Page 38 of Love in the Shadows

“You look pretty,” Astrid said and stroked Johanna’s cheek.

Johanna swept the straggle of hair from Astrid’s face and tucked it behind her ear. “Thank you. You look very pretty too.”

Astrid looked down at herself, held out the off-white material that hung to just short of her ankles. “It’s just an old nightdress, silly.”

“Well, when this war is over, we’ll go and get ourselves some new clothes,” Johanna tilted Astrid’s chin up, studied her, and kissed her forehead. “You look tired, my darling.”

“But it’s only ten past nine.” She shrugged and lowered her head. “Mutter, when can we go home?”

Six months stuck in the same house with no friends and an absent father must feel like a lifetime to a nine-year-old. “Hopefully, soon. But no one really knows when. We must just do our best and try to have fun.” She stared into her daughter’s sad eyes. “And that means doing your studies and practising piano, and me going to talk to your vater’s friends.”

Friends made it sound a little more normal than it was. Even inside their circle of close friends in Berlin, she wouldn’t class anyone as a true friend anymore. She couldn’t speak for Gerhard though.

“And me teaching Réglisse to do tricks.”

Johanna shook her head. “You cannot call him that.” She stopped short of saying If your father finds out, or If Nanny hears you.

“But I like the way it sounds.”

She toyed with Astrid’s hair. “I know, my darling. But he must be Lakritze, at least until after the war.”

Astrid nodded. “Okay, it will be our secret.”

Johanna’s heart lifted at the sparkle that appeared in her daughter’s eyes, though she wasn’t quite sure whether the secret was the name change, or that her daughter would probably still call the kitten by the French name she so loved. Either way, Johanna wasn’t about to take that flicker of joy away from her.

“Our secret,” she whispered. “Now you need to go to bed before Nanny comes and tells me off for keeping you up too late. And Vater’s guests will be here soon.” She kissed her daughter’s forehead and pulled her into a long hug.

“Nanny’s a dragon,” Astrid said.

Johanna laughed. “She was a dragon with me when I was your age, but I survived and so will you.”

Astrid left the bedroom, and Johanna wondered what it meant to survive Nanny. Is that how it was getting through a day of schooling with a tutor who had a militant approach and lack of humour? It was how it had been for Johanna but hadn’t been right for her either and the context had been different, and Nanny had been less intense back then. How had she been so blind to the damage being done to her children though? To Ralf before Astrid. This wasn’t just about Nanny, it was about the direction her beloved Germany had taken. She hadn’t challenged Gerhard as he’d become more nationalistic during their marriage and in the onset of the war, she’d busied herself at the orchestra, in denial, and then she’d buried her head in the sand while watching her friends from the orchestra leave, to survive.

There it was, that word again. Would Ralf survive?

She walked down the stairs and into the dining room with a heavy heart. Staring into Gerhard’s dark-blue eyes and receiving nothing in return, she’d never hated anyone more than she did him right now. Even when he smiled, his eyes did not.

“You look good,” he said. “Standartenführer Fischer will be pleased.”

Johanna couldn’t bear it. “I’m going to get the wine.”

He grabbed her arm, turned her to face him. “Don’t embarrass yourself this evening, Johanna.”

Fury burned inside her. She thought she might explode, but she refused to give him any obvious leverage over her response. She pulled away and continued towards the kitchen.

“It will be a good idea to play the piano for our guests later,” he said.

She stopped at the doorway, turned slowly, and smiled. “Of course.”

She entered the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of Riesling. Her hands trembled out of a rage so all-consuming it was as if every cell in her body vibrated with fire.

“Would you like me to open that for you?” Fraulein Brun asked.

She took hold of the bottle in Johanna’s hand. There was tenderness and understanding in the way Fraulein Brun looked at her, and Johanna had to fight not to feel undone by the sentiment, or the feel of the fraulein’s hand against hers.

“It’s okay, Frau Neumann. I can open it.”

Johanna realised she was still holding the bottle, still staring into the fraulein’s intense gaze. “Oh.” She let go and smiled at Frau Tussaud who was wiping the kitchen table, hoping her embarrassment didn’t show. Frau Tussaud smiled and continued with her work.

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