Beneath a Starless Sky

Chapter 2

Later that night, in the corner of the small, high-ceilinged room she shared with Leon, Lilli washed the soot from her face and hands in a bowl. A poster of Greta Garbo, curled at the edges, hid a damp patch on the wall.

The evening’s events had cloaked the agony she’d felt in her swollen feet. Now, however, she moved over to the bed and, sitting down, held her breath as she slid off her shoes. Leon watched transfixed as he saw that the blood from her toes had seeped through her woollen stockings. Gently Lilli peeled them off to reveal feet as purple as plums. At the sight her brother winced.

‘Why do you do that to yourself?’ he asked, as he watched his sister wipe the dried blood from her toes with a damp cloth.

‘Dance through the pain,’ she replied. It was what Madame Eva, the academy’s principal, always said. She would often pinch her pupils, too, if she felt they were slacking. Lilli lifted the corners of her mouth in a shallow little smile, as if to signify her wounds were no great hardship. ‘Some things are worth suffering for,’ she added wistfully.

Reaching for a towel, Lilli suddenly thought of the ten-metre high billboard at the road junction on her route to the cinema where she worked. It was advertising a new American film called Lights of New York. A beautiful actress looked wan in the arms of a handsome man. Amid the flaking plasterwork and shabby warrens of streets of her home city, the new talking films from America beguiled her in a way that ballet, and great ballerinas like Pavlova and Alicia Markova, could not.

‘That’ll be you, someday,’ Oskar, the broom boy at the cinema, had told her. Poor Oskar was in love with her, she knew that, because he often paid her sweet compliments. A lot of men did.

‘What things?’ Leon, his dark brows knitted in a frown, snapped back. He was testing her, she could tell.

Gently she towelled her feet. ‘I would put up with anything to get out of this place. I know you would, too,’ she told him, trying to keep her voice as low as her frustration would allow.

Leon snorted and folded his arms. His sister had dreams, he knew. He nodded in agreement, even though he had no inkling about her plans for a new life in America. Nor of her earnings from the cinema. While he was ranting and railing against his parents, the government and the world, Lilli was filling her shoe box under the floorboards with banknotes. It was where she hid her money – the money for her ticket to Hollywood.

‘But this is your home, Lilli,’ he told her. ‘What about Mutti and Vati?’

Lilli shook her head. ‘I don’t intend to be spat at in the street for the rest of my life.’ She turned towards the mantelpiece. ‘No, I intend to escape.’

A large white gilt-edged card took pride of place above the empty fireplace. It was an invitation to the eighteenth birthday ball of one of the students at the academy. She reached for it.

‘And this,’ she told Leon, waving the invitation gleefully in the air, ‘could be my passport to a better life.’

Lilli had never regarded Comtesse Helene Von Urbach as a close friend. If she was being truthful, she didn’t even consider her a good dancer. She may have had flaxen hair and large blue eyes, but her legs were on the thick side and her movement was at best contrived and at worst downright wooden. The fact remained, however, that she was having a ball at her father’s schloss just outside the city and Lilli was invited. She had decided to accept. Surely it would be rude not to? Helene’s widowed father was not only a count with his very own castle but a high-ranking officer in the Reichswehr, the German Army, and commander of the Seventh Division. Some unkind pupils – Lilli wasn’t among them, of course – believed if it wasn’t for his money, Helene would have failed the academy’s entrance exams. As it was, Madame Eva had found a place for her in the chorus of Giselle, to dance the part of an ethereal Willi, a sort of spirit. Lilli thought she suited the part. She’d always found her rather aloof – the way she hung around in her shadow, staring at her, but saying little. Nonetheless, Helene had invited Lilli to her ball, and she had decided it would be foolish to turn down an opportunity to mix in such circles.

Lilli took a deep breath as she pictured herself being whirled around the general’s ballroom in the arms of a dashing young officer to the strains of Strauss. Her face broke into a wide smile at the image of chandeliers and Champagne. The embossed script gave the date in December, just four days after the performance of Giselle. She held the invitation to her breast for a moment and sighed at the thought of all that romantic glamour.

Leon rolled his eyes at his big sister. ‘Your head is full of silly dreams,’ he told her.

‘No, Leon,’ Lilli corrected him, pointing to her temple. ‘My head is full of plans. Big plans. There is a difference.’

Chapter 3

Captain Marco Zeiller sucked abruptly through his teeth as he watched the razor-sharp blade slash through the other officer’s flesh. Captain Kurt Von Stockmar, however, did not flinch. He stood his ground and, less than a second later, the blood began to flow; a curtain of crimson falling down his left cheek.

Marco was there at Von Stockmar’s invitation, although at the time of acceptance he wasn’t entirely convinced he really wanted to witness the strange ritual. A group of officers from his regiment had left their battalion’s barracks in the northern suburbs of Munich to drive out to a small gymnasium a few kilometres away. Marco had no plans, so, largely out of curiosity he’d been persuaded to join them. Now he was very much regretting his decision.

Von Stockmar and his opponent had been fencing at arm’s length, standing more or less in one place. Around thirty other men were clustered around them in a ring. Marco had kept his distance, choosing instead to watch from one of the raised seats at the back of the hall. The aim, he knew, was to hit the unprotected areas of your opponent’s face and head. Flinching or dodging were forbidden, but enduring the resulting injury stoically was applauded.

At the sight of the cascading blood, the rest of the men leapt to their feet, cheering, like hounds baying at a kill. Marco, however, remained seated. There was something rather disturbing, he found, about the whole spectacle. It reminded him of stags locking horns in rutting season, fighting it out to the bitter end. Of course, he’d heard about these fencing matches before. They were more were like duels. It was a tradition – a noble one, apparently – perpetuated by the sons of aristocratic Germans and dating back almost a century. Supposedly, the practice taught men to endure pain without wincing, cowering or recoiling. And now Captain Kurt Von Stockmar was on the receiving end of a particularly unpleasant encounter. His wound continued to bleed profusely.

Marco’s instinct was to go to his fellow officer’s aid, or at the very least offer him a towel so that he could mop up the blood. But no. He knew he must be happy for him. Von Stockmar had just won another ‘bragging scar’ and he would wear his disfigurement with pride. It would heal into a badge of honour – a visible scar that proved his resilience and endurance.

The other men surged forward, not to help, but to congratulate their injured brother. This latest slash wasn’t Von Stockmar’s first – there was already a much less spectacular, horizontal one on his chin – and he’d clearly stated he hoped it wouldn’t be his last, either. But from the colour of his face, or rather lack of it, it seemed to Marco that Von Stockmar himself might well be horizontal very shortly. He was clearly on the verge of fainting. Yet losing consciousness was also the ultimate sign of weakness.

Marco didn’t care for the squat, cocky officer; he didn’t even admire him. Yet he found himself willing him to remain standing at the very least. That was when he suddenly remembered he had brought his hip flask with him. Reaching for his belt, he heard the schnapps slosh around inside.

‘Von Stockmar!’ Marco stepped forward into the melee, brandishing his flask. ‘Prost!’

He took a swig himself then handed it to the wounded man, whose wan face lit up for a second before taking up the offer. Tilting back his head, Von Stockmar downed the liquor as if it were water. He staggered a little then coughed loudly, choking on the fiery liquid. His friends laughed and patted him on the back again. They’d been in his fraternity at university in Berlin. They were all bound by blood.

Just why Von Stockmar had invited Marco to witness this ritual scarring – because that was what it was: a bizarre way of proving one’s masculinity and bravery, like a rite of passage in an African tribe – he was not entirely sure. He supposed, however, it might have something to do with rumours of his own recent promotion.

Von Stockmar was jealous of him and had been since cadet school, when it soon emerged that Marco was better than him at everything: shooting, mathematics and communicating with his men. The rivalry turned to jealousy and had been left to fester like an ulcerous sore ever since.

There was also the matter of Marco’s parentage. He was not what Von Stockmar and his friends might call of wholly acceptable stock. His mother was Italian. Not only had he inherited her brown eyes, olive skin and good looks, but her Roman Catholic religion, too.

Von Stockmar handed back the flask to Marco. The schnapps had certainly revived him. So much so, that he began to pose enthusiastically for photographs, surrounded by the rest of his noisy fraternity. The blood that had poured down his left cheek had since dried, but the caked-on rivulets created an interesting dark fretwork on his skin. The photographer’s shots would no doubt provide a much-prized souvenir of the day’s events. Marco turned away.

‘So, was it all too gory for you?’ Von Stockmar quizzed as he sat opposite Marco a little later.

They were in the bierkeller next to the gymnasium. A huge, celebratory tankard, overflowing with foam, presented itself to the newly wounded officer. A few of the other fencers crowded round on the benches by them. Each of their faces bore their own scars of various lengths and jaggedness.

‘Gory?’ Marco repeated. His unblemished face broke into a smile. He knew Von Stockmar was playing a game with him, trying to make him appear weak in front of his friends. ‘No. I’d say it was curious, more than anything.’

He took a gulp of beer from his own tankard then licked the froth from his upper lip. Cruelty and blood were no strangers to him. As a boy, he’d witnessed a convoy of half-starved refugees fleeing their homes during the Great War. He would never forget seeing their broken bodies and their haunted faces from the window of his mother’s limousine as they sped to safety after the Battle of Caporetto. Since then he had grown up despising violence for violence’s sake.

Von Stockmar, his left cheek now showing signs of swelling and inflammation, tried to contort his lips into a smile, but found himself defeated by the growing pain. He pointed to the wound. ‘This blood is pure German,’ he said. ‘You would not understand. After all, your mother came from a nation of ice-cream sellers and opera singers.’ He searched the faces of his friends for appreciation and garnered a few laughs and several nods.

Instinctively Marco shrugged. He’d been told it was a very Italian gesture – true Germans never shrugged – but there were many traits he was proud to have inherited from his mother. Tolerance was one of them. He was used to such insults and would not rise to the bait.

‘Perhaps you are right,’ he replied calmly. ‘I need to fight for a cause, not for needless scars.’

Von Stockmar snorted a laugh and shifted on his bench. Looking around for support he said: ‘You want a cause, then we will show you one, won’t we brothers?’

A few chorused their approval. Another clenched his fist and banged it on the table, before letting out a belly laugh.

‘Oh?’ Marco would let them play their games. He knew their sort.

Von Stockmar’s eyes were smiling as he nodded. ‘We are off to the Brown House tonight, to hear Herr Hitler speak. You should join us.’

The officer sitting next to Marco slapped him playfully on the arm. ‘Ja! Join us,’ he echoed.

Marco suddenly pictured the Brown House. It was the grand mansion in the centre of Munich that had recently been refurbished. It now served as the new headquarters of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. And of course, everyone had heard of this Herr Hitler, too: an unpleasant little politician with a big ego. There’d been much talk of him – most of it unfavourable – over dinner in the officers’ mess, and how he’d had managed to gather his own personal army of storm troopers around him. In their brown shirts and big boots, they were little better than hooligans who fancied themselves as soldiers.

Marco shook his head. ‘I do not care for the man, or his politics,’ he replied bluntly, while still managing to raise a polite smile.

Von Stockmar swapped glances with his friends. ‘But he promises to rip up Versailles – the treaty that has brought our great nation to its knees!’ he protested.

‘But surely he also threatens us, the army?’ countered Marco, making certain his voice remained measured. He had little appetite for political debate. ‘He would take power from our hands. You know the generals are uneasy.’

Von Stockmar’s eyes flashed and a large vein pulsed in his forehead.

‘He will make Germany great again,’ he replied, his pale skin starting to flush.

‘Ja! Ja,’ exclaimed several men in unison.

In Germany, Marco knew that Germans always put their country first.

In Italy, it was family.

Buoyed by such enthusiasm, Von Stockmar straightened his back and issued a rallying cry. His arm flew up. ‘It’s time to rise up and be the masters of our own destiny once more!’

The other officers cheered, but Marco merely sipped the beer from his tankard. His failure to respond was meant to diffuse the situation, but instead it seemed to antagonise it. Fury spread across Von Stockmar’s already inflamed face and his jaw shot out defiantly as he rose from the bench. He delivered his parting shot as he glowered at Marco from above.

‘My dear fellow,’ he snarled, ‘that pretty face of yours is a sign of cowardice and the time is coming when such weakness will not be tolerated.’

And with those words Von Stockmar stormed out of the building, followed by his own small army of narrow-minded men. Marco remained silent but unsettled. This new breed of politics troubled him.

Chapter 4

‘Nein. Nein. Lilli! Giselle is dying of a broken heart, remember!?’ Madame Eva Schwarzkopf shook her head vigorously, clapped her hands impatiently and clicked her tongue. The reprimand echoed around the walls of the Académie de Danse and made Lilli slide to an abrupt halt. She’d already caught her teacher’s frustrated expression reflected in the floor-to-ceiling studio mirror. As she sashayed forward, she braced herself for one of Madame’s famous pinches.

‘I need more emotion from you,’ cried her teacher. ‘Your lover has deceived you.’

The pinch didn’t come. Even so, Lilli wanted to protest. No one would shed tears over pimply, gangly Jens, who partnered her as Duke Albrecht. Besides, how could she act like her heart had been broken when it hadn’t? Not yet. It was difficult for her to imagine what it must be like to love and lose the light of your life. After all, she was only eighteen. Her heart had ached at the sight of Josef, the rabbi’s son, and it had yearned for a better life for her parents, far from the regular slurs and attacks they suffered, but so far it had remained intact.

November was always a busy month at the academy. Rehearsals for the annual Christmas performance at the prestigious Cuvilliés Theatre in the city centre were well underway. The production had become a highlight of the Bavarian social calendar, attracting those with power as well as privilege. It also served to enhance the academy’s reputation for excellence. In the demanding lead role, Lilli was required to give so much more of herself than she ever had before. She knew she must rise to the challenge. The rewards could be great. The lead dancer in Swan Lake a few years back landed a permanent position with a professional ballet company.

Taking a deep breath to steady her body Lilli stared at the floor as Madame Eva repeated her demand for ‘more emotion’. Madame was right, of course. She wasn’t dancing her best. The attack on her father’s shop had unsettled her and hunger was making her stomach growl. Was it any wonder that after eight hours of rehearsals her whole body was exhausted and racked with pain? She longed the day to be over. Yet she still regarded it as an honour to be singled out to stay behind after classes had finished for the day. The great Pavlova wouldn’t complain, and Markova never winced. Nor would she. Each pirouette, each plié had to be faultless. Dance through the pain, she reiterated Madame Eva’s mantra. Dance through it. She placed her feet in the first position, tilted her head, lifted her chin and held out her arms in a gentle arc.

Mademoiselle Schultz, the pianist, a big woman with a frizz of orange hair, lifted her large hands over the keys as Lilli imagined how Giselle might have felt after her betrayal by the lying Duke Albrecht. She adopted an appropriately melancholy expression as, once more, Madame Eva clapped her hands and ordered: ‘Again!’

Chapter 5

At long last the day of the performance of Giselle arrived – the day when every movement Lilli had rehearsed a thousand times over had to be exactly perfect. She’d felt the pressure mount even more last week when Madame Eva delivered the exciting news that an American talent scout would be in the audience. He was always on the lookout for exceptional dancers, she’d said.

‘And you can be exceptional, if you put your heart into it,’ her teacher had told her in one of her more generous moments.

Lilli Sternberg would be exceptional.

On arrival at the Cuvilliés Theatre, Madame Eva showed all the principal dancers onto the stage. Lilli thought her legs might buckle beneath her when she saw the sheer scale and beauty of the auditorium, its golden rococo tiers rising like some giant wedding cake into the roof.

Later in the dressing room, Lilli sat on a plush-topped stool, staring unblinking into the mirror. Thick black eyeliner accentuated her dark eyes and crimson lipstick slashed across her pale face. Her black hair was slicked back and her high cheekbones were rouged. She was no longer Lilli Sternberg. She was Giselle.

Around her all the other girls were chattering nervously, tightening waistbands, adjusting bodices, ribbons and headdresses. Most of them, including Helene, were Willis – the ghosts of maidens who’d been betrayed by their lovers. They were swathed in white, their skirts made of delectate diaphanous material that reflected the light. Nerves were frayed as they elbowed each other, checking their make-up, dusting their faces, sending powder flying through the air. The smell of grease paint melded with lavender spray and every now and then a disconsolate wail would rise when one of them found a mark on their costume or a ladder in their tights.

The atmosphere was hectic, feverish, just how it should be, just how Lilli loved it. Suddenly she felt Madame Eva’s hand on her arm. Her instinct was to pull away, but instead of pinching it, her teacher gave her a gentle squeeze.

‘Remember there is a special guest in the audience tonight,’ she said. ‘The talent scout I mentioned – he has just arrived.’ Madame was as close to excited as Lilli had ever seen her. ‘I know that you will be a wonderful Giselle,’ she added, looking into her pupil’s eyes.

‘I will try and make you proud,’ Lilli said, even though a thousand butterflies of self-doubt were fluttering in her stomach.

So many people were depending on her to make the night a success. But her thoughts were centred on just one man in that vast auditorium, the man who had the power to change her life forever. It wasn’t just the academy she was dancing for; it was her own future. Most of all, she couldn’t let herself down.

Captain Marco Zeiller arrived at the Cuvilliés Theatre to find that all Munich’s highest society was gathering at the venue. This production of Giselle, General Von Urbach had explained to his officers, was under his patronage. All proceeds were to be donated to a military benevolent fund. They were therefore encouraged to attend. Marco, however, had not needed any such encouragement. He enjoyed the ballet and had heard great things about the academy’s version.

Daimlers and Mercedes were queueing outside the theatre, disgorging the great and the good. Puffed-up majors and colonels from other regiments rubbed shoulders with politicians and city burghers, while their womenfolk eyed each other with the jealous zeal of beauty pageant contestants.

Marco made his way up the steps and inside the grand foyer. A young man in red and gold livery handed him a programme. He opened it and scanned the names. The general’s daughter, Helene Von Urbach, was at the top of the list of the chorus. He pictured the young woman who so often accompanied her father on official engagements and wondered if his commanding officer had insisted her name be first, or if the principal of the ballet school had just thought it politically expedient.

His reservation was in the third row of the stalls. It was a good seat near the central aisle, where he had a passable view of the audience as they flowed in a steady stream to take their places. As the orchestra tuned up in the pit, more elegantly dressed people took their seats. Marco would swear there were more metres of velvet in the gowns of the ladies than in the stage drapes. The atmosphere was electric. It reminded him of when his mother first took him to the opera house in Venice. He must have been no more than twelve. They’d watched a performance of La Bohème and, ever since, he’d fallen under the spell of opera. He found the power and the passion of the music and drama far more exhilarating than Von Stockmar’s sadistic duelling. And, as the lights dipped and a hush dropped like a veil over the audience, he was glad to be reminded of that same surge of anticipation he’d experienced as a child. Then the magic began.

Chapter 6

Lilli waited until the chorus had all left the room before she stood to do her breathing exercises. As she filled her lungs inhaling deeply, a thrill of excitement rippled through her. No longer was she posing in front of the bathroom mirror or being teased for having dreams by Leon. This was real and the feeling elated and terrified her in equal measure.

If she danced well, she might be spotted by the talent scout from America. A new world of opportunities would beckon. Buoyed up by the prospect, she was just about to head for the door when something in the corner caught her eye. Someone was lurking in the shadows.

‘Helene!’ she cried, her pulse made to race even faster. ‘I didn’t see you there.’

The count’s daughter, dressed in her costume, was standing timidly in an alcove. Her eyes were lit up as she stared at Lilli in admiration.

‘You look like a real star!’ she said softly, mesmerised like a child in a sweet shop. Even though they rarely spoke to each other, Lilli imagined the only reason she’d been invited to Helene’s ball was because she was the production’s prima ballerina. Their backgrounds couldn’t have been more different and yet the general’s daughter seemed to admire her as a dancer.

Lilli, still recovering from her shock, managed a smile. ‘How kind of you to say so,’ she replied. ‘I don’t mind admitting I’m a little nervous.’ That was an understatement. Her nerves were as taut as violin strings.