The House by the Lake (22 page)

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Amsterdam, 2010

Anna had arranged to meet Gabriel on her first afternoon in Amsterdam. With a few hours to spare after she arrived, she decided to walk to pass the time. Each canal seemed to have a flavor all its own—drawing her in. The timeless city was laden with bikes and students and impossibly chic apartments, their uncurtained windows revealing funky designer interiors in charming old buildings that blended with all that was modern.

Anna made her way to Gabriel’s gallery in plenty of time. When she pushed open the door to the space, he stood watching her from a desk at the back of the white-painted room. Anna looked around. A series of stunning portraits lined the walls, and the art was lit dramatically, throwing emphasis on certain features in the paintings. If she were here for different reasons, Anna would have loved to browse and have a better look.

“Mr. Kramer?” she asked.

He inclined his head.

“I’m Anna Young. I hope this is still a good time for you.”

It was a few moments before he spoke. “I admit I’ve been thinking about your call ever since I hung up the phone.” It struck Anna right now that his accent had a slight American nuance.

He looked almost incredulous to see her—as if she had appeared by magic in his gallery on Prinsengracht and was about to disappear like a rabbit back into a black top hat.

Anna looked openly at him too. She searched for any resemblance to Ingrid. But she couldn’t see anything definite. There might have been something in the blue eyes, if Gabriel’s were not so much warmer than Ingrid’s. His gray hair, which she suspected had been blond once, was cut close to his head, and he wore a faded leather jacket over his black polo sweater.

“I was almost expecting you not to turn up,” he said, unlocking a drawer under the counter and pulling out a leather wallet. “Let’s go and get coffee. You have to try the best.”

“Oh, believe me, I’ve done well with the coffee already.” Anna laughed. “I can see that you Dutch know how to create a good blend.”

“Wards off the jet lag?” Gabriel was pleasant, chatty.

Anna felt her shoulders relax. If she were a betting girl, she would put a wager on Gabriel being a good talker.

“It’s the only solution,” Anna said.

He called out in Dutch to someone in a back room. A man’s voice answered. Anna tried to focus on what she was going to say.

But as she walked with Gabriel along the narrow footpath, she found herself distracted by the late afternoon sun that was throwing pink light on the canal houses, the floating flower market replete with tulips, the mismatched rooftops, and the boats moored picturesquely in the canals.

She followed him as he pushed open a glass door into a café. The walls were lined with shelves stacked with vases and books and even lamps that were turned on, casting a warm glow throughout the room.

Once Gabriel had ordered coffee, he sat down opposite Anna and leaned his head in his hands.

“I’m sorry,” Anna started. “Are you okay?”

“Yes, yes,” he said. “It is just such a surprise seeing someone connected with my father.”

Anna decided not to go into how recently she had learned of her connection. She waited for him to speak.

“Okay then,” he said when the coffee arrived, along with two perfect-looking pieces of pie. The pastry was cut in a diamond pattern. “You have to try this—our specialty—
vlaai
,” he said. “The cherries in the center are local.”

“Have you lived here all your life?” she asked, taking a bite of the sweet pie.

“My father came here after the war. He was looking for a place where he could . . . be himself.”

“I see.”

“How much do you know?” Gabriel asked.

Anna told him about Max and found out that Gabriel already knew about his half sister, Ingrid, but he had never sought contact with her. Anna told him all she knew about Nadja, and she talked about Ingrid’s bitter-sounding views of the past. Anna told him that she didn’t believe that this bitterness was entirely justified—that there must be more to the story, that Ingrid’s view of Max didn’t mesh with her own experience of him. That she wanted a more balanced understanding of what had happened.

Gabriel nodded. “I understand that. My father, Hans, was in and out of psychiatric institutions all his life. He never recovered from what happened in Paris. He was traumatized. I—”

Anna put her fork down and stared. “Paris?” she asked.

“You have come all this way, Anna. There’s no point in keeping any of it a secret anymore.”

Anna nodded. Finally, finally, was she about to hear the truth?

“It was clear that my father, Hans, was tormented by some secret,” Gabriel said. “Eventually, one of the doctors got it out of him.”

Anna leaned her chin on her hands.

“My father had worked for the Albrecht family since he was fourteen years old. Your grandfather, Max, and my father got along especially well. So he was promoted early—quite an achievement.”

Anna nodded.

“Max was in love with a French girl before and during the war.”

“I know. She lived in that apartment in Paris. But I don’t know anything else about her.”

“You have seen the news articles then?” Gabriel looked up all of a sudden. “Were they the catalyst for your search?”

“Max found them. His reaction to them made me curious. I couldn’t rest until I had gotten to the bottom of it.”

“Good timing, then.”

“In some ways, not in others.”

“That is often the way.”

Anna waited.

“My father and your grandfather were both part of the German army that was involved in the occupation of Paris. You see, Anna, the Nazis were after the French girl’s maid, first and foremost. The Nazis told Max and my father that the maid was a spy. They were ordered to kill the girl. And they were also told to kill Isabelle de Florian—the girl Max was going to marry—because she was harboring a spy.”

Anna closed her eyes. She had to put her hands out on the table to steady herself.

“Are you all right?” Gabriel asked.

“Yes, sure.”

“It was a test of Nazi loyalty. They knew everything—all about Max’s love affair. That was why Max was sent on the mission, not anyone else. My father knew Isabelle too, of course. She had stayed at Schloss Siegel with them one Christmas. She was, he said, regarded as part of the family. Everyone expected Max and Isabelle to marry after the war. My father liked her. The entire situation was beyond anything we can imagine.”

“Oh, help,” Anna said. “Poor Max.”

“Yes. It was, as I said, a test. How far would his loyalty to his country go? What would Max do in the name of Nazism? The expectation was that you pushed your own desires aside. The party came first. Germany came first. Nothing else mattered. You have to understand.”

Anna nodded, but she was starting to feel ill. “Go on,” she managed.

She was almost biting her bottom lip through.

“Max was ordered to take my father with him on the mission in Paris. It was the eve of the Nazi invasion. Both of them would recognize Isabelle from any distance. The Nazis knew that she had not left her apartment and that she was still in Paris that night. And the fact that the girls had not escaped Paris earlier was telling—it gave the Nazis even more ammunition. Were the maid and Isabelle planning on staying in Paris and making trouble? The Nazis could not tolerate spies. And the maid was a big suspect.”

“But how could the maid have been a spy?” Anna had to ask the question.

“They were told she was helping a designated Nazi enemy,” Gabriel said. “I imagine that was a convenient way of saying she had a friend who was an illegal immigrant, or Jewish. It happened all the time.”

“Of course,” Anna sighed.

“So, Max and Hans followed Isabelle and her maid as they dragged their suitcases through Paris on the night of June 11, 1940, when they were finally trying to escape.

“It was not until the girls turned into a quiet lane that they had the opportunity to kill them.”

“But my grandfather . . .”

“Anna.” Gabriel leaned forward. “Max had papers ready for Isabelle’s escape.”

Anna felt her breathing quicken. She looked up at the man sitting opposite her. Suddenly, he seemed weary—looked every one of his years, and more.

“It was my father who carried out the deed. It was Hans, the luckless valet, who shot Isabelle de Florian dead. My father had always been ambitious, had always tried to prove his worth. My father’s loyalty to the Albrecht family was unwavering. It was his duty to protect Max, even if it meant acting against Max’s will. My father felt Isabelle would be the death of Max, and were anything to happen to Max then he would have failed in his duty to protect him, and they’d both be shot for insubordination. No matter how much he admired Isabelle, he had to be loyal to Max. But I cannot tell you how tormented he was for the rest of his life.”

Anna stayed silent, but her heart was beating loud enough to wake the dead.

“So. My father carried out the order. He shot Isabelle first, because she stepped out and called for Max. She had seen him. And it was that shout that stayed with my father forever.”

“No.”

Gabriel reached a hand out across the table. He rested it just near Anna’s own.

“Max ran to Isabelle. He transferred the papers to Camille as they leaned over Isabelle’s dying body. Hans had to hold off firing now that Max was in front of the maid. He couldn’t get a clear shot without risking killing Max instead.”

Anna nodded, but her breathing was shaky now.

“My father felt the most terrible guilt for years. It eroded him. Guilt can do that. He had killed an innocent young woman, a woman whom his employer loved, and whom he had liked, and for what? Isabelle de Florian probably did not even know of her maid’s activities. The poor girl was probably only trying to escape. She was nothing but sweet, he said.”

“God.” Anna hardly heard her own voice.

“Max clearly couldn’t trust Hans after what he had done. He couldn’t take a chance on staying. He had no choice but to disappear. Max abandoned his uniform, which was found nearby. My father never knew where he went at the time.

“My father did say, though, that Max’s parents pushed him into the Nazi party. They insisted he join to save the estate—to keep everyone safe. Max confided in my father about his terrible conflict at having to join the Nazis at all. They were close. Max had such grave doubts.

“Essentially, his family put him into a compromising position, which brought about the death of his true love. Perhaps he could never forgive them. Or perhaps he could simply never go back. I suspect the latter was the case. It was probably just all too much, and the years passed, making things harder. He probably knew that his parents were dead, and that his younger brothers had been killed. So there was only Nadja and my father, and my father had killed Isabelle.”

Anna patted his hand where it rested on the table. The café had quieted. She needed some time to think.

“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much, Gabriel.”

“If you have anything you’d like to talk about, just let me know,” Gabriel said. “I’m always here.”

“Thank you.”

“So you were close to your grandfather, to Max?” he asked.

“Yes,” Anna said. “Yes. Very close.”

“Would you like to take some time to yourself now?” he asked.

“I think so.”

He walked her out of the café. She turned back to her hotel, dodging the bicycles and the tourists and the locals with bread under their arms as if they were some sort of haze. Not the real world.

She was in Paris. In that lane. How many times had Max revisited that time? What if Hitler hadn’t taken charge of his country and wreaked havoc on the rest of the world, keeping Max from marrying his true love and spending his life on his beloved family property, as he was meant to?

Anna stopped on top of a bridge over the Herengracht canal. Max had been trying to tell her not to avoid things out of fear, not if they were right. But why, if it was so simple, was it also so impossibly hard to face her own feelings, her own fears? What did she really feel about Wil? And what was she going to do now about Siegel?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Twenty-four hours later, Anna lugged her suitcase into Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport. She stood right inside the glass doors, her suitcase next to her, her passport in her wallet, her ticket home to San Francisco clasped tight in her hand.

She looked at the ticket. Turned it over. It was just something that she would take to a counter, hand to an airline attendant, exchange for a boarding pass. Get on the plane, go back home. Back to routine. The end.

But her heart ached for Max and Isabelle, and when she had walked back to her hotel the night before, every couple she had seen wandering through Amsterdam’s narrow streets, holding hands on bridges, had brought her grandfather and the love that he had lost to her mind.

And Max had kept Isabelle, the memory of her, the love he had for the girl from the Paris apartment, entirely to himself. Perhaps there was a beauty in that.

It was time to go home.

Anna started dragging her suitcase across the hard tiles in the airport. She forced herself to focus on looking for the counter that had been designated for her flight to LA. LA, then San Francisco. Home.

No.

Anna stopped and shook her head at her silly thoughts. She was being ridiculous. There was nothing she could do to save Schloss Siegel now. She could not, would not, go back and take on Nadja’s daughter.

Anna could imagine the conversation. Ingrid was good at arguing. She was a hard-nosed businesswoman who was used to making tough decisions. Anyone who could leave a charming old estate like Siegel in disrepair for goodness knew what purpose, let alone not care how the villagers were living, was hardly going to view some love story in Paris as good reason to change her approach.

But then Anna stopped again. She was strong too. She had built up her own business just as Ingrid had, albeit on a smaller scale.

Why should she end what she was doing now, when she had hardly begun?

Schloss Siegel was part of Anna’s history too. It wasn’t only about Ingrid.

Anna looked at the ticket.

Then she walked in the opposite direction of where she had planned, instead heading to the counter where she could buy another ticket.

She was going to buy a ticket to her other home.

“I want to go to Berlin,” she said to the operator sitting in front of her.

And the airline attendant did not question this. She simply tapped information into her computer and printed out a ticket.

Late afternoon light threw a golden blanket over Berlin. Anna felt more at home than ever before as the taxi moved through the bustling city. She gazed out at the Brandenburg Gate, standing there resolute in spite of everything that had happened at its feet.

It was, of course, a symbol of hope and freedom, freedom from the past. Freedom from divisiveness and hatred. And that was what Anna wanted to change. If she were honest with herself, she not only wanted to free Max’s reputation—she also wanted to help her cousin. She wanted to help Ingrid see that it didn’t have to be like this, that she didn’t have to leave things rotting, and she did not have to blame or be bitter at all.

The task was not going to be easy, Anna granted herself that. But as she paid the taxi driver outside the hotel near Wil’s house—the same one she had stayed in last time—she did not allow doubts to creep into her thoughts.

Once she had checked into the hotel and freshened up in her room, she headed outside. Then she dialed Ingrid’s business number, which she had simply looked up on the Net, and walked like any other Berliner—with purpose, past the cafés and the boutiques, her eyes straight ahead, even though she was only going for a walk around the block.

After a few seconds, she was put through to Ingrid’s phone.

“Anna,” Ingrid said. She sounded matter-of-fact.

Anna would follow suit. “I hope you are well?” Anna asked.

“Yes.”

Anna kept moving forward. “I was wondering if we could meet. I have something I need to run by you.”

There was a pause before Ingrid spoke. “Anna, I am out at Siegel right now. Where are you?”

“Berlin.” Anna paused for a moment.

“I will be out here for most of tomorrow,” Ingrid said.

Anna stopped. “Then can I meet you there, at Siegel, tomorrow?”

The other woman waited a beat before she replied. “Very well. Yes. I have business to attend to here. But if you came at nine o’clock that would work.”

Anna agreed. This suited her. She could do this. And what was more, she knew she could deal with Ingrid’s businesslike approach.

The next morning, she focused on what she was going to say while she rode out to Siegel on the train. After she alighted at the tiny station, Anna began walking straight to the Schloss.

It was a glorious fall morning. She could hear birdsong in the now-amber trees. Anna marched past the empty buildings and put her phone to her ear.

“I am sitting outside on the terrace,” Ingrid said. “I will be here when you arrive.”

Anna thanked her. What an odd place to meet. Although being inside the house would hardly work, with its dust and lack of anything at all.

When Anna rounded the Schloss, having focused on her thoughts—not allowing herself to be distracted by the sight of the lake in the distance—she stopped dead on the spot.

The scene in front of her seemed surreal.

A round table covered in a red cloth had been placed in the middle of the terrace. Around it sat Ingrid and several men.

You wouldn’t dare, Anna thought. Her insides turned hard.

“Anna,” Ingrid said, standing up, extending a hand. “I would like you to meet Mr. Wong, Mr. Chen, and Mr. Li.”

Anna stood, unmoving.

Ingrid indicated to Anna that she should sit down.

“Ingrid, can I speak to you privately, please?” Anna asked instead, not smiling at the businessmen but looking straight in her cousin’s eye.

Ingrid adjusted her dark navy jacket. Her blond hair was swept into its usual bun. Her blue eyes glittered.

Game on, Anna thought.

She didn’t move, didn’t budge.

“Certainly.” Ingrid smiled suddenly. “Gentlemen, I will be a few minutes. I will walk with my cousin down to the lake. I will leave you to chat.”

Just then a uniformed waiter appeared, as if by magic, with a tray of coffee and patisseries. Visions of Schloss Beringer shot into Anna’s head. Hideous carpets, a cold, formal hotel. Nasty food . . .

And who was going to stop it?

Anna held back the words that were fighting to be said.

Instead, she moved away from the group, toward the lake.

“Ingrid, I’ve been in Amsterdam.”

“Oh?” The other woman walked alongside her. Her question sounded more like “so what?”

So she had no idea then. She didn’t know anything about her half brother.

Anna stopped at the edge of the lake. She was staring directly at the tree under which she and Wil had sat and eaten their picnic. Picnics, and life and family and love, these were what this place needed.

Anna turned to her cousin. Ingrid seemed to be looking at the island too.

“What is going on?” she asked the older woman.

“I’m considering selling the Schloss,” Ingrid said, her voice low. “I thought you would be pleased. They will develop it. I will get out. It will be saved after all, Anna.”

Anna almost laughed, but she reined in the sad chuckle that was rising in her chest and took another tack. “What if they had all lived?” Anna asked, her words coming out soft. “What do you think they would have wanted?”

“Who?” Ingrid snapped. “What?”

“Didi, Jo . . . Isabelle,” Anna answered.

“If you are referring to that woman with whom Max had an affair—” Ingrid said.

“It wasn’t an affair,” Anna said. “She and Max were going to get married. Spend their lives together.” Anna didn’t alter her tone. She decided that it was best to simply go on. “But Isabelle was shot. Max was ordered to kill her by the Nazis, because they suspected her maid was a spy, but he couldn’t do it. He couldn’t kill the woman he loved.”

Ingrid looked straight at her, her eyes two infernos.

Anna did not take a step back. “Max was forced to join the Nazi party by his parents, by your grandparents. He was trying to do the right thing by his family, the village. Germany. Always. But when he was ordered to kill the girl he loved, he couldn’t do it, so someone else did. Someone who, in turn, had always had a duty to protect Max and his family, and the estate, and the village, from the time he worked here at Siegel, to the time he accompanied Max into the war. He was trained to obey and to look after Max at any cost. So, you see—”

“No!”

Anna had been expecting this, but as Ingrid’s voice shot out into the clear, fresh air, she turned in alarm to the men sitting on the terrace. They had all turned too and were facing them.

Ingrid was storming back toward the house.

“Wait!” Anna clutched at her cousin, tugged at the woman’s arm.

“Why should I listen to you?” Ingrid growled. They were halfway up the lawn. “How dare you.”

“Stop,” Anna whispered, and she pulled out the tiny box that she had in her pocket.

Ingrid stopped then, stared down at the old velvet. Her eyes, which had blazed with the fire of lost generations a few seconds ago, now flicked around as if looking for solace. If Anna were a betting girl, she would say Ingrid was fighting angry tears.

“This was their engagement ring. Max had hidden it in the Schloss. It was what he asked me to retrieve just before he died. It was the sole reason that he asked me to come back here, and he said that losing Isabelle was the greatest regret of his life. He never talked about it again until he was ninety-four years old.”

Ingrid reached out a manicured hand, took the box, pulled out the ring, and turned it over in her fingers.

“Why should I believe you?” Her voice filled with bitterness again. She handed back the ring.

The older woman marched toward the terrace.

Anna followed her until they were just at its edge.

Ingrid was moving back to her businessmen. But just before she reached them, she turned to Anna, her voice like a steel beam. “I have decided. It is best to let go of the past. I will continue my meeting. Thank you. That is all.”

“Ingrid—” Anna started.

Ingrid just stared at her, as if challenging her to say one more word.

“I’m sorry about this,” Anna said to the men, who had all turned and were staring at her as if she were some mad . . . relative. Well. So be it.

“Ingrid,” she said, “you told me that family meant nothing. You told me that there was only work. But you have family.”

“Don’t be ridiculous.”

“No, you have a half brother. Gabriel. In Amsterdam. He is Hans Kramer’s son, just as you are his daughter.”

Ingrid did not move.

One of the men coughed.

“And you have me,” Anna said, keeping her words at a steady pace. “And I have no one else really, either, you know. Now that Max is gone. It’s all come down to me too, you know, just as it has to you. But I’m here and I want to . . . know you.”

Ingrid turned back to her businessmen again.

One of them stood up.

“Excuse me,” he said.

The others followed suit.

But Ingrid turned back to Anna. “You expect me to accept you and my half brother as family? Now?”

“Yes,” Anna said simply. “Because that’s what we are.”

The men slipped out of sight toward a van that was parked on the driveway. Anna hadn’t noticed it until now. “I think we will leave you, Frau Hermann,” one of the men said.

“I will be done in a minute,” Ingrid muttered, but they all walked off.

Anna took a step toward her cousin. “I know this is hard,” she said. “You, me, Max, Nadja. Their younger brothers killed. And your father, cast out when he should have been included.”

Ingrid still stayed silent.

“But you see, one thing remains,” Anna went on. “Schloss Siegel. And you have a choice. You know what I want to do. And I’m prepared to work with you.”

The older woman stood there, her body rigid.

Anna did not move an inch. “You have saved it so far. You haven’t let it be destroyed. I think you’ve waited. And that’s something, you know. You haven’t given up.”