Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,12

she wondered if it was what she really thought. Her own true feelings—about Hitler, about anything at all—were locked inside her chest, the key long lost. Her contents as much a mystery to her as to anyone else. And what did she really know, about Hitler or anyone else? She was probably just repeating something she’d heard Anneliese say.

At the thought of Anneliese, Marta felt a flash of indignation. Poor thing, he just wanted his mother.

Ernst looked at her closely, seeing the flush of anger on her face. “Hitler might be a bullying schoolboy. Or, he might be the man of the century,” he said mildly. “Either way, it doesn’t bode well for the Bauers.”

“Why not?”

Marta worked to free her arm, but Ernst’s body against her own was too heavy.

“They aren’t Jewish,” she protested. “At least, they’re not Jewish. You know that.”

Ernst had his hands in her hair; he made a knot with his fist and tugged lightly. “People are saying that it’s not just a religion.” He paused. “They’re saying it’s a race.”

“Do you really—”

He nodded. “I’m beginning to think so. An inferior race. I’ve joined a group that . . .” But his voice trailed off, leaving Marta to surmise exactly what kind of group Ernst was now part of. Could he be right? she wondered. It seemed a ridiculous idea—anyone could see the Bauers were just the same as everyone else—yet something about the statement rang true for Marta too.

Ernst coughed into the back of his hand. “You, at least,” he said, “you’re one hundred percent pure.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“A beauty like you,” he said.

Marta squirmed again and he saw her discomfort, her arm bent back so she couldn’t move it. “I’m sorry,” he said, and leaned back so she could change position. He looked at her tenderly, then shifted his gaze, his eyes focused on the wall several inches above her head. He spoke suddenly, the softness gone: “The Jews are the cause of so many of Germany’s problems,” he said. “You can’t separate the two issues.”

“How—” she started, but Ernst seemed to have forgotten she was there. He seemed to be speaking to himself now, as though cementing the answer to a question he’d been wrestling with in his mind.

“Germany—and Czechoslovakia too—would be better off with no Jews at all.”

Marta raised her face to speak—to object—but he covered her open mouth with his own.

Something woke Marta early on the last day of September. Usually she heard Sophie bumping into things in the kitchen, but it was 5:00 a.m., too early even for that. She put on her slippers and went out into the hall, where there was a row of photographs of Pepik, one for each birthday. Five in total; the sixth was still at the framers. It amazed her, really, how he’d grown. The everyday miracle of it. She went quietly into his bedroom; he was on his back with his arms above his head and his fat cheeks flushed like the belly of the coal stove. Since the incident at the train station he had taken to sleeping with one of his lead soldiers clutched in his hand. He clung to it like a vial of magic potion that had rendered him unconscious and would now be required to bring him back to the world of the living.

It was almost, she thought, as though the whole country had fallen into slumber. September 28—the feast day of Saint Wenceslas, patron saint of the Czechs—had passed with none of the usual fanfare. Like the flare of a match, she thought: a brief light, the fall back to darkness.

Marta pulled the covers up under Pepik’s chin, kissed him, and left him to sleep. She went downstairs to grind the Bauers’ coffee beans; it was Sophie’s job, but Marta didn’t mind doing it. When she came into the parlour, though, the radio was on, and Pavel was standing with his back to her, facing the big window. He was wearing only his thin white cotton nightshirt, through which she could see the muscled contours of his behind.

She couldn’t think what he was doing up so early, and she began to back slowly up the stairs. He heard her move, though, and turned towards her.

He said her name, just once. “Marta.”

On his face was a look that Marta had never seen before. The word that popped into her mind was stricken.

“Mr. Bauer? I was just going to—” But Pavel cleared his throat loudly. He seemed not to notice