The Pianist’s Wife

Chapter Seven Seven Months Later

Chapter Seven

Seven Months Later

‘Amira,’ Gisele said, propped up in bed with her fourth child – another son – in her arms. Her cheeks were pink, as if an artist had come along and stained the centres. She looked almost angelic sitting there with her blonde hair curling around her face. ‘I’m worried about you. You’ve lost so much weight.’

Amira didn’t know what to say. She wasn’t going to lie to her and say everything was fine, because it wasn’t. Maxi had been gone for seven months now, and she was fast running out of money to support herself. Her father had had money hidden away in their safe for an emergency that she was now using, but she doubted even he had imagined she would be left to fend for herself indefinitely.

Ever since her father had died, she’d been a nervous wreck; it was affecting her in every way possible, especially now that she’d received a notice to vacate their apartment. It was needed for a family and it seemed that, despite her father’s loyalty and dedication to the party and his job, they weren’t concerned about where his daughter would live. And she wasn’t brave enough, or stupid enough, to ask questions and face the scrutiny that might come along with it.

‘Amira? I’m worried about you. I know you must be terribly anxious about Maxi, and after your father—’

‘Everyone has lost weight, it’s nothing, and I’m coping as well as can be,’ she eventually said instead, trying to sound bright and taking the baby from her as he began to stir. Amira carried him around the room, hushing him and rocking him back to sleep, determined to change the subject. ‘You, on the other hand, I can’t believe you have another baby.’ In truth, she wasn’t coping at all. It had been two months since she’d heard from Maxi, and four weeks since he’d officially been reported missing, and some days the worry made it almost impossible to breathe.

‘Well, there’ll be no more after this one! I intend on telling Hans that he will need to stay away from me from now on. It will be separate beds before he knows it.’

They both laughed. ‘It’s wonderful though. I’m so proud of you. You’re an amazing mother.’

Amira stared down at the baby in her arms, wondering whether she too would have been a mother by now if things were different. But she knew instinctively that she would have been. She would have been a teacher until she married, and she would have had a baby just as soon as she could have. She blinked away tears as she rocked the baby, not wanting Gisele to see how emotional she’d become.

When she circled back around to Gisele, she noticed a little booklet sitting on the bedside table. She passed him back to his mother.

‘What’s this?’ she asked, absently picking it up. ‘Instructions for looking after the baby?’

Gisele raised her eyebrows. ‘I could raise this one in my sleep. Besides, there’s no instruction manual for babies, silly.’ She paused and indicated that Amira should sit beside her on the bed. ‘It just so happens that it’s information about the Mother’s Cross of Honour award.’ Amira couldn’t help but notice that Gisele’s cheeks had turned a darker shade of pink again as she spoke. ‘I’ve been nominated to receive a bronze award.’

‘The award for women having huge numbers of babies from the Führer?’ Amira asked.

‘Apparently having four children for the Reich is worthy of recognition.’

She nodded, not sure if Gisele was telling her in order to receive praise, or if she was as horrified by it as Amira was. ‘Well, I suppose congratulations are in order then.’

Gisele swatted at her. ‘Oh, stop it! It’s nothing to be congratulating me for,’ she whispered. ‘And I certainly don’t want congratulations from you.’

‘Well, you have made a lot of babies,’ Amira teased, relieved by her friend’s response. ‘I actually do believe you deserve a medal, just not this particular one.’

‘I’d rather like my husband to give me a big gold medal, or perhaps just a gift for all the sons I’ve bestowed upon him.’

They both laughed again, and Amira opened up the booklet as Gisele began to feed the baby. It felt good to laugh after so many months of sadness – she could barely remember the last time she’d even smiled.

‘When do you receive the award?’ Amira asked.

‘It’s on Mother’s Day, so the second Sunday in May. I’m purposely not telling my mother so she can’t come, but I would selfishly like you to be there just so we can laugh about it together afterwards.’

Amira looked up at her friend, seeing the pleading look in her gaze. She knew how uncomfortable something like this would make Gisele. ‘If you want me to come, then I’ll come. I know you’d do it for me if the situation were reversed.’

‘I hate all this, you know,’ Gisele said with a sigh. ‘I’m so proud of my children and I love being a mother, but I don’t want this.’

‘I know,’ Amira said, relieved to know that her friend hadn’t changed.

Amira ran her eyes over the information in the booklet, settling back as she read it.

‘They truly just want German women to become baby-making machines,’ she muttered. ‘But look, if you have enough babies you might get to have tea with the Führer. Apparently that would be a reward for your dedication.’

Gisele just rolled her eyes when she looked back at her.

‘I thought you would have got to the part by now about me being treated like royalty when I’m out running errands or shopping,’ Gisele said. ‘No more waiting in line at the butcher’s or at the grocery store. I even get the best seats on the bus for my mothering efforts, I shall have you know.’

It was Amira rolling her eyes now, and she was pleased they were making light of it, because otherwise she would have been sick to the stomach. ‘Well, congratulations then. Shall I start calling you Queen Gisele? Or will Mother Gisele suffice?’

There was a noise outside the room, and Gisele touched her arm. ‘All jokes aside, we need to be careful. The midwives and doctors take all this very seriously.’

Amira held up the booklet, pointing to the page she was reading. ‘It says here that you qualify to receive a helper or a nurse in the home now.’

‘I can’t say I mind. It’s busy with four.’

‘Gisele, it clearly states that a helper will be allocated or that a mother can choose her own helper, if she already knows of someone suitable or if someone is already in her employ. This person is supposed to arrive first thing in the morning, and assist with the raising of children throughout the day, or they may live in the house.’ She turned to her. ‘Gisele, I could do this. I could be your helper! It would solve my problem of not having employment, and we both know that Hans would never think to ask for my papers.’

Gisele’s eyes widened. ‘You could live with us too,’ she said. ‘Hans would be thrilled, because you’d be helping me and keeping me company while he’s away. It would stop him from worrying so much.’

‘You wouldn’t mind?’ Amira asked. ‘You would truly be happy for me to work for you?’ She would have to give up her job volunteering at the orphanage, but that time had come anyway. Without paid employment, there was no way she was going to be able to keep a roof over her head or buy groceries.

‘I would love for you to work for us,’ Gisele said, beaming back at her. ‘All this time I’ve wished to do more for you, and the answer has been there in that horrid little book.’

‘And you don’t—’

‘Don’t say it,’ Gisele said.

‘But what if my being with you endangered the children, or put you at risk, or—’

‘Saved your life?’ Gisele asked. ‘Amira, this will keep you well out of harm’s way, and that’s what matters. Don’t start second-guessing a good plan.’

‘No, I should never have said anything. It wouldn’t just be you or me at risk, it would be your entire family. I can’t ask you to do anything that would—’

‘I’m not turning my back on you if there’s something I can do to help,’ Gisele said.

Amira hesitated. ‘If we did this, if I came to help you, you would have to promise me that you’d pretend not to know if anyone came for me. It would be my lie and my lie alone.’

Gisele stared at her for a long moment before finally nodding.

‘And you’re certain that your mother won’t want to come to the ceremony or stay with you?’ Amira asked. ‘I know she lives hours away, but—’

‘You let me handle my mother,’ Gisele said. ‘I promised you when we were just children that I wouldn’t let my mother near you, and I will keep that promise until my very last breath. She’s still caring for my grandmother, so there’s no chance she would come, and certainly not without writing first.’

They both sat in silence for a moment. Amira’s breath sounded loud to her own ears. ‘Well, when would I start?’ she finally asked.

‘I think you should start immediately! Then, when I receive the award, I can make it clear that I already have someone assisting me, and that you’re the daughter of SS Standartenführer Sch?fer, who has recently passed away. Why would anyone even think to question us?’

‘You truly think it would work?’ Amira asked, just as the rest of Gisele’s family came bustling through the door to the hospital room.

She looked up at Hans, with a still-little Lukas in his arms, as well as Archie and Frieda who came toddling over to Amira, hugging her around the legs. Hans was dressed in uniform, as always, and Amira looked away, uncomfortable seeing him in it. She tried so hard to pretend otherwise, but it always managed to make her stomach clench just thinking about what it represented and what he might believe in. It was impossible to know whether he was a man doing his duty, or one who believed wholeheartedly in the politics of the party, and she still found herself wondering if Gisele knew, or whether she preferred not to.

‘I know it will work,’ Gisele said over the noise, as she opened her arms to Lukas, who wanted to curl up in the arm that wasn’t filled with the new baby. ‘The award means something, it gives me a voice, or at least a small one, and if it means helping you...’

‘Still, I think you should ask Hans first,’ Amira murmured, not realising that he could hear.

‘Ask Hans what?’ he asked, looking between them.

Gisele smiled sweetly at her husband. ‘I shall ask him shortly, but I already know that he’ll say yes. Unless of course he’d like to be the one running around after our children all day?’

Amira had experienced many unsettling moments in her life; heart-wrenching moments that she’d sometimes wondered if she would ever recover from. But never had she felt so deeply uncomfortable as she did on the second Sunday in May when she travelled with Gisele’s family to see her receive her award. She was relieved that it wasn’t too grand – a practical affair by all accounts, with a stage set up outside a large hall and families gathered in the fresh air. All around were well-dressed women with young children, further surrounded by their extended families to commemorate the mothers who were receiving their special awards. Prizes, for populating the Reich with more and more German children. Pure children. Future soldiers for Hitler and his great army. Amira’s mother would have had something to say about this; she still remembered her whispering to her Jewish friends that they must encourage their daughters to have as many babies as possible, to ensure there was a new generation ready to tell the world the truth, so that it didn’t end with them.

Gisele’s sandy-haired older children were on either side of Amira, holding her hands, with Lukas positioned high in his father’s arms and Gisele cradling her newborn baby, Ben.

They all clapped politely when Gisele crossed the stage and bowed her head, the blue and white ribbon placed around her neck so that the medal hung at the centre of her chest. Amira had noticed that most of the women on the street had altered them and pinned them to their jackets or coats, a badge of honour worn as a soldier would display his military awards, and she imagined that Gisele might do the same with hers. Gisele might be her best friend and the keeper of her secrets, and they might have laughed about the award, but she did wonder if Gisele wasn’t just a little proud of it. She’d given birth to four children after all, and devoted herself to being a wife and mother; it made Amira uncomfortable, but it was the truth. They were still as close as two friends could be, but sometimes the differences between them stretched so wide it quietly terrified her. She couldn’t help but wonder if any of this – marriage, children, celebrating being a mother – was in her future anymore.

Soon Gisele was walking back towards them, having been released from the group she’d been standing with, and Amira watched as the children flocked to her, fascinated with the medal their mother now wore, and clamouring to touch it. Amira tried not to recoil as Frieda ran her little fingers over the swastika in the centre, set on the white centre of the blue and bronze cross, her eyes wide with wonder.

‘Congratulations, Gisele,’ Amira said, watching Hans embrace his wife and kiss her cheek as he congratulated her.

All around them other families were doing the same, and despite knowing better, Amira had the most horrible feeling that everyone was staring at her. That someone, somehow, was questioning who she was and what she was doing with the family. That they’d know she didn’t belong.

Only that morning, she’d stood in the apartment she’d once shared with her father, staring at the modest surroundings and knowing that another family would be moved in by nightfall. All of her belongings had been reduced to two large suitcases and a few smaller bags which, although heart-wrenching, was so much more than what many others had been forced to leave with. And despite trusting in her decision, she’d also devised an emergency plan, carefully sewing her mother’s most precious jewellery into the lining of her best coat, just in case she needed to leave in a hurry. And in her pocket was the last letter she’d received from Maxi, more than two months ago.

Come home, Maxi. Please, whatever you do, just come home.