Another woman started wailing. The woman with the curlers continued, “What I don’t understand is why they can’t put a stop to it. The Russians are getting on fine. Why can’t we?”
Lena sat and put her arm around Moira. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
The girl looked up. “Ye must be Lena,” she said. She pronounced it Lairna.
“How did you know?”
“I knew at once,” Moira said. “Sheila spoke on ye all the time.”
“She’s a wonderful person,” Lena said. “And tough. If anyone can make it out, she can.” She gave Moira’s shoulder a squeeze.
But when she turned her attention back to the rescue scene, another lifeless body was being pulled from the rubble.
They lay together on the bed in Lena’s new room at Lotti’s. She listened to the regular rhythm of Milton’s heartbeat against her ear, the soothing gallop, replacing the need for words. He gently tugged at the eiderdown to pull it over her shoulders.
“I can’t take it in.” Lena wiped away fresh tears. “I can’t believe she’s gone.” Milton stroked her arm under the covers. “It’s so arbitrary.”
“If only she’d left home a few minutes early. If only it had dropped a few minutes later. Or a mile farther south.” Lena stopped herself. “But that’s a terrible thing to say. It would have killed someone else.”
They were silent again. The wind rattled outside.
“At least it was a V2. Must have been quick. She hated the Doodlebugs,” Lena said. “How many areas have been hit like that?”
“There’s no way to tell. The government is keeping it all under wraps. It’s understandable, I suppose. They want to keep the Nazis guessing. But it’s making people fear the worst.”
“Just one rocket took out that whole street. And not a word about it on the news.”
“They won’t even allow obituaries to be published,” Milton said. “I was in Epsom last week just after a rocket attack there. I spoke to a chap who’d lost both his sisters. He was told he couldn’t place a death announcement in the local paper. That really does seem excessive. As if the Germans have spies scouring the Croydon Advertiser.”
Milton’s chest rose gently with each breath. She heard footsteps outside on the pavement and the mumbled conversation of passersby. Charles started to cry in the next room. Lena heard Lotti padding across the floor.
“It’s so hard to believe,” Lena said again. “Here I am, worrying all the time about Ernst being in danger, and about Máma and Sasha. And then it’s the woman I sit next to at work who gets killed. It doesn’t make sense.”
He stroked her arm again, encircling her elbow with his fingertips. “When I was in the anti-aircraft unit in Portsmouth during the Battle of Britain . . .” Milton faltered. Lena looked up at him. “The man standing next to me was killed. Robert Bingham. He was from Bristol. One minute, he was handing me a shell to load into the gun. We’d been taking heavy fire all night, but we thought they’d passed over. All of a sudden, I heard a piercing whine . . .” He closed his eyes and winced. “It was horrible. A huge piece of shrapnel ripped him in two. Right in front of me. There was nothing we could do.”
“Was that when you were wounded?”
“Yes. But I was lucky. It was nothing, really. I took a small wound in the foot. And here.”
He extended the middle finger of his left hand. That jagged scar she’d first noticed a year earlier.
He hugged her close. “I often look at this scar and think of Bingham. I don’t know why I survived and he didn’t. There’s no way to understand these things.”
“Was that when the army wouldn’t take you back?”
“Yes. I recovered fairly quickly, but it took six months for me to get medical clearance. Then they decided they were better off without me. I was told my ‘revolutionary views’ were incompatible with military service. Since then, they’ve more or less left me to my own devices. I get called into the Labour Exchange every couple of months, but they don’t seem to know what to do with me. They’re content to let me stay with Mass Observation.”
His work: it would be taking him away again soon, no doubt.
“What are you going to be observing next?” she asked with a smile. She didn’t want to sound as if she were making a fuss.
“I’ll be staying put for a while. Hopefully, this fellow Jenkins will get my flat back into serviceable condition. I have to finish up the reports on the day nurseries in the Midlands.”
He rolled over and kissed her. Lena clung to him.
The winter turned bitter. The coldest of the war, it was said. Lena and Lotti used their entire coal ration by the twenty-first of the month. An icy wind howled through the gaps around the windows. Lotti fretted about keeping Charles warm. Lena decided to go back to Donegal Street to see Mavis; the year before, Mavis had obtained peat logs through a man she knew at work. Black-market, probably, but they were desperate. And Lena remembered the extra blankets she’d left in the cupboard in her old flat, the ones they used to take into the shelter during raids. They could serve as insulation. Otto wouldn’t be using them. He probably hadn’t even noticed them.
She still had a key. She went early on Saturday morning, when she knew Mavis would be home and hoped Otto wouldn’t.
“Lovely to see you, Lena. Come in, come in. I’m just putting the kettle on.” Mavis was as cheerful as ever. “How’s your new place, then? I do miss seeing you on the stairs. How’s Lotti? Any news from Peter? And how’s that bouncing baby boy? Getting big, I bet. My, hasn’t the weather turned harsh? Our pipes froze two days ago. You’ll never guess what I have.” She paused to catch her breath. “Guess!”
Lena laughed. “I don’t know. What?”
“Plum jam! From my sister-in-law. I remember how you like it, so I saved you a jar.”
“That’s so sweet of you, Mavis.”
And yes, Mavis thought she could get hold of some peat logs early next week. She would give Lena a bit of coal to tide her over. No, no, she could spare it. She chatted on at a relentless pace—about the weather, and a new recipe for turnip pie, and the frost that had ruined Mr. Clark’s cabbages in his allotment. It was only when Lena asked after Eva that Mavis stalled. “Eva? Oh . . . um . . . She’s all right.” She turned her back to tidy up.
“It’s all right, Mavis. I know she and Otto are . . .”
“Well, she was always so partial to the Americans, wasn’t she? They’ve mostly left now.”
“I want to fetch something from the flat. She’s not up there now, is she?” That would definitely be uncomfortable.
“No, she’s at work. She’s got a new job, in a butcher’s shop on Upper Street.”
Lena climbed the stairs and knocked, as if this weren’t her flat—which it wasn’t anymore. Otto opened the door and stared at her. He was unshaven and looked very thin.
“I want to pick up a few things.” He stepped back to let her in. “How are you? Are you all right?” His trousers were bunched in folds under his waist belt. “Are you eating?”
“Yes, I’m eating, Lena. For God’s sake.”
“Sorry . . .”
The living room was a jumbled chaos of strewn clothes, overflowing ashtrays, and discarded teacups. Lena stopped herself from picking up Otto’s jacket, which lay on the floor. She averted her eyes from the unmade bed she glimpsed through the bedroom door. But she would have to go in there for the blankets.
“I’m sorry about your friend,” Otto said, avoiding eye contact. “The one who was killed. Mavis told me.”
“Yes. Thanks.” She paused. “You were right about Hitler’s revenge weapons. You said they would be ferocious.”
Otto was right about many things. But not everything. Not everything. She had to remember that.
He shrugged. “The war will be over soon. A few more months, at most.”
“Let’s hope so.”
“The Russians are doing well, aren’t they?” Otto brightened. “Thrilling to watch.”
�
��Yes.” She was still standing. He hadn’t invited her to sit. “Are you still thinking about going back to Germany after the war?”
“Yes.” He took out his pipe. “With the Red Army advancing like this, Germany will be defeated, the conditions ripe for revolution.”
He spoke the words, but he sounded fatigued and unconvinced, as if he had run out of steam. Where was the Otto who so passionately supported the International Brigade volunteers going to Spain, who held the room captive with fine speeches, who had plucked her out of her sheltered adolescence and promised to show her the future? He had vanished. Maybe he physically stood before her, but the Otto she remembered had disappeared—like Sheila had slipped away, leaving only a raw, gaping wound.
“As for this country,” Otto continued, “pfft.” He spat in disgust. “How do you like what your Prime Minister is doing in Greece? Huh?”
“It’s outrageous. And everyone’s really angry about it.” The British government was intervening in the civil war in Greece, providing military support for the right-wing factions against the Left. “We’re all going to the demonstration next weekend.” By all, Lena meant her and Milton and his Common Wealth friends.
“Are we? Well, isn’t that nice?” Otto obviously knew whom she meant. “That scoundrel Churchill is going to be the big war hero in this country and win the election easily. You’ll see. And then he’ll annihilate the Left—just like he’s doing to the antifascist partisans in Greece. His former allies.”
“A lot of people in this country are determined to fight for progressive change.”
“Are there indeed? What? You and your Lord of the Manor and his Common Wealth Party cronies? Sorry, but I don’t think that will amount to much.”
“Otto, please. I didn’t come here to squabble.”
He shrugged again. “Oh, I don’t care. Do what you like.” He turned away from her. “Get whatever it is you came for and leave me in peace.”
CHAPTER 44
LONDON, 1945
On a late-January evening, Lena switched on the wireless for the six o’clock news. The announcer read the weather forecast, warning of more arctic winds and subfreezing temperatures. Milton’s hair was ruffled, his shirt untucked, hastily redonned after their lovemaking earlier. He was leaving again in the morning, back to the Midlands, to collect journal entries from Mass Observation contributors. Lena tried to seal the image of him in her mind.
The chimes of Big Ben heralded the top of the hour. Lena held her breath, waiting, in that moment of suspense. The New Year had brought more shortages, more rocket attacks. What would the day’s bulletin offer: a new breakthrough, a kernel of hope—or further setbacks, delays, and despair?
“Yesterday, in southern Poland, the Red Army liberated Auschwitz, an extermination camp on a scale unlike anything seen before. . . .”
Nothing had prepared her for this. The rumors, conjectures, doomsday predictions: easily pushed aside as wild exaggeration, sensationalist scaremongering. But now the crisp tones of BBC English described a scene of unimaginable horror: gas ovens, piles of corpses, storerooms stuffed with human hair, mounds of gold tooth fillings. Even the sanguine announcer could not banish all emotion from his voice.
Lena couldn’t move; a black chill sank through to her bones.
There was more—the unbearable, unthinkable: “Emaciated survivors spoke of mass deportations of Jews from the far reaches of the Third Reich.” Including Terezín.
The room began to spin, but Milton had his arms around her. He simply held her; he didn’t try to search for words to smooth over the truth. They stood in silence. The BBC newsreader moved on— something about the capture of a Japanese airbase on Luzon. Hurried footsteps clambered down the hallway outside the flat, and the front door slammed in the wind.
When Lena tried to speak again, her mouth was parched, her words stuck together. “Máma must have found a way to get Sasha into hiding,” she said. “With her fair hair and blue eyes, she wouldn’t be seen as Jewish.”
She waited for him to dismiss this as absurd. But he just stroked her hair and rocked her gently.
“We’ll finish up those turnips tonight,” Lotti said.
“I’m sick of turnips.”
“I could find something to make them more interesting. We have enough points. A tin of tomatoes, perhaps?”
“Tomatoes and turnips?” Lena screwed up her nose. “Sounds like one of those disgusting English concoctions you always complain about.”
“Spam?”
“Oh God, no. Not Spam again, please.”
“Well, you think of something, then.”
Lotti slammed down her cup. Charles, busy mastering the art of picking up a Farley’s Rusk in clumsy fingers, startled in his high chair, flailing his arms. Lena picked up the biscuit and offered it to him. He grabbed it with a broad smile. Lotti, home with the baby now, did most of the shopping and cooking. Initially, Lena loved the idea. But some of Lotti’s choices, and the monotony of endless potatoes and turnips, were grating on her nerves.
“I saw a recipe for mock roast pork, using breadcrumbs and nuts,” Lena said. “It’s supposed to taste like the real thing.”
“If you can find any nuts.”
Lena noticed a thin envelope in Lotti’s hand. “What’s that?”
“A letter from Peter.”
“Why didn’t you tell me? When did that arrive?”
“Yesterday. I haven’t had a chance. You were out late last night, and this morning you’ve done nothing but complain about food.”
“I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t.” The anticipation of news from abroad made turnips irrelevant. “What does he say? Where is he?”
Lotti pulled out the letter. “Cairo. It’s dated the tenth of February.”
“That’s what? Nearly two weeks ago. Does he say where they’re headed next?” The Czech army was still stuck in Dunkirk. Perhaps Peter really would be the first to get word back from Prague. The thought was thrilling—but it filled her with dread. “What does he say?”
Lotti started to read. “My dearest Lotti—”
“He’s writing in English?”
“We agreed that letters in English would make it through the censors more quickly.” Lotti looked over to Lena and raised her eyebrows. “Shall I continue?”
“Yes, sorry. Go on.”
Lotti resumed: “We reached Port Said yesterday. The Atlantic was rough, but as soon as we passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, conditions improved. We no longer need a full naval escort, and we are allowed to keep lights on at night. We unloaded our supplies onto lorries and have a day of rest before we proceed. You wouldn’t believe the merchandise in the shops here! I saw fountain pens and wristwatches. We are heading up to . . .” Lotti paused. “That part is blacked out by the censor.”
“The whole thing?”
“We are heading up to . . . to meet up with some Russian convoys. I don’t know when I’ll be able to write next. You can send post to the fourth place on the list I gave you.
“That’s Tehran,” Lotti said.
“Goodness! What else?”
“How is Charles getting on? What is his weight? What about the rocket attacks? I take out the photograph of you and Charles every night and—”
“All right.” Lena smiled and held up a hand. “You don’t have to read all the personal sections. I don’t mean to pry.”
“He sends his regards to you. And Milton.”
“So, if they’re meeting up with the Russians, they’ll probably move quickly. He could soon be in Prague.”
“I know.” Lotti gave a small shudder. “Heaven knows what he’s going to find there.”
The possibilities lurked, unvoiced, battling each other inside Lena’s brain: a tiny kernel of hope struggling for air in a rising tide of despair.
Milton invited Lena to come to Sussex for the weekend. “Mother insists on seeing you again. She says I’ve been remiss in keeping you away so long.”
The countryside was drab
, cloaked in a gray blanket of winter. A bitter wind buffeted their walk from the station. By the time they reached the village square, a hard rain had set in.
But there was a warm welcome at The Hollow. The grate was piled high with logs, and the smell of freshly baked bread wafted from the kitchen. Muriel gave Lena an enthusiastic embrace.
“Lena, my dear,” she said. “You’ve been in my thoughts a great deal recently. You must be so worried about your family.”
“Yes.” Tears welled up, catching Lena unawares. “I’m hoping for the best.”
“Of course.”
“My brother—or Peter—will be in Prague soon.”
“Yes. You must let us know as soon as you hear from them.” Muriel was content to leave it at that. Lena was relieved.
Lunch was a thick lentil soup and warm, crusty bread. Muriel wanted to know about Lotti’s baby, Peter’s journey, and Emil’s next leave. Milton talked about the upcoming exhibition at the Tate on the future design of housing for the common man.
“Such a novel idea—they’re proposing to build working-class homes with indoor bathrooms,” he said. “It’s ironic how much Göring has done for slum clearance in this country.”
“I think housing will be the key issue in the next election,” Muriel said. “The Tories haven’t offered any solutions.”
“Everyone seems to think the Tories are going to dismantle the wartime coalition government and force a general election right after victory in Europe,” Milton said, “with Churchill, the invincible war leader, as their trump card.”
“Their only card,” Muriel said. She turned to Lena. “What is your sense from the women you work with? Will they let the Tories mislead them again?”
“I don’t know. I think people feel grateful to Churchill. On the other hand, they really hope for a better future for themselves. They don’t want to have made all these sacrifices and then return to the old way of life.”
“Interesting,” Muriel said, nodding. “I hope you’re right. But I’m afraid they can fool a lot of the people a lot of the time, as the saying goes.”
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