Page 39 of The Girl with a Secret
“Yes.” Rosa nodded jerkily. “Yes, he must be.”
“Why don’t we sit down, have a coffee?” Peter suggested as he nodded toward the steam-fogged doors of a café. “The world always seems more sensible when you’ve something warm to drink.”
Rosa let out a shaky laugh. “That sounds like some sort of proverb.”
“Isn’t it one?” he teased with a warm smile, his arm still around her shoulders as he opened the door of the café. Rosa found she missed its comforting heaviness when he removed it as they sat down.
It wasn’t until she looked around and saw several familiar faces that she realized where they were—the Willow Café, where her father liked to hold court. It was crowded with émigrés, many of them in a high state of emotion, thanks to the declaration of war, while others simply sat and sipped their coffee or tea, looking somber.
“Do you… do you think we’ll be attacked… soon?” Rosa asked in a low voice. She looked outside at the pale blue sky, still reassuringly empty, before she turned back to Peter. “The waythey were talking on the wireless… I thought we’d be hearing the air-raid siren immediately!”
“I suppose they want everyone prepared,” Peter replied. “And, in truth, I don’t know whether we will be or not. Hitler might want to strike while we’re still in a daze, or he might wait until he can mount a more sophisticated attack.” He smiled wryly. “I’m not a soldier, so I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you.”
Both possibilities sounded dreadful, Rosa thought, and yet she knew they needed to be prepared. “And will you volunteer?” she asked. “I know you can’t fight, but there must be something you can do.”
“I’ll certainly offer my services. It might be my speaking German ends up being helpful—and for you, too, as much as your English has come along.”
“My German?” Rosa repeated in surprise. “How?” She’d have to be careful not to speak German in public as much anymore, she thought. The last thing she wanted was some patriotic do-gooder thinking she was a spy.
Peter shrugged. “Who knows? But if Great Britain is at war with Germany, they’ll need to know the language, certainly.”
He must mean intelligence, Rosa realized. Spying, or at least interpreting what spies found. The thought sent a thrill of excitement as well as trepidation through her. To be involved with something like that…! Or was she being silly, acting as if she were in a film, even to be thinking about such skullduggery? She let out a little laugh as she shook her head, before remarking wryly, “If I’m assigned anything, it will probably be in a soldiers’ mess somewhere, doing just what I am now—washing pots!”
Peter laughed. “Think big, Rosa, why not?” he exclaimed, throwing his arms wide for a moment. “This war might present opportunities you could only dream of before. All sorts of things might open up—it will be all hands on deck, after all. Whatwould youliketo do?” He leaned forward, his eyes alight with interest. “If you could choose something?”
It was an intoxicating and overwhelming question, and one Rosa had never really considered before. Back on theSt Louis, she’d told Sophie she wanted to do anything. All she’d wanted was freedom, a life away from Nazi Germany and her memories. But more than that? She hadn’t yet dared to dream.
“I don’t know that I’ve let myself think that way before,” she admitted slowly. “And I don’t know that I can now. It feels wrong, somehow, to think of this war as an opportunity.”
Peter nodded, his smile slipping from his face as his expression turned somber. “That’s true, but maybe it’s the only way we can get through it… whatever comes.”
Whatever comes. Again, Rosa looked out at the hazy blue sky. “Yes, you might be right,” she said quietly. “We’ll need something to keep our spirits up, I suppose.” Could she use her German somehow, for the good of this new country of hers? Could she do something important, maybe even exciting? The possibility felt ephemeral, yet also tantalizing.
“Well,” Peter told her, “maybe you’ll discover what you want one day.” He rested his hand on hers and Rosa smiled back at him, a fluttery feeling starting in her stomach that made her think, fleetingly, of other sorts of dreams. Then Peter’s hand tightened on hers, and his mouth turned down in an uncharacteristic scowl. “That pompous old windbag,” he muttered, his face darkening, and Rosa twisted around to see who he was talking about.
When she saw who had just entered the café, his hair rumpled and a scarf draped theatrically over his shoulders, her heart sank and her hand tensed underneath Peter’s.
It was her father.
CHAPTER 16
MAY 1940—LONDON
They began to call it “the Phoney War.” Rosa hadn’t known what the word phoney meant, and Peter had explained it to her.
“It means it doesn’t feel real,” he’d told her, “because nothing has really happened yet.”
“Well, I for one am grateful not to be bombed,” Rosa had replied with a small smile, and Peter had given her a smile in return, but Rosa had feared that it hadn’t reached his eyes.
Ever since that afternoon at the coffeehouse, where he’d seen her father stride in with such careless arrogance, an uneasy awkwardness had sprung up between them that Rosa hated, yet knew she could do nothing about. Her father was who he was.
“Do you know him?” she’d asked Peter, when she’d registered his scowl aimed straight at her father.
“Not really. I’ve only seen him come in here and start pontificating about how much he knows and how important he was as a doctor back in Germany. I’ve heard some people say he even treatedNazis.” His lips had twisted in derision.
Rosa’s cheeks had burned as she had realized she could not stay silent. “He did,” she’d told Peter quietly. “Although I don’t know how much choice he really had in the matter.” She’d felt ashamed for defending her father, when she’dknownthatthe course of action he’d taken had been indefensible. “He was important,” she’d finished, “although perhaps not as important as he thought.”
Peter had turned to her in surprise. “Youknow him?”
