Far to Go - By Alison Pick Page 0,98

just when you thought you’d reached some sort of balance, some kind of understanding, everything would change again. That this, ultimately, was the only thing to count on. She’d thought she knew Anneliese—she did, she supposed, in many ways—but here was the wild card, the blind spot made suddenly clear. And though it was easy to judge what she now saw, she realized also that it wasn’t that simple.

The officer, for example: he must actually care deeply for Anneliese. Whatever was going on between them exactly, he was willing to risk his position—and maybe his life—to spend time in her company.

They looked good together, Marta thought. An attractive German couple.

You’d never guess. If you didn’t already know.

That evening Marta followed Pavel into the study. They stayed in there with the door closed for quite some time.

They did not speak of what had happened earlier, of the German or the various repercussions of what had been revealed. Instead they wrote Pepik, and then sat in quietness drinking their tea.

“I received an odd telegram from Ernst today,” Pavel said. “I wonder about him sometimes.”

“You wonder?”

“I just get the feeling—I can’t really believe—”

Marta stopped with her teacup halfway between the saucer and her lips. The linden-scented steam. “You can’t believe what?”

But Pavel only shook his head. He was too loyal, Marta thought. An optimist. Even with what he’d just learned about his wife, it was still in his nature to give people the benefit of the doubt. Marta admired this, as she admired so much about him.

“I met a man who was in Dachau,” Pavel said instead. “The rumours are true.”

Marta set her cup down on her saucer. The china made a small tinkling sound.

“Dachau. The camp,” Pavel said.

“There’s sugar,” Marta said, for she’d heard enough about camps in the past weeks to last her a lifetime. Nobody seemed to know exactly what went on in them, and she couldn’t help but picture the row of little fishing cabins she’d once seen in a sporting magazine. But she knew that the truth was something more ominous. She wanted to speak about something else, but Pavel wouldn’t be dissuaded. “The man I know who was in Dachau. He’s a Sudeten Jew.” He looked at her. “Like us,” he said. He paused. “Like me,” he corrected, and looked away.

“What did he say?” Marta asked. “About the camp.”

“He wouldn’t say anything. Nothing of substance.” Pavel scratched his forehead and looked up at the chandelier. “He was released under oath.”

“But they let him out?”

“Business reasons, probably. His children are still in there. They know he won’t talk. They’ve got hostages.”

“So he wouldn’t say anything?”

“Only that he’s seen the worst.”

They were quiet then. Marta wondered what exactly the worst might mean.

Pavel cracked his knuckles. “I was wrong?” he asked. “About all of this? Getting out, being Jewish? Anneliese was right and I was wrong?” He was looking at Marta, wide-eyed. “My life’s fallen apart. Should I have seen it coming?” he asked.

Something rose up then in Marta, a fierce desire to protect, not unlike what she’d felt at the train station months earlier, when the Ackerman boy had hit Pepik with the stone.

“You were brave,” she said gently. “You did what you thought was best.”

Pavel laid his hand palm down on the desk.

“I did,” he said forcefully. “I did do what I thought was best. I simply could not have imagined . . .” His words were loud, and then quiet again. “I miss my son,” he whispered, his voice hoarse.

Marta looked up at Pavel. She covered his hand with her own.

A rumour was going around that Adolf Hitler was compiling a list of all the Jews. Strange as it was, the image had weight to it in Marta’s imagination: a long piece of paper stuck in an Underwood typewriter, unscrolling down the back of a card table, across a polished office floor, and out into the reaches of eternity.

Pavel in the end had registered his assets, so if such a list existed he was on it.

“But what would the Nazis do with that list?” Marta ventured.

Pavel looked up. He didn’t answer.

It was August 1939. The only thing anyone talked about was what would happen when the Germans invaded Poland. Marta remembered Anneliese’s words: Just wait a bit longer. Something will happen. But nothing did. Marta waited for Mrs. Bauer to explain, to reveal the exact way in which officer Axmann would come to the rescue. Anneliese had been promised that her officer would help. If Axmann had