Two months had passed. It was April, a warm April, and the snow had thawed rapidly. The sun shone, warm breezes blew. Occasionally there were April showers and the roof of the music block began to leak once more.
The orchestra had just returned from playing out the morning work detail. The roofers were at work, patching up with felt and tar.
When Pasdeloup tapped at the window, it was Magda who heard him first. She opened the window, three or four of the women pressing up behind her to see what he wanted or, better still, what he had.
“Where is the pretty Viennese?”
“Lots of us are from Vienna. I’m from Vienna. Am I not pretty?”
This set them giggling. Pasdeloup stuck to his guns.
“The cellist,” he said simply.
“Méret, Méret, your boyfriend’s calling.”
She moved up to the window. Either he was hanging on by his toes or someone was holding him, for he had both arms extended, fists out like a teasing father asking a child to choose.
He opened both hands and gave her apples—not dried, just blotched and wrinkled, apples from last year’s harvest. Then his hands dove into his pockets and he produced two more.
“Tomorrow,” he said, “as the men march out, whatever you are playing, work in a few bars of the Marseillaise. The bastards will never notice but all the French boys will.”
“Of course. It will be our—”
“Boche!” he cried and vanished upward like a genie, back onto the roof. All heads turned to the door.
An SS guard had entered and behind him two men in stripes lugged in a packing case about five feet high and two across. Stencilled on the front were a series of numbers and a dozen or more words, but all Méret could see were two :
VOYTEK
AUSCHWITZ-BIRKENAU
The guard took an iron jemmy, prised off the front, and left without a word.
They never received packages. And a package this size was unheard of. They approached like children, curiosity mingling with the sense of danger, silently daring each other to look.
Méret yanked at the loose panel. It clattered to the floor. Inside was her cello case, and inside the cello case was her Mattio Goffriler cello.
Things moved so fast. She was at the centre of a storm as hands plucked the case from its packing and the cello from its case.
“My God,” a voice was saying, “it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She did not see who thrust them into her hand. Four sheets of paper, bound together with a staple, headed:
And there followed a list of everything her parents had ever owned, the entire contents of the apartment in Vienna, room by room, ending in the one she had occupied.
And she realized the Germans had killed her parents to obtain her cello.