The Girl Behind The Curtain (Hidden Women) (14 page)

‘Whereas Otto takes after his grandfather on my side,’ she said. ‘With his musical talent.’

We all cooed over Otto’s musical talent for a while.

‘Gerd’s not such a bad musician either,’ Otto said to deflect some of the gushing praise, which he seemed to find embarrassing.

‘Play something for us,’ Helga insisted. Otto treated us to small burst of Chopin on the family’s upright piano. I will never tire of his playing.

Then Frau Schmidt told a tale to illustrate Gerd’s physical prowess. Apparently, when Otto was fourteen and Gerd was just twelve years old, they went with their father to fish at a lake out in the country. It was a cold day and the lake was partially frozen over. Some children on the opposite bank were larking about on the ice. The fish weren’t biting and Otto’s father decided it was time to pack up and go home.

‘Via the market,’ Otto’s mother said. ‘My husband would often try to pass off some market fish as something he’d caught himself. I never told him I knew the difference between a seawater fish and a freshwater one. Anyway . . .’

The Schmidt men were packed up and ready to go home when they heard the ominous sound of cracking ice. While they’d been fishing, the children on the opposite bank had been staying very close to the shore, but one of them had ventured further out and now he was in the freezing water.

Gerd did not hesitate. He ran all the way round the lake, to be closer to where the child had fallen in. The child’s friends were trying to haul him out with a dead branch from a tree, but the wood was so rotten that every time the poor boy in the pond made a grab for it, a section broke off in his hand. He was drifting further from the shore and he was getting tired and dangerously cold.

‘I am so glad I was not there,’ said Otto’s mother. ‘Because I would have done my very best to prevent what happened next.’

‘Gerd jumped into the water!’ said Helga, breathlessly. ‘He took off his jacket and his boots and he jumped straight in. He didn’t care about the ice.’

‘He was always a strong swimmer,’ said Frau Schmidt.

Helga took up the story again. ‘The boy was sinking. Gerd dived under the surface and brought the poor child up for air. He held him clear of the water so he could breathe and kept him there until our father arrived and was able to haul them both to safety.’

‘The young boy was saved. It turned out that his father was the local mayor. He was so grateful he invited our whole family to his house,’ said Frau Schmidt.

‘And that was where the trouble began,’ said Otto darkly.

His mother and sister looked at him with expressions of slight confusion but Otto smiled and Helga continued with the story.

‘Gerd was treated like a hero. The mayor offered him a financial reward but Gerd refused to take it. He said that the mayor should give the money to the war widows instead.’

‘Such a kind heart,’ said Otto’s mother. ‘So patriotic. And it was the right thing to do, because after my husband died, the mayor who had been so impressed by Gerd’s self-sacrifice offered to finish putting the boys through school.’

‘He said that now we had no father, we should consider him to be our father instead,’ Helga explained. ‘He said any man would be proud to have Gerd as his son.’

The more they talked, the more I was looking forward to meeting the public-spirited, kind-hearted family hero.

‘And what’s he doing now?’ I asked. ‘Is Gerd studying like his brother?’

Otto and his sister shared a look.

‘No. He is not studying. He is in the SA,’ said Otto’s mother.

I looked to Otto for an explanation of the abbreviation. There wasn’t time for him to elaborate. We all turned at the sound of a key in the front door.

‘And here he is!’

Otto’s mother and sister got to their feet. I followed their example. Only Otto remained seated at the table.

Gerd Schmidt appeared in the dining-room doorway. He was almost the spitting image of his brother, but though it was a Sunday, he was wearing a pale-brown uniform. The SA, I understood then, was short for the Sturmabteilung. The Nationalist Socialists’ paramilitary branch. Cord Von Cord had been much in awe of them as they marched around Munich.

‘
Heil Hitler
,’ said Gerd as he flipped us that strange salute and clicked his heels together.

Gerd Schmidt is a very serious young man. He sat down at the table while his mother and sister immediately flew into action, bringing his meal from the oven where it had been keeping warm. He ate quickly and without taking much notice of social niceties. He didn’t seem terribly interested in who I was. Eventually, Otto drew his brother’s attention to the fact that the family had a guest.

‘Miss Katherine Hazleton from England.’

‘Ah, England,’ said Gerd. ‘And what do you think of your chancellor?’

I had to admit I hadn’t given him much thought.

‘Politics aren’t really my thing,’ I said.

‘Well, they should be,’ Gerd admonished me. ‘There is no excuse for ignorance. That is how the wool is pulled over our eyes. And where did you meet my brother?’

‘In the club,’ I said. ‘I’ve been working there.’

Gerd didn’t try to keep the disapproval from his face. His mouth tightened. ‘You work at the club? I see.’

Otto’s mother tried to defuse the tension of the moment by asking her son what he had been doing that morning, but his answers made the atmosphere even darker. Otto kept rolling his eyes. It was clear that the Schmidt brothers were no longer the close friends they had been as children. Perhaps they still teased each other, but there was a distinct edge to that teasing. I wished I could get to the bottom of it.

We left about an hour after Gerd arrived.

‘Thank you, Otto, for taking me to meet your lovely family,’ I said as he walked me home. ‘Your mother and your sister were absolutely charming.’

‘And my brother? I can’t believe he was so rude to you.’

‘He wasn’t rude,’ I said soothingly. ‘Some people find it difficult to meet someone new for the first time. He was as nervous of meeting me as I was of meeting him. That’s all. I’m sure that we’ll all become great friends in time. He’s your brother, Otto. That’s all I need to know to love him.’

‘If he weren’t my brother, I would walk past him in the street.’

‘Don’t say that,’ I told him. ‘I have spent my whole life wishing I had a brother or a sister. I wouldn’t care how annoying they were. When did Gerd become a soldier?’ I asked.

‘Just last year, but he’s wanted to sign up for a long time. Ever since he dragged that wretched boy out of the ice pond and the mayor decided to try to make us his second family. The mayor is a National Socialist. Gerd believes everything he says. My brother saved that man’s son and in return for Gerd’s kindness he stole him away from us. Our father would never have let Gerd join the Party. Never.’

With that, Otto thumped his fist against a wall.

I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen him quite so agitated. I sensed that since I couldn’t think of anything especially sensible, it was best if I said nothing at all. Instead, I wrapped my arms around Otto and started to kiss him. I took his sore fist and kissed that too. That soon chased his bad mood away.

‘Why don’t you come up to my room?’ I said. ‘It’s still daylight. No one can possibly disapprove of you coming into the hotel during the afternoon. Even if it is a Sunday.’

This time, Otto nodded.

Oh, Otto is driving me crazy with desire. When my mother first told me about the birds and the bees, she warned me that boys would try anything to get me into bed with my clothes off. She didn’t warn me that I would feel just as full of raging lust myself. When it comes to me and Otto, he is the one who is in danger! I am lucky, I suppose, that he is such a gentleman, because if the crazy creature inside me had her way, I would strip all my clothes off the moment I saw him, whether we were in my bedroom or the middle of the street! For how long should a good girl hold out?

I know I should stop complaining. Otto has great respect for me, which is more than Matthew Spencer or Cord Von Cord ever had. When the time is right, I am sure he will make love to me properly. In the meantime, I must be patient though my heart says ‘Tonight, tonight, TONIGHT!!!’

Chapter 17

Venice, early last October

As the seemingly endless summer weather began to stutter and rain showers threatened the perfect days, Silvio could not help but notice that it felt as though winter had already arrived at the Palazzo Donato.

When there was no one in the house but Silvio, Marco would not, of course, confine himself to his secret office. He would sit in the armchair by the fire in the library. He would walk round the courtyard garden or simply sit in the sun there, making plans for the next year’s planting. When he’d told Bea that he was the palazzo’s gardener, Marco was not being entirely untruthful. The garden was indeed his domain. Silvio may have swept the paths clean on a daily basis, but it was Marco who had chosen and tended the plants. He did everything from potting to pruning. It was a way of keeping fit now that he would not step outside the palazzo’s grounds. There was a small gym too, with a running machine and a static bicycle. Marco had once explained that while he was content to hide himself away, he did not want to wither away at the same time. He had no intention of making Silvio a nursemaid.

But that seemed to have changed. Marco had not been into the garden for a week. He had been into the library, but when Silvio put his head round the door to announce that the mail had arrived or to ask whether Marco wanted coffee, he found his master not reading but staring into space. It was as though they had slipped back in time to the early years after the accident, when Marco seemed every bit as dead as the other passenger in the car. Silvio had done his best to bring him back to life then. He had made sure that Marco ate. He’d stopped him from becoming a hobo by shaving him each morning and ensuring that he changed his clothes. It had taken a colossal effort to bring Marco back to the point where he was willing at least to dress and feed himself. Now he was slipping backwards again.

It was worrying.

Silvio was an honest man. When Marco inherited the palazzo and Silvio along with it, Marco had made him promise that what went on inside the palazzo from then on was entirely private. Silvio should never speak of his employer outside his four walls. He should not ask questions. He should just continue to do as he had always done. Tend the house. Tend the valuable antiques inside it. Tend the beautiful boat that had belonged to Marco’s grandfather.

Silvio sometimes wondered if he should not wear a
servetta muta
. But his discretion did not mean that he did not care what went on behind the Palazzo Donato’s closed doors. It did not mean that he hadn’t grown to care very much about the young man who employed him. Silvio’s heart had blazed with happiness when Marco announced that he wanted to host a Martedì Grasso ball in honour of the English girl. He thought that it was the beginning of something. It was obvious the girl felt the same. And while the ball had been a disaster for Marco, the girl had come back again after that. And again. She was tenacious in her love for him. Was she still trying to get through to him or was she behind the way things had taken a turn for the worse?

One night in early October – it was a full moon – Silvio decided to act. Marco was in his bedroom. He was going to bed earlier and sleeping longer these days. Plus, even if Marco did wake and decide to roam the palazzo by night, Silvio would hear him coming. In his long service at the palazzo, Silvio had come to know the house as intimately as a lover’s body. He knew her sighs as she settled down for the night and her squeaks of indignation if someone stepped on the wrong floorboard. The house was in cahoots with Silvio. She would let him know if he was in danger of being found out.

Silvio knew about the secret office, of course. Apart from the Donato family, he was one of the few people who had ever seen inside it. He knew it had been installed by Marco’s distant ancestor Ernesta so that she had somewhere to hide if she found herself caught unawares by an unexpected visitor she didn’t wish to entertain for any amount of jewels.

Ernesta had used her hideaway when Napoleon and his troops ransacked the city. It had probably saved her life. It had probably saved the life of Marco’s father too, as he hid his mistresses in there whenever his wife came home unexpectedly. The things that room had seen . . . The things
Silvio
had seen in that room. His mind flashed to his discovery of a drawing of the English girl, sitting at the desk with her shoes kicked off. That wasn’t what he had come for.

Silvio wasn’t sure whether the thing he was looking for still existed, but he felt sure that something would guide him to its hiding place if it did. As he passed her portrait, he had the feeling that the spirit of Ernesta was looking down on him. He felt she would approve.

Inside the secret office, Silvio stood over the desk and looked at the jumble of papers on it. He rifled through them, just as Sarah had done all those months before. He came across another drawing of the English girl sitting in the library. Yes, there was no doubt that the English girl had touched his master’s heart. But this drawing was not what he needed either. Moving quickly, he opened the desk drawers. Nothing there.