, had clung to it in sleep. She knew it spoke of Adele’s past. But the wisdom in mentioning it now had a far greater impact than if Omara had told
her to live and, God willing, find that Vladimir had lived too.

  “Tell me you’ll keep our family together, Adele. No matter what. I love all of my girls.”

  Were Marta and Fränze crying too? Were the other girls’ hearts breaking as hers was?

  With a chin that trembled and eyes that clamped shut on emotion, Adele could speak not a word. But she nodded. With the barest measure of hope that could be scraped up from the bottom recesses of her soul, Adele committed to survival on behalf of her friend.

  God only knew if she could honor the promise.

  “Good.” Omara said the single word as if it was a contract, then burst forth into action. She rushed over to her cello case and flung open the top. She pulled a small, rusted garden shovel from the recesses of the case.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Had she possessed it all along? Indeed, it made a paltry weapon when Omara faced the barrage of machine-gun fire beyond the block.

  “The time is now for me to do my job,” she said, clutching the tool in her hand as if it were the sword of the archangel Gabriel himself. “I must go.”

  Adele felt the seconds ticking away, knowing they may never see her again. There were so many things she wanted to say, so many reasons to thank her.

  “Omara, wait!” Adele reached out and grabbed her friend’s elbow.

  She turned then and, thinking of the only possession she had left in the world, darted to the pile of discarded instruments and chairs that had been overturned in the center of the room. Adele found her violin case and ripped open the velvet lining.

  She ran her fingertips over the delicate wings of the clip.

  Butterfly . . . Vladimir’s voice whispered in her heart.

  Adele crossed back over to her friend and, after kissing the clip to her lips, pressed it into Omara’s free hand. “Take it—my promise to you.”

  Omara looked at her, then to the group of girls in the corner, and gave a last nod to them. And with that, she was gone, faded into the smoke and carnage outside the block.

  Adele closed the door against the cries of chaos outside and rushed over to the family that remained in the block.

  “Heads down, girls. Until it’s over,” she ordered, Omara’s brand of courage feeling foreign to her heart. She wrapped her arms around the trembling group. “Heads down.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  Sera rushed from the subway back to the gallery, repeatedly checking her watch. It was nearly seven o’clock.

  If she hurried, she’d have just enough time to grab her mislaid cell phone and get back to Manhattan’s Upper East Side before her client’s show ended.

  A cool breeze brushed her face. The air smelled like rain.

  Sera walked faster, though her heels were unforgiving for the pace. She tried not to think of the evenings she and William had walked past Roosevelt Park together. She blocked out the remembrance of hand-holding and soul-connecting under the overhang of the trees, and prayed that the memory of William Hanover would fade. She needed to get back to the Metropolitan Museum and she didn’t need this distraction.

  As if he’d read the words etched on her heart, there he was, sitting alone on the stoop, waiting under the glow of the streetlight. She squinted through the fallen shadows of dusk, trying to figure out if her eyes were playing tricks.

  William hopped up off the stoop when he saw her.

  She halted for a moment, her keys fused in a tight grip, feet frozen on the sidewalk. How was it that a West Coaster could drop into Manhattan whenever he pleased?

  “William?”

  “Hi, Sera.”

  “What are you doing here?” Her feet were somehow unable to breeze past him. She stopped an honest minute, long enough to wait for an answer. But feeling the prick of tiny raindrops from the laden clouds overhead, she took careful steps toward the stoop.

  “Penny closed up. She said you were on your way back and I could wait, so . . .” He shifted his feet and came a step closer.

  He looked nervous.

  “I meant, what are you doing in New York?” she clarified as a soft rumble of thunder sounded in the distance. Their eyes sailed to that corner of the sky for a brief second before they came back to the awkwardness of conversation.

  “I had meetings, lawyers and such. Business.”

  His hands were buried in his jeans pockets and his hair was mussed, as if he’d been running his hands through it for who knows how long he’d been sitting there, waiting for her to come back. She tried not to notice the cool spice of his cologne, or how close he stood.

  Sera fumbled the keys and nearly dropped them before she found the right one. The gold key flashed in the dim light overhead and she took the stairs, two at a time, until the glass door was in front of her. She pushed the key into the lock.

  The warmth of William’s hand encased hers before she could turn it. Raindrops cooled the burning heat of her wrist and she froze, the nearness of him unexpected. The touch was swift in breaking down the careful defenses she’d been fighting so hard to maintain for the weeks they’d been apart.

  “You are going to look at me eventually, aren’t you?”

  She exhaled and took a chance by tilting her chin in his direction. Her eyes met with the hopeful blue of his, though they were stormy now—seeking, even? She’d never be able to ignore them, it seemed. Something in them captured her even now.

  “What are you doing here, William?”

  “You haven’t answered my calls.”

  She shrugged. “I’ve been busy.”

  “Busy for the last month?”

  Sera could hear the roughness in his voice. His whispers held a tint of anger at having been put off.

  Feeling the same hurt, she fired back, “How can you lecture me? You didn’t call me for weeks after you left New York! Then I get a call from your lawyers?”

  She looked him square in the face. She wasn’t tough. He knew it too, or would the instant her chin quivered. But if there was any strength about her as Penny had said, Sera would stand up to him for how he’d lied. For Adele and Vladimir. For everything he made her feel again and then snatched away again just as quickly.

  “I’ve called you at least a dozen times.”

  “I had a show to arrange.” She wiggled her hand out of his grip to turn the key in the lock and then brushed past him, flicking on the lights as she marched into the gallery’s front display room. Her heels clicked, creating a crisp echo against the tall ceilings.

  “I know. I heard,” he said, closing the door gently as he followed her inside. His shoes made light thuds on the creaking hardwood. “An installation at the Met? Congratulations.”

  “Yes. Well, finding lost paintings isn’t all I do with my time.” She dropped her evening bag and raspberry silk wrap on the oblong worktable, then moved into the office without turning round to face him.

  Calm down, Sera.

  It has to be this way. He lied to you.

  She began sifting through stacks of papers and books that crowded her desktop.

  This is your chance to make a clean break . . . and let him go.

  She took a deep breath as she looked for her cell phone. After spying it under a vintage copy of Gardner’s Art through the Ages, she snatched it up and turned to make a quick exit. What she didn’t expect was to crash head-first into the man, his feet planted on the ground, standing sturdy as a redwood blocking her path.

  “Please. Let me go.”

  William folded his arms across his chest—he wasn’t going anywhere. “You can’t put off talking to me if I’m right in front of you.”

  “Let me pass,” she said, frustrated, her balance wavering on high heels.

  “First, let me explain.”

  She exhaled and entreated softly, “Please. There’s nothing to explain. Just leave it alone.”

  “Uh-uh.” He shook his head and with a softened voice continued. “I won’t let you shut me out, Sera James. Not this time.”

  “You used me, William,�
�� she reminded him, which seemed to create a twinge in him, but he said nothing. “You used me to pocket an inheritance. To find the owner of a painting so you could collect. You promised me you wouldn’t do that.”

  “Sera—I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  “Well, it did, didn’t it?” When he looked like he’d attempt to explain, she cut in. “And don’t trouble yourself to make an excuse. The attorneys at Stahlworth and Martin have already told me everything I need to know. No doubt that’s why you’re here.”

  “I had no choice.”

  She turned to face him. “And by no choice you mean . . . ?”

  He looked sick by it all. If she could judge the disheveled hair and painted circles under his eyes, she’d have guessed he hadn’t slept in days. Or weeks.

  Just like her.

  “The company has less than three months of operating costs on the books, Sera. Our investors have been pressing me. The board is threatening legal action against the family.”

  “Why?”

  He shook his head. “Why isn’t important now.”

  “Did you—”

  “No matter what you may think of me right now, I do have some integrity. I assure you that I’ve had no part in any wrongdoing where the company is concerned. But that doesn’t change the fact that if I didn’t do something fast, we’d go under. All of us. The family and my grandfather’s legacy with it.”

  Sera stood there, the cell phone fused to her grip. Her hands trembled slightly. “So it’s as simple as that?”

  “No, Sera. It’s not simple at all.” He took a step toward her, cautiously so, as if he wanted to be closer but couldn’t chance more than a few inches at a time. “I didn’t want to do it. But after looking at the numbers, my lawyers couldn’t see any other way. Everyone depending on me would have been wiped out. I couldn’t let that happen. Can’t you understand? My family would be left with nothing.”