When It's Over

by Barbara Ridley

  Lena got no further, because Lotti wailed. She clasped her hand to her mouth and continued reading, eyes wide.

  “What?”

  Lena scooted her chair next to Lotti’s, to read over her shoulder. As soon as Lotti finished one page, she passed it to Lena. They spoke not a word; Lotti intermittently gasped or moaned, and Lena heard strange, guttural noises that must have come from her own throat. The letter was long, six—no, seven—sheets. The words on the page, the first from Prague in years, swam before her; she blinked to clear her vision. She wanted to stop reading but couldn’t. The writing got smaller and more scraggly as the letter progressed, as if Peter had been trying to finish it in a hurry, and Lena read faster and faster as she raced to the finish.

  First the good news . . . Peter began. But there wasn’t much good news. Lotti’s mother was alive, still in Terezín, which was under quarantine now because of a typhus outbreak. She had somehow survived, but Lotti’s father had succumbed two years ago. Peter’s mother had also survived, had been with Lotti’s there in Terezín, and had been released early, before the quarantine, because she was married to an “Aryan”; in fact, she had been deported only two months ago and was in relatively good health.

  The rest of the news, my dearest, is almost all sad. . . . Peter’s father had died of a heart attack just after his wife’s deportation. All of Lotti’s aunts and uncles who had stayed in Prague had perished; Lotti’s neighbors the Buryáneks had not survived; the Steffels had all died in Auschwitz; there was no word yet about Gerta or Rosa or Max or Edit—all believed to have been deported to Lodž . . . The list went on and on.

  And then the news Lena had been dreading for months, years:

  Tell Lena I went to her parents’ flat on Malostránské nábřeži. Strangers are living there. They would not open the door to me. The nice lady upstairs—I cannot remember her name, but Lena will know who I mean— told me that Lena’s mother and the little girl were both deported to Terezín early on, in January ’42. She showed me a postcard she received from Lena’s mother two months after that. There has been no word since. It seems they were probably deported to the East later that year. There are still people returning; they arrive at the train station looking like walking skeletons—some are dead on arrival—but very few women or children among them. I’ve left notes on the bulletin boards of the offices of the National Council, but I have to say, it’s a long shot. Tell Lena I am so sorry.

  Lena and Lotti held on to each other in the London flat and sobbed. Lena’s body shook so hard, she feared she would never be able to stop. The world was reduced to a wretched, gaping hole of pain deep in her belly.

  It was a long time before either of them spoke.

  “I have to go see my father,” Lena said, wiping her face with her sleeve. The words took her by surprise.

  CHAPTER 46

  LONDON/AYLESBURY, JUNE 1945

  Another surprise in the days that followed: she also wanted to see Otto. She sent him a note suggesting neutral territory, rather than the flat on Donegal Street. They met in Hyde Park on a Saturday afternoon and walked toward the Serpentine. The weather was bright but breezy, with stacks of cumulus clouds looming over the bandstand. Lena told Otto about Peter’s letter.

  “It turns out my mother and sister were both deported to Terezín—very early,” she said. She had to pause to compose herself. “In January 1942. So long ago.”

  Otto said nothing. But it was a calm, accepting silence—not pregnant with criticism. She was grateful for that.

  “I have to wonder if my writing that letter to my mother in the summer of 1940 placed her at increased risk. You remember? When my father really wanted me to contact her.”

  “There’s no way to know. No sense in torturing yourself with that.”

  She nodded. She took a deep breath before continuing. “Peter said there’re people still returning from the camps in the East. He’s put up notices.”

  They had reached the water. Lena looked at Otto and stopped. He gazed back, not unkindly. In that moment, Lena knew: Máma and Sasha were dead. She knew it; she felt it with an absolute certainty.

  After all the years of fooling herself. All the years of closing her eyes, blocking her ears, pushing the truth away, arguing with Otto, hating his pessimism. All those years when she’d been thinking of them and talking to Máma in her mind and wishing them safe, they’d been dead. All those birthdays of Sasha’s when Lena had thought of her turning twelve, thirteen, fourteen; she had probably never made it past eleven.

  She sat on a bench and buried her head in her hands and sobbed.

  Otto sat next to her and placed a hand between her shoulder blades. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  A woman walked right in front of them, supervising two young children in the partition of bread for the ducks. Lena lifted her head and watched in silence until they moved on.

  “You were right about so many things, Otto,” she said at last, in a whisper.

  He was silent for a while. Then he said, “I heard from my cousin in Berlin.”

  Cousin in Berlin? Lena stared at him in amazement. He’d never spoken of a cousin. “He told me my brother, Hans, was killed on the Eastern Front. At Kursk. Back in ’43.”

  His voice was controlled, but Lena detected a hint of emotion below the surface. “So he also has been dead for . . . two years.”

  “Oh, Otto. I’m sorry. I . . . You didn’t often speak of him.”

  “No.” He was staring at the ground, scuffing the stones at his feet. “After he joined the Nazi Party, I didn’t want to have anything to do with him.” He picked up a pebble and tossed it into the water. “But he was my only brother. My only surviving family.” He turned to her. “This cousin who wrote to me is a second or third cousin, or something, someone I barely know. I don’t know how he tracked me down.”

  “What are your plans now? Are you going back?”

  “I don’t know.” He shrugged. “Berlin is in ruins. Half the city is under American control. And I don’t have a valid passport, of course. I’ll have to see what happens.”

  He looked like a lost little boy. Lena had to fight off an urge to take him under her wing and protect him.

  His upper body twitched, as if he, too, had felt that urge and wanted to brush it aside. He tossed another stone into the Serpentine.

  “I understand you want a divorce.”

  Lena shot him a look of surprise. “Eva told me.”

  “She did?”

  “Yes. Didn’t you tell her that?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “So, you’re going to be the Lady of the Manor one day?”

  “You know that’s the last thing I want. I couldn’t stand that.” Uncanny how he managed to zero in on the one thing that worried her.

  “But you want to be with Milton?”

  “Yes, I do. And I want to stay in England.”

  He nodded gently, staring at the water. “I hope you’ll be happy, Lena. You deserve it. I’ll do whatever you need for the divorce.”

  He lightly patted her arm and stood over her. With another quick nod, he left. Lena watched him retreat along the gravel path, his tall, lanky frame fading into the distance, his jacket tails flapping in the breeze. She fought off the impulse to run after him.

  Milton said he would come with her to see her father in Aylesbury.

  “But I haven’t seen him in years. And he’s very difficult. Very reactionary.”

  “He’s your father. And you need to see him. I won’t go if you really don’t want me to, but I’d like to be with you. I’d like to meet him.”

  “At one time, I swore I would never speak to him again. But now . . .”

  They took the train. Outside the station, arranged on opposite walls, they saw the posters of the National Government, featuring a huge photograph of Churchill, LET HIM FINISH THE JOB, and the Labour Party’s response, WE ORGANIZED FOR WAR. NOW LET’S ORGANIZE FOR PEACE.

  Milton bought a stack of the morning newspapers
. “The Daily Mirror is throwing its full weight behind Labour,” he said. “They’ve taken up the cause of the serviceman—the confusion about the service register, the slow pace of demobilization, the fact that so many have no homes to return to. Look at this!” He pointed to a headline over a photograph of a fatigued-looking soldier, helmet askew: VOTE FOR HIM. “They’re galvanizing the women’s vote— very shrewd.”

  Lena nodded quietly and fought back tears. He dropped the newspaper and put his arm around her. “I’m sorry. I’m being insensitive.”

  “No, no. That’s good. I’m glad.”

  She was glad. It was important to look to the future—what else was there now? She reached for his hand and watched her reflection in the window as the train picked up speed through the battered city streets. Máma and Sasha had been dead for three years. Every morning she looked in the mirror and repeated this to herself, trying to let it sink in. When did they die? Where? Were they together or apart? Did they suffocate in a gas oven, or did they die from starvation or disease? Would she ever know? Did she want to know?

  “I’m so angry with my father that he left them behind,” she said. New, this anger, bubbling up through the layers of grief.

  Yet when he opened the door of the dilapidated cottage he shared with another retired Czech officer, her anger wilted. He stood with shoulders hunched, a worn green cardigan sagging at his elbows. His eyes, cheeks, jowls had all drifted down with the force of gravity; he looked as if he were sinking into the ground. He had aged fifteen, twenty years.

  “Father,” Lena stammered. “How are you?”

  He shrugged his shoulders and turned his palms upward—the familiar gesture, but a weakened version, despondent, rather than dismissive. He signaled for her to enter and looked out into the street.

  “Where’s that young man of yours?”

  So he remembered that Lena was not coming alone.

  “Milton is taking a walk. He will come later.” Her words sounded stilted.

  Father nodded and shuffled ahead of her down a narrow hallway, into a small kitchen. It faced a side alley and an adjoining cottage and was dimly lit, in spite of the brightness of the noon hour outside.

  “So, you received my letter?” Lena said. The thought of it made her lower lip quiver.

  He nodded again and sank into a chair at the table. He motioned for her to sit opposite him. He ran his hand across his bald scalp.

  “This may sound harsh to you, Lena,” he said, “but I resigned myself to this bad news some time ago.”

  Lena groaned and opened her mouth to respond, but he silenced her with a hand held high.

  “Not when we left—that’s not what I mean. I’m sure you’re upset with me for leaving them in Prague. I understand that. But you have to believe me when I say I had no idea they would be in such danger.” This sounded like a well-rehearsed speech. “We knew it wouldn’t be easy,” he continued. “That there would be shortages and the like. But we never imagined—”

  “You could have left earlier. You could have left when I did, before the war. Plenty of people did. The Nebels left for the Dominican Republic, I remember. They got out. But no, you couldn’t leave without all the silver and the carpets, all the trappings of your bourgeois life.” Lena’s voice grew more animated, her anger mounting— but then she looked at the gaunt old man sitting across from her and she couldn’t do it. She couldn’t maintain her rage. It wouldn’t bring them back.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “No, you’re right. Knowing what we know now . . . we should have left. It was easy for you young people. You could pick up and go. And I’m very glad you did. But it’s not so simple when you’re older, more set in your ways.” He fiddled with a white ceramic salt-shaker on the table, moving it in slow circles, tracing the pattern on the yellow oilcloth table cover.

  “We did try,” he continued. “We sent some things ahead to Paris, you remember. But we left it too late. And then we lost some time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was arrested.”

  “What? When?”

  He looked up. “Soon after the Nazis arrived. Before the war started. You had to bribe people left and right to get anything: papers, foreign currency, and such. I paid someone who denounced me. Or maybe he was an agent provocateur. Who knows?” He shrugged. “But I was in jail for two months, and by the time I was released, it was too late. The war started and put an end to all that.”

  “This was before the war started? When Máma was still able to write to me?”

  Father nodded.

  “Why didn’t she tell me?”

  “Your mother probably didn’t want you to worry.”

  Lena’s eyes filled with tears. She reached across the table for his hands. He gave hers a gentle squeeze and tapped her forearm. “Let me make you some tea.”

  Above the cooker, four plates, bowls, and cups were neatly stacked on a shelf; next to that was another shelf, with two small saucepans and a frying pan. Large spots of mold darkened the wall above the counter. Lena wiped her eyes and watched him fill the kettle.

  “What are you going to do, Father? Are you going back to Czechoslovakia?”

  “No. There’s nothing to go back for. The Czech army gives me a pension here. Not much, but it’s something. Colonel Steiner and I will look for something better, a nicer place to live. He also lost his family.” He turned to face her. “The English have been very decent to us. We must always remember this.”

  There was a knock at the door.

  “That will be Milton,” Lena said. “Shall I get it?”

  “I can still answer the door in my own house, Lena. I’m not helpless, you know.”

  Lena couldn’t help smiling as he shuffled back down the hall. She watched as Milton stood, filling the open doorway. The two men shook hands.

  “Lieutenant Colonel Kulka,” she heard Milton say. “I am honored to meet you. I am so sorry about your loss, sir.”

  CHAPTER 47

  LONDON, JUNE–JULY 1945

  Milton set a huge stack of the Sunday newspapers on the kitchen table. A front-page photograph showed Churchill waving to a crowd, left hand raised in a V for victory salute, right hand holding his signature cigar.

  “Gladys, the older woman from my office, saw Churchill when he toured through Fulham last week,” Lena said. “According to her, everyone was cheering wildly and shouting ‘We love you, Winnie.’”

  “Is she going to vote for him?”

  “Well, no. That’s the thing. She said she’s voting Labour. She says we have to move forward now.”

  “Wonderful,” Milton said. “You see, that’s what the press just doesn’t understand. People can still admire Churchill and be grateful to him, but he looks like a tired old man. And he’s incapable of implementing the Beveridge Report and the reforms people want to see.”

  “Are you two talking about politics again?” Lotti laughed as she entered the kitchen, carrying Charles, and offered him to Lena, who sat him on her lap.

  “This is the final week,” Milton said. “We’re going to Essex Road later, to hand out voter instruction leaflets. Why don’t you come with us?”

  “I’m a little busy.” Lotti smiled. She was packing. In five days, she and Charles would be leaving for Prague. Peter had made arrangements for them to be on a repatriation flight, along with dozens of Czech RAF pilots. Emil would be on the same flight.

  Charles reached for The Sunday Times and was intent on chewing the front page. Lena extracted the paper from his grip and offered him a rusk instead. She nuzzled her chin against the downy fuzz of his scalp. She kept thinking of what Peter had said, how he’d ended his letter, the last paragraph, which Lotti had reread out loud so many times: We have to remember one thing above all else. All that matters is the new generation. Charles and his future siblings.

  Lena would miss Charles and Lotti. She understood why Lotti was leaving, why she and Peter wanted to be in Prag
ue. Lotti was taking Charles to meet his grandmothers. But Lena was staying. Next week, she was to move into Milton’s flat in Mecklenburgh Square.

  “Look at this,” Milton said. “Unbelievable. Instead of retracting his comment about the Gestapo, Churchill is repeating it. GESTAPO IN BRITAIN IF SOCIALISTS WIN, SAYS PM. The Tories seem oblivious to the backlash this created.”

  “It’s a terrible thing to say,” Lena said. The mere mention of the Gestapo made her sick to her stomach. “That’s not something that should be thrown around like a common insult.”

  “It put a lot of people off.”

  Lotti returned, carrying a stack of freshly laundered kitchen towels. “Don’t get your hopes up too much,” she said. “You’re just going by what you see here in London. You don’t know what the whole country is thinking. Yesterday in The Times—I did actually manage to read the paper yesterday—they predicted a Tory majority of seventy seats.”

  “We have to keep our hopes up,” Milton said. “That’s what it means to be progressive. There is no other possibility. We have to hope and work hard and get out the vote and believe that we can build a better world.”

  “Yes, of course,” Lena said. But, she thought, I’ve done nothing but hope for the past five years. For all the good it did.

  Lotti had been gone for almost three weeks now. Lena missed her dearly. But she focused on settling into the flat in Mecklenburgh Square. She relished living in just one place, instead of alternating between her flat and Milton’s, carrying the next day’s work things with her whenever she spent the night. She rearranged the furniture in the living room. She came upon a secondhand van Gogh sunflower print on Portobello Road and hung it in the kitchen. She found a nice piece of cod at the fishmonger’s in Covent Garden; she baked it with a thinly sliced tomato, and it was very tasty—Milton said he’d had no idea she was such a good cook. He took her to see John Gielgud in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Haymarket; they sat in the balcony and held hands. They spent lazy Sunday mornings in bed.