Letters from Berlin

by Tania Blanchard

  Leo took responsibility for managing the estate and much of the strain that went with it, but it did nothing to dampen his ardour at night. We spent many a night on top of the sheets, listening to the owls hoot, the whoosh of powerful wings and the rustle of small nocturnal creatures through the bushes beneath our open window. The soft breeze caressed our hot, damp bodies as we listened to the night and drifted off to sleep still in each other’s arms.

  But it was in the early hours of morning that I was faced with what the war had done to us. Leo often woke me, jerking in his sleep, crying out in despair as he tried desperately to claw his way out of his nightmares. Sometimes all I had to do was cup his cheek and put my head on his chest and he’d wrap his arms around me, his breathing deepening once again. Other times he woke, lathered in sweat and trembling violently. He wouldn’t tell me what caused him such distress.

  ‘It’s nothing,’ he’d mutter. ‘Just a bad dream.’ He’d kiss me on the cheek. ‘Go back to sleep.’ But then he would leave the room until just before dawn when he’d come back into bed. There I’d hold him, warming his cold body, and only then would he fall into an exhausted sleep.

  I wondered how I could help him. What he’d witnessed at Ohrdruf and the terrible shock of his father’s death had been traumatic events that would affect anyone. Onkel Georg’s face came to me when I least expected it, dark blood against his pale and lifeless face flashing across my mind when I was on the edge of sleep, milking the cows, driving the tractor, baling the hay or washing the clothes. But it was at night, worrying about Leo, when I heard Tante Elya’s heartbroken sobs. She was working as hard as the rest of us and presented a brave face through the day, but she had withdrawn into herself and I wondered if the farm was enough to lift her out of her misery. If only we could find Onkel Tedi or any other members of her family it would give her some joy, but our enquiries through Captain Snopov and the Soviet administration had come to nothing and we’d received no news from the Red Cross. With the chaos that had descended upon Germany it could be months before we’d know anything about their fate. I had to live in hope.

  And then all of a sudden there it was: hope.

  ‘It’s so beautiful here,’ I said to Leo. It was early September, in the final days of harvest, and we were arm in arm, looking out from the stand of ancient birch trees the estate was named after, down over the cropped and bare fields to the silver ribbon of the Dahme River beyond. It was peaceful, as though time had stopped still for just a few moments, the chattering of birds the only counterpoint to the soft breeze dancing with the delicate boughs of gold, sending a small procession of gilded leaves twirling around us to the ground.

  He looked at me, his eyes soft. ‘It is. And so are you.’ He lifted my hand and kissed it, then held it to his chest.

  I smiled, then moved his hand to my belly. ‘Leo, I’m pregnant.’

  He stared at me as he took in the news and then smiled and kissed me tenderly. ‘I dreamed about this moment when I was in Ohrdruf… I can’t tell you how happy I am.’ He pulled me close. ‘This is the life I always dreamed of with you, here on Gut Birkenhof, bringing up our children,’ he whispered.

  ‘Me too.’

  ‘And Mutti will be beside herself,’ he said, his hand still on my belly.

  Life couldn’t get any better.

  * * *

  The harvest was finally in. It was a relief and a profound sense of accomplishment. We’d had help from some in the village, friends and those who understood that, without our harvest, winter would be difficult for our community. But, despite this, there was still a slight air of resentment.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ I said to Frau Kraus one afternoon a couple of weeks later. It was a rare moment of rest, still warm enough to sit outside in the garden and enjoy the sunshine. Although I felt well, everyone was protective of me, making sure I didn’t overdo it. Tante Elya had already begun to knit booties from the unfinished jumper she’d been knitting before the Gestapo’s visit, and had started suggesting baby names, Russian and German. ‘You make me the happiest grandmother,’ she told me time and time again.

  ‘Can you blame them?’ Frau Kraus asked. ‘You sleep in a warm bed with wood to burn in your stove, flour, eggs and milk to cook with, your own meat to butcher and eat.’

  ‘But we’ve given the Soviets all the rations they’ve demanded. Between what the district commander and local mayor’s asked for, it’s been difficult to fill the quotas. I know it’s to be distributed to the local communes, so everyone can eat and stay warm, but we can’t feed the entire Soviet Occupied Zone. And we help the villagers with whatever else we have. We need to keep enough to ensure we have milk and meat crops for next year.’ I ran my hands through my hair in exasperation. ‘It’s not like anyone’s going to give us what we need to begin again, not the village and not the Soviets.’

  ‘I know,’ she said, ‘but many don’t understand and don’t want to understand. They just see what they’ve always seen: that you have what they don’t. It’s jealousy, plain and simple.’

  I shouldn’t have been surprised. In these desperate times, survival had become the prime instinct once again.

  I nodded. ‘Suffering and hardship can make people bitter.’ I thought for a brief moment of Julius, and in my own bitterness hoped that he was incarcerated in a prisoner of war camp. ‘I just hope that, with time, it can be like it used to be.’

  The soft breeze rustled the leaves of the old oak tree above us. Before long, its limbs would be bare and we’d be turning our thoughts to managing the harsh winter ahead as well as the requests of the communal council.

  ‘It will never be the same again,’ she said softly. ‘Those in the village who were committed to the Nazi way and followed Hitler blindly, those who vilified your aunt and turned against your family, are now self-professed communists.’

  ‘I can think of two or three people with strong Nazi sympathies who are on the local committees,’ I said, pouring cold mint tea into a long glass and handing it to her. ‘And the Soviets tell us that all Germans must bear the guilt and responsibility of what the Nazis have done. There were plenty of us who resisted and many more who disagreed.’

  I turned to the sound of footsteps coming down the stone path and frowned. Leo looked furious and Tante Elya was pale. ‘What’s wrong?’

  ‘We’ve received a letter from the local committee for land reform.’ There were more and more committees being created every month. It was confusing to keep track of them all and the various rules and laws they were supposed to enforce. ‘The land reform laws have been issued by the provisional government and now enacted by the local committee.’ Leo handed me the letter.

  I read the paper carefully. ‘Expropriation of lands and agricultural assets belonging to active Nazi Party members and leaders, war criminals and those owning greater than one hundred hectares. These lands will be redistributed to landless farmers, agricultural workers and refugees.’

  I was stunned by the words on the page. We owned more than one hundred hectares.

  ‘They’ll give it to anyone willing to work the land,’ said Leo.

  ‘What about us? We’re working the land and providing the local and district communes with produce. We’ve just brought the harvest in.’

  ‘It’s too much,’ whispered Frau Kraus, horrified. ‘They can’t do that to you.’

  ‘We’re considered Junkers,’ said Tante Elya, her voice shaking. ‘As if we haven’t been through enough! My own countrymen treating us this way. We helped their officers escape during the war, but not even that seems to matter. I can’t believe I’m saying this, but maybe we would’ve been better off with the Americans. They wouldn’t treat us like this.’

  ‘I’ll be damned if a committee tries to take my ancestral home away from me. The Nazis already tried once,’ growled Leo. ‘We’ll contest this decision,’ he said, squeezing his mother’s hand. ‘Gut Birkenhof is the cornerstone of this district and provides for the community, ensuring the loca
l economy is strong and bringing prosperity to the whole area. It’s what you and Vati worked your whole life for. I’ll present our case to the committee, as well as how we’ve actively resisted the Nazi regime and helped the Russians.’

  ‘I only hope they listen,’ muttered Frau Kraus.

  After our conversation, I wasn’t confident they would.

  * * *

  We were waiting in the kitchen when Leo returned from addressing the local committee of the Commission for Land Reform.

  ‘The decision stands,’ he said in disbelief. ‘Because of the difficulties we suffered as Jewish people during the war, they’re willing to extend the grace period from twenty-four hours and give us two weeks to vacate the property.’

  ‘No,’ moaned Tante Elya, slumping forward, putting her head in her hands. ‘We’ve been betrayed by my own people.’

  ‘I’m so sorry. I’ve failed you,’ he whispered.

  ‘This is our home.’ I felt nothing but shock and incomprehension.

  ‘Everything your father ever worked for… gone.’ The desolation on Tante Elya’s face scared me out of my own stupor. I hugged her tight, as though I could stop the fine trembling that racked her slight frame.

  ‘I still have Marienwerder,’ I said hopefully. ‘We can go there and start again.’

  Leo shook his head. ‘East Prussia’s part of the Soviet zone too and subject to the same Soviet policy and rules. Marienwerder will be expropriated too.’ He touched my cheek. ‘I’m so sorry, Susie.’

  ‘What will we do?’ I whispered, stricken. We’d lost everything. After all we’d been through as opponents to the Nazis, and the support we’d given the Russians during the war. It meant nothing to the Soviet administrative machine.

  ‘We’ll go to Berlin,’ said Leo, his jaw tight with suppressed emotion. ‘They won’t let us stay in the district.’

  There was no time to think about what was ahead of us, no time to wallow in grief for what we had lost. If we were going to make a new life for the three of us, we had to do as much as we could before we were ripped from our home. Within the week, my letter informing me of the expropriation of the Marienwerder estate arrived and I knew then that Berlin was indeed our only option.

  Numb with shock, with the help of Frau Kraus and Hans, we organised what we could take and what had to remain behind. But our lives were not the only ones being turned upside down. Frau Kraus and Hans no longer had their jobs. And the way our small community had functioned for generations had changed irrevocably – I wondered what would become of the village.

  ‘What will you and Hans do?’ I asked Frau Kraus, as we sorted through the kitchenware.

  ‘I’ll find something,’ she said, helping me pull the pots and pans from the cupboard. ‘Herr Wenck needs somebody in the shop. I could work there. The Soviets will probably realise that they need to keep Hans as forester. There’s nobody as experienced as him.’

  ‘That’s a blessing at least. You’ve both been with us for so long… It doesn’t seem right that you have to suffer too.’

  She separated pots into two piles. ‘You’ll need a few to cook with. The rest I’ll take back to our place and store until you’re resettled.’

  ‘Thank you, Frau Kraus. You and Hans have done so much for us and now we leave you with nothing.’ Tears welled in my eyes.

  ‘Stop it. You’re family to us and we’ll do whatever we can for you.’ She pulled me to her, the smell of freshly baked bread on her apron, familiar and comforting, making the tears fall afresh. ‘We have enough for ourselves. We’ll be fine.’

  ‘I’m going to miss you.’

  ‘And I’ll miss you too.’ She kissed my head. ‘Enough of that. We have work to do. The Soviets have taken enough and we don’t want to leave anything useful behind for the looters to come in and take.’

  * * *

  It was the last night in our home. We’d spent the day planning and packing, but now as darkness filled the house, memories crept in like silent intruders.

  ‘I can’t leave,’ said Tante Elya, gazing around the parlour. The shadows cast from the candles on the table made her and Leo’s faces appear ghoulish, but they were only hollow with exhaustion. ‘This is the last place Georg was, where he died. I still feel him here.’

  I shivered, the hairs on my arms raised. I didn’t believe in ghosts, but… the image of him slumped on the floor, blood staining the rug, and the feel of his skin as I’d dressed him for his burial had never left me.

  ‘He’d want you to move on,’ said Leo, frowning with worry. He glanced at me helplessly. ‘We need you and now there’s the baby…’

  ‘This is where we had the happiest memories, watching the two of you grow up.’ She picked up Onkel Georg’s pipe and packed it carefully in the small box we were taking with us.

  ‘We’ll always have those memories,’ I said, placing a suitcase near the doorway. In it I still carried the wooden horse Leo had carved for me as a child. It was the sentimental objects like Onkel Georg’s pipe, the samovar, Leo’s balalaika, my little horse and the rings on my hand that carried the most meaning, holding precious memories of the past. As long as we had them, we’d never forget.

  ‘You and Leo must make new memories and start again with your baby. You’re young enough, but me…’ She stared off into the distance.

  ‘We’ll all find a way.’ I crossed the room quickly to hug her, wondering how many times she’d comforted me over the years. This place had given me refuge as a child after the devastation of losing my own family, and the years since had been filled with warmth and love. But the future lay ahead and a new chapter of our lives was ready to begin. ‘At least we’re together.’ It was all that mattered.

  * * *

  The following morning Tante Elya didn’t come down for breakfast. She was still in bed asleep when I went to her room but something about the way she lay struck me as odd. Then I saw the sleeping powders that the doctor had prescribed her after Onkel Georg’s death and I knew what she’d done. It was like a bad dream. I tried to rouse her, but her skin was cold. She was gone.

  ‘Leo!’ I screamed, as the sobs ripped from my throat.

  He was there in an instant, standing in the doorway, rooted to the spot and staring at me in disbelief.

  I shook my head in despair. ‘She’s gone,’ I whispered, his pale face blurred by my tears. I reached out to him and, in a couple of strides, he was beside me, holding me tight, unable to tear his eyes from his mother’s peaceful but lifeless face. With a shuddering breath he cupped her cheek with his hand, his eyes widening with the confirmation of his fears.

  ‘She didn’t want to leave Gut Birkenhof,’ I said softly. ‘She didn’t want to leave your father.’

  Leo nodded, kissing his mother’s limp hand, before silent sobs racked his frame. We clung to each other.

  A little while later I realised Frau Kraus stood trembling behind us.

  ‘She’s at peace now,’ she said, her arms around us both, and I knew she was right. This was where Tante Elya belonged and nobody, not the Nazis or the Soviets, could force her to go.

  We left the house as ordered, with Tante Elya, and buried her next to Georg in the village cemetery. She was reunited with her beloved husband once more, under the tiny white flowers of the linden tree. People who had celebrated our wedding only three months earlier filed past to pay their respects and I nodded, murmuring a few words of thanks, but I could barely believe we’d lost her. Their faces blended and merged with each other and all that kept me standing was Leo.

  ‘I can’t believe she’s gone,’ said Leo later, staring out the window of Frau Kraus’s house towards the silent and empty estate. ‘After everything she endured through the war… she was a survivor, and now…’ He shrugged helplessly.

  I wrapped my arms around him. ‘You know the Nazis took away her reason to live when they took your father. All that kept her going afterwards was you and me, ensuring our happiness and rebuilding Gut Birkenhof for our future. Once she�
��d seen us married with a child on the way, I think her will to live began to fade. When the estate was taken from us, it was too much for her.’ Even the strongest had their tipping point and Tante Elya had suffered so much heartbreak and loss over the course of her life, denting and weakening her until the pain had become unendurable.

  ‘I can’t stay here anymore,’ he said, his voice catching.

  ‘We leave for Berlin in the morning,’ I said, kissing him.

  ‘No, I didn’t mean here, although I never want to set foot in this village ever again.’ He shifted restlessly. ‘I’ve failed you all. Mutti and Vati are gone before their time, and the estate too.’

  I drew back to see the torment on his face. ‘No, Leo. It’s not your fault.’ I touched his cheek. ‘You couldn’t have prevented any of this. Your mother made her choice, she did things her way and it was what she wanted in the end. She’d want us to stay strong, live life and find our peace with everything that’s happened.’

  He shook his head, brow creased. ‘I’ve had enough of Berlin and Germany. Everything reminds me of what we’ve endured and what we’ve lost.’

  ‘Where do you want to go?’ I asked, shocked at this unexpected revelation.

  ‘America. It’s where my mother’s family is, where my parents wanted to go. We’ll be able to start again. I’ll be able to give you and the baby a good life, a life you deserve… What do you think?’

  He leaned against the windowsill, his troubled brown eyes searching my face. I touched the diamond of my engagement ring, my link to Tante Elya. There was a kind of symmetry to the idea. Like her, we could do things our way rather than enduring a life that was dictated to us. We’d had enough of being told what we could and couldn’t do and Tante Elya would be happy for us to be with the only family she had left, in a country that valued its freedom and civil liberties.

  ‘We have to look to the future. Maybe it’s time to start again, somewhere new and far away from this madness.’ I reached out and took his hand. ‘Yes, let’s go to America.’