The Traitor's Emblem Read Online Free Page B

fifteen months later, coinciding with the return of the young Tannenbaums to Germany.
    The day the letter arrived in which Josef reclaimed his children, Alys thought she would die. Only a girl of fifteen who is secretly in love with one of the sons of her host family, and who discovers that she will have to leave forever, can be so fully convinced that her life is coming to an end.
    Prescott, she wept in her cabin as she headed home. If only I’d spoken to him more . . . If I’d made more of a fuss of him when he came back from Yale for his birthday, instead of showing off like all the other girls at the party . . .
    Despite her own prognosis, Alys did in fact survive, and she swore into the drenched pillows of her cabin that she would never again allow a man to make her suffer. From that moment she would make all the decisions in her life, no matter what anyone said. Least of all her father.
    I’ll find work. No, Papa will never allow it. It would be better if I asked him to give me a job at one of his factories until I’ve saved up enough for a ticket back to the United States. And when I set foot in Ohio again, I’ll grab Prescott by the throat and squeeze him until he asks me to marry him. That’s what I’ll do, and no one can stop me.
    However, by the time the Mercedes had come to a stop on Prinzregentenplatz, Alys’s resolve had deflated like a cheap balloon. She was finding it difficult to breathe, and her brother was jumping about nervously on his seat. It seemed extraordinary that she’d carried her decision with her over four thousand kilometers—halfway across the Atlantic—only to see it fall apart during the four-thousand-meter journey from the station to this luxurious building. A porter in uniform opened the car door for her, and before Alys knew it they were on their way up in the elevator.
    “Do you think Papa has arranged a party, Alys? I’m starving!”
    “Your father has been very busy, young Master Manfred. But I took it upon myself to buy cream buns for tea.”
    “Thank you, Doris,” mumbled Alys as the elevator stopped with a metallic crunch.
    “It’s going to be strange living in an apartment after the big house in Columbus. I hope no one’s touched my things,” said Manfred.
    “Well, if they have, you’re not likely to remember, shrimp,” replied his sister, momentarily forgetting her fear of seeing her father and ruffling Manfred’s hair.
    “Don’t call me that. I remember everything!”
    “Everything?”
    “That’s what I said. The wall had blue boats painted on it. And there was a chimpanzee playing cymbals at the end of the bed. Papa wouldn’t let me take it with me because he said it would drive Mr. Bush mad. I’ll go and get it!” he shouted, slipping between the legs of the butler as he opened the door.
    “Wait, Master Manfred!” shouted Doris, to no effect. The boy was already running up the hallway.
    The Tannenbaums’ residence occupied the top floor of the building, a nine-room apartment of more than three hundred and twenty square meters that was tiny in comparison to the house in which the brother and sister had lived in America. To Alys, the dimensions seemed to have changed completely. She hadn’t been much older than Manfred was now when she’d left in 1914, and somehow she was seeing it all from that perspective, as though she had shrunk thirty centimeters.
    “. . . Fräulein?”
    “Sorry, Doris. What were you saying?”
    “The master will receive you in his study. He did have a visitor with him, but I think he’s leaving.”
    Someone was coming down the hallway toward them. A tall, solid man wrapped in an elegant black frock coat. Alys did not recognize him, but behind him was Herr Tannenbaum. When they reached the entrance, the man in the frock coat stopped—so abruptly that Alys’s father almost bumped into him—and stood staring at her through a monocle on a gold chain.
    “Ah, and here’s my daughter! What perfect timing!” said