December, 1943. Berlin.
It's hypocrisy, all of it. Clary couldn't help think bitterly. There was a war outside of their door and yet here she was, her father hosting a dinner party. Her father says it's essential in keeping his officer's morale up, it took all of Clary's self-control not to laugh at her father's face. Officials and suck-ups were only fattening themselves further as the rest of the populace was left to survive on meager rations.
"Smile. If you keep looking like you're in pain then you soon will be." A cool voice whispered in her ear.
Clary stretched her mouth into something that looked least like a grimace, "Jonathan." she greeted.
"Better. Now come, Herr Fuhrmann and his son are waiting to be introduced." her brother said as he took her by the crook of the elbow and led her though the crowd.
Clary pressed her teeth tighter together. It made her skin crawl as her brother and father continuously try to pawn her off as some Aryan brood mare. She found a little comfort in the fact that even her father's brainless lackeys are reluctant to marry someone who was half English. Unlike Jonathan, born and raised in the Fatherland and inherited their father's pale hair and dark eyes. Clary's connections were enough for her to be tolerated but not enough to keep her from being a social pariah. Her bright, red hair and Western ways made her stick out like a sore thumb, a constant reminder that she was not—and never will be—one of them.
She went through the motions without feeling. Smiling politely and shaking hands but the names and faces were all blurs. All the while, Jonathan was never a stone's throw away, making sure she kept up appearances.
They were all close. Too close. Suffocating her slowly, she had to get out of there.
"Fraulein Morgenstern, are you alright? You seem quite pale." Herr something or the other asked,
"Clarissa," Jonathan reappeared at her shoulder, brotherly concern oozing from him but the steely glint in his eyes said otherwise.
"I am sorry, I feel a little ill. I need some air." Clary could no longer take it as she pushed her way past startled guests towards the back door, leaving her brother apologizing in her wake. She would surely pay for that later but she didn't care.
Clary took huge gulps of the frigid Berlin night air, the harsh cold was a jolt to her senses. She stood in the alley where their back door emptied into, savoring the moment of silence and solitude until the clang of a metal garbage can spilling over at the end of the alley.
Her curiosity won over caution as she neared the source of the noise. Clary couldn't contain her gasp as she saw who it was.
It was a boy and he looked to be in his early twenties like her. His brown curls were matted and long, as if he hadn't cut or cleaned it in a while. He was too skinny, like his skin was stretched over his skeleton with hardly any meat in between. His clothing was ragged and filthy, one sleeve of his coat had a leftover piece of yellow cloth that must have been torn off. Clary zeroed in on his left leg, the pant leg was dark with blood, his bony hand over the top of his thigh in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding.
Clary found his eyes unnerving, they were big, dark and no matter how defeated his body looked there was a fire in his eyes. He kept staring at her with the same defiance in his eyes.
"Are you going to scream?" he asked in a raspy voice.
Clary didn't know whether it was pity, mercy, her anger at her father and his cohorts or a mix of all of them.
"Come on, they'll come looking for me soon enough. The cellar window's unlocked I think, hurry."
The confusion was plain on the young man's face as Clary scooted down to his right side as to not get blood on herself. Clary was relieved it had not snowed yet and the alley floor was dark enough for the blood trail to be unnoticed.
They shuffled as fast as they could with the boy's injured and unusable leg, like a grim version of a three legged race. Her heart banged against her ribcage as they struggled towards the small window near the back door.
"Go, go!" she urged as she heard her brother call out her name from inside the house, looking for her.
The young man's foot no sooner slipped through the small cellar window when a beam of light came from the open door.
"Father's looking for you. You're in a lot of trouble running off like that." Jonathan barked at her. Clary hadn't realized how badly her hands were shaking as she crept closer to her brother.
"I'm coming,"
Her heart was still pumping, the boy, the blood and the flash of something yellow and torn on one of his sleeves. She still couldn't believe it, she just smuggled a Jew into the house of a high-ranking SS officer, her own father no less.