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

by Catherine Hokin

  Stefan retreated to his quarters; Paul and Margarethe disappeared into their bedroom. Otto and Liese hunched over the radio, twisting the dial to prise out the scale of the destruction, parcelling out the money Otto had recovered from Paul’s office into easily hidden bundles. They spent another night huddled on chairs, too sickened to try sleeping.

  When morning came round again, Michael appeared, his clothes filthy, his face a patchwork of bruises.

  ‘The Nazis are blaming the Jews. They’re saying we started it, that our businesses were burned because we were the ones rioting. It’s a bunch of lies. They were waiting for an excuse to ruin us and then some trigger-happy teenager with a Jewish name shot a Nazi diplomat in Paris and gave them just what they wanted. They’re going to make us pay for the damage and, when we can’t, they’ll seize anything still standing.’

  ‘Which is why I’ve come up with a plan to get us out—’

  ‘Otto, hush a minute.’

  Liese was still crouched by the radio. The bland music had switched to a booming voice and a series of announcements.

  ‘As a result of the recent Jewish-led disturbances, all Jewish firms are confiscated. Jews are banned from public places and subject to a curfew. There will be no compensation for damaged property. Jews are to pay Germany reparations for the damage they have caused.’

  ‘What did I tell you?’ There wasn’t a trace of satisfaction in Michael’s tone.

  ‘They can’t do this…’ Otto’s voice fell away as he realised they just had.

  ‘Then that’s it. We have to go. We have to turn my plan into action.’

  ‘What plan?’

  Liese left Otto explaining to a silent Michael how he intended to lead them all off to France and went to relay the news report from the radio to Paul and Margarethe. They received it as blankly as they had stared out of the car windows.

  Unable to face any more revelations, Liese had collapsed into bed and, for the first time since Kristallnacht, had fallen into an exhausted sleep that was blessedly empty. When she finally woke and stumbled to the kitchen, it was to find Michael returned and brewing the last of the coffee. There was no sign of Otto.

  ‘He’s gone for the passports. Don’t look at me like that. He wouldn’t let me go with him. He said an old man alone stood less chance of being noticed. He still thinks he’s The Fixer and what am I supposed to do with that? Argue? Make him feel old and useless?’

  ‘No. Of course not. You have to trust him – we all do. Did he tell you his plan?’

  Michael poured Liese a cup of coffee, sniffed the milk and grimaced.

  ‘About us taking the train and him driving your parents? Yes. I wish he hadn’t. It’s not a plan; it’s madness. And whether he gets the papers or not, I can’t go. I’m needed here. I’ll play along with it to keep him happy, but I have to stay. And please don’t lecture me about family – I’m not sure I can take it. I can’t go; I don’t want him to go. And if I hope he doesn’t get the passports, where does that leave you?’

  Liese drained her cup. She knew that Michael meant every word. She also knew that, if she did leave, she couldn’t bear their parting to be on bad terms.

  ‘You can’t solve all this, Michael, and you can’t stop your father. Where do you think you get your stubbornness from?’ To her relief, he finally smiled. ‘I’m sorry I ever questioned your love for him. I know how important he is to you. And I also know how important your part in the fight against the Nazis is, how much it matters to you to be taking a stand. I wish I’d told you that sooner. And how brave I think you are. If I can see that, Otto certainly can.’

  She knew better than to notice his blush.

  ‘And as for this plan… I don’t know whether I believe it will happen, or if I want it any more than you do, but if my parents go, then I have to go too. They’re going to need my help to get things back on their feet. Don’t worry – I won’t try to make you come, although I’ll keep up whatever pretence you need so that Otto doesn’t panic. You’d have made a lousy Frenchman anyway.’

  Michael grinned at her as the door opened and Paul stamped in, complaining at the lack of breakfast.

  Trying to persuade him and Margarethe to pack, and pack lightly, and listening to their moans about the supplies she and Michael managed to forage drank up most of the day. It was almost four o’clock before Liese glanced at the clock and realised Otto had been gone for hours. Michael had left on some business he refused to discuss and wouldn’t return until evening. Her parents had retreated to their well-cushioned sanctuary. She had nothing to do and no one to talk to and she needed to be busy, or she would have to face up to an uncomfortable truth: she hadn’t heard a single word from André. The promised call hadn’t come. She had hovered in the hall more times than she was prepared to admit in the last few days, her hand fluttering over the receiver, wondering if he had misplaced her number. Each time she had been interrupted. Now she had the house to herself and no more patience for finding excuses.

  I’ll take care of you, I promise.

  Those and all the other words he’d whispered still rang through her head. But so did his hesitation when he realised the speed of the plan, and his reluctance when he heard that plan included Michael.

  I need to hear his voice that’s all. To run through Tuesday’s arrangements and make them seem real.

  She went out into the hall and sat down at the telephone table. André had said he was busy at the weekend, but perhaps the Adlon would know his movements and have an idea of when he expected to be back? She might even be able to persuade him to come to the house, to snatch a few hours alone together before everyone else resurfaced. Warmed by that thought, Liese dialled the hotel’s number. She listened to the clerk. She put the phone down. She was still sitting there when Michael strode through the door.

  ‘What are you doing? Where’s my father?’

  She stared at him blankly.

  ‘Liese, where’s Otto?’

  ‘I don’t know. I don’t think he came back. And…’

  Michael looked so horrified she couldn’t finish the sentence.

  ‘It’s been hours, almost the whole day. What on earth is wrong with you?’

  He left before she could think of an answer. How could she explain her state to him when she couldn’t explain it to herself? She didn’t know if she was numb or mortified or furious. At some point since she had put down the telephone, she knew she had been all of those. Numb when she first heard André was gone. Mortified when she had to listen to the reception clerk’s amusement as he added her name to the list of women hoping to speak to ‘our so popular Monsieur’, to his surprise that Monsieur had cut short his stay and gone back to Paris ‘when he does so love staying here’. Furious when she realised that André was a coward, that she was a fool.

  Otto isn’t here.

  The reality of Michael’s words suddenly cut through her confusion and pushed her to her feet. He had to be wrong. Otto must have come back and not seen her sitting so quietly. He must be in the house somewhere.

  By the time Michael came back, his face pale, his eyes red, she had searched every room.

  ‘He’s been caught. The Security Police had the counterfeiters under surveillance. They’ve been sweeping up their customers for days.’

  Liese thought she was going to be sick. ‘Where is he?’

  Michael was shaking so hard he could barely stand. ‘As far as I can find out, he’s in the detention camp I told you about at Oranienburg. He’s rich. He’s a Jew. He’ll be a target. I have to get him out.’

  Liese forced him into a chair and kept her hands on his shoulders, as much to steady herself as him.

  ‘But how can you do that? Has anyone even told you officially that he’s there?’

  ‘No, but if I file a report to say that he’s missing, try to find out more about what happened, the chances are they’ll take me in. We work under aliases, but if there’s photographs… I’ve so many names they want, Liese. There’s so many li
ves I could put at risk.’

  He grabbed her hands and pulled her down into the chair beside him.

  ‘I know what they do, in Alexanderplatz. At the Gestapo headquarters. I know how they get information. I like to think I’m a soldier, but I don’t think I would hold out under their interrogation very well.’

  He started to cry and Liese knew, in the pain she felt watching him, that André’s leaving hadn’t broken her heart.

  Liese took a deep breath, tugged on Michael’s arm and forced him to look at her. ‘This is The Fixer, remember? We have to trust him not to be helpless.’

  ‘What are you saying?’

  What I wish I didn’t have to.

  Liese wiped away a tear. When she spoke, however, her voice was as steady as Michael needed it to be.

  ‘What you already know. That you can’t rescue him and not make things worse. I’m so sorry. That Otto is gone, that I have to say this. But he won’t thank you, Michael, if you save him and get hurt yourself, or if others are put in danger because of him. He won’t thank you at all.’ She caught him as he slumped forward. ‘He’ll be all right. He’s Otto. We have to keep believing that he’ll be all right.’

  She held him until his tears stopped, trying to make herself not care about what she had to say next.

  ‘There’s something else…’

  Michael barely looked up.

  ‘André Bardou has left Berlin.’

  ‘So Father’s plan isn’t possible.’

  Michael shook her off and got up again. Liese wanted to tell him that André’s leaving was a lot of other things too, but he was prowling the kitchen, his fists all bunched, and she couldn’t find a place to start.

  ‘No, I suppose not. We’ll just have to wait here for Otto to come back and think of another way.’

  He stared at her as if he was about to call her stupid again.

  ‘You can’t do that. Don’t you see the danger you’re in? Think about it: once they have Father’s name, it won’t take long to connect him to the salon, and to Paul. They’re still after blood, still smashing up property, seizing whatever homes and fortunes are left. You can’t be in this house when they turn the spotlight on Haus Elfmann. And what if this Bardou character told someone Father’s plans to get you out before he went?’

  ‘He wouldn’t!’

  ‘You don’t know that. You clearly didn’t expect him to leave. You don’t know what they might have offered him, or what he’s capable of offering them.’

  There was nothing Liese could say that didn’t turn her into the idiot she knew Michael would call her if he found out the truth. That didn’t turn the night she had spent with André into something that shamed her.

  She kept her head down, not trusting her face to hold on to that secret, and was grateful for once that Michael ploughed on without giving her a moment to speak.

  ‘Never mind being rich and Jewish, which is reason alone to put us all in danger, Father said Paul is under threat because of the un-surrendered passports. If the Security Police think he’s about to run, and take any remaining money with him, they’ll swoop in a heartbeat. Is there anywhere else you can go? Anywhere people won’t know you?’

  ‘In Berlin?’ Paul would be horrified at the question. ‘No. In another place perhaps, but not here. There’s money though, plenty of it. Otto brought it from the salon for safekeeping. If you give me a day or two, maybe I could organise a hotel somewhere outside the city, in the countryside. I could ask Stefan to drive us.’

  ‘There’s no time. They could be on their way by then. Come on, think. There must be somewhere safer than here.’

  A photograph on the wall caught her eye as Michael paced past it. Minnie in her rose garden countless summers ago.

  ‘Charlottenburg. Grandfather’s house. When he died last year, we closed it up, but Father never got round to selling it. The keys must be here somewhere. The grounds are big; the house is secluded. We could go without anyone noticing.’

  ‘I doubt that.’ But Michael sat down and his hands were calmer.

  ‘It could do though, for a few days, until they make the connection.’ He nodded, as much to himself as her. ‘It’s not ideal, but it could buy us time to think up a better plan and, when Father is freed, he would at least have an idea where to come.’

  He jumped up again. Together, they began pulling food from the cupboards, sweeping the bundled notes into a bag.

  ‘I’ll drive you. The fewer people who know where you are, the safer you’ll stay, and that includes Stefan. I know he’s been with your family for years and you trust him, but no one is immune to what the Party thugs can do. It’s not fair to put him in that kind of danger. Tell him to leave – he’ll understand. And go and tell Paul and Margarethe we have to be out of here in thirty minutes. And make sure they understand that this move is temporary, that they can’t stay in Charlottenburg more than a few days. Will they get it? Will they realise their life in Berlin is finished?’

  Liese said yes, but she didn’t believe it. Paul and Margarethe had nodded along with Otto’s plans at the hotel, but Liese knew they had barely listened there and wouldn’t discuss any word of it since.

  When she went into their bedroom, the small bags she had begged them to pack were still empty. When she explained that the first stage of the journey was to Charlottenburg, they grew distracted. They pulled out their travelling trunks and began discussing the first dinner party they would hold ‘to breathe life back into the place’. They didn’t ask about Otto; Liese wasn’t sure if they had even noticed his absence.

  Liese stared out of the window as the car crawled through dark streets where buildings still smouldered, trying to ignore Paul and Margarethe’s ridiculous chatter. The world had changed beyond repair and yet on her parents went, helpless and spoiled and completely self-centred. They were a burden as heavy round her shoulders as the business had been.

  How much longer can I carry their weight?

  For the first time in months, she couldn’t block out the honest answer.

  Six

  Karen

  Aldershot and Berlin, March 1978

  The breakfast almost stopped her.

  Instead of the regulation orange juice and cereal, Andrew had set out coffee and a ketchup-slathered bacon sandwich. Her Tupperware lunch box sat waiting by her plate, as it did every morning, but this time there was a five-pound note, not an apple, sitting on the lid.

  Karen put down her bag and took a step into the kitchen.

  He’s making an effort; you could meet him halfway.

  She was tired, more tired than she wanted to admit to her father. The weeks of endless arguments had taken their toll. And she was nervous about her trip – not that she intended to admit that either. She was also hungry and the bacon smelled like heaven.

  Andrew was out in the garden, Karen could see him fussing over the birdbath.

  Would a goodbye be so difficult? A couple of words and a smile?

  She hesitated, her hand hovering over the sandwich. A few months ago, she would have said it was perfectly possible. A few months ago, she could have left the house with a nod, knowing her father had no more interest in delaying her than she had in staying. But now? After almost two years of perfectly crafted non-conversations, Karen had announced that she was joining her German class’s annual school trip and unleashed a torrent of protest she couldn’t stop.

  ‘Why do you want to go to Germany?’

  He wouldn’t stop asking, wouldn’t leave her alone until she responded.

  ‘Because I’m taking the German exam for extra university points, and the trip will be a chance to practise speaking German outside a classroom.’

  The clipped answer was that all she would give him, no matter how hard he pushed. It should have been enough, especially since he showed no sign that he was prepared to acknowledge what he must know was the truth. Because I’m looking for answers. And it was hardly as if he had the right to keep asking. Since that morning eighteen month
s ago, when she’d found the passport and he’d messed up her life, Karen had been quite clear with him how things were going to be in the future.

  ‘I don’t want to talk to you. I won’t listen if you talk to me.’

  She had stormed out as soon as she’d said it and refused to stay in any room her father was in almost ever since.

  It had worked: they were, after all, well-practised at living together apart. All the years of avoiding each other, of not talking to each other, of refusing to find a common language, had set round the house like concrete. Karen had thrown herself into studying, her escape route, and it had paid off. As she approached her final exams, straight As were beckoning and a university place, as her headmistress beamed, wherever she chose. Which would be Manchester, two hundred miles away, not nearby Reading, where so many of her classmates were heading. And she wouldn’t be studying English either, followed by a ‘nice teaching job’, as she had once heard Andrew describe his hopes for her. Karen had dreams of her own, dreams that had nothing to do with his narrow view of the world. She was going to be an architect, a great one, and design houses built for sound and light and laughter.

  It had been almost bearable, their unconnected existence, and then she had mentioned the school trip and he had come back to life. He was so intent on dissuading her, he followed her into rooms and ignored closed doors. And talked, as always, at her.

  ‘Germany maybe – I can see a logic in that. But why Berlin? It’s hardly the most sensible choice. The city is completely isolated now inside the East. You’ll have to go through goodness knows how many checkpoints and the political situation there really isn’t stable. What was Miss Dennison thinking?’

  Karen tried ignoring him, but that didn’t work, so she reverted to snapping.

  ‘She thinks that we need to understand the country properly and that’s impossible without going to Berlin and seeing how the Wall has divided it. Why do you care? Are you really worried some border guard will make trouble because we come from the West, or are you scared I’ll start digging up my heritage? That the neighbours will remember I’m not properly English and freak?’