Adele sat in her father’s study, her hands bandaged in her lap.
The room was quiet. And eerily dark. Much darker than she’d have anticipated, even given the situation she now faced.
She glanced over at the immense marble and carved-wood fireplace on the wall. The dancing flames against the opulence of the room had once seemed so warm, so inviting when she curled up on the settee to read books as a young girl. But now? She imagined the fireplace with an intricate web of carved gargoyle-like creatures, all with menacing superiority as they mocked her, and a blazing fire that licked up to consume the entire wall. Suddenly, she felt evil all around her. It was as if the loving home she’d always known had morphed into something that threatened her with imminent danger.
The door creaked open. She heard heavy, clipped footsteps and the door slammed. She jumped at the sound.
The hard-nosed Fredrich Von Bron walked by her and slammed his uniform hat and gloves on the desk. He addressed her without looking up from the desktop.
“I am going to ask you this once, Adele, and you will answer me.”
Adele sat there, terrified out of her mind.
From the moment her hands had begun to bleed down her dress, the spotlight of guilt was cast in her direction. She hadn’t known it before the concert, but the German authorities had learned that someone—whoever had been helping the Haurbechs—had fallen in their haste to run away from the docks. The blood evidence on the broken glass at the scene told them they’d be looking for someone with injuries similar to hers. But they’d been just as shocked as everyone else in the concert hall. No one would have thought to turn their attention to the general’s daughter as the guilty party.
Of course, they didn’t want a scene onstage, before all of Austria.
Adele had been whisked away to a dressing room where she was ordered to change into a simple navy frock that had been retrieved from the room’s closet. With blood darkening her front, the lovely satin gown was no longer wearable; it was tossed in the nearest trash bin. She’d stood in the dimly lit room, hands shaking as she stripped out of the soiled gown and pulled the day dress over her head. She was surprised that the pain wasn’t worse. No, her hands shook with fear now. Adele knew it, could feel it quickening her pulse and sending her fingers to fumble with the buttons that lined the front of the garment.
She recalled breathing out nervously as she affixed the last button at her collar.
Oh God . . . what have I done?
Getting dressed was all she could do other than wait.
Guards had been posted at the door, so there was no chance of fleeing that way. She checked both of the windows in the dressing room and was once again denied any chance for escape—they were tightly latched.
All she could do was sit. And pace. And wonder what would become of her. Would the Germans come and take her away? Oh heavens, would they come with guns drawn like she’d seen the night before?
Adele had paced the room, wondering what they would do with her, feeling like a trapped animal that awaited the return of the hunter.
It was a surprise then that her father came to fetch her at all, which he did more than an hour later. He’d not said a word, just walked stone-faced as he led her through the back hallways of the concert hall and tugged her into their waiting car. They drove through the snow that had once seemed so sweet in the garden with Vladimir; it had turned to a miserable ice-tinged rain that pelted the car windows on all sides. Then she arrived back to her prison of a home, was tossed into her father’s study, and had seen no one but their family physician in the hours after. The doctor had attended to her wounds but said nothing. He held on to an awkward silence, no doubt because he was ordered to do so, and then left the room.
All of this she recalled as her father was now there, cold as ever, demanding she answer whatever it was he would say.
“What is the nature of your association with Vladimir Nicolai?”
Adele swallowed hard.
Her father hadn’t asked about whether she was out on the streets with a Jewish family the night before. He didn’t demand to know whether she’d stopped at the house of the doctor they both knew. He didn’t even seem to hold any concern for what had happened to injure her hands. No—it all went back to Vladimir, and that was a dangerous thing. If she admitted having involvement that was any deeper than the platonic association with the orchestra’s events, then she’d be admitting to everything. And if she admitted everything, it would implicate the man she loved.
It felt now like her own father was attempting to bait her.
Adele answered carefully, “He is an acquaintance from the orchestra.”
Fredrich shook his head. “Do not lie to me.”
The words were clipped, and flat, and without the least bit of warmth.
So he did know. She guessed he knew everything. What good then would it do to paint pictures of the truth? He was her father, after all. He’d not allow any harm to come to them. Perhaps she could appeal to that side of him.
“Whatever they’ve told you—there is an explanation.”
“I come back from fighting a war only to have been told an outlandish story about my only daughter. That she sustained injuries while committing a crime that carries a harsh punishment. Knowing it cannot be true, I now seek to hear your denial of it.”
“What story, Father?”
His intake of breath was sharp, his stance rigid as a fireplace poker. He stared back at her, the bushy mustache strangely unmoving when he spoke.
“Where were you last night?”
Adele’s heartbeat began to thump in her chest, for she’d begun to doubt. She’d half quipped to Dieter the night before that if her father knew what she’d done, he’d have turned her in himself. Now she was fearful of that extreme becoming truth.
She opened her mouth to speak, but was silenced by guttural screams that rang out from somewhere out in the hall.
Adele turned her eyes toward the closed door, though she could see nothing through it. The high-pitched wails, however, were frightening. The sounds were coming from a woman—her mother? She was screaming uncontrollably, “This cannot be happening!” And was she hitting someone? It sounded as if someone was attempting to restrain a wild animal, not a refined concert pianist who was well respected in the social circles of Vienna’s elite.
Her father did not flinch through the entire tirade. He stood quite still as fists pounded upon the door and something shattered—the porcelain vase on the table in the hall, perhaps? Before long, the animalistic wailing descended the stairs and became but a faint memory on the first floor.
God . . . , Adele’s heart cried out to Him. What is going on?
Her father must have seen the display of emotion cross her face because he addressed it.
“Yes. That was because of you.”
“But what—” Adele couldn’t say it. What did this mean? What were they going to do to her?
Her father stared back at her with empty eyes. There was no depth of feeling there, nothing of the man who had tucked her into bed as a child. No, he was the general now. This was the man others had—and whom she now—feared.
Nothing but coldness predicated his next words.
“Bring him in.”
Adele turned toward the door, and in a split second, her world crumbled.
She jumped to her feet as Vladimir was dragged in, barely able to stand for the beating he must have taken. His hands were shackled in front of him, his lip bleeding onto his white tuxedo collar and the bow tie dangling from his neck. One eye was swollen but still open, looking back at her with as much emotion as she’d ever seen.
They couldn’t touch, didn’t dare try to talk . . . There he was, her love, broken and bruised, and all she could do was accept the crushing apology displayed on his face.
“Tell me your association with this man.”
“What?”
Vladimir shook his head, telling her without words that she had best keep quiet. The guards who held him stood still, like iron statues at his sides. One shoved him and barked a command when they saw him attempt to communicate with her. Vladimir quieted but kept a steely resolve on his face.
“All I need is confirmation of what I already know to be truth, Adele.” Her attention was brought back to her father.
“I don’t understand what you’re asking.”
“Answer me! Were you with this young man at the docks last night?”
Adele looked from her father to Vladimir and back again. The instinct to flee was overpowering. Couldn’t they try to get to his contacts in Switzerland? Could they run and hide somehow? Perhaps Dieter could hide them. Surely this was not the end?
When she could say nothing, when the only movement that could be felt was the quivering of her chin, the quiet shattered. Without an ounce of remorse, her father issued the order: “Kill him.”
“What?” she screamed, but the officers had already shoved him down to his knees, and one raised a pistol to the back of Vladimir’s head.
She had the instinct to scream, “No!”
Even then, Vladimir fought to shield her from the horror of what could happen were she to say anything further. “Look away, Adele!” he screamed, head held high with the gun barrel pressing up against it. “Don’t watch!”
“Shut up!” One of the guards smashed the butt of the pistol against the back of his skull. Vladimir fell to all fours, his cuffed wrists keeping his body from crumpling on the floor.
“Stop!” Tears stung her eyes. Could this be happening? Oh God, what can I do? “Please,” she sobbed aloud. “Father?”
Adele looked to him, hoping, begging even, that she would find some glimmer of compassion yet alive in his eyes. But she found none. Her father looked through her and nodded to the guard with the gun. With a split second to make a decision, she screamed out the words she’d always wished to say and threw herself on the ground in front of Vladimir.
“I love him!”
Adele’s words cut into the air, bringing a severe silence with them.
Her father looked like he had molten lava flowing under his skin, his red face giving way to a display of acute rage. His hands balled into fists at his sides as his chest rose and fell with each intense breath. The guards, equally astounded, looked back and forth between her father and her body on the floor, waiting for a sign of what to do next.
She looked to Vladimir alone and with shuddering emotion mouthed the words “I’m sorry,” for they both knew what she’d done.
Vladimir was attempting to be gallant. If she admitted nothing, then he could take the fall alone. He’d have kept their secret to the grave to protect her. It made her love him all the more—made the fading dream of a future together all the more gut-wrenching as they knelt on the ground, their hearts exposed as they faced each other.
Vladimir shook his head at her, ever so slightly, tears glazing his eyes.
“This is out of my hands now, Adele.” Her father stepped over to the French doors of the office and flung them open. She gasped to find the second-story landing of their grand home full of armed SS guards. Vladimir hung his head in defeat when several guards came in, one yanking her up from each side while another shackled her wrists in front of her. She was hauled up to standing as her father watched, emotionless.
“You already knew?” She directed the question at her father, with nothing left to lose.
Fredrich gave her a curt nod, though she thought—hoped—she saw a glimmer of sadness in the eyes that stared back at her.
“But how?”
Not one for illusions, he replied, “Dieter’s wife. The fool. She turned you both in, thinking it would remove suspicion from them. But you went to their home, put them all at risk. If they are executed, the blood is on your hands, Adele.”
“But the doctor? He is your friend . . . We’ve known him all of my life.”
“A friend who is a traitor to Austria.” He paused, but only for a split second. “As are you, Adele. Austria will forget you after tonight.” His voice was layered with emotion, his resolve cold as ice. “I hope you understand the fate you have chosen.” And with that, he walked out of the study, leaving them behind with the terrifying group of SS officers.
And it began.
Vladimir was hauled up and they were forced out into the hall, then down the stairs. A wool coat was wrapped over her shoulders, though she wasn’t even given time to force her arms into its sleeves.
“Where are they taking us?” she tried to ask Vladimir, then turned to the guards standing around. No one could or would answer. She was given no opportunity to retrieve anything from her room—not her grandmother’s earrings that she’d taken off after the concert, not her Bible or the journal she’d always kept. She’d be allowed nothing and instead was ushered to the marble entry of the grand home where the etched glass front doors had been opened, the depth of the black night before her.
“Give her this.” Adele turned at the sound of her mother’s voice.
She could scarcely breathe for the terror building in her heart.
What would they do to her? Was this the last time she’d step through the threshold of her childhood home? Would she never hear her mother’s voice again? However much she needed a glimmer of compassion from one of her parents, the violin case was all that was forthcoming. It was shoved into her hands by one of the guards as her mother turned her back, tears glistening on her cheeks, and walked away into the conservatory.
It was her practice violin and not as grand as the one owned by the orchestra, but it was a companion of sorts nonetheless. She hugged it to her chest as they were ushered out the front door, the rain unyielding as tiny ice pellets stung her cheeks.
Adele turned once more to look at Vladimir. He turned too, perhaps his soul having connected with hers, and looked across the top of the car to where she stood. She didn’t know what she expected, for everything had turned out opposite of what she’d thought. Would he be angry because she didn’t save herself? Would he deny her a last look as her parents had?
Vladimir looked at her with the same eyes, those lovely eyes of her friend that were now full of heart-shattering emotion, and mouthed, “I love you too,” before his head was tucked under the roof of the vehicle and he was swallowed up by the night.
And her new world began.