Page 48 of The Pianist's Wife
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 sayingbut 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.’
