Page 50 of The Pianist's Wife
‘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,hewas 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, forhim. 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,livedalongside,lovedalongside. 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.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Fred
Fred had lost all track of time. He no longer knew how many days had passed since he’d been arrested, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d eaten, and he certainly couldn’t recall the last time he’d been given water. At one point, a guard had opened the door to the wagon, the light painfully piercing Fred’s eyes after so long in the dark, and thrown water on them. There had been a mad rush to lick every drop from their skin, people clamouring to get closer to the guard to soothe their cracked lips and parched throats, but then the door had slid back across with force, the noise reverberating through the wagon, plunging them into darkness once more.
Fred kept his legs slightly parted and steady, knowing that the train could lurch forward again at any moment. It had happened so many times now, everyone falling into one another, and with standing room only they all kept toppling into each other, with almost everyone vomiting from the swaying motion once they were moving again. Every time he felt as if he couldn’t stand another second, he repeated in his mind how fortunate he was for his warm clothes. He’d even found a shoe along the way that he’d quickly slipped his foot into, fallen from some other man likely dragged down the street. Now he had two left-footed shoes, but it at leastmeant he wasn’t hobbling with only one. Some of the people wearing their nightclothes must have been snatched from their homes in the middle of the night, and others had bare feet, so he had much to be grateful for as he stood in the cold. But even as he told himself these things, he knew how ridiculous it was to believe he was one of the fortunate ones. Nothing about what had happened to him was lucky.
He thought of Christoph, and for the first time, truly understood what he must have been through. Months ago, he would have been on the same type of wagon, his shirt sticking to him from sweating so profusely, his shivers chilling him as that sweat suddenly began to cool as night fell, his body retching against the smell of so many humans. Everyone was the same in that wagon: traumatised, terrified, lonely, and desperately afraid of what was to come.
Fred had tried to convince himself that perhaps it wasn’t so bad, that the war would one day end and that he and Christoph would be reunited, but that hope was rapidly fading. Even the music he could usually compose in his mind had fallen silent. They were transporting them as if they were less than human; starving them and humiliating them by creating conditions no man or woman should ever experience, which told him that wherever they were going would be no better. In his heart, he believed it was the end.
