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Authors: Susan Elia MacNeal
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of London was Olympia’s aria,
“Les oiseaux dans la charmille,”
from Offenbach’s opera
Les contes d’Hoffmann
, her voice gaining in strength, and she went along, muscle memory stirring. Olympia was a mechanical doll with whom Hoffmann fell in love and so Clara accompanied her singing with stiff, robotic, doll-like movements, as though in performance. As she sang, her voice steadied, returning to its former glory.
Les oiseaux dans la charmille
Dans les cieux l’astre du jour
,
Tout parle à la jeune fille d’amour!
Ah! Voilà la chanson gentille
La chanson d’Olympia! Ah!
Tout ce qui chante et résonne
Et soupire, tour à tour
,
Emeut son coeur qui frissonne d’amour!
Ah! Voilà la chanson mignonne
La chanson d’Olympia! Ah!
When she had finished, the last sweet notes dying in her cell, she fell to the cold stone floor.
Maggie’s screams woke her.
It was a different nightmare every night—variations and permutations of her time in Berlin. There was the one where she saw Gottlieb Lehrer, part of the German Resistance and ardent Catholic, shoot himself in the head rather than be taken alive by the Gestapo. There was the one where she saw the small Jewish girl cry for water. And the one where her sister Elise looked at her as if she were a monster, after she had killed a young German man, really no more than a boy.
This night, however, there was a cat in her bed. She’d made him his own place to sleep—a wicker basket lined with fabric scraps, near the radiator. But at some point during the night he’d crawled in with her, curling up into a tight furry ball encircled by her torso. Now he was purring, and rose to pad over to her head and try to lick her hair.
“What the—?” Maggie said, still disoriented. “No, I don’t need a bath—no, thank you!” The cat’s tongue was starting to catch on the long red strands, and he couldn’t get them out of his mouth.He shook his head repeatedly. She pulled out the offending hairs from his mouth and sat up. “Are you trying to
groom
me?” she demanded of her small companion. She had to admit it was pleasant to have company; no more Sister Anne in the Tower.
The cat regarded her with concerned eyes.
“Meh.”
She scratched him under his chin and he leaned into her, purring. “Look at us,” Maggie said, unsure of what to say to him. She’d never had a pet before. “Two broken-down and battered creatures. Red-haired strays. Kindred spirits?”
The creature blinked, not at all impressed with her self-pity or sentimentality.
“Oh, so it’s stiff-upper-lip then, I see. Good, you’re a proper British moggie through and through—I like that.” Maggie reached for her tattered flannel robe. It was freezing in her small bedroom. She stood up and put on heavy slippers, then pulled the blackout curtains open.
It didn’t make much difference to the way the room looked: It was bare as a nun’s cell, with only a postcard of Robert Burns’s
Diana and Her Nymphs
that the previous occupant had left, and E. T. Bell’s
Men of Mathematics
, an old battered volume of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
The Secret Garden
, and a borrowed copy of T. H. White’s
The Sword in the Stone
. On the floor next to the bed was a bag full of the knitting Maggie had started since she’d returned from Berlin—socks for soldiers, which she knitted with the Morse code for “victory” around the cuff.
The clock on the night table said it was just before 6 A.M. , but it would be at least two more hours until the sun rose.
This perpetual darkness of winter in Scotland isn’t helping things …
Her fingers found the hard outline of the bullet. It was still there, becoming even more prominent as it worked itself closer to the surface of her skin.
The higher-ups at Arisaig House said that she’d earned havinga private flat in the gardener’s dwelling, as opposed to rooming with the other instructors in the main house, because she was the only female. But Maggie knew it
“Les oiseaux dans la charmille,”
from Offenbach’s opera
Les contes d’Hoffmann
, her voice gaining in strength, and she went along, muscle memory stirring. Olympia was a mechanical doll with whom Hoffmann fell in love and so Clara accompanied her singing with stiff, robotic, doll-like movements, as though in performance. As she sang, her voice steadied, returning to its former glory.
Les oiseaux dans la charmille
Dans les cieux l’astre du jour
,
Tout parle à la jeune fille d’amour!
Ah! Voilà la chanson gentille
La chanson d’Olympia! Ah!
Tout ce qui chante et résonne
Et soupire, tour à tour
,
Emeut son coeur qui frissonne d’amour!
Ah! Voilà la chanson mignonne
La chanson d’Olympia! Ah!
When she had finished, the last sweet notes dying in her cell, she fell to the cold stone floor.
Maggie’s screams woke her.
It was a different nightmare every night—variations and permutations of her time in Berlin. There was the one where she saw Gottlieb Lehrer, part of the German Resistance and ardent Catholic, shoot himself in the head rather than be taken alive by the Gestapo. There was the one where she saw the small Jewish girl cry for water. And the one where her sister Elise looked at her as if she were a monster, after she had killed a young German man, really no more than a boy.
This night, however, there was a cat in her bed. She’d made him his own place to sleep—a wicker basket lined with fabric scraps, near the radiator. But at some point during the night he’d crawled in with her, curling up into a tight furry ball encircled by her torso. Now he was purring, and rose to pad over to her head and try to lick her hair.
“What the—?” Maggie said, still disoriented. “No, I don’t need a bath—no, thank you!” The cat’s tongue was starting to catch on the long red strands, and he couldn’t get them out of his mouth.He shook his head repeatedly. She pulled out the offending hairs from his mouth and sat up. “Are you trying to
groom
me?” she demanded of her small companion. She had to admit it was pleasant to have company; no more Sister Anne in the Tower.
The cat regarded her with concerned eyes.
“Meh.”
She scratched him under his chin and he leaned into her, purring. “Look at us,” Maggie said, unsure of what to say to him. She’d never had a pet before. “Two broken-down and battered creatures. Red-haired strays. Kindred spirits?”
The creature blinked, not at all impressed with her self-pity or sentimentality.
“Oh, so it’s stiff-upper-lip then, I see. Good, you’re a proper British moggie through and through—I like that.” Maggie reached for her tattered flannel robe. It was freezing in her small bedroom. She stood up and put on heavy slippers, then pulled the blackout curtains open.
It didn’t make much difference to the way the room looked: It was bare as a nun’s cell, with only a postcard of Robert Burns’s
Diana and Her Nymphs
that the previous occupant had left, and E. T. Bell’s
Men of Mathematics
, an old battered volume of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s
The Secret Garden
, and a borrowed copy of T. H. White’s
The Sword in the Stone
. On the floor next to the bed was a bag full of the knitting Maggie had started since she’d returned from Berlin—socks for soldiers, which she knitted with the Morse code for “victory” around the cuff.
The clock on the night table said it was just before 6 A.M. , but it would be at least two more hours until the sun rose.
This perpetual darkness of winter in Scotland isn’t helping things …
Her fingers found the hard outline of the bullet. It was still there, becoming even more prominent as it worked itself closer to the surface of her skin.
The higher-ups at Arisaig House said that she’d earned havinga private flat in the gardener’s dwelling, as opposed to rooming with the other instructors in the main house, because she was the only female. But Maggie knew it
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