Jan doesn’t say anything. He’s more afraid of what Friedrich might do. He feels years older than twelve, decides he has to take a lead. “We’re all tired, perhaps we should talk about it in the morning.” When Friedrich nods, he holds out his hand to Lena and leads her up to her bed. As they pass Gisela’s bedroom, he quails at the strength of the sobs coming from them, glances at Lena to see whether she’s noticed and is relieved to see that she’s so tired she seems oblivious. He puts her to bed, then goes to his room where he places a chair under the door handle to stop anyone getting in. He doesn’t really think they’d harm him, but they are desperate in their bereavement, and he’s taking no chances.
Jan lies in bed worrying about what to do. He feels they have an advantage over him; they could take him to the authorities and hand him over. No one would do anything about Lena. As far as the authorities are concerned she’s legitimately adopted. He hates himself for even thinking it, but resolves that if they try to betray him to the authorities he’ll tell them about Wilhelm.
In the morning Friedrich admits they’ve had doubts about Lena from the beginning. “It didn’t add up,” he says, “the details about her past were so sketchy. We didn’t understand how she could have been in a fire where her mother died yet had no burns and showed no fear of fire. And her accent was so strange.”
“What are you going to do?” asks Gisela. Her voice is thick with tears.
“Take Lena, find our mother and go home,” he says with more confidence than he feels.
Gisela shakes her head. “I won’t let her go.”
He takes a deep breath. “Then I’ll tell people about Wilhelm. About how you hid him.”
“Do you think I care? What good will that do?” she says. “Anyway, you do that, and I’ll tell them that you pretended to be someone else. It’s probably a crime to impersonate a member of the Hitler Youth.”
She’s right. It will do no good. They’re trapped with each other. He can’t tell anyone about Wilhelm without questions being asked about him. He has no identity card, nothing. At the same time, they can’t betray him for fear of what he might say about Wilhelm. Dismayed, they glower at each other.
“How far do you think you would get with Lena in tow? She’s a small child; she tires easily. You’d never get anywhere.”
Jan scowls; this is what every adult has told him, all the partisans used to laugh at him when he told them his plans. Now this woman is telling him the same thing. “I found my way from Poland to Germany,” he says. “I can find our mother.”
Friedrich is more patient than Gisela. “How did you get here?”
Jan doesn’t want to say, because he knows he couldn’t have done it without the help of the partisans, not easily anyway. Reluctantly he tells his story. To his surprise, they don’t point out how much help he had.
They say nothing at first when he finishes, then Friedrich speaks. “It’s an amazing story,” he says. “You must have wanted to see your little sister very much indeed.” He sounds sympathetic.
Jan doesn’t want to trust the couple. They stole his sister after all. But he has to admit that they really seem to care for Lena. Perhaps not all Germans are bad, perhaps some of them don’t hate everyone who is not German.
“Please, don’t do anything today. Don’t do anything hasty,” says Gisela. “Perhaps we can work something out.”
Jan doubts it, but their haggard faces convince him that he shouldn’t do anything too quickly, so he agrees.
They’ve sat up all night arguing about what to do. Gisela is terrified of losing Helena, yet she can’t help wondering about the mother, about what she must be feeling. If she’s alive that is. And there’s the rub. No one knows for sure where she is; no one knows she is still alive.
“I think we should encourage him to go,” says Friedrich. “We’ll be able to persuade him to leave Helena. He knows she’d never survive out there. But we could say that if he comes back with his mother, Helena can go with them. He’ll not get far without someone capturing him. Then he’ll be out of our way for ever. We won’t have to worry about anyone claiming Helena.”
“We don’t know that,” says Gisela. “He’s a bright boy, he found us. He never gave up hope of finding his little sister. What if we do let him go, and he finds his mother and then they come back?”
Friedrich pours another glass of beer. If he were a ruthless man, he’d kill the boy. But he’s not. He could no more harm Jan than he could his own son. He winces at the thought of his loss. “Maybe there’s another way. I think there’s little chance of that woman still being alive.”
“What are you saying?”
“We could try to persuade him to stay. Everyone thinks we’ve got a Hitler Youth staying with us. I’m sure we could get an identity card for him; we could say he lost his. All his details are in that first letter that was sent to us.” He pauses. “It’s worth a try.” He doesn’t want to bring Wilhelm into the argument, but decides he has to. “And Wilhelm asked us to look after him.”
“No, he could never replace Wilhelm. Never.”
“I think Wilhelm was trying to tell us something important that night.” Friedrich isn’t a philosophical man, so he struggles with the ideas that are coming to him. “I think he saw it as fate that Jan turned up here, a boy without a father. He knew he was dying…”
“You think he wanted you to become his father, for the boy to take his place as your son? Where does that leave me? His mother could still be alive for all we know.”
“I’m not explaining myself well. But you must admit, it does seem like fate, Helena comes to us, then Jan. We can keep them safe for the time being.”
Gisela shakes her head. It’s well after midnight, and she’s tired. But she can’t think of any other solution. “All right,” she says, “we’ll ask him to stay, but I will never see him as my son. Never.”
In the morning they put their proposal to Jan. They tell him he can stay with them until the war is over, then he can try to find his mother. They don’t mention Helena; they won’t make any promises about what will happen to her.
Jan has agreed to the plan. He’s not sure why, except Lena is happy here, and it seems safe. After all his hardship of the past two years he wants some comfort, and Friedrich has assured him that the war will soon be over. Once Germany is liberated he can find his mother. He hopes he can find his mother. At times like this he fears he will never see her again, and even if he does he won’t know her or she won’t know him.
Soon he settles into a routine. During the day he helps Friedrich with the farm. In the evening he plays with Lena, talking to her about her real family. Gisela and Friedrich don’t like this, but they are too desolate about Wilhelm to stop him. Sometimes Gisela allows him to help in the kitchen, and he loves that. It reminds him of home. Slowly he becomes, if not attached to these people, then at least more trusting, and he stops blocking his door at night. It’s almost like home he thinks, almost, but not quite.
In this way November and December pass. They don’t celebrate Christmas. For one thing, Gisela and Friedrich are still in mourning. For another, they are aware that all the Hitler Youth who were billeted in local farms have now gone home, and they are wary of people asking questions about Jan. So when people call at the farm to offer their season’s greetings, they are not invited in. Word gets round, and soon the visitors stop calling.
In the New Year, Hans comes to see them. Gisela is shocked by his appearance: he is old and frail, and it has exhausted him to trail all the way out to the farm. He’s distraught when he hears about Wilhelm, blames himself, but Friedrich won’t have it.
“He couldn’t live with what he did,” he says. “It’s as simple as that. If anything’s to blame, it’s this evil regime. You did your best. So did we.”
“Such a terrible loss,” says Hans.
Gisela interrupts him; she doesn’t want to talk about Wilhelm. It’s too upsetting. “Why are you here?”
“We need food. The girls
and I, we’re starving to death. I was hoping… anything you can spare. We’d be so grateful.”
“Of course,” murmurs Gisela.
They send Jan down to Hans twice a week with food parcels, as much as they can spare. He has to go at night for he mustn’t be spotted. This doesn’t bother him; it’s like being back with the partisans once more except he goes back to a warm bed instead of shivering in a hole in the ground. He enjoys these visits; Hans is welcoming, and often he stays for an hour or more, chatting to Hans and the girls.
Some weeks later the war ends. Jan’s immediate feeling of relief is quickly followed by dread. There are terrible stories coming from the east about acts of revenge on German civilians with many men being shot. Friedrich and Gisela are terrified about what will happen. So instead of setting off to find his mother immediately, he agrees to stay. When the liberators come he will be able to tell them how the Germans gave him and his sister shelter during the war.
The Russians have demanded to see the family in the town hall. Gisela and Friedrich get themselves and the children ready with fear in their hearts. The journey into town is agonizing. What if they have not done enough to be spared? What if Jan turns against them? They know in their hearts that he won’t, but they worry nonetheless. These are such confusing times.
The town is unrecognizable. Just before the end of the war, it was bombarded two nights running, a time of terror for them as they listened to the falling bombs only a few kilometres away and wondered if one would strike them instead. Now, seeing the damage that has been done, they realize they were not frightened enough. They pick their way through the rubble, at times having to clamber over great chunks of stone to get to the Town Hall. It is undamaged, but filthy with the dust from the ruins of other buildings. Gisela looks around at the children. She wasted her time getting them all spruced up for this interview. They are covered in grime, Jan has somehow torn his trousers. What does it matter? The Russians won’t be interested in how they look.
Inside the Town Hall, there’s a queue of civilians. A soldier takes the letter from them and shows them into a room. They are left standing in front of a desk. Gisela’s mouth is parched with nerves. She jumps as a soldier comes into the room. He sits down behind the desk and indicates to them that they should sit.
“I have asked you to come here because I have information that you helped two Jewish girls hide during the war.” His voice is stern, and Gisela quails. She had thought it would work in their favour, could she have been wrong about that? She nods and says, “Yes, we gave them some food.”
He looks down at the paper on his desk. “Mmm. That is what it says here. When the Jewish girls were freed from their hiding place, they testified to the help given to them not only by Hans Knoller, whose cellar they were hiding in, but also by the couple who live in Grunfeld farm. That is you, I assume?”
“Yes,” says Friedrich. “That is us.”
“Good, good. They said that without your help they would surely have starved to death.”
Gisela thought she might faint when he nodded his approval. For a few seconds she had thought that perhaps in the Soviet Union as well as Germany, it was a crime to help Jews.
The soldier questions them about the children. Determined to hide nothing, Friedrich tells them everything about how Lena and Jan came to be with them. The soldier writes it all down in a notebook and smiles at Jan on hearing about his time with the partisans. When they have finished, he gives them new ration books.
“You’re free to go,” he says. “I will pass on the information about the children’s backgrounds to the Red Cross. They are trying to reunite families. You will hear from them in due course. Good afternoon to you.”
They are dismissed. The little group leave the Town Hall with a mixture of emotions. Jan is jubilant at the thought he might see his mother again soon, Friedrich and Gisela relieved that they are not going to be imprisoned or worse, but devastated at the thought of the Red Cross seeking out the children’s mother. Only Lena is oblivious. She holds Gisela’s hand as she skips down the street. “Can I have a new ribbon?” she asks as they pass the haberdasher’s shop. She doesn’t seem to have noticed it’s in ruins.
30
The long awaited day is here. When the letter from the Red Cross came last week, Gisela wanted to burn it without reading it; she knew what it would say. Friedrich wouldn’t let her. He was gentle with her, took her face in his hands and said, “We cannot keep what is not ours.” She didn’t argue with him, but inwardly she disagreed.
Jan has hardly been able to sleep he’s so excited. It’s four years since he saw his mother; he imagines the look on her face when she sees him and Lena. Perhaps – though this is too much to hope for – she’ll have found Maria, and they’ll all be together again. He’s so excited he doesn’t notice how quiet Lena is whenever he talks to her about their mother. When he mentions “mama” she looks confused and glances furtively at Gisela. Gisela sees this and feels quietly triumphant, but she knows it will mean nothing when the time comes.
The house has been scrubbed from top to bottom. The children are dressed in their finest clothes; their hair is brushed until it shines, and they have each had two baths this week. Gisela has not stinted on spending money on the children. She buys only the best for them and vows that whatever happens, this woman will not be able to say that she did not look after them properly. She is dreading today. They have been almost happy this past year. Lena is a darling, and the boy, once they got used to him and he began to trust them, well he’s a spirited little thing and a damn good worker. She can’t bear to think about the future. They’ve never discussed it, Friedrich and her, and she fears they never will. The day will end, the children will be gone, and they will say nothing about it. She wonders if perhaps they’ll live in silence punctuated only by what’s for supper? and it’s cold today isn’t it? It’s unbearable.
“They’re here, they’re here.” Jan’s shouts pierce her thoughts. Two slight figures are trudging up the track, the Red Cross worker and the mother. Gisela tries to smile. “Well, on you go, go out and greet her.”
Jan doesn’t move.
“What’s wrong?”
“That’s not my mother. That’s an old woman.”
The women coming up to the door do indeed look too old to be Lena’s mother. Jan had told her his mother was thirty-eight, and neither of the women look as young as that. But the war has aged everyone; she should know that. Knows it only too well when she looks into a mirror and sees the haggard wrinkled face and the dark hair liberally striped with grey.
“Jan,” she says, “remember it’s been nearly four years, and your mother has been through a great ordeal.”
He nods, but still looks uncertain. The women are at the door now, and Friedrich has gone to let them in. Gisela digs her fingernails into the palms of her hands to try to stop the pain in her heart. It doesn’t work. She forces herself to smile at the two women. She knows which one is the mother immediately. One of them is drinking in Jan with her eyes at the same time looking round for Lena. There is an air of desperation surrounding her. She steps towards Jan, who steps back.
This is not how it was meant to be. He was going to run down the path and into his mother’s arms. She’d swing him round the way she used to when he was a little boy. She’d be laughing and crying all at the same time, and Lena would be right there too, and she’d gather them both in her arms and everything would be all right again. And then she’d say “Guess who I found outside”, and Maria would appear looking beautiful. This was how it was meant to be.
Jan keeps staring at the woman. She looks a bit like mama, but thinner and older and oh so tired. She’s not laughing, there’s a little smile on her face, so little, Jan isn’t sure that it is a smile. This can’t be his mother; his mother would scream with delight at seeing her children once more. This woman looks scared as she comes towards him.
“Ahoj, Jan,” she says in a quiet voice.
It soun
ds a bit like her. He holds out his hand and says hello back. Her face falls, and he realizes he’s done the wrong thing, that she’s waiting for an embrace, but he can’t do it. He drops his eyes. His mother looks round at the other woman for help. She steps forwards.
“Well, well, so this is Jan. I’ve heard so much about you. You’re quite a hero, the way you found your little sister. Your mother hasn’t stopped talking about you all the way here. Why don’t we all sit down, and perhaps Frau Scheffler can get us something to drink.”
Gisela’s face flushes at this, and Jan realizes she feels rebuked for not offering them something straight away. He wants to help her, so gets up and says, “I’ll get the drinks.” But the Red Cross woman tells him to stay and talk to his mother. Trouble is, he can’t think of anything to say.
“Where’s Lena?” asks his mother.
Friedrich pushes Lena forwards, but she starts to cry when she sees the two women. With a shock, Jan understands that his mother and Lena are total strangers to each other, that they haven’t seen each other for three and a half years, half of Lena’s age. Mother tries to cuddle her, but Lena clings to Friedrich’s leg and won’t budge. The Red Cross woman looks irritated, an angry flush sweeps over her chest. A cross, red woman, thinks Jan. “Come on, give mama a kiss,” she says. Lena runs over to Gisela and hides behind her skirts. Jan’s mother starts to cry.
This is unbearable, not how it should be. Jan wants to reassure her, but she’s a stranger, how can he approach a stranger and comfort her?
They’ve been here an hour. The Red Cross woman is looking at her watch, and Jan predicts that any moment now she’ll say the fateful words. Now the time is here, he’s not sure he wants to go.
“Right,” she says, “time to go.”
Gisela has packed suitcases for them the night before. They’re by the door. The Red Cross woman picks up one and gestures to Jan to pick up the other. “My car is not far,” she says. Jan can hardly stand, his legs are trembling so much. He holds out a hand to Friedrich, who grabs it and pumps it up and down. Jan thinks he’ll never let go. Lena is still clinging to Gisela; she hasn’t looked at her mother. He goes over to Gisela and hugs her. Then he holds out his hand to Lena. Lena ignores it, holds out her arms to be lifted up by Gisela. She’s reverted to being a baby.
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