The German Girl

by Lily Graham

  ‘Why did you stop?’ he asked.

  She frowned. ‘I was babbling, sorry.’

  ‘No, you weren’t.’

  She sighed, changing the subject. ‘So you will help me?’ she asked.

  He nodded.

  ‘I can’t take you far but I can get you across the border – I will have to get back soon though or they will ask questions. I will be a suspect.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said, feeling a stab of regret penetrate her grief and fear.

  ‘It’s fine. All I mean is that if they do begin to suspect that I had something to do with your disappearance they will begin to look into it – it is better if I am there with some kind of story.’

  ‘Oh,’ she repeated, feeling at a bit of a loss. While she’d spent most of the previous evening resenting him for saving her, for making her take the impossible step of leaving Jürgen behind, she now found the idea of being by herself unsettling.

  ‘I will take you across the border, and then I can get you transport to where you need to go. I have some money too.’

  ‘I don’t need your money,’ she said, frowning.

  ‘Don’t be stupid,’ he said, a small smile about his lips, while taking a sip of coffee. ‘Course you do.’

  She looked away; he was right, of course.

  ‘We must go soon – before the next shift begins, then I can take you to Kruså, from there we can arrange the transport. Where is it that your aunt lives – Trine? Is that what you said she was called?’

  She nodded, closed her eyes and tried her best to think. ‘Trine Anderson,’ she agreed. ‘She’s in Elsinore,’ she said.

  He whistled. ‘That’s far. Never mind, we’ll get you there.’

  They crossed the border between Germany and Denmark when it was still dark, under a moonless sky. She’d been walking for a hundred metres when Kalle said, ‘You have now been in Denmark for nearly three minutes.’

  She looked up in shock. She wasn’t sure what she’d been expecting – some kind of barbed wire, a fence, an armed patrol, a ditch or river, but not a small road, leading to another forest. As dawn crested the horizon, they entered the small border town where Kalle led them past rows of terraced houses to the back of a café with a green awning and chipped white paint. He knocked on the back door, down an alleyway. She frowned. ‘Are you sure about this – are you just going to ask someone to take me? How can you know they can be trusted?’

  ‘Well,’ said Kalle. ‘I’ve known him my whole life.’

  She stared at him, but he didn’t elaborate. A few seconds later, a tall man opened the door, wearing an apron and a scowl. ‘We only open at—’ He broke off. He had grey hair, a clean-shaven face, and very blue eyes, so like Kalle’s.

  ‘Hej, Papa,’ said Kalle, and the two embraced. ‘I have a favour I need to ask,’ he said, as soon as they broke apart.

  The man looked from him to Asta then frowned. ‘Kalle?’ he said.

  ‘This is my father, Johan,’ he told Asta, speaking in his accented German.

  The man’s eyes widened and then the two started to argue in Danish. Asta stepped backwards.

  ‘Kalle, thank you,’ she said – even now, even after all he had done, it was hard to thank him, as her gratitude was mixed so deeply into her pain and regret at leaving her brother behind. ‘But you got me this far – I can go, I’ll be okay.’

  The old man’s eyes widened and he replied in German. ‘Are you mad? They’ll catch you and send you back before you can say “border police”.’

  She gritted her teeth. ‘I’ll be fine.’

  He raised a brow. ‘Can you even speak Danish?’ he asked.

  She didn’t say anything. Which wasn’t surprising as he’d asked it in Danish.

  ‘Obviously not. Which means they will know you are German and send you right back.’

  ‘Come on,’ said Kalle, noticing Asta’s stricken face. ‘Come inside, his bark is worse than his bite.’

  They entered the back of the café, into the kitchen. ‘Come, sit,’ said his father.

  ‘I can’t be long,’ said Kalle, and gave a rough overview of what had happened. ‘I’d better get back – and retrace my steps.’

  As they were speaking Danish, Asta didn’t have to relive the moment when that officer killed her brother, but she knew when they had to got to that part by the way his father gasped, and looked at her. How his blue eyes softened.

  She looked away.

  All too soon, Kalle was leaving.

  ‘You will be all right,’ he said. It was a statement rather than a question.

  Before she even had chance to tell him all the things she wanted – needed – to say, he was gone, and his father was pulling on his jacket, and fetching his car keys. ‘Come, come,’ he said, and she followed him back out again to where a small green van was parked on the pavement. He opened the door, removing crates from the floor of the passenger side, and putting them in the back.

  She sat down gingerly on the leather seat, as he started the car, and headed onto the road, towards Elsinore.

  The silence was uncomfortable, and he hadn’t put the radio on. After a while he cleared his throat. ‘Kalle said that I should take you as far as Aabenraa; from there you will be able to get a taxi.’

  He looked at her, her expression doubtful and frightened. ‘I will arrange it, don’t worry. I’d drive you myself but it’s best if I’m back at the café sometime this morning so that no one will ask too many questions. I can fudge why I was late opening but not why I wasn’t there all day. It would be too dangerous for you to stay – in case anyone sees you and the police come asking questions – my customers are regulars, and you aren’t exactly forgettable.’

  She frowned, then glanced down at herself and nodded. Her hands were covered in mud and scratches. She was wearing boys’ trousers and a thick green woollen jumper, both of which had mud stains. Her hair was matted with twigs and knots, and she had several scratches across the one side of her cheek – she looked very like what she was, someone who was on the run.

  He nodded. ‘And, sorry to say it, but you have a pretty face – people can’t help noting that.’ He sighed. ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you all the way.’

  She looked at him. ‘You mustn’t be sorry – it’s me that should,’ she said.

  He sighed. ‘There are people that should be sorry, but you’re not one of them.’

  She looked at him, and despite her grief, it was the first almost smile she made. ‘You sound like Kalle, tak,’ she said. It was the only word she knew in Danish.

  After they’d been driving for forty minutes, they reached the pretty harbour town of Aabenraa in Southern Denmark, where he arranged for a taxi and waited with her outside a vegetable market. Asta distantly noticed its appeal, like the way one might catch a glimpse of a postcard, but not peer in for a closer look. The taxi driver was a man they’d found in the telephone book, who arrived ten minutes later, full of apologies. ‘I don’t usually get calls so early – usually when tourists are coming they arrange some weeks in advance.’

  Johan raised a brow. ‘I thought a taxi was all about emergencies. Or is that ambulances?’ he said with a wink and the man laughed. ‘My niece, Sofie,’ explained Johan. ‘I’m sorry for the rush – her aunt is expecting her, and I’ve had an emergency at work, so I can’t take her. She doesn’t speak much Danish,’ he said.

  The man shrugged. ‘My German is pretty bad but I’ll give it a go.’

  ‘Don’t worry, just get her to her this address in Elsinore,’ he said, handing over the fee along with a note where they’d scribbled down an address from the same telephone book that had helped them find the driver – of one of three women named Trine Anderson who lived in Elsinore. If it turned out to be the wrong Trine Anderson, well, Asta would worry about that later.

  As Asta got into the taxi, she watched Johan from the window, then waved. She couldn’t help the surge of fear that tore through her. She didn’t want anyone else to get hurt, not for her.
<
br />   They drove for several hours, Asta staring out of the window, passing by beautiful towns with pastel-coloured houses and lakes and forests. She was surprised when he came to a stop at a town called Vissenbjerg. ‘Comfort break,’ he said, nodding his head at a petrol station. ‘There’s a café there,’ he said, pointing to a small building opposite. ‘If you need the toilet.’

  She nodded, then climbed out, wincing as she landed on swollen, blistered feet. She was still covered in mud.

  ‘You might want to… clean up,’ said the taxi driver. ‘Change into something if you can. Also, try not to speak German inside, just say, “I fell” – Jeg gled og faldt or just faldt and “Can I use the restroom?” Må jeg bruge dit toilet?’

  Asta blinked at him. Did he suspect her secret?

  She nodded slowly, then made her way to the café.

  At this hour, it was full of customers, some who turned a little to look at her in surprise. She forced a fake laugh, and said in heavily accented Danish, ‘Faldt,’ then shook her head as if this was silly, and then enquired, ‘Dit toilet?’

  Incomprehensible Danish followed, and she found herself mumbling sorry in German and then wincing at her mistake; the words for right or left bore no similarity to German, but she followed to where a woman with salt-and-pepper hair and a frown was pointing. She nodded, said ‘Tak,’ and made her way to what she hoped was the bathroom. If she’d hoped not to appear as a lost German girl, she’d failed miserably.

  The small room had been shiplapped with wood and painted white. There was a window over the toilet, with a net curtain overlooking a set of bins outside. There was a simple basin in the corner with a frilly towel over the side. Above the sink was a small round mirror. She locked the door behind her, then went to splash water on her face, staring in shock at her own unrecognisable features. There were streaks of mud and blood which had pooled down her neck and congealed from where that officer had jabbed his knife…

  She grabbed some toilet tissue and began to scrub, while trying to do something with her hair. It hung half in and half out of a ponytail, and most of the right side was matted, knotted from where she’d slept and fallen. She did her best to comb it using her fingers, but most of it was in thick knots that would require a comb. She untied the rest, and then bundled it all together, twisting it into a messy chignon at the nape of her neck, which she tied up with the ribbon, smoothing the hair on either side of her face. She still looked like she’d tumbled down a rabbit hole, however.

  Her clothes were the worst part. Her trousers and jumper were covered in thick mud but there was not much she could do about that. Whatever small amount of clothing and money she’d possessed had been left somewhere on the forest floor back in Germany. It would only be later when she realised that included among those were the fake papers that Polgo had arranged for them – papers that were meant to help them avoid capture.

  She was scrubbing the mud from her nails when she heard the whispers outside the bathroom. She heard a man’s voice, which she recognised as the taxi driver. He was speaking to someone, or a group of someones. There was excited chatter, all in Danish. Asta was wiping her hands when she heard a word she recognised, jøde, followed by another, flygtning, which sounded like fliehen – fleeing. Her blood ran cold. She stared back at the door in mute horror.

  Had he called someone? The police? He’d seemed to imply before he’d told her to go to the café that he knew her real story – that he suspected that she wasn’t Johan’s ‘niece’. It wasn’t hard to work out… a strange half-wild-looking girl in a border town speaking German… an early morning taxi service. It wasn’t exactly a masterplan.

  Had the taxi driver simply driven her here just so that he could have her arrested? Was there some kind of reward money for this sort of thing?

  She closed her eyes, then took several steadying breaths. Then she closed the toilet lid, and scrambled on top, and shimmied her way out of the window, thankful that it was a single-storey building, as she landed silently, yet painfully, on her sore blistered feet.

  She had no idea where to go, but she had read a sign that she recognised on the motorway, which was Elsinore, followed by more than two hundred and thirty-six kilometres.

  She’d walk there if she had to.

  18

  Lucas Mikkelstrom, the taxi driver, played with his short brown beard as he waited outside the bathroom for another fifteen minutes. Then he knocked softly on the door. ‘Girl, are you all right?’

  He was worried about her. He hadn’t bought her ‘uncle’s’ story; no matter how much the man had tried to pretend, it was clear that something was going on. With it being only 7 a.m. and not too far from the border, well, he could imagine… she looked utterly lost and alone.

  It wasn’t exactly what her ‘uncle’ had planned but one look at the girl had made Lucas think maybe his wife, Martina, could help. Woman to woman, that sort of thing. He was beginning to think that was a mistake.

  There was no answer.

  Martina looked at him, a frown between her eyes. ‘Lovey, are you all right?’ she called through the bathroom door.

  ‘She can’t understand you.’

  She nodded, then switched to German. Most people this close to the border could speak it. ‘It’s okay, you’re safe here.’

  Again, nothing.

  Lucas pinched the skin between his eyes. ‘I think she’s done a runner.’

  Martina blinked. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘There’s a window inside there, right?’

  Her eyes widened. She knocked again. ‘You’re safe, lovey, we only want to help. I have some clothes for you.’

  Still there was no response.

  Lucas sighed, then took a running leap, battering the door with his shoulder. The cheap lock broke apart in seconds, the door banging wide to reveal the empty facility. The only trace of the girl was a streak of mud on the washcloth, and the lace curtain hanging off its wiring as a result of her hasty retreat.

  Martina looked stricken. ‘Oh, Lucas, we need to find her.’

  He leant his head back against the wall. ‘She’s a flygtning – a refugee. I made the mistake of showing her that I knew. I wanted her to see that I was on her side – that I’d help her. I should have just pretended that I bought her story – I spooked her. I doubt she’ll ever trust me again.’

  ‘We can’t just leave her all alone, stranded in a strange country,’ cried Martina, getting on top of the toilet, and peering out the window, as if by some miracle, the poor child would still be there, waiting.

  ‘We can look for her, but my guess is she’s long gone – and if she saw me, I don’t think she’d follow.’

  Martina crossed her arms over her ample bosom, and shot him a dark look.

  He tapped a cigarette out of the silver case she’d given him when they first got married, put it between his lips, then raised his hands in defeat. ‘I’ll go look,’ he said.

  ‘Good.’

  Asta half-ran, half-walked through small towns with colourful houses, avoiding people as they stared or came forward with concerned looks on their faces. She passed a bakery at midday, and her tummy rumbled bitterly. Every penny Kalle had given her had gone towards the taxi. She avoided everyone. But when she found a small bookshop that sold maps, she pretended to browse, and as soon as she was sure that the owner was occupied elsewhere, she slipped one inside her cardigan.

  Heart beating loudly, sure that he would shout and come running after her as soon as she cleared the doorway, she ran as far and as fast as she could. When the rain came pouring down, she took cover in a bus shelter, and traced the journey from where she was to where her aunt Trine lived. Unfortunately, the driver still had the address for one of the Trine Andersons – she’d have to look up her aunt’s name again. But she’d do whatever it took to find her and she’d go to all three addresses if necessary.

  The journey would take over sixty hours by foot, and one ferry ride. She would commit nine minor thefts – including ste
aling fruit from a market, a jacket draped over a chair in a café, the tips left behind for several waitresses, and someone’s gloves, hat and umbrella that had been left in another café. It would take her six days, where she would sleep most nights bundled beneath her stolen coat or wedged in an empty doorway or in a forest. By the time she finally found herself in Elsinore, she’d spoken to a telephone operator who had given her the address of a Trine Anderson. She stopped by two with no luck, before she moved on to the last name on the list. She lived not in the city itself but in a small fishing village, some ten minutes away by train. It was very late and Asta was cold, and tired, and so she decided to wait inside the barn until morning; she wasn’t sure how much further she could go.

  19

  Snekkerston, December 1938

  Trine held on to Asta as she howled, her thin shoulders shuddering in her grief. Finally, when the tears stopped coming, she gave her a glass of water, and smoothed back her hair, and settled her into the bed.

  ‘Mutti, I don’t know how I will carry on without him,’ she said, as Trine pulled the patchwork quilt over her. Bjørn snuggled against her, his golden head resting on her lap.

  ‘You will find a way, my child.’

  ‘But how?’ she asked. The request was so simple, yet so desperate. Trine didn’t know what to answer, except the truth.

  ‘You will somehow, you just will.’

  Trine left the room, and collapsed against a wall, the knuckles of her right hand jammed into her mouth to stop herself from crying out, as the imagined horror of everything that her niece had been put through washed over her. Trine had always been a strong woman, tough, she’d had to be really, with what life had thrown her. When it turned out that she couldn’t carry a baby to full term, and she’d miscarried, she’d lovingly made each little box, and buried it. There had been four, and she’d named each and every one. She’d thought she would die along with them, that she wouldn’t be able to keep going, but she had. Step by step, moment by moment. Trine knew what so few of the happy mothers she saw in her daily life knew, that if you could survive that – well, you could just about survive anything. But she felt neither strong nor tough now. She didn’t feel like the woman who had turned a shotgun on her abusive drunk of a husband and said enough was enough. She felt utterly out of her depth, as she sank onto her haunches and prayed for the first time in years for the strength to help the girl suffering inside that room.