People Like Us

by Louise Fein

  Well, here I am. I’ve arrived. I’m safe, which I suppose is a good thing. But I’m also numb and empty. Of course, I miss my parents horribly, but there is also a massive, Hetty-shaped hole inside me, which I doubt can ever be filled.

  It is strange to be here, to put it mildly. As you know, my English consists of only a few words. It is a baptism of fire and I shall have to learn quickly. Anna and her family speak only English to each other at home – they are so keen to be English that German is forbidden. But they have been kind and welcoming. The very first thing her father did was to attend to my fingers. I needed surgery, which I have now had. They had to amputate my badly injured finger but the other two are saved, although misshapen. So, my hand is still bandaged up. I suppose I will learn to manage with four fingers on that hand. It could have been much worse.

  So, I can hear you ask, what is life like? Well, we live in a small town south of London. The people dress a little oddly – there is a certain frivolity and carefree abandon in their clothing which I hadn’t expected of the English. Their manners are somewhat strange. I must remember not to click my heels and be too upright. The English are more tactile than us. There is much clapping of backs and handshakes as well as a good deal of nodding and smiling, but I’m sure I will get used to it soon enough. They are friendly, on the whole; a little suspicious, perhaps, but being unable to speak their language is rather a barrier so I am determined to learn fast. Truthfully, everything is utterly confusing, strange and new. I try my best, but some days I feel as if I’m a small child, wading through treacle. I try to be brave. Thinking of you makes me more so.

  I have met a most helpful man, a Herr Gunther, who is a big name in the fur trade here. He is helping me to correspond with the British authorities regarding my own business and my plan to get the rest of my family here. He has even gone so far as to offer financial help and has given assurances as to our family’s good reputation. But there are so many needy cases. Thousands and thousands apply every week and so far the British government has said they cannot take any more refugees.

  But I’ve heard rumours that the British are offering sanctuary to Jewish children until they can rejoin their parents at a later date, in Palestine or Germany. My grandmother, mother, aunt and her three children are living in the Jewish house on Humboldstrasse now. They share one room. I wonder if the children might qualify to come here? They are fifteen, twelve and eight. I believe the upper age limit for this Kindertransport to England is fourteen. Perhaps just the younger two might come? How hateful it is to split our family up in this way, but I wonder, darling Hetty, whether you might make any enquiries your end?

  I suppose you are wondering how it is with Anna. I can only be honest with you: it is awkward, painfully uncomfortable. When we are alone, I really have no idea what to say to her. She keeps saying it is because I have been through so much, and it is fine. But really, it isn’t. How can I tell her that I’ve given my heart to you? I can’t, of course, so I say nothing instead. She is gentle and sweet-natured and I cannot be unkind. In fact, I feel guilty, because I don’t know that I can be the husband she deserves. I also feel like an actor in a bizarre play which will never end. I try to always keep busy because the worst time is when I’m alone, at night, and my mind wanders freely. That is when the pain is at its most unbearable and I’m not sure I can keep on living.

  I didn’t know whether to tell you, but I don’t want to keep secrets, my darling. So, with heavy heart I must tell you that the date for the wedding is set for the fifteenth of March. I know how much this will pain you, but please do try to be happy, my love. I do so want for you to be happy. You’ve done so much for me, completely unselfishly. You should seek happiness with another. And for this reason, I wonder if it would be for the best for you, and least dangerous, that, as we discussed, we don’t stay in contact?

  Tell me what you think, my love. I long to hear your news. I must ask you to write to the post office address I enclose here. Anna doesn’t yet know about you. I will tell her, but not yet. It hurts too much for now. Use the post office address also if there is ever an emergency. Hopefully there won’t be a need for it, but in case you hear any news of my family you need to relay, then do use it.

  It will get easier, for us both soon, I hope.

  All my love and gratitude,

  Walter.

  The letter is a stab to the heart. I am his past. Anna is his future.

  He is never coming back. He won’t be in contact again.

  I read his words over and over. I touch the paper he touched. I try smelling it, to see if there is any hint of him on the page. But there is none. Just a taste of his new life. And once his family is gone, no trace of him will be left here, in this city of his birth.

  *

  ‘You’ve missed coffee and cake!’ Bertha exclaims when I eventually push open the back door and return with Kuschi, still fingering the letter in my pocket.

  ‘I’m not really hungry anyway,’ I tell her, releasing Kuschi from his leash.

  Bertha picks up a cloth and begins to dry the crockery she has recently washed.

  ‘Everything all right, Fräulein Herta?’ she asks, tilting her head slightly, concern in her hooded, grey eyes.

  I swallow the lump in my throat.

  ‘Sit down,’ she instructs. ‘I’ll make you some hot chocolate.’

  I sink down onto the bench at the big oak table.

  ‘Thank you, Bertha,’ I mumble. I watch her pour the milk into a pan, fetch the cocoa and spoon it into a waiting pot. She adds the sugar and leans against the stove as she stirs the milk. It seems that she, at least, is forgiven by my parents.

  ‘You’re missing him, I suppose,’ she says.

  ‘Is it so obvious? He sent me a letter. Seems to be settling into London life.’

  ‘That’s good, isn’t it? Not much of a life here for him, was it?’

  ‘I know. He deserves a good life, after everything…’

  She flashes me a look.

  ‘And so do you, Fräulein Herta. So do you.’

  ‘Even after I risked all that trouble for you?’

  ‘All’s forgiven, Fräulein. Forgotten about.’ She takes the pan off the heat and pours steaming milk into the pot, stirring.

  ‘He’s getting married, you know. He has to, to get the visa.’

  Bertha places the pot, a sugar bowl and a cup and saucer on a tray.

  ‘I don’t know much about most things, it’s true,’ she says slowly. ‘But I know a little about love affairs. And I know this: you can’t hold on to Walter forever. He’s gone now. Safe, but gone. It’s time you moved on and found someone new.’

  ‘But you never did.’

  She places the tray in front of me and looks me squarely in the face.

  ‘Which is exactly why I know what you must do. It’s over. Blessedly, no harm’s come to either of you, and that’s to be thankful for. You’re young. You have plenty of time.’ She places a hand on my shoulder, gives it a squeeze and walks back to the draining board to continue her work.

  I pour the steaming chocolate from the pot and cradle the cup in my hands. I watch Bertha with a grateful heart.

  Forget him. Move on. Live a normal life once more.

  I’ll try, dearest Bertha. I’ll try.

  *

  Later, when everyone is asleep, I sit up in bed and switch on my reading lamp. Propped against my pillows, I pen a reply to Walter. I will pass it to Erna to send on. I can’t risk Ingrid, the snake, or anyone else reporting back to Vati that I’ve been spotted in the post office, sending letters to England.

  My Darling,

  I’m so very relieved you have arrived safely and that, although different and strange to start with, you have received a good welcome in England. I very much hope that you are able to live the life you deserve to live and that England stays free of the Nazi ideology.

  I cannot begin to tell you how alone I am, now that you have gone. It’s as though my heart has been ripped from my
chest. It made me smile when you mentioned the Hetty-shaped hole in your life. You should know that I am living with a Walter-shaped hole in mine. It is, of course, larger, given our relative sizes. I can hear you laughing at that.

  Kuschi has been my main comfort, in all honesty, but Erna is also being a stalwart at propping me up and, now that you are gone, I’m allowed more freedom again. So, a return to the interminable BDM meetings and school. I can barely stand the BDM any more, but I have no choice but to go. So I will throw myself into schoolwork and hope that I can gain a good enough result in the Abitur to allow me to study abroad one day. I should still so much like to become a doctor.

  I will speak with Erna’s family to see what, if anything, can be done to help your cousins make it to England. I must be careful to not raise suspicion because Vati hasn’t forgiven me.

  If only there could have been a way that we could have left Germany together. But there wasn’t, and for this reason, even though it pains me so much to even write it, I know it will be best for you that I don’t stay in contact. I do not want to make trouble for you and your soon-to-be wife. I think of Vati and his secret lover and it’s quite unbearable what this would do to Mutti if she knew. I know you are honourable and good, and you would not want to mistreat your wife. You must start a new life with your Anna properly. I will never be ‘the other woman’.

  I am not entirely sure that I will ever completely recover from all of this, but I will try.

  Please know that I shall never stop thinking of you, ever.

  All my love, now and forever,

  Hetty.

  31 December 1938

  Champagne flutes clink; the purr of quiet conversation. Soft laughter. Background music on the gramophone – Bruckner, I think. Nothing inappropriate for a family still grieving their firstborn and gathered together to see in the New Year. Close family and friends only; comforting with the intimacy of their presence.

  I watch them from my position next to the fireplace, my back pleasantly warmed by the lively fire burning in the grate. Oma, dressed in black, is seated in the centre of the room in Vati’s armchair, sipping sherry and resting her swollen ankles on the ottoman while Mutti, her sweep of hair midnight dark against the claret red of her dress, a thin smile painted on her pale face, moves between her guests. My bubbly Aunt Adèle is there with her rather dour daughter, Eva, and Eva’s fiancé, a fair-haired SS officer. Lord Mayor Otto Schultz, his wife, and three grown-up children, stand together with Judge Fuchs and two other men. I recognise the editor, Josef, from the newspaper, Vati’s secretary and a few of Mutti’s closest friends and their husbands. I was permitted two guests and I chose Erna and Tomas, who stand together with Eva, her intended, and Adèle.

  I have no wish to talk with anyone in the room at all. A glass of champagne hangs in my hand in readiness to usher in the New Year. I’ve not yet touched a drop.

  Vati, resplendent in his velvet dinner jacket, rushes into the room.

  ‘Friends, guests, look at the time! We must listen to Herr Goebbels make his New Year address.’ He turns on the radio and someone lifts the arm to silence the gramophone. It has already begun.

  ‘… 1938 a year of miracles. With the Anschluss of Austria, eighty million Germans have been united in one great Reich, with the return of ten million in just one miraculous year. It would be easy to forget the magnitude of what we have achieved in such a short space of time. It would be easy to forget the impossibility such achievements would have seemed before they happened, which appear almost easy, now that they have. The doubters amongst us, of which a few remain, scoff and point to the inevitable small and trivial problems which crop up from time to time. These doubters, this minority, with their money and education, trust more in their cold reason than in the warm, idealistic hearts of the masses. They dwell in the past, hardly in the present and not at all in the future, lacking the imagination to see the greatness of our national German future. For these weak and quivering doubters, problems are there to be surrendered to, not mastered and surpassed. We will not win these complainers over. But the masses want nothing to do with them. At the close of this momentous year, the people can be delighted with what has been achieved, and we can look forward with confidence and courage to 1939…’

  Tomas is suddenly at my elbow. He smiles down at me, then leans in and laps into my ear, ‘I have some particular hopes for 1939.’

  ‘Oh…’ I veer my head away.

  He slurps champagne from his glass in a way which makes me think he hasn’t drunk any before. I smile at him and he rocks back on his heels, his face a poster of optimism.

  The speech is over and Vati claps his hands to say a few words.

  ‘As you all well know, it has been a difficult year, particularly for my dear wife, Hélène. But, with your support, dearest of friends and family, I believe we are through the worst. Let us hope that 1939 brings us personal peace, and we go forward to this new year with courage, steadfastness and resolve in our hearts to continue this great mission of ours, now we are part of a family of eighty million great German hearts, beating as one, towards our common destiny. To the Fatherland, Heil Hitler!’

  Applause breaks out around the room and everyone drinks to the future.

  Erna and I lock eyes and she knows I am thinking of Walter at this moment. How can I toast the Fatherland which has driven an ocean of despair between us? She dispatches Tomas to find Ingrid to top up her glass.

  ‘Hetty,’ she says, once he’s out of earshot, ‘you’re pale as a ghost. What is it?’

  I don’t tell her of the niggling worry I’ve had the last few days. Something which should have come hasn’t. We move to a quiet corner of the room where we cannot be overheard.

  ‘Two days ago,’ I tell her instead, ‘I went back to Lena’s café and met with Walter’s mother. I’d made him a promise—’

  ‘What promise?’ Erna brings her head close to mine, so no one else can hear.

  ‘I said I’d try to get Walter’s father and uncle out of the camp.’

  ‘But Hetty, you can’t!’

  ‘It was so pathetic, Erna. She was so pathetic. She begged me, cried and cried and begged and begged as though I were her last and only hope. And if they’ve not been released by now, I wonder if they’re even alive.’

  ‘There is nothing you can do, Hetty. Nothing! What did she expect—’

  ‘Here we are!’ Tomas lurches into us, shoving a full champagne flute into Erna’s hand. Some of the contents fizz over the side of the glass. ‘Prost! Down the hatch!’ he smiles and tips his own glass into his mouth.

  ‘Sip it, Tomas, slowly, please,’ Erna hisses. ‘It isn’t beer. Actually, could you give Hetty and me a few moments? Please?’

  He looks from Erna to me, and winks.

  ‘Fine. But I’ll be back.’ A shudder runs down my back.

  He sways off towards Eva’s officer. I wince at his ungainly frame, his loud laugh.

  ‘I shouldn’t have invited him.’

  ‘He’s okay,’ Erna smiles and waves a dismissive hand. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘I remember her, Walter’s mother. Years ago, long before we moved into this house, Mutti, Karl and I were invited there for tea. I was probably only six or seven, but I do remember her. She seemed so elegant. Not like Mutti’s elegance, something different. She had a sort of carefree confidence. Mutti has always been vulnerable, I suppose. Reliant on Vati for everything. But this lady, so petite and delicate, was vibrant and full of energy. The person in the café, Erna, was totally different. She was this miserable, feeble, reduced person. Unwashed and poor and desperate. It made me realise that if a person is treated like a stray dog, they become one.’

  ‘That’s awful, Hetty, truly. But you can’t do anything. It’s too big a problem for you alone.’

  ‘No. I realise that now. But there may be a way we can help the children. Walter mentioned in his letter about this Kindertransport. Special trains are taking Jewish children to families in England, un
til their parents can find somewhere safe to go. Do you think your father might know how this can be arranged?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ll ask him. But you mustn’t do or say anything in the meantime. It could jeopardise everything. If your father should get an inkling of what you’re up to…’

  ‘But I promised Walter. How can I not even try? All the men of importance are here in this room. They talk of great achievements and victories, but there’s another side to it, isn’t there? I should use this opportunity. To speak out. If I don’t, who will? I’ll never be able to go back to that café with my head held high. I can’t sit and look at that woman and tell her I can’t do anything.’

  Erna’s eyes widen.

  ‘Hetty, you’re not thinking straight. If you say anything at all against Hitler or the government, you are finished – and so, very likely, will our little resistance movement be too. You’d be signing my family’s death certificates too.’

  Tomas returns again and we stop talking.

  I look around at the guests, at Mutti and Vati, and wonder how it came to be that I feel like a stranger in the room.

  *

  It’s three-thirty in the morning and Vati says his goodbyes to the last guests to leave the party, Otto and his family. The front door bangs shut and the two of us are left, face to face in the entrance hall, silence settling around us. Mutti has long since gone to bed. Ingrid and Vera, the girl who will shortly replace her, are finishing the clearing up in the drawing room.

  ‘Well,’ he says stiffly. ‘Time for bed.’

  He moves past me and I catch his arm.

  ‘Vati…’

  He starts as though a vile creature has landed on his arm.

  ‘What?’

  Erna’s and Bertha’s advice reverberates through my mind. Keep quiet. Forget Walter. Move on. But visions of damaged, broken Walter plague me. The thought of what’s happening to those remaining in that camp, and what could happen to his dear mother, won’t let me rest.

  ‘What?’ Vati barks again, his face hard and impatient.