Page 47 of The Pianist's Wife
‘You truly want to know?’ Hans asked.
She nodded, her anger simmering. ‘Yes, I do. I very much want to know how testimony from another resulted in my husband being taken, without due process being followed.’
‘Yes, Amira, this man would likely have been, how should I say this,pressuredinto giving his information. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true.’
Amira’s stomach turned as she understood what he was trying to tell her. ‘You’re saying he would have been tortured? In order to give up whatever he knew?’
Hans simply nodded, and Amira pressed her hand over her mouth as bile rose inside of her, imagining what they might have done to Christoph, and what might be in store for Fred.
‘Is there anything you can do to help me? To find out what happened to him after he was taken?’ she asked. ‘I’m begging you,Hans. Please help me, please find a way to get Fred home to me. I would go to the authorities, but—’
‘Amira, I’m sorry, but there’s little I can do to assist you, not in a case such as this.’
It was then she realised that Gisele was silent. Her friend’s face had drained of all colour as she stared at her husband, her expression almost impossible to read. Amira had never seen her look so pained before.
‘Hans, please,’ Gisele said, slowly, as if she could barely get the words out. ‘Why do you know so much about what happened to him?’
Amira watched the way her friend’s face contorted in horror as Hans stared back at her. His silence somehow said it all. Amira shut her eyes, not wanting to see. She couldn’t bear to watch her friend break before her, nor her husband – a man Amira trusted despite everything he stood for – admit to being part of what had happened. Because Gisele was right; he did know too much. At best, he’d known and hadn’t done anything to stop it from happening. But there was more to it than Hans simply being in receipt of the knowledge. She’d come to him for help, and instead, he’d been part of it all along.
‘Hans!’ Gisele screamed. ‘Look at me and tell me you didn’t have anything to do with what’s happened to Fred!’
Hans dropped his head, one hand raised to massage his forehead as if he were somehow trying to erase something.
‘What is she going to do to keep safe now? You have no idea what you’ve done, Hans. No idea at all! Without Fred—’
‘Gisele, please,’ Amira began, before she was quickly interrupted.
‘Amira, I need to speak to my wife.’ His voice dropped an octave. ‘Alone.’
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 Allmächtige!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?’
