Chapter 35
One morning, Mother Clara led Lizzie down to the cellar and through the food stores to a small room where she met with the Kaufmann family who had been in hiding for several weeks and only emerged from their underground prison during the night to get some exercise and fresh air.
Their nine-year-old daughter, Rosa, sat near her mother whilst her father prowled around the confines of the cellar room like a caged tiger.
‘We’re making plans for your departure,’ Lizzie said after Mother Clara introduced them and confirmed they could trust her.
‘Where will we go?’ Miriam Kaufmann asked, her pretty eyes reflecting her fear.
‘Switzerland. You’ll travel via Stuttgart, and at Basel you’ll cross the border. That will be the most dangerous part, but you can do it with the right papers and cover story. Then you’ll take the train to Bern, and there is someone there I trust who will help you.’
Miriam touched Lizzie’s arm, her eyes now brimming with emotion. ‘We can’t thank you enough. You’ll literally be saving our lives.’
Lizzie patted the woman’s hand, her own emotions stirring as she considered the dangers of such a trip. Evacuating Jewish U-boats wasn’t what she’d signed up for, but how could she look the other way when she had a route to get them to safety?
She remembered Hannah’s sobering words. ‘When this war is over, there will be those who won’t sleep well at night, haunted by nightmares and ashamed of what they did, or what they didn’t do … You won’t be one of them, dearest Anna.’
They called each other by their war widow names even in private exchanges after they learnt of the landlady’s close relationship with Herr Vogel. Who knew when either of them could be listening at their door. In the boarding house and in Berlin, the walls really had ears.
Lizzie promised she would let the family know as soon as the arrangements were completed and their papers were ready. In the meantime, they should prepare their cover story, which she would practice with them the next time she visited.
Friedrich Kaufmann stopped pacing and addressed Lizzie. ‘Thank you so much for what you are doing for us. May I ask if it is Eli Kessler who is forging our documents?’
Lizzie glanced at the mother superior, who nodded almost imperceptibly.
‘I know him only as the watchmaker,’ Lizzie said. ‘It’s safer for everyone that way.’
Friedrich said, ‘Of course.’
When Lizzie left the convent after lunch that afternoon, she had the feeling she was being watched and stopped several times to look in shop windows and discreetly scan the area, but she didn’t see anyone following her.
Nevertheless, she was relieved to make it back to the boarding house and decided she would take extra precautions when she returned to visit the forger, Eli Kessler.
The landlady was clearing her lunch dishes away when Lizzie let herself in and wandered through to the dining room. ‘Good afternoon, Frau Fischer, how are you today?’
She said she was rushed off her feet but shouldn’t complain. ‘If I weren’t so busy here, I would come with you to visit those dear little children. The sisters sound quite wonderful the way they care for them.’
Lizzie agreed they were, but did her best to divert the landlady from her idea of visiting. ‘That’s so kind of you, but you’re right, you do so much commendable work here looking after us all. I don’t know how we’d get by without you.’
‘That is sweet of you to say, Anna, which reminds me I meant to warn you and Else.’
Lizzie’s heart skipped a beat as she studied the landlady’s face, and despite the cold in the house, the heat of panic consumed her. ‘Warn us about what?’
Frau Fischer leant closer even though they were alone. ‘I shouldn’t really say, but I’ve grown fond of you girls and with no husband or mother to look out for you, I feel responsible.’
Lizzie’s mind raced with ominous threats, and she steeled herself not to show the fear that rose within her. ‘Go on.’
‘Herr Vogel informed me that the latest orders from the local authorities are to monitor single women, particularly newcomers.’
Lizzie’s throat tightened, and she fought to get the words out calmly. ‘Oh, and why is that?’
‘Well, this is top secret and really I shouldn’t be telling you, but as I said, I feel a duty of care for you girls and wouldn’t want to see you attract the wrong kind of attention which is easily done in these times.’
Lizzie had the urge to shake the landlady, whose sense of self-importance infuriated her. But she held back as Frau Fischer continued to dance around the topic for maximum shock potential.
‘It sounds intriguing,’ Lizzie said. ‘Please tell me more.’
‘Well, Herr Vogel, who reports directly to the Gestapo, said they advised him there may be female spies in the city.’
Lizzie widened her eyes as if she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Female spies?’ she repeated, her heart pumping and the blood rushing to her head.
‘Sit,’ Frau Fischer said, relishing her gossip and pointing to a chair at one of the small dining tables. ‘I’ll bring us coffee, and I’ll tell you what more I know.’
Lizzie sat down on the hard chair in a daze.
Did this mean the Gestapo was onto them?
Were they at this very moment searching for her and Hannah?
Was that why she felt she was being watched?
Panic flooded her whole body, and she clasped her hands together to still their shaking as she waited for the officious landlady to return with more deadly gossip.
When the coffee was served, Frau Fischer sat opposite Lizzie, patting her hair as she settled into her seat. ‘Herr Vogel says the Gestapo suspects we have been infiltrated by foreign female spies who could be quite young.’
Lizzie gasped. It wasn’t pure acting because she was genuinely stunned to hear the Gestapo had this intelligence.
The landlady continued gossiping, and Lizzie listened, all the while her head spinning with thoughts of what she should do next.
Should she try to warn Hannah at work? If they were searching for them, Hannah was in the most immediate danger at the Luftwaffe HQ.
‘Did Herr Vogel say where these female spies might be?’ Lizzie asked, sipping her coffee. ‘It sounds terrifying, so I’d like to make sure we avoid the area at all costs.’
‘Wise,’ Frau Fischer said, nodding. ‘I believe you are safe at the convent with the devout sisters. But Else must be wary going into the city as she does every day.’
‘But surely, they haven’t infiltrated our administrative offices?’ Lizzie probed.
Frau Fischer seemed to decide she’d said enough. ‘I shouldn’t have told you this much, so I won’t say anymore. Just make sure you have your wits about you when meeting other young women.’
Lizzie said. ‘Thank you for the warning. I will let Else know.’ Then she added, as if in casual afterthought, ‘It seems to me we would hear their accent was off if they were foreign, don’t you think?’
The landlady tilted her head to one side. ‘Yes, I imagine I would detect something strange if the enemy was in our midst, but then not everyone is as alert as me.’
Lizzie stifled her reaction. ‘I’d like to think I would spot a foreign spy too, but I don’t have your great experience of running a boarding house, so I’m grateful to take your lead.’
Frau Fischer changed the subject and asked about Hildegard. Lizzie had told her they had become friends in case she spotted them together, or Hildegard mentioned it.
Lizzie said, ‘She is a good woman and has been kind to supply me with the occasional luxury, just as you said she would. It’s good to make friends as I miss mine back home.’
‘Near Colmar in Alsace, wasn’t it?’ Frau Fischer asked.
‘That’s correct. It’s not as grand as Berlin, but you know how it is. You still miss friends and family. I’m relieved to have Else for company.’
They finished their coffee, and Lizzie went up to the attic as soon as she could get away.
Thoughts whirled through her mind as she tried to figure out what action to take.
Or perhaps it was better to take no action.
If they were watching young women, the less they gave them to see the better.
But what about Hannah? Would her movements lead them right to their source, Ingrid Becker, who had already supplied London with enough secret intelligence to be executed five times over?
Lizzie sat there, wondering what to do as she tried to calm herself. Panic helped no one, and she must override her emotions and think clearly.
At the window, she gazed out at the darkening view as shadows fell over Berlin.
What more secrets did this city hold? Beyond the tiled roofs and chimney stacks, the baroque facade and dome of Schloss Charlottenburg shimmered in the twilight.
The gilded copper weathervane rotated in the wind and mesmerised Lizzie as she stared at the dark silhouette of the palace.
Fixing the blackout blinds in place, she turned from the window and slipped her shoes and coat back on. She must talk things over with Hannah, and it wasn’t safe to do so in the boarding house.
Lizzie waited on Wilhelmstrasse, occasionally glancing at her watch and looking over at the Reich Air Ministry.
Hannah usually finished around the same time, so she hoped to catch her when she left for the day.
After the warning from Frau Fischer, she saw potential shadows at every turn and carefully assessed all those who passed by on the street.
Ten minutes later, when Lizzie’s fingers were chilled to the bone and her face ached with cold, Hannah appeared. After a soldier checked her bag at the main door, she spotted Lizzie and crossed over to join her.
‘This is a pleasant surprise. Everything alright?’ she asked after they greeted each other.
‘Let’s go somewhere we can talk privately,’ Lizzie said, and Hannah thought for a few seconds and then set off at a brisk pace. ‘I know just the place. This way,’ she said.
Soon Lizzie saw the red brick exterior of an old church in the dim light, and Hannah opened the door and led her inside. ‘We can talk here, although it’s not any warmer than out there, I’m afraid.’
They slipped into a pew beneath a tall lancet window set in thick stone, and the votive candles by the altar cast a ghostly light around the nave.
Lizzie kept her hands in her pockets, brushing over her only weapon—a steel knitting needle.
As Lizzie told Hannah what the landlady had said, their breath was visible on the freezing air, and Lizzie shivered as the night winds seeped down the aisle of the unheated church.
‘It sounds like we might be reaching the end of our time here,’ Hannah whispered.
‘But we still have work to do,’ Lizzie replied, her heart sinking at the thought of failing the Kaufmann family and abandoning little Liesel to her fate.
‘I will warn the source and ask her to gather whatever else she can for the next courier drop. It may be our last one. We’ve had a good run,’ Hannah said.
They exited the deserted church just as a man in a raincoat entered and passed them in the aisle.
‘Do you think we’re being followed?’ Lizzie asked.
‘It’s possible, although we’re registered as ethnic Germans, not foreigners, so we shouldn’t be the first to attract suspicion.’
They hurried to the station and boarded the crammed S-Bahn. Every jolt or look heightened Lizzie’s senses, and by the time they arrived back at the boarding house, she was shattered.
In the attic before bed, Lizzie whispered, ‘I think you’re right. Let’s organise one more drop, and I’ll finalise the arrangements to get our friends out as soon as possible. I’ll visit the watchmaker tomorrow to collect the papers.’
That night, Lizzie ran through the cover story she had helped the Kaufmann family fabricate and prayed that Eli Kessler would have their documents ready so they could travel to Switzerland in the next few days.
Berlin was growing more sinister, and they were running out of time. If the Gestapo discovered Lizzie’s secret, too many good people would be under the Nazi spotlight because of her.