Maisie placed the bowl of water on the dressing table and put an arm around Elaine. “Until you tell me the whole story, I cannot say. Now then, there will be time for tears later, Elaine. We must get on, and then you can describe everything that happened. If you sit down to tell your story amid all this clutter, your ability to think back with clarity will be diminished by what is about you; you must be in a place that is clear. I cannot take you onto a hilltop or put you in a field, but I can get this room cleaned. Come, there is work to be done.”
Maisie scrubbed the mirror while Elaine picked up clothing, folding each item and placing it in a drawer. Maisie kept an eye on the younger woman as they worked. She knew that the destruction of Elaine’s home—and for better or worse, it was her home—was meant to undermine her, to make her feel unsafe—and with a bitter twist, given the slur writ large across the mirror. If Elaine now felt less than secure, it was with good reason. Sweeping shards of china cups into a paper bag, Maisie stopped to inspect a long seam of lipstick, powder, and kohl pressed into a floorboard, as if someone had ground the thick red substance into the grain of the wood, compounding the damage with the powder and inky kohl. This was not just destruction but a deliberate act of cruelty, as if the perpetrator wanted nothing more than to destroy Elaine Otterburn’s charm—her wide eyes, big smile, and hearty laugh.
Soon the women had finished cleaning and stood back to survey the results. Elaine’s face was streaked with tears. “It’s never been this neat and tidy.” She attempted a smile, but began to weep once again.
“Sit down for a moment, Elaine.” Maisie left the room, emptied and rinsed the bowl, and refilled it with cold water. She searched the small kitchen until she found an unsoiled cloth, and returned to the room. She steeped the cloth in water, wrung it out, and gave it to Elaine. “Press this across your eyes—it will diminish the swelling. And now tell me what happened.”
Elaine’s chest heaved with sobs. She pulled away the cloth and turned to Maisie, one eye clear of kohl, the other still smudged, as if half her face were that of an angel, the other touched by darkness—a theater harlequin. “We’d been drinking, so I was rather squiffy, but we were always like that. Luther—his name is Luther Gramm—isn’t much older than me. He never wanted to do what he was doing in the Schutzstaffel, but it was the right thing, he said. He’d been an apprentice architect before he went into uniform. He enjoyed a good time.” She paused, wiping her eye and looking at the black smudge across the cloth. “We’d been to a club, lots of laughing, lots to drink, you know, and we danced the night away. I liked him, really I did. We got on well together.” Elaine began to cry again.
“Go on, Elaine. Until I know the whole story, I do not know if I can help you.”
“But you must. You must help me. I’m all alone, and now this has happened.”
Aware that the woman was panicking, Maisie softened her own voice. “Tell me what happened, Elaine. You must go on. We might not have much time.”
Elaine swallowed her tears and wiped the cloth across her mouth. “Luther told me he knew a place, an alley where lovers go. You see, the old Frau downstairs would chuck me out if she knew I’d had a man up here. I’ve been pushing my luck a bit, and we were taking chances going back to the house where the officers are lodging.” She covered her face with the cloth, leaned into it, and then sat up, dropping the cloth into the bowl of water. “I was a bit scared, to tell you the truth. There wasn’t much light, except a bit from the houses, and it was a damp place, smelly. I don’t think I could find my way there again, to tell you the truth. But Luther insisted and dragged me down there, and we began, you know, to kiss.” She stopped speaking.
“Go on, Elaine,” said Maisie, her voice low.
Elaine sighed. “We were in a doorway. We didn’t think anyone could see us. Then we heard a motor car, and there were headlamps coming toward us. Slowly. Really slowly. I wondered how the motor car could even get down the alley—there must have been only a foot either side of it, if that. And there was a man walking in front of the car—I remember thinking that he looked like one of those men they have at funerals, walking in front of the hearse as if to pace it out, so the horses don’t gallop off and everyone remains respectful. What do they call them? Escorts? Something like that.” She paused, reached for the cloth, wrung it out, and pressed it to her eyes, as if to block out the images that came with her words.