The Dark Frontier A. Decker (i like reading TXT) 📖

off in other directions – until her words finally pulled him out onto the cold ledge of consciousness.

“It’s hopeless, Frank,” was all she said. But it was enough.

“What?”

“Everything,” she replied. And the waiting game continued, until she added: “We’ll never shake off Breitner. As soon as we get back, he’ll be there.”

But Frank had the impression this was not all she wanted to say, that something else was eating away at her heart.

“We don’t have to go back,” he suggested.

“I do.”

The ominous reflex of her response urged him to try the light again. He had to see her expression, the story in her eyes. But he held back. He feared the exposure would prompt her to pull the blanket of silence over her again.

“I have to return, Frank.” Her voice betrayed a flutter of agitation.

The night seemed ready to snap with the tension, as she lapsed into a hesitant pause – and prepared for the leap.

“I told you about my father, that he’s Jewish. And Breitner’s threats if I didn’t toe the line.”

“Is that what you call it nowadays?”

His flippant question gagged her for a moment. He could sense her struggling, attempting to maintain her balance on the sheer, unlit face of her confession. And he instantly regretted the callous archness of his words.

But her burden was already too heavy to carry, and she ignored the mean stupidity he threw at her.

“I love my father dearly. He’s so kind and understanding, always has a smile on his face, nothing’s ever too much trouble. He can be a bit stern sometimes when he feels he has to be, but he wouldn’t be a good father if he didn’t, would he?”

Frank sensed her head turn lightly on his shoulder, as if looking up for confirmation.

“And I’m so grateful that he sent me here to study. I might never have discovered such treasure…” – Frank interrupted her with a gentle kiss to her brow in vain anticipation of her next words and was instantly deflated by the folly of his conceit when she ignored his gesture – “I knew little about the jewels of Swiss art before I came here. People like Anker and Böcklin. Or Segantini. Although he’s not strictly Swiss; he was actually stateless. A little like me in a way.”

Patricia paused for a moment at this last thought and let the darkness speak for her. Then added:

“But my father can be ridiculously sentimental – like that business with the Chateau Haut-Brion. And of course I adore him. I’d do anything for him.”

Despair filled the space left by these last words as she paused again. Frank could almost hear her fighting to keep it at bay while she gathered her thoughts.

“You remember I said that Breitner promised me protection for my father in exchange for…”

“… certain favours,” Frank added with sarcastic emphasis on the last word to complete her sentence for her. He was still unable to let his foolish jealousy rest. But she skirted around the clumsy bait.

“I was with my father in Stuttgart recently,” she continued. “The first time I’d seen him for more than a year. You can’t imagine how a person can change in such a short space of time. The smile was gone, the kindness a thing of the past. He was irritable and impatient the whole time I was there. Suddenly I didn’t know him any longer. He was not the man I knew as my father. In fact, he made it plain I wasn’t welcome.

“And I soon realised why: it must have been embarrassing for him to have his daughter in the house when he was entertaining all those local dignitaries and officials with their impeccable party credentials. Especially the SS men. Hardly a day went by without someone knocking on the door, at all hours, often late at night, dinner parties that stretched into the early morning, fat guffawing boorish pigs with opinions of themselves even bigger than their bellies, behaving as though they owned the place. And my father with it. They’ve probably long since drunk his cellar of 1913 Chateau Haut-Brion dry. You know what he’s done? He’s made his pact with the devil, sold out to keep his head above water.

“Not that I blame him for that. I think it was probably around three years ago, after the pogrom of Bloody Palm Sunday, when he realised that some kind of insurance was called for. It’s all about survival these days, after all. But what really hurt was to find he didn’t need all that protection I’ve been buying for him. He never did. And Breitner knew it all along. He was just playing with me from the very beginning.”

“What makes you say that?” Frank asked.

“He virtually admitted it to me.” Her voice took on a guttural edge that told him she was fighting off the tears, as she added in a tone of disbelief: “He was there. In my father’s house. Being wined and dined. I knew that one of the local SS leaders in Stuttgart was supposed to be a close friend of his, but I never imagined I would have to sit and watch my father fawning over him like that. He was so amused when I walked in and he saw the expression on my face. It was sickening, utterly nauseating to watch him feasting on my father’s grovelling hospitality. To see the smugness fill his face when my father poured him a glass of wine. It made me feel so cheap and dirty. In my father’s house. The house I grew up in. Can you imagine? He so enjoyed my pain. It was not simply the disappointment at finding that my father had climbed into bed with them. It was the sure knowledge that the day would come when he would have served his purpose. And he would be cast aside like all the others. That’s what really hurt.

“Breitner came to me later that evening, not only to gloat in that disgusting way of his, but