Letters from Berlin

by Tania Blanchard

  My bottom lip began to tremble and I nodded.

  ‘Georg and I will make sure he’ll never touch you again.’ His face was tight with anger.

  I sighed with relief. ‘But what about Tante Elya?’ I whispered.

  ‘She might be registered now, but she’s still protected by law.’

  ‘But losing the contracts is a crushing blow to the estate. I know it’s what kept her safe. How’s Onkel Georg going to keep valuable relationships with his associates in high places without everything the estate offers?’

  ‘Leave that to me,’ he said, sitting on the floor beside me. ‘The truth is, we can’t get those contracts back because of the abundance of agricultural produce coming out of the occupied territories in the east, which costs the government nothing. But with my ministry connections I was able to help have the estate’s orders for seed and fuel reinstated.’

  I leant across and kissed his cheek. ‘We’re so lucky to have you.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, I owe so much to Georg. And Gut Birkenhof’s important not just to you and me, but to the entire district. It does nobody any good for it to cease operations now. The orders should be enough to keep the estate running, and together we’ll find new contracts to keep it afloat and keep Georg’s associates happy.’

  ‘But the Nazis think they have Onkel Georg where they want him.’

  ‘You mean Mueller?’

  I nodded, beginning to shake. Onkel Julius put his arm around my shoulder. I leaned against his chest and began to sob.

  ‘Shh, it’s over. You’re safe now,’ he crooned, kissing the top of my head. ‘And as long as the law stands, Elya can’t be forced from her home, but you need someone with influence to protect her.’ He paused, looking thoughtful. ‘I have an idea.’ He stood and offered me his hand to help me up. ‘I’ll tell you my plan when I’ve made sure it will work. It has to be water-tight.’

  I stood staring at him a long minute, it seemed unbelievable that he could find a way through this mess. ‘You can help us?’

  ‘Of course. Georg’s like a brother to me.’ He glanced around the kitchen fondly. ‘I remember spending many holidays here when I was a child, with him – and your mother too.’ He smiled at the astonishment on my face. ‘Our parents were good friends.’ He stared into the dying embers of the fire. ‘I’ll do whatever I can to help. But don’t say anything to them yet. Let me work out the details first.’

  ‘Of course.’ I threw my arms around him. ‘Thank you.’

  The stone that had been sitting on my chest lifted. I could start to breathe again.

  5

  ‘How are you?’ Leo asked as we drove along the quiet country road. He’d just picked me up from the bus I caught home every week from Berlin. ‘I haven’t seen much of you since your party.’

  I looked at him in astonishment. He’d been avoiding me for weeks.

  ‘I’m all right, I suppose,’ I said, turning my gaze abruptly to the green forest that surrounded us. ‘I’ve been worried that I might have ruined things between us.’

  He shook his head. ‘No, but I shouldn’t have allowed what happened at your birthday to happen,’ he said. ‘It was confusing for you and only complicated matters.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sorry,’ I said hotly. ‘I wanted it to happen. It was my choice, not something that you allowed. And I was not confused.’ I pulled my hand away. ‘Neither were you.’

  ‘No.’ He paused, smiling tightly. ‘But you understand why it’s not possible for us to pursue our feelings?’

  ‘Of course I understand, but –’

  ‘Susie, there’s too much going on,’ he broke in. ‘With Mutti’s registration and Vati’s contracts…’ He shook his head sharply. ‘It’s obvious we’re being watched and I won’t take any risk. It would only make things worse. Surely you see that?’

  ‘What I don’t see is why you just accept our fate?’ I said, the frustration of the past weeks coming to a head. He didn’t know about the kreisleiter or about Onkel Julius agreeing that we needed a plan to keep our family safe. ‘Why you don’t try to fight for us?’

  ‘I am fighting for us, for all of us. There are more important things at stake,’ he said, slamming his hand against the seat beside me. ‘The way I feel about you makes no difference if there’s no future for any of us.’

  ‘What are you talking about?’ Had something happened that I didn’t know about?

  ‘Do you know how close we are to financial ruin? We’re selling whatever we can on the black market. It’s the only way we’re getting by.’

  I stared at him, incredulous. ‘That’s what you’ve been doing?’

  ‘Vati doesn’t need my help renegotiating contracts when he’s got Onkel Julius,’ he said bitterly. ‘He relies on Onkel Julius’s friendship and position, but we’re the ones in trouble, not him.’

  ‘He’s only trying to help.’

  Leo shook his head with irritation and barely contained anger. ‘There’s only so much he can do. I needed to take matters into my own hands.’

  ‘So you’ve been meeting black market contacts,’ I said, making sense of his absences.

  He nodded. ‘It’s incredible what people will pay for what we used to think were basic necessities. We’ll keep helping people in the village, but we have to make money to pay our bills, pay the workers and pay for Vati’s inducements to the Nazis.’

  ‘What does your father think about this?’

  He stared straight ahead, his eyes on the road, while his face mirrored the frustration he was feeling.

  ‘He refused to consider the idea at first, but since he hasn’t been able to acquire enough contracts to make up our loss, he’s warmed to it.’

  ‘He’s desperate, Leo.’

  His shoulders sagged. ‘I know. He’s going to lease more land and build more cottages along the lake, too. He’ll encourage his wealthy friends in Berlin to get away from the bombings and chaos of the city. It’ll help, but it won’t be enough.’

  I was shocked at how serious our financial trouble was. ‘Please don’t leave me out in future, I can take the truth.’

  ‘I know. I just haven’t had the chance to tell you.’

  I nodded, not entirely convinced. ‘But the risk of being caught, Leo… Let me help. I want to be involved. You can’t carry the burden of this by yourself.’

  He looked at me and smiled sadly. ‘I know you’ll always have my back, just as I have yours.’ He reached out and touched my face. ‘I love you, Susie, with all my being. In another time or place where being Jewish didn’t matter, maybe we’d have a chance, but I’m a pariah, a mongrel, and you’ll only get hurt if you’re associated with me. You should forget about your feelings for me.’ The look of absolute despair on his face made me move towards him, but he flinched, shaking his head. ‘We can’t. We just have to focus on surviving.’

  I hated seeing him in so much pain so I nodded. ‘As long as I have you by my side, the rest can wait,’ I whispered.

  ‘There’s my girl,’ he whispered back to me.

  * * *

  Leo kept most of his black market dealings from his father, I learned. It was his way of protecting both his parents.

  ‘Vati knows what we’re sending, but he can’t afford to run into any trouble if something goes wrong,’ he told me the next morning as we loaded boxes into the truck. There were vegetables – crisp cauliflowers and white cabbages, bulbous turnips and sweet carrots, jars of honey, pitchers of milk, tubs of cream, rounds of cheese, fresh young veal, and flour milled from our wheat and rye. Timber products were harder to hide, but Leo found a way to sell them when he could. Produce from Gut Birkenhof always sold for a premium because of our reputation of providing top quality goods.

  ‘Let me come with you,’ I said, lifting the last box into place. ‘Someone should know who all the contacts are besides you.’

  He shook his head. ‘Not today. I’m meeting a new buyer, a Berlin restaurateur. I don’t want you there if something goes wrong
.’ I huffed in annoyance but Leo didn’t seem to notice. ‘Besides, it’s better if you’re here with Onkel Julius. He’ll ask questions if we’re both gone and I don’t want him knowing what we’re up to.’ He pulled the tarpaulin over the back of the truck.

  ‘I can’t believe you’re so distrustful. He’s known you since you were born,’ I said, shaking my head as I tied one corner of the tarpaulin to the truck.

  ‘He’s a Nazi, Susie. We haven’t seen him in years and now he’s returned to a promotion within the Ministry of Transport. He’s highly placed and powerful in the Reich. Who knows what his true allegiances are anymore?’ He tugged at the opposite corner, tying the cover down tightly.

  Onkel Julius had become a more regular visitor to the estate, often in and out in the same day, talking at length with Onkel Georg or returning late at night with him from visits to Berlin. I felt sure that Leo resented the time his father spent with Julius – talking, working, discussing the estate, meeting with buyers and drinking like they had in their youth.

  ‘Just be careful,’ I said. ‘Don’t take any unnecessary risks.’

  ‘It will be fine.’ He smiled and climbed into the driver’s seat. ‘I’ll see you later.’

  That afternoon, Onkel Julius offered to drive me back to Berlin. ‘I don’t like having a driver,’ he said as we drove through the countryside in his two-seater Mercedes Benz, the canvas roof folded back to make the most of the sunny June day. Like me, he came from substantial money and an old family. ‘I drive whenever I can.’

  ‘What do you actually do anyway?’ Leo’s comments had sparked my curiosity and I wanted to know why Julius thought he could protect my family.

  ‘I work in Operational Management and Construction. I’ve just been promoted, that’s why I’m back in Berlin,’ he said with a flourish of his free hand, the other remaining solidly on the leather steering wheel.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I said, putting the information together. ‘It must be an important role if you have a driver. But those positions require Nazi membership, don’t they?’

  ‘Yes, I had to become a member of the Nazi Party, if that’s what you’re asking. I could never have landed a decent engineering job, especially one within government. But not all Nazis are like that pig Mueller. Many of us are civil servants who just want to keep Germany running as efficiently as possible during this war.’

  ‘So can you really help Tante Elya?’

  The expression on his face became serious. He slowed down and pulled off the quiet country road and onto the lush grass growing on the edge of the verdant forest, turning off the engine before he answered me.

  ‘I’ve been thinking about what we discussed that night in the kitchen.’ He took a deep breath, focusing all his attention on me. ‘I promised you I would have a plan, and I do. We would have to work together for it to be successful.’ He touched my hand, the leather of his driving glove soft on my skin. ‘Please hear what I have to say before you say anything.’

  I nodded. Since our conversation that night, I’d been beginning to doubt that he had meant what he’d said. Despite his frequent visits to Gut Birkenhof over the past couple of weeks, nothing had been discussed and my conversations with Leo had made me wonder.

  ‘I’m doing all I can to help Georg find buyers and investors, powerful men in Berlin, industrialists, officers in the Wehrmacht and those in government. But the real problem is that Elya’s status is now common knowledge. Half Jews like Leo are safe for the moment, but I’m sure it won’t be long before they’re under the spotlight of the Security Office too.’

  ‘If there’s anything I can do to keep them safe, I’ll do it,’ I said. ‘They’re all I have.’

  ‘I know. They’ve been my family too for as long as I care to remember.’ He patted my arm in sympathy, but his blue eyes were clouded with pain.

  ‘Why do you want to help us? What happened to you?’

  Julius sagged in his seat. ‘You have every right to ask. Only a handful of people know this about me… Georg, Elya and your mother among them.’ He stared into the forest, gathering his thoughts. ‘When I was about five years old, my older brother and I came to live with Georg and his family. My father gambled the family fortune on bad business ventures across Europe. Georg’s father intervened and saved our family from bankruptcy. My father’s reputation was in tatters and my mother committed suicide. Vati turned to the bottle and was unable to look after my brother and me. That’s when we came to Gut Birkenhof. We both stayed until we left school and I never went home again.’

  I frowned, not expecting this story. ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said, not knowing what else to say. His vulnerability touched me, a far cry from the self-contained man I had always known.

  ‘My father died during my last years at school, a drunkard. The shame was almost too much for my brother and me. My brother inherited the estate. He went to manage what was left of our family legacy and I went to university to become an engineer. Georg’s father loaned us money to get us on our feet.’

  ‘You owe it all to Georg’s father,’ I whispered.

  ‘Yes, he gave us the chance to find respectability again.’ He shook his head. ‘But despite his best attempts, my brother struggled to run the estate and by the time I joined the Ministry of Transport he was dead and the property gone.’

  ‘I had no idea,’ I said quietly.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ he said, sighing softly, ‘but you can see why Georg is like a brother to me. I owe so much to him and his family. They gave us sanctuary; a home and a family. I’ll do anything for him.’ I realised then how much we had in common. I’d been given sanctuary at Gut Birkenhof too. It was my home and the Heckers were my family now. I, too, would do anything for them.

  ‘We are your family,’ I said, understanding why Julius always came back to Gut Birkenhof. Family was our bedrock, the source of our nourishment and our strength. ‘Just tell me how I can help.’

  ‘Do you mean it, that you would do anything? Because it won’t be easy.’

  I nodded, my head heavy. ‘I don’t care about myself. I have to do something.’

  ‘In normal circumstances I’d never entertain such an idea, but these are desperate times… It will mean pretending – lying even – and Georg and Elya might not understand.’

  I frowned, feeling uneasy. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have the support of powerful men within the administration. If I continue to work with them and support their agendas, I can keep your family safe.’ He paused for a moment. ‘But there’s always the risk of putting such delicate tasks in the hands of others, who you can’t completely trust.’

  ‘So what else can we do?’

  ‘There’s only one other way. Family members of high-ranking Nazis are looked after and protected, including those with Jewish connections.’

  ‘Nazis protecting their own. That doesn’t surprise me,’ I said bitterly. ‘But how does that help us?’

  ‘Even the families of those rising within the government ministries, like me, can be safeguarded.’ He paused, pushing the dark blond hair from his forehead. ‘But although I could say that Georg and I are family, it’s not enough. We need a closer tie.’

  I stared at him dumbly.

  ‘You and I would have to pretend to be courting.’

  The blood drained from my face.

  ‘I know it’s a lot to ask,’ Julius said quickly. ‘But in reality you would only have to be seen attending a few social and government events with me.’ This couldn’t be what he meant. ‘I know this isn’t what you expected, but the situation with Elya and Leo is delicate and it calls for an unusual solution.’

  ‘But we can’t. It’s crazy, like some kind of pantomime.’ The ridiculousness of it struck me and I laughed out loud, willing him to show me the mischievous grin I knew so well, but he just shook his head, the light between the tall beech and oak trees falling across his face.

  ‘Look, Susie, your parents belonged to the same social set as G
eorg and me. Your family credentials are impeccable; you’re cultured and educated. You can discuss matters of philosophy and literature and speak four languages. You’ll dazzle them all and, by my side, you’ll be accepted into powerful circles in a heartbeat.’ I frowned at this generous assessment of my abilities. ‘Men like Mueller wouldn’t dare touch or threaten you. And if any trouble develops with Elya and Leo, once it’s understood that they’re the family who raised you, any problems will be averted, especially with Georg’s lineage and assistance to the Reich.’

  I grasped his arm, desperate to believe him, especially if it kept opportunistic men like Mueller away. ‘How can you be so sure? How much power do you really have?’

  Julius grinned. ‘I’m the new Ministerialrat for Operational Management and Construction.’

  ‘The assistant secretary?’ He nodded. It was only the third position down from the Minister of Transport himself. Maybe his credentials were enough to pull this off successfully.

  ‘It gives me access not only to the minister, but others at senior government levels across the ministries. I’m making contacts in very useful places. I can keep you all safe,’ he said with conviction.

  My brief relief that this might be a solution dissolved as I thought through the implications. I’d have to rub shoulders with Nazis, those who believed that Jewish people deserved to be treated worse than animals. Then my face fell. ‘We’d have to lie to my family?’

  Julius shrugged apologetically. ‘It can’t be helped. We’d have to be seen as serious, our relationship leading towards marriage.’

  ‘Marriage?’ I sucked in a sharp breath. There was only one person I ever wanted to talk about marriage with.

  ‘Yes. It’ll be a pretence – but it has to be believable to everyone. It’s the only thing that will keep them safe.’

  I nodded, trying to find an even keel. The idea was outrageous, but so was the precarious situation Tante Elya and Leo were in. I knew that traditional values, especially in respect to courtship and marriage, were still held in the highest regard by the Nazi regime.