People Like Us

by Louise Fein

  And know this too: my mind will always be free.

  *

  Five minutes after Tomas leaves me at home, I walk fast to Erna’s flat. Thankfully she is there. I’m shaking so much, it takes me time and a long drink of water before I’m calm enough to talk.

  ‘I can’t go through with this, Erna! I can’t let them take my baby. They’ve planned it all!’ My voice rises as panic seizes me. There’s a vice-like grip around my throat and I can’t breathe. Black stars dance in front of my eyes. ‘They’re throwing it in an orphanage, a Jewish orphanage. And then what?’

  ‘But you always knew—’

  ‘I hoped, prayed, that Tomas would change his mind. It’s all he has to do. Let me keep my child. It solves everything, doesn’t it? I’m happy because I have my baby and it is safe because people will think it’s Tomas’s. He’s happy because he has me. Vati is happy because nobody can ever know the truth and his reputation is saved. Mutti is happy because she has a grandchild to love and care for…’

  The speech exhausts me. I collapse into a chair, heaving air through my narrowed throat.

  ‘But Hetty, right from the beginning Tomas said he wouldn’t let you keep it.’ Her tone is gentle, but her words, the harsh truth, stab all the same. ‘To him, this child is abhorrent. It would be like welcoming the enemy into his own home.’

  ‘You’re defending him!’ I choke. ‘How can you say such—’

  ‘No! I’m not defending him, never! But you have to be realistic. From his perspective there is no benefit in him keeping this baby. It’s far better for him to have it out of the way. He’s never going to let you keep it, Hetty.’

  ‘You’re right.’ I watch Erna pace the room, deep in thought. ‘Of course you are. I’ve been so stupid – so soft and pathetic. I’ve made it all too easy.’ I sit up straight. ‘I’ll refuse to marry Tomas unless he lets me keep the baby. I’ll threaten to go to the press. Expose Vati and his affair and his worthless daughter who went with a Jew!’

  Erna looks appalled. ‘You can’t do that. You know what would happen to you then.’

  ‘What?’ I challenge, but I don’t need to ask. We both know I’d end up in a camp; Vati, for his part in the cover-up, would likely be stripped of his position, his house, his beloved newspaper.

  ‘Your child wouldn’t survive, Hetty,’ Erna says, her face grim. ‘Truth is, they would take it to a room and smother it. What you’re proposing isn’t an option.’

  ‘What has this nation come to? That they would take babies and smother them…’ My anger has dissolved, replaced by an overwhelming weakness, the feeling of hopelessness.

  Erna is nodding, tears in her eyes. ‘They would, Hetty. I’m so sorry, but they would.’ She comes to me then, looks into my eyes and says, ‘You’ve no choice but to go along with their plan, for now. I’ll – I’ll try to think of something. I promise.’

  20 May 1939

  My wedding day. The dress, pale yellow, is laid out on the chair next to my bed. It’s all folds and layers. Mutti cleverly designed it to distract the eye from my bump. It doesn’t feel real, somehow, this day, this marriage. How do I feel, I hear you ask? Well, my darling, I suppose I’m resigned to it. It’s not the day I imagined. That fairy tale of white sequins and handsome prince with the happy-ever-after is not for me. I think about you and wonder: should I not be jealous, or angry, that you’ve got away from all this? No. Not a scrap of it. I’m glad you have escaped. That I helped to save your life. Somehow, that thought makes this day bearable. And now I just have to do the same for our baby. So for the present, I go along with this grotesque plan and hope for a miracle.

  *

  The room in the Hotel Sachsenhof, on Johannisplatz, is decorated with violets and sprigs of white gypsophila making it look jolly and bright. Several rows of wooden chairs with cream seats are set out so the few guests can watch our civil ceremony take place. A long table is laid at the back of the room for refreshments later in the proceedings.

  Tomas, smarter than I’ve ever seen him, wears a new, light brown suit and patterned tie. His hair is neat and, like the boy who won first prize, he wears a swagger alongside his broad smile.

  ‘You look…’ He pauses and takes my hands as his eyes flicker over my face, down to my chest and back to my face. ‘Radiant,’ he says. He raises my hand to his lips and winks at me. My guts curdle.

  ‘Now, you remember my mother, Hetty?’ he says, guiding me towards her. She is a tall woman, strongly built, with cropped greying hair. A dark blue dress hangs awkwardly over her frame, as though neither the dress, nor she, are truly comfortable with the arrangement. In her face is the hard grit which has helped her and her seven fatherless children survive.

  ‘So lovely to see you again.’ I try to smile, but her expression is like a blast of icy air. I glance up at Tomas. He has never once invited me to meet with her. Clearly, this was a mistake. Perhaps I should have insisted, but I’d been so wrapped up in myself it hadn’t occurred to me.

  ‘Well, here we are.’ She looks me up and down. ‘It’s a serious thing, marriage, you know,’ she says. ‘Children. A responsibility.’

  ‘Yes, and we’re prepared for that, aren’t we, Tomas?’ I grip his hand tightly.

  ‘Of course,’ he agrees smoothly. ‘I’ve told you, Mutti, Hetty is going to make me a perfect wife and mother to my children. She’s a natural.’

  She makes a noise. Something between a snort and a cough. ‘It’ll be a different life to what you’ve been used to,’ she says to me, narrowing her eyes. ‘When you’ve not got maids and cooks and nursemaids to do the daily grind. When you’re up all hours of the night with a crying baby and an ailing child and you still have to get breakfast on the table in the morning, scrub all the floors, make the beds, launder the clothes, buy the food… Without much money if you’ve a husband with a taste for beer.’ She stops to take a breath. ‘Well, then. The romance tends to go out of it.’

  I shrink from the bitterness of her words and Tomas puts a protective arm around my shoulders.

  ‘I shan’t let Hetty have a life like that. She knows I’ve got ambition. She knows that life is a thing of the past in our new German Reich.’

  ‘Huh, that’s what you all think, you fools. The young always believe they’re going to change the world.’ She gives a bitter laugh. ‘But they never do. And you lot won’t be any different. False promises, and you’ve bought them all.’

  Tomas’s jaw is set. ‘Just remember who you speak with.’

  ‘Oh, I do, Tomas.’ She stares back at him. ‘Do you think I could ever forget? The ones who stole my husband and sent him to his death—’

  ‘Be quiet! I warned you! I should never have let you come.’ He pokes his finger towards her face, making her take a step backward. ‘Say another word and you’ll be following in his footsteps faster than you know it.’

  He jerks me hard by the arm and pulls me away from his mother.

  ‘Sorry. I’ve tried to protect you from her bitter, stupid tongue. Silly cow!’

  ‘Tomas! You shouldn’t talk of your mother like that. It’s understandable, that she feels that way—’

  ‘No. She has no right to feel anything except gratitude. My father was nothing but a filthy traitor and she should disown the bastard. But she won’t do it. She won’t. She has no vision. Anyway… I won’t talk about this anymore.’ His face is red, his teeth clenched. ‘How dare she try to ruin this day for us.’

  ‘She hasn’t ruined it.’

  He looks at me, and his face relaxes.

  ‘No. You’re right. She hasn’t. She can’t. This is going to be one of the best days of my life. And once – well you know – once we are free to be together properly, well, then I shall be the happiest man on earth.’

  The room pitches.

  ‘I should like to sit down for a few moments, Tomas.’

  I sink onto one of the chairs. Tomas goes to speak with Vati who stands, big and awkward, in the corner of the room, looking as if he would
prefer to be anywhere else in the world but here. Tomas’s mother has turned her back and is whispering something in the ear of the tallest of Tomas’s brothers.

  The door opens and Erna, the only person outside the family I’ve managed to convince them to trust and allow to come, slips inside. Like ice cream on a hot day, she is the most welcome sight. Her eyes dart around the room and she smiles when she sees me sitting alone. She comes to me, her hair neatly braided, her nose freckled from the sun.

  ‘Are you doing okay?’ She sits next to me and studies my face.

  I swallow. ‘I don’t want to talk about me. Quickly, while there’s a chance. Have you thought of anything? Could there be another option?’

  ‘I have. I’ve contacted a trusted friend.’ She stops. Her face closes. ‘It’s complicated, Hetty, but we’re working on things.’

  ‘Who is? What things?’

  ‘I can’t say more at the moment. I hope to have news soon.’

  ‘But I don’t have time, Erna!’ Invisible hands claw at my throat. ‘I’m to go to Berlin in just two weeks. Everyone is being told I’m spending a few weeks at Hausfrau school, until closer to the time the baby is due. Vati wants me away as soon as possible. He cannot bear the sight of me.’

  ‘Okay, okay.’ Erna holds her hands up. ‘We’re doing our best.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Please don’t cry, Hetty. Not today. Look, I’ll come and visit you soon. Trust me, we’ll find a way.’

  ‘Herta,’ Mutti calls, ‘it’s time.’ She hurries over to me, fiddles with my dress, tidies my hair.

  The small wedding party take their seats. Tomas guides me to the front where the official waits for us, solemn-faced. The chattering dies and silence descends over the room.

  The ceremony begins.

  23 May 1939

  Mutti and I are in the garden room a few days later when Erna pays a visit in the early afternoon. Mutti is knitting booties; me, a little hat. Rather odd, considering I’m to give this baby away, but we don’t speak of this.

  ‘Erna, how good of you to come by,’ Mutti says when Vera shows her in.

  She has news, I can tell. But I don’t know if it’s good or bad. I desperately want Mutti to leave, but she carries on knitting, asking Erna about school exams and her parents and her future plans.

  Suddenly, I can’t bear it any longer.

  ‘Mutti, would you mind if Erna and I take Kuschi for a stroll?’

  It stops her mid-flow.

  ‘We’ve agreed,’ she says, ‘that Vera will take the dog out from now on. And until you get back from your… break.’

  ‘Yes, but it can’t do any harm can it, Mutti? Just a short walk, with Erna.’

  She sighs. ‘I suppose not. Don’t go too far, and stay on the quiet roads, yes?’

  What she means is, don’t go places people we know might see me. The fewer who know, the less explaining we will have to do later.

  ‘Don’t worry, I know the rules.’

  *

  Out of the house, I can breathe again. Just to feel fresh air on my cheeks and escape the oppressive walls of home is uplifting. With Tomas living in the house too, the claustrophobia grows. He’s moved into Karl’s old room. It was Vati’s idea. Mutti had visibly stiffened when he suggested it – there are plenty of other spare rooms he could inhabit, so why Karl’s? It’s right next door to mine, which seemed appropriate, Vati had said. Nobody suggested he should share with me.

  In the end, Mutti accepted it, but she doesn’t like it, and nor do I. The rank factory smell follows Tomas into the house when he returns at the end of a shift, sometimes beer and cigarettes. It’s not for long, he assures me. A few more weeks and he’ll be done there forever. Then I shall have to get used to being the wife of an army recruit.

  ‘Thank heavens she let you leave the house,’ Erna says, as soon as we are out of the gate. ‘Come to our flat. Father is there and he’ll tell you what can be done.’

  ‘You have a plan?’

  Erna slips an envelope from her pocket.

  ‘This is for you. From Walter.’

  My hand trembles as I take it from her. To see his writing on the envelope, my name formed by his fingers…

  ‘Erna – you didn’t tell him?’

  ‘Just read it.’

  I wait until we reach Erna’s flat before I open it. Erna goes to be with her father, leaving me and Kuschi alone together in her room.

  My Darling Hetty,

  The first thing I must say is: do not be angry with your dear friend, Erna. I know that you did not want me to know, for the sake of my happiness, what has happened. But she has told me, and she was right to do so. I cannot imagine how you have borne this on your own all these months.

  I also cannot write here all the emotions I’ve felt since I had news of your pregnancy. I am just so sorry, and so full of self-hate that I let this happen, and that I’ve abandoned you when you needed me most. You know that I would desperately love to be with you forever, and to raise our little family together. It would make me happier than you could ever know. But there is little point in dwelling on this, because it is impossible.

  Erna has given me the basic facts of your awful situation. That the pregnancy is a secret and once the child is born, your mother has arranged for it to be taken to a Jewish orphanage. Hetty, I believe the full facts of what is truly planned for us Jews is being suppressed in Germany. Suffice to say here that I worry our baby is in grave danger. For this reason, I believe there is only one solution to give him or her the chance of a decent life.

  I have told Anna all about you – about us – and now about this baby. I needn’t go into detail, but after many tears and frank discussions, Anna has agreed that, if you are also in agreement, the baby should come to live with us. She will raise it as her own, love and nurture it, as will I. Anna is afraid that if, one day, you were ever to come for him or her, you may try to steal me away too. I have done my best to reassure her, but in my heart of hearts, how can I make such an emphatic promise? Should you turn up one day at our door, I do not know that I could stay. A large piece of me will always belong to you and I suppose she can sense that. It is not an easy way to start our married life.

  To be writing these words, to think of you reading them, is torture. I want you to know that, whatever we can do to help you, I will move heaven and earth to do it. I cannot bear to think of our child in an orphanage. The priority must be to get him/her out of Germany as soon as possible. It is almost unconscionable to think that anyone would do any harm to a baby, but after what I experienced in that camp, I do not doubt it. In these last six months I have seen the worst, and also the best, of what human kind is capable of.

  Herr Bäcker is working hard to get passage for our baby, as well as for Josef’s three children, Lena’s boy, and several others, on one of the kindertransports leaving Berlin. We will be fostering all the cousins and Lena’s boy. It will be a strange and difficult transition for Anna and me, to go from just the two of us to suddenly being a family of seven! I have no idea how we shall manage, but with the help of Anna’s parents, we will somehow make it work. It’s quite an extraordinary programme, Hetty. English families from all walks of life are stepping forward to offer these complete strangers, these poor traumatised mites, temporary homes, until such time as they can be reunited with their families in a safe place.

  I’m writing this in haste to ask if you can agree to this plan? Please think about it and reply soon.

  With all my love, now and forever,

  Walter.

  I reach the end of the letter in a flood of tears. I wonder, if I were in Anna’s place, would I be so generous? Anna: you have my man, and soon you will have my child. I should hate you even more.

  Instead, I feel only love and gratitude.

  A soft knock at the door. Erna comes in with a pot of tea and apfelkuchen on a tray. She places it on the bedside table and sits on the edge of the bed, smiling.

  ‘Well?’ she asks softly
, ‘what do you think?’

  ‘Oh, Erna! Yes, of course yes. A thousand times, yes.’ I try not to think of the moment I will have to part with this baby who kicks and squirms inside me. I place a hand on my belly as though to reassure it and my heart squeezes tight. I focus, instead, on the moment when we will be reunited, when somehow all this madness is resolved, when I can see Walter again, even if he is married to another. For the first time, I see things from Anna’s side.

  ‘You must tell Walter I’m married too. It would be better for his new wife to know that. She might find it easier with the baby if she knows there is no threat. Tell him I’m happy. Please.’

  After a pause, Erna nods and squeezes my hand. ‘Good. My father is pretty certain, given there is a sponsor for the children in England, that he can get them a place on the Kindertransport. The problem is the timing, with your baby not yet born, and the other children ready to go anytime. But, with all the demand there is a backlog, so it could just work out.’

  ‘But, how are we going to arrange it? I’m to leave for Berlin soon and I’ll be a prisoner in a maternity home.’

  ‘Ah, we thought about that too and my mother and father have said you must come and stay here, with us. We know a Jewish doctor who will help with the birth. We’d keep it all quiet of, course. All you have to do is convince your mother.’

  ‘You would do that? For me? Surely this could put you all in danger?’

  She laughs at my expression. ‘I hope you finally understand how much you mean to me, Hett,’ she says. ‘Besides, we want to do something. It feels good to be helping. There is nothing worse than sitting back and being helpless when faced with something so huge you can’t fight it. What’s happening is against everything we hold dear. Even if we only do something small, help just one person… Well that’s defiance, isn’t it? And that’s worth it. Just in itself.’

  I look at my dear friend in awe. She has been so kind, so brave and so forgiving. She could easily have turned her back. ‘Oh, Erna, how can I ever thank you?’