Page 59 of The Berlin Sisters
‘I should have listened to you,’ Ava whispered, ‘I should never have done what he asked. I should have told you what was happening, what it was all for.’
She could almost see them coming, could picture herself being handcuffed or simply dragged by her arm from their home or the office.
‘Father will never let anything happen to you,’ Hanna murmured, as if she could read Ava’s mind. ‘Everything will be all right, I promise.’
Ava didn’t believe her. How could their father keep her safe, when they might be coming for him, too? When Heinrich had indicated that he couldn’t even put an end to their wedding plans?She’d chosen to be part of this, and now she would have to deal with the consequences, whatever they were. Heinrich had said himself that they suspected some of the men closest to the Führer, which meant it was only so long before her father was implicated.
‘We need to let Mama know what’s happened,’ Ava said, pushing back her hair and sitting up. ‘We need to keep her safe.’
‘I’ve already been home. She knew more than I did about what was going on.’
‘She’s safe?’ Ava asked.
‘As safe as any of us can be right now,’ Hanna said. ‘But unless they arrest Father, there’s no reason for them to trouble her. She told me that we must go on as normal, to not do anything outside of our usual routine, in case we’re being watched.’
‘How did you know what had happened? How did you even know to go home and warn her?’ Ava asked.
‘Because it’s not just in the city that men are being arrested, it’s everywhere,’ Hanna said, and for the first time, Ava saw fear reflected in her sister’s gaze. ‘I had to leave a child behind today. There were SS everywhere, they were arresting people and...’
Ava took hold of her sister’s hands.
‘I’m scared, Ava,’ Hanna finally said, her eyes swimming with tears. ‘I’m truly, deeply scared.’
Ava’s breath shuddered from her and tears began to slide down her cheeks again. ‘I’m scared, too.’
‘But we can only be scared inside these four walls,’ Hanna said, clearing her throat, her voice sounding strong again. ‘We can’t do anything that will draw attention, we have to go about our lives as if everything is fine. We can’t let anyone see the cracks.’
Ava nodded and quickly wiped her cheeks. Hanna was right – continuing on was the only thing they could do, along with praying that no one ever found out about their involvement.
Chapter Twenty-One
Ava had never known the office to be so tense. The silence was almost impossible to bear, all of them with their heads down, getting on with their work while everything around them seemed to be in a state of chaos. Hanna had been right, those involved had believed their plan to be a success, and Colonel von Stauffenberg, a man who had been friends with her father for many years – and someone Ava would have least expected to be involved – had flown back to Berlin thinking he would be able to take control. They’d even begun to arrest some of the SS men, but it had only been a matter of hours before the uprising they’d planned was defeated. She’d typed the papers herself – there were a handful of high-level colonels and lieutenants who’d already faced the firing squad for what they’d done.
Her father walked from Goebbels’ office just then, accompanied by Lieutenant Schwägermann, and Ava noticed how pale his face was as he changed direction and came towards her. She found herself holding her breath, seeing the strain around his eyes, hoping that he wasn’t about to have one of his episodes, especially when Hanna wasn’t near to assist him.
‘Sorry for all the extra work today, ladies,’ he said, smiling as all the women looked up at him, before coming around to Ava’s side of the desk.
‘Is everything all right?’ she asked, not hiding her concern. Everyone was worried; it was all any one was whispering about in the bathrooms now that the news was out.
‘Everything is fine. There is a lot of activity, that is all.’
He smiled and leaned down over her, reaching for her pen, which she’d placed beside her typewriter. She watched as he turned the piece of paper over, kissing her cheek as he always did, perhaps so that no one noticed what he was doing, before standing and squeezing her shoulder, the same way he had when he’d broken the news to her about Noah.
And that was when she read what he’d written.
RUN.
Ava quickly turned the piece of paper over, her breathing shallow as she watched him walk from the room as if nothing had happened, as if he hadn’t just written that one terrifying word on the letter she’d just typed.
She fixed her smile, deliberately making her actions as unhurried as possible as she reached for her bag, deciding to leave her coat so it wasn’t obvious that she was leaving the building. She would walk to the bathroom, and instead of going in she would dart down the stairs and run.Just stay calm. Don’t let anyone know anything is wrong. Keep smiling and walk as slowly as you can.
But that was almost impossible, given that she didn’t know who she was running from. All she knew for certain was that her father wouldn’t have written that word unless he needed her out of that building immediately. Someone was coming for her, or for him, or perhaps even both of them. He’d warned her, he’d told her that if they were found out, the SS would come for every member of their family, and all she could think about was that she and her father were the only ones who knew it was about to happen.
As Ava turned to step out from behind her desk, she heard boots on the stairs and, echoing up through the building, the unmistakable blare of an air raid siren. The first long drone sounded as all the women leapt to their feet and grabbed their coats and bags.
‘Ava, your coat!’ Greta called, thrusting it at her, giving her a strange look when she saw that she was holding her bag, as if wondering where she might have been going. ‘Quickly!’
Ava shrugged into her coat, her bag held tightly under her arm as she ran with the other secretaries down the stairs as quickly as they could. Everyone else from the building was hurrying with them, all heading down to the basement that they used as a bunker, to avoid having to race down the road to the public shelter. But as the crowd continued on, Ava darted out to the side, making a run for the front door.
