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“Yes.” Don’t add anything. Don’t give him reason to hit her again.
“Who gave you the gun? Did you bring it with you?” There was a sneer with the last question. “Nobody noticed a pretty young woman carrying her handbag, and a rifle?” Now he was deeply sarcastic. “We are not stupid!”
She wanted to say that the very idea proved that they were, but she knew he would hit her again, perhaps a lot harder. “It would be impossible to walk around with a rifle,” she agreed. “At least I imagine it would. I’ve never tried.”
“Liar!” He hit her again, knocking her off balance, sending her sprawling onto the floor. She sat up quickly, and without thinking put her hand to her cheek. Holding it eased the pain a little, or perhaps she just imagined it did. Now there was more blood in her mouth and running down her chin. He saw her as weak, someone too afraid to stand up for herself. She could see it in his eyes. She stood awkwardly, holding on to the chair, and then sitting in it, a little dizzy, forcing herself to look at him.
“I don’t have a rifle! Or any other gun,” she said, stumbling a little over her words because her mouth hurt. “And if I had tried carrying around such a thing, as you said, you would have seen it.”
“We found it in your room!” he said triumphantly.
“In the hotel? Anyone could have put it there. I didn’t.”
“Then how did you know it was there?” He was smiling now.
“Because you just told me.” She met his eyes and stared straight at him.
He raised his hand to strike her again, but his companion caught it.
“She’s no use to us if she can’t speak,” he warned. “She’s not alone in this. Use your brain.”
The first man shook him off angrily, but he conceded the point.
“If you are not guilty, why did you run away?” the second man asked, his voice softer, his temper well in his control. He sounded as if he was merely interested, no more.
But it was a lethal question. There was no completely innocent answer.
“Because I was in the square and I knew someone had shot Herr Scharnhorst. I saw it happen. I saw the panic. I knew you would be looking for anyone who could be connected with it. I was not. I had no idea such a thing could happen. Or who would do it.” That, at least, was close to the truth. But she could hear the tight, high fear in her own voice. They must hear it, too.
“You didn’t think to hand the gun over to the authorities?” the second man continued, still smiling as if it were a casual conversation.
“No, I tol
d you, I know nothing about a gun, but I was frightened at what I had seen in the square. It was a terrible thing.”
“I believe you. Where did you go, Fräulein…Standish? You say you know the city—do you have friends here in Berlin?”
Now she must invent, carefully. One slip and they would trap her. She had no doubt that they would hurt her, perhaps badly, if they thought it would help them. When she had arrived, she had just been a British tourist, inconspicuous, noticing and photographing the assault on minorities, particularly Jews. She had seen their faces and humiliation, old men stepping off the pavement into the gutter to let Brownshirt youth strut by. No one retaliated, no one tried to stop them.
She had been part of the “no one” who passed by, because Jacob had made her see that intervention only made things worse. They had no power. She burned with rage at the offenders, and pity for the victims. Now she was one of the victims, alone, so frightened her stomach churned and she found it difficult to draw in her breath. Her face throbbed where they had struck her, and she swallowed blood.
She could not hide her fear from them. The only good thing left was to make sure she did not bring anyone else down with her.
“Did you go to friends here in Berlin?” the man repeated.
“No. I just ran.”
“Why? Were you afraid they would not believe that you were innocent?”
He was clever. If she said yes, she condemned herself and them. If she said no, then why hadn’t she gone to them for help?
“I just ran,” she said again. “Then I got lost. I got…turned around. I couldn’t go the way I meant to. I found one house, or I thought I did, but there was no one there that I knew.”
“Were they Jews?” He asked the question without any emotion in his voice at all, nothing to indicate what his reaction would be, whether she said yes or no.
She thought of one friend she had known, in case he asked her. Better to have someone in mind. “No, they were Catholics.”
“And you thought they would help you? Or did you not plan to tell them that you were being hunted for murdering Herr Scharnhorst?”
