Forty-Two
Forty-Two
C hampagne flutes clink; quiet conversation purrs.
Soft laughter. Background music on the gramophone—Bruckner, I think.
Nothing inappropriate for a family still grieving their firstborn and gathered together to see in the New Year.
Close family and friends only, comforting with the intimacy of their presence.
I watch them from my position next to the fireplace, my back pleasantly warmed by the lively fire burning in the grate.
Oma, dressed in black, is seated in the center of the room in Vati’s armchair, sipping sherry and resting her swollen ankles on the ottoman.
Mutti, her sweep of hair midnight dark against the claret red of her dress, a thin smile painted on her pale face, moves among her guests.
My bubbly aunt Adèle, her rather dour daughter, Eva, and Eva’s fiancé, a fair-haired SS officer, stand close to her, smiling and attentive, as I suppose one would, in that position.
Lord Mayor Otto Schultz, his wife, and three grown-up children stand together with Judge Fuchs and two other men.
I recognize the editor, Josef, from the newspaper; Vati’s secretary and a few of Mutti’s closest friends and their husbands are also here.
I was permitted two guests, and I chose Erna and Tomas, who stand together with Eva, her intended, and Adèle.
I have no wish to talk with anyone in the room at all. A glass of champagne hangs in my hand in readiness to usher in the New Year. I’ve not yet touched a drop.
Vati, resplendent in his velvet dinner jacket, rushes into the room.
“Friends, guests, look at the time! We must listen to Herr Goebbels make his New Year address.” He turns on the radio and someone lifts the arm to silence the gramophone. It has already begun.
... 1938, a year of miracles. With the Anschluss of Austria, eighty million Germans have been united in one great Reich, with the return of ten million in just one miraculous year.
It would be easy to forget the magnitude of what we have achieved in such a short space of time.
It would be easy to forget the impossibility such achievements would have seemed before they happened, which appear almost easy, now that they have.
The doubters among us, of which a few remain, scoff and point to the inevitable small and trivial problems that crop up from time to time.
These doubters, this minority, with their money and education, trust more in their cold reason than in the warm, idealistic hearts of the masses.
They dwell in the past, hardly in the present and not at all in the future, lacking the imagination to see the greatness of our national German future.
For these weak and quivering doubters, problems are there to be surrendered to, not mastered and surpassed.
We will not win these complainers over. But the masses want nothing to do with them.
At the close of this momentous year, the people can be delighted with what has been achieved, and we can look forward with confidence and courage to 1939. ..
Tomas is suddenly at my elbow. He smiles down at me, then leans in and says into my ear, “I have some... particular... hopes for 1939.”
“Oh...” I veer my head away.
He slurps champagne from his glass in a way that makes me think he hasn’t drunk any before. I smile at him, and he rocks back on his heels, his face a poster of optimism.
The speech is over, and Vati claps his hands to say a few words.
“As you all well know, it has been a difficult year, particularly for my dear wife, Hélène. But, with your support, dearest of friends and family, I believe we are through the worst. Let us hope that 1939 brings us personal peace, and we go forward to this new year with courage, steadfastness, and resolve in our hearts to continue this great mission of ours, now we are part of a family of eighty million great German hearts, beating as one, toward our common destiny. To the Fatherland, Heil Hitler!”
Applause breaks out around the room and everyone drinks to the future.
Erna and I lock eyes and she knows I am thinking of Walter at this moment. How can I toast the Fatherland that has driven an ocean of despair between us? She dispatches Tomas to find Ingrid to top up her glass.
“Hetty,” she says, once he’s out of earshot. “You’re pale as a ghost. What is it?”
I don’t tell her of the niggling worry I’ve had the last few days. Something that should have come, but hasn’t. We move to a quiet corner of the room where we cannot be overheard.
“Two days ago,” I tell her instead, “I went back to Lena’s café and met with Walter’s mother. I’d made him a promise...”
“What promise?” Erna brings her head close to mine, so no one else can hear.
“I said I’d help. I promised Walter I’d try to get Walter’s father and uncle out of the camp.”
“But, Hetty, you can’t—”
“It was so pathetic, Erna. She was so pathetic. She begged me, cried and cried and begged and begged as though I were her last and only hope. If they’ve not been released by now... Honestly, I wonder if they’re even alive.”
“There is nothing you can do, Hetty. Nothing! What did she expect—”
“Here we are!” Tomas lurches into us, shoving a full champagne flute into Erna’s hand. Some of the contents fizz over the side of the glass. “Prost! Down the hatch!” He smiles and tips his own glass into his mouth.
“Sip it, Tomas, slowly, please,” Erna says with a sharpness in her tone. “It isn’t beer. Actually, could you give Hetty and me a few moments? Please?”
He looks from Erna to me and winks.
“Fine. But I’ll be back.” A shudder runs down my back.
He sways off toward Eva’s officer. I wince at his ungainly frame, his loud laugh.
“I shouldn’t have invited him.”
“He’s okay.” Erna smiles and waves a dismissive hand. “You were saying?”
“I remember her, Walter’s mother. Years ago, long before we moved into this house.
Mutti, Karl, and I must have been invited there for tea.
I was probably only six or seven. But I do remember her.
She seemed so elegant. Not like Mutti’s elegance, but something different.
She had a sort of carefree confidence. Mutti has always been vulnerable , I suppose.
Reliant on Vati for everything. But this lady, so petite and delicate, yet vibrant and full of energy.
The person in the café, Erna, was totally different.
She was this miserable, feeble, reduced person.
Unwashed and poor and desperate. It made me realize: if a person is treated like a stray dog, they become one. ”
“That’s awful, Hetty, truly. But you can’t do anything. It’s too big a problem for you alone.”
“No. I realize that now. But there may be a way we can help the children. Walter mentioned in his letter about this kindertransport . Special trains are taking children to families in England, until their parents can find somewhere safe to go. Do you think your father might know how this can be arranged?”
“I don’t know. I’ll ask him. But promise me, you mustn’t do or say anything in the meantime. It could jeopardize everything. If your father should get an inkling of what you’re up to—”
“But I promised Walter. How can I not even try? All the men of importance are here in this room. They talk of great achievements and victories, but there’s another side to it, isn’t there?
I should use this opportunity. To speak out .
If I don’t, who will? I’ll never be able to go back to that café with my head held high.
I can’t sit and look at that woman and tell her I can’t do anything. ”
Erna’s eyes widen.
“Hetty, you’re not thinking straight. You managed to help Walter, and that has nearly cost you dear. If you say anything at all against Hitler or the government, you are finished and so, very likely, will be our little resistance movement. You’d be signing my family’s death certificates too.”
Tomas returns again and we stop talking.
I look around at the guests, at Mutti and Vati, and wonder how it came to be that I feel like a stranger in the room.
I T ’ S THREE THIRTY in the morning and Vati says his good-byes to the last guests to leave the party, Otto and his family.
The front door bangs shut and the two of us are left, face-to-face in the entrance hall, silence settling around us.
Mutti has long since gone to bed. Ingrid and Vera, the girl who will shortly replace her, are finishing the clearing up in the drawing room.
“Well,” he says stiffly. “Time for bed.”
He moves past me and I catch his arm.
“Vati...”
He starts as though a vile creature has landed on his arm.
“What?”
Erna’s and Bertha’s advice reverberates through my mind. Keep quiet. Forget Walter. Move on. But visions of damaged, broken Walter plague me. The thought of what’s happening to those remaining in that camp, and what could happen to his dear mother, won’t let me rest.
“What?” Vati barks again, his face hard and impatient.
“I’m... I’m sorry for everything. I hope you can forgive me.”
It’s meant as a preamble, but even to my ears they sound like the words of a coward.
“Yes. Well, that will depend on you, and how you conduct yourself from now on.”
“I’ll do my best, Vati.”
He straightens his shoulders and looks at me, eye to eye.
“We will put it behind us, but I shan’t forget. There is to be no more wandering around this city without your mother knowing your whereabouts. There is to be no more... mixing... with undesirables. You will be the daughter I deserve. Nothing less.”
“Yes, Vati,” I whisper.
“Go to bed, Herta.”
I swallow the words I promised myself I’d say this evening and watch him walk heavily upstairs. Instead of begging words, a different plan is replacing them. I will not be bowed by Vati and his threats. I can be a better person than that.