Page 23 of The Berlin Sisters
Hanna was pushing her way through the crowd when she heard him mention a child, and it only strengthened her resolve to help.
‘Please let me through, I’m a nurse.’
As she moved past the final person in her way, Hanna stopped, her eyes landing on a little navy shoe that was lying on its side, on the road. She blinked, as a wave of panic ran through her. That was Hugo’s shoe, was it not? She’d squished his tiny foot into it only fifteen minutes earlier, had chosen them to match his new woollen coat.
Please, not Hugo. Don’t let it be Hugo.
But the moment she saw the child’s body, his legs contorted in the most unnatural of angles, she knew. The dead child spoken about so cavalierly was her son. A sob erupted from inside of her as she ran forward, dropping to her knees and falling over the body of her little boy as she listened for a breath, felt for a pulse, tried to frantically locate a heartbeat that would tell her he was still alive, that they’d been wrong.
The child is already dead.The words she’d overheard kept running through her mind as she tried in vain to wake him, before cradling his head, her tears falling on to his too-white skin as she sobbed.
She heard a noise then and was pulled from her grief, looking around and realising that Michael was lying nearby. The moans were coming from him, and as she scrambled over to him on hands and knees, she saw the pool of blood staining the concrete and knew it was coming from his head.
‘Michael,’ she whispered. ‘Stay with me, please. I can’t lose you, too. Please don’t leave me.’
But as she held his hand, gripping his palm tightly against hers as if she could will him to live, she heard the last of his breath shudder from between his lips. And at the same time, she looked up to see the Mercedes pulling away, its angry beeps from the horn dispersing the crowd.
The man who was their Führer’s second-in-command had hit a child; a father and his son. And despite telling them all that German children were the most precious things to their nation, they’d driven off without seeming to care about the life they’d taken.
Hanna crawled back to her son, as two kindly older women bent down beside her and tried to offer her comfort, not stopping her as she carried him back with her, collapsing beside Michael as she tried to pull her husband and son into her arms together.
They were only supposed to be going for ice cream. They were supposed to come home to play in the garden together, to lie in the sun and stare up at the blue sky after he’d had his little treat, before she put him down for a nap.
Instead, Hanna had lost them both, and the man responsible had acted as if he’d hit a worthless animal instead of a beloved father and son. How could they have driven off as if nothing had happened? As if they hadn’t taken two precious lives? Her darling husband and son, simply walking hand in hand in the afternoon sunshine, their lives snatched away from her without warning.
Hanna wailed, and it was like nothing she’d ever heard before, her cries more animal than human as someone tried unsuccessfully to pull her away from her family and off the road. All she wanted to do was curl up and die with them, to not suffer the pain of going home without them.
Her beautiful boy and darling husband, the loves of her life, were gone.
Chapter Nine
Three weeks later, Hanna arrived back home to the country house. There was only an hour or so until her mother and father would host their glittering dinner party, and she’d been asked to return home for it to assist her mother. Ava would be here soon, too, having convinced their father that she was ready to be part of their world, of their deception, and Hanna only hoped she was as ready as she thought she was.
‘Thank goodness you’re here,’ her mother said when she found her upstairs in her bedroom, getting dressed. She had a small glass on her dresser, and as Hanna watched, she drained the liquor that was left in it. ‘I told your father I don’t know how many more of these evenings I can stand.’
‘Even as your skin crawls,’ Hanna said, coming to stand behind her mother and taking a pin from her to secure her hair at the back, ‘just remember that they are the traitors, not us. We have every right to hold our heads high.’
Her hand closed over her mother’s shoulder as Liselotte spoke. ‘I know, my love, I know.’
‘We moved two patients today,’ she said, smiling at her mother in the mirror. But even Hanna could see what a sad smile it was, and she certainly wasn’t fooling her mother.
‘Well, I shall think of that when I’m smiling through my teeth tonight.’
Hanna made sure her mother’s up-do was perfect, before bending down to whisper in her ear. ‘I need to go upstairs to see Eliana. Could you help me so I can go up there for maybe ten minutes?’
Her mother stood. ‘Of course. Why don’t you go and choose your dress and I’ll set Zelda to a task so that she doesn’t come upstairs.’
Hanna went to her room, closing the door and going to her wardrobe, standing on tiptoes to get the shoebox down that she’d placed there. She took it to her bed and sat, opening the lid and looking at all the pieces of paper inside. She knew without counting how many there were – fourteen – but still she lifted each one, saying the name of each child before letting the paper flutter back down into the box. Then she reached into her pocket and took out the names of the two children from today, wondering where they were at that exact moment as she added them to the box.
When she’d started collecting the names, she hadn’t known how to record them safely or what to do with her notes, but last night she’d realised what she needed to do. It was as if the wind had changed; she’d had this overwhelming feeling that something was catching up to her, that she needed to have a safe place for the names before it was too late.
‘Hanna?’
Her mother called to her from the other side of the door, tapping gently before coming in.
She put the lid back on the box and hurried down the hall with her mother, being as quiet as they could be as they pulled the attic stairs down.
‘I’ll come back in ten minutes, you don’t have long.’
