Lilli's Quest

by Lila Perl

  Mutti had shrugged sadly. “I will try to inquire,” she murmured.

  “From who? How?” Lilli challenged.

  Mutti had turned away and reached for her handkerchief.

  It is time for the trip to the Kaufhaus, the large and elaborate department store that is the pride of this mediumsized German city.

  The façade of the store could be that of a palace, with many windows and carved stone decorations. It sits in the busiest part of downtown and has six stories and a basement that are served by electric elevators. Each mirrored and gilt-trimmed moving car is run by a uniformed young woman, who calls out the number of the floor and the type of merchandise offered for sale.

  Lilli says she can remember having been to the Kaufhaus before, when she was four or five. She insists to Grossmutter in a friendly way that she has often seen this “dream palace” in her sleep. Helga says that can’t be true, while Grossmutter remarks that Lilli has a “too-strong imagination.” But Lilli remembers the ground-level floor, where they sell beauty accessories, ladies’ gloves, handbags, silk stockings, and fine jewelry. She is certain now that she has been here with Mutti. Of course, she and her sister won’t be lingering on this exotic ground floor—they are both too young for such frippery.

  What are Lilli and Helga hoping for on this surprise shopping trip, on a sun-drenched May day that heralds warmer weather? They are visualizing cool summer frocks of cotton or linen, with short sleeves and a bit of smocking or embroidery, new underwear to replace their itchy winter garments, half-socks, and shoes with straps, not laces!

  “Come along,” Grossmutter urges, as the girls’ heads are turned by smartly-dressed women shoppers, and even some gentlemen and high-ranking officers who are sniffing perfumes, holding jeweled earrings up to the light, and examining incredible alligator handbags.

  Who would have thought, Lilli muses to herself, that with all the rationing of everyday goods, such luxuries are still plentiful in Germany?

  Now at last they are in the miraculous elevator, smoothly passing the so-named “first floor” of the great emporium, which is devoted to men’s apparel ranging from formal wear to shooting jackets, and includes hats, shoes, sleepwear and whatever other garments the man of wealth and standing might require.

  Lilli’s heart gives a thump as the elevator slows for the second floor, women’s and girls’ apparel. Other passengers file past them and leave the car, but Grossmutter restrains Helga and Lilli, who look up in puzzlement.

  More floors flit past them … china, silverware, and home furnishings on the third; radios, gramophones, toys, and souvenirs on the fourth. Perhaps they are going directly to the lacy glass-roofed tea room and restaurant on the sixth floor, known as the Winter Garden. Dainty sandwiches, tiny iced cakes, and chocolate torte with whipped cream are its afternoon-tea specialties.

  It is two hours later and the girls are back in their attic room, with Gerda helping them to sort out their new clothing. Lilli had been so close to the Winter Garden that she could almost taste its goodies, but had never reached the Kaufhaus pinnacle. Instead, Grossmutter had ushered them out of the elevator on the fifth floor, sports clothes and sporting goods for the entire family, and there they had made their purchases.

  Then, at the very end of the shopping trip, Grossmutter Bayer had taken the girls down to the famed food court in the basement of the store. There, a tantalizing spectacle of gourmet specialties dazzled the girls’ eyes. Smoked meats and sausages, cheeses, bakery delicacies of every sort, jams and preserves, and an array of chocolates and other confectionery, crammed the shelves. Small samples of some of the foods were offered to the roaming shoppers.

  Lilli and Helga, hungry by this time, were permitted to help themselves to tiny squares of imported Norwegian goat cheese impaled on toothpicks. Helga gulped and spat the sweetish caramel-colored lump into her palm. Lilli managed to down hers, acknowledging that it was the most awful thing she had ever tasted. Grossmutter angrily muttered, “Manners!” and hurried both girls out of the Kaufhaus. It was the last time Lilli would ever lay eyes on the great store.

  Without a word, Gerda clips the price tags from the girls’ new clothing and neatly folds the drab-colored blouses, skirts, jackets, and high socks that are to be stored in the room’s huge wooden wardrobe, presumably for summer wear. There are also new shoes, brown oxfords with laces, and high leather boots for each girl. The only really welcome item is the new cotton underwear that will replace the worn flannels of the seemingly endless winter.

  “Such long faces,” Gerda remarks. “What did you expect? Summer frocks? Parasols? Dancing shoes?”

  Helga is silent, but Lilli speaks up. “We will look like Hitler Youth marchers in these clothes, but without the swastikas sewn onto them. Where can we go on sporting trips? What can we do with hiking boots when we never leave this house? Why has Elspeth been dressed up like a doll in frills and hairbows?”

  Gerda lowers her head and shakes it from side to side. “You must speak to your Mutti. That is all I have to say.” Then she disappears from the room.

  Lilli has been lying awake for hours. Threads of various thoughts trail aimlessly through her head. It has been three days since the shopping trip and nothing has changed. In the silent, sleeping house, she hears a faint click, perhaps the turning of a key in a lock.

  Mutti has been out this evening, as she often is lately, modeling the new fashions or perhaps attending a supper party. In the morning, she will be gone again. When will Lilli have a chance to speak with her?

  Halfway down the dark stairway that ascends to the attic, there is a landing with a doorway to Gerda’s room. Lilli creeps past on bare feet. It must be very late, perhaps two am. She can hear the sound of Gerda’s snoring and prays it will continue.

  Now she has successfully reached the landing of the second floor, where the elder Bayers, Mutti, and Elspeth have their quarters. She pauses there, wondering if Mutti has yet gone to her room, or is still on the main floor of the house.

  As Lilli listens, she becomes aware of the deep, droning vibration of a male voice coming from the drawing room. She temporarily pulls back in shock, then continues creeping partway down the main staircase to give herself a view of the space below.

  Sure enough, the voice is his, that of Captain Koeppler. He sits beside Mutti, who is dressed in glamorous evening wear, a white fur around her neck and silver, high-heeled, T-strap evening sandals on her slender feet.

  Lilli listens to words that at first make no sense to her and are, at the same time, terrifying. “I am sorry, Martina, I know I promised both. But there is only room for one, and probably not until late summer.”

  Mutti murmurs a few words that are unclear. Lilli can tell she has been crying.

  “The darker one,” Koeppler replies. “She is the most endangered. Be reasonable. You will come through much better than most. There will always be that black mark against you … and them.”

  Mutti chokes back a sob. “Helga has not got the temperament for it. Even Elspeth would do better, spoiled as she now is. But I won’t give up my littlest one. Never!”

  There is movement now in the room below. The tall Nazi officer rises to his feet and pulls Mutti, limp and glittering, into his arms. Even at this horrifying moment, Lilli can’t help admiring her mother’s loveliness. She wears her thick pale-gold hair in a coiled bun at the base of her neck, exhibiting the beauty of her finely chiseled features.

  Instantly, she pulls away from Koeppler and sighs deeply. Is the Captain just a helpful old school chum as Mutti has said, or is there something more between her and this hostile “friend?” Lilli is wracked with so much emotion that she fears she may cry out. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she turns and scampers rat-like up the stairs, past Gerda’s room, and into her attic fortress.

  It is the first time since Helga and Lilli have come to live with their Bayer grandparents that Gerda has informed them they are to descend to the small dining room for breakfast.

  This
news is amazing to Helga, even more so than the announcement of the recent shopping trip with Grossmutter. But to Lilli it is no surprise. Her swift retreat up the stairs from her hiding place in the wee hours of the morning had been detected in the drawing room after all. Mutti had followed her to her bedroom and tearfully explained that plans were being made for the safety of all three girls, plans which would be revealed in the morning.

  Grossvater is seated at the table reading the morning paper. He is as cheerful as always, and he greets Helga and Lilli as though their presence at the family breakfast was an everyday affair. Grossmutter, who is solemnly pouring coffee, nods in a semi-friendly way and indicates where the girls are to sit. Mutti comes into the room, and Gerda is dismissed to take care of Elspeth, who isn’t present.

  Grossmutter places bowls of hot porridge before her granddaughters. Helga obediently digs in, but Lilli winces. Her breakfast choice is coffee and rolls. Mutti, who knows this, removes the porridge and sets bread and butter down before her. Grossmutter overlooks this and compliments Helga on her healthful choice of food.

  Lilli glances at her yet-unknowing sister, for much has become clear to her during the many wakeful hours of the early morning. Something … she does not know what … has been planned for “the darker one,” which would be Helga, who has Papa’s olive-toned complexion, and his deep-brown eyes and hair. Lilli is fair, with gray-green eyes and honey-toned hair.

  The innocent Helga finishes her porridge, and Grossmutter offers her breakfast cake and milky coffee, which she accepts politely. Lilli seethes. She knows that there are plans to send Helga away. Why doesn’t somebody say something?

  Then, as though has heard Lilli’s inner plea, Grossmutter seats herself directly opposite eleven-year-old Helga and declares, “Grossvater and I have good news for you, my child. How would you like to travel to a good home in England, where you can hike, swim, and skate, go to school with other children, enjoy the cinema and other pleasurable outings? Wouldn’t you like such an opportunity? It would be only until things are easier in Germany. Then you could return to us.”

  “Yes, my child,” Grossvater chimes in, “you are lucky, for it has been arranged with the Jewish committee for the saving of the children that you are to have a place on the Kindertransport …”

  Lilli jumps to her feet. She has heard vague talk of taking tens of thousands of Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied Europe by train and boat—from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia—before Hitler’s armies invade even more of the continent.

  “Yes!” Lilli declares. “And I want to go, too. We must all go, Elspeth, too. Papa would want it that way. How can you think of separating us so cruelly?”

  But no one is listening to her. All eyes are on Helga, who has dashed her coffee cup to the floor and run screaming from the breakfast room, “No, no never! Never will I be such a coward as to let myself be driven out of Germany. Never.”

  Three

  It is the middle of the long, hot summer of 1939. Several months have passed since the anguished scene at the breakfast table in May, and there has been no further mention of sending Helga away on the Kindertransport.

  Yet, everyone knows that the danger for Jews hiding in Germany is drawing closer every minute. And so, too, is war with England. The girls’ tutor, Mr. Anton Hess, is their main source of information. He has told them that England is threatening to attack Germany if Hitler attempts to occupy one more country in Europe.

  “Ah, but,” says the all-knowing Mr. Hess, his pincenez glasses flickering as he lowers and shakes his head in scholarly fashion, “the Fuhrer has already announced in May that Germany must have more Lebensraum, living space. He has vowed that he will have his armies in Poland by late summer.”

  The threat of war, as well as further actions against Jews everywhere, has started all sorts of rumors. Gerda has murmured tidbits to Helga and Lilli about the attic room no longer being a safe place in which to hide them from the Nazis, in spite of the Bayers’ connections with members of the government.

  “Where will they put us then?” Helga challenges.

  Lilli looks at her sister anxiously. Helga has changed a great deal in the past months. She has become more assertive and outspoken.

  Gerda tosses the girls fresh linens with which to make up their beds and replies as she leaves the room. “There is perhaps the coal bin.”

  Helga and Lilli stare at each other, wide-eyed. Then they do their room chores and, as usual, don the drab clothes that Grossmutter purchased for them in the spring. It’s become obvious that their grandmother’s intention was for the girls to be as incognito as possible, even inside the Bayer house.

  But the onset of summer has allowed the two older Frankfurter girls one privilege—they are permitted to spend time in the grim, overgrown, walled garden that surrounds the large house. There, they pass the hours rereading English-language books, assigned to them by Mr. Hess, according to Grossmutter’s orders. They skip rope, they toss a ball around, they even play hide and seek among the overgrown shrubs.

  “This is stupid and childish,” Helga exclaims one day. “I will not continue to be trapped in here like an animal.” She walks away from Lilli, declaring that she is going to search for an escape hatch in the garden well. Lilli shakes her head in despair at Helga’s foolishness and tries to concentrate on reading a peculiar English book called Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland.

  After a long while, Helga returns. She is flushed and perspiring, and her hands and knees match the dirt color of her khaki skirt and blouse. “I’ve found a place behind the shrubs,” she reports excitedly, “where the wall is crumbling and the earth beneath it is soft.”

  Lilli jumps to her feet, letting the annoying Alice book fall to the ground. “You are out of your mind,” she retorts. “What are you thinking? Even if you could make a space to wriggle through, where would you go?”

  “Skating,” Helga replies triumphantly. “Oh, Lilli, remember how we loved to skate before we were forced to wear the yellow stars. On the ice, in the park, such a wonderful feeling of flying away, of freedom! I wear no yellow star now. Who would know what I am? I could be just any child out for play.”

  Lilli grabs her sister’s arm almost roughly. “Helga, come to your senses. Germany will soon be at war. It is already more dangerous than ever for a Jew in hiding to be discovered. You heard what Gerda said about the need to perhaps hide us in the coal bin. You could ruin everything—for Mutti, for Elspeth, even for the Bayers.”

  Helga shrugs off Lilli’s arm. Nothing more is said that day about Helga’s plan to slither out of their stronghold for a skating outing.

  *

  For the rest of the summer, Lilli keeps careful watch over her sister. When the two of them are in the garden during the oppressive days of August, trying to cope with its dankness and humidity, Lilli barely takes her eyes off Helga, who sulkily drags herself off to some distant perch with her schoolbag of reading assignments.

  Sure enough, there comes an afternoon when Lilli looks up to where Helga was sitting. Her sister is nowhere in sight! Lilli quickly makes her way to the spot Helga had shown her, beneath the crumbling wall. The hole, now larger than when Lilli first saw it, shows signs of having recently been disturbed. Lilli, her heart pounding, contemplates following Helga out into the dangerous world of the open streets. But suppose she cannot find her sister and they are both discovered missing? Suppose they are both apprehended by the Hitler police and found to have no identity cards—an immediate sign that they are hidden Jews?

  Lilli paces the area around the hole in the wall. Where is the schoolbag that Helga brought with her into the garden? Then, Helga’s deception becomes clear to Lilli. The schoolbag did not contain books; it contained Helga’s roller skates.

  Anguished minutes go by and add up to nearly three-fourths of an hour. Gerda may appear at any moment to call the girls indoors. What will Lilli tell her? How far can they trust Grossmutter’s loyal servant, whose true feelings toward them hav
e always been a mystery?

  Lilli tracks the garden restlessly, returning every few minutes to examine the hole in hope of Helga’s return. She is at the point of despair when she hears a rustling in the shrubbery behind her and there, rising from a crouch to her full height, is Helga, her skates in one hand and her empty schoolbag in the other. Her dark eyes are flashing, and she wears a challenging smile. A single tear of bright red blood descends from a cut high up on her forehead.

  Lilli dashes forward. “What have you done? Oh, Helga …”

  Helga touches her forehead lightly, glances at her reddened, glistening finger, and continues to smile. “No, Lilli, it’s not what you think. No one threw stones at me. The other children did not chase me. I fell, that was all. The skating path was not so smooth.”

  But Lilli knows better. Last year, she and Helga were stoned several times by the Hitler Youth, at the ice rink, in the park, on their bicycles. They would seek out new places, but their enemies would always discover them. Eventually, they were forced to remain indoors.

  Lilli hurries Helga silently toward the house. They stumble up the back stairs to the bathroom, where they wash Helga’s cut and compress it to stop the bleeding. Lilli puts a plaster on the wound and Helga combs her thick dark hair on a slant across her forehead. The two of them gaze into the mirror. In spite of her anguish, Lilli bursts out laughing. “Do you know who you look like? Ah, if only you had a moustache!”

  It is August 27, 1939. Mr. Hess has arrived to give Helga and Lilli their morning lesson. The tutor is in a jubilant mood. He struts around the room with his hands behind his back, exclaiming, “Today the Fuhrer has demanded Poland’s port to the sea, as well, of course, the rest of the country. The Polish army, such as it is,” he sniffs, “is mobilizing. And Britain is ready to declare war on Germany. “Young ladies,” he adds, “you are about to see history being made.”

  Lilli, who has on occasion mocked the stuffy Mr. Hess behind his back, declares, “What is so wonderful about going to war? Everyone will suffer, even the Germans.”