Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,7

across the Persian carpets, mingling with the men with gold-tipped walking sticks and women in hats with veils. The European elite gossiping over their wineglasses, shifting effortlessly between languages to get across the exact nuance of what they meant.

She curtsied, and Anneliese turned and acknowledged her, passing her the cake. “Put this in the icebox, please?”

“Of course,” Marta answered, part of her relieved that the natural order of things had not been eclipsed by the mobilization after all. Anneliese would still make requests and Marta would still carry them out.

Pavel had gone to the sideboard and was bringing down a third glass. “To what do we owe the pleasure?” Anneliese asked her husband.

“To war,” he said. He could barely keep the smile off his face.

From the corner of the room came the tick-tick-tick of Pepik’s electric train rounding its track.

Anneliese grasped her earlobes and pulled off her clip-on earrings one at a time. She snapped open her small Chanel purse and deposited them inside. “Let’s hope it’s over fast.” She dug around for her silver cigarette case. “The Fischls are leaving,” she announced to her husband.

Pavel was being generous with the whiskey; he did not turn to face her. “Bon voyage to the Fischls.” Now he turned and passed the glass to his wife. “Just goes to show. One bit of trouble and they’re out of here as fast as Jesse Owens.” He paused, pleased with his comparison.

“They’re leaving tomorrow. Hanna Fischl got an international phone call—from her mother in England,” Anneliese said.

Marta remembered the box of cake in her hand. She put down her whiskey and went to the kitchen, wondering if she’d understood correctly. An international phone call—but England was an ocean away. How was it possible to speak across such a distance? She pictured a thin wire high above the clouds, and then she pictured tiny men running back and forth through the hollowed-out centre of the wire to deliver their messages into the waiting ears of their listeners.

She put the cake in the icebox, just as Mrs. Bauer had asked.

“They’re all going,” she heard Anneliese say to Pavel. “Even Dagmar and Erna.”

“The nieces?”

“Oskar’s daughters.”

“And Oskar?”

“All of them, Pavel.” Anneliese’s voice revealed frustration. She was a gorgeous young woman, intelligent and sassy, who’d married a mild-mannered, average-looking industrialist. Marta loved both of the Bauers, but the match still sometimes confounded her. Anneliese needed someone with more . . . what? More flourish. Pavel was wealthy, well-bred, intelligent, but Anneliese was diminished by him somehow. She loved him, Marta thought, but part of her had been squandered.

“We did the right thing buying those defence bonds,” Pavel was saying as Marta returned to the parlour. Anneliese gave him a sharp look that meant not in front of the help. “To beating the Germans quickly,” she said, to change the subject. The Bauers raised their glasses.

Marta lifted her own glass, pleased to be included, and then waited for a natural pause in the conversation. “Would you like me to make the coffee now, Mr. Bauer?” Sophie was the cook and Marta the governess but Marta had been there longer. She knew exactly how Pavel liked it, the tiniest bit of sugar stirred in.

Pavel lifted a forefinger to show he’d like another whiskey instead.

Marta moved to get the decanter but saw that Anneliese was eyeing her, looking her up and down as though trying to make up her mind about something.

“Shall I?” Marta asked, suddenly uncertain, and gestured in the direction of the alcohol.

Anneliese nodded to show she should proceed, but she was still looking at Marta, evaluating. “Ernst seems to be around a lot these days,” she said finally.

Marta swallowed. “Would you like a boží milosti as well?”

Anneliese ignored the question. “He keeps stopping by.”

“Let me bring in a plate of cookies.”

But Anneliese wouldn’t let her get away so easily. “Why might that be? Any idea?”

“Perhaps because of what’s going on.” Marta paused, flushing. “The mobilization, I mean.”

She lowered her face and hurried into the kitchen. Reached up to the top shelf, flustered, and the tin crashed down, bits of cookies spilling across the floor. Marta cursed under her breath and knelt down to brush up the mess, replaying Anneliese’s words. What exactly did she know? And had she told Pavel? It wasn’t likely, Marta reassured herself. Anneliese had a secret of her own, something she wanted her husband never to find out. Marta had stumbled on it, in a matter of speaking. They were tied to each other, Marta