Page 32 of The Berlin Sisters
Ava smiled. Lying there with her sister sounded much more appealing than crawling into her cold bed alone. So she went in, tucking in beside her as they both pressed together for warmth.
It was just the two of them in the apartment tonight – she presumed their father was working late – and it was nice to have time alone with Hanna again. She wondered if perhaps her sister had been avoiding her and using work as an excuse for the past months, whereas now that Ava had been brought into the fold, they were spending more time together, as close as they’d been before the war.
‘I miss having someone in bed with me at night,’ Hanna said, her voice barely a murmur. ‘Sometimes I’d have Michael on one side, and Hugo on the other. It’s one of the things I miss most, having his chubby little hands patting my face to wake me up in the morning, his little body snuggled tight to me.’
‘I wish you’d told me,’ Ava whispered back. ‘I would have come in here every night and slept beside you.’
They were silent for a long moment before Hanna spoke again. ‘How did you feel, having to be with Heinrich tonight? You truly understand who he is now, don’t you?’
‘It was as if my skin was crawling with bugs,’ she replied. ‘I don’t know how you can smile and act so normal around them. I thought I was going to be sick.’
Hanna sighed. ‘I’ve had longer to practise than you, that’s all. And it helps to imagine men like him being arrested and crammed into cattle cars, just as they have done to those they hate. It’s something I think about when I’m smiling sweetly at them.’
‘Do you think that could ever happen? That they would ever be punished for all the things they’ve done? What they’ve been part of?’ Only hours earlier she’d been torn in her feelings towards him, but now she could quite clearly see him for the brute he’d become.
Hanna turned to her, and Ava could just make out her eyes in the dark. ‘I don’t know. But the one thing I do know is that he and his friends must never suspect a thing. We must tread more carefully than ever, now that he’s back.’
They lay there a little longer, and Ava tried to stop thinking about Heinrich, about what he might do to her if he ever found out what she and her family were involved in. She moved her hand slightly so that her little finger was touching Hanna’s, and Hanna immediately responded by moving her hand over Ava’s and intertwining their fingers.
‘Hanna, is Papa all right? Is he going to—’
‘I don’t know,’ Hanna replied into the dark, before Ava could finish her sentence. ‘But he’s right about not being able to see the doctor. If anyone thinks he is weak, if they detect he’s not as strong as he once was...’
Hanna didn’t need to finish her sentence for Ava to understand. If her father lost his position in the party, his status, it would be dangerous for all of them.
‘Come home with me on Saturday,’ Hanna whispered. ‘I have something special I want to show you.’
‘What is it?’ Ava asked.
‘You’ll have to wait and see.’
Chapter Twelve
Ava was always happy to be home, but never more so than she was that day. She’d been taken in her father’s chauffeur-driven car – he was home for barely a few hours before he had to go back to Berlin for the night – and they’d had a pleasant family lunch together. Although there wasn’t a moment when she didn’t think about the family living above them, silently, in the attic, and she expected the rest of her family felt the same. Sometimes she wondered if they could simply lock all the doors and bring them downstairs to join them, but she knew it would be too dangerous.
‘Ava, could you come with me please?’
Her father stopped at the kitchen as she stood talking with her mother, and she happily followed after him, curious about what he might want her for.
‘Are you certain you can’t stay longer?’ she asked as they walked to his study. ‘I miss us being together, all under the same roof. It would be so nice to have the weekend.’
‘One day, when work isn’t so demanding, all I want to do is come home and never leave.’ She heard the sadness in his voice, and wondered if he honestly thought it would ever all be over.
Shecould imagine such a time, although her problem was that she was supposed to be dreaming of a life with Heinrich once the war was over. A man whose head was filled with monstrous ideas,whose bed she was going to have to share if she couldn’t find a way not to marry him. She shuddered at the thought of him ever touching her again.
Her father closed the door when they were in the room and turned on his music, before indicating that she should follow him. She watched as he opened a panel in his bookcase to reveal his safe, which as a girl she’d been fascinated with and had loved seeing, and now felt a great weight of responsibility at being given the code for. He made her repeat it to him, three times, before finally nodding and reaching inside to retrieve something.
‘I have identification papers in here that I want you to give Eliana,’ he said. ‘I have only the one set of papers at this stage, but I believe we can at least get her out of there and into our home as a legitimate guest with these.’
‘Truly?’ she asked, before throwing her arms around her father. ‘That’s wonderful news. And the others? Will you be able to get papers for them, too?’
‘I fear that I won’t have a solution for the rest of the family for some time,’ he said. ‘But I’m doing my best.’
‘You think they’ll have to remain in hiding until the end of the war? In our attic?’
She could tell from his eyes, the way his shoulders dropped slightly, that that was exactly what he thought.
‘I wish it were different, but it’s only Eliana we can help right now, and I’ve risked a lot doing this for her. But if anything ever happens, if for some reason I don’t return or we’re discovered, you must take everything from the safe,’ he said. ‘If I’ve managed to have papers prepared for them, for any of us, they will be in there. I’m trying to prepare for every possible situation.’
