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

by Catherine Hokin

  For her mother battling on in the face of such suffering, what else could it be but forgiveness? Karen was flooded with it. Except it wasn’t unreserved. If Karen was honest, and in the face of the day’s revelations there was nothing else to be, a tiny, illogical voice still wished that she, the second-chance daughter, had been enough to alter the ending Lottie’s death had set in motion.

  That wasn’t a voice, Karen knew, that she would ever entirely silence, but she had made herself a number of promises as she read through the book. That she wouldn’t blame her mother anymore for leaving her; that she would learn to accept that her mother’s last chapter was written long before she was born. That, too, she would try to forgive herself for not being good enough, and try to wipe those words from her future. She sensed there was a role for Markus in that, a role she wanted him to play.

  There was forgiveness then, for herself and her mother. As for her father: the answer wasn’t no and it wasn’t quite yes.

  Karen would never doubt his love for her mother again, or for her. She knew everything he had done was born out of the desire to protect them both. But the tiny voice ran through this new acceptance too. Wishing that he had taken charge and been more honest, that he had done what he said her mother wanted: told her the truth and saved them both all the added hurt. His failure there would take time to fade to a scar she no longer needed to pick at. Not quite forgiveness then, but not punishment; not anymore.

  As to the second question her father had hoped she would answer, Have I found my mother?, the answer to that was no less layered. She had and she hadn’t. There was enough in the scrapbook for Karen to add flesh to the bones of the facts, but there were still gaps, still shadows. Liese’s life could be uncovered, but its depths and nuances could only ever be truly understood by the woman who had lived it. That was the scrapbook’s real story: for all Karen searched and all she found out, the life her mother had lived would always keep her a finger’s stretch out of reach.

  As Karen watched the sky move through blue to purple, she realised that knowledge was enough. To move forward. To turn the last page of the book to what her first skimming, and her father’s gentle warning, had told her was waiting there.

  It was a letter. She assumed he must have pasted it in. It was in her mother’s handwriting, but it wasn’t scrawled like the journal entries. Its intentions weren’t lost in a sea of jumbled questions. It was carefully, elegantly written in pale blue ink, on faintly lined paper headed with a stylised picture of The Hove Beach Hotel. It was addressed to her father and signed by her mother and it was dated Friday, 10 July 1971.

  Part Four

  Seventeen

  Liese

  Hove, England, July 1971

  Eins, zwei, Papagei,

  drei, vier, Offizier

  fünf, sechs, alte Hex

  Sieben, acht, Kaffee gemacht.

  Liese snapped awake as sharply as if an alarm was ringing. She couldn’t tell if the voice dancing through her dream had been her own or Minnie’s, but it was loud enough to turn the silly song into a shout.

  Andrew was snoring gently, the bedclothes on his side arranged as tidily round him as when he had first climbed in. He had always been a deep sleeper, sinking down within moments of picking up his book. ‘Not even a page managed last night,’ was his usual morning greeting.

  With the nursery rhyme, whose bouncing rhythms had enchanted her as a little girl and then done the same for Lottie, still chiming through her head, Liese inched away from his warmth and fumbled on the bedside table for her watch.

  Four o’clock.

  That strange not-quite-sleeping, not-quite-waking hour that sat on the bridge between the night and the day. An hour Liese had watched tick by far too often.

  She shifted uncomfortably, her bare arms grating against the rough nylon sheets. The dream had gone – she never could catch them once she woke. Lottie had been in it though; Liese was sure of that. Playing somewhere just out of reach, like an actor calling out their lines offstage.

  Andrew hadn’t completely closed the thin curtains before he got into bed. Perhaps that was what had really wakened her. There was a sliver of moonlight shining into the bedroom, turning the scuffed writing table and chair into something rather grander. Liese seemed to remember that the curtains had got caught up the night before when he tried to draw them, the cheap fixtures they hung from straining his already brittle mood. It was hard to be sure; yesterday was a bit of a blur. Brighton’s gaudy brightness had brought on a headache she knew had bitterly disappointed Karen.

  Images of tantrums Karen was too old to throw niggled at her sleepy memory. Demands for money and rides and ridiculous amounts of candy. Andrew had grown angry; Karen had grown angrier. Liese had retreated. She increasingly found that the best strategy when the two of them, who were as strong-willed and stubborn as each other, although neither could see it, started butting heads. She had been doing that more and more lately, leaving father and daughter to sort out and settle their differences. Pretending she didn’t know why.

  The scratchy sheets were impossible to stay in now that she was awake.

  Liese got up and went to the window, meaning to ease the threadbare fabric across. Her dressing gown was on the back of the door – putting that on might offer a barrier between her skin and the bed. She began tugging at the curtains, caught sight of the view and stopped, mesmerised. The moon hung as low and heavy as a cat full of kittens, so close to the horizon a nudge would sink it. Above it, the sky’s black had whittled to navy at its edges, like a pool of ink spreading. Liese stood on her tiptoes, craning over the square and the gardens, hoping for a glimpse of the sea. Imagining the water wriggling free of the moon’s tugging and stretching itself out ready to welcome the sun.

  It will be today.

  The thought leaped like a splash. Liese quivered, waiting for the second voice to come. The one that shook its head and wondered. It didn’t.

  ‘Then it will be today.’

  The relief sank her into the thinly padded chair set under the window. Liese closed her eyes and let the decision settle round her, felt it fitting as warm and snug as a well-washed robe. The steps she had to take next had always been there, waiting. Now she was ready, she knew they would reveal themselves.

  She got up and dressed quietly in the clothes she had hung over the back of the chair the night before. A simple belted sundress, a long-sleeved cardigan, flat open-toed sandals. Nothing showy. Choosing her clothes the day before she intended to wear them was such an unusual thing for her to do even Andrew had noticed. Liese couldn’t remember how she had answered when he had pointed it out. Out of habit, she brushed her hair and rubbed cold cream into her face and hands. She didn’t bother today with mascara or lipstick.

  She checked her watch again and then slipped it off and laid it next to her wedding ring on the bedside table.

  Four-thirty.

  Almost three hours before Andrew’s alarm clock would jolt him awake. There was time to do things properly, just as she had always intended she would. Time to make sure no doubts or questions lingered.

  Liese began to move quicker: now the decision was made there was nothing to be gained by delaying.

  She fetched a pen from her handbag, creeping like a mouse round the room as she did so, although Andrew’s deep breathing told her there was no need. There was a small stack of writing paper and envelopes piled at the back of the rickety table. Liese sat down and smoothed out the one sheet she would need. The letter did not have to be long – there was no explanation she could offer Andrew that he didn’t already know – but it had to be written. For Karen’s sake. To make things as right as she could

  My dear Andrew,

  She paused. That was something she had rarely called him, although she knew how much he loved to hear it. That or any other endearment. Another regret to add to the list she hoped this last act would atone for. And the next line, that seemed to come so easily now, was one she wished she could have tried ou
t in person. Was it too much to hope that reading the words would make up for her silence?

  You have been a good husband and a kinder one than I deserved. I want you to know that. And I want Karen to know she has always been the best of us – the best of me. I want you to tell her that. Before you give in to the grief I know my leaving will cause you, I want you to tell Karen how much I loved her, that this is none of her doing. That some part of me will always stay with her. Will you do that for me? Will you promise?

  I cannot stay any longer. It is as simple as that. And I want to go at my choosing, on a good day when the world is clear and I know what year I am living in; whose voices are real. That feels very much like today. I know you have been waiting for this. I know you have dreaded it. I hope you can understand and forgive me.

  Tell Karen about Lottie. That will be hard – you won’t want to do it, but it matters. I can’t give you the words; you must choose them, but you must tell her the truth. That she had a sister who was murdered, that so much went wrong because of that act. If you don’t, she will think me leaving is her fault. I can’t bear that; I can’t throw that shadow over her. Don’t wait, Andrew; don’t think she needs to be older. You have done so much for me already and I have never thanked you for any of it, but please: do this.

  You should also know, if you don’t already, that this is no more your fault than Karen’s. And that I have loved you. Try to believe that; try not to keep doubting it. I know it should have been said a long time ago. And believe also that this thing that I am doing is a kindness. A repaying of the debts that weigh on us all.

  Liese put the pen down. She was tired. If she carried on with this thinking and writing she would be too tired to do what had to come next.

  Hold Karen for me. Tell her that you love her. Tell her that every day.

  There was nothing more to be said.

  She signed her name quickly and put the letter in an envelope, which she laid on her empty pillow. She stopped, stared down at the face that had been part of her life for so long. Andrew was still snoring; still, on some level, content. Liese reached out to touch his shoulder and stopped. If he woke and saw her standing there, he would guess and he would stop her. There had been too much of that.

  The hallway outside their room was deserted, the hotel sleeping and silent.

  Liese tugged her cardigan round her, her shoulders suddenly cold. Karen’s door was next to theirs, only a few paces away. Liese hovered, uncertain for the first time since the decision had come to her. Karen was still so young; Andrew was not the most effusive of men. What if this was wrong? What if it caused Karen more harm, not the good she intended? Perhaps if she slipped inside, took a moment to look, to drop a kiss on that beloved face, she would know. The impulse became an ache, propelled her fingers towards the door handle. And then Liese paused.

  The slightest sound and she will wake up and the choice will not be mine anymore.

  Karen was as light a sleeper as her mother, something Liese had only realised a few months ago when she caught sight of her daughter’s white face pressed against the bannisters long after she should have been asleep. When Liese realised that the child had been watching as Andrew tried to calm the chaos of another nightmare-driven night, a night when she had gone hunting for Lottie and then thought she was the one being hunted. Liese had no idea how many other episodes Karen had witnessed. From the frozen way the child sat, rather than rushing down the stairs demanding to know what was wrong, she guessed this one was a long way past the first. Liese had wanted to warn Andrew that Karen had been there. She had wanted to talk to Karen, to offer some explanation that would soothe the wide eyes that followed her all the next morning. She hadn’t done either. She had retreated back into the safety of silence and not looked up when other nights spooled out as messy.

  And now she is as attuned to my moods as Lottie once was.

  She took a step away.

  This is your last chance; don’t be a coward.

  Liese eased the door open. Karen was sleeping on her back, her arms flung out. A memory flew back of Lottie spread out like a starfish, and she had to cram her fist into her mouth.

  A few paces there, a few paces back. You can do it.

  She crossed the floor as quick as she could, before her knees or her tears betrayed her. Karen stirred slightly, smiled at something in her dreams. Liese leaned forward, brushed her lips across Karen’s soft hair and then she fled from the room before the urge to scoop her daughter up became stronger than the urge to protect her.

  I am no good to her. I hold her back; I keep the world too far from her.

  She crept down the stairs, refusing to allow herself to turn round.

  Twins – two girls. She reached the ground floor, her mind stuck on two children who would never remember their mother. On the memory of Paul and Margarethe walking away, swept up to an unimaginable death from the jobs that she had forced them out into. Stuck on the women whose numbers she had stapled to lists and sent to the same fate. On a guard who was an animal but whose children were innocent. The balance sheet wasn’t done with her yet. The price paid this time for her carelessness could not be Karen.

  I have to trust to Andrew now.

  She had to believe Andrew would protect his daughter with the same fierce strength he had always shown for her. She had to believe Karen would one day understand that she would live a happier life without a mother too scared to let her embrace it. Without a mother whose sins spread out like a stain and ruined the lives of those she was meant to protect. Liese loved Karen; she loved her as much as she had ever loved Lottie. Liese had been terrified all the way through her pregnancy that she wouldn’t have any love to give, that she would look at her baby and see only shadows. And then she had held Karen and felt such a deep connection, she had been astonished at the purity and newness of it. She hated that pain was coming for her daughter. That was terrible, but Karen was young and Liese had to believe that her pain would pass.

  I can’t turn back. I can’t tear up the letter and pretend I can stay and things will be better.

  Only a truly heartless mother would do that.

  The bolt on the front door was heavy but easier to open than others she had fought. Liese stepped out into the fresh green embrace of a slowly waking day. The sky’s dark was diluting, black swapped out for a deep blue that was already spotting with pink. The trees in the gardens that ran between the wedding-cake houses were softening, losing their night-time jagged edges. There was no one around. It was too early for anything but birdsong.

  It is today.

  The refrain carried Liese through the short walk across the dew-soaked grass and down to the shingle. The sea spread out before her smooth as French Navy satin, frilled with cream lace where it trickled over the shore.

  If this is wrong, if it won’t pay the price, the water won’t want me.

  She knew that it would.

  Salt danced through the breeze, tingling at her lips. Dawn was breaking. Liese breathed in the morning and stepped onto the beach.

  Eighteen

  Karen

  Berlin, October 1990

  No one who looked at Andrew Cartwright could fail to see the soldier he had once been, even at seventy-four. Despite being tired from the early-morning start and, Karen suspected, nervous about the journey to come, his back was straight, his shoulders were square and his walk still carried a snap in it. He had dressed for the occasion – his first time flying – in a tweed suit and overcoat that attracted admiring glances as he walked through Heathrow. Within five minutes, his bearing and impeccable manners had so impressed the British Airways check-in staff, he had bagged the upgrade to First Class that Karen had never once been offered. She was proud to be seen with him and told him so, taking a quiet delight in his awkward blush.

  ‘Do you want anything for the flight? A newspaper or a magazine?’

  ‘My book will do me fine, but thank you.’

  A formality had crept back between them since May�
�s revelations, although their meetings nowadays were consciously more regular and their conversations always couched in considerate tones.

  Liese’s last letter, and Andrew’s subsequent account of how he had fallen apart on the day of her death, had dredged up old memories and knocked Karen more off balance than she could at first admit.

  No, I can’t come; don’t ask me.

  His furious response to Karen’s plea on the day of Liese’s death, that he come to her and help her make sense of their loss, had resurfaced. She had forgotten how his shout had echoed round the hotel, or, rather, she had worked hard not to remember it. He had recounted his memories of that day the same night he had given Karen the scrapbook, pouring them out honestly and surrounded by apologies. How he had gone to identify Liese’s body and then found himself alone on the beach, weeping so hard no one would come near him. How he had come back to the hotel, horrified by his behaviour and desperate to make up for it. How he had given in too easily when he was told Karen was sleeping and best left. Karen had gone away feeling sorry for her father but sorrier still for the little girl whose wounds she was afraid she would never completely shake. She had woken almost every morning in the following weeks replaying the shock of his failure to be the father she needed. The father that Liese had asked him to be.

  ‘Did you tell him that?’

  ‘No. I gave him the book back and said I was tired and needed to think. I haven’t mentioned it, or anything else, since.’

  ‘I understand why, Karen.’ Markus had been as direct in his responses as ever. ‘You must have been drained from the reading and the memories. But I thought you were done with old patterns. Won’t more silences just drag you both back to where you were when you started out on this quest?’