Page 27

She hadn’t said beautiful when they’d stood together on the veranda that day, but there’d been no other word in his head.

Pascal at sixteen hadn’t been a novice around girls – he attracted them like a magnet, and he’d had his share of exploratory fumbles in the dark.

And Noemi had always been Noemi, his right arm, his extra limb, his best friend; he hadn’t looked at her in that way.

But that had begun to change in the stolen summer they’d spent together before the Innsbruck climb.

Carina had noticed it first, which was why she’d given him the locket that he was too awkward to give to Noemi face to face.

His mother had known before he did what his heart wanted.

But he’d known it that night. He’d looked at her framed by the moon and with snowflakes scattering her hair, and he’d never wanted to kiss anyone more.

When she’d stepped away from his tentative approach, he’d been afraid she had no interest in him beyond friendship, although he’d finally written his stilted message in the belated birthday card when they’d gone back to their rooms, in the hope of trying again.

So nothing had prepared him for the next morning’s mountaintop – or for a kiss which had turned all the others to dust. Her lips had tingled with the snow and the ice that surrounded them, but they’d been as warm as a soft blanket when they’d touched his.

She’d run through his body like fire. All he’d been thinking about as they made their way off the summit was when he could kiss her again.

When he had, he’d known the meaning of magic.

And that vanished in, ‘What are these?’

He’d watched her take him apart and rebuild him in a version he didn’t want to face and she’d never want to fall in love with.

He could still feel the pain of that if he let himself, the heat of it bursting like blisters over his skin.

But the choice she’d offered him wasn’t a choice.

He hadn’t wanted to leave Germany or the army.

He’d wanted it all: the medals and the glory, and Noemi.

That would never change, whatever the law said.

Just because she didn’t believe it was possible didn’t make it true.

And it had to be true because a world without her in it was…

Empty and cold, and unthinkable. And most likely my future now she’s gone.

‘What’s up with you? If you’ve gone off the idea of climbing, there’s a dozen men down the line desperate to step into your boots.’

Pascal hadn’t realised anyone had seen him sink into the chair and drift off into his memories, or gasp at the shock of them, and he answered without thinking.

‘No, it’s not the climb. There was a girl, before the war, and we once had a place like this to ourselves. I messed everything up that night, but she’s impossible to forget.’

The whooping that greeted this admission, and the speed with which it travelled round the base, turned The Monk instantly back into one of the men.

It didn’t matter how much the ascent team wanted to conquer Elbrus, or believed they had a right to her, the mountain was no easy prize.

A blinding snowstorm followed by freezing fog ended the first attempt at the summit and forced the men back over the glacier which coated the base of the ridge.

Arguments raged all night when they returned.

Some of the other division commanders didn’t want to risk their men’s lives on what they now viewed as a dangerous propaganda exercise.

But Captain Groth – the man in overall charge of the mission – beat their views down, much to Pascal and his fellow climbers’ delight.

And he had the team back on the mountainside at first light, and in equally bad weather, before anyone more senior could stop him.

Every step they took to the top was a fight.

Pascal expected more than one of them to be his last. The wind blew him onto his knees over and over again and battled to hold him there.

The fog wrapped them in shrouds, dropping visibility to a hand’s span.

By the time the ground began to level off and reaching the summit became a possibility not a suicide attempt, most of the men were flat on their stomachs and almost too exhausted to crawl.

But Pascal couldn’t stop, and he couldn’t give up.

What they were doing was a struggle, but it was a million miles away from the horrors of a battlefield.

And it held all the purity he’d been looking for in the cause he longed to believe held a better world at its heart.

‘Get up, all of you. We’ve done it. We’re here.’

Pascal could hardly catch a breath, the air was so thin.

He could hardly make his voice heard in the wind.

But the men could see him waving and pointing at the summit he was only minutes away from, and Groth was soon staggering around them too, clapping their exhausted shoulders, cheering them onto their feet.

Pascal’s hands moved like shovels as he unpacked the swastika-crested flag from its bindings.

His fingers struggled to bend as the team worked together to secure that and the division’s regimental pennant into the packed ice and powdery snow.

But they did it. And no one cared that the flags lasted for less than a moment before the wind shredded them into streamers or that the camera whirled away and was smashed before anyone could take a picture.

They’d done it. They’d fixed Hitler’s emblem on Europe’s highest point.

Besides, Pascal didn’t need a photograph.

He’d moved outside his body. He could see himself standing there on the topmost point of the ridge, the flag he loved waving above him, his men flanked beside him like the true giants they were.

‘We are heroes, exactly as the Führer promised us we’d be.’

Nobody could hear him; he didn’t care about that either. He’d heard the words; he felt the pride. He’d heard the echo of another mountaintop when he spoke and felt Noemi’s lips pressed against his in the same moment.

She’s with me; I can feel her. And whatever else has gone wrong between us, she’s a climber – she would understand what this means.

He was as lost to the men as they were to him as the snow continued to swirl, but – for the first time since he’d led her to a deserted train station and watched her disappear – he could feel Noemi properly beside him.

He closed his eyes. He conjured her face up.

And there on a mountaintop in the middle of nowhere, he forgot about medals and glory and flags, and he finally understood where his whole heart lay.

This is nothing without her. There has to be a way back; there has to be a way to have it all, like I promised her.

He was a true hero now. He could change things. If there really was a darkness at the Party’s heart – in its leaders or in its followers – he could help root it out.

‘What are you laughing at? You look like a madman.’

Groth was at the flagpole with him, pulling at Pascal’s hand before he froze to the spot.

He didn’t wait for an answer. There was a rumbling like thunder coming along the ridge and no time to waste before what sounded like a storm hit them.

Pascal stumbled after him; he barely registered the descent.

But he drank along with the men that night and he carried on laughing, and he’d never felt more alive in his life.