Page 1 of The Girl with a Secret
PROLOGUE
JUNE 1946—PARIS
The little café in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower was a nondescript place, faded writing on its wooden sign, a few rickety tables out front. Inside, a handful of customers sipped coffee or liqueur as the sunlight slanted across the square, its long rays glossing the River Seine with a golden sheen. Inside, a deathly silence fell as three women stared at each other, transfixed, horrified by what they’d just heard.
“Dead?” The woman standing by the bar clutched her scarf to her throat as she whispered what had just been spoken. She could not believe it—not now, not after all this time, when they were so close to all being together…
“Yes. Dead.” The woman in the doorway nodded, her mouth downturned as pain darkened her eyes. She wore a shabby coat, and a scarf covered her hair. “I saw it happen.”
How? Seven years ago, four friends had agreed to meet in this café after the war was over. Back then, the war hadn’t even begun, yet they’d all known it was coming—a dark thundercloud on the horizon, looming ever closer as they’d fled Germany on theSS St Louis, destined for Havana, doomed never to gain entry. They’d all been forced to go their separate ways—to America, to England, to the Netherlands, to France. Beforethey’d separated, they’d split an emerald into four, each taking a precious piece, and made a vow to meet again… and three of them had kept it.
But where was the fourth?Dead? No, surely not…
The woman pulled the scarf more closely about her throat, as if it could guard her against the truth. “No…” The word slipped from between her lips, half-hearted yet pleading.
“How did you see it?” the third woman asked, her tone almost harsh, accusatory. “Where were you together? It doesn’t make any sense?—”
The woman drew a deep breath, let it out in a shudder. “I know it doesn’t,” she said quietly. “I never expected to see her again.” Her voice caught. “I never expected her to give her life for me… but she did.”
CHAPTER 1
MAY 1939—HAMBURG, GERMANY
“Fritz! Fritz, they want to take our photograph!”
Rosa Herzelfeld bit her lip to keep from saying something sharp as her mother preened for the photographer in her floor-length evening gown of emerald satin. She looked dressed for the opera or a ball, a fur stole thrown over her shoulders and a diamond bracelet sliding down one wrist, instead of what they were actually doing—standing in a long line of weary passengers waiting to embark on a refugee ship to Cuba. Her mother, Rosa reflected, had no sense of occasion, or perhaps too much of one.
Rosa watched, her dark eyes narrowed and her mouth pursed, as her mother angled her head for the camera, one hand planted on her thrust-out hip. Her father’s chest predictably puffed out, his eyes gleaming with the opportunity to be noticed and admired, which he invariably was. Fighting a sense of humiliation at her parents’ theatrics, Rosa lifted her gaze to find a young woman behind her in the line looking straight at her, clearly bemused by their behavior. Out of habit, as much a form of self-protection as anything else, Rosa rolled her eyes, and the woman suddenly smiled.
Rosa’s weary heart improbably lifted. In the world her parents inhabited, she hadn’t encountered many kindred spirits.Save one…And in the end, he hadn’t been truly kindred at all—a cruel reality she still struggled to come to terms with. But she had no intention of thinking about him now, on the cusp of her brand-new life.
Rosa smiled back, and the woman’s own smile widened in return. She was a pretty little thing, so different from Rosa’s own tall, dark, almost mannish looks—straight hair, a long, sallow face, strong nose and mouth and a straight, tall body. This young woman was all blond hair and big eyes, and Rosa doubted she could be more than eighteen or nineteen. Not that she was much older herself—only twenty-one, yet shefeltso much older. Although, considering everyone in the stifling shed on the Hamburg harborside was a Jew fleeing Germany for their very life, perhaps they all felt old, even the towheaded little boy tugging the young woman’s hand.
Rosa glanced back at her parents, who were still preening, although the photographer wasn’t actually taking any pictures. He’d lowered his camera, a look of surly impatience on his face.
“You are not the kind of subjects the Reich wishes to photograph,” he stated stiffly, and Rosa watched as her mother’s mouth dropped open in outrage.
“What?”
“What on earth do you mean?” her father demanded, adopting the stentorian tone that suited him so well as a leading physician back in Berlin—confident, commanding, a little bit officious.
The photographer was looking positively mutinous now. “Move along,” he said angrily, and Rosa saw her father’s face redden as his chest swelled once more, this time with indignation.
Instinctively, she glanced back at the woman she’d spotted before, and saw she was watching the whole scene, more confused than censorious. Rosa smiled again, wryly, and rolledher eyes once more. The woman smiled back, and she felt as if they’d shared something. A joke, or perhaps a sigh. Maybe both.
“Mother, Father, please, let’s not make a scene,” Rosa said in a low voice as she stepped forward. “We’re just trying to board the ship, after all, not go to a party.”
Her mother threw her a furious glare, which Rosa was used to. Her mother had never had all that much time for her, but for the last several years, she had acted as if she positively loathed her, and the truth was, Rosa couldn’t entirely blame her. That didn’t mean she had to like it, though.
She ignored her mother’s look as she moved ahead, her head held high, paying no attention to the surly photographer, only to stop and turn when she heard a furious voice behind her.
“Howdareyou take photographs of my passengers!” a short, officious-looking man declared as he strode toward the photographer. “How dare you insinuate yourself in here, with your vicious and inappropriate propaganda!” Rosa watched, bemused, as he pushed the photographer’s shoulder, so the man almost dropped his camera. “Out!” he exclaimed, spittle flying from his mouth. “Out of this shed—out,out!”
“I am here on orders of the Reich,” the photographer protested, staggering back as the man continued to rain slaps down upon him. “You cannot keep me from following my?—”
“This embarkation shed is the property of the Hamburg-American Line,” the other man replied. “And here, I, as captain of theSS St Louis, am in charge. If you do not leave at once, you will find yourself forcibly removed, and your equipment confiscated.Out!”
Rosa’s mother drew back, looking annoyed by the whole embarrassing altercation, while her father eyed the captain thoughtfully. Tension banded Rosa’s temples and tightened her stomach as she felt the curious—and judgmental—stares of theother passengers, no doubt wondering who this jumped-up couple was, thinking themselves so important.
