Page 18 of Hell to Pay
“If we’re talking of love, then,” I said, “I don’t see it. The Füh—” I broke off and said instead, “Hitler has said we fight for Lebensraum,for our divine right as Germans, but do we have a right to places where others already live? Who’s given us that right? Is that really something God does? And then to bring those people here to work as slaves? Miss Franklin used to tell me that all people are equal in God’s eyes and should be equal under the law, but then, she was British. And she always added, ‘Other than the dear King and Queen, of course.’ I’m fairly sure she was referring to her own, not to you and Mother.”
Father nodded and looked amused. “A republican, and yet a monarchist. Well, most of us are not particularly consistent.”
“Yes,” I said, “because she also thought Britain was the most civilizedcountry in the world, yet they traded in slaves and Germany did not. Until now, anyway.”
“Difficult,” my father agreed.
“Yes,” I said. “But to answer your question, I don’t think it’s very loving to kill people. Although you killed people, too. But it still doesn’t seem loving.”
“You know,” my mother put in with some alarm, “that you mustn’t say such things anywhere but here. Not just in the palace. In anyroombut this.” Which was my father’s dressing-room, where he’d moved the wireless some years back for reasons I don’t understand. It’s quite inconvenient, as it means I can’t hear the music programs unless I’m invited.
“Of course,” I told Mother. “I’m not a child.” How she does irritate me at times. “But if you want to know what I think? If the war were going so well, why all this talk about the Volkssturm, how the people’s army is shoring up the Siegfried Line and is ready to defend Germany to the last breath? An army of old men and little boys? That doesn’t sound like winning to me. That sounds like we don’t have enough men left to fight.”
“Very good,” my father said. “Well reasoned.” What a glow that gave me! But I hope we don’t have to go down to the cellar again for a while. The servants are so tired the next day, and I nearly fell asleep last week as Frau Messer droned on again about Roosevelt, his ugly Jewish wife with her big nose, and the pernicious influence of International Jewry, whose puppet he is. If they want us to believe these things, they must give us more evidence.
I copied it all down faithfully in my exercise book, but at least I know now that Father agrees with my reasoning. It’s hard, I find, tokeep all one’s thoughts to oneself—how I’d like to be able to ask questions for once, or even talk with friends—yet how much danger would I put us in if I did? Or would I? Would the Gestapo really take me—or Father—away for my “defeatist thinking”? I can’t believe it, but I keep mum, and I hide this diary under my mattress as well, and take it in my rucksack when we go to the cellar. It seems too dramatic—what do the authorities care about the thoughts of schoolgirls?—but Mother says anyone can be made an example of, and royals most of all, so I stay silent.
But I still think she’s an alarmist, always expecting the worst. There, I said it. The Gestapo, the Russians, the SS … everything fills her with dread. And yet life goes on much the same. I still go to school each day and have my piano lessons, Mother still goes over the menus with Frau Heffinger and examines the linens with Frau Schultz, the streetcars still run as always, and every Hausfrau queues at the shops with her string bag. The war is a dreadful nuisance, and I’m truly very sorry for the people who have died, but mostly I just want it to be over, to have new dresses again and not to have to wear the ugly BDM uniform ever again, or practice darning socks and diapering babies, either. I’d like to eat all the cheese and butter I want and have Frau Heffinger bake a special torte for Sunday dinner. Everybody else must want the same thing. If we all feel that way, if the soldiers no longer want to fight, surely Hitler will see that it’s time to stop. Then the war will be over and everyone can go home and go back to normal, as they did last time. I only hope it happens soon.
9
THE DEMENTIA PATIENT ATTEMPTS TO EXPLAIN
I’m afraid I became disgusted after that last diary entry—I’d remembered myself as being much more realistic and nobly concerned for the fate of my fellows—and put the exercise books and letters aside. After that, I fell asleep once again overA Tale of Two Cities.Poor Mr. Dickens, with so unsatisfactory an audience for his brilliant efforts!
At nine the next morning, Ashleigh appeared, punctual to the minute, her squirrel-face alight with expectation. She dropped her rucksack on a chair, took a look around the dining-room of my suite, where we were gathered, and said, “So this is how the other half lives. Breakfast, too. Excellent.” Then she sat herself down, set up her phone before her, pushed the red button to record, and stated the date, time, and participants with utmost seriousness—well, as serious as a squirrel ever gets—like a police detective on a television program. She bounced a little in her seat and said, “Oh. Notebook,” like no possible police detective, pulled it out of her rather grubby rucksack together with a well-chewed pen made of blue plastic, and said expectantly, “So. Who’s making the call?”
“I am,” Alix said, “but letting Oma do the talking. I’ll put the phone on speaker so we all get it.”
“You don’t mind if I record, do you?” Ashleigh asked. “This is very exciting.”
The woman answered our call politely enough. I’d thought about what to say, and spoke in English for the benefit of the others, beginning with, “Good morning. My name is Marguerite von Sachsen Stark”—you see how the name difficulty is cropping up again, because as I’ve noted, that is not the name on my passport—“and I’m here in Dresden for the first time since the bombing in 1945, for the purpose of recovering a lost item that had to be left behind when I evacuated. I believe I may know where the item is, but I’ll need access to the hiding place, and, of course, permission to take my property away with me if it’s still there. If it isn’t there, I have another idea where it may possibly be, but again, I would need help to retrieve it.”
The woman said, “I see. Can you prove that the item belongs to you?”
“I think so,” I said. “I hope so.”
“Do you have paperwork?” the woman asked. “Documents showing that your family purchased the item?”
“No,” I said. “I evacuated, as I said, with very little time, and my home sustained major damage. But I have the … the lineage, as it was an item passed down from my mother and her mother before her, and so on.”
“And you have,” the woman said, “your birth certificate, passport from the time, et cetera?”
“Well, not everything,” I said. “I left in rather a hurry, as I mentioned, and there were certain elements of … of concealment. Of my identity.”
“You’re aware,” the woman said, “that this office is for cultural artifacts that were appropriated by the Soviets or thegovernment of the DDR? If your property was taken by the German authorities, that’s a different office.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m aware. You see, itmayhave been taken by the Soviets. The other valuable items my family owned were taken by the Soviets and then returned, but as I said, this one was hidden.” I was feeling a bit hot around the neck and chest now. “Or it may have been stolen. Recently. Recently stolen. That’s another possibility, and I need permission to ask those questions and have them answered.”
The woman paused for so long that I said, “Hello?”
“Yes,” she said. “So the item may be, (A), still hidden, and I presume you don’t have access to its hiding place, but you do know where it is. Or, (B), it was taken by the Soviets and possibly returned. Or again, (C), it was taken by the Soviets, returned, andthenstolen. What reason do you have to believe it may have been stolen?” Her tone had become a bit too patient.
“Let me explain,” I said, trying to sound like a confident, businesslike woman addressing a knotty problem that she fully expected to solve, and not a dementia patient. How I wished one’s voice didn’t alter with age. It’s much easier to sound confident and businesslike, not to mention serious and credible, when one doesn’t also sound ancient. “There was recently a large burglary of other objects in the building, and many of those objects are still missing. My item may be among them.”
“Was this burglary reported to the police?’ Her tone was now more skeptical than ever.
“Oh, for heaven’s sake.” That was Alix, of course. “Look. This is Alix Glucksburg-Thompkins. I’m Mrs. Stark’s granddaughter. Her father was the King of Saxony, uh …” She made a “come to me” gesture, a sort of circling motion with her hand, and I said, “Pardon?”
