Elise shook him off and got out of the car, waiting for the driver to bring her suitcase. Without warning, two Brownshirts in an alley across the street forced an old man into the back of an unmarked car behind them, its exhaust pipe choking out thick smoke as it sped away.
She stared at Fausten, who had rolled down the car window. “And I will pray for you,” she told him.
Now the smile was gone. “Tomorrow. Nine A.M. Don’t be late.”
Elise passed through the entrance of the hotel and into the lobby, a bellhop following with her suitcase. It was like entering a dreamworld. With its palm court, fountain, and leather club chairs, the marble space was soaring and grand. Huge cut-glass vases of red roses and edelweiss—known to be the Führer’s favorite flowers—adorned every gleaming surface. A harpist in the corner played over the genteel murmurings of the staff and guests.
Her father stood waiting for her in the petal-scented lobby. “Engel,” Miles Hess cried, opening his arms, oblivious to the stares of the other patrons.
Elise ran to him. “Papa,” she gasped, burrowing her shorn head into his chest.
—
“Not too fast, Engel,” Miles Hess warned as she inhaled cheeses, meats, seeded bread with honey, and hard-boiled eggs. Elise hunched over, eating with her hands, like an animal.
Her father stared, then looked away. “Slowly, darling. I don’t want you to get sick.”
“I don’t care,” Elise mumbled through a swig of hot coffee—real coffee—still chewing. “I don’t think I’ll ever be full again.” She smeared bread with gooseberry jam before stuffing it into her mouth. She wrapped up all the food left in her napkin and hid it on her lap under the table when she was done. Her father pretended not to notice.
“I still can’t get over how you look….”
“I heard about Mutti.” She took a gulp of coffee. “They told me at the camp.”
Miles sat down next to her. Gently, he asked, “What did they tell you?”
“That she was killed defending the glory and honor of Nazi Germany.” Elise gave a twisted smile. “My mother died a ‘hero.’?”
“Your mother…” Miles began. Then he put up one hand. “Wait.”
He rose and walked over to a table with a Victrola and selected a record—a version of Mozart’s Don Giovanni he himself had conducted. He turned up the volume, then came back to the table. He whispered into her ear, “Your mother isn’t dead.”
“What?” Elise’s brain began to spin. She knew her mother had disappeared in the chaos, along with her half sister.
Miles put a finger to his lips to silence her. “She turned herself over to the British authorities. She’s probably working with them as we speak, providing them with information only she knows from the Abwehr.”
Elise tried to follow what her father was saying, but she was tired, she was so weary….Once again the objects around her seemed unreal. Bread, she reminded herself of the words. Knife. Cup.
“Of course, the official Party line is she died in a great act of patriotism. We will, at some point, need to be photographed leaving flowers on her grave at Friedhof Heerstra?e, in order to keep up the charade.”
“But Mutti was a Nazi—she, she believed in all of their insanity!”
Miles gave her a warning look. Elise realized he was cautioning her—even with the loud music, the hotel suite was surely bugged. She needed to be extremely careful of what she said.
“And Margareta? Margaret Hope? My half sister?” Elise managed. She had not forgotten how she’d witnessed Maggie shooting the young German guard. And Maggie’s using her and her connections for whatever undercover British mission she was on. Maggie had lied to her. All the while pretending to be her friend.
“She’s back in Britain as well, as far as I know.”
“I see.” Elise felt nothing but disgust for her half sister.
“There will be a memorial service. We both must be there.”
Elise tried to picture her mother in London, working against the Nazis, and came up blank.
“And you?” Elise looked around her. The suite was sumptuous. “You seem to be doing well.”
“Well, they seized the house in Grunewald—for the Party’s use, of course—but put me up here.” Miles attempted a smile. “It’s still advantageous to be a famous conductor. They can’t kill me so easily or have me ‘disappear’ without an explanation. So they have created the public image of me as a bereaved widower, mourning for my beautiful patriot wife, who sacrificed herself in the line of duty. I bury my sorrow by conducting Wagner for Hitler.
“But let’s concentrate on the good,” Miles urged, taking Elise’s thin hand and pressing it to his lips. “I have my beloved daughter back.”
“For now.”
“What do you mean?”
“This isn’t a release—I’m on a nine-day leave.”
“What?” Miles was incensed. “A leave? That is not my arrangement with Himmler—”
“I need to report to Gestapo headquarters at nine tomorrow,” Elise told him, her voice low and even. “I believe my permanent release is contingent on my disavowing Father Licht, and recanting all the things we said publicly about the murder of children—the so-called compassionate death program.”
“Which you will, of course. You will do exactly what you need to, in order to stay out of that place.” Miles stared into his daughter’s face, eyes dark. “In order to stay alive.”
Elise gave a ghost of a smile. “I’ll see what they want, first.” She yawned, a huge gape she didn’t bother to cover. “But first, bed.”
—
When Philby left, Sarah and Hugh regarded each other. Hugh broke their gaze first and looked to the split logs in a rush basket by the fireplace. “I’ll start a fire.”
“Are you hungry? I can see what there is.” Sarah went through an archway to the small kitchen and peered inside the icebox. “Two eggs, a little butter, some onions and potatoes, and a few shriveled little apples—I’ll make an omelet. Oh, look, and they left us a loaf of bread and a bottle of cider!”
While Hugh built up the fire, Sarah made eggs, then brought plates, silverware, and glasses to the dining table.
“Looks lovely!”
“I’m no cook,” Sarah confessed. “I can make the odd egg dish, but I’m not one of those domestic women. And—let me make this clear right now—Sabine isn’t, either.”
“Your French accent,” Hugh said. “It’s so patrician.”
“While my English accent…is not?” Through her years in London, Sarah had kept her working-class Liverpudlian accent.
“Both of your accents are charming.”
“All right, my husband—let’s stay in character,” Sarah admonished.
Hugh grinned. “Oui, ma chéri.”
After they’d finished their meal, Sarah washed and dried the dishes while Hugh put on his coat and gloves and brought in more logs for the fire. Sarah threw on her coat, and together they went out the back door to the small garden, where a weathered wooden bench looked over the lake. The air was clear and crisp, the wind ruffling waves across the glassy slate surface of the water. As the pink and gold sunset faded, reflected by the lake, the three bright stars of Orion’s belt rose in the sky.
Sarah leaned back and their knees touched. “All right, really now—just between you and me—how do you really know Maggie? Were you in love with her?”
In the violet dusk, Hugh put his arm around Sarah’s shoulders. “Maggie? Who’s Maggie?”
In the darkness, Sarah gave a catlike, satisfied smile. Together, they sat in a charged silence as more and more stars appeared, glittering like crushed diamonds in the night sky.
Chapter Seven
“I could have been in there with you two, you know,” Maggie stated, setting her teacup down with a clink. “I know about ‘cottaging.’ The way pocket squares are folded, foot positions in the loo, so-called glory holes—all those sorts of things.”
Mark’s jaw dropped. “How the hell—I mean, how would a young lady like you know of such a thing?”