And then came the suggestion to marry Monique, as a favor to Georg, who wished to protect his childhood friend from herself. She was loose with words and had been corrupted by her Jewish friends and others who were not part of the plan for a master race. Georg had convinced him that she was capable, that she would participate in the role, with no expectations of husbandly comfort or support. The pairing would solve issues for both. Suspicion about her political leanings would fall away from her and her family—good German people—said Georg. The arrangement was temporary, he had suggested. Only until the war was over.
Erich understood. There were lists that he had seen himself. And they were growing longer. Monique’s name was on one of them.
“Why don’t you marry her yourself then?” asked Erich.
“It’s complicated,” he said. “She is too close to Rosa. For the sake of our old friendships, I beg this of you.”
He understood. He had seen the lovesick look in Rosalind’s eyes.
“Besides, with your commission soon in Austria, it would be good for Monique to stay away from Berlin indefinitely.”
Erich agreed, though the favor was for Georg alone.
“Do you remember how much fun it was, the four of us at the river?” Georg said over a glass of red wine. His eyes gleamed like gemstones, Erich had thought at the time. “I saw you laugh at Monique’s adventures, at her spirit many times.”
Erich did remember Monique and those times, but mostly because of Georg, who was both courageous and clever at everything he did. But those times were gone, and Georg was due to leave again for war. Erich had accepted that things were different now. That the path he was on was destined.
Georg’s suggestion made sense, and he was one of the few who could influence Erich. But it would mean that Erich would have to take the risk that Monique had indeed conformed. People would be watching. She had promised Georg, who had vouched for it. And that might have been enough. But oddly, it was his father who had been the reason for his final decision. Horst had met Monique previously, and liked her immediately, though he did not give his reasons, and neither did he know anything of the arrangement Erich and Georg had discussed. Only later did Erich realize that his father and Monique had shared many thoughts on the changing Germany, thoughts that were most certainly against National Socialist values.
Present-day 1945
The sky is pink and purple, and Erich wonders if Stefano notices these things. Whether he thinks about the type of person he was before the war. If he has any regrets. Erich has been thinking much of Italy, of traveling with Stefano, of leaving everyone, of finding a new place. He must make decisions quickly now.
“Is it busy in the town?” asks Stefano.
“It is slowly recovering, but as long as there are Russian military hovering, pretending they alone are the sole victors of the war, it will never fully recover.”
Erich avoids the Russians. He knows at some point they will come to the house in the city to check on residents as they do, and he hopes to be gone by then. At the moment it is the farmers they are interested in the most, who provide them with what they need.
It is interesting that Stefano has made some sort of connection with Rosalind, he thinks, in such a short time. It is not likely that she has revealed anything, though he cannot underestimate Stefano’s intelligence either.
“I think I will check on Michal and retire early also,” Stefano says. “You have had a long day. You probably need to sleep also before you return to work tonight.”
Erich is disappointed. He expected to spend some of the evening with Stefano before returning later to the town. He wants to question him about the Germans who escaped through Italy, but it is perhaps too soon anyway. He will leave that conversation until tomorrow night. It is best to do these things in the final hours and leave with little notice.
CHAPTER 17
STEFANO
Stefano watches Erich leave for his work, which he believes is a lie. The German shows no wear for the hours he spends in a factory. Stefano is convinced he is sleeping elsewhere but thinks better than to ask the question. He will accept the lie for the house and bed.
Stefano checks on Michal, who is curled up asleep. From the window he sees the lights are on next door, and wonders what else Rosalind does with her time. He returns to the mattress, though he isn’t tired and waits impatiently for sleep. Just as he begins to doze, there is a faint commotion of some kind, a protest by the geese, and shortly after he hears a soft knock.
“They are back,” says Rosalind in the doorway, holding a lantern.
Stefano doesn’t ask. He already knows that she is talking about the Jew and his granddaughter who asked for food earlier.
“One of the geese is missing,” she says. “I saw the thieves head west in the direction of the forest along the river. There is a trail there, hidden, that runs parallel with the river. It leads to a hut.”
“How long ago?”
“Maybe a minute.”
“Go back home. I will meet you there.”
“Here, take this,” she says, passing him the light.
He enters the wood toward the river. Once he is clear of the trees, there is no sign that anyone has been there. At the edge of the thinning wood are denser trees to his right, and he searches with the lamp until he finds the entrance to the track that Rosalind has described. It could easily be missed with the trees and shrubs forming a guard.
He holds the lamp high to inspect his surrounds. The ground at the entrance of the pathway has been freshly trampled, and he stops a moment to listen for sounds ahead, but the wood gives nothing away. He continues until the track opens up to a small clearing with the hut that Rosalind described. To the left of the hut is a short jetty extending from the embankment above the river. The hut resembles a miniature of many gabled homes. He peers through one of the small grime-stained windows to see that someone is inside.
The door protests with a squeak, and he pulls its rusting metal handle toward him. He has to bend over to enter, the ceiling low. Georg sits in one corner, staring at something through the window that overlooks the dark river, and beside him is a used syringe, which Stefano suspects was stolen from Rosalind’s bag.
The scar on the side of Georg’s head is inflamed where it has been scratched at viciously. He is curled into a corner, like a guilty child fearfully awaiting his punishment, and clutching something that was white once, a padded piece of fabric. On closer examination Stefano sees it is a patchwork cloth smeared with mud. There are stains on the twelve rectangles of pastel shades and textures, and pictures of owls and other animals stitched within the patches, but halfway down the fabric, the patches are blank and unfinished.
“You must know that I am not here to harm you in any way.”
Georg shifts his focus warily onto Stefano.
“Are you all right?” Stefano asks. “Do you want me to take you back to the house?”
“Monique made it,” he says, and Stefano is startled by the clarity in his voice, and the lucidity of his gaze.
“Do you want to bring it with you?”
“You must go,” says Georg. “Do not come back here.”
“Why not?”
He doesn’t answer, and Stefano holds the lamp closer to better see his face.
“Are you alone here, Georg?”
Georg shakes his head, and Stefano hears a faint rustling behind the cabin. Georg is aware of things, alert from the drug.
Stefano opens the door again, which does not allow him to leave silently. Hearing whispers, he steps around the corner toward the back. At the sight of Stefano, the man and the girl rush out from their hiding spot and begin to run farther into the wood where the track is thinner, overgrown, and difficult to navigate in the dark.
Stefano follows with the lamp, leafy branches flicking back against him, launched from the pair in front. The man appears impeded, hobbling and barely able to make it into a run. The girl in front of him is calling him to move faster, her voice afraid.
Fearing he is about to be seized, the man turns to face Stefano, holding a knife at arm’s length out in front of him. His other hand holds the goose by its broken neck. The girl walks back to be near her grandfather.
“No!” she says to him, her hand on his outstretched arm.