Page 17 of The Girl with a Secret
“Surely that’s better than going back to Germany?” Rosa ventured, even though she had to agree that it didn’t seem like much of a plan.
Rosa’s father’s mouth firmed, his eyes flashing. “There’s a member of the Abwehr on board,” he told Rosa. “He’ll be calling the shots here soon, if he isn’t already. I intend to speak directly with him.”
“With theAbwehr!” Rosa drew back so her father’s arm fell to his side. As appalled as she was by what he’d just said, she found she missed its comfort. “Father, you can’t.”
Her father narrowed his eyes, his mouth curling in displeasure; he was not a man who liked to be challenged. “And why can’t I?”
“Because… because it’s foolish!” Rosa burst out. Realization trickled icily through her. “I think I know the man you mean. Schiendick? He accosted me the first night on board, and…” She didn’t want to mention the second time she’d run into the horrible man, the threats he’d made, his thumb on her windpipe, his body pressed to hers… “He’s a thug, and probably a stupid one, as well.”
“All the better,” her father replied coolly. “He’ll be easily impressed, then.”
Rosa shook her head despairingly. Even now, her father clung to his old delusions of importance and grandeur. He’dbeen forbidden to practice medicine and kicked out of his own home by these people, he’d been mocked and derided endlessly, amusement dancing in their cold blue eyes as they’d forced him to laugh at their cruel jokes, and yet he still seemed to think he wielded some sort of influence over men who were carelessly determined to destroy him.
“How?”
Her father stared at her for a long moment, and then he let out a short, abrupt laugh. “Rosa, you’re so naïve,” he told her with a weary shake of his head. “You see things in black and white—like you did with your precious Ernst.”
Rosa reeled back, shocked by the name they were usually both so careful not to mention. “He was nevermyErnst,” she said in a low voice. “And he certainly wasn’tprecious.” She was lying, and they both knew it.
“He was angelically good,” her father continued relentlessly, “and then he was demonically bad, with nothing in between.” He shook his head. “You think like a child, Rosa.”
Stung, she recoiled a little. “And how do you think?”
“Like apragmatist. Do you think I like these people?” he demanded in a low voice that throbbed not just with anger, but with pain. He threw one arm out to encompass not just the ship, but the world they’d left behind. The people he’d courted so assiduously, his smile never faltering for a second as he’d offered his hospitality, his schnapps, his laughter when they’d mocked and ridiculed him. “Do you think Ienjoyedhaving them in my house?” he continued, his tone turning raw. “Playing my piano, mocking me in my own home, to my own face, time and time again?”
Rosa blinked, speechless with surprise. She’d never thought her father had been able to see it that way, even though she certainly had. “I…” she began, and she found she could not continue.
Shehadthought he’d enjoyed it. She still thought he must have, at least a little, to have endured it so seemingly cheerfully for so long. To have courted it, to have ostensibly reveled in it. Her father could view the past in a more flattering lightnow, when they were far away from Berlin, but back then, he’d made the choices he had, and had stood by them. And for that Rosa didn’t think she could ever trust or forgive him.
“They have too much power, Rosa,” her father told her flatly. “You can’t cross them. But you canplaythem, which is what I did—or at least I tried to do. I’m not ashamed of it. Why should I be? Do you know Hitler himself arranged for his childhood doctor, Bloch, to leave the country? And the doctor who treated him during the war, as well. They both escaped scot-free and with all their money and possessions, even though they were Jews.” He raised his eyebrows, a small, cold smile playing about his mouth. “How do you think I got as much money out of the country as I did?” There was no mistaking the note of pride in his voice.
“How?” Rosa asked, meeting his mocking gaze with defiance.
“Eichmann. He owed me a favor.”
She shook her head, wanting to deny it. “But Nazis don’t owe Jews favors.”
His smile flickered and then died. “Sometimesthey do. They have their own peculiar code of honor, I suppose, or perhaps it’s just a keen sense of self-preservation. In any case, I’m going to talk to this Schiendick. If he knows I have the ear of Eichmann, he might be willing to put in a good word for me when we get back to Germany.”
A good word? When they’d just learned they would all be sent to a concentration camp as soon as they arrived? Her father might think he was being pragmatic, but Rosa feared he was still delusional… and incredibly foolish. He certainly didn’t have the ear of Eichmann now, if he ever truly did. Any Nazi whohad graced their house, thrown them a scrappy bone, had done so out of nothing more than indifferent amusement. The Nazis her father had rubbed shoulders with could have clapped him in jail as easily as they’d favored them with their presence, and, in truth, Rosa didn’t think they’d see all that much difference between the two. And as for that little toad, Schiendick? Rosa was quite sure she’d got the measure of such a man.
“Father, don’t, please…” she implored, catching his arm. “I told you, I’ve already run into Schiendick, and he’s a petty little thug. He won’t listen to you. He won’twantto listen to you, and the fact that you are trying to impress him will just infuriate him and make him want to humiliate you all the more.”
“Well, I don’t have any other ideas,” her father snapped. “Doyou?”
Rosa turned back to the railing, gripping it hard with both hands. She thought of Sophie’s father, flinging himself into the sea, and for a second, she was terribly tempted to do the same. The water was cold and deep; how long would she last in it? A few minutes of choking terror, and then oblivion. Peace, at last. She wouldn’t have to face the terrible, yawning uncertainty of the future… going back to Germany, being arrested, imprisoned in a camp, maybe even tortured.
She thought of Rachel’s husband Franz, who had endured such treatment, who even now looked and acted like a man haunted by demons. A few months in Dachau had stolen not just his sense of peace, but his sense ofself. Rachel herself had admitted he wasn’t the man he’d once been, although she wouldn’t say any more than that.
Rosa couldn’t stand the thought of something similar happening to her. As much as she dreaded the possibility of discomfort, pain, or even torture, the thought of losing herself—of becoming less than what she was, someone unrecognizable, pitiful—seemed even worse. She’d be living in a hellish worldcontrolled by men like Schiendick, men who wanted to see her grovel, who would glory in her shame, pain, and abuse. She couldn’t survive it. She wasn’t brave enough. She liked to act like she was strong, just as her father did, but she wasn’t. Not strong enough for that.
She gripped the railing even harder, her fingers aching with the effort. It would be so easy to fling herself over, to forget all her mistakes, never to have to face the future, whatever it contained. This was a different kind of courage, a cowardly one, but courage all the same…
“Rosa…” Her father put a heavy hand on her shoulder, almost as if he could guess what she was thinking.
“Rosa!”
Rosa turned her head to see Hannah hurrying down the deck, holding Lotte’s hand, her eyes bright with excitement, her face wreathed in smiles. “The captain has just made an announcement! We aren’t going to have to return to Germany!”
