Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,21

wants to know about the accounting system, and the American Fraser investment. I told him he’ll have to ask you, that if they would only bring you back in . . .”

Ernst paused and shook his head again. “No,” he said. “No news.”

But he had removed a piece of folded paper from his pocket, which he now pushed across the table in Pavel’s direction.

Marta wondered at the extent of the deception. First the joke making fun of the Nazis, and now this. Ernst was presenting his usual face to Pavel—a kind one, the face of a friend. He seemed willing to go to extraordinary lengths to present himself as other than he really was.

It was, she realized, a trait she recognized in herself.

Anneliese was fussing with the silver pepper mill. “We are living in a very historic time,” she said, laying her cutlery down to peer up into its mechanics. “When has it happened—I mean, when in the history of the world has it happened—that a state has voluntarily given up part of its territory?”

She looked at her husband enquiringly. Then she turned to Marta. “I think this needs refilling,” she said, holding up the pepper mill like a hammer.

Marta nodded and moved to stand.

“After dinner will be fine,” Anneliese said.

“You’re right,” Pavel answered his wife. “But we have a good army. We have—” He stopped and swiped at the edge of his mouth with his linen napkin. “We had the Skoda works and the munitions. Think what we’ve given up. What they’ve taken. The industry.”

“The industry, yes, and seventy percent of our steel,” agreed Anneliese. She turned to Ernst. “Did you know we’ve lost seventy percent of our steel? And seventy percent of our electrical power? And three and a half million citizens!”

“Well,” said Pavel, “they mightn’t see it that way.” He was referring, Marta knew, to the many German Czechs who saw Hitler’s arrival as something that would reunite them finally with their Vaterland.

“It was President Beneš who was betrayed,” Pavel continued. “But he’ll come through for us. How, exactly, I don’t know. But I believe—”

“You believe what?” challenged Anneliese.

“Pepik, please.”

“Beneš couldn’t help if—”

“Masaryk would not have let this happen, it’s true. But mark my words, there’ll be hell to pay from Beneš when it is all over.”

Ernst had been sitting silent, with his elbows on his knees and his fingers pressed against each other in front of his face. Now he straightened. He touched his necktie and said, “I don’t know that Beneš . . .”

Pavel looked at his friend. “You don’t know that Beneš what?”

But Ernst, Marta thought, seemed to realize that responding might expose his allegiance. “No,” he said quickly. “Never mind.” He cleared his throat; the edges of his mouth turned up in the faintest of smiles. “What does Marta think of all this?” he asked.

Anneliese lifted her head sharply, looking from one to the other. Marta cursed Ernst internally, and her desire to be discovered completely vanished. It was all well and good for Ernst to make fun—he had a family to go home to. She felt Anneliese’s eyes on her and didn’t speak, her own eyes lowered and her hands in her lap. Eventually the moment passed and the Bauers kept talking.

“You understand,” said Anneliese to her husband, “that if we lived in Germany right now we would not be allowed to attend the theatre. We would not be allowed to attend a concert. Or the cinema.” She paused, tapping the polished tabletop with a perfectly filed red nail. “We would not be allowed to sit on a public bench!”

She gave a little chuckle. “What we would be doing sitting on a public bench I have no idea—but you get my drift.”

“That’s just in Germany,” Pavel said, stubborn.

Anneliese spread her hands open in front of her. “Welcome to Germany,” she said.

School resumed a few days later, on October 5—Marta knew better than to mention the fact that it was Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. Mr. Goldstein had told her so. She also didn’t say anything to the Bauers about the note she’d found from Sophie, tucked under her pillow: Sophie was leaving for good; she refused to demean herself by working for Jews. Marta thought that Sophie must have left a similar note for Pavel and Anneliese, but they didn’t bring it up, and neither did she. They were all, Marta knew, trying to pretend that nothing had changed.

It was clear, though, when she went to pick up Pepik at the