when you married that empty-headed, big-breasted girl.”
“For you. The SS wanted family men. I had to get promoted. For you. You agreed to it.”
She drew back, not wanting to be reminded of that, the worst part of the whole sordid story. Max had come to her, outlining his plan—she remembered the coffee they were drinking in her office, as if this was a discussion between colleagues—and she had listened to the reasons he had to marry. It was expected of him. He had found a girl dull and obedient enough to do her duty, as he called it. Nothing would change between them; Clara was still everything and always would be. But alas, the world was as it was. In the SS, family men advanced. And he needed to advance to help her in her work and, maybe one day, to reach a level her family would accept.
She had viewed it as a temporary situation. She’d thought herself practical enough to see it through, even saw the benefits when it came to quietly helping the foreign workers. Max knew how to argue with the authorities. Improving worker conditions increased productivity. More food meant stronger backs, faster production, a boost for the war effort. This was a fine line he walked for her, a risk. He could have been accused of being soft on those people the SS called subhumans. Clara was immensely glad she didn’t have to hear Max speak of them in this way. She knew it disgusted him as much as it did her.
But after he married, when she realized he went home to another woman, and especially when she heard the woman was pregnant, she had begun to withdraw from him, to turn her cheek when he tried to kiss her, to make excuses when he wanted to meet her in private. She couldn’t have a relationship with a married man.
The final break came in late ’44. She had been carrying a bag of rations to the carriage house, and even before she went inside, she sensed the strange stillness from the building. Papa’s cars were there, the bucket in the corner where Galina and the women would urinate, a head scarf one of them had left behind. They had been instructed never to leave the building, but Clara had gone out to look for them anyway, frantically searching the park and the forest. In the undergrowth, she had discovered another scarf. Galina’s. She found no other trace of the women.
She’d gone back to Falkenberg headquarters anxious, confused, on the edge of looking for the women in their old barracks. Then Max had come into her office, grim, stiff with anger. She had met his gaze and instantly knew what had happened, what he had done. She flew at him, fists up, but he wrestled her to the wall, held her there as she struggled. Did she have any idea how stupid she’d been? How easy it was to follow her to the carriage house? He couldn’t stand by and let her be caught, arrested, imprisoned, or worse, because of half a dozen Ukrainian women.
“Tell me—what happened to Galina and the others after you betrayed them?” she asked now.
He was breathing heavily in the dark of her father’s workshop. “I told you at the time. They were sent back.”
“To where?”
“Home. To their own people.”
“And you believe that?”
“Clara, I don’t know. I honestly don’t. But you’re not safe here, treasure. You’ve got to come home with me.”
“No—”
“Fenshaw won’t be coming back to my place. He knew it was over between us a long time ago. It was clear to him I hadn’t even known you were alive. You’ll be safe with me.”
“What would your wife say?”
“What does she have to do with it?”
“A whole bloody lot if she finds me in her house.”
“She’ll come around.”
“Max, you have children.”
“They’re too small to make a fuss. They’ll love you. Clara . . .” He grasped her face, her cheeks in his palms. “We could disappear. Remember what we used to talk about? The dance school in Buenos Aires?”
Dreams from another life, fantasies they used to discuss curled up together in bed, knowing it would never happen. She pulled his hands from her face. “Max, that wasn’t real. It was just talk.”
“Before, yes. But now, why not? The world has changed. What we did in the past . . . it doesn’t matter anymore. We could start again. Wine and music the rest of our lives. We’ll be free. We didn’t