Letters from Berlin

by Tania Blanchard

  In the beginning, it was Leo who made the pain of losing my family bearable. Despite the love that Tante Elya lavished upon me and the kind words from Onkel Georg, some days I still felt so alone in the world.

  I’d been crying one day, a few months after arriving at Gut Birkenhof. I missed my mother so much, her arms encircling me when I snuggled on her soft lap, the way she’d whisper Susielein to me, her cheek warm against my face, the smell of roses, her favourite perfume. I’d slipped away after luncheon, barely eating anything, and wandered aimlessly around the garden and farm sheds. Eventually I’d curled up next to a stack of hay in the barn, the breeze and warm sunshine drying the tears on my face and lulling me into an exhausted doze.

  ‘Susie.’ I’d roused at the sound of my name. Friedrich and Leo were the only ones who called me that. I’d half expected Friedrich to be there, grinning at some mischief he’d just created and ready to involve me in his elaborate plan, but it was Leo, his arm outstretched towards me. ‘I made something for you,’ he’d said shyly.

  I reached up and took the object from his hand, staring at it for a moment.

  ‘It’s a horse. I carved it from wood… I thought it might cheer you up.’

  I nodded, touched by his gift and unable to speak. I wondered if he knew I loved horses, just like my mother had. I stroked the small wooden figure, smooth from careful sanding. I’d seen him practising his carving and I knew how much effort he’d gone to for me.

  ‘Do you like strawberries?’

  I nodded again, still staring at the carving.

  ‘There’s a meadow where the best strawberries grow. Come on, I’ll take you there. They’re sweet and ripe. You can fill your belly.’

  I looked up at him, expecting to see the concern and sympathy that was on everyone else’s face, but I saw only hope that I’d join him in his adventure. ‘All right,’ I whispered.

  ‘Don’t tell Mutti,’ he said seriously. ‘She’ll skin both of us if she thinks we won’t eat our dinner.’ Then he’d smiled cheekily and held out his hand.

  His fingers around mine were warm and reassuring. ‘Thank you for the horse. It’s beautiful.’ His face had lit up, making me smile. ‘I like horses.’

  ‘Well, I’ll show you how to brush them and feed them if you like, and when you’re ready, I’ll teach you to ride.’ The eagerness on his thin ten-year-old face, dark wavy hair falling across his eyes, had made me wonder if he was lonely too.

  I’d nodded, overcome with gratitude. ‘I’d like that.’ Maybe I wasn’t so alone after all.

  I kept that carved horse with me for months, often in a pocket where I could touch its smooth surface when I was feeling sad. It followed me to boarding school and Beelitz. And the strawberry patch was just the start. Leo showed me all the special places on the estate. During the summers we ran wild, splashing about in the shallow bend of the river where the sandy beach beckoned us to lie and sun ourselves. As I got older, we swam in the deeper waters and took the little boat out fishing, gliding across the smooth surface of the river for hours. While we were young, we hiked the cool, dark depths of the forest with Onkel Georg and his good friend Onkel Julius. He was part of the family and a regular visitor to Gut Birkenhof, after spending much of his childhood on the estate with Onkel Georg. When we knew the forest trails like the back of our hand, we’d go out on our own for hours with bread, cheese and meat packed in bags on our backs. Some days we came home with our bags full of plump brown pine mushrooms. Leo taught me to hunt – hare and pheasant at first and then deer – and he always impressed on me the importance of a clean, quick kill and respect for the animal.

  But it was the tiny wooden cabin in the forest that meant the most to us.

  The first time Leo showed it to me I was eleven years old. ‘This is my special place,’ he’d said on the edge of the clearing, pine forest surrounding us in all directions. ‘It’s where I come when everything gets too much.’

  ‘Can I come here too?’ I’d asked anxiously.

  ‘Does everything get too much for you sometimes, Nightingale?’ he’d asked, his big brown eyes soft with compassion. He’d given me the pet name the first time he’d taken me birdwatching, when I’d been enthralled by the exquisite song of the small brown bird.

  I’d nodded solemnly. ‘Sometimes I still have bad dreams about Mutti, Vati and Friedrich.’

  Leo had crouched down beside me on the carpet of pine needles. ‘It can be your special place too. It will be our secret.’ I’d smiled at that.

  Later that year, it became a place of refuge. One day Onkel Georg had brought Leo home from boarding school and he’d disappeared into the forest. I knew where he’d be.

  ‘Leo!’ I’d yelled outside the cabin. There’d been no reply, just the wind whistling through the trees. I opened the door slowly and peered into the gloom, but found nothing. Then I heard the sound of muffled crying. Pulling the torch out of my pocket, I trained the beam of light to the corner of the cabin. There was Leo curled up into a ball.

  I knelt beside him and shook him gently. ‘Leo, what’s the matter? What’s happened?’

  ‘Go away,’ he whispered in an anguished voice. ‘Leave me here. I want to die.’ I stared at him, shocked. Then I wrapped my arms about him.

  ‘You’re not going to die,’ I said. ‘I won’t let you.’

  He lifted his head after a while and struggled upright so we were sitting side by side on the dusty wooden floor.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘I couldn’t stand it anymore. My new teacher was explaining the differences between the Jewish race and the Aryans, as if anyone can really tell. Jewish people are banned from the school now, but one of my best friends, Fritz, pointed to me and said that I looked like a Jew. I told him that my mother was Jewish, and so was I and proud of it, but the teacher said that I was mischling, only half Jew. After class, Fritz called me a mongrel and wiped his hands on his pants in disgust because he’d touched me. My other friends told me to stay away and called me names that I won’t repeat. It was my fault. I threw the first punch… but they’re my best friends.’ His face crumpled then and he sobbed until he was spent.

  ‘You don’t need them, Leo,’ I’d whispered, taking hold of his cold hand. ‘I still love you, and I always will.’ He’d kissed the top of my head and we’d sat there until the sun sank behind the trees.

  Now, my face flushed at the memory of what had happened at the cabin eighteen months earlier, the last summer I’d spent at home. Leo and I had been hunting and were caught unexpectedly in a storm moving quickly across the mountain range. Rather than push on toward home in the driving rain and high winds, we’d decided to wait it out in the cabin, but the wild weather continued to rage into the night.

  ‘Your parents will be worried,’ I said, after laying our belongings and outer clothing out to dry. I shivered in my wet underwear, pulling the blanket from the small camp bed further around my shoulders.

  ‘There’s nothing we can do about it.’ Leo’s chest was bare, his skin glowing in the light of the fire, chest hairs ruddy against the flames and shoulders broader than I’d realised. The muscles of his upper arm bulged as he turned the makeshift spit. I couldn’t look away. I’d been feeling things change between us over the summer and this was confirmation that I was attracted to him. ‘It’s stupidity to travel back in the dark with the risk of trees coming down… They’ll know it’s safer if we take shelter until morning.’

  Outside the wind was howling and heavy rain pelted the cabin without break. The temperature was dropping quickly, but the fire was roaring and the smell of roasting hare was comforting.

  My stomach grumbled loudly. It had been a long time since we’d eaten.

  ‘You’re hungry,’ said Leo. He cut away a chunk of meat with his knife and presented it to me on the tip of his blade. ‘Careful, it’s hot.’

  The blanket slipped to my waist as I reached for the meat. It burned my fingers, but I didn’t care. It smelt too good. Juice drib
bled down my fingers and my chin as I crammed the succulent morsel in my mouth. ‘It’s delicious.’

  ‘You’re messy, Nightingale,’ he said softly. He wiped the juice from my chin with his thumb and I watched in fascination as he sucked it clean. Suddenly I was no longer hungry. Leo was looking back at me with the same intensity that I was feeling and my stomach lurched. I didn’t know what to do. All I knew was that I didn’t want the moment to end.

  He reached across and caressed my arm as he picked up the edge of my blanket. ‘Aren’t you cold?’

  I shook my head. His dark eyes were fixed on my mouth and he was so close. I held my breath as I waited for him to kiss me. I had never wanted anything more.

  He leaned in and his lips touched mine, soft and warm. My hands rested against his broad chest and slid around his neck as the kiss deepened. I was hardly aware that my blanket had slipped to the floor. He gathered me into his arms, pulling me against the hard planes of his body.

  He kissed me again with such passion I thought I’d explode, but then he broke away. ‘We can’t,’ he said, his face contorted with terrible conflict.

  I shook my head, not wanting to stop. I reached for him again but he took me by the shoulders, holding me at arm’s length.

  ‘The law forbids us to be together: a mischling and an Aryan. If we take this any further, I can’t guarantee that either of us will be able to stop. One day our feelings will betray us and we’ll be discovered.’

  ‘We can be careful,’ I said desperately. I knew the laws as well as he did but I didn’t want to believe that they applied to us, especially on the estate where we were surrounded by people who would support us.

  He lifted the blanket gently around my shoulders. ‘It takes only one slip and one person to report us.’

  ‘But you’re all that I want.’

  Leo took my hand and brought it to his lips. ‘I won’t deny my feelings for you, Susie, but I can’t place you in harm’s way.’

  I shook my head again in irritation, even though my heart flipped to hear those words. ‘But there must be some way.’

  ‘We’d be placing Mutti at greater risk, after everything Vati’s done to keep her safe.’

  It was a chilling thought and I pulled the blanket around me tighter. ‘I’d never forgive myself if anything happened to her or to you.’

  ‘While the Nazis are in power, it’s not possible for us. In another time or place, I’d be a happy man, but as it is…’ His eyes were misty.

  I threw my arms around him and hugged him tight. ‘Nothing’s impossible. One day we’ll be together, I know it.’

  ‘There’s always hope.’ He drew away. ‘I’d better get this off before it burns,’ he said, glancing at the meat on the fire.

  Holding the blanket firmly at my throat once more, I watched him lift the roasted hare from the flames and carefully slice the meat with his knife, but his gaze kept slipping back to me. Whenever our eyes met, I could see the yearning there and knew that what we both were feeling was real. But it didn’t change the fact that we had to deny it all for the sake of our family. It was a bitter pill to swallow. We passed the rest of the night pretending that nothing had changed.

  But everything changed that night. Leo had kept his distance from me ever since, but it hadn’t stopped my feelings for him from growing stronger. And from the way he’d looked at me in the kitchen, I knew that his had too. We loved each other and were meant to be together. I knew why Leo stayed away, but I wasn’t going to have the Nazis tell me who I could and couldn’t love.

  * * *

  After a week of exams in early March, Marika and I were walking through the university with some of the other girls from the dormitory where we all stayed during the week. We heard the rumble of army trucks along the Unter den Linden, the main avenue that ran east to west through Berlin.

  ‘It’s the last of the Jews,’ whispered one of the other girls. ‘Anyone with a Star of David is being picked up and transported across Berlin to collection points and transferred to trains, heading east most likely.’

  I shot Marika a worried look. We had known each other since boarding school and she knew what had happened to Onkel Tedi. It made her furious when the Nazi propaganda machine whitewashed the removal of thousands of Jewish people from Berlin as ‘deportation and resettlement’. It was no secret that the Führer wanted all Jewish people out of Germany, but we’d heard whispers over the past months that Jewish people were being deported directly to new eastern camps like Auschwitz rather than the eastern ghettos. It didn’t take much imagination to know that conditions in those camps would be far worse than the ghettos.

  In his most recent letter to Tante Elya, Onkel Tedi had said thousands of Jewish people from the Lodz ghetto were ‘resettled’ even further east, but, alarmingly, only days after their departure these people’s belongings were strangely returned. The news was hard to believe, especially for people like Marika whose German ancestry kept them far removed from the dark side of the Nazi regime. But, like me, she had to wonder about the truth when Tedi wrote that he believed the Jewish people in Lodz had been sent to a nearby camp at Chelmno and killed. Nazi propaganda had been telling German citizens for years that the Jewish people deserved to be eliminated, but for the regime to actually kill thousands of innocent people was a horrifying thought. If it was true, the Nazis had descended to new depths of evil. What would I do if Tante Elya was sent away?

  ‘I’ve heard that some have been taken to the Jewish Welfare Centre,’ the girl continued, ‘supposedly for investigation. They’re being held there and nobody knows why.’

  ‘Why have they been separated?’ asked Marika, frowning.

  ‘Apparently they’re the ones married to Aryans – and mischlinge too,’ the girl said, dropping her voice even further. The breath caught in my throat at that. ‘It’s not legal to detain them and yet…’ She placed her hand on Marika’s shoulder and began to whisper confidentially. ‘But I’ve heard the most fantastical thing. Apparently families are gathering outside the building in Rosenstrasse in silent protest. Women with their children, asking why their husbands are being held. Even the bombing the other night didn’t deter them. I’ve never heard anything like it before. I don’t know if they’re foolhardy or courageous.’ She shook her head in wonder. ‘I don’t think it will end well.’

  ‘I have to find out what’s going on,’ I said, starting to walk ahead, hardly able to get the words out of my mouth.

  ‘No,’ said Marika as she caught up with me and drew me away from the others, ‘stay here. It’s too dangerous.’ Marika knew me better than anyone, except perhaps for Leo and Tante Elya.

  ‘What if they come for my aunt and Leo next?’

  ‘They’re safe at Gut Birkenhof.’

  I shook my head. ‘They’re safe now but they might not be for much longer. I have to know what’s happening.’

  ‘Please don’t, Susie. It’s too risky.’

  I couldn’t ignore the plea in her green eyes, and I allowed her to take my arm and lead me back to our room to study for our final exam the following day.

  But I couldn’t sleep that night, thinking about the families incarcerated at Rosenstrasse. I didn’t know what was keeping Tante Elya and Leo safe for now – the fact they were outside of Berlin? Onkel Georg’s carefully nurtured relationships? I kept imagining how I’d feel if they were the ones who’d been taken away. The thought tortured me, making me toss and turn until the early hours of the morning. An exam felt trivial compared to the plight of those people who’d been taken. Without waking Marika, I shrugged into my thick woollen overcoat, left the dormitory and made my way out into the bitter cold of the early morning.

  I was shocked at the scene on Rosenstrasse. Hundreds of women in overcoats, hats and gloves were gathered outside the Jewish Community Centre, standing defiantly shoulder to shoulder. Berlin’s police waited warily on the periphery of the crowd for any signs of trouble. Outside the entrance and along the street were the menacing fig
ures of grim SS guards with their deadly weapons.

  The women near me smiled a greeting as I joined their ranks. I searched for familiar faces – they were all strangers to me and yet I felt welcomed, embraced by the warmth of their common goal. Despite the fear that crawled at the base of my spine at the sight of so many armed men ready to suppress us, I couldn’t help but feel solidarity with these women attempting to protect their own, and a wave of defiance rushed through me. Stamping my feet against the frozen ground, I overheard snippets of conversation spoken quietly by those around me. The detainees were mostly the Jewish husbands of Aryan Germans and sons of such marriages. My stomach twisted in knots, Leo’s face never leaving my mind. I couldn’t go. It could be my family in there next time.

  From time to time the guards stepped forward to shout at us.

  ‘Go home,’ yelled one of the men, pointing his gun threateningly at the sea of defenceless and peaceful women. I glanced at those around me. Fear was etched into their faces but nobody moved.

  ‘Disperse now or suffer the consequences,’ shouted another SS soldier. The crowd watched him dispassionately, although I felt sure every person present wondered how long they could resist – and how long until the shooting would start.

  At midday I saw Marika’s copper head push through the crowd. ‘Susie! I knew I’d find you here,’ she said breathlessly when she reached my side.

  ‘I didn’t want to worry you,’ I said with a grimace, feeling guilty now for leaving without telling her.

  ‘I know what you’re like. When I woke and you were gone, I suspected as much.’ She thrust a thermos and a small string bag into my hands. ‘I guess you haven’t eaten?’ I shook my head. ‘Well, you need to keep up your strength if you’re going to stand here all day.’

  I poured a little of the hot liquid into the cup, thawing my numb fingers, and sipped slowly, the rising steam warming my face. ‘Oh, that’s bliss,’ I said. Then I opened the package in the bag – she’d brought bread and hunks of cheese. I tore off a piece of bread and crumbled the cheese onto it and handed it to the woman next to me. ‘Here, you must be famished.’ She nodded and quickly took the bread and cheese, murmuring her thanks. We stood in companionable silence waiting for something to happen as we shared the food and the hot tea between us.