The most complicated part for Alys wasn’t convincing the policemen to let her tend to the sick man in her home, but overcoming Doris’s resistance to letting him in. She had to shout at her almost as loudly as she’d had to shout at Manfred to get him to move himself for God’s sake and go and find help. Finally her brother had obeyed and two servants had cleared a path through the circle of spectators and loaded the young man into the elevator.
“Miss Alys, you know that Sir doesn’t like having strangers in the house, especially when he’s not here. I’m firmly against this.”
The young coal bearer hung limp and unconscious between the servants, who were too old to be able to bear his weight for much longer. They were on the landing of the staircase, and the housekeeper was blocking the door.
“We can’t leave him here, Doris. We will have to send for a doctor.”
“It’s not our responsibility.”
“It is. The accident was Manfred’s fault,” she said, pointing at the boy, who was standing pale-faced beside her, holding the ball very far from his body as though he feared it might injure someone else.
“I’ve said no. There are hospitals for… for people like him.”
“He’ll be better looked after here.”
Doris stared at her as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Then she twisted her mouth into a condescending smile. She knew exactly what to say to enrage Alys, and she chose her words carefully.
“Fraulein Alys, you’re too young to…”
So it’s back to this, thought Alys, feeling her face color with rage and shame. Well, this time it’s not going to work.
“Doris, with all due respect, get out of the way.”
She moved toward the door and pushed it with both hands. The housekeeper tried to shut it, but she was too late, and the wood struck her shoulder as it swung open. She fell on her backside on the entrance hall rug, watching powerlessly as the Tannenbaum children led the two servants into the house. The latter avoided her gaze, and Doris was convinced they were trying not to laugh.
“This is not how things are done. I shall tell your father,” she said, furious.
“You don’t have to worry about that, Doris. When he comes back from Dachau tomorrow I’ll tell him myself,” replied Alys without glancing back.
Deep down, she wasn’t as confident as her words seemed to suggest. She knew that there would be problems with her father, but at that moment she was determined not to allow the housekeeper to get her own way.
“Close your eyes. I don’t want to get iodine in them.”
Alys tiptoed into the guest room, trying not to interrupt the doctor, who was cleaning the injured man’s forehead. Doris was standing angrily in the corner of the room, constantly clearing her throat or tapping her feet to show her impatience. When Alys came in, she redoubled her efforts. Alys ignored her and looked at the young coal bearer stretched out on the bed.
The mattress is completely ruined, she thought. At that moment her eyes met the man’s and she recognized him.
The waiter from the party! No, it can’t be him!
But it was, because she saw him open his eyes wide and raise his eyebrows. More than a year had passed, but she still remembered him. And suddenly she realized who the fair-haired boy was who had slipped into her fantasies when she tried to visualize Prescott. She noticed Doris glaring at her, so she faked a yawn and opened the bedroom door. Using it as a screen between her and the housekeeper, she looked at Paul and brought a finger to her lips.***
“How is he?” Alys asked when at last the doctor came out into the corridor.
He was a skinny man with bulging eyes who had been in charge of the Tannenbaums’ care since before Alys was born. When her mother had died of influenza, the girl had spent many sleepless nights, hating him for not having saved her, though now his strange appearance produced in her only a shiver, like that of a stethoscope on skin.
“His left arm’s broken, though it seems like a clean break. I’ve put a splint and bandages on him. He should be all right in six weeks or so. Try to stop him moving it.”
“What about his head?”
“The other injuries are superficial, though he’s bled a lot. He must have scraped himself against the edge of the steps. I’ve disinfected the wound on his forehead, though he should have a good bath as soon as possible.”
“Can he leave straightaway, Doctor?”
The doctor nodded a greeting to Doris, who had just closed the door behind him.
“I’d recommend that he stay here tonight. Well, good-bye,” said the doctor, pulling his hat on firmly.
“We’ll see to that, Doctor. Thank you very much,” said Alys, bidding him good-bye and throwing Doris a challenging stare.
Paul twisted in the bathtub, uncomfortable. He had to keep his left arm out of the water so as not to get the bandages wet. With his body covered in bruises, there was no position that didn’t make some part of him hurt. He surveyed the room, stunned by the luxury that surrounded him. Baron von Schroeder’s mansion, though it was in one of the most highly prized areas in Munich, didn’t have the amenities this apartment had, beginning with hot water that flowed straight from the tap. Paul had usually been the one to carry hot water from the kitchen each time someone in the family wanted to take a bath, which was a daily occurrence. And there was just no comparison between the bathroom in which he found himself now and the cupboard with a washstand and basin in the boardinghouse.
So this is her house. I thought I’d never see her again. It’s a pity she’s ashamed of me, he thought.
“That water’s very black.”
Paul looked up, startled. Alys was at the bathroom door, an amused expression on her face. Although the bathtub came almost to his shoulders and the water was covered in a grayish lather, the young man couldn’t help blushing.
“What are you doing here?”
“Redressing the balance,” she said, smiling at Paul’s feeble efforts to cover himself up with one hand. “I owed you for having rescued me.”
“Bearing in mind that it was your brother’s ball that knocked me down those stairs, I’d say you still owe me one.”
Alys didn’t reply. She looked at him carefully, focusing on his shoulders and the pronounced muscles of his sinewy arms. Without the coal dust, his skin was very fair.
“Anyhow, thanks, Alys,” said Paul, taking her silence to be a mute reproach.
“You remember my name.”
Now it was Paul’s turn to be silent. The shine in Alys’s eyes was striking, and he had to look away.
“You’ve bulked up quite a bit,” she continued after a pause.
“It’s those baskets. They weigh a ton, but carrying them about makes you stronger.”
“How did you end up selling coal?”
“It’s a long story.”
She took a stool from the corner of the bathroom and sat down close to him.
“Tell me. We have time.”
“Aren’t you afraid they’ll catch you here?”
“I went to bed half an hour ago. The housekeeper checked on me. But it wasn’t difficult to sneak past her.”
Paul picked up the bar of soap and began turning it around in his hand.
“After the party I had a nasty argument with my aunt.”
“Because of your cousin?”
“It was because of something that happened many years ago, something to do with my father. My mother told me he’d died in a shipwreck, but on the day of the party I learned that she’d been lying to me for years.”
“It’s something adults do,” Alys said with a sigh.
“They threw us out, me and my mother. This job was the best I could get.”
“You’re lucky, I suppose.”
“You call this luck?” said Paul, wincing. “Working from dawn till dusk, with nothing to look forward to except a few pfennig in your pocket. Some luck!”
“You have a job; you have your independence, your self-respect. That’s something,” she replied, upset.
“I would swap it for some of this,” he said, gesturing around him.
“You have no idea what I mean, Paul, do you?”
“More than you think,” he spat, unable to contain himself. “You have beauty and intelligence and you spoil it all by pretending to be unhappy, a rebel, spending more time moaning about your luxurious position and worrying about what other people think of you than taking risks and fighting for what you really want.”
He fell silent, suddenly conscious of everything he’d said, and saw the emotion dancing in her eyes. He opened his mouth to excuse himself but thought that it would only make things worse.
Alys slowly got up from the stool. For a moment Paul thought she was going to leave, but this was just the first of many times he would fail to interpret her feelings correctly over the years. She came to the bathtub, knelt down beside it, and, leaning over the water, kissed him on the lips. At first Paul froze, but soon he began to respond.
Alys drew back and stared at him. Paul understood where her beauty lay: it was in the glimmer of challenge that blazed in her eyes. He leaned his body forward and kissed her, but this time he opened his mouth slightly. After a while she broke away.
Then she heard the door.