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

by Catherine Hokin

  The telephone conversation with Markus had been snatched and brief, and Karen had hit him with so much information, she had wondered part of the way through if she sounded a little mad. By the time she was done, the cost of the call had flown to an unsustainable level. She had gabbled it to a close and left Markus with barely enough time to offer her anything more than those few words of advice beyond ‘I’m here’ and ‘I care’. When she eventually let it, his advice had sunk in. Now she was glad she had followed it.

  Liese watched her father letting the First-Class Lounge staff fuss round him. Explaining her feelings of anger and abandonment had been harder than she wanted, although easier than it would have been six months earlier. She had planned what she wanted to say so that it wasn’t loaded with blame. So she could lay out carefully the mistrust that had grown up around what she had seen as her father’s lies, and how that had hardened over the years. So she could make him see how the pain that mistrust caused had made her want to hit out; how it still cut deeper than she wanted.

  She had managed to deliver her speech calmly; her father had listened with scrupulous care. He had accepted everything and apologised, allowing her to do the same. They had agreed that there was hurt inflicted on both sides, that neither of them had any desire to go forward in the same conflict-fuelled way. They had agreed to make a proper effort to be in each other’s lives. Andrew now called once a week and asked interested questions about her work. Karen visited him at least every other weekend. They were careful with each other, but they were inching forward, discovering that they were more alike than past resentments had let them see. Lately they had brought Liese into their conversations, offering memories of her good days to each other like new friends tentatively exchanging gifts. More recently still, Karen had let him ask the occasional question about Markus.

  Markus. In a few hours, she would be back in the same city as him. She had been longing for that for the past five months and now the thought of seeing him made Karen’s hands clammy. Andrew was occupied, caught up in some animated discussion about cricket Karen had no interest in. She helped herself to another cup of coffee and took Markus’s latest letter out of her bag.

  It wasn’t easy to speak, with his work shifts and the cost of calls, so letters had remained their main line of communication. Markus hadn’t got much better at writing them. His preference was still for facts, for straightforward exchanges of information that he promised to ‘fill in when I see you’. His reactions on paper were far more muted than in person, and he rarely mentioned the presumably difficult conversations he must have had with his father. Sometimes Karen read through the brief pages wondering what this relationship she hoped was developing between the two of them actually was. If it had been merely a sidebar to her mother’s story. And then a line would appear in the middle of a tightly written message. A sudden tumble of words that suggested what was going through his head might not be so different at all to the dreams that keep flourishing in hers.

  I wish I was with you, to hold you. I hope it’s not wrong to think you want that too.

  You were brave and you found her. A lot of people would have run from what you uncovered, or never dug in the first place. You are really quite something, Karen Cartwright.

  And her favourite, from the letter she was holding, which made her grin every time that she read it.

  Promise me you will phone me when you arrive in Berlin, the first minute you can. I’m counting the days like a schoolboy.

  ‘You’re daydreaming, Karen. They’re calling our flight. It’s a busy one apparently, packed with journalists flying out to cover tomorrow’s reunification ceremony. I’ve been asked twice if I’m some kind of writer. It must be the suit.’

  Her father’s eyes were twinkling; he looked ten years younger.

  Karen grinned. ‘I should take a photo of you and send it to Mrs Hubbard. Prove to her that my “crazy ideas” haven’t put you into a box like she predicted.’

  He laughed and offered her his arm. ‘Just be grateful you weren’t there when I told her I was going with you to Berlin. She was incensed. It was like watching a rather square volcano explode.’ He grinned so broadly Karen stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

  ‘You’re not, I mean… with Mrs Hubbard… are you?’

  His shout of laughter turned heads. ‘No. I can assure you, I am not. But…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘If there was someone else, would you mind?’

  Karen stared at this man who kept revealing new depths every time she thought that she knew him.

  ‘Was? Or is?’

  He blushed. ‘Is. It’s early days. But if it develops, I’d like you to meet her.’

  ‘Of course.’

  Karen handed over their boarding passes and tried not to grin too widely. She was about to ask more when her father shook his head.

  ‘Okay. I won’t pry, I promise. Not yet anyway.’

  A stewardess handed them both glasses of champagne; Karen noticed Andrew’s hand was shaking when he reached for it.

  ‘Are you nervous about the flight? Tell me you’re not feeling ill.’

  He turned away and looked out of the window before he answered.

  ‘No. It’s neither of those. If you must know, I’m a little on edge at the thought of meeting Michael again.’

  Karen’s shoulders relaxed. ‘That’s understandable. It has been a long time, almost fifty years. That still surprises me, you know, how young you all were when it happened. I suppose it won’t be easy digging it all up again.’

  His face when he turned to her was so bleak Karen flinched.

  ‘No, Karen, it won’t be easy – not easy at all. You’re learning not to blame me for Liese dying. What if Michael has only just begun?’

  ‘It’s me. I’m here.’

  ‘At last! I haven’t been able to concentrate all day, waiting for you to call.’

  And there it was, the joyful reaction she had hoped for.

  ‘Father is exhausted from the journey and his first sight of Berlin after so many years. He’s gone to bed.’

  There was a pause and then a laugh that gurgled from the telephone wire to her toes. Karen could hardly concentrate on what he was saying for picturing his brown eyes.

  ‘So what are you proposing, Karen Cartwright, to do with your night?’

  To spend it with you. To be Markus and Karen again.

  It was all that she wanted. Given the warmth in his voice and his delight when he answered her call, she wasn’t sure why she couldn’t quite say it. The hours they had spent on her last trip, wandering through Berlin on holiday from their lives, had been perfect, more romantic than any date deliberately planned to be that way.

  She must have paused too long. His voice suddenly dropped and grew serious.

  ‘Are you still there? I want to see you, Karen, tonight. Just you; away from everything that is coming. Can I do that?’

  Give him the room number – don’t waste any more time.

  That, too, was what she wanted, but saying it into a telephone seemed too quick a step. She needed to see his face, that was all. To put the two of them back into place.

  ‘We passed a bar on the way here. On the corner of Kluckstraβe and Lützowufer, near the canal. I could meet you there? I could head there now and wait for you.’

  He arrived so fast, he must have broken every speed limit. The bar was little more than a cellar, as dark and sparsely populated as the one they had gone into in the East. When Markus saw the two shots of vodka and the jug of red wine Karen had ordered, he grinned.

  ‘No crying tonight, I promise.’

  He clicked his glass to the one she raised.

  ‘I don’t care if you do. With everything you’ve learned, you’ve got good reason.’

  He didn’t take his eyes off her as they drank.

  ‘Do you want to talk about your mother, or her letter? We’ve covered so little of it and nothing of what you feel.’

  Karen shook her he
ad. He was still watching her. She had to take the plunge. If his page was different to hers, she wanted to know. Before tomorrow, when her father met him and wondered. Before she risked her heart any more than she had.

  ‘Not tonight. I don’t want this to be about anything but us tonight, Markus. If there is an us.’

  She had poured the wine out, but neither of them had touched it.

  If he tells me I’ve made a mistake and his concern for me is nothing more than friendship, I’m going back on the next plane and Markus can manage the rest on his own.

  The silence continued a fraction too long for her shivering nerves and then Markus got up and held out his hand.

  ‘There will always be an us.’

  She didn’t mean to do it, but his face was so serious and his tone so dramatic, she couldn’t help herself. She burst out laughing, and fell in love when he joined in.

  ‘This is your fault – it’s the effect you have on me. That sounded so good in my head and now I’ve turned into some cliché of a brooding Hollywood hero.’

  He pulled her up. She was in his arms, kissing him. They were outside, kissing each other in the street like teenagers until the cold reminded them that there was a hotel room waiting.

  ‘There will be an us now, I swear it.’

  This time, he said it as they fell onto the bed, breath quickening, clothes already half lost. Karen didn’t laugh. She held his face close to hers and repeated the same promise. And then he kissed her through to her soul and there was no going back at all.

  When she woke after the few hours of sleep they had finally succumbed to and he was still lying there, she wanted to cheer. Then she glanced at her watch and she panicked.

  ‘You have to go. Before my father comes and catches you. I’m serious – it’s gone seven. He’ll be up and ready for breakfast, and I’m too old to get raised eyebrows for this.’

  She had to throw the duvet over him he laughed so loud.

  ‘Seriously, Markus, this is not how I want the two of you to meet. My father is nervous about this afternoon. No, it’s more than that: he’s afraid – he used that actual word – about seeing Michael again.’ She stopped. Part of her wanted to find softer words, but this was Markus, a man who believed life should be open and direct, and he wouldn’t thank her for trying. ‘He thinks your father might blame him for my mother’s death.’

  Markus looked up from tying his shoes.

  ‘I can’t guarantee that he won’t. He hasn’t said much since you told us it would be both of you coming, although him holding his thoughts tight is hardly a surprise. And he’s on edge too, although he blames the fuss over reunification. To be honest, I don’t quite know how to handle their meeting. If it goes wrong, then the rest of the plan falls apart. I thought I should tell them what I found out about the guard as soon as the greetings are over. What do you think?’

  Karen nodded. ‘That could work. I haven’t shared any of it with Father yet.’

  ‘Okay, good. If we treat them like they are still both in this together, maybe they’ll act that way. Who knows, Father might see parallels between him and Andrew finally reuniting and Germany’s political situation and decide to deliver a lecture not a judgement. Your father’s on his own if he does.’ Markus reached for his jacket. ‘And he has agreed to come here rather than meet at his flat, to the “dreaded West”, as he called it, which hopefully he won’t do so loudly today and ruin the party. That could be a sign of good intent.’

  Karen’s eyes widened. ‘How did you persuade him to break a lifetime of principles and do that?’

  ‘I told him Andrew was much feebler than him and would struggle to travel… What?’

  He ducked as Karen aimed a pillow at him.

  ‘It worked. For a communist, Father is very competitive. To be honest, I thought it would be easier to manage him if he was off home ground. There is a condition though.’

  Markus’s voice lost its laughing tone. Karen waited.

  ‘There is a ceremony later today, before tonight’s big celebration, to mark the passing of the DDR. I doubt anyone beyond the faithful will notice it’s happening, but Father wants to go and I said I’d go with him. It would mean a lot if you would come too.’

  Karen passed him the wallet he was looking for, wondering how such a simple request could make him look so awkward but not sure how to ask.

  ‘The thing is, I’ve told him about you and me, about how I feel. He’s uncertain. A “decadent woman from the West” isn’t what he imagined for me. Not that he called you that, but I’ve no doubt that, on some level, he thinks it. And then there’s the connection with Liese and all that stirs up. I just think, if you were there today, at something that’s so important to him and who he is, well, he’d set a lot of store by it.’

  He tailed off, looking younger and more adrift than she’d ever seen him.

  Karen smiled and startled herself by suddenly feeling tearful. ‘Then of course. How could I miss it?’

  ‘Thank you. That makes me happy. I’ve hopes it will do the same with him.’

  Markus wrote down the details and kissed her and was halfway out of the door before he turned back and grinned. ‘I should have told you first, how I felt. Not my father. Is that what you’re thinking?’

  Karen laughed. ‘I’m not thinking anything except you don’t need to tell me. I already knew.’

  She blew him a kiss and waved him away before her father came knocking. She knew it would be a while before she had enough composure to go down to breakfast.

  I already knew.

  It was the truth, and now there was a new truth to consider: that the words ‘I love you’ didn’t matter – what mattered was what she had seen in Markus’s eyes and felt in his kiss. She’d spent years treating the I love you she had always demanded to hear as the Holy Grail, putting more faith in what she heard than in anything else. All the relationships that had crashed down because of her desperation. All the relationships that had failed because, once the words were said or, worse, prised out, she no longer cared. And now here she was, in love and loved and finally listening; feeling the hurts starting to heal.

  ‘You have missed your turning – this is Hausvogteiplatz. Go back one corner and turn at Markgrafenstraβe. Gendarmenmarkt is only a short distance away from there.’

  The man waved his arm in the direction from which Karen had just come and walked away. She stared after him, unable to move, everything he had said after Hausvogteiplatz fallen into a blur. The dark interior of Richters Schneiderei and her seventeen-year-old self standing on the threshold so hopeful and so naïve flew back more vivid than the bright October day she was currently standing in. Hausvogteiplatz: Haus Elfmann had stood here.

  Karen whirled round, convinced if she moved quickly enough a signboard or a set of ghost letters would reveal themselves over the lintel of one of the narrow buildings. When that didn’t work, she had a wild impulse to run from door to door, knocking and shouting out the Elfmann name and demanding that someone, somewhere, must remember – must be able to point her to the place where the salon had stood.

  Karen was at the first corner, hand poised when she remembered Frau Richter’s pleated mouth and folded arms and the shadows that clung to the old woman’s disapproving sniff. She sank down instead on one of a group of iron benches surrounding a fountain in the centre of the small square.

  She didn’t want to do this frantic searching anymore. It was foolish to try, doomed to end in failure and that hollow feeling in the pit of her stomach that she didn’t want to make room for anymore. It was fifty years since Haus Elfmann had towered over Berlin’s fashion industry. That was another lifetime; in this part of the city, it was another country. She needed her energy for the future now, not the past.

  Ignoring the pigeons who had immediately come flocking, Karen gazed up at the highest point she could see: a sunburst clock, picked out in faded red and gold on a rooftop still bearing the traces of what once must have been delicate carvings.

/>   My mother must have known that clock in its grander days. She must have sat in the square and listened to the fountain play and watched the light and the clouds dance across the clock’s golden hands.

  Karen tried to picture the Liese who once would have sat where she sat now. Fifteen or sixteen years old, the daughter of a wealthy fashion house, a young girl filled with dreams. She breathed in slowly, filling her nose and mouth with the woody scent of the bronze and cream chrysanthemums planted round the fountain and imagined her mother chattering here to her friends. She listened to the water splash, watched a group of sparrows taking a dust bath and imagined Liese and Michael trading secrets and squabbling, inhabiting the up and down but always so entwined relationship he had described. Although she knew that it couldn’t be true, given Berlin’s history of war and division, the little square felt untouched, unchangeable.

  She didn’t need a sign; she didn’t need proof. The salon had been here, Liese had been here, happy and hopeful. Karen closed her eyes and let herself feel and knew that was enough.

  She walked slowly back down Mohrenstraβe, turning where she had been told, taking time to study the narrow buildings with their elegantly arched windows that lined this part of the street. The pavements were far quieter here than the eager bustle she had left behind at the Tiergarten and Potsdamer Platz. Karen was glad of it. With no one else around, she could step back in time and find Liese, walking a pace in front, lolling a pace behind, running about and real. She could see the whip of her mother’s skirt as she dodged round a corner; hear her laughter chasing through the birdsong.

  By the time Karen stepped onto the wide marble-like paving stones that covered the Gendarmenmarkt’s large sweep of a square, she felt lighter than she had done in months.