by Lily Graham
‘We have to, Asta. You heard what Goran said – about how much longer it will take to cross than it should. I like them too but two of them are really old – older even than our own grandparents – you saw how hard this was on Sofie. And the others aren’t exactly young either – if we have to get away fast, how quickly would they be able to move?’
‘We did it today, Jürgen – we got away just fine from those dogs,’ said Asta, feeling disloyal.
‘We got lucky,’ said Jürgen, his mouth set in a thin line. ‘We were on the other side of the river, and those dogs hadn’t caught our scent – otherwise…’ He broke off. ‘Well, let’s just say, I’m not sure we would have made it.’ He sighed. ‘Not with Sofie anyway.’
Asta frowned. She didn’t like where this conversation seemed to be going.
‘I mean, we’re young, fit, we could even… I don’t know, climb the trees if we needed to.’
‘What are you saying?’ asked Asta. ‘You want to leave them behind, after all they’ve done for us?’
‘What have they done?’ he asked.
Asta’s mouth fell open in shock – it wasn’t like her twin to be so obtuse, so unfeeling. ‘Without Goran, we’d probably have been caught by now – put on the first transport to Dachau or some other godforsaken concentration camp where they send the children…’ It was a horrific thought – but she faced it nonetheless. If the Nazis had decided that the best place to send the Jews they didn’t want was these holding camps, why stop at the adults? Besides, they were sixteen now… hardly children anymore.
Jürgen made a dismissive sound. ‘Goran is really smart, I don’t mean him.’
‘Well, we can’t pick and choose who we want, Jürgen – then we’re acting just like the Nazis, choosing who you deem “good enough”. He wouldn’t leave the others and neither will I.’ She shot him a dark look. ‘How far would we have got without Goran – are you a forest ranger? Do you have a map or things to make a fire? A tent? I don’t even know which direction Germany or Denmark is from here,’ she said in a low hiss, near hysterical. What Jürgen was suggesting was insane.
‘Calm down, Küken. I can’t believe you’d compare me to those monsters. I’m not saying anything. I’m just worried – it’s the Orthodox ones, I mean, Jesus – Hershel and Lars with those side curls – and they’re both wearing bloody yarmulkes – while we are trying to flee the country! Not to mention the women with those headscarves.’
Asta could feel the blood starting to flood her cheeks. She wasn’t often angry with her twin, or felt like she didn’t know him, but the things he was saying were genuinely making her mad.
‘That’s exactly the sort of horrible prejudices we used to have – all of us, at home, Papa, Mutti – thinking we were better than them,’ she snapped, whirling around to face him, several logs falling to the ground in her anger and disappointment.
Jürgen grabbed her shoulders. ‘That’s not what I mean – yes, we were pigs for thinking those things – and fools, but what I am saying, if you’ll calm down, Küken, is that if we’re going to cross the border, we can’t all do it looking like we’re runaway Jews!’
She glared at him, then suddenly, all at once, her anger fizzled out. He was right, of course he was. ‘Well, we can’t just leave them.’
‘I know – I just – it’s going to be tough, is all I’m saying. I don’t really want to leave them, I’m just—’
She felt her heart soften. He was just scared, that was all. So little of this was within their control now. They were going to have to put their faith in a bunch of strangers, one of whom looked like she could barely walk to the shops on a high street, let alone the many miles it would take to make it across the border. As for the other four, well… he was right, they couldn’t leave them, which meant they were going to have to ask them to disguise themselves.
‘Somehow we’re going to have convince them that there’s no way they’ll get across looking as they do. I mean, they must realise that, somehow – it’s not like they’ll blend in.’
It was a horrible thing to ask someone to disguise their religion in order to survive. It was not the sort of conversation any child wanted to thrust on an adult. But it was unavoidable.
As if reading her mind, Jürgen said, ‘They either take this seriously enough to realise that they will have to do something they are not comfortable with or we will have to decide to do something we aren’t comfortable with, Küken. We will have to choose each other – and go our own way; you’re my only family now, and I will not have them risk your life. I’m sorry if that makes me sound prejudiced or selfish or whatever, but that’s just how it has to be, okay?’
Asta looked at him, saw the tears tracking down his face, then nodded. He didn’t like the idea any more than she did. She nodded.
When they got back to the shelter, Goran made short work of the wood and a fire began to crackle within minutes. They waited for the flames to grow and for the warmth to spread.
‘I’d give anything for a cup of tea,’ whispered Esther, holding her long, thin hands out to the flames.
‘Or a cup of coffee,’ suggested Sofie, rubbing her eyes, and stifling a yawn. It had been a long day. A long few days and weeks, really.
‘We should take it in turns to keep watch,’ said Hershel. ‘Rotate between the men, that sound fair?’
They all nodded.
‘I’ll take the first watch,’ he offered.
‘Before we turn in,’ said Goran, looking up at him, then feeding another log to the flames, ‘I’m sorry to say this but—’ He stopped, seeming uncomfortable. For all that he’d taken charge over the past few hours, it was clear that conversation wasn’t his forte.
‘Look,’ he tried again. ‘Forgive me, but for us to have any chance – we can’t look as if we are Jews on the run,’ he said. The twins shared relieved looks; of course, Goran and Sofie must have been thinking the same thing as them… they were glad they didn’t need to be the ones to say it. ‘I don’t mean to cause offence, I respect you all – but right now—’
To their surprise, Esther sat up and nodded. ‘You’re right.’
Lars looked like he was going to object, but she held up a hand to silence him. ‘God will forgive us, but first we must help ourselves. We’d hoped to have been through the border into Copenhagen by now,’ said Esther. ‘We never thought we’d have to be… refugees.’
Then she opened her carpetbag at her side, and fetched a pair sewing scissors, which she handed to her husband, who took them as if it were a viper about to strike.
‘I shouldn’t have to do this,’ Hershel said. ‘It’s against all human decency – against all the laws of the Torah.’ He took the scissors and did nothing.
‘Can’t you tuck them away, beneath a hat?’ asked Jürgen, having a change of heart at the older man’s suffering.
‘He could hide it under a hat,’ suggested Goran, ‘but then if we’re stopped and he is asked to remove it…’
Esther scowled, then snatched the scissors from him. ‘Then they put him in jail or worse.’ And before he could say anything she’d opened the blades wide, and snipped off one of his side curls.
He’d ducked, but it was too late. The long lock of grey hair fell onto the ground, and he stared at it, mute with shock; the pain on his face was hard for Asta to watch.
‘There – if there is anyone to be struck down it will be me, for the crime of trying to keep my husband alive,’ said Esther, going around to do the other side, with tears in her eyes, and a shaking hand. Hershel nodded, and closed his eyes – the other was gone before he’d even shut his eyelids.
Esther took the scissors then looked at her brother-in-law. ‘Now your turn, or do you want me to do it for you?’
‘No,’ said Lars, and he took a deep sigh and snipped his off too.
Asta was heartbroken to see the tears in his eyes.
It was Ruth who removed her headscarf first, revealing shiny black hair tightly wound into a bun at the nape of her
neck.
Goran looked at her. ‘You know you could do that in the morning; it is freezing now,’ he said to lighten the mood.
‘Better I get used to it sooner,’ she said.
No one said anything, but they all nodded. Somehow, it seemed she wasn’t just speaking about her appearance, but the change that was happening to them all – the one they had been forced into, against their will. They either faced it now, or they turned back. Esther took hers off next, revealing reddish-brown curls.
No one said much after that, and Hershel took the first watch, for their new dawn. The men and women went to bed shivering, and cold from more than just the loss of their coverings.
Asta woke with Jürgen shaking her arm. ‘Küken, wake up, they’ve heard people – hikers, probably; it’s time to get going.’
She sat up, rubbing her eyes. Her back was sore from sleeping on the cold floor of the shelter, her hip frozen and numb, as she hadn’t moved once during the night; she’d just fallen into a deep sleep, despite everything. It was the first time she’d been able to lie down properly since they’d been aboard the canal boat, and she’d sunk into a dead sleep, but she was wide awake and alert within seconds, pushing herself up off the ground, grabbing her small bag.
The others were already waiting. Goran was doing his best to mask the evidence of the fire which had grown cold now. He kicked it apart, using a large bunch of leaves to disguise it.
‘Obviously, any trained dog will still find it but it might look like it isn’t that recent.’
They nodded. Everything Goran did, they were realising, was with the aim of being careful, to manage risk.
In the daylight, Asta almost didn’t recognise the others, as the men had abandoned their yarmulkes, their side curls burnt in the fire the night before, and the women looked strangely naked without their headscarves.
Hershel was busy filling in a mound of earth, which looked almost like a small grave. He kicked the last of the mud and twigs over it. At Asta’s puzzled expression, he explained, ‘We’ve got rid of anything that doesn’t make us look like we are day trippers – out on a hike, or camping for night or two – especially if they stop and check us.’
Ruth had red-rimmed eyes, and Lars was trying to console her. ‘There were family albums and other mementoes that we were forced to leave behind. We’ll just have to make new memories,’ said her husband, clutching her hand tightly.
‘At our age?’ she asked. But she nodded, and seemed to stand up straighter. ‘Of course, you’re right.’ Asta saw her stuff a handful of photographs into her brassiere. Seeing her looking, Ruth wiped her eyes and said, ‘Just a small handful to remember everyone. I suppose that’s all I need, isn’t it?’
Asta nodded, then looked at Jürgen, her heart in her mouth. They didn’t even have that – not even one photograph. What she wouldn’t give for even that – because what if they never saw their parents again?
Asta looked away; perhaps Esther had read her thoughts because she gave her shoulder a squeeze, and said, ‘I can be the most sentimental of all, but the way we remember is here,’ she said, touching her heart. ‘No one can take that away – no one, you hear me?’
Asta nodded, sucking in her top lip, and catching hold of herself. Then she blinked in surprise as she stared at Esther. She looked as if she’d lost half a stone overnight; gone were her multi-layers, and Asta couldn’t see the lumps of jewellery beneath her neckline.
Esther shrugged. Then touched the bag at her hip, in silent explanation.
The twins nodded at each other. This might actually work.
They’d started their walk in the cold dawn air, feet slipping in mud and wet leaves. The wind howled up a storm, bitingly cold, and rushing at their ears, making them walk with their heads down. It was a struggle to hear each other, and it was only when Jürgen shook her arm that she realised that he was trying to get her attention.
She looked up and frowned, only to gasp aloud, her heart starting to thud – there, not ten metres away, was a group of officers with dogs who were snarling and snapping against their leads.
They had walked, silently, straight into a spider’s web.
14
Ruth started to shake and Esther looked ready to faint. Polgo’s words inside his small, beaten-up Volkswagen, his concerned eyes staring at her from the rear-view mirror, echoed suddenly in Asta’s head. ‘For this to work, you’re going to have to become actors.’
Startled, they’d stopped walking, but Goran quickly said, ‘Keep moving,’ as the officers hadn’t, as yet, made a move towards them.
Asta swallowed and elbowed Jürgen. ‘Tell everyone to smile – quickly, pass it on.’
Esther looked like she would rather vomit, but Asta quickly explained, with a casual smile fixed in place. ‘We have to act as if we are a normal family on a hike. Do it, Esther,’ she hissed, and suddenly, the older woman did. The others followed suit.
‘More natural,’ hissed Jürgen. ‘Like we’re having fun, not like we’re cornered rabbits. Relax, walk slower,’ he said – because Ruth and Sofie had begun to walk very fast. ‘Remember we are not in a hurry.’
Suddenly, one of the officers stepped forward, blowing into his hands. He was tall and thin with bright ginger-coloured hair.
‘Morgen,’ he greeted them. ‘It’s cold enough,’ he added. ‘Can I ask what business you have here?’
Hershel was the one who answered, in a voice quite different to how he normally spoke – it was posh, Berlin-sounding; gone were all traces of his faintly Yiddish-accented diction. ‘Losing a bet, officer,’ he said with a grin.
The others echoed Hershel with nervous smiles.
The officer looked nonplussed. ‘How’s that?’
‘Well, you see, last Christmas, my grandchild Jürgen, here, dared us that if I got the wishbone in the chicken that we’d do a hike – the whole family, on the first day of December. Well, as it’s hard to get the whole family together in that month, we decided on November… anyway, that’s not the point. See, he bet me that I couldn’t handle the Nazi youth camp training in the wild, and as I’d had too much sherry, I said of course I could. Well, anyway, he said that if he got the bigger piece we all had to go so he could put me to the test, and like an idiot I agreed – and mein Gott, he was right. Totally unprepared, I slept in a tent for the first time since the war…’
Jürgen tried to look as if this wasn’t news – to be fair, the twins were made for this sort of thing. ‘He was a medic in the army. I mean, he’s good at rolling bandages, but he couldn’t even light a proper fire! Took him forty minutes.’ Then he grinned. ‘Course, I can do it in five. I have all the badges,’ he bragged. Which was perhaps a mistake.
The officer, who had been smiling and nodding, frowned. ‘You are in the Hitler Youth – but where is your uniform? Surely all young boys your age wear them at the weekend?’
Jürgen swallowed, and it was Asta’s turn to lie. ‘My fault.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘Oh he’s so proud of that uniform, just loves to wear it everywhere, he wouldn’t even let the maid, Sara, iron it when he first got it – remember?’ She nudged her twin like it was a big joke. He shrugged.
‘Course not!’
The officer with the dog came over to see what the hold-up was. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he greeted, and the six of them reciprocated, trying desperately to make it seem as if that was natural.
‘Sara?’ said the other officer. He had dirty blond hair and a thin moustache. ‘That sounds like a Jewish name.’
Asta nodded, then put on a whiny, snotty voice. ‘Oh yes – she was, well, a half-Gentile anyway, but Mother was right in getting rid of her. I mean, no one wants that around the house, do they?’ Then she shuddered as if in revulsion. ‘I mean, around food and things…’
The officers both seemed to nod. Asta could feel Esther’s ire bubbling from here; she hoped she would control it.
‘Anyway,’ Asta carried on, ‘like I said, he was being insufferable telling me that I couldn’t make
it in the boys’ league like him, even though the girls’ one is almost as good, and of course,’ she said, forcing down the bile as she did, ‘I’m very happy to grow up and be a good…’ She racked her brains, trying to remember everything she’d been told at the girls’ school in Hamburg, everything she’d overheard. ‘…mother of German children – but’ – she laughed – ‘he’s still my twin, and I can still beat him at any race.’
‘Liar,’ said Jürgen.
Asta just grinned.
The first officer, the one with ginger-coloured hair, seemed to be warming to them, but seemed also to think that now was the time for a lecture on a woman’s place. ‘It is not your job to beat the men in your life, fräulein, but to help them be the leaders they were born to be.’
Asta managed, somehow, not to snarl, and put on a serious face. ‘Oh, yes of course, I know that – but that is why I will push him, you see – he can’t be allowed to lose to a girl. I can’t help teasing him sometimes, but I do know he’s better than me,’ she said between gritted teeth, wishing she could kick both officers in the shins and run away.
Finally, he laughed. ‘I like this one,’ he said, then looked at the first officer. ‘Real spunk – we need that in girls too. Reminds me of Gisela – my own sister, she’s a rascal.’
Asta’s knees almost buckled.
‘So, what did you to the uniform?’ asked the other, the one with the thin moustache.
‘Well, I tried it on, and then I teased him by dressing up like him. See, I put my hair up,’ she said, demonstrating – the resemblance was very close, ‘and I told him I was going to go compete in the races…’ She grinned. ‘Anyway, he got very mad and tore after me. We wrestled and I got mud all over it; unfortunately he’d only packed that one for his visit to our grandparents,’ she said, looking at Hershel, who grinned in return, nodding along in agreement.
