Christa sometimes had nightmares about tall brick chimneys that jutted up into the sky. For most of the time, they were black and silent, but there were times when they glowed with a dreadful heat and belched out flames and bad-smelling smoke. When that happened, it meant something terrible had taken place. Sometimes she tried to see deeper into the dream, to see what the terrible thing might be, but she never could. After a while she stopped trying, because it might be better not to see. It was only a dream anyway – well, it was a nightmare, but it was not real.
Stefan had nightmares as well, but they were not about the chimneys; they came from a game he and his school friends sometimes played in the lunchtime break. You had to cross a piece of ground that was chalked out into squares and triangles, and if you accidentally stepped on a piece that was forbidden you were counted out of the game. Christa used to play it as well when she was at school.
But in Stefan’s nightmares, the forbidden ground of the game was a frightening and very sinister place, and it was called the death strip. If you ventured on to it, you were murdered. You were shot with huge, powerful guns that splattered your blood and bones everywhere. Or you were tied up by your wrists and all your bones were pulled out of their places.
Mother had been able to bring Stefan out of his bad dreams, and Christa tried to do the same. She ran into his bedroom and hugged him to her, and she thought it calmed him down, although she did not think she managed it as successfully as Mother had always done. Sometimes Father came in, but his bedroom was at the very top of the house, so he did not always hear Stefan’s sobs. Christa thought Father often took pills to help him sleep, as well.
But he would sit on the edge of Stefan’s bed and say that although bad dreams were horrid, they went away when you woke up. Nobody was going to hurt either of them, not ever. There were a lot of things going on in Germany at the moment, but they were all safe here in The Music House. Life would go quietly and peacefully on. But, even as he said it, something flickered in his eyes, and Christa knew that no one was really safe any longer. She found a lot of what was happening difficult to understand, but she tried to listen to what was said in the streets, and they had a wireless, which broadcast news reports. Father hardly ever listened to it, because he said it was too depressing.
Since Mother had left them, Father had seemed to step back from the world and everything it held. He had not shut himself away in the sense of going into a room and locking the door, but Christa knew he had shut the door of his mind against most of the world. She knew he did not want to be in a world that no longer had Mum in it, and she understood this, because she did not want to be in that world, either. The trouble was that it was the only world there was. She wanted to ask exactly what had happened, because Father had only ever said there had been an accident on the way to the wedding of Mother’s cousin, Silke, so Christa supposed it had been a train crash. But she never found the courage to ask, because she could not bear the pain in his eyes. Telling him she was having nightmares would only make that pain worse.
Their cousin, Velda, who lived on the other side of the square, told Christa her father was starting to come out of his shut-away state. He was not exactly recovering from losing Giselle – nobody could really ever recover from losing somebody like Giselle – but he was coming to terms with it. Just a very little. They must all help him back into the world, said Velda.
Velda’s idea of helping Father back into the world was to bake cakes and savoury stews and walk across the square to the music shop with them. No good ever came from starving yourself, she said. She was inclined to be disapproving of the fact that Father’s friends – the musicians and the teachers and the people who simply liked listening to music – still came to the shop on Friday evenings. It was not showing respect, said Velda. But Christa knew they all came because they wanted to help Father; they wanted to offer their companionship and their friendship, and anything else they could think of that might ease the loss.
Shortly after Christa’s sixteenth birthday, Father said she could stay up for some of these Friday evenings, which was very good indeed. It meant Christa was grown-up, and that she could be part of grown-up things. She looked forward to Fridays all week, partly because they were lively and interesting, but also because of one of the men who had appeared a few weeks earlier. He did not come to The Music House every week, but when he did, he usually sat quietly in the corner by the bookshelves, his face half in shadow. Christa did not know his name, and he did not speak very often, but if he did say anything, everyone listened. His voice was nice; it made Christa think of stroking a cat’s thick fur or putting on a soft silk scarf.
Sometimes she caught him looking back at her, and when that happened he always smiled, not with a stupid grin or with the kind of forced smile that grown-ups sometimes wore for people who were much younger, but as if he might really want to talk to her. Christa hoped she did not blush when this happened, but she had a worrying suspicion that she did.
On some nights, if there had been more wine than usual, the talk among the musicians would become very animated, with some of them saying be damned to Herr Hitler’s disapprovals and bans: they would play whatever music they liked at their concerts.
‘And didn’t you say you were going to include a Mendelssohn piece next time, Felix?’
‘You’re not, are you?’ said somebody, sounding worried.
‘Well, I say we show the Führer what we think of his bans,’ said someone else. ‘Silly little man with all that posturing and ranting.’
‘If we do the Mendelssohn we’d have to keep Eisler sober beforehand, of course.’
‘I drink to celebrate the joy of life and the joy of music,’ announced Eisler, grandly, positioning his chubby fingers on the keys again.
The unknown man leaned forward to pick up his wine glass, and smiled at Christa, as if he might be inviting her to share the affectionate amusement at Herr Eisler. Christa supposed she ought to ask somebody who he was, but she liked to keep him as the mysterious man of firelight shadows.
Then came an evening when several bottles of wine had been drunk, and Christa was curled up on the chimney seat, enjoying listening to a friendly argument that had sprung up about the interpretation of some nocturne or other. Herr Eisler was preparing to demonstrate the nocturne, providing somebody would find the music and refill his glass.
The stranger was sitting near the door, and firelight washed the walls, making the room warm and safe. The shutters were partly open, because Father liked seeing the lamplight on the old square outside. Soon, they might have to not only close all the shutters, but also cover the windows with black material because the Royal Air Force might send over planes to drop bombs on Germany, and no lights must show anywhere that might help them pick out targets. But tonight the lamps were lit and Lindschoen had its look of belonging to some distant age.
And then, without warning, came the sounds of footsteps marching across the cobblestones – sharp, rhythmic footsteps that rang out harshly on the ground. Marching. Christa’s heart bumped with fear, and she huddled back against the wall. Everyone was listening to Eisler and no one else seemed to have heard the marching steps. Or had the stranger heard them? It seemed to her that he turned his head towards the door.
Eisler played a final cascade of chords, then swept his hair back in a deliberately over-dramatic imitation of a famous soloist. There was a shout of appreciative laughter, but as it died away, they all heard the sound they had grown to dread over the last few years: a loud, imperative knocking on the street door. A leather-gloved fist hammering for admittance.
No one moved or spoke, but Christa’s father got up and said something about it being a latecomer, and he would open the door. But fear was pouring into the room, and Christa knew it was not one of Father’s friends at all.
It was the Schutzstaffel.
One of the men said, very softly, ‘Don’t open the door, Felix.’
‘Of course he’ll have to open it. It’s worse if you ignore them. If it’s the Schutzstaffel they might just break in anyway.’
‘And they’ve probably seen the lights.’
Christa wondered if she was the only one to believe the Schutzstaffel didn’t always need lights, because they could see into all the hiding places with their skewer eyes … No, that was only in Stefan’s nightmare.
People were looking round the room, as if trying to see if there might be a back door they could get through before the Schutzstaffel got inside.
‘Of course I’m going to open the door,’ said Christa’s father. ‘I’ve done nothing wrong, and no one here has done anything wrong, either.’ But his eyes flickered with something that could have been fear.
The unknown man suddenly said, ‘Herr Klein, should your daughter perhaps leave us for a little while? While we deal with this.’
‘Yes, of course. Christa, go up and stay with Stefan, will you? Don’t wake him if you can help it. And don’t worry – you’re quite safe.’
Christa went out obediently, but instead of going up to Stefan’s bedroom, she sat on the bottom stair, leaning forward, her arms hugging her knees. It was dark on the stairway and it was a bit uncomfortable to sit there, but she could see most of the room through the narrow gap in the door, and she could hear what was being said. If the Schutzstaffel really did come storming into the house she would run upstairs and barricade herself into Stefan’s room. Perhaps it would not be the Schutzstaffel, though.
But it was, of course. When Father opened it, they were there. Four men. Tall, grim-faced, authoritative in their sharp dark uniforms, the black breeches folded neatly into the tops of the leather boots and the black swastika emblem vivid on the red armbands. The cold night air swirled around them like indigo-coloured smoke.
Whatever Father felt, he did not appear to be afraid. He said, in an ordinary voice, ‘Yes?’
‘You are Felix Klein?’
‘Yes.’ Although Father’s back was turned on the room, Christa saw the rigidity of his shoulders.
‘You have a concert planned, we understand, for next February. It has come to our attention that you intend to play the music of a composer whose work is banned.’
Father did not speak, but one of the musicians said, almost involuntarily, ‘Mendelssohn,’ and the Schutzstaffel man seemed almost to snatch the name.
‘Yes, Mendelssohn,’ he said. ‘A forbidden composer.’
Father said, ‘The concert is on the anniversary of Mendelssohn’s birth. The third of February. We’re honouring him, and playing his music in his memory.’
The man stepped forward, and the light from the streetlamp fell across his face. There was a curious moment – a moment when Father’s whole manner changed. It was as if he had suddenly been faced with something he had never expected to see.
The officer said, ‘The Third Reich does not permit that composer’s works to be played at all. This is an order not to include that piece in the programme, Herr Klein. You are to play something else.’
‘And if I refuse?’
Herr Eisler and one or two others caught their breath in dismay and also in surprise, because Felix Klein was the mildest of men, and the very last person to defy the Third Reich like this. Christa dug her fingernails into the palms of her hands, because there was only so far you could push the Schutzstaffel.
Then the officer said, very softly, ‘Herr Klein, you know the powers we have.’
‘Oh, yes, I know,’ said Father, but so softly Christa only just heard the words.
‘You have a good memory,’ said the officer. He stepped closer, and the light from the room fell across his face. Skewer eyes, thought Christa, shivering. Cold and hard, like bits of steel.
‘People have been locked up for smaller transgressions,’ said the man. ‘But you know that also, of course, Herr Klein.’
He waited, but when Father did not speak, the man said, ‘For your safety, you should heed this warning.’ He clicked his heels slightly, and then he and the other men were marching back across the square.
Father came slowly back into the room. Inevitably, it was Herr Eisler who said, ‘Well, Felix? It’d be monstrous to give in to that command, but—’
‘But the SS are monstrous,’ said somebody.
‘That officer was wearing a death’s head ring,’ put in someone else, sounding a bit nervous. ‘Totenkopfring. Did you see it? Horrible thing. But Himmler only hands those out to his distinguished officers, so whoever he was, that officer, he was very high up.’
Father said, almost to himself. ‘Yes, he is very high up.’ He seemed about to say more, but then he frowned, and sat down.
‘You could easily substitute something for the Mendelssohn, couldn’t you?’ That was the stranger. Christa leaned forward to hear better. ‘What about Beethoven? You’d be perfectly safe there. Hitler likes Beethoven.’
‘Hitler likes Wagner as well, but if you think we can stage the Ride of the Valkyries in that hall and with our small orchestra—’
‘Beethoven’s a good idea, though,’ put in a man who was a violinist. ‘We could do one of his violin concertos,’ he added, hopefully. ‘Well, we could do the Romances, at least. We all know them, and the length would fit.’
‘Personally, I’d favour one of Haydn’s cello concertos,’ said a cellist.
‘But why have they banned Mendelssohn?’ demanded the violinist. ‘There’s no logic to that. Didn’t Mendelssohn practise Christianity for most of his life?’
‘It wouldn’t matter if he practised satanism or tupped entire flocks of sheep,’ said Herr Eisler. ‘Mendelssohn’s grandfather was a famous Jewish philosopher and scholar. And songs from his great oratorio, Elijah, are sung in Ashkenazi synagogues every Saturday. He’s regarded by the Nazis as a thoroughbred Jew.’
‘And Hitler is terrified of Jews,’ murmured the cellist.
‘They tore down Mendelssohn’s statue from outside the Leipzig Gewandhaus,’ put in the violinist. ‘And used it for scrap metal. I heard about it from someone who watched it happen.’
From his seat at the piano, Eisler said, ‘We’re gradually being isolated. Everything we do or create – work, music, books – is being suppressed and destroyed. And let’s not forget the ghettoes they’ve set up for people like us in Poland and in Czechoslovakia and Hungary.’
Christa knew that by ‘people like us’ Herr Eisler meant people who were Jewish. It was not often that any of Father’s friends said it, but they all knew it was becoming dangerous to be Jewish.
There was an uncomfortable silence, then Father looked round the room. ‘If I include Mendelssohn, will any of you abandon me?’ he said.
‘No, of course not—’
‘How could you think it—’
The stranger leaned forward. ‘I think we don’t need to be especially worried, Herr Klein,’ he said. ‘You’re a group of musicians, planning a concert. You’re not a subversive organization plotting against the Führer’s life, or a nest of assassins.’ The stranger smiled as if the idea was absurd, and some of the tension went from the room. ‘It was a show of authority, nothing more. They’ll be going around the whole square – all the shops and houses. All the streets leading off. They do that quite often. They take a section of the town in turn, and make their presence known to all the residents. It’s to make sure people toe the line.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘I listen. I take note. But it’s all right,’ he said, with a sudden smile. ‘I’m on the side of the angels.’
Father nodded, but there was still a slight frown on his face. Then he said, ‘I refuse to recognize any ban that outlaws music. Mendelssohn’s Italian Symphony will be the centrepiece of our concert.’
Later, in the small flurry surrounding the leave-takings, the stranger took Christa’s father aside. Christa, who had come back into the room to clear away the glasses and plates, heard him say, ‘Herr Klein, you’ve made the right decision about the Mendelssohn symphony. I’m very glad.’
‘Yes.’
‘It was a brave decision, though.’ He looked thoughtfully round the room, and his eyes met Christa’s. Lowering his voice, he said, ‘Will your daughter be at the concert?’
‘Yes, certainly. She always helps me on concert nights. Her mother always did so, too,’ said Father, and Christa heard the catch in his voice that was always there when he spoke of her mother. ‘Why?’
‘No particular reason,’ said the stranger, but his voice was suddenly warm and pleased.
Taking the glasses out to the kitchen, Christa realized she was smiling. She almost forgot about the Schutzstaffel in wondering what she would wear for the concert.