Page 4 of The Berlin Sisters
‘Swastikas,’ Hanna said, clearing her throat. ‘We’re making hundreds of little swastika cookies.’
‘Oh,’ Ava said, laughing to disguise her embarrassment. ‘Of course we are. How silly of me.’ It wasn’t so long ago they’d made gingerbread men and little trees.
‘Our Führer would not have us bake silly little Christmas baubles when we can make something as mighty as the swastika,’ her mother said, with an overly bright smile. ‘Come, you can work on this batch with your sister while I go and greet your father. I haven’t seen him for days.’
Left alone in the kitchen with Hanna, Ava stood beside her and dropped her head to her sister’s shoulder. There was so much she was brimming to tell her, so much she wished she could speak freely about, but instead she found herself holding her tongue and not saying a word. Had her sister ever had doubts about the work she did, or the way they were expected to behave? Would she keep a secret for their father if she suspected him of wrongdoing? Ava was almost certain that she knew the answer, but still, she wasn’t certain enough to mention what she’d seen yet, even though she wanted to. Her stomach was still twisted in knots thinking about Lina, wondering what might have happened to her. She’d even visited her apartment before work, but no one had come to the door when she’d knocked.
‘How is work?’ Ava eventually asked, pushing thoughts of Lina out of her mind. ‘Have you been busy at the hospital this week?’
‘Work is fine,’ Hanna said, as she placed some carefully cut dough on to an oven tray. ‘It’s been such a hard winter already, so it’s been difficult. And we have a steady stream of patients after each bombing which is always heartbreaking, especially knowing manyof them no longer have a house to go home to. The hardest times are when I’m sent out in the ambulance to provide triage care.’
Ava nodded. She knew how fortunate they were to have such a big, warm house that was still standing, when so many Germans were struggling simply to heat one room to keep their children warm – if they had a house at all. She’d overheard one of the secretaries at work saying that she’d recently visited a friend’s family and taken cigarettes as a gift, only to be promptly reprimanded for being so thoughtless when what they desperately needed was bread. Which made Ava doubly uncomfortable, as her family still seemed to have a plentiful supply of coffee, meats and even sugar – she’d barely gone without at all.
‘Have you had any interesting patients lately? Any stories you can share with me?’ She sighed. ‘I need something to take my mind off my own work.’
‘Is it so bad working in the office?’ Hanna asked, her eyebrows drawn together as she seemed to study her sister. ‘Other than worrying about daytime bombing raids?’
‘No, it’s not so bad, just stressful at times,’ Ava said, hoping she could fool her sister with her tight smile. ‘Your work always seems far more interesting, that’s all. Although I can’t imagine what it must be like seeing children injured or so unwell, that’s not something I’d cope terribly well with.’
Hanna was silent for a moment, and Ava glanced at her and saw a strange look cross her face. They made eye contact briefly, before Hanna smiled and picked up the tray to slide it into the oven.
‘Well, I’ve had some lovely children on my ward lately, and they’re always the nicest to treat, even when it’s hard,’ Hanna said. ‘Although I do often end up staying late to play cards with them or read stories. It’s so hard to wave goodbye when you know how much they miss being at home with their families.’ She cleared herthroat. ‘Now, tell me what’s causing you so much stress. I imagine Joseph Goebbels is rather demanding?’
Ava smiled much in the same way she’d seen her sister smile – almost too brightly, with too much conviction, as if she were trying to convince herself that she was happy.
‘Dr Goebbels is actually very pleasant to work for, and the other secretaries are very friendly to me,’ she replied. ‘He’s requested that I work as his personal secretary when I return, typing his dictation and so forth, and I can’t say that I mind.’
‘That’s quite the honour then, working so closely with a man such as he?’
Ava quickly nodded, turning her attention back to the cookies, wanting to distract both her own mind and her sister from this particular line of discussion, or what she really wanted to say.
I don’t know what to think, Hanna. I’m so confused about what’s happening in the office, and I can’t stop thinking about what I’ve seen. The young woman who was once seated next to me, my friend, has disappeared, and no one has heard from her or seen her since she was taken. I also came across a file about a woman named Sophie Scholl, on the same day that I caught Father taking papers from my office, and every time I think about it I feel sick to my stomach. Do you know why he would do such a thing, why he’d risk his own life to take something that didn’t belong to him?
They were all things she was desperate to tell her sister; she wanted to pour her heart out to Hanna as they had when they were girls sharing a room, whispering in the darkness after lights-out. Back then they’d whispered about boys mostly, as well as the other girls in their Bund Deutscher Mädel group. Ava had particularly liked curling up beside Hanna to hear all about her League of German Girls summer camp, before she’d been old enough to attend herself.
But of course she didn’t say a word of what she wanted to, for how could she know where her sister’s allegiance was, or to what lengths she would go to prove her dedication to the party? They were not simply sisters any more, just as no one was simply a friend. Everyone was ready and waiting to catch the other out, to turn them in, to show their loyalty, no matter what. She’d heard that some families were turning on others to settle old scores, lying to authorities and revelling in whatever punishment was served. Despite everything she believed in, Ava had wondered for some time if that was truly how they were expected to behave. And she questioned why the authorities seemed more inclined to believe the accusers instead of the presumed perpetrators.
‘Shall we make icing to use around the edges?’ Hanna asked, her voice soft as she moved closer to Ava, their shoulders touching. ‘That was always my favourite part when we were girls, but if we don’t hurry up here we’ll never get them finished.’
They stood like that, neither moving, leaning into one another as if there were something they both wanted to say to each other and couldn’t. But neither said a word, simply breathing quietly, as Hanna moved her smallest finger and let it hover beside Ava’s, their skin only just touching. They lived together in Berlin, but their work kept them apart, like ships in the night, and Ava missed her sister dearly.
‘There’s my girls. Please tell me one of those cookies is ready?’
They both turned as their father came into the room, unbuttoning his jacket and placing it neatly over the back of a chair, before striding towards them and embracing Hanna and pressing a kiss to the top of Ava’s head. He swiped a cookie straight from the tray, barely even seeming to notice that it was a swastika he was biting into this year. Or perhaps he had and didn’t care.
‘Merry Christmas, girls,’ he said, smiling at them as tiny crumbs caught in his neatly trimmed moustache.
‘Take that cookie from him at once!’
Ava jumped as her mother barked her instruction from the hallway, before marching in and snatching the half-eaten biscuit from her poor papa, her face showing her fury and his showing his guilt.
‘This first batch of biscuits are for Zelda and her family, and any leftovers are not to be eaten until after dinner,’ she grumbled. ‘Girls, we have to keep a close eye on this one, do you hear me? A very, very close eye.’
Ava swallowed, turning her attention back to the icing they were making in the bowl before her. If only her dear mama knew the truth to her words. But she forgot all about her worries when Hanna slipped him another cookie when their mother wasn’t looking; she could barely suppress her giggles as her father grinned in delight and made a face as if it were the most delicious thing he’d ever eaten.
An hour later, Ava left her father and sister in the sitting room and went to help her mother in the kitchen. Mama was putting cookies into a basket for their maid, and when she saw Ava appear beside her, she nodded towards the small Christmas tree they’d put up in the corner of the room. She’d been humming ‘Silent Night’ when Ava walked in, and although Ava had learned the new Nazi verses along with all the other girls at BDM, she found it impossible not to sing the original version in her mind that her family had always sung at Christmas time.
‘There’s a present there for Zelda and two for her children,’ her mother said. ‘Would you mind getting them for me?’
