The wide, tree-lined avenue where Silke’s family lived was in quite a prosperous part of Salzkotten, because Silke’s parents were quite prosperous.
‘My father buys and sells and loans everything and anything – including money – and he always makes a profit,’ Silke once said, and Giselle had never been able to decide if Silke meant this admiringly or even affectionately, or if she was being disparaging.
As Giselle got down from the tram, and set off along the street, she was already imagining the turmoil that would greet her. Family would be calling at the house, rabbis would be discussing last-minute details … Caterers and florists and dressmakers would be delivering satin-striped boxes. And Silke would be at the centre, loving the fuss and the attention.
The gates were partly open, but the big double doors at the house’s centre were closed. No cars or vans were visible, but across one smooth lawn were tyre tracks – tracks that had gouged such deep ruts in the grass that only a very heavy vehicle could have made them. Giselle felt a stab of unease at this, because the lawns were mowed and practically manicured all year round.
She began to walk slowly towards the house, but the nearer she got, the more her unease deepened. There was something very wrong. It was not just that evidence of a large vehicle – several vehicles? – having been driven across the grass; there was something sinister. She took several deep breaths, forcing herself to calm down. Nothing would be wrong. At any minute Silke or her mother would come running out of the house, laughing, telling some story about a disaster, holding out hands of welcome.
As she approached the house, she kept to the narrow grass edges, so as not to make crunching footsteps on the gravel paths that might be heard. This was absurd, and in another minute her mind would start working again, and she would know what seemed to be so dreadfully wrong.
And then she did know. Across the front door, drawn in thick yellow paint, was a symbol that had been part of Giselle’s life for as long as she could remember. A symbol that was in synagogues and houses – a symbol that came down from medieval Arabic literature, from the days when it had been used in talismans and protective amulets, and that once had been known as a Seal of Solomon … A familiar and ancient outline that illuminated the marvellous sacred manuscripts of the Jewish faith.
But it was also a symbol that the Nazis had seized on with brutal greed, and that they painted with vicious hatred on the doors of Jewish families and Jewish businesses after they had dragged them away to the labour camps. Then, the mark was as damning as the red cross on a plague house or the brand on a murderer’s forehead, and the sight of it was as chilling and as frightening as the chime of a leper’s bell in the night.
The Star of David.
The Schutzstaffel had broken into the house.
Fear and horror engulfed Giselle in a sick, smothering wave; then she began to run across the last few yards towards the house, dropping her suitcase, not noticing she had done so. A voice close to her was repeating, ‘Please let them be all right – please let them all be safe,’ and she realized with a shock that it was her own voice.
But even from here, she could see that beneath the crudely painted hexagram were the words, Die Juden sind unser Unglück! ‘The Jews Are Our Misfortune!’
It might still be all right. They might still be in there – Silke with her mischievous grin and her warm charm might be perfectly safe. Silke’s mother, who was a plumper, softer version of Silke, would surely be unscathed. As for Uncle Avram – it was impossible to think of him being cowed by anyone, even the Schutzstaffel.
Giselle stumbled breathlessly across the last couple of yards, and half fell through the unlocked door. The familiar scents of the house came at her instantly; polish and potpourri, with beneath it a faint drift of food, because Aunt Friede would have been overseeing the preparations of all the traditional dishes. Silke had written that the menu was going to be so lavish, she would probably put on at least five kilos and people would start nicknaming her Dumpling or Pudding Face.
The square hall with the black-and-white chequered floor was silent, but a small table had been overturned, and a vase of flowers lay in fragments, amidst spilled water. Through the open dining-room door a caterer’s trestle table was partly laid with white damask and gleaming silver for the wedding breakfast.
Giselle opened the doors into all the other rooms, doing so tentatively, not knowing what she might find. But they were all empty, although there were traces of disturbance everywhere: overturned chairs, mirrors smashed, rugs ruckled.
In Uncle Avram’s study there was a stench of burning, and the fireplace was crammed with a tumble of books, charred and burned beyond recognition. Giselle stared at this with anger and pain, then went back to the hall. If she walked out of the house now, she could retrieve her suitcase, and get a tram to the railway station. She could be back with Felix and the children by this evening.
But first she must find out what had happened to Silke and to her aunt and uncle. She climbed slowly up the wide sweep of stairs. Silke’s bedroom was ahead, and Giselle went inside fearfully. The room was undisturbed, and she sat on the edge of the bed, trying to think what to do. Who did you go to if you wanted to find out whether your cousin had been taken away to a labour camp? Could she get a telephone call through to Felix? No, she could not do that, because he would be worried to death to think of her in this situation. Had Silke been worried about Giselle arriving and finding this desolate emptiness?
With this thought, something brushed the surface of her mind. She and Silke had always been close, closer than some sisters, even. They had shared all their secrets – not even Felix knew of some of those secrets. ‘Better not,’ Silke had said.
And now, Giselle had a picture of Silke coming up here to get away from the flurry of the wedding preparations. Lying on the bed with a book for an hour, perhaps? Whatever she had been doing, she would have heard the jeeps roar across the drive, and looked through the window to see what was happening.
There would have been no time for her to run away, and in any case she would not have abandoned her parents. But she had known Giselle would shortly arrive – was it possible she had had time to leave a clue? Giselle had a sudden strong sense of Silke wanting to let her know what had happened and where they were being taken. But what kind of clue could she have left in those last frantic moments? She stared round the room. There was a big wardrobe against the wall with Silke’s clothes inside, all on hangers. Nothing in there. The dressing table had only its usual slight untidiness – boxes of face powder, scent bottles, hairbrushes. The drawers contained a froth of under-things and silk stockings.
But on the bedside table was a small reading lamp, a little clock, and the book Silke had been reading with the bookmark still in it …
Giselle snatched the book up, and opened it at the marked place. The bookmark was an embroidered one, silk tasselled, and scribbled across the top was a single word.
Sachsenhausen.
Sachsenhausen. Something hard and cold closed around Giselle’s throat. Sachsenhausen was the labour camp that lay almost in the shadow of Wewelsburg Castle. It was the place about which it was whispered that torture was practised, and where brutal executions of political prisoners took place. But before she could think any more, downstairs in the main hall a door opened, and footsteps crossed the hall. As she thrust the bookmark with its telltale writing back on the table, the footsteps came up the stairs. They were sharp steps, like steel claws on the ground, and Giselle shrank back on the bed, staring with panic at the door.
Dust motes whirled in and out of the light spilling into the room from the big landing, and then a tall, black-clad figure stood in the doorway looking at her. One hand rested on the door handle, and even through the sick panic, Giselle saw the dull glint of the death’s head ring.
The voice she remembered from the train said, ‘I’ve been waiting for you.’
It was infuriating to be so powerless and so feeble that he could twist her hands behind her back, and tie them together with cold efficiency. His fingers felt as if the bones were steel.
Giselle swore and kicked out, feeling a savage satisfaction when he winced. But already there were sounds of other SS men downstairs, and she wanted to weep with frustration and fear. She did not, though. She clung to the anger because she would not let these men see how terrified she was.
There was a blurred time after that; she hoped, much later, that she had not actually fainted, which would have been spineless of her. Through the blur she was dimly aware of being half carried, half dragged outside, and of two jeeps roaring up to the house. Where had they come from? Had they been parked somewhere out of sight, waiting until this last captive could be taken? And why had they come back for Giselle – for one lone female who surely could not pose any kind of threat to the Third Reich?
The man from the train sat next to her in the jeep. He did not look at her, but after they had travelled several kilometres, Giselle said, ‘Why have I been taken prisoner?’
It was a stupid question. The SS did not need reasons for anything, even for imprisoning people.
But the man surprised her. He turned to meet her eyes, studying her as if he might find her of some slight interest. With an unexpected note of politeness, he said, ‘I am SS-Obersturmbannführer Reinhardt. Your cousin and her family were taken by the Schutzstaffel because they infringed laws passed in Nuremberg in 1935.’
‘You always quote Nuremberg as your excuse,’ said Giselle, angrily. ‘The truth is that you incarcerate Jewish men and women in labour camps because Herr Hitler is frightened of them. I heard he’s even becoming frightened of people who are half- or only a quarter-Jewish.’
She could hardly believe she had said this, but furious defiance was driving her. She would not have been surprised if the man struck her, but he only said, ‘The Führer is striving for a pure race. But in this case, the man who I think is your uncle has involved himself in forbidden financial dealings and been part of secret negotiations that could damage the Third Reich.’
Giselle thought: but you don’t know that there’s another secret within that family – a secret that has nothing to do with shady financial deals. If you knew that secret, you’d already be taking them to the death trenches to be shot.
She looked out of the window, and said, ‘I haven’t arranged secret loans or anything. I haven’t a clue about money or banking. Except for never having any money.’
Reinhardt – Giselle refused to think of him by his rank – said, ‘You’ve been taken for a very different reason.’
Cold fear clenched Giselle’s stomach. He doesn’t know about Silke – about what she did – but perhaps he suspects. Perhaps that’s why he’s taken me – so he can torture me to find out.
But Reinhardt said, ‘We have watched you – and your own family in Lindschoen – for some while.’
This did not sound as if it had anything to do with Silke, but it brought a different fear. Giselle was aware of sick repulsion at the thought that she and Felix could have been watched – that Christa and Stefan might have been followed to and from their small innocent activities.
‘Today we followed you from your husband’s music shop, and we boarded your train at a later station,’ he said. ‘During the journey I checked your identity papers to make sure we had the right person. You know that, though.’ His eyes swept over her. ‘And now here you are, Giselle,’ he said, softly.
The situation was starting to feel as if it had been spun from nightmares, but there was an unreal element to it, because when Reinhardt said her name, Giselle felt a bolt of sexual interest from him. For several seconds she could not look away, but when finally she did so, her thoughts were in chaos. He’s finding me attractive, she thought. He’s even wondering if he might take me to bed. Am I imagining that? But she did not think she was. It might be purely because she was his prisoner – that he had power over her. But with the conviction that a spark had been lit, she knew that if Reinhardt were to beckon, and if it might mean escaping, she would acquiesce without hesitation. I wouldn’t care who or what he is, thought Giselle; I’d get into bed with Hitler and the entire Third Reich if it meant I could get back to Felix and the children.
But he turned away from her, watching the passing scenery through the jeep’s window, clearly regarding the discussion as at an end.
Keep that spark alive, thought Giselle. Don’t let go of it. Keep him talking; move your leg slightly along the seat so that your thigh touches his. Good. He’s reacted, I know he has. Forgive me, Felix.
In a gentler voice, she said, ‘Would you at least tell me where I’m being taken?’ It would almost certainly be Sachsenhausen. The place with the death trenches and the experiments. The humpbacked surgeons and the scissor man … Stefan, you odd, precious little scrap, where did you get those images? Because I have a terrible fear that I’m being taken to the black core of them.
Reinhardt said, ‘You are being taken to Wewelsburg Castle.’
As he spoke, the driver engaged a lower gear, and the jeep began a steady ascent. Above them, grey and grim, exactly as Giselle had described it in her letter to Felix, (the letter that would never, now, be sent), the dark outline of Wewelsburg Castle came into view.