Page 6 of Hearts of Resistance
‘You’re a genius!’ she said, standing up and leaning against him as she kept staring at his handiwork. ‘Now we can safely hide youandanyone who’s staying with us.’
Unless you looked carefully, you wouldn’t know how deep the cupboard once was. It was a perfect facade, making a long space for him to stretch out in.
His kiss brushed her cheek. ‘I know.’
Sophia felt selfish standing in his arms, knowing that she should have forced him to leave the city months ago, as soon as she’d started playing her part in smuggling Jews out. But he’d wanted to stay in Berlin, wanted to wait until it was safe, to find out more about where his family was, and she hadn’t the heart to tell him they were probably all long dead, and that he should be getting out while he still could.
‘We need to rest,’ she said, thinking more of herself than Alex now. At any stage within the next forty-eight hours, the phone would ring. Their safest way of getting Jews out was via freight trains, and when a suitable one was passing through, that’s when she’d receive her orders. Someone higher up would have a schedule, and that’s why her pickup had been tonight. The boy would be moved between safe houses, and eventually he’d spend a night hidden in the woods before being placed on a train with other rescued men and women, or maybe even children. Sometimes they were able to secure documentation to register a Jewish person as someone else, but mostly the only way to keep them alive was to smuggle them out and pray for the best.
CHAPTER TWO
HAZEL
LONDON, ENGLAND
1943
Hazel sat and smiled at her future mother-in-law, then continued sipping her tea for something to do. Her cheeks were red, she could feel how hot they were, and she wasn’t sure if it was because the room was so stuffy or because of the subject matter at hand. Or maybe it was because of the awkwardness of this gathering – her parents, prospective in-laws and the fiancé she barely knew any more all squeezed into the front room of her family home. Perhaps it was all three.
‘Look, I think it’s one thing to have to help while the men are away, but surely these women won’t expect to continue doing such work after the war?’
Hazel opened her mouth to say something and received a sharp look from her mother. She knew better than to say anything contradictory, had always been the good daughter doing what she was told. Her face burnt more and she balled one of her fists, her nails digging hard into her palm as her mother-in-law’s words echoed through her mind.
‘Mother, once the war is over, they’ll be back to being housewives,’ John said. ‘We can’t have women taking jobs from men. Imagine it!’
Hazel forced a smile when her fiancé laughed and squeezed her hand, probably wondering why she wasn’t laughing along with him. Her father was smiling, his mother was giggling, and her mother was still giving her a sharp look as if daring her to say the wrong thing. She should have behaved – it would have been easier – but ever since she herself had started working, something had begun simmering within her, something that she was finding impossible to stamp out. She almost laughed, remembering the time at the start of the war when she’d offered her services to the cause at her local recruiting office.
She smiled at the men standing around, waiting their turn in line, and then spied a very dapper-looking older gentleman in full soldier’s dress uniform. Hazel quickly made her way over to him.
‘Excuse me, sir,’ she said, smiling at the rather stern expression on his face when he turned to her. She watched him stroke his fingers across his neatly clipped moustache as he considered her.
‘If you want to have your boyfriend excused from fighting, then I suggest you go and find someone else to cry to,’ he said sternly.
Hazel felt a hot blush creeping across her cheeks as she shook her head. ‘No, sir. I, ah, well, my fiancé is off to fight for our great country, but that’s not why I’m here.’
He stared at her, looking impatient.
‘Is there anything I can do? I mean, is there a place for women in the army doing anything?’ she asked, feeling stupid. Her words were coming out all wrong, her face on fire as embarrassment spread across every inch of her skin.
‘Let me get this straight,’ he said with a chuckle. ‘You want me to issue you a uniform and send you off to war, love?’
Hazel glared at him. How dare he treat her like this! She wanted to do something to help, not be laughed at.
‘I don’t appreciate your mockery, sir,’ she said bluntly. ‘I was simply enquiring whether I might be of assistance in some way.’
‘Well, then, how about you run along and offer to help in the canteen?’ he suggested, still chuckling. ‘Unless you want to tell me specifically what it is that you think you can do for us? Were you thinking of joining the armed forces or the navy?’
Hazel was furious, but she didn’t let him see how much he’d hurt her. She could cry later, but she wasn’t going to let so much as a tear escape now, especially not with him and the other recruiting officer nearby laughing at her.
‘Very well. I’ll find somewhere else to be of use,’ she said. ‘Mark my words, though – if this war goes on for years, you’ll be begging women like me to come and do our bit.’
Now, women didn’t have a choice – unmarried ones anyway – but back then she’d been the source of much amusement.
‘Women are running farms singlehandedly, and joining the air force,’ Hazel said, clearing her throat and meeting John’s gaze, unable to hold her tongue any longer. ‘Is it so impossible to believe that women are actually as capable as men?’
Hazel saw the horrified look on her mother’s face, and then the horror mirrored on her fiancé’s face, and wished she’d just kept her mouth shut. But the way they spoke about young women, as if the work they did were somehow inferior to a man’s, drove her crazy. All the young men were away fighting and yet somehow women had stepped perfectly into their roles, and they were doing a damn fine job of it, even if they were being paid less! It wasn’t that she didn’t want their men home, but she didn’t like to be told that women weren’t capable.
‘Sweetheart, I know you’re proud of your little job with the air force, but no one will want women hanging around trying to play at working when the men come home,’ John said, in a voice that he no doubt thought was soothing, but that she simply found annoying. Had he changed since she’d fallen in love with him, or had she simply grown up?
