The English Girl

by Margaret Leroy

  Lotte’s face crumples; she hates her mother’s stern voice.

  She starts on her painting again, but there’s too much water on the brush and her painting is smeary and blurred. She throws the brush down, so it splatters.

  ‘It’s ruined,’ she says. ‘It’s all messed up.’

  Her dark eyes glitter with tears.

  I take out my handkerchief, mop the surplus water from the paper.

  ‘It isn’t ruined, Lotte. You just need more paint on your brush. When it’s dried, the picture will still look fine.’

  Lotte frowns doubtfully, but she picks up the paintbrush again.

  ‘There’s something else,’ I tell Eva. ‘I can’t stay on at the apartment. Rainer’s told me to leave.’

  ‘Oh Stella. What will you do?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I’d ask you to stay here with us. But that might put you in danger…’ She shakes her head a little, thinking; then puts her hand on mine. Urgent. ‘My dear, it’s obvious, really. You should leave this place and go home. Things will only get worse here. You should go back home and be safe.’

  ‘But I can’t. I can’t leave. Not till we find Harri.’

  ‘Stella…’

  She glances at Lotte; she doesn’t want her to hear what she’s going to say.

  Lotte mouths at her: I’m not leaving.

  Eva turns back to me.

  ‘There are things I’ve heard,’ she says, in a small, ragged voice. ‘About what happens in Germany, when people are arrested. Bolsheviks, Jews, political prisoners. I’ve heard stories. Rumours, maybe. They just seem to disappear. People can’t find them, can’t trace them, however hard they try.’

  I refuse to believe this.

  ‘But – there must be a way. I thought perhaps we could find somebody to write to.’

  ‘I don’t know, Stella.’

  ‘What about that Jewish organisation you talked about before – do you think they might have a name? Someone in the SS who’s in charge of all this?’

  ‘Maybe. I’ll go back to them. They’re terribly busy, of course.’

  ‘Another thing I thought of.’ The words, the desperate schemes, all rushing out of my mouth. ‘There’s a man at the British Embassy. Frank Reece. Well, you know him – he helped us when Harri was hurt.’

  ‘He was a good man, Stella. But what could he do for us? What could anyone do?’

  ‘I’ll speak to him – he might be able to suggest something.’

  ‘That would be wonderful, Stella,’ she says. But in a bleak voice, without hope.

  We sit without speaking for a while.

  It’s silent in Eva’s living room. Outside, the crowds, the church bells; but in here, it’s utterly still. No sound but Benjamin’s slow, sleepy breathing, and the splash of Lotte’s paintbrush as she dabbles it in the jar, and the strokes of the brush on the paper. It’s so quiet.

  Into the silence, a new sound. Just a small thing, a footstep. Someone walking quite briskly up the stairs to the flat.

  We don’t move.

  More footsteps – rather loud, as though from booted feet. Several people. Voices.

  I glance at Eva. I see all the fear in her face.

  ‘Eva – is that…?’

  I can’t say it. My heart thuds.

  The footsteps stop at Eva’s door. Someone knocks.

  Eva doesn’t move.

  More knocking. Rapid, percussive, so Lotte’s painting water trembles in its jar.

  Benjamin wakes suddenly, startled, throwing his hands in the air, his newspaper sliding from his lap.

  ‘What’s that noise, Eva? Is it Harri? Has the boy forgotten his key again?’ he asks her.

  Hammering. Shouting voices.

  Benjamin is frowning.

  ‘That careless boy. What a racket. He’s always forgetting his key.’

  My breath is coming in gasps that hurt me.

  Eva goes to the window, pulls back the lace curtain an inch.

  ‘There’s a lorry in the street,’ she says. ‘Like when they came for Harri.’

  We stare at one another. Panic flickers through the room, like wildfire.

  There’s another volley of knocking. If Eva doesn’t respond soon, they will surely break down the door.

  And then I know what I must do. The whole thought is there, fully formed in my mind – clear, exact, imperative. Because everything is different now. Because the world is changed.

  ‘Eva.’ I grasp her wrist. ‘Is there another way to get out?’

  ‘Only that way.’ She gestures towards the kitchen window. ‘You’d have to climb out of the window and onto the fire escape. There’s an alleyway from the courtyard that leads to Kirchengasse … But, Stella, what are you thinking? My father couldn’t possibly—’

  ‘Let me take Lotte. I could hide her.’ My voice cracks. The words are too big for my mouth. ‘I could take her to England with me.’

  Eva stares.

  ‘But where would she live? We don’t know anyone in England.’

  ‘You know me. She could live with me and my mother. She’d be safe there.’

  Lotte looks up, wide-eyed. Uncomprehending.

  ‘But how could you possibly do that?’ says Eva. ‘I don’t have papers for her.’

  ‘I’ll ask Frank Reece. He’s a British spy. He owes me. I think he would help.’

  She thinks, for an instant. For half a heartbeat.

  ‘Yes, Stella. Yes.’ She turns to Lotte. ‘Lotte, you have to go with Stella,’ she says.

  Lotte stares at her mother.

  Eva puts her arms around her daughter. Clinging tight to her. Lotte doesn’t respond, doesn’t put her arms around her mother, just sits there. Her face is white and frayed.

  ‘I love you,’ Eva tells her.

  Hearing the break in her mother’s voice, Lotte starts to cry.

  ‘Lotte. Now. We have to go now,’ I say. ‘You have to come with me.’

  I take her hand, but she wrenches herself from my grasp.

  ‘But – my cat picture. I need my cat picture.’

  ‘We have to leave your picture. We have to leave everything,’ I tell her.

  ‘No. I spent all day on that picture.’

  The banging is louder now. Someone is kicking down the door.

  Eva grabs Lotte’s hand, we go to the kitchen, Eva opens the window. I look down into the courtyard, my heart in my throat – not knowing if there will be men down there too, in case people try to escape. The courtyard is empty.

  I climb out onto the fire escape, trying not to think how far it would be to fall.

  Lotte is crying quietly, not moving. I feel a surge of anger with her.

  ‘Lotte, you have to come with me. You have to.’

  She doesn’t move. I reach in through the window, snatch her hand. She pulls away. Mute, frightened.

  ‘Go, Lotte,’ says Eva. She’s using her stern voice, the one that Lotte always hates. ‘Stop messing about. Just go. Just do as you’re told.’

  I reach through the window, hold Lotte under her arms. Eva takes her legs. I haul her out through the window. She’s heavy. She slips from my grasp and lands on her knees.

  ‘Lotte. We have to be quick.’

  I take her hand and we climb down the iron stairway. Rapidly, stumbling, me pulling hard on her hand.

  There’s a sudden commotion from the flat above us – loud voices issuing orders, things thrown about, glass breaking. I know that Eva will have opened the door.

  Lotte comes with me, weeping.

  74

  We cross the courtyard, and enter the alley that leads to Kirchengasse. Everything feels unreal. It’s as though I am floating high up, looking down on what’s happening.

  In Kirchengasse I feel safer, amid the crowds of people. There are two policemen on the corner with swastikas on their arms, and my heart pounds as we pass them, but they pay us no attention.

  I don’t have a plan; there’s been no time for a plan. I’m making it up
as I go, feeling my way, one step at a time.

  Lotte has stopped crying now. But her face is colourless as candle-wax and she holds very tight to my hand.

  ‘Stella. Where are we going?’

  ‘We’re going back to my flat – to the place where I live.’

  ‘Will Mama be all right? And my grandpa?’

  ‘I don’t know. I hope so, sweetheart.’

  I have a terrifying sense of responsibility for her. She is all mine now – mine to keep safe. She’s become my sister, my child. I can’t believe how this has happened – so suddenly, in the blink of an eye, in a single beat of a heart.

  On Maria-Treu-Gasse, I tell her to wait in the entryway. I go up the stairs, unlock the door to the flat.

  I listen for a moment. It’s quiet. There’s no sign of Marthe; she’s probably gone to watch Hitler’s arrival. A phrase of music floats along from the kitchen, where Janika is singing to herself as she cooks, one of her songs of lost love from the Zemplén Hills. I wonder briefly if I should confide in Janika; she’s a good person: she’s kind, she hates what’s happening in Vienna. But her primary loyalty will be to Marthe, I know.

  I fetch Lotte, and take her in through the door of the flat. She’s started crying again, and a sob escapes from her mouth. I put my finger to my lips, gesturing her to be quiet.

  I’m jumpy; my heart is pounding. Little things startle me, the everyday sounds of the house. The rattle of pans from the kitchen. A little click behind me, from the cupboard where Janika keeps her dusters and brooms: so small, like a sound inside your own body. I turn: there’s nothing.

  I take Lotte quickly along to my bedroom.

  In spite of everything, she’s intrigued to see where I live. She trails her fingertips over the surfaces of things.

  ‘I like your room, Stella.’

  I show her my cupboard, open it up.

  ‘Look – you can walk right inside.’

  She touches one of my dresses, delicately, with one finger.

  ‘You have very nice clothes,’ she says. Politely, trying to smile.

  But then she goes to the window, staring out at the street, pressing her face to the glass, so when she turns back towards me, there’s a white misted oval from her breath on the pane.

  ‘Can I see my home from here?’ she asks me.

  ‘I think it’s in that direction.’ I point vaguely, thinking this might reassure her.

  She stares.

  ‘I can’t see it.’ Her face falters.

  I seat her beside me on the bed.

  ‘Listen, Lotte. This is very important.’

  ‘I’m listening.’ A little impatient.

  ‘It’s a secret that you’re here. I don’t want the other people who live in the house to know.’

  ‘Why not?’

  I scrabble around in my mind for something to say – something safe.

  ‘It’s an adventure, Lotte. You’re going to hide here secretly.’

  She knows I haven’t answered her question.

  ‘But I don’t really want an adventure, Stella,’ she says. Polite but definite. As though she feels patronised. I know that I’ve struck the wrong note.

  ‘Sometimes Janika the housekeeper can come in my bedroom to clean. I don’t want her to know you’re staying with me.’

  ‘Will she be cross if she finds me? Will she call the SS?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t know what she’d do. It’s best if she doesn’t find you. So if I’m not here and you hear someone coming, you’ll have to go in the cupboard and pull the door to. Can you do that?’

  She thinks about this.

  ‘Is it dark in the cupboard if you close the door?’

  She’s a much younger child suddenly. She can sometimes be so grown-up, so knowing, but now she seems so young.

  ‘Yes,’ I tell her. ‘I think it would be quite dark.’

  ‘I don’t like the dark,’ she says.

  She’s suddenly very afraid. She stares at me, pale, wide-eyed. As though all the terror and horror of the last few days are distilled into this one fear.

  I feel helpless.

  ‘Lotte – you’re going to be so brave. I know you are.’ My voice bright and encouraging. ‘You’re like the girl in the story of Baba Yaga, d’you remember? When her comb turned into a forest of trees, and she escaped from the witch? You’re going to be brave like her.’

  She ignores this.

  ‘Can’t you stay here with me?’ she says.

  ‘No. I have to go out for a while.’

  ‘Can’t you take me with you?’

  ‘No, I don’t think so.’

  ‘You said you’d never let go of me, when we went skating,’ she says. ‘You said you wouldn’t let me out of your sight.’ Her voice accusing.

  ‘I’m not going to leave you for long. It’s safer that way, Lotte. You have to trust me. Will you trust me?’

  She nods, chewing her lip. Her eyes are raw holes in her white face.

  ‘I saw the men who came to take Harri away,’ she tells me then. Her voice is so full it spills over. ‘Harri didn’t do anything. He used to tease me, and he could be a bit annoying. But he never did anything really bad,’ she says.

  I turn a little away, so Lotte can’t see my face.

  ‘No, he didn’t.’ I feel the ache that rises like dough beneath my breastbone.

  She grabs my arm; her fingers bite into my wrist.

  ‘It’s my fault, isn’t it?’ she says.

  The pain in her eyes pierces me.

  ‘No, of course not. Nothing’s your fault,’ I tell her. Not understanding.

  ‘School was closed today, Stella. That was my fault, wasn’t it? Is it all my fault, all the horrible things? The men taking Harri away? Is it because I wished for school to be shut?’

  I put my arms around her. She’s trembling.

  ‘No, sweetheart, it isn’t your fault. We can’t make things happen by thinking about them, Lotte. We can’t make things happen by wishing for them. If we could, the world would be very different,’ I say.

  Lotte’s dark eyes are troubled.

  ‘You said, Wish for something else. That’s what you told me,’ she says.

  75

  I walk past the queue of people waiting for visas, which stretches right down the street.

  The receptionist eyes me suspiciously. She has a neat Peter Pan collar and severely scraped-back hair. She addresses me in German.

  ‘I’m English,’ I tell her.

  Her stern expression eases, hearing my voice.

  ‘I need to see someone who works here,’ I tell her. ‘A friend of mine. Mr Reece.’

  ‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible. Mr Reece is busy.’

  ‘I think he’ll see me, if you say who I am.’

  She shakes her head.

  ‘He’s occupied. You must realise. There’s a lot going on.’

  I lean across the desk towards her.

  ‘Please. You have to try. You have to tell him I’m here.’

  She frowns.

  ‘Your name?’

  I tell her.

  ‘I’ll see what I can do,’ she says. ‘But I’m not promising anything.’

  She indicates a chair, but I know I couldn’t sit still. I pace restlessly.

  I only have to wait a few minutes, though it seems like an age. Then a door behind the desk bangs back, and Frank comes and shakes my hand.

  ‘Stella.’

  He looks more dishevelled than ever. He’s badly in need of a shave, and his clothes are so creased that I wonder if he slept in his suit. He sees something in my face, perhaps: he nods, but doesn’t smile. He knows I haven’t just come to give him the date from Rainer’s diary.

  He ushers me into his office. A wide walnut desk and leather armchairs; a smell of beeswax polish. On the wall, a portrait of our King, and a map of the world, with the British Empire coloured in pink and covering half the globe.

  He indicates a chair. I sit.

  He studies
me, frowning slightly, trying to read me.

  ‘I’m surprised you’re still here in Vienna, Stella. I thought you’d have gone home by now.’

  ‘I have something I need to ask you,’ I tell him. ‘Something very important. Well, two things.’

  I tell him what has happened – about Harri, about the SS. My voice is high and shrill, and sounds like someone else’s voice. As I speak, Frank’s expression becomes empathic, concerned.

  ‘Oh Stella. I’m so sorry, my dear.’

  His tone is low and solemn. As at the news of a death. This chills me.

  ‘Then they came for his mother and grandfather. I was there when they came, and I went out the back way with Lotte – that’s Harri’s little sister…’ The words tumbling out of me.

  He offers me a cigarette from a cedarwood box on his desk. Moving slowly, carefully, as though I am fragile as crystal, and a sudden movement might shatter me. As he leans in to light the cigarette, I catch the sharp smell of his sweat.

  He lets me smoke for a moment before he starts to speak.

  ‘They’ve really got to work with quite extraordinary speed,’ he tells me. ‘Herr Himmler arrived at half past four on Saturday morning. At the airport, at Aspern.’

  ‘I don’t know who he is,’ I say.

  ‘Herr Himmler is one of Hitler’s closest lieutenants. From that moment on Saturday morning, all the Austrian police files were in Himmler’s hands,’ he tells me.

  There are urgent sounds from the corridor. A telephone shrills in the distance. There are rapid running footsteps, the slamming of a door.

  ‘Can you help me find them – Harri and his family?’ I ask him.

  He doesn’t respond for a moment. My heart thuds. There are little lines between his brows, precise as though cut with a blade.

  ‘It’s not that easy, Stella. Once they’re in the clutches of the SS. Occasionally they release them. Mostly they seem to disappear.’

  ‘But – people can’t just vanish.’ That high, panicked note in my voice.

  ‘When was Harri arrested?’

  ‘Saturday.’

  ‘Stella, my dear girl.’ He’s speaking so carefully, so gently. ‘I’m afraid he may not even be in Vienna any more.’

  Rage flickers through me – that he’s being so negative. He stands here, in this imposing room, where everything seems to speak of Britain’s reach, of its power; and yet he sounds so helpless.