Karen shrank back in her seat.
They had driven the rest of the way home in silence. Karen had gone straight to her room, without making a fuss, without being asked. She had waited for him to come and offer an explanation that would wipe away the dull thud of she did what that girl said and it was my fault she did it that filled up her head. He never appeared.
The next morning, Mrs Hubbard was in the kitchen making breakfast, refusing to be drawn into conversation, pushing her out the door to school.
When Karen stumbled through the gates, a circle widened round her that only Angela had crossed.
‘My mother takes pills to stop her crying.’
They had built a friendship out of that, a friendship that had gradually drawn others in. The quiet girls, the studious ones. Not the most popular group in the school perhaps, but enough to give Karen a vague sense of belonging.
A bee buzzed too close. Karen roused herself. The sun’s glare was so bright the garden had vanished.
She blundered back inside, but the house was no cooler. The heat wormed through everything, clinging to the faded curtains, crawling round the carpet’s flattened pile. Five years ago, when Father had suggested moving, Karen had screamed herself sick. Now, she couldn’t wait to be gone. But not with him. Not anywhere with him.
Karen had picked over every inch of her childhood until it gaped like a wound. No matter how deep she dug into its silences, the conclusion was the same: her mother’s death was her fault, she was certain of it. Mother had been gentle. Karen had been noisy and difficult. Not grateful; not perfect. She hadn’t been the kind of daughter her mother could properly love, or she would still be alive. Mothers stayed with their children whatever happened – everyone knew that. So Karen hadn’t been what her mother had wanted, but she had tried. She had let her mother walk her to school every day, holding her hand although Karen hated looking so childish. She had learned not to complain about the cancelled birthday parties and the trips out that the headache days ruined. She had stayed quiet even when the quiet made her want to scream. So it was definitely her fault, but it was Father’s fault too. On good days, she could make it Father’s fault more.
Karen had loved her mother, her father hadn’t. The more Karen pulled at the past, the more convinced she was of that. She remembered bringing home glitter-thick cards and shakily drawn pictures that made her mother smile. She remembered sitting on her mother’s knee and not being chased away for ‘being too big now, Karen’, the way her father had reacted when she had tried the same with him. She had kept trying to be what was wanted, even if she had got it all wrong. Her father’s efforts hadn’t come close.
He had been the one who made Mother cry, trying to drag her to dinners and dances and keeping her up in the kitchen night after night, talking and talking when she was clearly exhausted. He had been the one telling her over and over that she had to ‘buck up and get better’.
Karen hadn’t been good enough, but neither had Father. Which Karen considered was hardly surprising. He was cold and stiff and stern. God knows why her mother had married him, or how she had lived with him. Well, Karen couldn’t, and Karen wouldn’t. Two more years – not so long really – only two and then she would be gone, to a university as far away as she could get.
The heat was closing the walls in. She went to open a window, before she remembered she couldn’t. Her mother had painted all the downstairs ones shut. It was such an odd thing to do, but, as Karen suddenly remembered, Father hadn’t tried to dissuade her. ‘Whatever helps, sweetheart; whatever helps.’ Karen stopped that thought in its tracks: it cast him in a kind light she wasn’t in any mood to consider.
Maybe upstairs would be cooler.
The window in her bedroom opened right out. She could set up her easel and work on some sketches to add to her portfolio.
Karen filled a jug with water and ice cubes that immediately began melting and headed up the stairs. Halfway along the landing, she paused. Father must have been in a rush that morning: he had left his bedroom door open. Karen hovered in the doorway. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen inside. In the days after Mother had died when no one was really watching her perhaps, but certainly not since.
The brightly covered cushions were gone from the armchair; the bed was made with precision corners. The hairbrush on the dressing table was rulered into place. There wasn’t a speck of dust, or any sign of a personality: the room could have jumped from a recruiting poster. Its military sparseness filled Karen with gloom.
She was about to turn away when a memory grabbed at her: Mother’s jewellery box. It used to sit on the dressing table over by the window. When Karen was little, her mother would let her sort through its trays and emerald-lined drawers. She remembered holding earrings up to her face, twisting her head so the coloured chips glittered back from the mirror. Wrapping herself in the necklaces and bracelets and holding up her arms as if she was dancing. Loving all the pretty pieces that her mother never wore.
The heat was dredging up strange thoughts; she couldn’t have remembered that right.
Forgetting about her portfolio, Karen crossed to the dressing table and ran her fingers over the red-tinted wood.
Every Christmas and birthday without fail, Father had bought Mother something new. And she wore whatever it was for a day and then away it went, into the box.
Karen sat down on the padded seat, images whirling faster than she could corral them. Father was always so eager when Mother unwrapped the ribbon-tied packages; he always looked so pleased when she smiled. What was it he had said? Did I get it right this time? Does it make you happy?
Karen couldn’t remember what her mother had answered and why no one had ever mentioned it when the pieces went unworn. Or asked why she had packed them all away and ignored them, even though she must have known it would hurt him. More unanswerable questions.
Where was the box now? Karen stared at the stripped-out room as rage roared through her. What had he done with it? Had he cleared it away like everything else?
Anger was far easier to embrace than confusion, far easier to act on.
She wrenched the top drawer open. There was nothing in it but tidily rolled socks.
Without a care for the mess, she tore through the dresser, tipping out its contents. The drawers tumbled onto the floor, revealing nothing but him. Fuelled by a fury she refused to push down, Karen moved onto the wardrobe. Jackets and suits formed up in rows as neat as a regiment. She shoved them aside, dug into the corners. Even if the box was gone, surely there would be one thing he had overlooked, one tiny memento. Still nothing.
Karen stepped back, rumpled and sweating. There was only one place left: the long shelf above the wardrobe’s hanging rail.
She grabbed the stool from the dressing table and clambered up, sending hats and scarves spinning. Stretch and stretch and there it was – the jewellery box. Buried at the back, almost out of reach. Karen hooked it out and jumped down.
Throwing herself onto the floor, she opened the inlaid lid. The treasures she remembered were all safely there.
Karen forced herself to slow her breathing and steady her hands, frightened she might break something. She lifted the earring tray out first and ran her fingers over the chains and pendants curled in their compartments below it. Then, as carefully as if she was handling blown eggshells at Easter, Karen lifted the jewellery out piece by piece. She took her time, holding each one up to the light and pressing the metal to her skin, convinced a shiver of perfume still whispered through them.
When she had cradled each one, she lay it on the carpet with its companions, so they formed a circle round her, arranging them by colour until there was only one piece left. A heavy oval locket with an E – for her mother’s name, Elizabeth – engraved on its lid.
Karen picked it up, but the clasp was caught on the felt lining. As she tugged, a piece of the thin material pulled away at the corner. There was something underneath which looked like the edge of a piece of
paper. Expecting a receipt, or a list of the box’s contents knowing how Father liked order, Karen teased it out. It was tightly folded, slightly yellowing and so thin the centre tore slightly when she smoothed it out. Heiratsurkunde was typed in black script across the top. Karen had no idea what it, or any of the faded words underneath, meant.
She held the flimsy sheet up to the light. There was a signature at the bottom and a date, 18 April 1947, together with a stamp containing what looked like a bear and the inscription Die Stadt Berlin. She could also make out what seemed to be addresses. One had vanished down to Rathaus, but the other was clearer: Lindenkirche, Homburger Straβe. And there in the middle, printed in a darker ink that had weathered the years, were two names: Andrew Cartwright, Corporal, British Royal Military Police; Liese Elfmann, Schneiderin, Haus Herber.
Karen read them again, but the names didn’t change. Had her father been married before he married her mother, and to a German girl? It wasn’t impossible that he had been in Germany: his regiment still had troops there, as far as she knew, and, although it was never discussed, Karen knew he had fought in the war. It wasn’t hard to picture him stationed in Berlin, or involved in the fighting there. But married to someone else? That was far more of a challenge.
Karen put the paper carefully down and returned to the box. One tug and the rest of the lining gave way.
This time, the document was thicker and blue and she knew exactly what it was. A British passport. Dated 1947 – the same as the yellowing paper. It was made out in a neatly printed hand to a Mrs Liese Cartwright. When Karen fumbled it open, her mother stared back.
‘Who is she?’
Karen snapped on the hall light as the front door opened. Her father jumped.
‘Why are you still up? It’s gone eleven o’clock.’
She didn’t move from the bottom stair where she had been sitting for what felt like hours. She wasn’t certain she could.
‘Who is she? I mean, I’ve seen the picture, so I know she’s my mother, but the rest – the name on the passport and this thing – makes no sense.’ She dangled the onionskin-thin certificate and the passport with the tips of her fingers, keeping them just out of his reach.
‘What the hell…’ He stepped forward. ‘Give them to me.’ The hand he stretched out towards the documents was shaking.
He’s afraid. He’s acting like he’s in charge, but he’s afraid.
The knowledge gave her courage, kept her voice steadier than she had thought she would manage.
‘Who was she? My mother, I mean. What was her name? It can’t be the two here. Liese Elfmann makes no sense and neither does Liese Cartwright. My mother’s name was Elizabeth.’
And there he was, back again. Chest all puffed up as if he was on parade. Addressing her as if she was one of his rawest cadets.
‘Karen, I don’t know what nonsense you are imagining, but this is neither the time nor the place. Those things do not concern you; you had no right to take them and I won’t tolerate such behaviour in my house.’
It might have worked if he hadn’t been so obviously sweating. If she hadn’t heard that pompous tone so often that she was numb to it.
‘What are you going to do? Put me on a charge?’
She stood up so that they were more equally balanced and thrust the flimsy paper towards him, although she still kept it just out of reach.
‘This thing is German, isn’t it? I’m guessing it’s a marriage certificate. I’ve been puzzling over it for hours, wondering if you might have been married before. That seemed the most logical explanation. But how to explain the passport with Mother’s picture and this new name on it? Can you help me with that? Is this certificate actually yours and my mother’s? Can you explain how that can possibly make sense?’ She stopped, gave him a moment to answer and then whipped it away when he stared blankly back. ‘Or, you know what, don’t bother. I’ll take it to the library and find a dictionary. Or, better still, I’ll take it to the Head of Languages at school and get her to translate it.’
That snapped him back.
‘Why do you always go for the most extreme option? Why must you turn everything into a fight?’
He was blustering, turning red; Karen could have picked his next words for him.
‘You’re hysterical. I won’t discuss anything when you’re like this.’
‘That old favourite, what a surprise. But I’m not though, am I? I’m perfectly calm and I’m not letting this go. I know you prefer to hide behind silence, but, this time, that’s not happening.’
She didn’t expect him to rise to the challenge. She thought he’d stay tight-lipped and send her to bed, buy himself some time to find a plausible explanation that he would lay out in precisely clipped tones in the morning. His tumbling words dropped her back down onto the stairs.
‘All right, yes, it’s a wedding certificate and, yes, it is mine and your mother’s. And the reason you don’t recognise the name is because your mother wasn’t English; she was German. She came from Berlin.’
All the fight Karen had been so carefully nurturing drained away.
‘That can’t be true. That’s ridiculous.’
She waited; so did he. Now she was the one blustering.
‘And, even if by some madness that’s right, why didn’t I know before now?’
‘It never seemed important to tell you.’
She stared at the passport photograph while her father stood perfectly still.
‘It never seemed important? Really? Are you serious?’
Not a flicker: his shutters had come down.
‘This name then, that’s on here… Liese… was that hers?’
‘Originally, yes.
‘But why did she change it?’
His hands were behind his back; his voice had dropped to a monotone.
‘When she first came to England, that seemed the best thing to do. Elizabeth was a simpler name to use after the war, a more obviously English one. A German name wouldn’t have been a kindness.’
Karen stared at the documents she was still clutching, trying to understand how his words could be at once both completely logical and completely unbelievable.
‘I don’t understand. How could she be German? She never sounded German.’ And then a memory popped up and took on a new meaning. ‘She had a lilt in her voice sometimes. I always thought it was so pretty. Are you saying that was an accent? And there were times when she used to stumble on a word, I remember that too, or she would go round in circles until I found her the one she was looking for. I thought it was because she was tired.’
‘Sometimes it was. Your mother had lost most of her accent by the time you were born. She had learned English as a child and, later, she worked hard at smoothing out her voice.’
Karen leaned into the bannister as the world began spinning.
‘Why did I never question any of that?’
When she looked up, she could see his face had softened. For a moment, she thought he might move towards her, that he might reach for her hand. She thought she might let him hold it if he did. But he stayed where he was.
‘You wouldn’t have, not then: you were a child; she was your mother. How she sounded to you was, well, how she was.’
How can he be so removed? Why can’t he see what this is doing to me?
Her anger began rising again. Karen let it come.
‘What about in 1947, when the passport is dated? She must have sounded more German then.’
This time, her father shifted slightly, although his voice held.
‘It was more noticeable, yes. And people weren’t always kind. That was why she worked so hard on her voice… and didn’t really mix much. I’m not sure what else I can tell you.’
He’s trying to close me down. He’s trying to wriggle away like he always does.
Karen straightened herself. She folded the papers up and wiped her hands on her jeans.
‘She didn’t really mix much. Well, that’s true. She didn’t have any frie
nds, did she? Why was that? Was it because she was ashamed of where she came from? I’ve wondered about this before, not that I’ve ever bothered to ask you. Well, maybe now you can help me. Maybe you can explain why my mother, who was beautiful and gentle and should have been popular, was always alone. Do you fancy giving that a go?’
His hands rammed into his pockets.
Karen’s stomach muscles clenched so tight, her voice turned into a growl.
‘She came to school with me every day, but she never mixed with the other mothers. When her customers brought their patterns and their alterations, she barely asked them in – she always hurried them away. She said she could tell someone’s size by looking, but that wasn’t the point, was it? Was she afraid of what people would say, of how they would treat her, even after so many years? Was being German still a sin so long after the war?’
Her father stepped away, his feet shuffling as if one more question would push him back through the door.
‘No, that’s not it, not exactly. She was shy and she didn’t like army life, that’s all. She wasn’t comfortable around soldiers.’ He blushed as Karen gaped, something she had never seen him do before. ‘I’m sorry, I know that sounds strange…’
His voice was shaking. He had his hands out now, as if he finally intended to hold her. Karen pressed herself against the wall and away.
‘She didn’t like army life or soldiers? Am I being thick here, or isn’t that quite a big thing? When you’ve married one, I mean, and you live next to a base. If she felt like that, why did she marry you? And if you knew that the life she would have to live here would make her unhappy, why did you bring her?’
She left him a pause to reply, but he simply stared at her.
She charged on. ‘Was it because you made her? Is that why she never talked about her family? Why there’s no photos? Because you dragged her here, away from them. I bet they didn’t approve; I bet that was it. You were a British soldier bringing her to a country where she couldn’t be a German, and to an army town when she hated the army. They can’t have wanted that. So was it some weird control thing? I’ve heard about that, about men who do that. Didn’t she love you enough? Did you need her to be on her own, isolated in a strange country, so she’d stay with you? Is that why she ended up killing herself?’
What Only We Know: A heart-wrenching and unforgettable World War 2 historical novel Page 7