Page 43 of The Pianist's Wife
‘Fred!’ Amira screamed louder than she’d ever screamed in her life as she ran down the road, dropping the bread she was carrying, the scarf around her neck loosening until it eventually slipped to the ground, catching under her shoe as she ran. ‘Fred!’
The SS men were holding his arm and shoving him forward, so hard that she feared his bones might snap.
But Fred didn’t call back. His eyes met hers in a gaze filled with so much sorrow, it broke her heart all over again.
‘Let go of him!’ she yelled, reaching for him, fighting for him. ‘Let go of my husband!’
Her heart was pounding, racing so hard it could have beaten right out of her chest. She dug her fingers tightly against his, refusing to let go even as he was pulled away from her.
‘Let him go!’ she screamed again.
‘Get her out of here,’ one of the men yelled, as another gave her a rough push.
She clung on tightly, but she was no match for the large soldier. This time when he connected with her, it wasn’t just his hand to her shoulder, it was his fist to her jaw.
Amira reeled backwards, staggering as her face exploded in a fiery pain that made her vision blur.
‘Get out of here, bitch,’ he muttered, looking down at her as she tripped and fell to the pavement.
‘You have no right to arrest him!’ she shouted, as the SS man looked ready to kick her with his solid black boot. ‘What grounds do you have to arrest him on? He’s done nothing wrong!’
The two men laughed at each other, as if there were something funny about her predicament, and it was then she realised there was a small group of people huddled together nearby. They’d been arrested too.
‘They’re arresting me on suspicion of being a homosexual,’ Fred said, as tears streamed down his cheeks. ‘Me, a married man! It’s all a terrible mistake.’
She knew how much it would have pained him to say such words out loud, and she pushed to her feet, cradling her jaw in her hand as she stood, helplessly, while they started dragging him again. Their marriage was supposed to keep them both safe, to stop this from happening, to cocoon them against the hate all around them, festering in every corner of the city.
‘You have it all wrong! I’m hiswife!’ Amira cried. ‘I can show you our marriage papers, I can prove it!’
But all Fred received for her outburst was an elbow to the face, and despite Amira scurrying along beside them as he was marched away, there was nothing she could do.
‘You want us to arrest you, too? Because we can make that happen.’
Amira opened her mouth and was about to ask them on what possible grounds they could arrest her, when she heard a bark and saw a small, sandy-coloured dog running along the road towards Fred.
‘Otto!’ she called, bending down low. ‘Otto, quickly!’
Thankfully Otto turned at the sound of her voice and ran back to Amira, leaping into her arms. She hated to think of one of the men’s boots connecting with the poor, innocent little dog.
She cradled him close to her chest, and stood and watched as Fred was hauled off and marched with the rest of the group down the street and away. Amira cried into Otto’s fur and stood there until she could see Fred no longer, before finally turning around.
‘He’s my husband!’ she screamed, feeling more helpless than she ever had in her life before. But when she said the words a second time, they barely came out as a whisper.
She saw a woman then, clutching a child as she cried, before slowly looking around and up at the apartment buildings. Had all those people in the group been her neighbours? Had all those men been hauled away because they were suspected of the same thing as Fred? Is that what the SS were doing today? Searching for men?
Amira lowered her gaze and hurried up to their apartment, still with Otto tucked under her arm. When she reached their floor, she saw the door was open, the lock kicked in and shards of wood on the carpet, and some of their things had been overturned.Fred’s things, she thought. He’d told her to make the apartment her own, that what was his was hers, but she now felt as if she were a visitor in his home without him there, no matter how welcoming he’d been.
Amira closed the door and put Otto down, then dragged an armchair over to try to stop anyone from coming in. Then she went to the piano and sat down on the little stool where Fred had sat every morning and sometimes throughout the day, placing her fingers over the keys and imagining he was there. She glanced to her left, picturing him looking back at her, trying to deduce who could have turned him in, hoping that it didn’t have something to do with her being seen with Maxi.
What happened to you, Fred?She went over and over in her mind what he’d said to her the last time she’d seen him, tried toimagine where he could have been other than rehearsals. When she opened her eyes and stared down at the keys, a shiver ran through her as she wondered whether someone could have betrayed him. And if they had, if someone knew the truth, then did that mean they would be coming for her next?
Amira wiped away her tears and cleared her throat, jumping to her feet and fetching her coat. If they were coming for her, there was nothing she could do, but she couldn’t just sit and wait for that to happen; she needed to do something,anything.
‘Stay here,’ she instructed Otto, leaving him looking bewildered in the entranceway as she shut the door behind her and shrugged into her coat, before running quickly down the stairs.
She ran down the street and didn’t stop running, not until she found the SS men with their prisoners, seeing that they were directing them to the train station. Instead of begging this time, she bypassed the men she’d spoken to earlier and went to a more senior SS man, who appeared to be in charge. He was holding a clipboard and stroking his moustache as he studied whatever notes were on it.
‘Sir, I need information about what you’re doing with my husband.’
