by Debbie Rix
As they left the square it began to snow. Walking down a little side street on the edge of the village, Magda once again saw the woman carrying the suitcase. She looked cold and very alone, Magda thought, standing in front of the old Kalman house. She was staring up at the building, her hand poised on the doorbell, as if unsure whether or not she should ring it.
‘Wait a minute,’ Magda said to Käthe, ‘I’m sure I know her.’
She ran ahead of her mother, and tapped the woman gently on the arm.
‘Excuse me.’
The woman looked up at her with dull blue eyes.
‘It is you, isn’t it? Lotte?’
The woman frowned and stared at Magda.
‘Magda?’
‘Yes! It’s me – Magda.’ She threw her arms around Lotte, startled by how thin and frail she felt beneath her coat.
‘I can’t believe it,’ said Magda, standing back to look at her. ‘I can’t believe you’re back, that you’re alive. Oh Lotte, where are you staying?’
‘I don’t know.’ Lotte looked up at the house. ‘I thought maybe I could move in here, but it seems someone is already living here.’
‘Yes,’ said Magda, noting the curtains in the windows, the white Christmas roses planted in the window boxes. ‘I’m afraid a family moved in some years ago.’
‘It was stupid to come back,’ said Lotte angrily, her fists clenched. ‘I should have realised they would take everything that belonged to us. Now… I have nothing left.’
‘Oh Lotte. You must come home with me, with us – mustn’t she, Mutti?’
Käthe nodded.
‘Our home will be your home now.’
Later that night, after a meal with the family, Magda took Lotte up to the attic where she had made up a bed for her.
‘I’m sorry it’s not more comfortable,’ she said, looking around at the empty space. ‘We don’t have a spare room. Michaela is in Karl’s old room, but I could move in with her.’
‘No, it’s all right,’ said Lotte, sitting down tentatively on the bed. ‘This is fine – really.’
‘Well, we can make it cosy over time, you’ll see.’ Magda nervously arranged a little jam jar filled with early snowdrops. ‘Look I found these outside… I thought they’d look pretty.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lotte quietly. ‘It’s better than anywhere else I’ve slept for a long time.’ She looked around the attic, touching the little brightly coloured rag rug Magda had put by the bed.
‘I can’t begin to imagine what you’ve been through,‘ Magda said, pulling over a crate and sitting down on it.
‘I don’t find it easy to talk about it,’ said Lotte.
‘If you’d rather I left you…?’
‘No,’ said Lotte. ‘Stay… please.’
‘Where did they take you – that day I saw you all in Munich?’
‘Dachau.’
‘Dachau?’ said Magda, ‘But that’s just a few kilometres from Munich. You mean you were so close to us all this time?’ She leant over and gripped Lotte’s hand. ‘Oh Lotte, I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything to stop it.’
Lotte smiled up at her. ‘It wasn’t your fault.’
‘Where are your parents, and little Ezra?’
‘All gone,’ said Lotte. ‘My mother was not well from the beginning. She was taken away from us within the first month. We never saw her again. I suppose she was taken somewhere and gassed. My father was put to work in the infirmary; he did his best to care for the prisoners, but there was a typhoid epidemic in ’44, and he got ill and died.’
‘And Ezra?’
‘He worked loading wagons with crushed rock; it was brutal and many of the workers collapsed. Somehow he survived it.’
‘And you?’ Magda could hardly bear to hear the answer.
‘I worked on a herb farm.’ She smiled faintly at Magda. ‘It sounds nice, doesn’t it? But it wasn’t. When they decided people were too weak to work there any more, they’d march them to the lake and make them stand in the water for days, until they collapsed. Thousands of people died that way.’
‘Oh Lotte…’ Magda began to cry.
‘ Then in the last few months of the war, they moved us. We had to march all the way to Eurasburg, then on to Tegernsee. But we were already so exhausted many people couldn’t cope. They shot any one who was weak, or couldn’t go on. Ezra was so brave and kind. He did his best to help people, carrying one woman on his back for miles. One day, a guard pushed them both over onto the ground, and stood over them shouting “Get up… get up.” They lay there for a moment, both too tired to move. He shot them both. I thought, that day, I would die myself. I wanted to die. To live without Ezra seemed impossible. But somehow I survived. Then the Americans came. They found a pile of bodies – Ezra and others. They made the guards lie amongst them. They asked us to spit on them. The men did, some of the women too. But I couldn’t do it. I didn’t want any more of it. No more hate.’
They sat together in the silence of the attic for some time, as the snow fell softly outside, Michaela’s laughter floating up from the kitchen.
‘You’ll stay with us now,’ Magda said, finally. ‘You’re part of our family now.’
‘Thank you,’ said Lotte, quietly. ‘I thought I might go to the house and find something to remind me of my parents – a photograph, or clothes, or an ornament. But I suppose the people living there have taken it all, or thrown it away.’
‘No… wait a moment,’ said Magda, leaping up. ‘You do have something.’
She ran downstairs to her bedroom and returned with a small dark red leather box.
‘This is yours,’ she said, handing it Lotte. ‘It was your mother’s, I think. Don’t ask me how I got it, but I’ve been keeping it for you.’
Lotte opened the box. Nestling on the dark blue velvet was the silver and aquamarine brooch and earrings her father had given her mother. She looked up at Magda, bewildered.
‘How did you get these?’
‘Do you remember Otto?’
Lotte appeared to be searching her memory. ‘Yes – a nasty boy – blond.’
‘That’s him. When they drove you out of the village, he took this from your parents’ house. He gave it to me, but I knew it belonged to your mother. I never wore it, I promise. I just kept it, in case…’ Magda wept, kneeling in front of her friend. ‘… in case you came back. I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.’
Lotte stroked her hair, her eyes filled with tears. ‘Thank you,’ she said, fingering the brooch. ‘I remember my mother wearing it. She looked so beautiful. Thank you. This means more than I can say.’
Chapter Forty
Munich Airport
April 2019
Imogen stood patiently waiting for her luggage.
‘I’ve got your case, Mum,’ her daughter Jennifer said. ‘I’ll just grab mine, and then we can go.
Installed in their hire car, Jennifer started up the engine. ‘Right… we’re off. I’ll have to get the sat nav working and see if we can find this place.’
An hour and a half later, they drove up the tarmacked drive of the farm. Immaculately trimmed fields lay on either side, filled with a large herd of chestnut and white cows.
The yellow ochre farmhouse had a high-pitched red-tiled roof. The windows were white, framed by dark green shutters. The dark green front door opened and a tall woman with red gold hair streaked with silver, came out onto the drive. She beckoned them to a parking space near a large barn.
Jennifer climbed out of the rental car and held out her hand.
‘Hello. I’m Jennifer – Imogen’s daughter.’
‘And I’m Michaela – Magda’s daughter. Welcome. Please, come inside.’
‘It’s so good of you to put us up,’ said Imogen, handing their coats to Michaela.
‘My mother wouldn’t think of you staying anywhere else. She is very keen to meet you both.’
Jennifer and Imogen were shown through to the modern kitchen. An elegant white-haired lady sat ver
y erect in a chair by the fireplace. Lightly tanned, she was dressed in grey trousers and a white silk shirt. She wore pearls around her neck and pinned to her shirt lapel was an aquamarine brooch that brought out the colour of her startling blue eyes.
She began to push herself up from her chair.
‘Oh please don’t get up,’ said Jennifer, rushing forward to help her.
‘It’s all right,’ said Magda. She walked a little unsteadily over to Imogen, and grasped her hand.
‘I am so happy to meet you, Imogen – at last.’
The initial greetings over, Michaela showed Imogen and Jennifer to their rooms.
‘Come back down when you’re ready,’ said Michaela. ‘You may like to change after your journey. We’ll be in the drawing room at the back of the house.’
Imogen put on a dark green dress and stood back to admire herself in the mirror in her room. Her daughter knocked on the door.
‘Are you ready, Mum?’
‘Yes, come in.’
‘You look lovely,’ Jennifer said.
‘Thank you. I always feel at my best, wearing green,’ Imogen said as they went downstairs. Coming into the drawing room, they found Magda and Michaela sitting on either side of the large wood-burning stove. Michaela leapt up as the pair came in.
‘Oh good – you’re here. Would you like a glass of champagne? Dieter – would you?’
A tall grey-haired man, who introduced himself as Michaela’s husband, handed round a tray of champagne.
‘This part of the house is an extension,’ Michaela explained to Imogen. ‘The original farmhouse, when your husband visited us, was very small. In those days it was just a kitchen downstairs, and two small bedrooms upstairs. Your husband, I think, spent a night in the attic. But my mother extended the house some years ago, so now we have this lovely room, and a dining room and a study. It’s very comfortable.’
‘It’s a beautiful house,’ agreed Imogen.
Over drinks and dinner, Imogen and Magda spoke of their memories of the war, and of the extraordinary connections between the two families.
‘I remember your brother Karl very well,’ said Imogen. ‘I met him again, you know, after the war. I was with Freddie – we’d only been married a few months and we bumped into Karl at the Royal Academy in London. He was meeting someone – a man I knew, actually. In fact, I had been engaged to him, briefly.’
Jennifer looked shocked. ‘You were engaged to someone before Daddy?’ she said.
‘Yes,’ said Imogen calmly.
‘Why have you never told me before?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Imogen. ‘Because I was very happily married to your father, I suppose. There seemed no point in mentioning it.’
‘Mother,’ said Jennifer, ‘you are impossible. You must tell us all about him.’
‘He was American,’ said Imogen.
‘American. How did you meet? What did he do, this man?’
‘Oh we met at the office in London… when I was a Wren. He told me he was in the American army, but it turned out to be a bit more complicated than that.’
‘What do you mean?’ asked Jennifer.
‘I’m not sure I should say, really. He worked with Karl, you see, and I don’t know if I’m at liberty to reveal anything about either of them.’
Magda smiled. ‘I think – after all this time – it’s safe to tell a little of their secrets.’
‘Mother?’ Jennifer sat on the edge of her seat.
‘Well, as far as I know, at least from what Freddie told me – Karl, Magda’s brother, was a secret agent for the Allies. That’s right, isn’t it?’
Magda nodded. ‘He was a member of OSS,’ she said. ‘After the war it became the CIA.’
‘And the man I was engaged to was his… what is that word?’
‘Handler?’ Magda suggested.
‘Yes, that’s right. His handler.’
Jennifer sat back on the sofa. ‘You are full of surprises, Mother.’
‘So many people were involved in secret work during the war,’ Imogen said. ‘I myself signed the Official Secrets Act. I worked on Operation Overlord, but we weren’t allowed to talk about it. We knew how to keep a secret in those days, didn’t we?’ Imogen looked across at Magda, who smiled and nodded.
‘We certainly did,’ Magda said.
‘We took it all very seriously,’ said Imogen. ‘I never really discussed what I did in the war. Your father knew some of it, of course.’
‘You can talk about it now though, surely?’ said Jennifer. ‘The war’s been over for seventy-five years. There is a statute of limitations on these things, you know?’
‘Yes, you’re right,’ said Imogen. ‘But I don’t suppose anyone would be interested, really. Most of us just got on with our lives after the war. We were so grateful that it was over. Daddy and I were happy just to be alive and to be together.’
Magda nodded. ‘I understand that,’ she said.
‘Freddie and I worked together as architects,’ Imogen explained. ‘We had our own practice eventually. We had Jennifer, and our grandchildren, and life was busy – even after we retired. Then two years ago, Freddie died, and I’ve struggled since, if I’m honest.’
Jennifer reached over and took her mother’s hand.
‘It wasn’t until I got your letter, Magda, that I gave any thought to those days. I found a little notebook buried in an old chest, along with my husband’s log books and diaries. The day I met Karl at the Academy in London, I had written down his telephone number and next to it I’d written your name – that’s how I realised who you were, when you wrote to me. I remembered what Freddie had said about you – how brave you were, how ‘extraordinary’. That was the word he used.’
Magda laughed.
‘My mother is indeed extraordinary,’ said Michaela, proudly. ‘She’s one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever met. She’s built up two businesses and brought me up by herself. She is the ultimate “self-made woman”.’
‘Two businesses,’ said Jennifer. ‘Not just this farm then?’
Magda looked down at her manicured hands and smiled quietly.
‘Tell them, Mutti.’
‘I had wanted to go to university after the war,’ Magda began, ‘but I had a child to care for.’ She looked across at her daughter and smiled. ‘So I stayed on the farm. They encouraged agriculture in Germany after the war, so we were able to expand, although my father was always against it. He grumbled constantly. But I was ambitious. I felt I had to prove myself – a single woman, with a child.’
‘My mother is being uncharacteristically modest,’ Michaela said. ‘She was a little revolutionary in her youth, but grew up to be a stately capitalist lady.’
Magda shot her daughter a dark look.
‘As well as building up the farm into a huge business, she started a Christmas shop back in the fifties,’ Michaela explained. ‘She has shops all over the world now – she’s quite a celebrity.’
‘How amazing,’ said Jennifer. ‘But why Christmas?’
‘During the war,’ said Magda, ‘the Nazis took Christmas away from us. They forbade any mention of Christ or even Father Christmas. Do you know we weren’t even allowed to put stars on our Christmas trees?’
‘Why?’ asked Imogen.
‘The star was the symbol of the communists, or of the Jewish people – both of which were unacceptable. We had to hang little swastikas on our trees.’
‘I had no idea,’ said Jennifer.
‘So after the war, I decided I wanted to put that all behind us. People really love Christmas and they love my shops. When I stand behind the till – which I still do sometimes, I see the joy on people’s faces. The joy, and the wonder and the delight. We must never forget the past and all the terrible things that took place, but we can look forward to a better future. That’s partly what this ceremony is about tomorrow. It’s something I feel I need to do, before I die.’
Michaela reached across and touched her mother’s hand.
‘Mutti…’
‘It’s all right,’ Magda said. ‘We’re all going to die, Liebling. And before I die, I have to make something right. A terrible thing happened in our village and it’s time to make amends before it’s too late, and put it behind us. ‘
‘What are the plans for tomorrow?’ asked Jennifer.
‘There will be a ceremony to commemorate the airmen who were killed in the village. I’ve invited everyone who is connected to them – their widows and families and the one airman who miraculously survived – Tom. He is coming too, although he is in a wheelchair now. They are all staying in the hotel in the village. There will be a service of remembrance in the church and I have commissioned a plaque with the names of the murdered men, which will be placed overlooking the churchyard where they died. I want them to be remembered, permanently, and honoured.’
‘I understand,’ said Imogen, ‘what Freddie meant about you. He always said you were remarkable, and now I can see why.
The following day, after the service, Magda accompanied Tom, being wheeled by his grandson, into the churchyard where the plaque would be revealed. Daffodils and primroses poked their way cheerfully through the soil.
‘Tom,’ Magda said, as Imogen joined them. ‘I want you to meet Freddie’s wife, Imogen.’
‘Ah, I remember dear old Freddie so well. He and Magda saved my life, you know.’
‘And then you saved my life,’ said Magda, bending down and kissing him on the cheek.
She stood up in the front of the group, her hand on the small curtain concealing the brass plaque.
‘I don’t need to say to you good people – British and German – how important this day is to us all… a day of reconciliation. Our two peoples were at war for six years – a war started by the evil rulers of my country. So many terrible things happened here before and during the war. Millions of people suffered and we must never forget their sacrifice. Communities were torn apart, people taken away from everything they loved and cherished, to be punished, tortured and murdered. Even our own village was not immune from terrible acts of vengeance. Four young British airmen were murdered in this village – one near the school and three others here in this churchyard. It was a shameful and cowardly act of violence and one of which I, and the people of this village, are rightly ashamed. For many years I have wondered how to make recompense for this wickedness. You can never make up for a lost life. But I hope that this plaque, which tells the terrible story of these four fine young men, will serve as a warning to others. That life is precious, war is pointless and friendship and loyalty are everything.’