Let Me Whisper You My Story (14 page)

‘W
E ARE GOING
on an outing,’ Martha told us over breakfast. ‘The bus is leaving at eight o’clock tomorrow morning. Breakfast will be at seven, no later, so anyone who is not ready misses out.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘We’re going to London. It’s months since we last went on an outing. You have not yet seen the capital of England. We are very lucky with all the fuel shortages to be given a bus by the local council to take you children out. We shall visit the Tower of London and see Buckingham Palace and—’

‘Hey,’ a boy said, nudging Greta, ‘you’ll get to see your relatives at Buckingham Palace.’ Everyone except Greta and me laughed.

On the bus to London we sang songs. The new group, just learning English, sang songs from their homelands. German rhymes, half familiar to me, were sung by one girl. Another boy from France sang a French lullaby. His voice was so pure, like an angel’s. Even Greta was silent for once.

As I heard more and more of the other children’s stories, I became increasingly curious about Greta. I’d gone along with her fictional life for so long and stuck up for her when the other children laughed about her royal connections. I’m not sure when it happened, but I’d left my own fantasy life and my need to curl up in a wardrobe. Yet the longest scarf in the world and Miri’s journal, still nestling under my pillow, gave me comfort.

Nobody teased me about them. Each of us had our quiet moments, our times of remembering. One girl wore a locket belonging to her mother. Another had a photograph of his parents which he kept in his pocket and took out to look at every now and then. Somehow it was different with Greta, and I wondered what had really happened to her.

Jacques had left Hartfield to join his aunt and uncle. It was an emotional, if quick, goodbye. He hugged everyone, winked at me then ran out the front door to a car that had pulled up in the driveway. His hair had been neatly brushed away from his forehead. He’d changed so much during the time we’d been together.

Greta, however, had not changed. She’d stubbornly refused to go a second time to the psychiatrist. Martha had spoken to her without success. No-one seemed to be able to break through the stories she’d set up around her.

On the bus to London, Alex pulled one of Greta’s plaits from the seat behind her. ‘Hey, Princess Greta, how about giving us a guided tour?’

Greta turned around and smirked at him. He smirked back. We watched the scenery pass by, the green pastures,
thick forests and thatched cottages that were hundreds of years old. Occasionally Peter would point out a castle far in the distance, with turrets and probably dungeons too.

We passed through villages with cobbled streets and small shops with names on them like ‘Delicious Fudge’ and ‘Sweet Tooth Chocolates’, and old pubs with long chimneys and dark pieces of wood built into the stone in diagonal lines. Martha told us that these buildings dated back to Tudor times, when a king called Henry regularly beheaded his wives.

As we began the approach to London, the scenery changed dramatically. Here, and in other major towns, bombs had fallen leaving the charred remains of houses—small hills of broken bricks and mortar. Whole streets had been levelled. In some places rebuilding had started, but there was so much damage.

Arriving in London, all of us murmured to one another as we saw that while the war might not have hit Hartfield too badly, here the signs were everywhere. I shivered. It reminded me of Germany. Dust still rose like ash from cratered roads. We drove through the East End of London where many German bombs had fallen. The rubble of buildings stretched from street to street, like a vast cemetery. How many people had been lost, buried here?

Every now and then a building stood completely intact. Some streets were totally sealed off, too unsafe to drive through. In the quietness of Hartfield I’d forgotten that London was blitzed, as were other big cities. Even Buckingham Palace was hit, Martha told us.

‘Our Queen toured the East End after the bombing at Buckingham Palace and said she could now look her people in the eye, for finally her own home had been bombed. Our King George and Queen Elizabeth visited all the places bombed in London. They are really wonderful.’

‘What about the children living in London?’ I asked Martha. ‘Where could they hide?’

‘A million children were evacuated from London during the war. Most were sent to safer areas in the country; some were sent to Australia.’

‘I didn’t know any of that,’ I whispered to Greta. ‘I knew that the English were at war with Germany. I knew about the Blitz. Everyone knew about that. The wireless was full of it in Leipzig. Look how they suffered. I had no idea they’d been bombed so badly.’

I remembered the whistling sounds of bombs dropping and the terrible noise as our building was hit…Gertrude, Freddy and I struggling out of the gaping hole that had been the front door…The coughing…Heinrich left behind. I shuddered.

Finally the bus arrived at Trafalgar Square, where we clambered out and had our photographs taken with pigeons eating from our hands and sitting on our heads. Martha had brought some stale bread for the pigeons. A group photograph of twenty-five children and teenagers was taken and everyone smiled for the camera. Nobody looking at the photograph in the future would guess that each child’s survival had been some sort of miracle. A soldier had turned the other way, so I had survived in a cupboard and Gertrude and Heinrich found me and
hid me. One child had been pulled out of a crowd at a railway station and effectively ‘disappeared’, saved by complete strangers. Another had crept out through a hole in the wall of the Warsaw ghetto at night, and someone took pity on him and hid him. Otto had slept in a barn at night and hidden in a hole dug in the earth on the farm by day. He was in the dark there, with only room enough to crouch. As a result, Otto’s legs were bent and he’d need surgery. The farmer who saved him had risked his life, but there were raids in the area, and he had no choice but to hide the child in this way. Yet Otto had come out of all this, and today his smile was broad.

Outside Buckingham Palace we watched the changing of the guard. Unblinking, the guards ignored everyone, of course. I had wanted to bring along some pepper from the breakfast table to throw under the nose of a guard, but Greta said, ‘No, you can be arrested for that. They will take you away and put you in the Tower of London. Maybe you’ll even be beheaded.’

‘Big fib, Greta,’ I said but in any case decided not to throw pepper. Instead I watched the guards and wondered what they thought about while they stood like statues in all kinds of weather.

The palace was amazing from the outside but disappointing because the King and Queen weren’t there. The flag that was hoisted when King George and Queen Elizabeth were in residence was lowered. Then the most amazing thing happened. Two young women appeared on the balcony. They were the Princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret. Prince Philip, recently married
to Princess Elizabeth, stood there beside his beautiful wife. She wore a wonderful blue dress with long sleeves. I wondered who’d designed it. Maybe Norman Hartnell or Dior. He was the French designer who made dresses for the rich and famous. Martha had magazines and I’d looked at the fashion pages, fascinated. Prince Philip, also handsome and elegant, had his hands behind his back and was smiling.

Princess Margaret had long dark hair and a huge smile. She held a puppy in her arms. She waved the puppy’s paw at the crowd.

Everyone cheered. I felt sure that Princess Elizabeth saw me standing there with my face pressed against the huge iron gates. Didn’t she bend her head a little, to see just me? Didn’t our eyes meet for just a moment? Her smile was magical.

After that we went to the London Museum and saw mummies from Egypt and bits of old walls with ancient writing and magnificent Greek and Roman sculptures. We visited the Tate Gallery, and then bought fish and chips which we took down to the River Thames, where we sat on benches watching boats sail by.

I fell in love with London. I’d seen the Princesses and Prince Philip too. Greta nibbled a chip and commented, ‘I caught Princess Elizabeth looking at me. Of course, she couldn’t call out or send someone to get me but she knew I was there.’

‘Hey, Greta, I thought she was looking at me,’ I teased.

‘Nope. She looked at me,’ said Alex, his eyes twinkling. ‘You girls are royalty mad. I’d rather be a pirate any day.’

‘Fat chance. You’re at least two hundred years too late.’

We walked down narrow cobbled lanes and visited the Tower of London. It had been there for hundreds and hundreds of years, and was very creepy with narrow passages and stone-cold rooms where important prisoners had been locked up before being beheaded. Then we strolled through the markets stopping every five minutes to do a head check to make sure none of us was lost.

On the bus ride home, Greta fell asleep on my shoulder, a frown on her face.

N
INETEEN FORTY-SEVEN
brought England’s coldest winter in years. It snowed heavily and we built a large snowman on the front lawn. Peter had given me an old pipe to put in our snowman’s mouth, and we found two round stones to use for his eyes. We were building a family for our snowman, a snow-wife and three snow-children, when Peter opened the front door and called out to me: ‘Rachel, come inside. Quickly.’

His usually mournful face was excited. What had happened? I reluctantly left the other children and ran to the house, the world’s longest scarf doubled around my neck and trailing behind me in the cold wind. My breath fogged the air as I raced inside.

‘What is it, Peter?’

‘Come, child, come.’

I took off my gloves and followed him into Martha’s office. She had her back to me, facing the log fire. When she turned around I could see that her face was very red. Had she been standing too close to the open fire, or was
it something else? She seemed to be bursting with excitement.

‘Sit down, Rachel,’ she said. ‘We have had some wonderful news.’

‘I won’t sit down,’ I said, and suddenly my heart began to pound with crazy hope. ‘If you have something good to tell me, tell me now.’

Peter walked over to me. He placed his hands on my trembling shoulders and gripped me tightly. ‘Rachel, your father and your sister, Miri, are alive.’

My world spun with stars. I felt my legs buckle. I was falling from a great height. I felt Peter’s strong arms catch me. When I opened my eyes I was lying on a couch. Peter and Martha were peering anxiously at me. Martha handed me a glass of water. I gulped it down. ‘What did you say?’

‘Your father and sister are alive.’

I felt myself grow faint again. ‘Is it true? Miri and Papa are alive?’

‘Yes, Rachel. They were thought dead, but because your father is a doctor he could be useful to the Nazis. Your sister was strong and young. She worked, and survived.’

‘They are alive? Is there a chance that a mistake has been made with Mama? Maybe she is alive too?’

‘I am sorry, Rachel. She didn’t make it.’

Fresh tears filled my eyes.

‘Rachel,’ said Martha and there were tears in her eyes too, ‘your father and Miri are alive. They are alive, and were in a displaced persons’ camp and then went to Australia, to a lovely city called Sydney. They have tried
for years to trace you, but you know how hard this has been with millions upon millions of displaced people. Now finally contact has been made. Your papa has sent a letter for you through the Red Cross.’

‘Read it. Read it. No, I will read it to you. But let me smell it first. I’ll know then whether this is a trick or not.’

I was handed three sheets of lined paper. Was this Papa’s handwriting? All in German? I put the sheet of paper to my nose and inhaled deeply. Yes, there it was, a scent that had travelled thousands of miles from my sister to me. A perfume. A promise. A reminder.

I slowly read the words, translating them into English as I went along. Peter, leaning over my shoulder, helped me with difficult German words:

To good people in England who are looking after my daughter Rachel
,

My heart is filled with thanks for you saving her. I thought she must have surely perished like her beautiful mother. I hear from the Red Cross that she has gained weight and is looking well, and can speak English. That she lives in a wonderful orphanage. I am so thankful to you all.

I have enclosed a letter for Rachel.

I turned to the next page and read:

Dearest Rachel, my darling daughter,

You must come to Australia as soon as possible. Miri and I live near the beach. We shall all go down to the beach together. We are renting a small apartment in
Bondi, a seaside suburb. I am attempting now to get my medical qualifications recognised, and that should happen soon. I practise English all the time, but still struggle with it.

On Friday nights, even if it is just a small gathering, we shall have our Sabbath service and, Rachel, you are welcome to throw bread across the table. I promise I won’t complain.

Also, my eyebrows are reaching out to shake hands and are in great need of a trim. I shall, however, wait until you arrive.

You will know, of course, about the death of your darling mama, and your aunt and uncle and cousin. We believe that Agnes may still be alive. Her name has not yet turned up on any records. Let us pray that one day, soon, she will be with us and we shall encourage her to have tantrums on the floor, because of our great happiness to see her.

You must write, Rachel, to the above address
.

Here is a note from Miri
,

your loving Papa

I quickly turned to the third page, giddy with excitement:

Dear Rachel,

I shall buy you a big bottle of scent all for yourself when you arrive. My skinny little sister, have you filled out now?

I speak such good English, you would hardly know me. Papa has difficulties with it. He gets words mixed up.

Soon we shall be together. We looked so hard for you. We have been through terrible times, but that is over now.

You will notice the smell on this letter. Papa hates it. The name of the scent is Fate.

Love always,

Miri