Page 33 of The Berlin Sisters
‘You think we might need false papers, too?’
He looked away for a moment, before turning his gaze back to her. ‘I think that there are officers who aren’t loyal to our Führerany more, which is causing suspicion like never before. That’s why young men like your Heinrich, who’ve proved themselves to be fanatical in their dedication to the party, are being welcomed home and transferred into new positions.’
‘Papa, about Heinrich,’ she began, as goose pimples rippled across her skin.
‘I’m hoping he will be relocated soon,’ he said. ‘He’s become quite the favourite of Goebbels and Himmler, and they have plans for him outside of Berlin. I had hoped to send him elsewhere, but my efforts have been stymied at this stage.’ She heard the hesitation in his voice, sensing his concerns, and wondered if something had changed, if somehow his influence had waned.
‘Papa, he’s told me what they want for him, and he wants us to marry soon and have me move to a cottage near the, the—’ She hesitated as his brow creased. ‘The concentration camp. He wants me to live nearby to where he’ll be working.’ She remembered what Hanna had told her, what she’d read in the papers at Goebbels’ office. There was no way she could live so close, knowing what was happening there.
He studied her for a long moment, his expression impossible to read.
‘Turn the music up please, Ava,’ he finally said, bringing the papers with him and sitting down in one of the armchairs.
She did as she was asked, and then settled down to listen to his quietly spoken words about what he needed her to do to ensure Eliana’s safety, and just how he was going to delay her marriage to Heinrich. But it was something he said when they both stood, kissing her forehead as he embraced her, that she knew would forever echo through her mind.
I’m going to hell for what I’ve been part of, Ava, for the things I’ve ordered and been witness to, but I hope that this one small thing, this one family we’re helping, will at least count for something.
Because it made her wonder just what her father had done in his role with the SS, what brutality he’d been part of, and how he intended on living with himself after the war. He might be her father, and she loved him dearly, fiercely even, but if she knew what he’d done? If she found out definitively that he’d had some part in what had happened to Lina? She feared that she might never be able to forgive him.
Ava spent an hour alone in her father’s study, thinking through everything he’d told her, everything he’d asked her to consider. But when she heard her mother call out to her, she gathered herself and went to find her. There was no sign of her in the living room or kitchen, but then she saw a flash of movement outside and realised where they were. Ava took her jacket down from the hook near the back door, laced up her boots and went out to join her mother and sister.
‘What are you doing?’ she called out as she walked.
They were some way from the house, but close enough that she could see they were gardening. Hanna appeared to be wielding a shovel and was digging, and her mother was carrying plants.
‘I didn’t realise you were both so interested in gardening these days,’ she said, folding her arms across her chest as she approached. It had certainly never been a favourite pastime of hers – she much preferred to stay indoors.
‘Ava, come and help me,’ Hanna called, looking over her shoulder and waving for her to join them. ‘We need to do this as quickly as possible.’
‘Do what as quickly as possible?’ she asked. ‘I’m not well versed in gardening, you know. Is this to be a new vegetable plot?’
She hadn’t yet told her mother about Heinrich’s mention of slave labour, although she suspected Hanna might have divulged it. Did that have something to do with their sudden interest in the garden?
‘We have jars to bury,’ Hanna said. ‘Eliana helped me to prepare these.’
Ava absently picked one up, trying to see the contents. ‘This is the surprise you had for me?’
Hanna looked lighter than Ava had seen her for some time, and she crouched down beside her, having to move closer so she could hear her soft voice.
‘We created a jar for each child I’ve helped to save, so that one day there’s a chance they can be reunited with their families. The children I’ve been helping to escape Berlin, Jewish children, inside is everything about where they lived, who their parents were, their grandparents...’ Hanna paused a moment, as if she were about to cry and needed a moment to collect herself. ‘Who they were before all of this.’
Ava blinked away her own tears as she gently picked up one of the jars and sat down in the dirt, understanding the weight of what her sister was a part of.
‘You think it’s safe to do this, in our garden?’ she asked, gently. ‘This is such a beautiful gesture, Hanna, I only hope that we don’t regret doing it here.’
‘If not here, then where?’ Hanna asked, wiping her forehead with the back of her hand and smudging dirt across her skin. ‘I’ve thought this over so many times, and I just want to make sure that every child I helped to smuggle out of Berlin has a chance at finding their family. It feels right to do this here, somewhere that can never be forgotten, can never be taken from us.’
‘Mama?’ Ava asked, looking up as their mother came closer. ‘You’re comfortable with doing this here? At our home?’
‘We’re going to transplant larger seedlings from the vegetable garden, as well as flowers,’ her mother said. ‘So long as we work quickly and bury them fairly deep, I think it’s a lovely idea. No one will ever think to dig up a vegetable garden.’
Ava nodded. She wasn’t comfortable with it, terrified that they might somehow be discovered and bring everything crashing down around them, but she certainly understood the sentiment. ‘This will be the only record? If those children survive, if their parents survive, this information could be what brings them back together?’
Hanna nodded. ‘This will be what gives them the chance to be a family again. So long as one of us survives, we will be able to dig them up and give the information to the authorities.’
And so Ava reached for one of the gardening tools and set about helping her sister, their mother digging up seedlings from another plot nearby. It seemed reckless, burying the jars so close to the house, having a permanent record that all but confirmed they’d been involved in the smuggling of Jewish children, but she knew it was the right thing to do.
‘How many do we have?’ Ava asked, the dirt cool beneath her skin as she tucked the first jar deep into the earth and began to cover it.
