Duchess, page 26
Because he didn’t need her.
She heard the door open in the hallway, the laughter of male voices.
“We’re in here,” Jinx said.
Rosie got up, ready to greet them.
Finn appeared, twenty-one and handsome and suddenly everything inside her froze. Simply stopped even as he came down the steps and swept her into an embrace. “Hello, sis,” he said.
His voice. His wide shoulders, his tousled blond hair, his blue eyes.
Everything about him was an exact replica of the Jack she remembered. She stepped away from him, rattled.
She looked at her mother but Jinx had turned, reaching out for Bennett.
He’d aged too, but his hair was still the blond she remembered, albeit thinner. He took Jinx’s hand. “Good to see you, Rosie.”
The voice. The build. She looked from Bennett to Finn, and back.
The Jack he’d become.
Sank down onto the davenport, her hand pressed to her chest.
“What’s the matter with you, Rosie? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
She had. In the form of Nazi Gestapo Commander Otto Staffen.
Chapter 15
The hooded train station of Vienna, with the arching girders canopying the twin tracks, cut crisscrossed shadows across the platform. Rosie wrapped her wool jacket around her, anticipating the dank chill of the foggy morning.
Perhaps even the frosty greeting she’d receive from Rolfe, once he discovered she’d returned to Vienna.
But not for him. Or, not only for him.
For herself. And her mother. And Bennett and Finn.
For hope, which, after twenty years, still refused to die.
The train coughed, and stilled, jolting to its final stop. Beyond the girders, the sky hung low, gray, void of cheer. She searched for Sophie one last time then gathered up her case and headed out of her compartment, joining the other passengers.
Rosie had taken little for her voyage, but she’d still require help from the porters with her luggage. She had no illusions that Rolfe would send a welcoming party. If Sophie had even told him Rosie was returning to Vienna.
Rosie stepped off the train onto the cement platform and stood there a moment, again searching. The air smelled of smoke and creosote, nothing of the grandeur of her previous stay, almost a year ago. The Nazi flag draped over the arched top of every entrance, a bloodred stamp with a spider in the center. Like bugs, the Nazis infested the city—at least that’s the way Sophie described it in her letters—and already Rosie stifled a shiver.
What she knew about Hitler reminded her of Cesar Napoli, the mobster who’d once tried to own her in New York, a man who’d murdered her first husband, Guthrie.
For that reason alone, she could hate them—thugs, really. And she would plead with Rolfe to see them for the danger they were. To come back to America with her.
She’d even propose, if she had to. Lay her heart out there, even if he couldn’t give her his back.
“Roxy! Over here!”
She turned to the voice and found Sophie weaving through the crowd. She wore a cloche hat, a plain brown coat, leather gloves, and threw her arms around Rosie’s neck, holding her tight. “I can’t believe you came.”
“Me either.”
The male voice wasn’t who she’d expected, but it still filled her up with warmth. “Hale.”
He swept her into his arms, kissed her cheek.
“What are you doing here?”
He put her away, glanced at Sophie, then, “I’m working with Rolfe.”
Oh. She saw the flash of meaning in his eyes. Her smile faded. “How is it going?”
He picked up her satchel. “Do you have other bags?”
She nodded.
“I’ll fetch them. We brought a car—meet me there.” He glanced again at Sophie. A chill shivered through Rosie as he turned away.
“What’s wrong?”
Sophie slid her arm through Rosie’s. “Your timing is…unfortunate. Last night a Jewish boy from Poland shot and killed a German diplomat in his Parisian offices. It’s sparked a retaliation from the Nazis.”
“Here? In Vienna?”
“Yes. And I fear other places. Especially Germany.”
They exited the platform and strode through the station. She paused under the Corinthian columns of the grand station in silence, staring at the cityscape.
Black smoke roiled into the sky from at least two locations, and sirens whined in the distance. The faint roar of militant crowds, of glass shattering, the shrill of distant screams rent the morning. Men and women refugees with golden stars pinned to their jackets rushed past with suitcases, gripping the whitened hands of their children, nearly dragging them along. An elderly woman bumped into her, slamming Rosie off balance.
She looked at her, a cry of pain on her lips, but the fear on the woman’s face turned her silent.
Rosie found her hand tight in Sophie’s. “Where’s the car?”
Sophie led her around the building, to where the car, a Rolls sedan, sat at the curb. “It’s Rolfe’s.”
“Does he know I’m here?”
Sophie shook her head.
“What’s happening, Sophie? Why is Hale here?”
“He’s been working on publicity for the film, planning the premiere. It is slated to be shown later this month.”
Rosie looked at her, nonplussed. “Rolfe’s still planning on promoting the movie?”
“Of course. How do you think he plans to keep working in Austria?”
“But certainly, the Germans have screened it—”
Sophie frowned. “You didn’t hear, then. We had to edit the ending. The director of cultural affairs said that he wanted a more benevolent ending. Hale filmed a final scene where he appeared at German headquarters, confirming that he’d been a German officer all along. The Germans thought it showed their cunning. They feel it is a reminder to the Austrian people that they are watching them, even if they don’t suspect it.”
“Of course.” Rosie tried not to let the news skewer her.
Sophie lowered he voice. “Of course, this is simply the Austrian version. He has the original ready for distribution in America, London, and Paris. And in the meantime, he will do what he must to assist the Jews escaping from the city. There are close to forty people hiding in homes here, seventeen at his apartment on the north side of the city. Jews forced from their homes and businesses, denied visas to Poland or France. Things are getting desperate, Roxy. Men arrested or beaten when they don’t surrender their property. Schools and synagogues closed. Young men and women disappearing. Rolfe is planning on using the movie across Austria to distract officials, move Jews into France and then Israel.”
“How?”
“I don’t know, exactly. I do know there is a German he is working with, someone embedded in the Nazi Gestapo. The German has men sympathetic to the Jewish plight, soldiers willing to look the other way at the train station, even at the borders.”
Otto. Her brother.
Maybe.
How she hoped, no, prayed, with every fabric of her strength that Otto was indeed Jack Worth, lost in the Great War.
Despite his German accent, his history as a German war hero. Despite the fact he might be the leader of the thugs hunting down the Jews.
Maybe he was every bit the actor she was.
She’d held on to that hope for the past month, for the three weeks her mother, Finn, and Bennett toured Los Angeles, for the week that she packed her bags and traveled with them to New York City on the train, thanks to her mother’s fear of repeating her TWA experience. It only grew stronger over the few days it took to arrange passage on an Atlantic liner to Paris, the eight days on the ocean, and then the overnight train ride to Vienna.
Now, she clutched that hope as the city burned around her, the stench of rubber and oil poisoning the air. A German transport pulled up and soldiers spilled out of it, invading the train station, weapons slung over their shoulders.
Hale pushed through the throng like a man drowning, gripping her suitcase, her satchel. He moved quickly, his long legs striding up to the vehicle. “They’re already arresting citizens trying to flee.”
“You mean Jews trying to flee.”
He shot her a look, his mouth a grim line. He opened the trunk and maneuvered the cases inside.
“I expected more baggage from a movie star,” he said, apparently a sore attempt at a joke as he opened the door to the backseat.
“I’m not a movie star anymore,” she said as she climbed in. “And right now I’m wondering how I can be of any use at all.”
He shut the door, took the driver’s seat as Sophie sat in the front. “Rolfe is going to lose his mind when he finds out you’re here.”
“Just drive.”
They pulled out of the Südbahnhof toward the center of the city. The spires of St. Stephan’s Cathedral rose like a spear above the skyline, parting the grimy smoke. In the distance, she could make out the glorious outline of the opera house, where Rolfe had finally taken her in his arms.
A haze hung over the city, however, the streets clogging with pedestrians, soldiers, crowds hunkered around vandals smashing storefronts. Glass splattered into the buildings, across the sidewalks, into the streets, jagged droplets. She saw an elderly man in an overcoat, his beard long and gray, armed with paint and a brush scribing JUDEN on the door of a building.
Their vehicle slowed as the crowds bumped it. One man slammed his hand into her window and she let out an involuntary scream.
Sophie slipped her hand over the seat to take hers.
More soldiers, their armbands designating their allegiance to the Nazi party, pushed groups of young men into a wagon, beating them with clubs. She turned away at the sight of a mob surrounding an angry teenager.
“We should stop!”
“We’ll get killed,” Hale snapped. “Don’t look.”
But how could she not look? Fire licked out of an open window of an ornate synagogue, flames breaking through the round window etched with the Star of David. A line of armed soldiers in black jodhpurs, shiny black boots, pressed ties, and military caps, held back the crowd—firefighters and onlookers watching in rapt horror. A group of rabbis knelt before the building, pistols aimed at their backs. A cadre of young men had picked up bricks, throwing them through the windows.
“Why are people doing this?”
“Anger? The Nazi propaganda has made them believe it’s the Jews responsible for the economic trials of the past years. And…hatred. Evil thrives where good men do nothing,” Hale said.
Down the street, a mob had destroyed the front window of a grocer, now tossed his goods into the street, canned vegetables, meats, oranges, grapefruit. The car drove through the debris, smashing the fruit into the cobblestones.
Sophie squeezed her hand. “We’ll find Rolfe and leave. Immediately.”
Please, God, protect him. She could taste her desperation, sour and acrid, as she mouthed the prayer.
She caught sight of a young woman pushing a pram down the street and her breath left her as a trio of teenage men turned, and began to run after the woman.
“Stop the car.”
The boys had caught up, grabbed the back of the woman’s coat. She stumbled, slapped at them, screaming.
“Stop, Hale!”
“No!”
They pushed the woman up against the building. She kicked out at them, and one of bullies slapped her.
Another turned to the pram.
Rosie grabbed his shoulder, shook Hale. “Stop right now!” Then she reached for the door handle.
Hale slammed on the brakes and she nearly hurtled out of the car. “Stop!”
Her voice—in English, stunned them. They turned toward her, briefly silenced. Hale, God bless him, leapt from the car, came at them with enough menace for them to scatter.
She was already at the pram, pulling the child—a baby girl judging from the pink knitted cap—free from the blanket. She clutched the wailing child to her chest.
“Get into the car,” she ordered the mother.
She needed no translation. The woman fled to the car without a word. Rosie shoved the screaming baby into her arms and climbed in beside her.
She wore a yellow star on her coat, panic in her eyes.
“You can trust us,” she said in English, and Sophie translated.
“But first, let’s get that heinous star off you.” She reached up to tear it from the jacket, but Sophie caught her arm.
“It’s forbidden,” she said. “She could be arrested and executed for removing it.”
Rosie lowered her hand. The woman closed her eyes, drew her screaming child close.
“Hurry, Hale,” Rosie said.
They cut through alleyways and side roads, weaving through the raucous city to the north side. They drove past the university steps, where soldiers barred the doors, lining up across the steps.
“They won’t let Jews attend class,” Hale said.
Next to her, the woman watched, tears trailing down her cheeks. She said something in German and Sophie translated. “Her brother attends school there.”
Hale’s hands whitened on the steering wheel. They drove in silence past the university, finally leaving the center for the suburban area, where apartment houses lined tree-anchored streets. Even here, the Nazis invaded, and she watched as a family stood on the sidewalk while soldiers tossed clothing out of windows, furniture onto the street.
She found her hand clutched in the woman’s.
“Ava,” she whispered.
“Rosie.”
Another German transport thundered by, passing them, soldiers hunkered down in the back. They glared down at her car, and she had the urge to press her hand over the star, hide it.
Fear took control of her hands, turned them slippery.
She smelled the acrid smoke even as they came upon the crowd, men and women in the street, some of them in their housecoats, others in overcoats and slippers, as if they’d been pulled from their beds to watch as the building across the street blazed.
She followed their gaze to a three-story apartment house surrounded by a wrought-iron fence, faded, trampled chrysanthemums at the base of the columns and a cobbled drive. Fire crashed out of the top windows, the lower ones thick with belching smoke.
A stack of fine art leaned against a transport truck near the scene, armed soldiers protected it from looters. Or, perhaps, from the rightful owners.
“Oh no,” Hale said, and she stiffened. He stopped the car. “Stay here.”
“Why.” She leaned forward, but even Sophie got out, her hand cupped over her mouth.
No.
Rosie shucked off her coat and handed it to Ava. “Put this on.” She got out and shut the door. The heat bled into the morning, and she heard the screams, the murmurs of horror as more glass exploded out, spraying the onlookers, who moved back, away from the onslaught of the flames.
Hale forged ahead searching the crowd. She sidled in behind him, grabbed the back of his jacket. He looked down at her, eyes wide. “Not a word,” he said softly then gestured ahead.
She pressed her hand over her mouth to stifle a scream. Armed soldiers surrounded a group of stocking-footed men, women in bathrobes, a small child, most of them crying as they watched the house burn. And standing in the middle, his face tight, handcuffed, blood trickling down his forehead—
Rolfe.
Chapter 16
“It used to be the most beautiful hotel in Austria. Built for the Vienna World Exposition, it’s filled with atlantes and statues of women, massive Corinthian columns. And there is a glass floor.”
Sophie stood on the edge of the Morzinplatz, her hands in her pockets, staring at the Hotel Metropole, a four-story magnificent building that meant death for anyone who entered it. A giant flag with a Nazi swastika, as Sophie called it, fluttered in the crisp air, as if waving.
No, taunting.
“Since the Anschluss, the Nazis have turned the Metropole into Gestapo headquarters. Rolfe is in there,” Sophie said.
Rosie wore a headscarf, her mink collar lifted around her ears. The other coat she’d let Ava keep and had the woman secured in her hotel suite at the Imperial Hotel.
She experienced too much satisfaction as she’d walked Ava right past the German dignitaries lodged at the Imperial, there, turning her into her German nanny, while she, Roxy Price, toured Austria.
She’d garnished a few curious looks, every gaze falling on her and conveniently sliding right past Ava.
Suddenly, Rolfe’s plotting made sense. Even if it had come to a fiery end.
“They wouldn’t kill him, would they?” She’d finally stopped trembling when Hale gave his report of Rolfe’s whereabouts. He’d been shipped off to Gestapo headquarters with the rest of the Jews who were labeled as political prisoners.
“I don’t think so. Not if he tells them who he is. I think he could say he didn’t know his tenants were Jews and they might release him. The problem is, they found the travel papers, fake documents intended to scurry them out of the country. Even if he escapes, the rest of them are headed for Dachau.”
She frowned.
“A concentration camp in Germany. Some say it’s a death camp.”
Death camp?
She had glanced toward the closed door of her suite, where Ava tended to her child, probably singing her to sleep.
Sophie had asked about her husband, and the poor women simply burst into tears.
Rosie wanted to do the same thing. She’d spent the night pacing. Writing a story in her head.
Conjuring up her own script.
But it all hinged on her leading man, Otto Staffen. Subordinate Chief of the Gestapo in Austria, Head of Department IV, Section B4, the department that oversaw the management of the “Jewish problem.”
“Staffen handles the Schutzhaft, or what they call ‘protective custody’,” Hale had said. “And he’s as loyal as a Schnitzel. I can guarantee that Staffen is not Rolfe’s contact.”
“I saw them together in Vienna, when we left the day the Germans marched into Austria. Rolfe gave him something, and he let us pass. If Rolfe was transporting Jews from Austria and Otto knew it, why didn’t he search the train?”
