What in the name of God had happened? Two days before, she’d been wallowing in her melancholy about having to return to London, but the truth was that her reluctance had nothing to do with leaving Berlin itself anymore, and far more to do with abandoning Ilse to whatever fate this new Germany had in store for her. It was clear now that the Nazi flags weren’t coming down. Audrey didn’t recognize her own city. Reason was not prevailing, as Ira had hoped it would. She must find a way to get them both back to London. But whatever method she found for escape, they would need money.
Her sense of foreboding increasing by the minute, Audrey disembarked and walked the final block. But as the credit cooperative came into view, she stopped in her tracks. A man ploughed into her elbow from behind, muttering his irritation. She hardly even noticed him glance back as she stared at the scene before her.
The bank was ravaged.
Like the Kaplans’ home, its front windows were all smashed. A CLOSED sign still hung, absurdly, in the open wall where the window should have been. A six-pointed black Star of David had been crudely painted on the door, and the word JUD stood out in large block letters on the wall above it. Crumpled pieces of paper lined the pavement outside the bank, like snow. The words im Urlaub in Buchenwald were scrawled on the wall.
On holiday in Buchenwald.
She knew that name. Buchenwald. It was some sort of work camp for arrested Jews. She had overheard Ira and Ruth talking about it, seen the newspaper headline when she went to toss coffee grounds into the bin.
Dread trickled through her veins. In the dizzying aftermath of Ira’s murder, she hadn’t really considered where Ruth and Ephraim might have been taken. That wherever it was, it was a place. Something real and horrible. That it might be somewhere like Buchenwald. Everything that had happened yesterday wasn’t random. The night of terror was clearly the beginning of something systematic. The violence had crested in a great, orchestrated wave, and Audrey was afraid of how many more people would be taken down in the undertow.
She headed back to the Kaplans’ in a distracted haze, eyes on her feet. The bank was inaccessible, and so, too, she presumed, was the money. With the country in this state, she wasn’t sure how long it would take her letter to reach her father, or for him to take any kind of action—she had no idea what—to secure Ilse’s safe passage to England. All she could do was put one foot in front of the other.
But sometimes, a person could become so fixated on avoiding the obstacles right in front of her that she didn’t see the ones creeping in from the sides.
On the Kaplans’ doorstep, Audrey unsnapped her pocketbook for her key, but it fell from her hands, which she realized were shaking. Her hands never shook. It was a point of pride for a skilled pianist, to have fingers so controlled that they gave the illusion of movement independent from the player. She stooped to retrieve the key, not noticing the two men approaching from behind.
“Excuse me, Fräulein.”
Audrey spun around and felt her stomach drop somewhere into the region of her knees. Two uniformed officers stood at the bottom of the steps. She vaguely registered a black car parked a few feet away from them. The men were about the same height, and dressed almost identically, with black trousers, boots, and long grey overcoats with the eagle and swastika emblazoned on the arm. They peered up at her from beneath the rims of their matching caps. Confusion and fear raced one another around her mind. Why were they here? Had they come for Ilse?
“Yes?” Audrey said. It was a moment too long before she forced a smile. “Guten Tag, meine herren.”
She’d gotten used to officers winking at her, making comments on her appearance when she was out in the streets. She usually offered a tight smile to satisfy the underlying demand for acknowledgement, and carried on her way.
“Guten Tag,” one of them said. The other just watched her. “Is this your house, Fräulein?” the first one asked, and Audrey’s stomach gave a jolt as he began to scale the steps toward her.
The other man spoke now. “You have a key,” he said, gesturing to her hand.
“Yes,” she said, unable to deny it, then answered with the first story that came to mind. “I’m the accounting secretary for the man who lives here. For his business. But he has not been at the office, so I thought I would try his home.”
The first officer reached into his overcoat and withdrew a piece of paper. He ran a finger down the page, glanced at her. “You are employed by Ira Kaplan?” he asked, frowning.
He took in her appearance, from her curled hair to her buckled black boots and up again, lingering on her face, her red lips. She was a performer, used to people staring at her, but this man’s gaze raked her in a way that made her skin feel as though it had been exposed to the elements. He had rather striking green eyes that were darkened by his narrowed brow. His boxy face stood in direct opposition to his long nose, and his moustache was mostly red whilst his hair shone blond. He looked as though he had borrowed his features from several different men.
“Yes,” she said, keeping her expression impassive.
“What is your name, Fräulein?”
Audrey hesitated. Her identification papers showed her name as Audrey Gertrud James. Audrey after her father’s mother, Gertrud after her mother’s grandmother. Despite growing up in Berlin with an English name, she had never felt uncomfortable with it. But she thought it might raise a flag for these officers, whose tones were already thick with suspicion.
“Audrey James,” she said.
The blond man watched her intently as the other one joined them on the steps. “I am Obersturmbannführer Müller,” the second officer said. “This is Brigadeführer Vogt. I think perhaps you should come inside with us, Fräulein James.”
Audrey felt the blood drain from her face, but she nodded, hoping her rouge and lipstick would suffice to mask her ashen complexion. As she turned the key in the lock, she sent up a silent prayer that Ilse was not downstairs waiting for her. She fiddled with the key as long as she dared, rattling it.
“It sticks sometimes, I do apologize,” she said loudly. With a surge of fear she pushed the door open, then glanced around as the two officers swept in behind her. She startled when the one called Vogt pounded on the door with a fist, forcing it shut. It hadn’t closed properly since the looters broke the lock.
“What happened to it?” he asked her.
Audrey shrugged. “I’m not sure,” she said, allowing her voice to carry.
They stepped past her and into the spacious foyer, taking in the large, open rooms, gleaming hardwood floors, crystal chandeliers, and richly papered walls. She hung back now, unsure how to proceed or what, exactly, was happening. She strained her ears but could hear no sign of Ilse. Hopefully she had fled to the attic or had been there already. Audrey couldn’t contemplate the alternative.
She flashed a smile at the officers as she moved toward the stairs to confirm Ilse’s whereabouts. “I’m just going to go—”
“Sit there, Fräulein.” Herr Müller indicated the divan in the sitting room.
Audrey perched on the edge of the sofa, pocketbook in her lap, trying not to appear too much at home, as Müller and Vogt left the room, each in a different direction. What were they looking for? When Müller went upstairs, she held her breath, tucking one foot behind the other to stop her legs from jiggling. As Müller’s footsteps creaked on the floorboards above, Vogt returned from the dining room. The hairs on the back of her neck prickled as he stood in the doorway, watching her. There was something off about this man; she hated looking at him, but she forced an expression of innocence.
A moment later, Müller came back downstairs, and Audrey’s breathing returned almost to normal. He had evidently not discovered Ilse.
He took a seat across from her. He was younger than Vogt by several years and a different sort of person altogether—plain-looking with a brown moustache that at least matched his short-clipped hair, and brown eyes that studied her with a penetrating, though not malicious, stare.
“What do you know of Ira Kaplan?” he asked her.
Audrey sat up a little straighter. “He’s my employer. I—”
“Not anymore,” Vogt piped up. He was still standing off to the side.
Audrey feigned confusion as her heart stung. “Why not?”
“Because he is dead, Fräulein James.”
She raised her eyebrows in surprise. “Oh dear. How did he die?”
