Page 63 of The Girl with a Secret
“What on earth areyoudoing here?” he asked. He spoke in heavily accented English, his eyes wide as his gaze roved over her, taking in her hair, her lipstick, her gown.
“I live here,” Rosa replied with a playful smile. “You remember, don’t you, how my family emigrated? You werethere, I believe, when we were ejected from our house on the Wannsee.” She made sure to speak without any edge, but Ernst’s face crumpled a little.
“Rosa, I?—”
“It’s all in the past, Ernst.” She dared to lay a hand, ever so briefly, on his arm, and was grateful she felt nothing at his touch. “Forgotten. Although…” She lowered her voice, keeping her tone conspiratorial. “Iamwondering how on earth an officer in the SS can waltz into the 400 Club right here in London!” A tinkling laugh as she eased back to eye him appraisingly.
“It is… complicated,” Ernst told her. “I am here as a… prisoner. But please, may I buy you a drink? And can we go somewhere private, talk more… openly?” He leaned forward to whisper, “I dare not speak German in here.”
Pennell had suggested that he might ask something like this, and there was a booth reserved for them in the corner of the club, just for this purpose. Still, it made Rosa’s heart stutter in her chest, to think of the two of them cozied up, having a private and intimate conversation. She realized she had no desire for it, atall.
“All right,” she said after a moment, doing her best to sound puzzled and a bit wary. “But, really… how is it you can be here, Ernst? If you are a prisoner, shouldn’t you be… in prison?” She gave a little, uncertain laugh as she widened her eyes.
Ernst laughed back, the sound somewhat hollow. “I am in prison. But they are kind here, and they have allowed a few of us out. We are guarded, of course. But today they have shown me the sights of London.”
Rosa raised her eyebrows. “I had no idea they gave prisoners tours of London.”
Ernst grimaced. “Neither did I. They have been very… decent to me. Far more than I had expected… or deserved.”
For a second, no more, Rosa was assailed by a pang of guilt. She was complicit in deceiving a man who believed his captors to be acting in good faith. But this was war, she reminded herself. All was fair in love and war… and this, in its own way, was both.
“Well, if you’re allowed, then, yes, I suppose we could,” she told him with a shrug, and Ernst beamed at her.
“I will ask them.”
Rosa stood there, trying to look unconcerned as the little charade was played out—Ernst asking the officer, who made a show of considering the request before reluctantly agreeing. Then Ernst returned, beaming, telling her it was allowed, and asking what he could get her to drink.
“Champagne, if they have it,” Rosa replied, which had been her rehearsed line. She knew already there was a bottle of Pol Roger behind the bar specifically for this purpose… yet further proof that Great Britain was unaffected by the war, with champagne on tap for those who knew who to ask.
“Very well, I shall see,” Ernst told her.
Rosa nodded toward the booth in the corner. “Shall I sit down?”
“Yes, yes, I’ll bring it to you.”
Making sure to sashay just in case he was watching, Rosa headed over to the booth, sliding deep into the velvet banquette as a shuddery breath escaped her. Then she steeled her spine along with her nerve, and in a show of unconcern, took out the silver compact she’d been provided with and reapplied her Yardley’s cherry-red lipstick. She was just putting the lipstick and compact away when Ernst arrived, followed by a waiter brandishing the bottle of Pol Roger and two coupes.
“Excellent,” Rosa said, sounding pleased but not surprised, as if drinking champagne were a regular occurrence in her life, and Ernst sat down across from her as the waiter poured them both champagne.
“Shall we toast?” he asked after the waiter had left, and then dropping his voice to little more than a murmur, he said, “Solange man nüchtern ist, gefällt das Schlechte. Wie mangetrunkenhat,weissman das Rechte.”
It was an old toast by Goethe—when one is sober, the bad can appeal. When one has taken a drink, one knows what’s real.
Rosa hesitated, unsure how to respond. Was he trying to tell her something?
Then, putting down his glass without drinking, Ernst leaned forward, almost as if he wanted to take her hand in his, but he kept himself from it.
“Rosa, I am so glad to see you,” he said, speaking in German, his voice a low, husky murmur. “I must apologize to you.”
Shock rippled through her at his words, along with an undeniable little frisson of pleasure. Hadn’t she once dreamed of him saying something like this to her? And yet she didn’t want to be pleased. She wanted not to care at all.
“Oh?” She smiled and lifted her eyebrows, cocked her head. “What for, Ernst?” She spoke in English, but then deliberately switched to German, lowering her voice as he had his, their heads bent close together. “For something in particular, you mean?”
“Yes, you know it as well as I do.More.” He paused, his throat working. “I… I treated you… abominably.”
Rosa leaned back to take a sip of her champagne, trying to order her racing thoughts, her jumbled feelings. She hadn’t expected him to talk so honestly, soemotionally. She hadn’t thought he’d felt anything for her back then, and she was both gratified and alarmed that it seemed as if he did. Their relationshiphadbeen real, on some level—but did that make it any less wrong?
“You mean,” she said after a moment, “because I was Jewish.” Her voice came out rather flat, and she realized she was veering off the script given to her by Lieutenant Pennell. She was meant to keep it all light and laughing, show Ernst what a wonderful life she was having in even more wonderful Great Britain, so he felt the war was already lost and gave away the information they needed. Yet right then, she couldn’t manage it, because she realized she wanted to know too much what he really thought… about her.
