Chapter Seventeen
Elsa opened her eyes. She had been vaguely aware of her comfortable surroundings but the fog of fever had robbed her of caring .
. . until now. A lamp with an amber shade came into focus.
The fingers of her right hand felt entangled in something.
She lifted them up and saw that it was the faded wool of a crocheted bedspread.
The strong aroma of carbolic soap reminded her of the lukewarm water of bath nights when she was a child.
How quickly scalding water would cool on a winter’s night!
Clear memories of freezing temperatures vaporizing hurried breaths as Elsa quickly scrambled out of the tub so her younger sister could hop in.
Not like now. For the first time in weeks, she felt warm.
Weeks? Why weeks? It dawned on her that her surroundings were too clean, too homely, too warm to include Sam.
Her gaze wandered around the room and eventually settled on a woman sitting in the far corner quietly darning a sock.
Elsa eased a hand from the blanket and touched her cracked lips.
How had she arrived in these comfortable, peaceful surroundings?
The answer lingered just out of reach. She noticed her laundered clothes neatly folded on a chair.
The sight of her rucksack jogged a memory, nudging the pieces of the recent past to fall one by one into place.
The woman looked up as if someone had just whispered in her ear that her guest had woken.
Elsa smiled but the woman, with her dark hair peppered with silver strands, remained indifferent. Elsa eased herself to sitting. ‘May I have some water?’
The woman jerked her head towards a glass of water on the bedside table. Elsa reached for it, held the cool glass in both hands and tentatively sipped as she studied the woman over the rim. For someone who had cared for her while she was ill, she seemed rather unfriendly.
‘Are you hungry?’ Despite the question there was no tenderness in the woman’s voice and, from the slight lift of her top lip, it left a bitter taste too.
‘Not really.’
The woman suddenly got up, walked towards her and needlessly offered her more water from a jug on the dresser. ‘You should eat. I will get you something in a minute.’
‘There really is no need,’ said Elsa. She didn’t want to be more trouble than she was already being made to feel. ‘Where am I?’
The woman sniffed and replaced the jug on the dresser. ‘You don’t know?’ she asked as she returned to her seat. Instead of sitting down, she began to collect her sewing together.
Elsa shook her head. ‘No.’
‘You are not from around here?’
Elsa shook her head again. It was disconcerting to hold a conversation with someone who continued to present their back to her. ‘No. I’m from Bremen originally, but my family moved to Gollnow for work and with the Russians advancing—’
‘You are south of Soltau.’
Elsa could hear the sounds of village life from outside the window. The woman apparently did not want to give the name of the village. It appeared a line had been firmly drawn between them until she could win the woman’s trust.
The woman finally turned to face her, sewing basket and unfinished sock firmly clutched in front of her. ‘Did you travel alone?’
Elsa thought of Klara, who had spent all of her life hiding her identity in order to live.
And how, if anything happened to her, she would carry the guilt and grief for the rest of her life.
And Sam . . . with his boyish grin. She instantly felt the pain of losing him.
She had not only found comfort by just being next to him .
. . but also discomfort when he challenged her about her beliefs before the war.
Their arguments. His anger. His feelings she had betrayed him.
The fear she might never make it right with him again.
‘Yes, I travelled alone.’
‘Where is your family now?’
‘My mother and sister are in Bremen. My grandfather and brother are dead.’
The woman nodded and Elsa thought she saw the woman’s stiff stance soften a little. The first day of a wilting flower came to mind — its petals still open and battling the wind, but its strength to stand up to it a little weaker and less sure.
‘Is that where you are going? Bremen?’
Elsa nodded.
‘There are displaced people everywhere. The larger cities and ports are in a terrible state. Many have left.’
Elsa already knew that, yet strangely she had not thought about her destination in the same terms. In her mind Bremen was still in one piece, with her mother and sister waiting for her. What was the purpose of her going westward, towards the advancing front, if Bremen was no more?
‘Bremen has been hit badly too,’ the woman remarked as she refolded the sock.
‘Many families have died.’ She glanced up and, maybe seeing the horror on Elsa’s face, shrugged a glimmer of hope in her direction.
‘Many have left. Perhaps your mother and sister have found safety elsewhere, although it may be difficult to find them.’
‘I will still go to Bremen. I have to find out if they are still alive. I have to start somewhere.’
‘You do know that the enemy are advancing from the west as well as the east, don’t you?’
Elsa nodded.
The woman shrugged and began to examine the sock in her hand. ‘Do as you wish.’ She looked up. ‘You are welcome to stay here until you are strong enough to travel.’
The unexpected invitation caught Elsa by surprise. ‘Thank you.’
‘A man brought you here.’
Elsa slowly lowered her glass to her lap.
She stared at its contents, forgetting to breathe.
The woman was expecting a reply. Should she sound surprised?
Concerned? Nonchalant? Did this woman know Sam was English?
Had he been captured? Or was he still able to hide in plain sight — was he here in the house? And where was Klara?
Every answer might lead to trouble. The safer course was to claim no memory of her arrival, which would be true.
‘What man?’ She sounded almost emotionless as she spoke.
The woman tilted her head as if weighing up her response. ‘He didn’t tell us his name.’
‘Oh.’
‘You don’t seem interested that a man brought you here.’
‘I don’t remember him.’
‘Not at all?’
Elsa shook her head.
‘I suppose he must have found you.’
Elsa placed the glass on the bedside table. Her lips had left a faded kiss on the rim.
‘Where is the man now?’ she dared to ask. ‘I should like to thank him.’
The woman walked to the door as Elsa’s stomach churned with treachery and fear.
‘He left.’
Sam had left — he had not been taken away. He had not run off. He had left of his own accord.
Elsa battled to keep the ring of hope from her voice. ‘Did he say anything?’
The woman paused with her hand on the knob. She turned and stared at her. ‘What did you want him to say?’
Elsa reached for her glass again and drank more water to give her time to think.
It felt as if they were playing the same game — skirting around the truth that might land one or both of them in trouble.
If he had left of his own accord this woman had allowed him to go.
Either she didn’t know he was British or she was as guilty as Elsa.
‘I’d like to know where he found me, or how. I have walked so far. I was robbed and had no money for the train.’
‘There aren’t many trains.’
‘The last thing I remember is catching a lift with some soldiers. They dropped me off in a village. There was a lot of confusion. Trucks everywhere. Panic, even. One of the soldiers was ill. I must have caught something off him.’ She fell silent and watched the woman over the rim of the glass.
She had spoken far too much and too quickly but it was the truth and hopefully the woman would hear and accept that.
She drank deeply to calm herself. Suddenly the woman picked up Elsa’s coat and threw it onto the bed. Her quick action made Elsa jump.
‘We don’t have much food to share, but you can stay for as long as you like. I will need your stamps.’
Elsa nodded, placed her glass on the side table and retrieved her ration book from her jacket. She offered it to her.
The woman looked through her book and raised an eyebrow when she saw that no stamps had been used in the last few weeks.
‘I had no money to buy food. I was robbed.’
If the woman had doubted her story before, the ration book dispelled any lingering concerns. No sane person would not use their food stamps.
She read Elsa’s name on the cover. ‘So you are called Elsa.’ She pocketed the ration book and carried her sewing basket back to the door.
‘I’m Gertrude.’ She paused in the doorway.
‘Your saviour said very little. He seemed worried about you, but he’s gone now.
I don’t think he will be back.’ The woman hadn’t needed to offer this information, but it was gratefully, albeit silently, received.
Elsa waited for the door to close before she lay back on the soft pillow to listen to the woman’s footsteps descending the stairs.
Soon an exchange of hushed voices — Gertrude’s and a man’s — filtered through the floorboards.
The words were so muted that they made little sense, leaving Elsa still ignorant to whether they knew the truth about Sam and Klara.
If they did it would mean that they too had cooperated with the enemy.
Retaliation would be swift and without mercy if they were found out.
Compassion would be no defence. It was best for all not to question the other further for fear where it might lead.
If the rise of the Third Reich had taught them anything, it was to fear your neighbours, as not everyone thought the same as you.
* * *
Elsa remained in the bedroom for another two days.
Whenever Gertrude entered the room she was in bed; when left alone she crept to the window in the hope of seeing Sam’s solitary figure in the distance patiently waiting for her strength to return.
Each time she returned to her bed, disappointed and weighed down with childish feelings of rejection and abandonment.
He wouldn’t leave without her, would he?
He wouldn’t abandon Klara. Did he fully understand how badly Jews had been treated in Germany in recent years?
No! Sam would do the right thing. She could rely on him.
Yet, as one day turned into two, she began to doubt. Sam had told her he would be able to travel faster and find shelter more easily without a woman and child. He would also only have to forage for food for himself.
She knew Sam would not leave Klara alone.
He wasn’t cruel. He would leave her with someone.
Klara might even be better off being looked after in a house.
After all, a long journey on foot was gruelling.
Who would harm a child if she was left in front of a school or a church?
Perhaps Elsa should have done that. Was she cruel to have expected her to walk so far?
And if Klara was better off without Sam and Elsa, wasn’t it true that Elsa was better off without Sam?
Collaboration with the enemy meant death.
She could beg Gertrude for a train ticket, any train ticket, to Bremen.
She’d see her family sooner instead of hiding in barns and digging up vegetables for food.
She would make herself forget about the British prisoner of war.
Her brother had died fighting men like him.
She resolved to go to sleep pretending her tears were for her brother, her grandfather and Klara, not for a man she barely knew.
Yet she failed, because the pain in her heart reminded her that she was not yet ready to never see his face again.