What Only We Know: A heart-wrenching and unforgettable World War 2 historical novel Read online

  People in the rows around had started to mutter. Liese longed for Michael to be quiet and knew that he couldn’t be.

  ‘Don’t you get it? Everything from the stadium to the prettied-up streets: it’s all window dressing. In two weeks’ time, when the visitors go, the slogans and the arrests and the boycotts will be back. I know you believe me, or you wouldn’t have blushed when I called you out for shouting your devotion to Hitler. What I don’t know is why you’re pretending none of this matters.’

  Otto, more conscious than Michael of the mood in the surrounding seats, grabbed his son’s arm. Michael shook him off. He was so focused on making Liese believe him, she doubted he could see anyone but her.

  ‘What do I have to say to persuade you that danger is coming? You must sense it. Didn’t you notice that there were no tramps or drunks on the streets today? All this nonsense about us being “safer in our beds under our new government”. More horseshit. The streets are empty because the Party’s rounding up everyone they don’t count as German anymore and dumping them in camps. There’s a massive one at Oranienburg, barely an hour from the city. There’s rumours of torture there, of killings.’

  Someone yelled at him to shut up. Liese winced; Michael didn’t notice.

  ‘People I know, from the meetings I go to, have disappeared—’

  And then his words were lost in the blast of a cannon and a furious squawking as thousands of doves burst into the sky. Liese screamed in fright as the birds’ frantic wings shook the air, as their grey bodies merged into a storm cloud.

  More faces turned; more complaining.

  ‘What are you doing, making such a show?’

  Liese had never seen her father so white.

  ‘It’s my fault, Herr Elfmann; forgive me. I upset her.’

  Liese could see from Michael’s stricken face that he was genuinely sorry. He tried to push in between Paul and Liese, but a burly man from the row behind was already on his feet.

  ‘You’ve upset everyone with your communist filth. And as for this one, screaming like a banshee, and in front of the Führer. It’s unpatriotic; it’s a disgrace. If you people don’t know how to behave, you shouldn’t be allowed in.’

  You people floated off through the stands to be clapped at.

  Paul bowed and reached into his pocket. ‘I must beg your forgiveness: someone has clearly chosen my guests for today rather badly. Their sentiments embarrass me as much as they, quite rightly, upset you. I will make sure they leave immediately. Now, you, sir, you look like a man of good taste. Take my card, please. You must come to my salon tomorrow and choose something pretty for your wife. Will that smooth the day out?’

  The wife’s beam assured Paul that it would.

  Liese stared at her father, waiting for the nod that would signal that this was a charade, a face-saver. There was nothing in his voice but contempt.

  ‘Get out, both of you.’

  Liese looked to Otto for help, but his expression was studiously blank.

  ‘Don’t react. Don’t let him see that you’re hurt. It’s my fault, not yours. And it’s about the business, not you.’ Michael’s hand was on her elbow, his mouth at her ear.

  Liese shook him off, her eyes bright with tears she wouldn’t let him see. He had the sense not to speak again as they crept out of the stadium and back through a city that was no longer beautiful.

  The whole fortnight of the Games, not just the first day, had been ruined. Paul and Margarethe had carried on with their whirlwind of events and receptions and confined Liese to the house as if she had the plague. Even if she had been allowed out, the gloss had gone: Michael’s words had scoured away Berlin’s shiny veneer. More importantly, Paul’s fury at the potential damage to the salon’s reputation had been implacable. If it wasn’t for her skill with the perfumes, Liese doubted her father would even be speaking to her tonight. Well, he had reopened the door to the only parts of her life that mattered and Michael’s moods were not going to close it again.

  ‘Did you ask them, about school and not going out?’

  Michael was still growling.

  Liese moved towards the stairs and away.

  ‘No, I didn’t. I don’t care about school, I’m glad to be finished with it.’

  She shook her head as his eyebrows knitted.

  ‘But I did listen to you, okay? And, despite what you seem to think, I do read the papers. I know there are restrictions – that the Jews can’t marry who they want anymore; that they can’t vote. I don’t like it – of course I don’t – the same as I don’t like seeing the horrible posters that have reappeared, like you said they would. But, tonight, I don’t want to think about any of that. Besides, whatever is happening doesn’t mean my father is wrong. It certainly doesn’t mean your brand of politics is right. So, can we be done?’

  ‘You haven’t listened at all or you wouldn’t talk about the Jews and they as if they were some alien species.’

  Liese steeled herself for another angry outburst, but all she could hear in his voice was shock.

  ‘I don’t understand, Liese, I really don’t. Whether you feel part of their heritage or not, you can’t deny that your father’s family are Jewish, and likely your mother’s too, given where they’re from. So why do you insist on thinking you’re different from everyone else who’s been dealt the same label? If you read the papers, you’ve seen the race charts: the slightest drop of Jewish blood means you’re a Jew, no matter how deep you bury it. It means you’ve no place in the Party’s new Germany.’

  Thinking about the evening later, Liese wished that was the point at which he had stopped. She told herself that, if he had, she would have apologised, smoothed things over; persuaded him to join the celebrations with a smile. He hadn’t, so neither did she.

  ‘Liese, come on! Are you really so stupid you can’t see that?’

  It was stupid that had made her hackles flare. That had stopped her admitting that, yes, the charts that the Party had ordered to be published everywhere had frightened her. They would frighten anyone, with their horrible pictures of people who barely looked human and their family trees and diagrams of Aryan and Non-Aryan grandparents and parents, which were now used to establish degrees of Jewishness. And, of course, she hated the way Jews were written about in the papers, as if they were some other species and not even people. It made her feel sick. On a less important day, she would have admitted that. But this was Haus Elfmann’s night: it was not a time for misery. And Michael had called her stupid and he had meant it and some lines couldn’t be crossed.

  Liese whirled on him, spitting out her frustration in a stream she knew as soon as she started owed far more to Paul’s thinking than her own.

  ‘Why do you have to speak to me like I’m some kind of idiot? If anyone’s stupid, it’s you. Look at this place. Look at the clients who come here, who spend a fortune here. Look at how much they adore us. Don’t you see? We’re not the kind of Jews Hitler is bothered with – the academics and the intellectuals, or the criminals. We create jobs; we contribute. The Party knows our value. They would never come after us.’

  She expected him to stalk away, or snap back. Instead, Michael recoiled as if she had hit him, his face pinched and drawn in a way she had never seen it before.

  ‘I’ve upset you; I’m sorry. You’re right: the way I spoke to you wasn’t fair. But I know you, and I don’t think you believe this. This is Paul speaking, not you. And I know you’re tired of my lectures, that I should choose my moments more carefully. But that’s the problem: I can’t choose my moments, because time’s running out.’

  Anguish flooded his voice, catching Liese by surprise.

  ‘The world we know is disappearing. Maybe you don’t care about school, but I do. And about university. That’s all done for me: with my bloodline, with two Jewish parents, there’s not one institution left I can go to. If it wasn’t for Father’s job here, and him taking me on, I’d have no place at all to be.’ He paused as if he was weighing his words.
‘Do you want to know the truth? What I’ve never told anyone? I’m scared. I don’t like the look of the future, and I’m scared.’

  He had returned to the Michael Liese recognised, the one she couldn’t bear to see in distress.

  ‘I didn’t know that. Then I’m sorry too. I hate that we keep fighting. And, if I’m being honest, those horrible diagrams do scare – and disgust – me. I can’t relate the pictures to anyone I know. I did ask Father about our lineage, but he said it didn’t matter, that his parents were barely observant. And Mother says that kind of thing is “too old-fashioned to care about”.’

  She grimaced as Michael shook his head.

  ‘I know she’s annoying, but that’s how she is. And I honestly didn’t know university mattered to you so much. I always thought you wanted to work here at the salon, like me. But we’ll be all right – maybe the new rules make us Jewish, but no one would think it; no one cares. And it’s not like your father merely has a job – he practically runs the place. What is it he always says? “Haus Elfmann would be bankrupt in a week if I left you children in charge.” You’ll follow in his footsteps here; I know you will. You have a great future ahead of you.’

  Her impression of Otto addressing her parents was so perfect, she thought Michael would laugh. Instead, his face crumpled.

  ‘Michael, please. Don’t be angry, not tonight. I promise that tomorrow I’ll listen as long as you want.’

  There was a sudden ripple of applause from the floor below. Someone had brought in a gramophone. People were breaking into smaller groups, searching out partners.

  ‘Look: everyone is getting along perfectly. Even Minister Goebbels is smiling. Can’t you make an effort, just this once?’

  Liese started down the stairs and held out her hand for Michael to follow. He took a step back.

  ‘I am looking, Liese. But I can’t see what you see. I don’t want to.’ His voice tightened. ‘So they’re smiling – so what? One day they’ll stop. You need to do something: find a voice that’s not your father’s. Educate yourself. Come with me, to one of my meetings. I could introduce you to people who have been to Oranienburg, who know about other camps being built – far bigger ones. They’re helping me understand what we’re facing and what we need to do to fight it. They’ll help you.’

  She thought she had made a bridge back to him, but his breathing had quickened and his eyes were gleaming. His intensity unnerved her.

  One of his meetings: he meant the communists. Her father hated them; he said they were the worst threat of all. He would never forgive her if she got mixed up with that and she had no intention of being shut out by her father again.

  A record sang out below them, the music slow at first and then the tempo quickening. Liese looked down and caught the eye of André Bardou, the handsome French buyer who had flirted with her today and not with Margarethe. She was sixteen. It was a party. Michael’s fears would have to wait.

  ‘This is a reception, Michael, not a rally. And, no, I’ve no intention of coming to one of your meetings. I’ve had an education, thank you. I don’t need another.’

  She turned on her heel and headed for the stairs.

  ‘Fine, stay ignorant.’ Michael’s shout was so loud, one or two faces looked up. ‘It’s probably for the best. Taking a spoiled kid who can’t stop thinking like her daddy to a meeting intended for adults would make me the idiot anyway.’

  She should have known he wouldn’t so easily back down. Her palm itched as she swung round.

  ‘You’re two years older than me, Michael, not twenty. You can play the big man as much as you like. You’re nowhere close to being one yet.’

  But he’d gone and, even though she’d tried to have the last word, he’d won. Despite all Monsieur Bardou’s charming smiles and polished compliments, Michael’s parting shot had chipped the night’s sparkle completely away.

  Two

  Karen

  Aldershot, September 1971

  Mummy was dead.

  Karen, perched on her bed in her cardboard-stiff school uniform, clutching at words that made as little sense now as they had three months ago.

  Mummy was dead because Mummy had drowned. Which didn’t make any sense either. Mummy hated swimming. She wouldn’t go to the lido in the summer, not even to sit on the side. As far as Karen knew, she didn’t own a bathing suit, and besides, who goes swimming at six o’clock in the morning? Certainly not Mummy. Daddy was the early riser and the breakfast maker, not her.

  Mummy was dead. Which meant everything that went with her was dead. Her soap-and-roses scent. Her gentle voice. Her silky brown hair that, to Karen’s relief, she had always refused to tease into the peroxide helmet all the other mothers wore. The way they had curled up together when they shared a bedtime story. All of it was gone, snapped away from Karen as if someone had stolen a limb.

  ‘Best foot forward, Karen.’

  Father’s voice rose up the stairs, parade-ground pitched and far too cheery. Was this all she had now? If Mummy was gone, was all the softness gone too?

  ‘You don’t want to be late on your first morning.’

  Didn’t she? Had he asked her whether she cared about being late, or if she even wanted to go to this new school at all?

  Aldershot County High School for Girls. The name sounded so regimented and imposing, which was probably why Father liked it so much.

  When the letter came to say she had passed the dreaded entrance examination and secured a place at the Grammar School everyone longed to get into, Father had been more excited than she knew he could be. He had patted her head and taken the three of them for dinner at the town’s posh new Berni Inn restaurant, where he’d pushed out the boat as far as pudding. That had been barely six months ago. And now Mummy was dead.

  Karen stared at her tightly laced shoes. She wasn’t ready to deal with this new world she was facing; she didn’t know what it wanted from her. She blinked back a tear. At least she knew for certain no one wanted those.

  She’s gone, Karen. No use raking it over or getting yourself upset. The coffin was barely in the ground before everyone had decided her mourning period was done.

  Perhaps that was how death was always dealt with: done and dusted and tidied away. How was Karen meant to know, when this was the first time she’d been near it? Perhaps everyone carried these hidden holes in their middles and ‘least said soonest mended’ would work if she gave it the time, which was apparently the healer. She just wished someone would tell her how much time it took, and whether there was a way she could speed it up.

  More tears fell, splashing onto her granite grey skirt. Karen tipped her head forward and let them drop: if she rubbed her face and made it red, Father would go all stiff and gulpy.

  The trouble was that her mother wasn’t simply dead; she had completely disappeared. Father wouldn’t talk about her. The house was scraped clean of her. If Karen mentioned her in a shop, or in the library, or even to their busybody neighbour Mrs Hubbard, who was never out of their house and claimed to have been Mummy’s best friend, voices dropped to a hushed whisper. It was as if no one wanted her remembered except Karen, who was terrified of forgetting.

  She had tried very hard to stop that from happening – she had gone to the shops and bought herself a notebook and now she sat up every night with her pen, determined to write down every memory. Mummy making daisy chains in the park on a perfect summer afternoon, festooning the pair of them with flowers. Mummy teaching her to make snow angels when the snow finally fell one Christmas and not caring how wet and messy they got. Karen could see the two of them perfectly clearly, sitting in the grass and lying in the snow, but it was like looking at a photograph, at something frozen. As if the feelings that went with the actions, that Karen didn’t have big enough words for, had already faded.

  Everything had happened so quickly, Karen was still struggling to piece the disjointed days back together. The unreality of the day itself. The silent car journey home from Hove to Aldershot and the
bleakly frightening finality of the funeral. This summer of tiptoeing around. Bits were too sharp, and bits were too blurry, like one of Father’s never-ending holiday slide shows had slipped out of focus.

  The clock in the hall struck seven-thirty.

  Karen had taken the battery out of the one that had sat for years on her bedside table. It was so childish – she hated it. Noddy and Big Ears and that stupid smiling bear. She had wanted to change the alarm clock for a sleek square orange one like Laura had brought to school for show-and-tell, but Mummy said that wasn’t suitable for ‘a little girl’ and wouldn’t let her. Well, now the whole world had decided she was a big girl so maybe Noddy and his ridiculous car could finally drive off.

  Karen sat up.

  Or she could smash it. She could throw it on the floor and see its cheery face crack. Or, better still, throw it through the window and hear the glass shatter. Karen pictured the panes snapping, the shards crashing onto the path. It would make so much noise, the house would surely collapse in the shock of it.

  Nothing ever happened inside these walls louder than a door easing shut. Right now, Father was in the kitchen, getting breakfast. Karen could picture him, putting out her cup and bowl, rummaging through the cupboards and the fridge, doling out cereal. Even with all the doors open, she couldn’t hear him. He had always padded around the place like a giant grey mouse. Mummy doesn’t like noise, does she? It had always been phrased as a reminder, never a question. Especially when she has one of her headaches.