Page 12 of The Berlin Sisters
But as they passed the Müllers’ apartment, Eliana saw that Hanna was standing by the door, and she forgot all about Karl Müller and what he might do. Hanna’s cheeks were flushed and she was out of breath, as if she’d been running, and that was when she called out to her.
‘Eliana?’
Eliana paused, looking to her mother before taking a few tentative steps towards Hanna.
‘Take this,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry for what is happening.’
Hanna passed her a package wrapped in brown paper, and when they reached their apartment, quick to lock the door behind them, Eliana pulled at the string and unwrapped it. Inside, she found a small piece of meat, an entire loaf of bread, a thick piece of cheese and a small jar of jam.
‘We were right to trust them,’ her father said. ‘At least we have food to last a day or two.’
Eliana nodded.At least we have food. They hadn’t been successful in finding any on the way home, the lines closed to Jews – and if there was a loaf of stale bread left at the grocer’s or bakery, she doubted they would have given it to them, even in exchange for gold.
‘This is for tonight and tomorrow,’ her mother muttered. ‘But what do we do after this?’
Six months after the night of broken glass, Eliana huddled beside her family in the dark in their apartment. Her father comfortedher mother, who seemed to do little more than cry most days. And then there was David, who was becoming more restless with each passing week in their permanent state of confinement.
‘We should have left, we should have left when we still had the chance,’ he muttered, standing up and beginning to pace, as he did most evenings.
‘You make it sound as if emigrating is so easy,’ her father said.
‘It would have been easy last year, or the year before that!’ David said. ‘Papa, you know we should have gone then, and now look at us. We’re prisoners in our home. We will starve here before we manage to leave now!’
‘At least we’re not prisoners in a camp,’ Eliana said, bravely, raising her voice, hating hearing her brother and father argue.
‘What do you know of camps?’ her father asked.
‘I know that all of the women from our synagogue who remained in Berlin have been taken. They were rounded up and taken to a place for women.’
Her mother began to cry again, and Eliana turned away. She couldn’t keep comforting her, couldn’t even bring herself to look at her mother in so much pain.
‘I am going to see Herr Müller,’ Eliana announced.
Her father turned and looked at her as if she were mad. ‘You are not leaving this apartment.’
‘I am,’ she said, lifting her chin. Her father wasn’t used to defiance from her, but she’d been thinking about this for days, and she wasn’t going to let him stop her. ‘You were right to trust him, Papa, and we all know where those food packages are coming from.’
‘The fact that their daughter is giving us food—’
‘She would not be able to keep giving it to us without at least her mother’s permission,’ David said. ‘I agree with Eliana. If we are to find a way to leave Berlin, Herr Müller might be our only chance. If not, how many weeks or months will we last here, beforewe are discovered? What if the Müllers move away and we have no way to access food?’
Eliana rose, deciding then and there that she was going to take herself downstairs to ask him for help. She knew that she could be arrested, that she could be taken to the camps like the other women or that her family could be killed, but there was only so long they could rely on food parcels. And only so long before their apartment was raided. Jews weren’t allowed to own property – everything had to be taken from them – but for some reason, theirs hadn’t. Yet.
She walked the flight of stairs and then bravely knocked on the door, standing back to wait. Eliana kept glancing behind her, worried that the Müllers might have a guard now, given Karl Müller’s rank – that someone other than him might discover her.
The door opened, and it was Frau Müller who opened it. Her eyes widened, but she never said a word, other than to call for her husband.
Eliana had never had a proper conversation with Herr Müller, other than to say hello at parties when she was younger, or to greet him as they came or went from home, and so when he came to the door in his terrifying SS uniform, she almost wilted before him.
‘Herr Müller,’ she said, her voice trembling. ‘I would like to ask for your help. My family must leave Berlin, for our safety, and we cannot do it without assistance.’
His eyes narrowed, and he stepped forward, looking out of the door and down the hall as if to see if anyone could be watching or listening. But of course the Müllers’ house took up the entire floor, and there was no one coming up or down the stairs.
‘Please, we need your help. We are still living together as a family, but there are hardly any Jews left, and—’
He stepped back, his eyes meeting hers for the briefest of moments, before he shut the door on her. Eliana’s entire body trembled, emotion rising in her throat, tears filling her eyes, asshe stood there alone in the hallway. She half expected the door to open again, for Hanna to give her a parcel as she had that day in November, but no one came.
What have I done? Perhaps he didn’t even know we are still upstairs? Perhaps he doesn’t know his daughter has been helping us?
