The German Heiress

by Anika Scott

  She covered her mouth, swallowed the sour taste, but she couldn’t look away now. The next image. More bent backs, a dozen men excavating in the mud, their faces turned away or hidden under their hats. Another image, a man in filthy boots looking wearily at the work going on around him. The next image, a close-up. An old man in a wrinkled coat was bending over a body slumped on the ground. The body wore a shoe of scuffed black leather. It hung from the foot. Clara saw the curve of a heel, a fallen stocking ruffled at the ankle. That shoe, the shape of that leg, somehow seemed familiar. The floorboards shifted, hollows under her feet.

  “I didn’t know about this.”

  “No?”

  “How could I? I couldn’t know about everything happening those last months. It was chaos. Do you think I wanted any of it?”

  “When you fled Essen, what did you think would happen to the people you left behind?”

  “I didn’t think—”

  “You didn’t care?”

  “I did care. I did. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about all of it.”

  “That’s not good enough.” He grasped her arms and it was a shock, him laying his hands on her. He turned her to face the wall again.

  The crumpled stocking on the familiar leg. More than once she’d envied the shape of Elisa’s calves and ankles as they flashed under her hem. And hated them too. Men had openly admired her in the streets. Clara had felt silly for being jealous of such a stupid thing. A leg. An ankle.

  She had to be wrong. She was dreaming up similarities when there were none. “Who are these people? What are their names?”

  “Based on the badges on their clothing, most are believed to have been Russian. A few people had no patches, different clothes. We assume they were Germans.”

  She let her gaze continue up the body, over the dirty knee and past the crumpled skirt. She reached the white blouse, its lace trim, its white buttons, the pocket at the breast and all of it spoiled by dark smears and splatters. Fenshaw was still holding her arms, the weight of his hands keeping her in this moment. “What are their names?” she asked again. “You have to know their names.”

  “One or two. Most of them haven’t been identified. We do know when they were executed.”

  “When? What day?”

  “The twelfth of March 1945. The day after you left.”

  Finally, she let herself look at the face in the photograph. Dark, like smoke in the air, was a curl of Elisa’s hair. There was a wash of dark pigment where Elisa’s nose and mouth had been, lighter around her eyes. The last thing Elisa had seen in her life was the gray sky above her, the barren field, the ditch. Her eyes were just the same as when they first met as girls, full of need and fear.

  Clara tore herself away from Fenshaw and ran outside, gulping the cold air as she passed the truck and his car and kept running down the road, slipping and sliding in the snow. She missed her step and landed on her back. The shock of falling, the breath knocked out of her, the wet cold, and then stillness. The sky was white and empty and vast.

  She could have prevented what happened to Elisa, to all of those people. She tried to think of how, how far back she’d have to go. The things she should have noticed, done, or said to prevent Willy from doing what he did later. As a girl, she should have shaken Elisa by the shoulders, demanded to know who the baby’s father was. She should have done more for her son. She’d watched Willy drift through his childhood with parents who didn’t love each other. He’d tried to sort and organize his world, moving through it quietly and alone. She could have been a kind of bridge for him to his mother and his real father. If she had known. If she had pushed Elisa to reveal her secret. If things had been different, maybe, after he saw his parents together at the Works, instead of going to the Gestapo, Willy would have come to Clara.

  She could have confronted her father too. Instead of privately voicing her concerns about the workers and the regime, she could have stood up and declared her views in public, knowing the consequences and taking them. Perhaps her family would have lost the factories, would have been forced to leave the country. Perhaps she would have been silenced in some other, terrible way, but at least she would have spoken the truth. Maybe there would have been fewer transports, fewer people buried in the ditches.

  Fenshaw stooped beside her in the snow, his face troubled and gray. She let him help her to her feet, and she held on to him as she swayed. The world was capsizing around her, filled with images of her father, Elisa, Willy, Galina, Max, the columns of workers trudging to her factories, the corpses in the photographs. In the long, twisted ribbon of actions and consequences, private corruption could lead to the biggest crimes. She hadn’t wanted to believe how short the distance was between her labor camps and the death camps, the indignity of slave labor and a massacre. She had played a part in the greater crimes after all. Her. Not just her father. She wouldn’t run away from that anymore.

  JENNINGS AND DWIGHT moved around the cabin lighting the lamps. She didn’t know how long she had sat in the dark, was surprised to look up and see the black window. When she stood, the world tilted and her foot banged against the half-empty bottle on the floor. She was holding a glass, and vaguely remembered Fenshaw pouring the full measure for her.

  He was taking the photographs off the wall and tucking them into a file with careful respect. It wasn’t until he eased the photograph of Elisa out of her hand that Clara realized she’d been holding that too. He replaced it with another. “We found this in one of your albums at Falkenhorst.”

  Her and Elisa with their heads together, smiling into the camera. She wasn’t yet twenty. They both looked ready for a warmer, fuller life than either of them had been able to live.

  Fenshaw set a chair opposite her and sat, his back bent, his elbows on his knees. His hair was thinning, and it made her think of what time had done to all of them, how vulnerable they were. How fragile their lives.

  “Miss Falkenberg, where is the army depot?”

  She ran her hands down her face. It felt strange, as though it belonged to someone else. She tucked the photograph in her pocket and thought of Willy, how he would react to the news. She would have to tell him. He had to know the truth of what happened to his mother even if he had already guessed. He deserved to know the whole story of who he was and where he came from and what it had led all of them to do.

  “I need to go with you to the mine, Captain.”

  “Out of the question.”

  “Captain, Willy is there. In the mine. Elisa is dead and someone has to tell him.”

  “Willy?” He frowned, thinking. “Elisabeth Sieland’s boy.”

  So Willy was in his files as Elisa’s son just as Elisa was in them as Clara’s friend. She took comfort in that, the link of relationships written down in ink. Fenshaw knew so much, she would not be surprised if he’d somehow worked out who Willy’s father really was.

  “Why on earth would he be in a coal mine?” Fenshaw asked.

  “It’s a long story, but—”

  “Miss Falkenberg, I’ve been patient enough with you.”

  “I’ll tell you everything, and you can send me to prison. But I need you to promise you’ll help Willy. Don’t arrest him or hurt him. He’s been down there a very long time, and it’s made him . . . sick.”

  Still cautious, Fenshaw sat back and lit a cigarette. “Tell me all of it.” He exhaled a cloud. “And it had better be true.”

  The story was so extraordinary, she didn’t know how to begin. “Willy Sieland is my father’s son,” she said in one gusting breath. “He doesn’t know. Willy, I mean.”

  Fenshaw looked at her in surprise. “Theodor Falkenberg’s illegitimate son. Your younger brother.”

  So he hadn’t known. Suddenly she was certain she’d revealed too much, that Fenshaw would somehow use this information in ways she couldn’t foresee. But it was too late to change that now. “He’s been hiding in the mine since the war. He’s convinced himself it’s his duty to guard it, but that’s not really why he
’s there.”

  Fenshaw held up a hand. “He’s lived in this coal mine since—”

  “—I left Essen at the end of the war. March ’45.”

  “Almost two years?”

  The horror in his voice fueled her anger at what Willy had gone through. “Two years.”

  “He must’ve gone mad.”

  “A little.” She held that in. She refused to accept Willy was completely lost. “He believes the war is still going on and he won’t leave the mine until it’s over. But that’s just the reason he’s telling himself he can’t leave. The real reason is that he turned Elisa in to the Gestapo after he saw her with my . . . our father. He was confused. Angry. I think he suspects she’s dead and it’s his fault. That’s why he won’t come out.”

  Fenshaw was opening and closing his files as if looking for something to help him understand what she’d told him. These things were missing from all that he had gathered about Clara over the years, and she saw how he was trying to sort it out, if not in his mind, then in his papers. But there was nothing, and he sat back again, his composure cracked. “Bloody hell. It’s madness.”

  “It’s true. All of it.” Her hands writhed in her lap. It was time for the direct appeal. “He needs help, Captain. I can’t give it to him. I’ll be in prison. I accept that. But he still needs help. I think he needs to surrender to an Ally so he sees once and for all that the war really is over.”

  Fenshaw was shaking his head in disbelief.

  “It’ll be a shock to him,” she pressed on, “but it’ll shake him out of his delusion. And after that . . . Isn’t there a way you could do something for him?”

  “What do you have in mind?”

  “He’ll need . . .” She hadn’t thought through what Willy would need when he entered the world again. “Well, he’ll need fresh food. He’ll need to move around in the open air and daylight. He’ll need someone to talk to. And practical things. He’ll need papers—”

  “If he leaves that mine with me, it sounds like I’ll have a boy Nazi on my hands.”

  “He’s not a Nazi!”

  “Let’s be charitable and call him an overzealous soldier. Those were the worst kind. Fanatics.”

  “I told you why he’s there.”

  “Do you expect me to just turn him loose? His mother is dead. The man he took to be his father is dead. His real father denies him and is in an internment camp. You’re captured. Where is he supposed to go? To his dear Fascist grandmother?”

  “Never. She would ruin him. Worse than he already is. Please, Captain. You can find a place for him. You have the resources.”

  “You think I’ve got more power than I have.”

  “You stopped my train. You talked to everybody I ever knew in Essen. You brought me here. Don’t tell me all of that was aboveboard.” She spread her arms. “This is you. You do have power. You know the whole story now. You could go and tell Willy the truth and help him. I’ll cooperate. I’ll confess to whatever you want. But please . . . please, Captain, help him.”

  She reached out to Fenshaw, her hand close to his. If he understood anything she had told him, he would recognize that Willy was a part of the larger story. What Willy had done to Elisa was a part of the same twisting path that linked Clara to the massacre Fenshaw had showed her, and the suffering she and her father had caused. If Fenshaw felt a trace of regret at what he didn’t say or do when he knew her as a younger woman, he might act now.

  He sighed, looking down at his cigarette; then he stubbed it out in a dish. “It can’t be done. Not like that. I’m sorry, Clara.” He said her first name easily, as if he was comfortable saying it in his head and had been for a long while. She grasped at this sign of intimacy.

  “Think about it. You could justify it to your superiors. Not only will you have captured the Iron Fräulein, you’ll be the man who found the last big depot of the defeated German Army. Isn’t that worth bending the rules a little, Thomas?”

  He’d been packing away the bottle and glasses, and turned back to her, startled. The muscles in his face tensed, a moment when she couldn’t decide if he was surprised at hearing her use his first name, or offended that she had dared.

  “Tell me exactly where this mine is supposed to be. If the boy is there, I’ll deal with the situation as I see fit.”

  “That’s not good enough. Captain—”

  He moved his files back into the boxes, and set a sheet of paper and a pencil on the table. “You said you’d draw a map.”

  “If you promise to help Willy.”

  “No conditions.”

  “He’s just a boy. He’s been suffering terribly.”

  He put on his coat. “If you truly want to help him, you’ll draw that map. I’ll give you one more night to consider. If everything you told me is true, every day you delay keeps him down there alone.”

  She followed him as he carried his files outside and stowed them in his car. The snow glowed in the yard. “Captain, try to understand my position. He’s my brother.”

  He climbed behind the steering wheel. “I’ll be back first thing in the morning. Whether I have a map to that mine or not, I’ll have to turn you over to my colleagues for further questioning, and then internment. That’s how this is going to end.”

  25

  Clara watched until she no longer saw Fenshaw’s lights in the dark, and then, in a dreamlike state, walked back to the cabin. She sat on her bed in a haze, her eyes wandering back to the wall where the photographs had been, the space where she had seen Elisa. She wanted to be mistaken about the body in the ditch. Maybe it hadn’t been her. And then with a swift pang of nausea, she knew that it was far too late to deny the truth. She looked at the table where Fenshaw’s paper and pencil lay. She didn’t know what to do. Draw a map to the mine and potentially send Willy into catastrophe with the British soldiers? Or keep that piece of paper blank, leaving Willy safe but alone with his suffering? She thought of other possibilities. Max, whom Willy had loved and respected, but she couldn’t bring herself to entrust her brother to him. Jakob was the only other person who might help. If he cared about her at all, he had to feel something for her brother. But the wound Jakob had given her had settled into a dull ache in her chest. Maybe he didn’t care as much as she’d hoped.

  Around her, the soldiers mumbled about the less than merry Christmas they were spending in that godforsaken cabin. She looked up at them. Christmas already?

  Jennings said, “Let’s take the lorry to Paris.”

  “Christmas in Paris.” Dwight sighed.

  Reynolds clapped his hands. “Enough. We’ll stay as long as we’re needed.”

  “He’s about to say orders are orders.”

  “They are. If you were going to drop out of the army because the orders don’t please you, you should’ve done it long ago.”

  Jennings hummed “God Save the King.” Dwight stretched out on his bed. Reynolds glowered around the room and picked up the half-empty bottle of whisky. “He could’ve at least brought us another bottle.”

  She longed for it, another drink, something more to dull the sharp grief that coursed through her. Rummaging in the supplies for another bottle, she set aside the tins of bully beef and condensed milk, the packets of oatmeal and hard biscuits. One crate contained bottles of beer, but she needed something much stronger than that. In another crate, mixed in with blocks of chocolate and sachets of boiled sweets, were a couple of slightly shriveled apples and also lemons for tea. A pleasant aroma wafted from a tin container, and she opened it to find someone’s muddled collection of spices—cloves, nutmeg, peppercorns, caraway seeds, even a broken stick of cinnamon. The cloves and nutmeg penetrated some deep memory, her mother in winter smelling just like this, wrapped in a blanket by the fire.

  “Hot toddy,” Clara said, and held out the spices to Reynolds.

  He sniffed and passed the tin to Jennings, who inhaled and smiled.

  “All we need are a pot, water, and fire,” said Dwight.

  T
hey all turned to the hearth.

  “We’re on duty,” Reynolds said.

  “Come on, sir. What’s the harm? The girl can fill the pot with snow. And there’s more wood stacked under the tarp around the corner.”

  “It’ll be wet.”

  “Some will be dry enough. What else are we supposed to burn?”

  Reynolds turned a thoughtful look at the chimney. Then he helped Jennings clean the hearth. Dwight escorted Clara outside where she ladled snow into the pot. It did her good to dig down, hit hard ground. The cold sharpened her mind, and she thought of the truck parked at the front.

  She carried the pot back inside the cabin and saw that Jennings had taken off his tunic and hung it on the back of a chair. The keys to the truck, she recalled, were in one of its pockets. The men ordered her to kneel at the hearth and blow at the flames. She wanted to touch the fire, light her finger and watch the flame spread over her hand, bite her sleeve and roar up her arm toward her heart. There lay the remains of her father’s image, the half-woman, half-machine she’d become in the war, the last terrible moments of Elisa’s life, the trust she had put in Jakob, shaken but not gone entirely.

  Hot toddies. All of the men wanted a part in the making of this small cup of comfort, a taste of home. Dwight got to work cutting and squeezing the lemons, catching the juice in a cup. Reynolds searched for an extra bottle of whisky he could have sworn he’d seen when they packed the truck. Jennings tended the pot that hung over the fire, stirring in the cinnamon and cloves, not sure how many to put in and so adding them all. He gave Clara the tin and told her to grate the nutmeg. The repetitive, thoughtless work comforted her somewhat. She was rubbing the second nut against the grater when she vaguely recalled Jakob talking about nutmeg, what seemed like such a long time ago. It had been one of his war stories, someone in Russia taking it like a drug, hoping to escape reality when there was no other way out. Jakob had tried it for the promised high, she remembered, but he had only felt sick. She looked at the three soldiers, then at the dusting of nutmeg on the table. How much would it take to affect them? How would it taste?