The Pianist’s Wife

Chapter Twenty-Three

Gisele’s eyes met Amira’s as she walked from the room. Her shoulders were hunched, her mouth pinched in a way Amira had never seen before, and she knew that everything hinged on what happened next.

‘Amira, please close the door behind you,’ Hans said.

Every echo of Amira’s heels on the hardwood floor as she walked away from Gisele felt like a beat of her heart, and she jumped when the study door shut with a loud bang. But instead of stepping into another room, she pressed her back against the solid timber door and slid to the floor, turning her head slightly so that her ear was against it.

‘This is about more than just my involvement, Gisele,’ she heard Hans say. ‘I think you have something to tell me yourself.’

She heard his heavy footsteps echo around the room and imagined him pausing by his drinks cabinet, pouring himself a large whisky.

‘What did you mean before, about keeping Amira safe?’ he asked.

‘Because I’m worried about her! She lost her father and then Maxi, and now her husband has been taken, and money was very tight after—’

‘I am no fool, Gisele! I can see that she’s terrified of your mother for some reason, you never speak of Amira when your mother is here, and I can’t stop thinking about how quickly she got married. There’s something you’re not telling me, and you’re not leaving this room until you admit what it is.’

‘There’s nothing,’ Gisele said, and Amira shut her eyes, hearing the crack in her friend’s voice, even from where she sat. ‘Please, Hans, just help her find out more about Fred’s whereabouts and—’

‘Fred is as good as dead, Gisele. Christus der Allm?chtige! You must know that he’s not coming back from Auschwitz.’

Gisele was crying now, and so was Amira. She refused to believe that Fred was lost to her, not after everything they’d been through together.

‘If you’re so worried about Amira, she can move back in with us.’

‘No,’ Gisele said. ‘She will be fine. I can visit her and—’

‘What is the reason she cannot move back into this house, Gisele?’

As far as Amira could hear, Gisele didn’t answer.

The thump was so loud that Amira jumped, and she could only imagine that it was Hans’ fist slamming hard against the desk.

‘Gisele, I am your husband, and you will tell me right now what her secret is!’ he roared, before lowering his voice, so low that Amira had to press her ear to the door again to hear him. ‘Or I will drag her back in her and ask her myself.’

She could imagine Gisele standing with her eyes shut, her shoulders trembling as she wrestled with whether to answer or not. And all Amira could keep thinking, as she prayed for her to stay silent, was Gisele saying but he’s my husband .

If she were faced with a choice between her husband and her friend, Amira knew it would be an impossible decision.

‘Is Fred what they say he is?’ Hans asked.

‘No,’ Gisele replied. ‘He is not. Amira would have told me if he was.’

‘Then what are you hiding? If you don’t tell me, I will find another way of uncovering the truth. Secrets are why people disappear in Germany, Gisele, in case you haven’t noticed.’

Amira held her breath as she listened to Gisele’s silence, pressing her ear so hard to the door to listen that it hurt.

‘Gisele, I need you to understand the seriousness of the situation. Amira will be under investigation too, as the wife of Fred. If they find out that she knew, if there’s anything to be discovered, then you’d best tell me now.’

There was a long beat of silence again, before Amira heard a muffled sob. ‘Would you help her if I told you?’ Gisele finally said. ‘Are you telling me that you’d offer her protection?’

Amira’s heart almost beat from her chest as she waited for him to answer.

‘I can’t help her if you keep secrets from me.’

‘That’s not an answer!’ Gisele cried. ‘Will you keep Amira safe? If I tell you, I need to know!’

Amira didn’t hear his reply. All she could hear was quietness and the beating of her own heart, her breath heavy against the door.

‘Amira’s mother was Jewish.’

A solitary tear slipped down Amira’s cheek as she heard the words through the door.

‘She cannot stay here because my mother knows what she is.’

A few seconds of silence followed.

‘You’ve kept her secret all these years?’ Hans asked, sounding incredulous. ‘Since you were children?’

There was an even longer pause. ‘I have. And I hope that you can understand how difficult it has been to keep that secret from you all this time.’

Amira wrestled with whether to leap up and run from the house, or stay and listen, but despite the danger, she knew she had to stay. Hans could march from his office at any moment and forcibly restrain her, have her sent to a camp too, but he was also the only one who could help Fred. It was that reason, and that alone, that made her stay.

‘You’ve kept this from me, from Maxi, from...’ He stopped. ‘Did Maxi know the truth? Was I the only one who didn’t know?’

‘No!’ Gisele cried. ‘I’m the only one, no one else knows.’

Amira hated to hear Gisele lie to her husband, knew how difficult that must be for her, but the relief she felt was immense.

‘Hans,’ Gisele said. ‘I’m sorry. I should never have kept this from you. I’ve been wanting to tell you, but I didn’t know, I just, I was so terrified of putting Amira in danger...’

Amira pressed her ear even closer to the door. If Hans chose not to forgive Gisele, if he followed his obligations to the Reich and put the state above his marriage as he had sworn to do... She swallowed, as tears formed in her eyes so quickly that she found it hard to blink them away.

‘I trusted you,’ she finally heard Hans say. ‘Your allegiance is supposed to be to me, Gisele! To your husband!’

‘It is! You and the children mean everything to me, Hans,’ she cried. ‘My allegiance is to you, how could you ever doubt that? But Amira has been my best friend my entire life, and she trusted me with this secret. We were forbidden from seeing each other as children and I put her in danger when I found her here in Berlin, when I insisted on having her as part of my life.’

‘What happens to our family if anyone discovers what you’ve hidden, Gisele? Have you thought about that? And if you’d told me, if you’d trusted in me, I would never have told them where to find him. I would have known how dangerous this could be for Amira.’

‘Oh Hans, you didn’t,’ she said with a gasp. ‘Please tell me that this wasn’t you? Please, tell me you weren’t involved in Fred’s arrest?’

‘The order came through that they were looking for him, and I gave them the address,’ Hans said, sounding broken, his voice no longer holding the strength it had before. ‘I didn’t have a choice, Gisele. I did what I had to do, and I only thought they were going to question him, not take him to a camp.’

Amira dropped her head, her stomach twisting as she fought not to be sick.

‘What if they’d found Amira?’ she asked. ‘What if they suspected her, too? What if they’d taken her?’

He led them to Fred. Gisele’s husband is the reason he was taken to that godforsaken camp!

‘If it’s a choice between saving my family and anyone else, I choose my family, Gisele,’ he said. ‘I always will, so please don’t ever ask me to do anything differently. If you’d only told me, I could have done something.’

‘But—’

‘There are no buts, Gisele,’ he said, sharply, his voice rising. ‘I would have thought a woman with four children and a Mother’s Cross would know that, without having to be told. Your family must always come first, goddamn it!’

‘My family does come first! It always comes first. But you have to tell me what you’re going to do. Will you help me to protect Amira? Can I trust you?’

She’s fought her entire life for me, and now she’s going to have to make a choice between her family and her friend.

‘Hans?’ Gisele cried.

‘You put our children in danger, Gisele. You put me in danger. You—’

‘Just tell me whether you’ll protect her?’ Gisele pleaded, the desperation impossible to miss in her voice.

But Hans never answered, and when Amira heard his heavy footsteps thundering across the room, she leapt up and scrambled against the far wall of the hall. He swung the door open and stormed away, not even bothering to glance in her direction, and when Amira stepped into the room to look for Gisele, she saw her rip the bronze medal off her lapel and hurl it to the floor. Gisele’s tears came in big, ugly sobs that wracked her body, her chest heaving as she tried to catch her breath and failed. Amira tentatively stepped closer.

‘I’m sorry,’ Gisele said as she slowly looked up. ‘I’m so, so sorry, Amira.’

Amira went to her and hugged her, despite it all. She was terrified of what Hans might do but now, with Fred gone, Gisele would be all alone in the world if she didn’t have Amira.

‘He forced you to tell him,’ Amira said.

‘But I don’t know what he’ll do, Amira! I honestly don’t know what he’s capable of. My own husband. I truly don’t know.’

‘Gisele, you’ve fought all your life for me, from when we were little girls. You’ve been like the sister I never had. But I don’t need you to save me now. What I need is for you to help me save Fred.’

‘What if it’s already too late to save him though?’

They both jumped when the front door slammed shut.

‘We can’t believe it’s too late for him,’ Amira murmured as they held each other. ‘We have to believe that there is still time.’

‘And what of Hans? What if he never comes back?’ Gisele cried.

‘He will,’ Amira said. ‘He loves you, and he will come home. You know he will.’

What she wasn’t so certain about was whether he’d come back with two Gestapo men, who’d march her from his home and down to the train station to join the other Jews headed to Auschwitz.

An hour later, Hans still hadn’t returned, and Gisele was alternating between anger and tears. Amira passed her a fresh cup of coffee and sat down beside her. She’d been tempted to leave and go back to her apartment, but she was pragmatic enough to know that if Hans sent men for her, they’d find her wherever she was. Which had led her to staying with Gisele while she still could.

‘I’m so sorry,’ Gisele whispered, Amira tucked close beside her on the sofa.

‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’ Amira whispered back. ‘You’ve always been my truest friend, and nothing has changed.’

‘But to think that he had a hand in Fred being arrested, in what happened...’

‘To his credit, he could have detained me immediately when you told him the truth, and he didn’t.’

‘But he didn’t say anything in support of you, either.’

Amira couldn’t argue with that. ‘I still can’t believe Fred has been taken. I mean, we were so careful, he was so careful.’

Gisele wiped the tears from her cheeks.

‘It would break him if he found out that his lover, and it must have been Christoph, was the one who’d given him up,’ Amira said. ‘I don’t think he’d ever recover from it.’ If he’s even alive still. She shuddered at the thought.

‘We have to do something, anything , to help him,’ Gisele said. ‘This can’t be the end for us, for him . It just can’t be.’

Amira wished she felt as confident, but she couldn’t stop remembering what Hans had said. You must know that he’s not coming back from Auschwitz .

‘Would you stay with me tonight?’ Gisele asked, sitting up and staring down at Amira. ‘If Hans doesn’t come home...’

‘Yes, I’ll stay with you. So long as there’s no chance of your mother turning up.’

She only hoped that Hans didn’t decide that his allegiance to their Führer was more important than his marriage, because if he sent men for Amira, he might as well send men for his wife, too.

Later that night, Amira walked down the hall and up the stairs to her old attic bedroom, each footstep feeling somehow more impossible than the last. It was as if she were sinking in deep sand; sand that wanted to swallow her whole. And if it had been a possibility, she would have let it, because she no longer wanted to live. Not without Maxi; not without Fred.

I’ve lost both the men I loved. I’m never going to see either of them again.

But as she was thinking it, the thought circling her mind over and over, she realised that she’d actually lost all three of the men she loved. Papa. She missed him as fiercely as she still missed her mother, wishing there was still a chance that he would come home, that he could help her to pick up the pieces and navigate this next part of her life. Some days she still let herself imagine that it had all been a big mistake, even though she knew it wasn’t possible for him to still be alive.

Amira climbed into bed and pulled the covers up around her, curling into a ball as she began to cry. She cried for Maxi, the love of her life who she couldn’t even imagine a future without; her darling Fred, who’d somehow become her dearest companion as well as her husband, despite their differences. She’d thought that one day, when this was all over, they’d quietly divorce and then remain the best of friends, in each other’s lives forever, never forgetting the promises they’d made, laughing as they recalled the time they pretended to be in love. But even that had been taken from her now.

‘Mira?’

The little voice was barely a whisper, but Amira still heard it. She tried to stifle her tears, surprised that Frieda had found her way alone up to the attic, but her entire body continued to tremble.

‘Mira? What’s wrong? Why are you crying?’

Frieda’s small hand found its way under the covers to touch Amira’s cheek, and when she felt it was wet, she climbed in beside her, putting her arms around her and hugging her tight.

‘Why are you crying, Mira?’ Frieda asked, stroking her hair in the same way Amira imagined her mother probably did when she was upset.

Amira couldn’t answer her; there were no words to explain to a child what she was going through, the suffering that felt as if it might tear her body in two. But Frieda tucked her tiny body against hers anyway, nestled in so quietly Amira imagined she might have fallen asleep, but for the tiny movements of her fingers through Amira’s hair.

And she couldn’t help but consider the irony, that the daughter of a dedicated SS man was comforting her; her , a woman who should by all accounts be hated by any German. A little girl who would grow up to hate her if she knew the truth, even though right now, at such a young age, her heart was filled with love.

That was when Amira realised it wasn’t the younger generation who could ever be held to account for what was happening – they had been indoctrinated and had never known anything different, they truly didn’t have a choice but to see the world a certain way. They were not the same as those who should have known better, who’d allowed themselves to turn their backs on their fellow humans, humans they’d once walked alongside, lived alongside, loved alongside. Those were the ones she blamed, the ones she wanted to scream at until they saw sense.

Her skin suddenly felt as if it were alight, her tears drying up as she lifted her arm to cocoon Frieda more tightly against her, needing her little warm body more than she’d realised.

Please let it all be a terrible mistake. Please don’t let it be true. Please let me wake up and find this has all just been a nightmare.

Her tears began to fall again, and this time, she wondered if they would ever stop. But as Frieda nestled even closer, her fingers knotted against Amira’s neck, she knew that she could only give herself one night to cry herself to sleep. Come morning, she would have to figure out a plan to keep herself, and Fred, alive.