A moment later we started on the cakes, a cornucopia of confection.
Eline, wiping some whipped cream from my lip with her index finger and dabbing it on my nose.
She was bursting with laughter.
That little squeal of hers.
‘I love you,’ she said, still giggling.
The tip of my tongue curled towards my nose, mouth crammed full of cake.
‘Till death thdo uth paaart?’
‘Mmm …’
_ _ _
When I go back down again the gramophone is well into the andante of Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto in E minor.
The woman lies reclined on the sofa.
The trench coat is pulled tight around her. One hand rests on her stomach, clutching the pistol, the other grips the material of her coat.
She is asleep.
I go over to lift the needle amid an abrupt blare of horns, but instead I remain standing, staring at her. I can see into her sleep, but it feels too intimate and I cover her up with a blanket. She stirs slightly, whimpers and turns onto her side. I manage to grab the pistol before it clatters to the floor.
I go back upstairs, find a suitcase in Eline’s room and pack some of her clothes: a brush, a mirror, toothpaste, pillbox. She is still asleep when I go into the garden to collect the gold and arrange the ingots in the case. Back inside, I leave the case by the sofa, place the PPK on the table next to her and sit down in the wicker chair over by the French window.
I stare at her foreign face as morning comes.
I cannot be done with it.
_ _ _
For a moment I am confused, I sit up with a start, wide awake.
I don’t know how long I have slept. It must be well into the morning.
She stands looking down at me. The suitcase is on the floor beside her.
Her arm is raised. She has the PPK.
She racks the slide with her injured hand.
I made the cast too tight, the tips of her fingers are purple.
I have never been this calm.
‘Are you leaving?’ I say with a nod towards the case.
‘Yes,’ she says. ‘There must be more than a hundred million francs in there …’
‘And what about me? Am I to die?’
‘It’s what you want, isn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
A silence.
‘Do it, then.’
‘Don’t smile like that …’
‘Am I smiling?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m sorry.’
She turns her head away from me. Her hand is shaking.
I close my eyes, listen. Nothing happens.
‘I can’t!’
‘Yes, you can.’
‘No!’
‘Do you hate me?’
‘No … not any more.’
‘Come here.’
I place my hands around the pistol, drawing it to my forehead, holding it there until her own hand is still. ‘Now do it …’
I close my eyes tight, and this time I do not open them again.
I can feel her trembling, the cold sensation of the muzzle against my skin. Or perhaps it is me trembling? Our nerves screech in the darkness, come on, get it done, my bloodstream a slow whisper, like a caress …
‘Darling …’
‘Yes.’
‘Come, take my hand.’
When I rise the world has become transparent.
All sound has been turned up. I can hear everything.
And there she stands, at the end of the garden, beside the swing seat by the roses.
She gives it a push and the hinges squeak.
As I come closer I see they have put the table up.
A large dish of cream cakes.
She is wearing her black dress, the one with the stays, and the puffed sleeves.
Long, black gloves.
She waves to me.
She is Zarah Leander.
She says life will be wonderful.
NOTE
Reference has been made to the following:
Curt von Gottberg: ‘Order of evacuation, 1/8/1943’; Hugo von Hofmannsthal: ‘Ballade des äußeren Lebens’ (‘Ballad of the Outer Life’, translated by Margarete Münsterberg); Carl Schmitt: ‘Das gute Recht der deutschen Revolution’; The Bible: Book of Judges; Georg Trakl: ‘Am Rand eines alten Brunnens’ (‘By the Rim of an Old Well’, translated by Alexander Stillmark) and ‘Psalm’;
Deutsche Wochenschau
7 July 1943; Wilhelm Müller:
Die schöne Müllerin
; J. W. Goethe:
Faust
; Bernward Vesper:
Die Reise
; Hermann Rauschning,
Wenn Hitler siegt! Politische Gespräche mit Hitler über seine eigentliche Ziele
; Kaing Guek Eav (aka Duch): ‘Manual of interrogation from S–21’; Aeschylus:
The Eumenides
; Heinrich Himmler: ‘Orders of the Day No. 160/43/ 10.7.43’; Ernst Jünger:
Das abenteuerliche Herz
(‘The Adventurous Heart’, translated by Thomas Friese);
Deutsche Wochenschau
, 21 July 1943; Wolf Biermann:
Die Lebensuhr blieb stehen
, one of Erich Andres’s photographs of the aftermath of Hamburg’s bombing; Kurt Vonnegut Jr.:
Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children’s Crusade
; Hans Erich Nossack:
Der Untergang: Hamburg 1943
.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Ariernachweis: Aryan certificate, document certifying membership of the Aryan race.
Armia Krajova: The ‘Home Army’, the Polish underground resistance army.
Christmas tree: German term for flares parachuted by Allied bombers to mark out target areas.
Death zone: Area evacuated during anti-partisan operations. Hundreds of villages were razed to the ground, their inhabitants either killed or deported from the zones.
Einsatzgruppen: Special deployment units, death squads under SS command, responsible for the systematic killing of Jews behind the front.
EK: Eisernes Kreuz 1. 11 Klasse. Iron Cross 1st and 2nd Class.
Feldwebel: Non-commissioned officer of the Wehrmacht, equivalent to a British company sergeant major.
Flak: Anti-aircraft guns (from the German Flugzeugabwehrkanone, ‘aircraft defence cannon’), or the fire from these guns.
Generaloberst: ‘Colonel General’, rank superior to British general and immediately below field marshal.
Gesundheitsamt: Health Department.
Gymnasium: German upper secondary school, preparing students for advanced academic study at university level.
Heeresgruppe Mitte: ‘Army Group Centre’, strategic army group of the Wehrmacht operating on the Eastern front.
Hiwi (Hilfswilligen): Local ‘voluntary’ assistants enlisted in the occupied territories.
HSS–PF: Höhere SS- und Polizeiführer, Higher SS and Police Leader. Command authority for SS
