The Pianist’s Wife

Chapter Three Six Months Later

Chapter Three

Six Months Later

Amira stood beside her father, her palm pressed tightly to his as she stood at the graveside and stared at the coffin being lowered into the ground. There was a small group gathered, people who’d offered friendship and kindness to her family despite what was happening throughout Germany, and a few more who were there to support her father. At first, Amira had been permitted to keep attending school because her father was German, because all they cared about was that she had at least one parent and two grandparents who weren’t Jewish, but eventually she’d stopped of her own accord and stayed home to help care for her mother. She no longer even felt like that girl who’d stood before her teacher all those months ago – she’d had to grow up almost overnight and learn to look after her family.

It was almost impossible to believe that her mother was gone now. In the beginning, they’d pretended as if nothing was happening, as if they could just ignore her illness and press on. There had been so much hate all around them, Jews being turned away from stores or being spat at on the streets, people no longer making eye contact with those they knew weren’t pure Germans, which meant that at home they’d tried to maintain a facade of normality until the very end, especially when it was just the three of them. It felt like eyes were burning into her back when she went to the store sometimes, and she was only grateful that her mother wasn’t leaving the house anymore, so she didn’t know how bad things had become.

Some of their neighbours had continued to support them, leaving meals on their doorstep or sending small bunches of flowers, and Gisele had continued to defy her mother, dropping by with little bunches of hand-picked flowers and tales of what was happening at school.

‘It’s time to go,’ her father said, his face drawn as he placed a hand on Amira’s shoulder. ‘It’s time to thank everyone for coming and then go home. I don’t want to draw any more attention to us than we already have.’ They’d purposely kept the service as short as possible, with no mention of her mother’s Jewish heritage, but her father had ensured she was buried the day after passing as a small nod to the religion she’d been brought up with.

‘But I don’t want to leave her yet,’ she found herself whispering, hurt that he could even think of going. He gave her an agonised glance. ‘Can’t we stay a little longer?’

‘We can come back at dusk, once it’s just the two of us. But for now, I don’t want to draw any more attention to us.’

Amira stared down at the simple wooden casket one last time and remembered the pretty lilac-coloured dress they’d buried her mother in, imagining that she was going to be waiting for them at home wearing it, her hair loose about her shoulders as she waved to them from the door. She would never forget the way her father had gazed at her mother when she was wearing it only three years earlier, before the sickness and everything else; the way they’d once danced around the living room in each other’s arms, as if they hadn’t a care in the world.

‘Amira!’

Gisele? She’d barely turned when her friend flung her arms around her, holding her so tightly that Amira could hardly breathe. She’d never felt so relieved to see anybody.

Her father left her side to shake hands with someone and thank them for coming, which gave her the chance to hurry off with Gisele without him noticing. When they reached the edge of the gravestones they began to run, only stopping when they could hide behind the trees, out of sight of those gathered.

‘I didn’t think you’d be able to make it,’ Amira said, slightly out of breath as they sat down on the grass. ‘Does your mother know where you are?’

Gisele shook her head. ‘She thinks I’m meeting friends from my Jungm?delbund group.’

Amira toyed with the edge of her skirt, before finally looking up. ‘I miss her already. She’s only just gone and I already miss her so much. I don’t know what we’ll do without her.’

Gisele reached for her hand and wrapped it in both of hers. They’d seen each other as much as they could since everything had changed, but now that Amira wasn’t allowed to attend the same school as her, and with Gisele’s parents forbidding her from going to Amira’s house or inviting her to theirs, it had been difficult. But they’d taken to writing notes and hiding them for each other, and secretly planning to meet sometimes in the early evening when they knew they wouldn’t be caught. And now, as they sat together, they didn’t need to say a word to know what the other was thinking. It was the way their friendship had always been.

Voices alerted them to the fact they were no longer alone, and they huddled tightly against the tree, their backs pressed against the rough bark to make sure no one could see them. Amira had often wished to be invisible over the past year, and never more so than today when she heard what the two women were saying; women who’d been friends with her mother at some point, or so she’d thought. Women who’d come over for tea, who’d been perfectly happy to sit in her mother’s front room and sip from their finest china, until one day when they’d suddenly stopped coming.

‘If you ask me, that poor family will be better off now, don’t you think?’

‘She was nice enough before we knew better, but to think she was living so close to us!’

‘I dare say that Güntha will be on the lookout for a proper German wife now.’

‘He must have been sick to the stomach knowing what his wife was, but he wouldn’t have wanted to break his vows and end the marriage.’

‘I don’t know if any German woman will be keen on the daughter though, so he might find it hard to meet someone new.’

‘What are they calling them now? The mixed-breed ones like his girl?’

Gisele shook her head and placed her hands over Amira’s ears. But Amira pushed Gisele’s hands away. As painful as it was, it wasn’t new to her. In the beginning it had been only a few mean boys, but now no one seemed to try to hide how they were feeling.

‘They’re calling them Mischlinge,’ the woman said, her voice hushed as if by even saying the word she was making herself dirty. ‘But no one knows if she’s a first-degree or second-degree one. It all depends on how many Jewish grandparents they have as to how bad they are.’

‘Well, thank goodness they’re not letting any of them go to our school anymore! It’s the only decent thing to do.’

The two girls sat in silence until the women were long gone, the pain of their words still lingering.

‘My mother was always the first to help them,’ Amira said. ‘When they had a new baby or someone was sick, she was always the first neighbour to cook meals and send baking over. It’s like they just forgot all of that.’

‘I don’t understand what’s happened to everyone,’ Gisele whispered. ‘It’s like they’ve all gone mad. Even my parents, it’s like they just woke up one morning and changed. They say the most horrible things, things I would never want you to hear. My mother’s the worst, it’s like all she cares about is being seen as this perfect party member.’ Gisele shook her head. ‘All she seems to think about is how to make the right friends and be invited to the right houses. It makes me sick.’

‘I just want to be normal again,’ Amira whispered. ‘I just want to go back to school again and walk down the street to get an ice cream without feeling like everyone is staring at me.’

Gisele wiped her nose with the back of her hand and sat up straighter. ‘Well, I don’t care what anyone says. I will always be your friend.’

‘I don’t want you to get in trouble for me,’ Amira said, sniffing back her tears. ‘If someone told your mother you were still seeing me...’

Gisele shook her head. ‘I don’t care what she says. I will always protect you, and when we’re older, my parents won’t be able to tell me what to do. I don’t believe what they’re saying about the Jews and I never will. It’s all a lie.’

‘But what if it never changes? What if I can’t go back to school? What if I never get to be a teacher or get married?’ What if something worse happens?

‘That’s still going to happen, Amira, I’ll make sure of it,’ Gisele said. ‘Remember when we used to dream of moving to the city? You were going to become a teacher and I was going to become a famous musician? We were going to go to dances every weekend and do whatever we wanted?’

‘I remember.’ Of course she remembered. And Amira didn’t want to doubt her; Gisele had been loyal to her when everyone else had turned their backs, but she knew there was nothing Gisele could do to make sure she could still experience those things. It was as if everyone had forgotten that they’d once had Jewish friends, that they’d once all been the same. Until they suddenly weren’t.

She thought of the way her mother had touched her cheek, even in the last weeks, her palm cool against Amira’s face. This cannot go on for much longer, my love , her mother had told her. Everyone will come to their senses. There is no basis for this cruelty, we just have to hold our heads high, stay strong, and pray that it will all be over soon.

‘I have to go,’ Gisele said. ‘But I’ll see you again soon, I promise. I’ll hide a note for you in the garden, by the roses.’

‘If it becomes too dangerous, if you don’t want to be seen with me...’

‘Don’t say that.’

Amira gave her a quick hug, standing up with her and watching as she darted away. She waited until Gisele was out of sight before going back to find her father, who seemed relieved to see her. He placed his hand on her arm and she felt it shaking as he led her away; her poor father, who’d always done his best to look after his wife and daughter. She was only grateful he hadn’t heard what those awful women had said.

She hated the way these people treated her father, as if he’d somehow been tricked into marrying her mother, as if she’d been a monster that he was finally rid of. Amira only wished they’d seen the way he’d held her mother as she cried from her pain, the way he’d touched water to her lips when they’d been dry and cracked, as he’d sat with her until she passed. Her father had told her mother before she died that she was an angel, and that was what Amira wanted to remember. He loved her and Amira more than anything, that much was obvious.

But for some reason, the only words circling her mind now were the ugly ones those awful women had muttered as they’d passed her, not knowing that she was hidden in the long grass behind the trees, listening. And she was left wondering if they’d have even cared if they’d seen her, or whether they would have just kept on talking as if she didn’t exist.

Amira woke to the noise of something falling. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes, realising that she must have fallen asleep on the armchair when they got home after the funeral. They’d both been exhausted afterwards, her father pouring himself a drink and staring out of the window in silence as she’d tried her best not to cry. They’d both been so tired, not just from the funeral but from the past few months of seeing her mother slip away before their eyes, and her father’s tenseness had been obvious in how quiet he’d been.

She stood and brushed down the creases in her skirt, before going to look for him. She would need to start dinner soon, a job that had fallen to her when her mother had taken ill, but she took comfort in the fact it was something she could do for him.

Amira walked down the hall and stopped at her parents’ bedroom, seeing a pile of her mother’s clothes and other belongings at the foot of the bed. It was then she realised what he was doing, and her heart plunged.

She went up behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder, feeling him jump beneath her touch.

‘Do we have to do this so soon?’ she asked. ‘Can’t we wait?’

‘No, we can’t,’ he said, and when he turned she saw tears in his eyes. It was the first time she’d seen him cry since her mother had passed. ‘I could feel it at the funeral, Amira. Things are getting worse by the day.’

She stood by as he hurriedly stuffed things into bags, stunned into silence as she watched her mother’s things disappearing. It was awful, like she was being erased.

‘It doesn’t feel right,’ she said. ‘Not today.’ Not on any day.

‘I have to,’ he said, and when he looked up at her again, she saw a frightened man. And it unnerved her more than anything, realising that her father was scared – he was only a slight man but he’d always seemed so strong to her, so capable, until now. ‘It’s the only way, Amira. We have to erase all evidence of her from our lives. It’s the only way I can keep you safe. It’s the only way I can keep you alive.’

‘Not everything, please,’ she whispered, collapsing to her knees beside him as he dropped a framed photo into a bag. ‘Please let me keep something. Surely we don’t have to get rid of everything?’

He paused for a moment, glancing around the room. It was strange being with him like this – in the past, she’d have never sat quietly on her own with him, just the two of them. Amira and her mother had been joined at the hip, and she’d often sat on the bed and talked to her mother as she did her hair or make-up, watching her in the mirror. But she’d never sat in the bedroom with just her father before.

She watched as he reluctantly reached for the bottle of perfume her mother had kept on her nightstand, holding it out to her instead of adding it to the rest of her belongings.

‘Take this and use it sparingly,’ he said. ‘I don’t want to do this, Amira, but I don’t see any other way. This is what she would have wanted. I promised her that I would do everything I could to save you, that I would stop at nothing to keep you alive. The only other things we’ll keep is her jewellery, because we never know when we might need to have valuables to trade.’

Amira nodded, trying her very best not to cry, but when he turned away she ran quickly into her bedroom, taking a photograph of the three of them from beside her bed and quickly prising it from the frame so he couldn’t take it. She reluctantly folded it in half and tucked it inside her skirt so that her father wouldn’t see it.

What if I forget what she looks like? What if one day I can’t remember her face without looking at a picture? There was no way she was going to let him erase everything. She couldn’t.

‘Amira?’

She went back into her parents’ bedroom, glancing at the bed that her mother had still been sleeping in until the very end. Her father sat down and she went to him, sitting beside him and immediately dropping her head to his shoulder. She knew that he wasn’t a beast, that he was only behaving in this way to try to protect her, but it was still hard not to cry, seeing him throwing away all of her mother’s things.

‘Amira, we’re going to leave here and move to the city,’ he said. ‘We mustn’t tell anyone about your mother or about your grandparents, do you understand? This is to be our secret. This life, we have to pretend as if it didn’t exist once we leave, that she was never Jewish.’

She nodded, biting down hard on her lip to stop herself from crying. Amira understood why – it was impossible to live in Germany and not understand that everyone hated Jews now – but it still made her heart ache. Amira’s mother might not have practised her religion after she married, but Amira still felt that she would have been upset to think of her heritage being lost entirely.

‘Your mother was stronger than I ever was, Amira,’ he said. ‘She defied her father’s wishes by marrying me, but we were in love and she refused to let anyone tell her what to do. She always knew just what to say or how to go about something.’ He sighed and rubbed at his eyes. ‘I’m trying to be more like her, to do what she would in the same situation, and I know that she would do whatever was necessary to keep you safe.’

Amira nodded her acceptance, not used to seeing her father look so broken. But he was right, her mother wouldn’t care about belongings if it meant them both being safe.

‘But we have to be careful, and we have to be clever,’ he said. ‘I’m going to make myself indispensable to the party, to keep you safe. Now that your mother has gone, you’re everything in the world to me, and that’s why I’ve already made false documentation for you. Once we’ve left here, no one will know you’re Jewish, and we have to promise not to talk about our past life, not to let anyone find out about your mother. Do you understand? We will be anonymous there, in a way we can never be in a smaller town.’

Amira nodded, her lower lip trembling as she tried to comprehend what he was saying.

‘These papers will save your life, Amira, but we still have to be careful,’ he said. ‘We will tell everyone that your mother died when you were just a girl, that I have raised you on my own. There is no reason for anyone to be suspicious of our story, not if we’re careful, not if there’s no one around us who knew us before.’ He paused and looked her in the eye. ‘I’ve forged your papers myself so they are the best they can be, but there will always be risks. I want to make you understand that.’

She nodded, not sure if she did understand or not. All she truly knew was that everything was changing, and not in ways she wanted. How was she going to live without her mother? She loved her father, but it wasn’t the same as having her mother to guide her, or coming home to her mother’s hugs and the smell of her cooking clinging to the air, and she no longer understood what the future held. Was she to be a prisoner in their own home so that no one ever discovered her, or would her new identity mean that she could pretend she was someone else and go back to school? That she still might grow up to be a teacher?

Her father’s arm went around her and she held on to him, crying with him as his shoulders sagged and his body shuddered. He loved her mama, she knew that, but if he told her that they had to keep a secret, then keep a secret she would.

But she’d also made a promise to Gisele, and she couldn’t just leave without telling her.

‘Papa, my friend, Gisele,’ she said, wiping at her eyes. ‘I—’

‘She’s not your true friend, Amira,’ he said, cutting her off, as if she’d said something truly alarming. ‘No one who knows who you are is your friend anymore. You have to forget about everyone you knew before, because they cannot be trusted. Do I make myself clear? The only way we can be sure to keep you safe, for this all to work, is if we leave everything and everyone behind.’

‘But Papa, Gisele is different, she—’

‘She isn’t different, Amira,’ he snapped, his tone making her recoil. ‘They’re all the same. You need to understand that.’

But you’re not like that, Papa. Is it so hard to believe that Gisele is as kind-hearted as you are?

‘Amira, if you want to stay alive, you will do as I say. Do you understand? We are leaving this life behind, and you are to forget all about your friends. You will make new friends in Berlin.’ He sighed. ‘It will be a fresh start, for both of us.’

Amira swallowed and looked her father in the eye. ‘Yes, Papa. I understand.’

But for the very first time in her life, she had lied to her father. Because she had no intention of ever forgetting about Gisele. She was her best friend and she always would be, no matter what.