by Louise Fein
I bite my lip and we both hurry into school.
*
Oh, Erna, I hope I have not made a terrible mistake opening my heart to you. Can it really be true that you’ve always hated the Nazis? I can picture you at every BDM meeting, at school, with Karl and me. You always sang the loudest, saluted with the most vigour. You led the younger girls in the way only a perfect German could. How could you be so convincing if you didn’t believe in it? Or are you the best actor in the world? If it’s the former, then how can I trust that you will not inform on Walter and me? And if the latter, I’m relieved, but can I truly trust that you are my friend? Either way, you’ve lied all along. Time alone will prove which of these is the truth.
8 November 1938
There’s a wild storm raging. Driving rain splashes against the windows and rivulets track their way down the panes. The bare branches of the cherry tree bend at an alarming angle and thrash against the iron railings in violent gusts. Doors rattle and slam in the wind. The house groans and creaks.
Mutti is in the sitting room, drinking coffee and listening to the wireless over the din.
‘I’m off to school,’ I announce from the doorway as I button up my coat.
‘What a day,’ she says, watching the trees sway in the wind. ‘And I don’t just mean the weather – that terrible trouble in Paris.’
‘What trouble? What’s happened?’
‘Didn’t you listen to the news this morning? Franz told me it may not be safe to go out. At least for a little while.’
‘Why?’ I ask, coming into the room, putting my bag down. ‘Don’t I have to go to school?’
‘He had to attend an emergency SS meeting,’ Mutti continues, ignoring my question. ‘No good will come of it.’
‘No good will come of what? You’re speaking in riddles, Mutti!’
She nods her head at the papers lying on the coffee table. ‘Read it yourself,’ she says, turning her back to the window and the wrath of nature outside.
I sink onto the sofa and spread the paper across the table, turning to the front page.
8 November 1938
From our correspondent in Paris.
HEROIC GERMAN DIPLOMAT IN PARIS FIGHTS FOR HIS LIFE!
Ernst vom Rath desperately clings to life, following the assassination attempt yesterday by a Polish Jew. He lies in hospital, awaiting the arrival of the Führer’s best doctors, already on their way to Paris, who will try to save him. The talented young diplomat was shot five times at close range by Herschel Grynszpan, who lied his way into the German Embassy. Grynszpan was arrested at the scene and immediately confessed his crime. It is thought that the scoundrel intended to kill the ambassador, Count Johannes von Welczeck.
Vom Rath is a promising young lawyer. An Embassy spokesman has described him as hard-working and honest, a talented advocate with a bright future ahead of him. A young man of whom his family, and his country, is rightfully proud. It is said that Grynszpan harboured evil intentions and acted out of spite and vindictiveness. This terrible crime reminds us of the chilling realisation that no German, wherever he or she is in the world, is truly safe. Safe from the ever-present threat of the Jew, waiting for the opportunity to do him harm.
*
The story sounds sensationalised. I remember Vati’s words about news and stories and the truth.
‘Do you think it’s true?’
‘Of course it is. Why wouldn’t it be?’
‘A friend of mine says you shouldn’t always believe everything you read in the papers.’
‘Well, you had better tell that friend to get a hold of their senses. How dare someone make that suggestion.’ She has the look of a woman who has been personally insulted. ‘Why would you question Vati’s good judgement as to what to print because of the ignorant remarks of a so-called friend?’
Mutti would defend Vati to the ends of the earth. Oh, he doesn’t deserve her devotion. A knot of anger forms in my belly.
I change the subject. ‘Do I have to go to school?’
‘I don’t see why not,’ she says in a thin voice. ‘Vati didn’t say you shouldn’t.’ She leans towards me, narrowing her eyes and lowering her voice. ‘This is the beginning. The conspiracy. The Jews.’ Her eyes are wild, the pupils huge black pits. There’s a madness in them. Her hands tremble as she pulls a cigarette from the pack on the table and places it carefully between her lips. ‘They’ve been scheming and planning this for years.’ She pauses to light the cigarette, shaking out the flame on the match and tossing it into an ashtray.
‘Planning what?’
‘The revolution! This is the start of their push for world domination.’
‘You cannot seriously believe – Mutti, come on! This isn’t true.’
‘Oh, I’m deadly serious.’ Her voice is shaky with emotion. She takes a long drag on her cigarette and it seems to calm her. She stares a little past my left ear into the middle distance.
‘Mutti?’
Her eyes refocus. She takes another drag and blows a plume of smoke from the corner of her pursed lips. Her cheekbones protrude too high now; her skin is sinking in, giving her a gaunt, haggard look.
‘If I’m to go to school, I had better go. I’m already late,’ I say, picking up my bag from where I’d dropped it on the floor. I need to get away from her hateful words.
She nods and refills her coffee cup, slopping some into the saucer as she pours.
‘Yes, yes. But come straight home. Vati will know more after his meetings. I can tell you this much: the Jews have it coming to them. They will be sorry they were ever born.’
*
Frau Schmidt talks of literature, usually my favourite subject. But I cannot focus. I can only think of Mutti and our strange conversation this morning. My brain jumps from one vision to the next. An innocent German man shot, blood spurting from his chest as he stands, stunned and defenceless on the steps of a building in Paris. Countless Jews descending like vermin over our city, smothering, foul and evil; Walter looking on, smiling because I fell for his charms. Me, duped and ruined forever. Or, all of these vile lies, and Walter, the boy I love, innocent of everything, dragged from his home by the Gestapo, thrown into jail and left there to rot.
My palms sweat. My heart beats. I watch the teacher’s face; her mouth moves but I hear nothing. She writes on the blackboard, but I can’t make sense of the words.
At the end of the lesson, Frau Schmidt asks for our homework to be handed in. Less than half the class have completed it.
‘Sorry, Frau Schmidt, I’ve been too busy with my BDM activities, I’ve not done any homework,’ I tell her when she holds her hand out for mine.
She starts with surprise.
‘That isn’t like you, Herta,’ she says, with a disapproving tone.
‘It can’t be helped.’ I look her straight in the eye. ‘BDM is more important than schoolwork.’
She won’t risk arguing with that. We stare at each other for a moment. She gives a quick nod and purses her lips. Moves on to the next girl.
I push my way through the chattering crowd at the doorway, spilling into the corridor, searching for a red-gold sweep of hair. I’m carried along with the tide of girls to the gymnastics hall where they splinter into groups, sheltering from the rain outside.
She’s waiting for me. We ignore the rain and run down the steps into the deserted playground. Huddling against the building to stave off the worst of the drizzle, I find I can’t meet her eyes.
‘About yesterday… What I said about Karl…’ She pauses. ‘I’m sorry if it came as a shock.’
‘It did, rather.’
‘And what you told me, about Walter. That was rather a shock too. I barely slept last night.’
‘Me neither.’
‘Hett—’
‘Thing is, Erna,’ I summon the courage to look into her flecked green eyes, ‘once you find out someone isn’t what you think they are, it’s hard to trust. Hard to go on, as we were.’
‘Exactly!’ Erna’s face beco
mes animated. ‘Hetty, I trust you to the end of the earth. You could have informed on my father. You heard what he said, but you didn’t. Now I know how you feel about Walter and the treatment of people who aren’t racially pure. Well, that just brings us closer together. Perhaps you can help the fight against—’
‘Oh, Erna. I want to help. I wish I could. But – but I’m not sure what I can do. Vati is travelling up the party ranks and Mutti supports everything he does. At least, she did. She’s so broken now, after Karl, that I’m not sure she’ll ever recover. Besides, Walter says I should keep my head down. Stay safe, because with luck, all this will one day be over and then we can be together. Oh, I don’t know. What on earth can we two girls, with no money or influence, actually do?’
‘But don’t you see what you’ve done already? It’s incredible. You’ve dared to think differently.’
‘It’s not incredible, Erna. I’ve only fallen in love, that’s all. If it hadn’t been for Walter, I’d be…’ What would I be? I’d still be as fervent a follower as I was. I’d never dare to think differently. I’d still believe I was destined for greatness as Hitler’s child. Wouldn’t I? There’s a pounding in my temples. ‘I don’t know what I’d be,’ I say quietly.
‘It doesn’t matter what you would or wouldn’t be. What matters is now. You can help us. The resistance. As things get worse, more and more will join. You’ll see.’ Erna lays a hand on my arm. ‘Your father must have information. Surely you must hear things, see things?’
‘You’re asking me to spy on my father?’
She looks at me hard. ‘Do you want to help Walter and his family and thousands like him? Without trial, ever increasing numbers of Jews and political opponents are being herded into camps. The Nazis are building more and more – they want to force Jewish people, all of them, out of their homes, into ghettoes. And that’s not all. The Nazis’ promise of peace and prosperity – it’s lies. They are pushing us towards war. Hitler wants his empire and if we don’t do something, where will it end? It’s our future, Hett. We’re the young. We should be fighting it.’
I nod dumbly. I think of Bertha, Lena, and the countless others who don’t share Hitler’s vision of the future, but are too scared to say anything, do anything. I’ve been so blind, buried my head so deep and believed in all the promises. Because I wanted to believe.
Erna’s staring at me, waiting for me to speak.
‘I’ll… do what I can. I’ll try.’ I think of Mutti and the strange conversation we had this morning. ‘What do you think of this story about vom Rath?’
‘My father said Grynszpan did it out of frustration at the expulsion of the Polish Jews from Germany. A couple of thousand of them had to leave Leipzig alone. Apparently, they were hauled from their beds, shoved onto trains in the early hours of the morning, and sent back to Poland. But Poland won’t let them back in and so now they’re stranded on the border with nowhere to go. His parents are amongst them and that’s why he did it. I’m not saying it was the right thing to do, but I guess that’s why he was so angry.’
‘How does your father know these things?’
‘He has his sources,’ Erna says, and winks at me. ‘It’s probably just a big fuss over nothing,’ she continues. ‘It will fizzle out over the next couple of days – or until the newspapers are filled with some other scandal.’
I remember Vati’s warning about things not being safe.
‘I’m not so sure about that. I think something big is brewing, Erna. I’ll try and find out what.’
‘Thank you, Hetty. You are a true friend, you know that?’
We exchange weak smiles and make our way back into the school building.
*
For the first time since I’ve been at the Gymnasium, Mutti meets me at the school gates. It reminds me of when I was small and she’d be there, every day, outside the gates of the Volksschule, waiting for Karl and me.
She hooks her arm through mine and steers me along the pavement towards the old town.
‘I felt restless at home,’ she explains. ‘I thought we could go to the Fürstenhof Hotel for lunch. It’ll make a nice change of scene. Oh, and Tomas telephoned for you. Asked if you would like to go for a walk on Sunday afternoon. Does he have designs on you, Herta?’
‘No, Mutti. He’s just a friend, that’s all,’ I say.
As we walk, I can see nothing about the day which seems different than usual. In the Fürstenhof, the waiters, aloof and unsmiling in black, with pristine white aprons tied around their waists, serve us cold meat and salad followed by delicate cakes and dainty cups of strong coffee. A pianist plays soft Bach melodies and the clientele relax at neat little tables arranged at discreet distances around tall ferns in the glass-domed café.
Mutti eats well and even manages some strudel for dessert. She is calmer than she was this morning.
‘Did Vati tell you anything after his meetings?’ I ask.
She leans across the table, eyes widening. ‘He spoke directly with Herr Himmler, today. Your father really is moving in the highest circles now.’
‘Circles?’
‘Well, I’m no politician, but surely if he has the ear of such people of importance, who trust and rely on him, then,’ she glances around and whispers, ‘promotion may soon be on the way. We could move to Munich, or Berlin.’ She leans back. ‘You know, Herta, I think perhaps that is what I need. A change of scene. Somewhere new. This city, our house – there are just too many memories of Karl. It’s so hard…’ Her voice trembles. ‘Hard to move on.’
‘And me? What about me?’
‘Well,’ she says brightly, ‘soon you will leave the Gymnasium, go to Hausfrau school. Get married, perhaps even have a job for a while. I mean, you said yourself you wanted to travel. There is nothing to hold us here, is there?’
‘I suppose not,’ I mumble, wondering fleetingly if Fräulein Müller and the child will move with us. Then I think about Erna and the resistance she spoke of. I do want to help. I want to do more. With Vati’s promotion, perhaps I’ll have access to information which might be of use to Herr Bäcker, but I shall need to take care. Be vigilant. How on earth can I do any of this if we move away? But that’s all in the future. I’ve spent too long living in a dream of what my future may hold; if I’m to make any difference at all I need to act now. I swill the last of my coffee around the cup.
We leave the Fürstenhof and weave our way through busy streets, full of shoppers, hawkers and workers heading home for their evening meal. The story from this morning’s papers is everywhere, hastily pasted to billboards, screaming from headlines on newspaper racks.
VOM RATH FIGHTS ON!
GERMAN HERO REFUSES TO GIVE UP!
COLD-HEARTED JEW, SPLATTERED IN THE BLOOD OF OUR BRAVE COUNTRYMAN, BRAZENLY TRUMPETS HIS GUILT!
‘And what of this story?’ I ask Mutti. ‘What did Vati say about that?’
‘He said nothing more on the telephone, but he can’t be expected to tell us all about important matters of state.’
It’s an isolated incident, in another country. The papers are making a big issue of it to improve their sales – but I can’t shake a feeling of unease.
‘I’m going to rest,’ Mutti says when we arrive home. ‘I still don’t sleep well and I feel so tired now.’ She smiles thinly.
I sit on the bench in the hallway, listening to her soft tread on the stairs. There is a distant click as Mutti closes her door, and silence settles, cloak-like, over the house.
And then a rustling. I creep towards it and see the door of Vati’s study is ajar. Peeping through the gap I spy him sitting at the desk, head bent over, a stack of papers in his hand.
He puts the papers down and stares for a moment into the middle distance. Then he clears his throat and picks up the phone.
‘Operator. Yes, put me through to Obergruppenführer Heydrich, please. His private line.’ A pause. ‘Yes, he is expecting my call. Tell him Obersturmbannführer Heinrich is on the line. It’s important.’
>
There is another, longer, pause.
‘Ah,’ he sits up straighter, his voice loud, ‘Obergruppenführer: thank you for taking my call. Heil Hitler.’ His tone is deferential, not one I’ve heard Vati use before. ‘Yes. I’m reporting in, as requested. All local units are ready to go. We have briefed the police, the Mayor, the fire service. We await your orders.’
He is quiet again. His eyes dart about. Can he see me in the crack of the door? Slowly, I pull back and move to the side, breathing shallow and fast. I pin my ear to the door.
‘Of course,’ he is saying. ‘No, it blatantly hasn’t worked… Absolutely, a change of strategy is needed… it is indeed the perfect catalyst… the German people are ready, as you say. We are more than ready, believe me – the men are itching for it. Those Jews need to realise the full force of feeling against them… Certainly, just as soon as I have your word to go.’
This sounds like more than a fuss about nothing.
Fingers of fear crawl up my back.
Walter. I must go to him. Warn him something terrible is about to happen.
9 November 1938
At school, during break, I tell Erna all I heard of Vati’s conversation yesterday.
‘I need to find a way to warn Walter.’
‘But what does your father mean?’ she asks. ‘The German people are ready? Ready for what?’ She looks at me, eyes full of fear. ‘I should tell my father.’
‘I don’t know. I’ll try and find out more. I need to go to the café and get a message to Walter, but Mutti will want me home this afternoon.’
‘Tell her you’re having supper this evening with me. You can go and find Walter instead.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘I’ll cover for you, if for any reason she should check. What else are friends for?’ Erna smiles.
Later, when Mutti is taking her usual afternoon nap, I send Ingrid on an errand to buy some fabric and strong thread for a school needlework project. Bertha decides to take a break in her room. The house is quiet – a gem of an opportunity.
I stand alone in Vati’s study, straining my ears. The silence crackles as, dry-mouthed, I press my back against the closed door. I tiptoe my way across the room to the desk. Ever since we moved into the house, this has been Vati’s sanctum, forbidden to all but him. The back of my neck prickles.
