Chapter Nine #2
As Billie sat with the pair of them in the administration office, it soon became clear why Mrs. Brown had been the one to come to Billie.
Her husband was not at all confident conversing in English, even with his wife there to help him along.
Mikhall managed to speak of coming to Australia in late 1936, and how grateful they were to escape Europe and what was happening there.
He backed up his wife about their only child, saying what a “good boy” Adin was, and how pleased they’d been to get him to safer shores in Australia.
On their shared desk was an array of family photographs, many showing several generations. A faded black-and-white image of a cherubic, curly-haired baby, surrounded by adults, took pride of place in a large frame. “This is Adin?” Billie inquired.
“Yes.” Mrs. Brown did not elaborate, though it looked perhaps as if she wanted to. Her eyes welled up as her attention was drawn to the photo, and she turned away, holding back her emotions. “Happier days,” she said simply.
“Where was it taken?”
“Europe,” Mrs. Brown answered cautiously. She dabbed her eyes.
“And what about this photograph?” One of the small silver frames on the desk was empty, Billie noticed. She picked it up. “Where did this one go?”
The Browns seemed genuinely surprised by this. “I don’t know where it went,” Mrs. Brown exclaimed. “I hadn’t noticed anything missing. Mikhall?”
Her husband shook his head and said something to her in German in a low voice.
“It could have been like that for a time, he says,” Mrs. Brown explained.
“Where is mein Junge?” Billie thought she heard Mikhall mutter. He was clenching his fists now, evidently overwrought. When he looked up she caught the glittering tears in the corners of his eyes. Ashamed, he wiped them and looked down again, body hunched and tense.
Billie calmly put the empty silver frame back on the desk.
“In peacetime, in places like Australia, most missing persons do turn up,” she began.
“Most young people run away to a relative, a friend, or, if they’re Adin’s age, a lover.
” Adamant headshaking from her clients followed this comment.
“I do not judge,” Billie stressed. “It’s not my job to judge a client, be it someone seeking a divorce or parents looking for their child.
Anything you can tell me about Adin—his personality, his interests, anything unusual you might have noticed recently—could help to track him down and return him to you.
Was he acting strangely in the past week or so?
Did anything seem different? His mood? His routines? ”
There was the headshaking again, and when it stopped both of them looked at Billie with vulnerable expressions, eyes hopeful. They wanted her to fix this. They needed her to.
“We are telling you everything we can,” Mrs. Brown reiterated. “We just need you to find our son.”
Mr. Brown said something to his wife again in a low voice. “Yes, you should mind the shop, Mikhall,” she agreed, and he stood up.
“Just one more thing,” Billie said as the man got up. “What do you think your son might be doing at a place like The Dancers?”
At that, Mrs. Brown’s eyebrows pulled together. Husband and wife exchanged puzzled looks.
“It’s an exclusive club off Victory Lane. Quite a high-end joint,” Billie added.
“We haven’t any idea. It’s not the sort of place he would go. We’ve never been to such a place,” she said, as if that would discount his having been present.
“Well, it is the sort of place he would go, because he did, but I agree it was not his sort of club under normal circumstances. The doormen saw him out.”
“I don’t know of this,” Mikhall said awkwardly, shrugging. He continued his short journey out of the office, those sloped shoulders and bent head leading the way. The door closed behind him. The women were again alone.
“Mrs. Brown . . . May I call you Netanya?”
Her client nodded. “Nettie is what most people call me.”
“Well, Nettie, please call me Billie, if you like.” She leaned closer. “Anything you can tell me about Adin’s life, Nettie, your family life, might help reveal why he was at The Dancers, trying to get in there. Anything. And it stays between us.”
“Do you think he got into trouble at this dance club?” Nettie looked stricken. “What was he doing?”
“At this point, I don’t know, but I’m doing my best to find out.” Billie could see that Nettie was almost at breaking point. “What more can you tell me about your family? Were you involved in the fur trade back in Germany?” Billie prodded.
Nettie’s eyes widened as Billie mentioned Germany, and then the tension went out of her and she slumped in her chair. After a beat she closed her eyes and nodded. “Yes. It is as you guess. We are Germans. It’s not a secret but we do not like to advertise the fact.”
Billie waited for more.
“We came from Berlin in 1936. Adin was quite young then, and I was worried about what I was seeing. I knew we had to leave. Mikhall took some convincing, but not much. He does not adapt so well, as you can see. It wasn’t a good time to be Jewish.
Not in Germany. Not anywhere in Europe. I was never very religious, but I am a Jew.
I will always be a Jew.” She smoothed her skirt.
“We took everything we could and started the fur company here in Sydney. It was our trade back in Germany, you see. My sister stayed, and my aunt and widowed mother. They shouldn’t have,” she said sadly.
Her face was stoic as she spoke, but her eyes filled at the corners again.
She was only just holding herself together.
Billie swallowed. She herself had reported on the infamous Warsaw Ghetto for the Hearst papers.
She recalled seeing children as young as six forced to wear the yellow Star of David on their clothing, identifying them as Jewish, which led to bullying and worse.
It was no wonder the Browns had wished to save Adin from such a fate.
No matter how successful the Browns’ fur business in Berlin might have been—and perhaps that was one of the reasons some of the family stayed in Germany—it would eventually have been seized by the Nazis along with all their property.
The fate of Nettie’s family members in Germany was not difficult to guess.
“You changed your family name?” Billie asked gently.
Mrs. Brown nodded. “Braunstein was our name. We simplified it.” She searched Billie’s face for judgment, some hint of rejection, but found her unchanged, professional and steady. “Do you think that all this . . . matters?” she finally asked.
“No,” Billie said. “The name doesn’t matter, so far as your son’s situation is concerned, but knowing the family history may prove helpful. You managed to avoid internment, is that right?”
Nettie nodded again. “Yes. We had naturalized. ‘Alien nationals,’ they called us, but though we were no longer Germans we still had restrictions on our movements. We weren’t allowed to travel without notifying the Australian authorities, and we weren’t allowed to own a wireless or a camera, even for work.
We had to pay someone else to take photographs of the merchandise.
It was expensive. A hard time for the business,” Nettie reflected.
“I imagine so.”
“My husband was too old for conscription, Adin too young,” she added.
“We registered the factory to offer the manufacture of fur-lined uniforms, to try to do our bit, and we did make several hundred when they were needed. Rabbit, mostly. For a time it looked like Mikhall would be sent to a labor camp, but it did not happen. The rules kept changing,” she said.
How terrifying it must have been to flee Germany only to have the government of another country, let alone neighbors and rival business owners, view you with suspicion, Billie reflected.
It sounded like the Browns—or Braunsteins—had been luckier than some, and certainly luckier than their loved ones who had remained in Berlin.
But Billie could understand now why Nettie had seemed cagey, as if withholding something.
She pushed back memories of the war—and Jack.
Him running out from their position to intervene as a young Jewish girl, identified by the compulsory Star of David armband on her dress, was tormented by two older fair-haired boys, the boys pulling at her clothing and slapping her, calling her filthy names like rat and Judensau as she wept, terrified.
The girl had finally been thrown to the ground, her clothes torn.
Jack scooped her up like she was as light as a feather and dried her tears as the boys ran away.
They’d been children. Just children. Already taught to hate with such violence.
Jack.
“Do you know why your son might be interested in an auction? Have you heard of Georges Boucher before? The auctioneer?” Billie asked.
At this Nettie appeared utterly baffled. “An auction? What was he thinking?”
“I’m not sure. Does anything in this advertisement ring a bell?” Billie pulled the folded newspaper clipping from her pocket and spread it on the desk.
Nettie barely glanced at the clipping, shaking her head, clearly flabbergasted, then ran a hand over her face, wiping tears that had started to form again.
“Where would he get the money to buy things at an auction? Or to go to this Dancers place? What could he have been thinking?” She now raised her hands, palms to the ceiling.
“Are you sure you are looking for the right person? My son, Adin?” she demanded.
“Yes, it is him,” Billie confirmed, unruffled by her client’s tone. “Can you look again?” she pressed, but the woman was shaking her head adamantly. “Do you think it is possible he is in debt of some kind?”
At this Mrs. Brown gasped. “No. How?”
“There’s nothing missing from the till?” Billie pressed, folding up the clipping again.
Nettie looked shocked at the suggestion.
“I handle the finances, Miss Walker, and I assure you there isn’t a shilling out of place,” she said indignantly.
The strength was back now. She’d have to be a strong woman indeed to get through what she had.
And yet more strength was needed now, it seemed.
No matter what the fate of her only child was, she would worry terribly until it was known.
Billie hoped there would be an easy, cheerful resolution to the case. She knew only too well the agony of not knowing what had befallen the person closest to your heart.