Lilies, Lies and Love

by Jackie French

  She wondered briefly about Aunt Sophie. But she would be safe now and cared for. She looked at George again, in modern evening dress of black and brilliant white, and the now familiar grin.

  She brushed against him as he helped her on with her coat, thin silk too, trimmed at the edges with mink that had been dyed pink, and saw his eyes widen.

  He drove a Hispano-Suiza — she had not thought a man like this would let another drive him, and surely not a French taxi driver. The doorman at the Ritz took the car with due reverence, and George watched it go for only a few seconds to check that the man would drive it well. The other seconds were all for her.

  They climbed the stairs, her arm in his. She felt the warmth of his fingers as he removed her coat.

  And then the dining room, its shades complementing her dress most perfectly, as she had known they would, the pinks and creams that matched the perfection of her skin, for she had been most careful in Australia to protect it from the sun, washing it in cucumber juice each evening, and cleaning it with the rice powder and rose oil from Miss Lily.

  No woman there could rival her.

  The champagne arrived as soon as they were seated. An organised man, she thought, as the waiter held it out briefly for George’s inspection. He glanced at her. She nodded — she loved champagne — and watched it froth just slightly into the glasses. She sipped and smiled again.

  Oysters, au naturel, on a bed of rock salt; no soup or fish. He chose a bifteck, and she did too, au bleu to his well done, enjoying the red juices as she cut into it, the meat well aged and tender.

  She excused herself for a quick visit to the lavatory before dessert, to insert the device given to her by Aunt Ethel. She also removed the knife, sliding it into her narrow evening bag. If the night went as she intended, it might cause comment.

  A Nesselrode ice pudding with liqueured fruits. She had eaten two spoonsful when he said, ‘I have a room reserved here for tonight.’ And then, ‘Have I shocked you terribly?’

  ‘I reserved a room as well,’ she said demurely, then met his eyes.

  ‘Shall we toss to see which one we use?’ His voice was edged with laughter as he took her hand, then something else as well.

  They chose his room. Better for her reputation. He had booked as man and wife, she found when he asked for the keys at reception.

  ‘But I am not marrying you,’ she warned as they walked, arm in arm again, towards the lift.

  ‘And I haven’t asked you.’ The grin again. ‘Yet.’

  ‘Then I have not said no yet.’ And a new feeling settled on her, a vision of a house of safety that was hers alone, not dependent on pleasing parents or adopted aunts or grandmères, a house with a family that was hers too, perhaps, even a baby in her arms. She added, ‘Or perhaps I would not say no. If one day perhaps you ask.’

  The lift attendant pulled the door closed. If he noticed that madame wore no ring on her left hand, he made no sign of it.

  Their room was halfway down the corridor. For a moment she thought he was going to carry her over the threshold. But that was entirely too . . . she was not sure what. Instead she ducked under his arm and ran to the bed, an enormous bed, draped in curtains, satin comforters, before vast windows with the drapes already drawn. She leaped up on it and bounced, holding her arms out like a bird.

  George shut the door, and leaned on it. ‘What on earth are you doing?’

  ‘I am a bird!’ she told him. ‘Now I will teach you how to fly!’

  ‘Will you now?’ He walked towards her, his eyes even brighter than they had been at the controls of his aeroplane . . .

  ‘Oh, yes,’ said Violette.

  Chapter 53

  Why do history books tell you all that adults do, but so rarely mention children? For they are there in history too.

  Miss Lily, 1901

  GERMANY

  Anna had been reading a book all morning. The prinzessin had sent her several books especially copied into braille, to try to make the days pass quickly till Mutti got there. There had been many more days than expected, delays that were not explained, at least to her. This book was in English, about a bear called Pooh. Most of the words were strange, and some were silly, but she thought perhaps they were meant to be silly. And they made her smile.

  Tante Liesl’s dumpling soup was ready for lunch. It was a good soup, thick with vegetables and hunks of meat as well as dumplings. Anna ate it as she had been taught at the institute, holding her spoon at four o’clock, her bread plate at nine o’clock, knowing the butter dish was at one o’clock, making sure she looked at Tante Liesl when she spoke to her, for politeness.

  After lunch she dried the dishes carefully and put them away in their right places.

  ‘Read to me?’ asked Tante Liesl. Anna heard her steps go to the window for the fortieth time that day, then back again. ‘Your mother must be here soon. I hope there is no snow on the line, and her train is not held up.’

  Soon, thought Anna. Mutti will be here soon. She began to read the English book. It was good to hear Tante Liesl laugh at the piglet and the sadness of Eeyore, who did not see that life could be good even if some parts were hard.

  And soon, soon Mutti would be here and they would go to England again and this time the men would not put them back on the ship, because even they could not contradict the prinzessin. They would have the most perfect Christmas in the world, for the prinzessin would join them. And today the snow smelled fresh and the book was funny and Tante Liesl’s arms were warm. It was silly for Eeyore to be so sad . . .

  The knocking on the door took them both by surprise. The snow had muffled the sounds of feet. Mutti would not knock, for she had a key. Perhaps neighbours had finally noticed they were back. Frau Heinrich sometimes brought them apple cake. Anna stayed curled on the sofa while Tante Liesl went to the door. She began to read again, then stopped.

  Tante Liesl seemed to be pleading. ‘But she is not ill! Not even a case of grippe.’

  ‘Nonetheless, we have our orders.’

  ‘Then I will go with her.’

  ‘No. This is an infectious diseases hospital, you understand.’ The words were soothing, even the tone, but Anna did not like the voice.

  ‘I will pack her things,’ said Tante Liesl desperately.

  ‘All she needs will be provided.’

  ‘But her teddy bear . . .’

  The men had still not come in. And suddenly Tante Liesl screamed, ‘Anna! Run!’

  They had rehearsed this, just like they had practised the holding of the knife and fork, and feeling with your fingertips along a wall so they were not caught in the hinge when you found a door. If bad men came — robbers, ruffians — she was to run.

  And so she ran, straight to the back door, opened it, ran to the woodshed, pulled that door open too, then stepped inside and then, more carefully now, walked across the floor in case a piece of wood had fallen unnoticed, till she came to the wood stack. She crouched behind it, still and silent.

  A scream from inside, the sounds of chairs being overturned.

  She should be helping Tante Liesl. That’s what girls in books did when people were attacked. But she had never read a book where a heroine was blind. As Mutti had explained, it would be hard to help when you could not see who you might hit or who might trip over you.

  Then silence, except for boots. The boots did not hesitate as they came across the snow to the woodshed.

  And all at once Anna remembered the beginning of her book, Pooh and Piglet following the footprints in the snow. Prints like she must have left. Prints the men must follow.

  She screamed only once as someone picked her up, to let Tante Liesl know she had been found. Then a large hand covered her mouth. She tried to bite it, but the owner of the hand evidently knew about girls who bit, for he held her jaw closed too.

  She felt the air change as he carried her outside, smelled the garden then the street and the faint whiff of next door’s garbage bin. And then they were in a car, and she was
still held tight, and it was driving, driving, driving far away.

  Chapter 54

  One virtue of growing older is that one’s wrinkles become shaped by one’s smiles, as long as one smiles often enough. Then when one is older, or too tired to smile easily, the wrinkles come to your aid . . .

  Miss Lily, 1935

  ENGLAND

  Hannelore was tired. She had always been tired, she thought, since the summer of 1914 perhaps, that bright summer when so much happiness seemed possible.

  And now? She smiled through dinner at the embassy, charming the man on her right side, the first secretary from the Swedish Embassy, and then her companion on the left, the Italian cultural attaché, who adored Puccini just as she did.

  This was her job, smiling. Smiling and listening, listening and smiling, keeping notes of conversations that might be useful in her head.

  She did not want to smile or listen. She wanted to think of Sophie, not Sophie imprisoned but Sophie safe among her kangaroos. She must see that Sophie was safe. She wanted to see Anna too. She had decided that tomorrow she would follow Gerda back to Germany, just in case there was any disagreement about their papers. Holding Anna would make the faint stench of decay vanish, at least for a while.

  Soon she would have a place in England she could retreat to, just as she could go to the lodge in Germany. It was a small house by the sea, not by a lake, but the beach was a safe one, with no fast tides or rocks or cliffs, and Anna could listen to the roll of waves, the song of seagulls, throw sticks for the puppy Hannelore would buy her for Christmas.

  In this house Anna would be her ward, and treated as such by the servants. Hannelore would spend Christmas there, not at the embassy or a cold German castle. Even a prinzessin deserved a holiday at Christmas.

  It was a long dinner tonight. The men lingered even longer than usual over port and cigars while Hannelore smiled and drank coffee with the women. Chanel’s new collection, yes, how beautifully shocking. Schiaparelli, ah, just wonderful. The Olympics, no, I missed them, it sounded absolutely fabulous. Yes, Jesse Owens, quite a feat, as if it did not matter to any true Aryan that the man with the most medals, who had beaten every member of the master race, was a black American.

  The fog stretched through the city when she was finally free to leave, over it, probably even seeping under it in the sewers and waterways, the wretched choking fog of London. She was drooping when Gerda finally opened the door for her, for the doorman always rang up to the apartment so she could be ready when the lift arrived. ‘Prinzessin, please, my sister has phoned me . . .’

  A phone call? Fear clutched her. It had all been arranged, so carefully arranged. It had taken her much longer than expected, and more officials than before to charm, but the papers were in perfect order this time. ‘Is something wrong?’

  ‘Some men came and have taken Anna to hospital, said she had pneumonia.’

  ‘That sounds serious. Gerda, I am so sorry. We must get tickets on the first train —’

  ‘But Liesl says she is not ill! They have taken her, Prinzessin, just as I was afraid they would.’

  And yes, they probably have, she thought wearily. But thankfully it was nothing that a phone call tomorrow morning would not make right. The men who had taken Anna had one list, which would not contain the names of those given permission to emigrate, just as the stupid men meeting the ship had had a list, and neither list would include the exceptions. She would make it all right tomorrow.

  ‘Tomorrow,’ she said. ‘You pack now, and go to your sister. If you leave tonight you can catch the early ship. I need to stay here to make the necessary phone calls to release Anna — it may be difficult to book them in France. Then I will come and join you, and we can all come to England together.’

  She would ask Hermann from the embassy to meet the train too. Hermann liked her and would be happy if asked for a small favour, to make sure that officious men did not order women about, simply because they had the power to do so.

  ‘Go now,’ she told Gerda. ‘I will undress myself. And do not worry. It will be fixed by ten past nine tomorrow.’

  And I must not worry either, she told herself. Dolphie has promised me Sophie will be safe, and Dolphie does not lie to me. Sophie will be safe, and Anna too.

  But when?

  Hannelore woke to birdsong. Only blackbirds, but beautiful, which was why she had seed put out for them each day, so she could wake to this and dream she was in a forest.

  Her first thought was of Sophie. Dolphie had said he would leave a note on her bedside table when Sophie was free — a blank note, but she would know what it meant. But there was no note on the bedside.

  Instead Fräulein Hemmler pulled the curtains open. ‘Guten morgen. A fine day, Prinzessin. The fog has lifted for once. This filthy England. Gerda has left already,’ she added. ‘I will get your bath ready.’

  She picked up the tray from the table where she had placed it, and arranged it over Hannelore’s knees, pulling the legs out to support it, pouring the first cup of coffee from the pot, lifting the starched white napkin from the basket of rolls, round with poppy seeds, long with caraway, butter in tight curls and today lingonberry jam, which was one of the best jams in the world.

  ‘Thank you, Fräulein. Could you have a phone call placed for me? An urgent one, tell the operator.’

  ‘Certainly, Prinzessin.’ She pulled a notebook from her pinafore — always so organised, Fräulein Hemmler — and copied down the number.

  Two cups of coffee later — would life be possible without coffee? — and a roll eaten with much jam, and the call was through. Fräulein Hemmler helped her into her peignoir and slippers as she crossed into her sitting room to take the call.

  An easy call. A quick call. Yes, undoubtedly someone had used the old list, was probably being overzealous in making sure each name on it was crossed off. Not that one could really be overzealous, Prinzessin. But in this case, certainly, yes, someone would go first thing tomorrow, the child would be back at their home by lunchtime. Today, not tomorrow? A matter of international relations? Very well then, the child will be fetched at once . . .’ A touch of puzzlement at that, but the caller was just a functionary, and she a prinzessin, even if she was officially not anything of the kind any more.

  Hannelore hung up just as her bath was brought in, and the buckets of hot water and her bath salts, so she could bathe. Anna would be safe, of course she would be safe.

  Bitte Gott, she thought, let Sophie be safe today too. Let her be home with those she loves. And let her soon go away from here, from all the lies and politicking, home to sunlight and kangaroos.

  Chapter 55

  Humans are so good at not recognising others as ‘people like us’. The English ‘upper 600’ even refer to themselves as ‘PLU’. So many men assume women are not ‘people like us’; Herr Hitler and his followers assume all who are not Aryan are inferior — despite so much evidence to the contrary — and that those who are Jewish are even a different kind of humanity. But in times of crisis those who survive — and whose children survive — are those who can take the hand of a stranger and communicate that somehow we can cope with this together.

  Miss Lily, 1937

  GERMANY

  The car stopped. The man lifted her.

  ‘I can walk, sir,’ she said as politely as she could. He did not answer her.

  Was this another school? It did not smell like one. The man had said she was ill, but she was sure that she was not. But this had a faint scent of the infirmary at school, so perhaps it was a hospital. A doctor would see her and she would go back home. Or Tante Liesl would come and fetch her, just as she had from the school, or Mutti.

  She wanted Mutti very much. She longed for Tante Liesl.

  She must have made a sound of distress, for the man said, not unkindly, ‘Do not worry. It will all be right, soon.’

  Through doors, a corridor. She strained to hear, to smell, to feel the air on her face that would allow her to work out if
it were a corridor or a large room. She heard the clank of lift doors somewhere, but they did not go to a lift nor even upstairs, but to a small room: she could tell it was small because there were no sounds nor air movements once the door was shut.

  The man laid her on a bed. It had a sheet, a pillow and a strange sweet smell, not pleasant. He had not taken off her shoes. That was wrong.

  She sat up and untied the laces carefully, then held them out. ‘Will you put them under my bed for me, at twelve o’clock? That is side by side, facing straight under the bed,’ she added, when she realised he did not understand.

  He took them. She heard the faint sound of the shoes being placed, exactly as they should be.

  ‘You are a clever girl,’ he said. He sounded slightly puzzled.

  ‘I was top of my class,’ she said, then felt guilty for boasting. She would have liked to add that she could speak English too, and even read it now, but that would be boasting too.

  His voice was almost gentle as he said, ‘You would never know you were imperfect. Your mother looks quite normal, as well.’

  ‘That is not my mother. That was Tante Liesl. My mutti is in England with the Prinzessin von Arnenberg. Soon we are to have a holiday with her, with the prinzessin. She says we can feed the ducks. Do you like ducks?’

  ‘The Prinzessin von Arnenberg?’ His voice sounded hesitant.

  ‘My mutti is her maid and the prinzessin is my godmother. She sends me books, a new one every week, sometimes several books. Do you like books?’

  The door opened, so he did not answer. Instead he crossed to whoever came in and spoke quickly and urgently. She heard the words ‘Prinzessin von Arnenberg’.

  Another voice, a man’s, answered, ‘A child’s fantasy. The girl is on the list. You may go now.’