The English Girl: A heartbreaking and beautiful World War 2 historical novel

by Sarah Mitchell

  His pocket feels on fire.

  ‘Perhaps he thought it might be something to remember him by?’

  Still she doesn’t move.

  Martin’s fingers twitch. He can feel his resolve stretching, breaking. Then all at once she crumples the sheet and flings the paper onto the ground. Her eyes clutch hold of him. ‘I thought he loved me!’

  ‘I expect he did—’

  ‘But he left me. Without even saying goodbye. Without so much as a note or a promise even to write! And after what I… what we…’ She stops. Then, more quietly, ‘He said he wanted to marry me.’ Her eyes are wide and shocked.

  He places his lips on her forehead.

  He knows exactly what she is saying.

  ‘I want to marry you, Fran.’

  She gazes at him.

  ‘I want to marry you more than I can say.’

  She takes a step backwards. ‘I don’t know, Martin.’ She draws a sleeve across her face, trailing a snakeskin of tears on the wool. ‘I can’t think about anything like that right now…’

  ‘There’s no hurry,’ Martin says quickly. ‘I’ll wait as long it takes.’

  I will wait, he thinks. I’ll wait for years if I have to. I shall want to marry her as much ten years from now as I do today. I don’t care about the German, what they might have done together, or even whether she will ever forget him completely. All I know is that marrying Fran will make me the happiest man alive. And I’ll do everything in my power to make her happy too.

  She gives him a long, penetrating look so that for one disorientating moment he fancies she can see into his thoughts, his failings, and even into the unopened envelope lying deep within his pocket.

  ‘I know you will, Martin. But for now,’ she touches his arm, ‘please just take me home.’

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  10 November 1989

  East Berlin, The German Democratic Republic

  Day is dawning over the city. Thin grey light illuminates a view of grey streets and grey buildings, together with a beer bottle clinking haphazardly along the pavement. Tiffany steps away from the window, checks for the second time the buckles on her rucksack and shrugs on her coat.

  Room 14 was better than she feared. Modest, but clean. A hard, single bed and wallpaper patterned with psychedelic brown and cream circles. Although there was no bathroom, further along the corridor she found a door bearing the sign Toilette and behind that all she needed.

  Even so, she remained unable to sleep.

  From the wall a photograph of a thin-lipped, silver-haired man watched her toss and turn through the night and is now observing her departure. Herr Erich Honecker, she supposes.

  ‘What are you doing in East Berlin?’ his expression seems to say. ‘Why are you meddling in the past?’

  He might well ask, Tiffany thinks. Except this is no longer East Berlin, not really. Not since last night. And part of the reason she remained awake was that more than once she wished she were still outside celebrating, partying with thousands of ecstatic Germans.

  Downstairs the reception desk is empty, so she leaves the billiard-ball key behind the counter. Halfway to the exit she sees that one of the men from the previous night is still there, sleeping on the sofa with his jacket pulled over his chin. As she walks past he sits up and the coat slides on the floor.

  Her eyes widen. ‘Ralp?’

  He struggles to his feet, rubbing a hand across his face and swaying slightly. Without his glasses his eyes look almost naked. There are stains on the knees of his trousers and something sticky attached to the front of his jumper.

  ‘What are you doing here?’

  ‘They told me an English girl checked in last night. A girl from London.’

  She blinks at him.

  ‘We danced all the night. We sang songs. We drank a lot of champagne…’

  ‘I can tell.’

  ‘Wait…’ He fumbles in his trouser pocket before producing his spectacles. The instant he puts them on, his face acquires its familiar, likably serious, appearance. ‘I wanted to know if you were safe. And’ – he shuffles rather awkwardly – ‘to ask if you want someone to show you Berlin.’

  ‘You’re offering to show me around Berlin?’

  ‘I think so, yes.’ He nods.

  ‘That’s very kind’ – she’s speaking slowly, regretfully even – ‘but I haven’t come to see Berlin. I’m here to find someone living in East Germany.’

  ‘You have a friend living in East Germany?’

  ‘Not exactly. I have an address for someone, a friend of my grandmother.’ She pauses. ‘An old address.’

  ‘Your grandmother?’ He adjusts his glasses. ‘How old is the address?’

  There’s a longer pause.

  ‘Very old.’

  ‘So, you are here to locate a person who you don’t know, and you have only a very old address?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And you are trying to find this person without speaking any German?’

  ‘I can say Die Mauer ist weg! And Trink nach Berlin!’

  His expression doesn’t flicker. ‘That perhaps is not enough.’

  Tiffany unbuckles the strap around her waist and lowers the rucksack onto the floor of the lobby. An idea is forming. Leaning on the pack, she regards him steadily. ‘It will have to be enough.’

  ‘You are crazy. I think it is better you have a nice time and see Berlin.’

  She shakes her head. ‘I would like that. But not today. Today I have a job to do.’ She hesitates, bites her lower lip. Waits. Then, ‘You could come with me.’

  ‘To find an address in East Germany, for a person you have never met?’

  She doesn’t reply.

  ‘That would make us both crazy.’

  She gestures at his dishevelled clothes, at the sofa where he spent the last few hours. ‘You came back to find me. That’s pretty crazy already.’

  He stares at her.

  Bending down, Tiffany picks up his coat and lobs it towards him. ‘Come on, help me catch the next train to Eisenach. Please.’

  * * *

  The journey to Eisenach will take three and a half hours. At least this is what Ralp told her, before falling asleep again with his head wedged against the rim of the train window. His spectacles have slipped halfway down his nose, and after a second’s hesitation Tiffany removes them and holds the delicate wire frame loosely in her lap. Gazing out of the glass at trees and fields that seem to be exactly the same as the ones in England, she wonders what on earth she will say to this man, to Thomas, when they get there.

  He may have moved house, of course, since he returned home from the war all those years ago. Ralp pointed this out several times on the way to the station, as soon as she explained where they were going. Yet somehow she doesn’t think so. If this man loved her grandmother as much as her grandmother seemed to have loved him, as much as his letter suggested, wouldn’t he have stayed at the same address, never quite losing hope, never entirely giving up, that one day her grandmother might contact him?

  Or perhaps she’s being ridiculous.

  She found out about the letter during the summer. When she was struggling in London after Paul left – some days even to wash her hair or go to the supermarket – her father suggested a visit to her grandmother, who would appreciate the company now that she was on her own. The dose of salt air and clean sheets was working right up until the moment Tiffany dissolved into tears during the washing-up over something so trivial she has now forgotten what it was.

  Her grandmother took her out for a walk. Up over a heath aflame with flowers and humming with bees. And there on a bench she said when she was Tiffany’s age, she lost someone too. She spoke about Thomas. That when Thomas went back to East Germany, when there was no hope she would see him again, she couldn’t imagine how she might live through the following week, let alone the years that stretched into the future like a wasteland.

  Tiffany was aghast. ‘But you married Grandpa. You loved him!’r />
  ‘Yes.’ Her grandmother fell quiet. She was staring at the view.

  In a silence broken only by the bees and the song of a woodlark, Tiffany felt the two truths come and settle together, side by side. At last she said, quietly, ‘Why did he leave? Did he tell you?’

  ‘He had a reason. A very good reason and he wrote me a letter to explain. Though at the time’ – there was a slight clicking sound – ‘at the time I didn’t understand, and I was even more unhappy than you are now.’

  Tiffany swivelled on the bench. ‘Then, why don’t you contact him? If you have an address. Perhaps it isn’t too late?’

  Her grandmother kept her eyes fixed firmly on the sweep of green, yellow and blue. ‘I’m not sure how your grandfather would feel about that.’

  ‘But he’s…’ she stopped. Gathered herself and thought more clearly. Then she said slowly and deliberately. ‘Grandpa would want you to be happy. That’s all he ever wanted.’

  That evening when they were in the kitchen cooking dinner, over the steady chop of onions she said as casually as she could manage, ‘Would you show me the letter? The one that Thomas wrote to you?’

  Her grandmother looked taken aback. ‘Nobody else knows about that letter.’

  ‘I won’t tell a soul, Granny, I promise.’

  Her grandmother wiped her hands several times on her apron. ‘Well, I suppose so,’ she said. ‘I don’t see why not.’ Later, after they had eaten, she went upstairs and appeared again after a few moments, clasping an ancient-looking envelope. Tiffany read the letter in silence. The contents were heartbreaking, the position in which the writer had found himself impossible, but the part that interested her the most, the part she was determined to remember, was his address.

  Beyond the train the land has become undulating and heavily wooded. In the distance rounded mountain peaks jut against a pale-blue sky while the space between is filled with a dense lake of trees. Much less like England now, much more like pictures in a book of children’s fairy tales.

  Ralp stirs and lifts his head away from the glass.

  ‘You’re dribbling.’

  He stares at her groggily for a moment before swiping his hand across his mouth. As he peers out of the window, Tiffany passes him his glasses.

  ‘I think we are there nearly.’

  ‘Good,’ she says. Even though her stomach feels queasy at the prospect.

  * * *

  A short bus-ride and a longer walk later, they are standing in front of the address that matches the one on the piece of paper torn from Tiffany’s Filofax. The farmhouse is built mainly from brick, apart from one wing that appears much older than the rest of the building with whitewashed walls criss-crossed by a lattice of dark wooden beams. To one side of the property there are stables, a cart-shed, and a paddock in which a man is forking hay beside a grey horse. As he straightens up, he lays a hand on the neck of the horse, who begins to eat, the grind of his big jaws carrying across the driveway. Tiffany remains rooted to the spot. It requires Ralp to nudge her side and make her wave her arm.

  ‘Hello!’

  The man lifts his gaze. ‘Wie kann ich Ihnen helfen?’

  She looks at Ralp in panic. ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said, how can I help you? I am going to ask if he will speak with us.’ Ralp raises his voice. ‘Guten Tag! Haben Sie eine Minute, bitte?’

  The man props the pitchfork against the paddock fence and ducks under the rail. He seems, Tiffany thinks, considerably older than her grandmother, with a stooped back and a slight limp. A few feet away from them he halts, cleaning his hands on his trousers. Tiffany turns to Ralp. She feels an odd, rather unaccountable sense of disappointment. ‘Could you ask him if he speaks English?’

  But the man is shaking his head already. ‘Nein. Ich spreche kein Englisch.’

  ‘In that case, could you ask him if he knows…’ She stops.

  The man is pointing further along the yard where a younger man with strong, square shoulders and grey-blond hair is coming purposely towards them. He’s carrying a metal bucket in each hand and despite the biting wind is wearing only a green pullover. As he smiles, Tiffany spots a small scar just above his left eyebrow.

  ‘I speak English. Can I help you?’

  Her weight shifts on the gritty ground. ‘Is your name… are you by chance Thomas Meyer?’

  ‘Yes.’ He puts the buckets down. ‘Why do you ask?’

  ‘Well,’ she glances sideways at Ralp, but he is no help to her now, ‘I think you may have known my grandmother. Shortly after the war ended. You see, her name is Frances—’ She stops abruptly. The man looks to have had the breath knocked out of him. He stares at Tiffany with alarming intensity. For a moment the decades fall away.

  ‘Your grandmother?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You are her granddaughter? You are Fran’s granddaughter?’

  ‘Yes, I—’

  He gathers himself with evident effort. ‘I think perhaps we should all go inside.’

  * * *

  Tiffany cups her hands around a mug of tea. Her fingers are stiff from the cold. Thomas and Ralp both have a whisky, though as Ralp has barely touched his drink Tiffany suspects he’s still feeling the effects of the previous night.

  Thomas leans across the table. ‘Tell me about your grandmother. Is she well?’

  ‘She’s very well.’ Under his gaze she can hardly move. He has barely taken his focus from her since they came into the kitchen, his eyes like searchlights pinning her to the chair. Slowly she adds, ‘Although the last year has been difficult, since my grandfather died.’

  ‘Your grandfather is dead?’

  She nods.

  After a moment he says, ‘And who was your grandfather?’

  ‘His name was Martin. Martin Travis-Jones.’

  With a sudden scraping of wood, Thomas stands up and moves to the sink, an enormous china basin that is practically big enough to bathe in. Dirty crockery, Tiffany sees, is stacked upon the draining board, while the room itself is trailed with muddy coats and boots. The only concessions to homeliness are two watercolour paintings, one hung above a woodburning stove and the other stood on the dresser against a pile of books. She imagines Thomas must live alone.

  ‘I am sorry to hear that news.’ He is staring out of the window towards the paddock. ‘Your grandfather was a nice man. May I ask what happened?’

  ‘He died of a heart attack.’ Tiffany says. She feels a little dazed. How did this man even know her grandfather? ‘It turns out he didn’t fight in the war because of his heart, so perhaps it wasn’t as unexpected as it seemed. Anyway’ – she puts down her mug – ‘I’m not here because of my grandfather. The reason I came to find you is because I thought you might like to see my grandmother again.’

  Thomas spins around. ‘To see Fran?’

  Tiffany doesn’t reply.

  After a while he says slowly, ‘There is nothing on this earth I would like more than to see your grandmother again. But I do not believe she wants to see me. I do not think she forgave me for leaving England when I may have been able to stay. If she had, I think she would have told me. She would have written me a letter.’

  ‘I don’t know why she didn’t write. But I think she would like to see you again.’ Tiffany holds his gaze. ‘In fact, I’m certain of it.’

  ‘How do you know that?’

  Because of her voice when she spoke about you, Tiffany wants to say. Because even saying your name after all this time seemed to create such a mixture of pain and pleasure. Because there was something about what happened, that Tiffany felt she didn’t understand or hadn’t yet been told.

  ‘I just do,’ she says simply.

  They both fall silent.

  Eventually, from outside the horse neighs. ‘He wants food,’ Thomas says. ‘When you arrived, I was about to bring his oats. He is telling me that he is hungry.’

  Pushing back her chair, Tiffany gets to her feet. ‘We should go.’

  ‘So qu
ickly? Do you want to eat something first?’

  She shakes her head. ‘We need to catch the train back to Berlin this afternoon.’ Besides, food is the last thing she wants right now.

  Thomas walks across the kitchen. On reaching the kitchen table, he hesitates before coming up close to her. Placing his hand against her cheek, he considers her intently as if trying to work something out or memorise her face. ‘Thank you, Tiffany, for coming here. For telling me about your grandmother. You must love her very much.’

  ‘I do.’

  Extracting the page of her Filofax from her pocket, she puts the paper down on top of the table. ‘My grandmother still lives in the same village. I’ve written down the name of the road and the house.’ For some reason her eyes are smarting.

  Thomas picks up the page. ‘I will think about what you said. I will think about it very carefully.’

  Ralp is waiting by the door. He seems to be preoccupied by something, his gaze switching back and forth between her and Thomas as if he is watching a tennis match.

  ‘What is it?’ Tiffany whispers. ‘What are you looking at?’

  ‘Nothing,’ Ralp says, but after they have said goodbye, he turns back to Thomas and says suddenly, ‘Die Mauer ist weg Es wird Zeit für einen Neuanfang, Wer weiß, was Sie finden könnten?’

  She catches his sleeve. ‘What does that mean?’

  He bundles her along the driveway. ‘I will tell you later.’

  * * *

  Since the train is more crowded on the way back to Berlin, they sit side by side.

  ‘Are you going to fall asleep again?’

  ‘I do not think so.’

  There’s a pause before Tiffany says, ‘I’m so glad you went with me. I don’t know how I would have managed. I should have learned German before I came here.’

  He gives her an inscrutable look. ‘Perhaps you should learn German anyway. Perhaps you will come here again.’

  There’s another pause.

  ‘You have beautiful eyes. They are very blue. When I was dancing, enjoying the party by the wall, I could not forget them.’