‘Willi, now is the time. You and your mother are Jews – try to remember what I taught you. All right?’
He nodded with difficulty and took their forged papers out of his pocket.
‘Good idea,’ she whispered, and stuffed them under the cushion of the couch. They did not need them any more, and it would only complicate things further if they were found with them.
With their help, Willi managed to stand. Sweat ran down his head, but he was determined. Between them, they got him out onto the footpath outside where Roman stood waiting.
‘Is everything all right?’ Roman asked, taking in Willi’s deathly pallor.
Frau Braun looked terrified.
‘Yes, we’ll be fine. Thank you, Roman. This is my husband, Willi, and his mother. And we are Jews.’
Chapter 28
Elizabeth and Daniel sat close together, waiting for the elderly judge to finish dealing with a black marketeering case in the small district court. The last time they’d been in a courtroom together, Daniel had been in real danger of being sentenced to hang for treason, and while the circumstances couldn’t be more different, they were both tense. The judge seemed particularly cranky into the bargain. So far he’d dressed down a policeman who didn’t have the correct paperwork and was most acerbic with a man who had four previous convictions for brawling with his brother when drunk. He’d sentenced both brothers to two weeks in jail to make them think about their stupidity and wasting police time with their nonsense. He was not a person to be trifled with, that was for sure.
Erich and Liesl sat behind them, both in their best outfits. Daniel wore a suit and tie, and Elizabeth dressed in her navy dress and jacket. All around were people with all kinds of reasons to be there, from fines for lack of dog licences to dangerous driving. She had hoped there might be a small family law court, something a little less public, but it wasn’t to be. The district court sat in Bangor once a month, and all legal matters were dealt with there.
The clerk called their names. ‘Mr Daniel Lieber and Mrs Elizabeth Lieber.’
They stood and were ushered to the front of the room. The clerk handed the judge a sheaf of papers. He shuffled through them and asked the clerk some questions, which neither of them could hear. The clerk seemed to answer in the affirmative.
‘Approach the bench,’ the judge commanded. All around them, people were coming and going, the doors constantly being opened and closed as policemen, wigged barristers, suited solicitors and members of the public mingled.
‘This is an application to adopt two German children, I believe?’ He gazed down at them over half-moon spectacles, his intelligent pale-blue eyes fixed on them.
‘Yes, Your Honour,’ Elizabeth confirmed. ‘My husband and I –’
But the judge held up his hand to stop her. ‘And are their parents dead?’ he asked. ‘You’re sure of that?’
The matter-of-fact way he asked made Elizabeth cringe. Poor Liesl and Erich were still very raw.
‘No, we don’t know. But as I submitted with the application, I have a letter from the children’s mother…’ she said, hoping they couldn’t hear her.
‘Have I seen that letter?’ the judge asked the clerk, who directed him to the bundle of papers in front of him. The clerk approached the judge and spoke in his ear for quite a long time.
‘Ah, yes, I’m sorry – I had forgotten. Yes, I’m familiar with the case. You outlined your reasons in your letter very well, Mrs Lieber. And they were left in your care by their mother, is that correct?’ He rifled through the papers. She’d submitted all the necessary paperwork weeks before.
‘Yes, Your Honour. You have copies of the letters there in your file, I think.’
He found them and read them again, taking his time to take in each word. After what seemed like an age, he took off his glasses, laid them on the bench and observed her and Daniel. Eventually he spoke.
‘Under normal circumstances, this would not be sufficient evidence. It would be necessary to perform a legal search to ascertain if the parents had wills, which might indicate their plans for their children in the event of their death. In normal circumstances, I would also need death certificates to even consider the application.’ He paused, wiped his glasses with a cloth and replaced them on his nose. ‘But these are anything but normal circumstances, and I fear many more European children will find themselves in similarly precarious situations as time goes on.’
He perused the letter again and sighed deeply. ‘And are the children here?’ he asked as he looked up, a new softness to his eyes.
‘Yes, Your Honour,’ Daniel replied.
‘Can you go and get them please, Mr Lieber? I would like to speak to them.’
‘Of course.’ Daniel turned and made his way through the packed courtroom. He beckoned Liesl and Erich towards him, reassuring them that nothing was wrong.
‘The judge just wants to speak to you both. It’s fine,’ he whispered, walking forward with them, skirting around groups, a hand on each of their shoulders.
As they joined Elizabeth, she gave them an encouraging smile. Their faces were drawn and worried, and she hoped she was doing the right thing. They had both agreed immediately to her and Daniel adopting them. They wanted it, but it was happening because they had no hope of ever seeing their parents again, so it was all tinged with deep sadness.
‘Liesl, Erich, come up here to me,’ the judge said, removing his glasses once more and leaning forward on the bench. They stood immediately in front of him, a few feet away from Daniel and Elizabeth.
‘Firstly, let me say how sorry I am that your daddy died. It is a very hard thing to bear even as an adult, but for a child, it is something you never really get over.’ He paused and looked at each of them in turn. ‘I lost my father in an accident when I was a little younger than you, Erich, so I know. It was a long time ago now, but it still hurts. So you won’t ever get over it, but it does get easier to bear after a while. You’ll never forget him, nor should you, but I am sure he would want you to get on with your lives and make him proud. That’s the first thing.’ He smiled gently at them.
‘The second thing is this business of your mammy. You know the situation is that we don’t know, and she could turn up any day. We hope that she will, of course, but Mr and Mrs Lieber think it might make your lives a bit less up in the air if you were adopted by them in the meantime. It might be until your mother comes, or it might be forever, you understand? What we do know is that your mammy wanted Elizabeth to take care of you, so we are following her wishes.’
Elizabeth knew he had to make crystal clear to them what was happening, and he was being as gentle as he could, but the reality was he didn’t think there was much chance of Ariella being alive either.
‘Now, this is an unusual case, and I need to make a decision. So to do that, I’m going to ask each of you a question, and if there is any doubt in your minds, any doubt at all, then you must tell me and we will figure it out. Do you understand? Don’t worry about upsetting anyone. We all have your best interests at heart here.’
Both of them nodded.
‘So I’ll start with you, Erich. Do you understand what adoption means?’
Erich looked back at Daniel, who gave him an almost imperceptible nod.
‘It means that Elizabeth and Daniel would be our mother and father from now on, and Liesl and I would be their children. But if our mother comes back, she would be our mother still.’
‘Exactly. So are you sure you want Elizabeth and Daniel to be your new parents?’
The hubbub in the courtroom seemed to quiet down, though people were still occupied with other cases. Elizabeth found she was digging her nails into Daniel’s hand.
‘I’m sure,’ Erich said, loudly and clearly.
‘No doubts? Because this could be forever. They will be your mum and dad, just as much as your real mum and dad, if we approve this application today.’
‘No doubts,’ Erich said. He looked over at Elizabeth and Daniel and grinne
d. ‘It feels like they are my mum and dad now anyway. I love them.’
Tears pricked at Elizabeth’s eyes, and she felt Daniel’s arm go around her shoulder. He gave her a squeeze.
The judge went on to Liesl. ‘So, Liesl, you are almost an adult, so you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to. Please answer the same question. Are you happy for Mr and Mrs Lieber to adopt you, to become Liesl Lieber?’
They’d talked about the children’s names, and both she and Daniel said that if they wanted to continue to use their Bannon name, then that was absolutely fine. But they both said they wanted to change to Lieber. Their reasoning was it would feel like they were a proper family if they all had the same name.
‘I am.’ She smiled.
‘Well, then, that’s the really important people taken care of.’ He winked at Erich and Liesl and then beckoned Daniel and Elizabeth to stand beside the children.
‘So, Mr and Mrs Lieber, this is a very serious undertaking. I hope you both understand that. I know you have been acting in loco parentis, that is, in the place of their parents, as we say, for several years now, but nonetheless, this is different. Do you both give me your word of honour that you will love these children as if they were your own flesh and blood? Daniel?’
‘I already do, Your Honour, so yes, I give you my word.’ His voice was strong and clear, his Austrian accent still there, with no doubt in his words.
‘And you, Elizabeth, do you promise the same?’
Elizabeth let go of Daniel’s hand and stood between the two children she had come to love as her own. ‘I am their mother now, and I will be until the day I die. I hope Ariella comes back – we all do – but in the meantime, and forever, I love them from the bottom of my heart.’
The old judge nodded and handed the sheaf of papers to the clerk, muttering something to him. The clerk nodded and scurried out of the courtroom.
‘So your application to adopt these children has been approved by this court. The papers will be ready for you to sign in the clerk’s office. I wish you all luck and happiness.’
‘Thank you, Your Honour,’ they said in unison, and arms around each other, they left the court.
‘Now we have one last job to do,’ Daniel said as he led them to the car.
‘What?’ Erich asked.
Elizabeth had promised they would be going out for their tea to a fancy hotel and that they could order whatever they wanted to celebrate, and he was anxious to get there.
‘It’s a surprise.’ He and Elizabeth shared a look, and both children were confused.
‘A good surprise?’ Liesl asked.
‘I hope so,’ Daniel responded as he started the engine. They were going to Belfast for their tea, but they took the road back to Ballycreggan, pulling up outside their own house.
‘What are we doing at home?’ Erich asked, frustrated that his delicious meal was being delayed, but Liesl shooed him inside ahead of her.
Daniel led them to the back garden, where the vegetables and a few flowers were flourishing. In the back corner, where the compost heap used to be, was a small wooden bench, with beautifully carved arms and a gold plaque screwed to the backrest. Beside the bench was a hole.
Daniel went into the shed and took out a bare-rooted tree. They watched expectantly, and Elizabeth could tell he was nervous. He’d worked day and night on the bench since they got the letter from Ariella, and she knew how much it meant to him that they were happy with it.
‘This is a cypress tree. It grows in Israel, but also here in Ireland, and we will call this our Etz Chaim, our Tree of Life. So we’ll plant it today to commemorate two things – in honour of Ariella and Peter, your mutti and papa, and to mark the day we four officially became a family.’
Liesl took Erich’s hand and led him to the bench, admiring the beautiful carvings on the backrest of two couples with two children between them. Screwed to the back was a brass plaque, and Erich read it aloud.
‘Ata lo bokher et ha’mishpakha shelkha hem matnat ha’el lekha, kmo she ata lahem. It means you don’t choose your family. They are God’s gift to you and you to them,’ Erich explained to Elizabeth, his eyes bright with tears.
Liesl moved to Daniel, and his arm went around her shoulders.
‘Thank you, Daniel. It’s so beautiful, and when we want to feel close to them, or talk to them, we can come out here?’
‘Of course you can.’ He kissed the top of her head.
Erich took the tree and gently placed it in the freshly dug and watered hole. He dug into the pile of earth beside it and shovelled it in on top of the roots, then he handed the shovel to Elizabeth. They each took a turn, and soon the hole was full. Liesl took the watering can from the shed and filled it, sprinkling the tree’s new bed with water.
Chapter 29
Ariella, Willi and Frau Braun walked most of the day away from the city towards the west, part of a huge procession of the destitute, the injured and the bereft. True to Roman’s word, his commanding officer had taken care of them, got them a meal, had Willi seen by a doctor who gave him some medicine and arranged a lift in a military truck as far as the city boundaries.
He had also issued all of them Jewish identification cards, stating that they were victims of National Socialism and asking that they be afforded any help they needed. How meaningful those slips of paper would be in the streams of people, each searching and trying to find loved ones or get home, was unclear, but they were free. And though they were filthy and tired, it felt good. In the absence of any better ideas, they were, like everyone else, walking towards the advancing British and American Allies in the hope of getting help.
Rumour had it that Germans who’d settled beyond Germany’s borders were being summarily dumped back into the defeated and destroyed country as the victorious Allies made plans to carve up and administrate what remained of the glorious 1,000-year Reich. Millions were displaced, and with no effective communications in operation, it was hard to envisage how the European continent would ever be anything but a chaotic mess of people all trying to get somewhere else.
Mile after weary mile they trudged. They didn’t talk much but stayed close by each other all the time. They’d eaten all of the little discs of bread she’d taken from the sacristy, and they drank from streams. Ariella carried a small hessian sack containing the identity cards issued by the Russians and Father Dominic’s prayer book and lighter.
There were no road signs – they’d been removed in case of an invasion – but they knew from their fellow travellers that they were on the road to Leipzig. A kind old man said that someone told him the Americans had set up a station at a town a few kilometres away and were trying to help people. Perhaps if she could get a message to Elizabeth, she could find a way to get to Ireland. She explained her plan to Willi and Frau Braun, who she’d taken to calling mutti now, not only for safety but also because it felt like they were family.
They covered themselves in their coats as they slept on the side of the road when they were too tired to go any further. Willi urged Ariella and his mother to rest more than him; he usually stayed awake and watched over them. He seemed to need very little sleep. The pain in his leg was still there, though the infection was clearing. He regularly hobbled off into the fields, re-emerging with some vegetables and, once or twice, a few eggs. They hated to steal – people were in such a bad way – but they needed to survive. It felt good to have him beside her; he was her strength. And eventually one night, while Frau Braun slept, she told him about what had happened to Father Dominic. She’d sobbed in his arms, the first time she’d cried in months.
On and on they walked, part of a procession of the desperate and traumatised. German military vehicles lay abandoned, twisted wrecks of metal mostly, on the sides of the road.
They came to the small town and immediately saw the lines. Her heart lifted. It wasn’t the dreaded swastika, or even the hammer and sickle, but the stars and stripes flying merrily over the makeshift station in the bright sunshine. She
mentally took back her earlier feelings about flags – as she hurried towards it, she’d never been so happy to see a flag in all of her life. She urged Frau Braun and Willi on, showing them the American flag. They hurried to the line. The crowds were all the way down the street and around the corner, but Ariella didn’t care. They joined the back of the line and waited. Each slow inch forward was an inch closer to her children. Willi stood beside her in the line, while Frau Braun sat on the pavement and waited. As night fell, they maintained their place in the line, listening as everyone did for reports from those who’d made it to the top.
It would seem what was being offered was minimal, but then the whole situation was so overwhelming it was hard to know where to even start. Food and water were dispensed, and some trucks had been provided to transport people, but the reality was most people had nowhere to go. They’d had their houses bombed, their families had dispersed, their men were gone, presumed dead at the front, and now there were sightings of emaciated victims of the many camps making their way back to home, wherever home might be. Each story was as tragic as the next; nobody had the monopoly on heartache. But Ariella kept her spirits up with the knowledge that her request was imminently doable. She needed to get to Ireland.
‘Come with me,’ she blurted, surprised at herself.
‘What?’ Willi asked. ‘Where?’
‘To Ireland, come with me. We can…I don’t know, start again or something… I can find my children and you and Mutti could get a house…’
He smiled. ‘If we can get you to Ireland, we’ll be doing very well. Besides, my mother is too old. She wouldn’t go that far, and I can’t leave her.’
Ariella’s face flushed. He was right of course; she was being stupid. But just the prospect of being apart from him was horrible.
The Emerald Horizon (The Star and the Shamrock Book 2) Page 20