Page 47

He knows I’m here – word’s spread.

Hauke had always referred to the notary as a punctual man who liked to get a good start on the day, but – although it was almost nine o’ clock – there was no sign of him when Noemi arrived at his office.

And when he finally did appear, he wasn’t as dapper as she remembered.

He was panting, he had a reddened patch of stubble on his chin.

He looked as if he’d been hurried into his suit faster than he’d planned, which suggested she wasn’t his first meeting.

‘Fr?ulein Drachmann, so it’s true and you’re home. Do come in.’

He didn’t waste time feigning surprise, and he didn’t insult her by pretending to be pleased to see her.

They both knew how much he’d profited from the forced transfer of the Drachmann properties.

He was brisk and business-like instead as he ushered her inside and offered her a chair.

He selected a folder from one of the filing cabinets lining the walls as quickly as if her return was a possibility he’d planned for.

Because – as he was careful to point out as he sat down on the other side of his gleaming mahogany desk and polished his spectacles – he had.

‘I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news, but it is highly doubtful that your parents survived.’ He extracted a number of sheets of paper from the folder and placed them where Noemi could see their closely typed rows. His tone didn’t alter despite the bleak news.

‘These are copies of the deportation lists which the Red Cross have been collating since the end of the war. This one is from Dachau to Auschwitz in November 1943, and includes your father’s name.

The other is from the women’s camp at Ravensbrück, also to Auschwitz in October 1942, and includes your mother’s.

They are both noted on these other papers as arriving at the camp, but as to what came next…

’ He spread his hands as if to distance himself from their fate.

‘Unfortunately, a great deal of the later records were destroyed either before or after that particular site was liberated, so I don’t have definitive proof of what happened.

But at that time they went in, and given their ages, it’s highly unlikely they survived there for long. ’

Noemi knew. She’d always known. But she’d managed to keep them alive until the words were said.

She wanted to close her eyes; she wanted to curl up and weep.

But the darkness that lay that way was too deep, and it was safer to fuel her anger than to give way to grief.

She swallowed hard and told him to put the lists away.

‘Why do you have them?’ She ignored Herr Niehbur’s frown. ‘Why do you have copies of my parents’ deportation records? I don’t imagine you really hoped I’d come back, so why would their fate matter to you?’

She should have known that answer too.

Niehbur carried on frowning at her as if she was a troublesome child asking questions she had no business to ask. She imagined that was exactly how he saw her.

‘Your return was always a possibility, if perhaps a slight one. Herr Lindiger asked me to obtain these when such details started to become available, which was the right and proper thing to do. He is the mayor. It is his duty to ensure that everything in Unterwald runs smoothly.’

So Viktor had remained as mayor, despite his unswerving loyalty to Hitler’s regime and the Americans’ promises. Noemi could see Niehbur waiting for her to rail against the unfairness of that or give up whatever quest she was on. She wasn’t about to do either.

‘ Runs smoothly is an interesting choice of words – it rather masks the facts, doesn’t it? I assume what you actually mean is that he wanted to ensure the town’s stolen property stayed with the thieves, in case any of us had the bad manners to survive and come back to claim it.’

She shook her head as Niehbur reared up to mount a defence, with his mouth full of, ‘That’s a preposterous choice of words.’

‘Please don’t waste your time or your breath – that cheapens us both.

I assume you have a barrage of legal arguments ready to prove that my parents’ home and their business dealings were lawfully acquired.

Except, of course, they weren’t. Everyone here knows that.

And once I go to Munich and explain to the Americans exactly what happened – which I doubt anyone has done because why would they care – I think they’ll take my part, don’t you? ’

She stood up and wasn’t at all surprised when the notary immediately reached for the telephone.

‘Go on – call Viktor. I presume he already knows I’m here, that whoever ran to warn you ran to warn him too. Good. The sooner he learns that it’s the Jews holding the power now, not the Nazis, the better.’

She slammed out of the office and stamped down the stairs, hoping Niehbur would report the noise she made – and what that inferred about her willingness to fight – to Viktor along with her parting message.

That he would describe her as fearless and not to be easily cowed.

But when she reached the bottom of the dark stairwell where nobody could see or hear her?

She stopped feeling as if she had any power at all.

She sank onto the bottom step and hid her face in her hands.

They were gone. Her beautiful, loving, so alive parents had been swallowed up inside one of Hitler’s death factories.

They’d been dead the whole time she’d been imagining them taking up their old lives.

The thought of what they must have suffered, coupled with the pain of their separation before their last journeys, was unbearable.

The horror of it clawed at her insides; it paralysed her.

She lost track of how long she sat in the darkness.

When she finally pulled herself back onto her feet, she was a shell.

She needed to hide from the world and lick her wounds. But the day wasn’t finished with her.

‘So it’s true then. You’re alive.’

Viktor was waiting for her outside the notary’s front door. It was clear from his twisted lip and square stance that he wasn’t about to offer her a welcome or tiptoe around the reasons for her return.

‘Why are you here, Noemi? What do you want? And don’t say the property or the businesses. They went legally out of your family’s hands years ago.’

They can look at you and see a bully and a fool because that’s what you are.

Hauke’s words from the town meeting which had sown the seeds of the Drachmanns’ destruction were suddenly in her head, as clear as Frieda’s had been in the bakery.

Relief ran through her. Her parents weren’t gone.

They were with her; they always would be.

And the life they’d built together was worth fighting for and honouring.

Noemi glared back at Viktor’s drink-coarsened face and held tight to that.

‘ Legally? Don’t take me for a fool. There was nothing legal about it.

You can repeat a lie as often as you like, but that doesn’t make it the truth.

I don’t know how things work now the war is over, or why you’re still in charge.

I do know that’s not going to last. Whatever shield you’ve wrapped round yourself won’t work against me.

Once I tell the Americans the secrets you’ve been hiding, you’ll be finished.

You’ll be staring at a noose. And everything you stole will be mine again. ’

She watched his face darken; she watched him wish her dead. But he didn’t have a weapon he could use against her. Or so Noemi thought until he began talking.

‘Okay. If that’s how you want to play it, let’s see exactly how little you know about our lives.

You’re not the only returner; Pascal is back here too.

Did you know that? And did you know he was quite the hero in the war?

Perhaps you’ve already seen the photograph of him planting a flag for the Führer on the top of Mount Elbrus – I’m sure Niehbur has a copy in his office.

No?’ Viktor shrugged. ‘Perhaps he did what I did and put it away for safe-keeping when the Americans arrived. I can get mine out for you though, if you’d like to take a look? It’s not as if they’ll be coming back.’

He’d turned the conversation too fast for her to grasp everything he was saying.

She didn’t want to hear Pascal’s name paired with the word hero .

She didn’t know how to react to the news that he was in the town too.

But she had to leave that alone for the moment.

The rest of what Viktor was smiling about was more worrying.

‘What do you mean, the Americans won’t be coming back?’

Viktor settled his weight more comfortably before he answered.

‘I’ve already heard your threats from Niehbur – they didn’t need repeating.

But you’re a little late. The Americans have already been here.

They raced through the town in the first days after we were forced to surrender, looking for stray soldiers to arrest. They didn’t find any of course.

Nobody was in a uniform by then; no one was flying a swastika.

I made sure of that. Nobody stepped out of line and told tales, even if Pascal…

’ He stopped boasting, as if he’d suddenly remembered who he was speaking to.

‘Anyway, they were very glad to see how well run everything was and that nobody was starving. That there were no “war criminals” they needed to deal with, as if we were about to hand dozens of our own people over. And they were more than happy to leave matters in my capable hands, given how many disasters they were already trying to manage.’ His smile widened as he relived the memory.

‘There’s nothing you can do, so stop being a silly girl.

Stop trying to threaten me. You of all people should know how dangerous I am when I’m crossed. ’

He was leaning in so close, Noemi could smell the schnapps that tainted his breath, even though the morning had barely begun. She had to force herself not to take a step away from him.

‘It was you, wasn’t it? Who arranged the round-up and sent my parents to their deaths? Who would have sent me to mine if you’d caught me?’

His smile slid into a leer. Noemi had to twist her hands behind her back to stop herself from clawing his eyes out. One move like that and he’d surely arrest her and put her beyond help.

‘Of course it was. It was my duty after all, as well as my pleasure. Even if I hadn’t already been sick of the sight of my son mooning after you, threatening to defile my family because of a childish crush on a worthless little Jew, your father had it coming.

He never knew when to shut up. And I would have caught you too if my fool of a wife hadn’t interfered. ’

Noemi’s stomach rose at the realisation that he’d discovered Carina’s involvement in her escape, but she swallowed it down as the earlier part of his speech came back to her. Something about that had been niggling at her – now it reared up and demanded her attention first.

‘What did you mean before by even if Pascal ? Did he try to do something when the Allies came?’

His laugh would have roused the whole of the street if anyone had dared to venture outside.

‘Isn’t it sweet that that’s the bit you chose to hear.

Why does it matter? What are you trying to do?

Recast him and find yourself a happy ending?

Didn’t you hear what I said? He was a war hero.

Oh, and I forgot the best bit.’ Viktor paused long enough for Noemi to understand that nothing he was about to say fitted with best .

‘After he was wounded – in the shoulder, nasty but not life-threatening – he was transferred to the SS and redeployed as a camp guard in Dachau. Isn’t that a turn-up for the books?

He’s probably got some excellent stories from there that’ll flesh out your father’s last days.

Shall I arrange a little tête-à-tête for you both?

A candlelit dinner perhaps? Or another romantic night away in a hut on the mountain? ’

This time Noemi couldn’t hold herself or her churning stomach back.

She was violently sick all over Viktor’s highly polished shoes.

The curses he rained down on her were filthy and frightening, full of the hatred that was as much a part of him as his precious pure blood.

Noemi hardly heard them. All she could hear was Pascal’s name next to Dachau, which was a far worse place for it to be than hero.

All she could think as she stumbled away was, Why in God’s name did I ever come back?