What Only We Know: A heart-wrenching and unforgettable World War 2 historical novel

by Catherine Hokin

  ‘What was she like, before all this, when she was young? Were you close then?’

  His smile came from nowhere and there he was: the young man in the photograph. It was all Karen could do not to gasp.

  ‘Close doesn’t seem a big enough word. We had a bond stronger than siblings. Your mother and I grew up together, our fathers were old friends and worked like brothers together in the salon. They had the same plan for us: Liese would have Paul’s role as head designer; I would take my father’s position on the technical side. And then the Nazis put paid to that. The salon suffered, our families suffered and so did the relationship between Liese and I. But whether we were in step or couldn’t see one thing the same, the Liese I knew was never less than determined. She ran Haus Elfmann almost single-handedly before she was eighteen. She was fiercely protective of Lottie and so determined to be a good mother – the kind she had never had. Her relationship with her parents was a distant, unhappy thing. Liese was adamant her child would have better.’

  He fell silent. Karen wanted to cry and didn’t know who most needed her tears: the little girl who had died before Liese could mother her the way that she wanted, or the little girl Liese had left.

  It was a moment before she realised Michael had picked up his story.

  ‘… the girl I found in that hospital in 1945 was changed. She was brittle and angry, with tight walls around her. I guessed something must have happened to Lottie, but I had no idea about the way she had died. How could I? Even with the horrors we were starting to hear about, how could I have imagined something so brutal happening to a little girl?’

  He stopped, blinked rapidly; shook himself and went on. ‘I suppose I thought Liese was suffering from shock, like so many of the survivors were. You have to understand what a terrible time it was, those first months after the war. People were trying to piece their lives together out of bombed homes and scattered families. Everyone had somebody missing; everyone was searching. Very few found happy endings.

  ‘When Liese got back to Berlin, she must have assumed her parents were dead or, at best, stuck somewhere a long way from Germany. Given the resistance work I was doing, she can’t have expected me to have survived. I was the same. I was looking for her but without much hope. I had a whole list of comrades I couldn’t trace and not even the right names for most of them. I didn’t have much hope of anyone. And then I saw Liese’s photograph at the station, with Andrew’s name and phone number scribbled underneath it. I have never believed in God, but that felt close to a miracle.’

  ‘Was she glad to be alive?’

  The question popped into Karen’s head and out of her mouth and, perhaps because it was simple enough for her to put it to him directly, its asking took Michael by surprise.

  ‘No. She wasn’t.’

  He stopped, tried to pick up the sentence and stopped again, his face etched with pain. He closed his eyes and was clearly drifting away.

  ‘Michael…’

  ‘Let him go where he needs to, Karen. Give him a moment.’ Markus reached over and took her hand. ‘I know you need answers – let him find them in his own way.’

  Michael looked as if he had fallen asleep, but his eyelids were fluttering and his fingers were clenched. There was a frailty about him that was suddenly frightening.

  Karen knew she had no choice but to wait.

  ‘Did you recognise Suhren when he spoke to you?’

  Liese knew what Michael wanted to hear: Yes, I knew him and he knew me and he saved me because of it. That implied kindness, a recognition of the dreadful act done to her and a desire to somehow balance it. It was the simpler answer, far easier to explain than: I didn’t remember him at all and his saving me was a whim, a sop to his own monstrous ego. She couldn’t begin to articulate all the twists and turns in that, so she gave Michael the yes that he wanted.

  She was exhausted. From Michael’s questions, from his apologies, from his neediness, and from Andrew’s. They both wanted so much more than she could give. Andrew desperate for her smile; Michael desperate for her story; both of them craving some sign of her affection. All Liese wanted was silence. Nothing felt real; nothing mattered. Trying to put the horror of Lottie’s killing into words had almost choked her. But Michael wouldn’t stop asking about the camp, or apologising and begging her forgiveness.

  Liese didn’t blame him – she really didn’t. She had said those exact words, ‘I don’t blame you’, and meant them. She couldn’t finish the sentence; she couldn’t tell him that the only person at fault was her, because whose job was it to protect Lottie if not her mother? She couldn’t understand how Michael could still have questions. Why ‘they broke her neck and threw her into the lake’ wasn’t enough for him. Why he couldn’t understand that everything had ended there, at the gates. It wasn’t as if he could bear the truth.

  When she had said that, no, she wasn’t grateful to Suhren for saving her, that she hated him for it, that all she had wanted to do was die, so how could she be glad he had thrust a life on her, Michael had sobbed. She hadn’t had the energy to comfort him.

  Part of Liese wanted to help him, for the sake of what they had once been. A bigger part of her was filled up with rage that she was still living and her child was not, and that overshadowed every other emotion. She could feel the anger like a fire, simmering in her stomach, waiting for the spark that would let it spill. She knew that she could reach down and haul that fury-wrapped Liese out, replace this blank version sitting in the bed, holding Michael’s hand. It wouldn’t take much effort. That Liese would be able to pour out the truth and watch Michael recoil and scrabble for the platitudes he would offer like sticking plasters. She could do that. Except that would only feed the fury and give it a target it didn’t deserve, so she had swallowed the words down instead.

  She had watched him sob and wished, like she always did, that the ward sister would come and tell him that visiting hours were over. Free her from having to be responsible for anyone’s misery but her own. If Michael hadn’t been Michael, they would have chased him away, but handsome and whole and charming men were, apparently, a rare commodity in war-broken Berlin. Since the first day he had appeared, the nurses had fluttered round him like giddy butterflies and the rules went forgotten. So Liese had sat in silence, his tears no use to her, and then he had looked up and there it still was, written all over his anguished face: the love she no longer had a heart whole enough to put it in.

  ‘One telling.’

  He had wiped his sleeve across his face at that and clutched at her hand.

  ‘One telling of all that happened and then we are done. No more questions; no more asking my forgiveness. Do you understand?’

  He had nodded.

  ‘What about Andrew? Do I repeat it to him or will you tell him yourself?’

  ‘You do it. Maybe then he’ll stop trying to mend me.’

  Andrew’s visits were as exhausting as Michael’s. His cheery British whatever it is, we can fix it beam, and his determination to play the rescuing knight, was as unbearable as Michael’s misery.

  ‘He doesn’t mean any harm… It’s the guessing, Liese, the trying to imagine what you went through. Tell me the facts and I promise I, at least, won’t keep pushing.’

  The facts. Michael still thought that marshalling those could make sense of the world. His belief in that made the pain on his face too raw to be bearable; Liese had had to look away from him, had focused on a water stain on the ceiling instead. Perhaps if she kept to his beloved facts, she could get through this. If she left everything else out. The agony that had fuelled her, that had given her the energy night after night to stay alive and keep watch over the lake’s flat waters. The hatred that still flooded her. For the Nazis who decreed that Lottie’s life had no value. For the guard who could kill a child without looking. For the Allied soldiers who ripped her away from where Lottie was waiting and pushed her into a world that held nothing worth having.

  Michael loved her and wanted her to love him.
She couldn’t give him that; she was too hollow. He wanted to take her pain. She couldn’t give him that either; it was all that was keeping her breathing. But if she swallowed everything she now was down into the silence that filled her, maybe she could give him what he needed to walk away.

  Liese pushed herself up against the pillows and gently pushed Michael’s hand away. Slowly and deliberately, and without looking at him, she began to lay the facts out.

  The minutes ticked past; Michael stayed silent. The waiting stretched at Karen’s nerves, but she didn’t want to do anything that might stop him finding a way back from whatever memories had caught him. She glanced over at Markus, who smiled a tight smile and nodded. Small gestures, but they lifted her spirits. When Michael finally began speaking again, she had to bite back a ‘thank God’.

  ‘None of us were the same people when the war ended. We had all seen too much, lost too much. And the end of the war wasn’t some great healing; it was a mess. Chaos had swallowed Berlin. Andrew stopped your mother disappearing into it. He used his army connections and got her into the Bethel Hospital, rather than being allocated to a displaced persons camp. He told them he was afraid she had TB. She was exhausted and malnourished and had come from a concentration camp, so that seemed believable. He was so protective of her even then: he guarded her bed like a watchdog. But he was pleased when I first turned up – I’m sure of that. Liese had retreated into silence and he was desperate for someone who could fill in the gaps, jolt her into talking. It was… hard when I saw her. She was so tiny against the bedframe. Her hair chopped short, her eyes too big for her face. She had turned young and old, and it broke my heart.’

  ‘She must have been pleased to see you?’

  Karen regretted the question the moment she asked it.

  Michael’s voice slipped from the measured tone he was still somehow managing into a jagged stop and start. ‘No. I don’t think I could claim that. She stopped being silent, that’s true. She was shocked at first. And then so furious, I thought she would scratch my eyes out. But then it stopped; it all stopped.’ He paused, his hands fidgeting as if they were fighting the memories. ‘There wasn’t a feeling left in her for me. That’s when I knew something terrible had happened. You have to understand that I had seen people reconnect; I’d brought some of them together. I had seen tears and joy, and also plenty of hurt and anger when one person’s war seemed easier lived than another’s. I could have dealt with any of those. But after that first furious reaction there was nothing. She said the right things: that she forgave me, that she didn’t blame me. It was like listening to a machine.’

  He broke off, Markus following a beat behind, and looked directly at Karen.

  ‘I loved her; I truly loved her. At one point during the war, I was sure she loved me. But then? She didn’t feel anything for me at all. Not even the hatred I felt I deserved. I didn’t matter to her anymore.’

  Another piece of the puzzle uncovered, except Karen didn’t know what to do with it. Michael and her mother had been in love. She had guessed his feelings from the wedding photograph; she had never considered the love she saw there was returned.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ The words sounded too easy, inadequate. Karen forced herself to do better. ‘I can’t imagine how hard that must have been for you. But you must have understood, when she told you about Lottie. And she didn’t blame you, so you must have hoped things between you would heal over time. Especially when you saw her with my father. She must have been different, more alive, with him.’

  Markus had been right about the Michael who had greeted her earlier that night. That Michael had taken control of the conversation, delivering what little he said calmly and methodically. Even when her questions had surprised him and pricked at old hurts, his answers had remained considered. Now, he stumbled over his words and wouldn’t meet her eye.

  ‘She didn’t stop loving me because she had fallen for him, if that’s what you think. She was as closed off with Andrew as she was with me. No, that’s not quite true: there were feelings there, although they weren’t what he wanted. Your father was kind, a true gentleman. Liese saw that. When he sat with her quietly, or read to her, she would smile and grow calmer than I could make her. But so often she was angry with him. There were moments when she bristled with it. She tried to hide it, and I doubt Andrew noticed the way that I did. He cared about her and wanted her to like him. I’m not sure how experienced Andrew was with women, but he’d clearly developed a crush on your mother that didn’t have any space in it for flaws. But Liese? She didn’t have romantic feelings for him any more than she did for me. I don’t think she could.’

  He poured that out so quickly, Karen had to ask Markus to repeat his translation, to make sure she had properly understood.

  ‘I don’t follow. Father was kind and he had helped her, so what reason would she have to be angry with him?’

  Michael’s fingers locked; Karen could feel him pulling away.

  ‘You are asking about things that were never discussed.’

  ‘But you must have had a theory? You must have wondered. Could he have been different when you weren’t there? Pushed her too far about her past and Lottie maybe? Did he ever give you any reason to dislike him?’

  ‘No! Not at all! Your father was a very good man. I never believed him capable of treating her or anyone badly. Even later, with the lengths he was forced to go to…’

  Michael rubbed his face and shook off whatever it was he was going to say.

  ‘Neither of us knew how deep her misery ran, how broken she was. By the time we realised, it was too late. Or perhaps Andrew guessed and he kept it to himself, thought he could fix things.’

  Phrases slid in and out of Karen’s head. So protective even then. The lengths he was forced to go to. How broken she was. By the time we realised, it was too late. They felt like clues, but she had no idea what to go hunting for.

  Markus had stopped watching her and was watching his increasingly uncomfortable father. Karen could feel her moment slipping away. Markus looked on the verge of stopping his translation; she had to trust that her German would hold.

  ‘What was Liese like when Father found her at the station?’

  Michael shook his head. ‘He never said, not really. Except that she was weak and wobbling on the platform and didn’t seem to know what she was doing.’

  Then his hands knotted and unknotted. Karen’s stomach started to follow.

  ‘If I am honest, I didn’t believe him. I think… I think she had been trying to throw herself under a train and Andrew chose not to tell me. He wouldn’t have wanted to discuss that, if it had happened. He wasn’t a man much given to dwelling on emotions outside his control.’

  The description of her father was so accurate, Karen couldn’t argue with it. The description of her mother about to throw herself under a train was one she wished she had never had to hear.

  ‘Is that a guess, that she was suicidal? Because of Lottie? Or did you know?’

  Michael sighed and his words slowed.

  ‘Know is a strong word. How can anyone ever truly know something so intimate? But the deliberately absent way she behaved in the hospital was so unlike her. There was a well of emotion bursting below her flat words, but she wouldn’t let any of it out. Except once. When she was talking about the day Lottie died, when Suhren recognised her. She said she hadn’t got to do what she wanted and die. She refused to repeat it; she refused to discuss the day again. But I never forgot what I heard.’

  He stopped as if he was winded. His hands stilled; his body stiffened. It was clear this time he did not intend to go on.

  Liese’s agony hung between them. Karen’s head was hammering. She wanted to leave and never see Michael again, to never hear another word of her mother’s terrible story, but there was still a gap, another bit of the jigsaw still out of her reach. Her mouth was as dry as if it was coated with sand, but she couldn’t risk asking for water and giving Michael a chance to remove himself from the
room.

  ‘My mother wanted to die in the camp, and she wanted to die at the station. And something, including my father, kept getting in the way. Is that why she was angry with him?’

  Michael remained silent, his face too tight to read.

  ‘Why is there always something missing? She must have got better. She didn’t try to kill herself again then, or not so that you’ve said. So she can’t have stayed like that: angry with him for stopping her, not wanting to live? Please, Michael, that wouldn’t make sense. If she had continued like that, surely she would have killed herself sooner, or she wouldn’t have married him?’

  When Michael answered, all the emotion had leached from his voice. He could have been discussing a stranger.

  ‘What she did or didn’t do, and how they were together, is not for me to say.’

  Karen didn’t need Markus to translate that.

  ‘But you know. You were in their wedding photo; you stayed in their lives. You told me that you loved her, that she loved you. My father rescued her and she didn’t want him to, that’s what you’ve said. So what happened next? If she grew to love him, you would have said so. You haven’t. And yet she stayed alive and she married him and moved to a country she didn’t belong in, a country where no German would get an easy ride. Why? What changed?’

  Her voice was shrill enough to bring Markus to the arm of her chair. It made no impression on Michael. He had stiffened back into the man with a firm handshake and equally firm boundaries.

  ‘Your mother had suffered a terrible loss. She struggled to get over it. Your father loved your mother and went to great lengths to protect her. Those things I know. As to their marriage and what led up to it, that is not my story to tell.’

  ‘Please, Michael, help me understand this.’

  He brushed her distress away.

  ‘I have told you what I am able to. If you believe there is more, that is between you and your father. You must talk to him.’

  ‘Don’t you think I’ve tried? Do you think I’d be here if he would talk back…?’