Chapter Nineteen
Elsa suspected that Gertrude and Walter were far kinder than they cared to admit.
Stern, harsh and rarely smiling, they limited their conversations to short, abrupt sentences as if words and feelings were rationed like food.
They gave little away about themselves, instantly suspicious if she asked any questions about their situation.
Elsa was left to concoct a story around them, concluding that they had probably married young and only because it was the expected thing to do.
Their marriage was like the workings of a clock: each cog fitted neatly together but if one was missing, the whole thing would grind to a halt.
The passing of the butter or milk jug at the breakfast table, performed in companionable silence, reminded Elsa of the steps of a dance choreographed by predictable, well-observed habits.
By the fourth day Elsa’s strength had returned fully — along with her desire to leave.
Today seems as good a day as any to depart, Elsa thought as she took a turn around the small garden. The morning was warm and there were a few hours of daylight still left to endure.
She had spent yet another morning filled with hope that Sam would return for her and that he would have news of Klara.
She hoped he would finally come out of hiding and give her a sign.
His failure to make contact felt like a blow to her stomach.
Where was Klara? Was he still looking after her?
Would he want to remain responsible for someone else’s child when he wanted nothing more than to return to his own country?
As if to torture herself more, she imagined Sam with his family and friends, happy to be on English soil again, while Klara scavenged, terrified, through bins in a bombed-out city.
In ten or twenty years, if Sam still remembered Elsa and Klara, they would be sub-characters in his daring escape from Nazi prison guards — that’s if he admitted to knowing them at all.
Would Sam erase their existence from his story? Elsa herself had denied knowing him.
Yet denying him did not erase him from her thoughts.
His voice was constantly in her head — comforting, berating and questioning her, but always in a gentle tone, something that could not be silenced.
And although Elsa did not relish her responsibility for Klara, no longer having her near felt as if something fundamental was missing and in its place a hole that would always be there.
She stepped through the back door of the cottage with a firm conviction that she would have to leave later today to search for them.
She faltered when she noticed Gertrude fondly touching the glass of the framed photograph in her hand.
The soft smile on her lips told Elsa the moment was too personal to intrude upon so she retraced her steps, quietly opened and more loudly shut the door to announce her return.
She waited briefly before entering the room again.
Gertrude was carefully placing the photograph into a drawer and closed it as she entered.
‘Ursula,’ she said, as if Elsa had asked a question, before slowly turning away and walking out of the room.
* * *
The act of packing her rucksack twisted the knife of severance and confirmed that she was now truly on her own. It was beginning to seem more likely that Sam had broken his promise and left her behind. The realization was raw and hard to bear.
‘Walter says you’re leaving.’
Elsa felt Gertrude watching her from the doorway of the bedroom.
‘Yes.’ Elsa turned to face her, her rucksack, with its half-loaf of bread hidden in the bottom, suddenly heavy and cumbersome. ‘I was going to tell you.’ She felt a pang of guilt. ‘Walter gave me the rest of the loaf. I hope that is all right with you.’
‘I know. He told me.’
Gertrude walked into the room and stood before her, each fingertip neatly touching in front of her waist. ‘Walter can give you a ride to the station in the wagon.’
‘I don’t have any money for a ticket.’
‘I would like to think if our positions were changed, your mother would have bought my Ursula a ticket — if she were still alive.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Would she have done that?’
Elsa thought of their home in Gollnow, bursting at the corners with refugees.
‘Yes, I think she would. Who is Ursula?’
‘My daughter.’
Gertrude opened a drawer, withdrew a pair of socks and offered them to her. ‘Take these. We have plenty. All I seem to do these days is knit and darn socks.’
The gift was generous, especially as it had come from this woman who had shown her no warmth beyond providing her with a bed and food. Generosity she could do. Emotional comfort or friendship she could not.
Elsa reached for them. ‘Thank you.’ She ran her fingers over the soft wool. ‘You have both been so kind.’
Gertrude’s nose wrinkled at the word. ‘I am not sure if I know how to be kind any more.’
Her admission caught Elsa by surprise. ‘Oh, but you—’
‘The man who brought you here was kind.’
Elsa’s heart sank. She didn’t want to talk about Sam to Gertrude.
She was only just coming to terms with the fact she had lost him.
She didn’t want to share what little she had left with a woman she barely knew, despite her kindness.
She turned away and set about packing the socks.
‘Yes, I suppose he was. I can’t remember him. ’
‘He was about the same age as my son would have been if he had lived. Diphtheria is a cruel disease.’
Elsa rearranged the bread and the socks, then rearranged them again. The silence stretched between them but Elsa did not know the right words to say. One wrong word and she would be marked as a collaborator. Gertrude broke the silence. ‘Kind people can still bring trouble.’
Elsa paused but did not turn around. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Then you should learn before it’s too late.’ Gertrude took her rucksack from her and efficiently fitted the socks between the bread and her gloves. ‘It’s best you go by train. The sooner you find your mother and sister, the better.’
She offered the bag back to her and Elsa slipped the strap through the buckle, fastened it and swung the rucksack over her shoulder. ‘I intend to.’
The woman held her gaze. ‘I didn’t tell you about my daughter, did I?’
‘You did. She . . . died of diphtheria too.’
‘No, I mean Ursula.’ She walked to the wardrobe and revealed a row of dresses.
Elsa slowly stepped forward and watched as Gertrude selected a dress.
Her eyes softened as she turned the hanger, twisting the dress beneath as if it danced before them.
The fabric slowly stilled as Gertrude paused.
‘This is the last dress I bought her. She never got a chance to wear it. I’m not sentimental but I can’t seem to throw them away. ’
‘I thought your children died in childhood. This is a woman’s dress.’
‘Irma and Georg were five. Ursula lived longer. She was twenty-two.’ She hung the dress neatly on the rail and with two sweeps of her hand straightened out the fall of the dress so it would not crease.
She stepped back to admire it. ‘We thought we couldn’t have children.
Years went by and then my beautiful Ursula arrived, followed by the twins.
She was such a happy child.’ She looked at Elsa.
‘I was going to give you some of her dresses, but I don’t think I can. ’
Irma, Georg and Ursula. Now the children had names — names that instantly created breath in their bodies, personalities in their characters and turned this woman into a mother. Gertrude had the experience and wisdom of motherhood that no childless spinster like Elsa could.
‘I would have refused the dresses if you had offered them. They bring you comfort. I wouldn’t want to take that from you.’
‘Ursula was mentally disabled. Physically she was perfect, but she was too innocent and precious for this world. She needed us. She would always need us. But we fell ill in the winter of 1940 so we had to send her to an institution to be cared for.’ She stiffened in defiance, answering the charge that she must have felt others whisper.
‘We still loved her. When we were better we were going to bring her home again.’
So guilt along with grief had scarred this woman’s life. No wonder she saw little joy in anything she touched, smelled or saw.
‘I’m sure she knew that.’
Gertrude lifted an eyebrow as if expecting a question. ‘Do you want to know how she died?’
‘Only if you want to tell me.’
‘The institution — the government — considered her “unsuitable to live”.’
Elsa’s mouth dropped open in horror.
‘We knew nothing about it until the deed was done. We went to bring her home and . . . that’s how we found out. They called it a mercy killing. If that is mercy, then I want no part in giving mercy.’
Elsa had heard a faint whisper of such things years ago, but at the time it was too awful to believe.
Back then, Germany was winning the war and the future looked bright.
A story about killing disabled men, women and children was just the sort of thing people unhappy with Hitler would spread.
The tale had disappeared — disgruntled voices were soon silenced — put firmly to bed along with other negative whispers from the opposition and condemnation from the Church.
Yet, if this woman was telling the truth, it really had happened.
This mother’s only surviving child’s life had been swept away as if it were dirt.
The truth of it was etched into the lines on her face.
She had brought this horror out of the darkness and into the light.
Suddenly Elsa felt uncomfortable in her own skin. She had been dropped into this damaged woman’s life and, by her age and sex, was a stark reminder of everything she had lost. She reached out to touch her hand, but Gertrude flinched away.
‘I don’t know what to say to make things better for you.’
‘There is nothing anyone can say.’
‘I could stay a little longer.’
‘There is no need. I have lived with my loss for years now.’
‘You must have hated—’
‘Hated Hitler?’ Gertrude closed her eyes and shut her out. ‘No. I have to believe in him. If I’d lost my trust in him, my pain would have been even harder to bear.’
Elsa left the room, hating herself for not being able to handle this woman’s twisted pain. She might be trying to fool herself, but grief and bitterness were so ingrained in the fabric of the house that it was beginning to suffocate all those who lived there, including herself.
Elsa paused at the bottom of the stairs. Gertrude was a woman, after all, and to walk away from someone who was silently suffering felt like an alien thing to do. She looked up at her. ‘I’m sorry for your loss.’
Gertrude remained at the top of the stairs, her eyes staring into another time and her lips thinly set. Only the slight tremor of one hand betrayed that she had not become a lifeless statue.
‘Thank you for your help, Gertrude.’
The sound of her name brought the older woman back to the here and now. Her gaze fluttered to land on Elsa and she immediately lifted her arm in a defiant salute. ‘Heil Hitler!’
Elsa shook her head. ‘I can’t, Gertrude. Not any more. I stopped believing a long time ago.’
It was the first time she had dared voice this change of heart to a stranger, yet somehow she was not afraid to say it to Gertrude.
She turned and opened the door, preferring to step out into the fresh air rather than witness Gertrude’s reaction to her admission.
The bright sun temporarily blinded her, blocking out the gaggle of geese crossing her path.
She could hear the squawking but could not see the birds.
Was this how Gertrude lived her life? Unable to face the truth so she could carry on living?
Grief hung in every room in Gertrude’s home, while the picture of Hitler, the man responsible for at least one child’s death, hung on their wall and continued to impassively watch their every move with black, emotionless eyes.
His presence silently demanded of every person passing beneath him their ongoing loyalty, a reminder that he had eyes and ears everywhere.
She should have taken a hammer to it and broken the spell so the truth could seep back into their lives.
Elsa’s vision cleared and she found herself watching the family of noisy geese waddling happily away into the distance.
She set off walking at a brisk speed and soon she was leaving the village behind.
She owed Walter and Gertrude her life, but she could not trust them.
If only everyone could live in peace and not fear expressing what was on their mind. She had lived that life for years.
Vivid memories of Kristallnacht rose before her: the shouts of the mob, the Rabbi being dragged from his home as her mother sobbed, the acrid odour of smoke.
The devastation. The loss. And the next day, the empty chairs in the classroom, the silent shops with broken windows.
The hate-filled speeches, and the indoctrination she herself had played her part in.
Each memory accused her of being part of the problem, because she was one of many who had not spoken up when it mattered most.