The Pianist’s Wife

Chapter Forty New York, 2006

Chapter Forty

New York, 2006

‘Amira, you chose to stay married after the war, even though you and Frederick could easily have gone your separate ways when you finally arrived in New York,’ Madison said. ‘May I ask why? Why stay married and not just remain friends?’

Amira smiled. She knew it was a difficult concept for younger generations to understand; they couldn’t seem to fathom why Fred had kept himself hidden, how they could stay as husband and wife for reasons other than passion. Why they’d felt they couldn’t be themselves.

‘Because the love we shared ended up lasting a lifetime, and because companionship suited us both after what we’d endured,’ she said. ‘We couldn’t imagine being parted, not after everything we’d been through, after what we’d survived together. Not being husband and wife? It was never something we discussed, because it was just who we were, especially after our daughter arrived. There is still something to be said for feeling safe.’

‘So you loved him, then? As a companion?’ Madison asked. ‘Despite it all, you would describe it as a loving union?’

‘It was true companionship, a relationship that I am so fortunate to have experienced. We both knew passionate love with the partners we lost during the war, but after that, we were content with the friendship we had,’ she said. ‘We were content with each other, we felt safe with each other, and we never had to pretend that we weren’t still in love with the partners we’d lost. And we shared something that no one else could possibly have understood – irrational fears and a barrage of emotions after our time at Buchenwald.’

Madison was silent for a long moment, and so Amira continued.

‘Whether other people can understand our relationship or not isn’t my concern, it never has been. But we kept each other’s secrets and loved each other deeply in our own special way, and no one can ever take that away from us. No one has ever loved me more than Fred has, and I know the same is true of my love for him. It was simply a different type of love, a platonic love, but a love nonetheless. It was enough, for both of us.’

Madison cleared her throat. ‘Your daughter, Esther,’ she said, hesitantly, as if she didn’t truly want to ask the question. ‘Did she know that Frederick wasn’t her biological father? Was it something you ever felt the need to share with her?’

Amira’s eyes filled with tears once more, and she sat quietly until the moment had passed. Of all the questions she’d been asked, this was the one she found hardest to answer. Not because she didn’t know what to say, but because she’d always felt as if Fred was Esther’s true father and hadn’t wanted him to feel as if he were anything less. By the time Esther was born, Amira had felt as if even she believed that Fred was the only father her baby had ever had.

‘Frederick was Esther’s father in every way that mattered. Did she know that I was in love with someone else when she was conceived?’ Amira nodded. ‘Yes, she did. Fred was the most loving, loyal father to Esther, but she knew about Maxi. I couldn’t keep him secret, not from my own daughter, not when he meant so much to me. And Fred understood.’

‘And you and Gisele, did you stay in touch after the war?’

Amira smiled at the mention of her friend’s name.

‘Friendships such as those, what Gisele and I shared, they are not the type of friendships one ever walks away from,’ she said. ‘I’ve loved Gisele most of my life, for what she did for me, for what she was prepared to sacrifice to keep me safe. For what we both endured.’ She sighed. ‘I don’t think anyone could describe a better friend than the one I had in Gisele, other than Fred of course.’

‘And what about Hans?’ Madison asked. ‘How did you feel about him once you left Buchenwald? Once you heard what he’d done?’

Amira sat with the question for a moment, considering her answer. It was one she’d thought about many times over, and every time, she came to the same conclusion. Perhaps she’d been too quick to forgive, or perhaps it was the fact that Hans was Gisele’s husband, but she couldn’t hate him. She couldn’t hate the man who’d helped her to stay alive, even if he had been partly to blame for Fred’s arrest.

‘I think it’s important to understand the man that Hans was raised to be,’ Amira said, having considered her words carefully first. ‘We cannot judge him based on a man in modern society today, we must look at the way boys were brought up in Nazi Germany, the ideology they were taught by everyone around them, the expectations placed upon them. Many Germans said they did not know what was truly happening, they claimed innocence about what was going on around them, but they knew. The gas chambers were too close for them not to know, the deportations happening in plain sight, so I will never accept ignorance as an excuse. And Hans never tried to plead ignorance, so I did respect him for that,’ she said. ‘My sympathies lie with those raised to hate, raised to believe in something that they had never known or seen an alternative to. And by that, I mean the children who had never known a different world to the one they were raised in.’

Madison nodded.

‘In the end, Hans believed he was a monster, but I will always remember what he did to help us stay alive, the risks he was prepared to take to save us,’ she said. ‘I think that, given the way he was raised, given the rank he held and the safety and privilege that rank afforded his family, it makes what he did for us all the more extraordinary. It makes his lack of ignorance quite remarkable, and the more years that pass, the more I can see just how extraordinary that was. He was not your average SS man, that was for sure.’

She was silent for a moment, so very tired from all that she’d shared, but knowing that she’d done the right thing. It was time, Fred. It was time for me to tell everyone the truth about our lives, to share our story with them so that our lives will never be forgotten.

‘My Fred was the brave one. Make sure you write that in the article. He was the one who was truly brave, and he was the genius. It’s him you should be writing an article about, not me.’

She had told the truth when she’d said they had a shared understanding. Almost like an untold secret that had clung to them, their losses hidden from the world, but also the thread that connected them.

We were like no one else, my love, but it worked. I wouldn’t trade our memories and the years we shared together for anything.

She sat up a little straighter as she closed her eyes, remembering the day Fred had told them they were moving to New York; holding her daughter in her arms, a newborn swaddled in a blanket; she remembered Fred excitedly pointing out the Statue of Liberty, his eyes wide as he looked back at her; the smell of New York City, so different to Berlin. And she remembered the very first time Fred had played at Carnegie Hall, the audience enraptured with the man behind the piano, silent until they erupted into applause as he stood before them on the stage, not realising what he’d sacrificed, what he’d endured, to even be there onstage performing. The energy and passion he’d channelled into his music, the trauma that he’d masked; it had made him a pianist like no other. New York wasn’t the city of their birth, but the city they’d chosen to love; and the city that had loved them back unconditionally. The city where she’d finally been able to fulfil her dream of being a teacher, and making a difference in the lives of children who’d lost their parents. The orphans she’d cared for in Berlin had always stayed in her heart, and that had fuelled her desire not only to volunteer, but to raise funds for them, too.

It all felt like a lifetime ago on the one hand, but only yesterday on the other, and Amira would have done anything to step back in time and be that young woman again, to listen to Fred play one last time, to bask in one more smile, to glance at him and know that he understood the pain she’d lived with ever since the war had begun, and long before it, too.

It had been a long time since Amira had cried, but tonight, her tears were for all she’d lost. For the things she would never forget.

And for Fred.

The love of her life, the man who’d shown her how to live after loss. The man she’d risked everything for, and never regretted doing it for even a moment.

Life just wouldn’t be the same without him.