His Majesty's Hope(49)
Elise lowered her hands to the keys and began to play the minor-key opening chords. Clara took a breath and sang Ortrud’s aria:
Entweihte Götter! Helft jetzt meiner Rache!
Bestraft die Schmach, die hier euch angetan!
The room seemed to swim in front of Maggie. “Are you all right?” Gottlieb whispered, leaning closer.
“Fine, just fine,” she said. The Jicky perfume she’d put on earlier was too heavy for the hot weather. Maggie thought the spiciness of it might suffocate her. To distract herself, she translated in her head:
Desecrated gods! Now help my vengeance!
Punish the shame that was done to you here!
Gottlieb whispered, “I knew Elise Hess was a nurse, and I thought her piano playing was just a hobby. But she’s actually quite good.”
Maggie deliberately swayed on her feet and made a distressed sound. “Schatzi?”
Clara sang on:
Odin! I call upon you, Strong One!
Freya! Exalted One, hear me!
Bless my deceit and dissimulation,
so that my vengeance may be successful!
And, with that, in a heap of chiffon, Maggie crumpled to the hard black-and-white marble tiled floor. “Air, she needs air!” Gottlieb called.
“I’m a nurse!” Elise called, jumping up from the piano bench and making her way through the crowd to Maggie. She knelt at Maggie’s side, then paused and looked up at Gottlieb, who was cradling Maggie’s head in his hands. “She’s fainted—probably just too much excitement. Let’s get her away from the crowd. Please take the gnädiges Fräulein to my room,” she said to two hovering footmen.
“It’s all right.” Gottlieb picked up Maggie’s evening clutch and tucked it under his arm, then bent to sweep her up in his arms. “I have her.”
Elise led the way, back to the vestibule, then up the grand staircase, to a wide red-carpeted hallway. “This way,” she said, walking past gilt-framed oil paintings and tables with marble statues of Roman gods and goddesses. “In here.”
Gottlieb laid Maggie down gently on the bed while Elise went to the bathroom and soaked a cloth in cold water. “Here,” she told Gottlieb, handing him the cloth. “Put this on her temples.” She went to the window and opened it wider. “I’ll get some smelling salts,” she said.
The moment she was gone, Gottlieb went through Maggie’s clutch. The microphone was still there. As Elise returned, he closed the little purse with a snap. “Just looking to see if she had any herself,” he lied. “I have no idea what you ladies keep in these tiny handbags of yours.”
“A Reich secret,” Elise said. “We’ll never tell.” She wafted the tiny glass bottle of smelling salts under Maggie’s nose. “This should do the trick.”
Maggie reacted with a start. She looked around, taking in the bedroom of a young girl, then Gottlieb, then Elise. My half sister, she remembered. The faint might not have been real, but she was still light-headed from the shock.
“How are you feeling?” Elise asked in the same soothing tones she used with her patients at Charité. The same voice she had used on the patient she had hidden upstairs in the attic.
“I’m … fine,” Maggie croaked. “Just embarrassed.”
“It’s such a lovely party,” Gottlieb told Elise. “And we’re honored to be here. But I’m afraid the excitement—all the famous people—may have been too much for mein feste Freundin.”
“Probably no dinner and then a glass of champagne on an empty stomach.” Elise grinned. “Or, perhaps you’re not an opera aficionado. I’m not a big admirer of Wagner’s myself.” She winked at Maggie.
Maggie smiled back, in spite of herself. She and Elise looked nothing alike—while Maggie was pale and slim and red-haired, Elise was rosy and curvy and brunette. But there was something about the set of their mouths and the line of their jaws that betrayed their connection.
“Let me run down and get you something to eat,” Elise suggested.
“No, no, I’m fine—” Maggie protested, trying to sit up.
“I insist,” Elise said. “In my real life, I’m a nurse—so I know these things.” She smiled up at Gottlieb. “Would you make sure our patient stays in bed until I can bring up a sandwich and something to drink?”
“Of course,” he said, sitting down next to Maggie and clasping her hand.
The moment Elise was gone, Maggie whispered, “My clutch—”
“—is fine.” His lips were pursed, disapproving. “A weak thing to do,” he hissed. “Why on earth did they send me someone so green?” He shook his head.