Page 16 of The Berlin Sisters
Her father crossed the room again and went to his gramophone, taking out a record and filling the room with music as she sat down. She’d heard him listening to records before, but usually it was when her mother joined him for a drink before or after dinner – certainly not with her.
‘Ava, I believe it’s time we had a frank conversation, in light of your discovery tonight.’
She took another tentative sip of brandy and found it didn’t burn quite like the first.
‘You raised me to join the party,’ she said, fixing her gaze on her father, speaking freely now in a way she’d never done with him before. ‘You never once discouraged me from joining the Jungmädelbund or the Bund Deutscher Mädel, or told me to think differently from everyone else. And now I find out that you are a – what? A socialist?’ The girls in her old BDM group were still like sisters to her, but she knew that if they overheard this conversation, they’d immediately report her and shun her and her family forever.
‘Ava, you know we had no choice in whether we joined the party or the youth groups, or how we appear on the outside, notif we wanted to survive, but we do have a choice in what we do inside our own home.’
She took one more sip of her drink before setting the glass down on the low table between the two leather chairs, holding her father’s gaze as she inclined her body slightly towards him.
‘I didn’t expect to be having this conversation with you tonight, but you’re an intelligent young woman, Ava, and it’s time for you to understand what our family has been fighting for.’
‘Papa,’ she whispered, so low she barely heard the words pass through her own lips. ‘Are you part of some sort ofresistance? Are you all doing some sort of covert work?’Are they hiding other Jews somewhere?
She wanted to turn away, to not hear or see his reaction, but she couldn’t. It was only when she saw him nod that her eyes fell shut, that she tried to block it from her mind. So that was why he’d taken the paper, why he’d risked so much to take something from the office, why he was prepared to have the Goldmans hidden in their attic. Her father was part of something that was punishable by death, something that she now understood her own fiancé would kill her father for with his own pistol.
‘You know what they will do if they find out. You know more than anyone what would happen,’ she said. Of course he knew – her father was as high up in the party as a man could become, with the exception of a handful of Hitler’s closest advisors. ‘Have you truly thought this all through?’The implications will affect all of us. Is it truly worth the risk?
‘Yes. It took me years to act, but in the end I felt I had no choice,’ he said, firmly, although she noticed that he looked away as he spoke, staring at something she couldn’t see, as he raised his glass and drained the brandy from it. Perhaps he was still wrestling with the weight of his decisions, despite the resolution of his tone. ‘Our country is under the control of a madman. It’s as if we wereall under a dome, as if everyone has been blinded to what is happening, but there is a movement that is working to change that.’
He rose to pour himself another glass, but she didn’t miss the way his hand shook as he held the decanter. She wasn’t to know whether it was fear, anger or something else entirely, and she didn’t dare ask.
‘It’s like we are all part of a horrible experiment, an experiment that has pitted one group of people against another, one country against the rest of the world. To not act, to not do something when we are in a position to do exactly that, it’s not something I can live with any longer. And I’m not acting alone, there are others who share my views.’
‘But you have been part of what has happened here,’ she whispered, leaning against him as he sat down beside her. ‘Papa, you work hand in hand with Dr Goebbels. Does that not mean you have helped to make everyone believe? To perpetuate what you are now renouncing? That you have been even more involved than almost every other German in spreading these, these...’ She swallowed. ‘Lies?’
When he met her stare, she saw that his eyes were filled with tears, and it was the first time in her life that she’d ever seen him show such obvious emotion. ‘I have done what I needed to do to survive, Ava, to keep our family alive and put us in a position of safety. I’m not proud of that, but I also know that if I were faced with the same situation again, I would protect you girls without question.’
Ava leaned forward and picked up her glass, nursing it as she waited for her father to speak again, torn between what she believed was now true, and what she wanted to believe.
‘The war is not going to be easily won. Times are changing, the war is changing, and the quick victory we were promised no longer exists.’
She didn’t know what to say.
‘Ava, you must know that most Germans do not have the luxuries we have. That we are privileged in all we do and receive?’
Ava slowly nodded, understanding what he was trying to tell her.
‘Our Führer is asking everyone to follow his vegetarian diet, as if it will make them healthier, but in truth he is preparing our country for the hardships to come, for the hardships many are already facing.’ Her father leaned forward. ‘The Third Reich is slowly being strangled, our Luftwaffe are suffering heavy casualties, and our men are returning broken from the front lines.’
She watched him, feeling a question coming, knowing that he was going to ask her to do something.
‘You are in a very special position, Ava,’ he continued. ‘You have access to classified information, and that means you could be very valuable. More valuable than you could possibly understand.’
‘To a resistance cause?’ she whispered. ‘Is that what you’re trying to get me to do, to pass along information to some sort of underground movement? You want me to act against the wishes of our Führer?’
He grimaced. ‘Yes, Ava, that’s exactly what I’m asking of you. Now is not the time to be complacent, not if we want to see Germany and all of our people prosper again.’
‘This is what I saw you doing the other day? This is why you took that paper?’
‘It will be so much easier for you than it has been for me,’ he said, without directly answering her question. ‘You are right there, you have eyes on so many documents that others could only dream of seeing. And it will only be little things at first, whatever you feel confident in recounting.’
‘What happened to her, after they took her?’ Anger rose inside of her, pooling in her belly. ‘That day, when they came for my colleague, I need to know what happened.’
She watched her father shift uncomfortably in his seat. He knew who she was speaking of, there was little doubt in her mind about that, even if he hadn’t known her personally.
‘Her name was Lina,’ Ava said, lifting her glass and draining it, her eyes smarting as she swallowed. ‘They called her a traitor and marched her from the office, right in front of me. Everyone believes she is guilty, and yet she did nothing.’ Ava looked away. ‘And now you are asking me to do things that could result in my arrest? Inmybeing called a traitor?’
