Page 60 of The Berlin Sisters
She only hoped that her father had been able to use the diversion to his advantage and had disappeared into the street as well.
Ava didn’t stop running until she reached the road, looking both ways before crossing and heading directly for their apartment. She would go there and wait, hide in the basement perhaps if she made it in time, and figure out what to do. Her father would come for her, he would tell her what to do, he would have a plan to get them all to safety.
But as the siren continued to scream, the sound filling her ears in a way that was impossible to block out, and the far-off explosion of a bomb falling made the concrete rumble beneath her feet, Ava stopped running. She stood across the road from her apartment building, holding on to a lamp post to steady herself as she looked at the two black Mercedes parked outside, blocking the street. There were two SS men stationed by the door, their expressions formidable, standing guard. She could only imagine that there were more of them upstairs, looking for her or her father. Perhapshe had managed to get away, and that was why they’d gone there to look for him, or maybe they were wanting to arrest her entire family. Maybe they had orders to take them all.
She looked back and saw a haze of smoke or perhaps dust in the air, the type that told her a building had been reduced to rubble as the sound of planes flying low almost drowned out the siren.
Ava knew that she should go to the nearest shelter, knew she should find a way to stay safe. But when she looked across the road one last time at the men standing there, she also knew that the only way she was going to be safe was to get as far away from them as she could.
And so she did what her father had told her to do. Ava ran, as fast as she was able, her heels clacking on the deserted city road, her bag thumping against her hip. Then she turned right down the next road. She would never forgive herself if she left without warning Eliana, because for all she knew they were looking for her, too.
She’d turned her back on her once, and would never forgive herself if she did it again.
Chapter Twenty-Two
The knot in Ava’s stomach had never been tighter. She hurried down the pavement, head down, glancing up only to cross the road. At any moment she expected someone to shout out, and to hear the heavy fall of boots pounding on the concrete behind her – her only hope was that the chaos caused by the bombings would work to her advantage. Seeing those men stationed outside her apartment block had confirmed her worst fears – they were looking for her family, which meant that nowhere was safe. It wouldn’t take long for word to spread around the office that she’d disappeared; as soon as they emerged from the basement they’d see she wasn’t there, and she remembered only too well how quickly Lina had disappeared when she’d been blamed for the missing papers. If they found her? She didn’t even want to imagine the interrogation that would follow, or what the sadistic SS men could do to her in an effort to extract as much information from her as possible.
She paused outside the grocer’s, glancing around to make sure no one was watching her. The last thing she wanted was to lead the SS straight to Eliana. She was almost certain that no one could know about Eliana’s real identity, and she wanted to keep it that way.
Ava waited for another moment to be certain, before pushing past the queue of people with their ration books in hand. They wereso desperate for food that even the air raid siren hadn’t made them move, for fear of losing their place in line.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, as many people grumbled at her and tried to block her from moving past. Ava held up her hands. ‘I’m not shopping, I’m looking for someone. Please, let me through.’
It took her only a moment to spot Eliana once she was through the crowd – she was busy restocking a shelf, her back to Ava. It appeared that the goods were going faster than she could restock, the food supplies in Berlin much more restricted than they’d been even a few months earlier, and Ava could see the desperation in the eyes of those waiting. She expected that she didn’t look out of place – only her wide-eyed desperation was for another reason entirely.
‘Eliana,’ Ava hissed, ignoring more muttering from behind her as she pushed through the smaller line gathered inside the store. ‘Eliana!’
Eliana turned, smiling when she saw Ava. But she must have immediately read the expression on Ava’s face, for her smile disappeared and her eyes widened, and she quickly stepped down from the little ladder she was on, brushing her hands on her apron as she came towards her.
Ava inclined her head towards the other side of the store, grabbing hold of Eliana’s arm and pulling her close as they walked to the furthest point, so no one could overhear them.
The way Eliana looked at her, the fear on her face, made Ava want to pull her close and hold her, to reassure her that she would keep her safe. But if she did that, she’d be lying. There was no one who could keep them safe now, no one who could rescue them – they were on their own. If her father’s work had been compromised, which she had every reason to believe had happened, then she doubted even he could find a way to help, to follow through with his plan to take the fall for all of them. Ava cleared her throat as emotion pricked at her eyes, thinking of her beloved papa.Will I ever see him again?
‘They know.’
‘They’re looking for you?’ Eliana visibly swallowed. ‘For me?They know what we’re involved in? What your—’ She leaned even closer, her lips whispering into Ava’s ear. ‘What your family has done?’
‘We have to presume they know everything, that they will be seeking to arrest me, Hanna and my mother,’ Ava whispered in reply. ‘I’m certain I wasn’t followed, but if they know about my family’s involvement, about my involvement, if they know about my father—’
‘Then they could know aboutmyfamily. And me.’
‘Yes, or they could simply want to arrest anyone connected to us, which includes you because they think you’re our family. And they could very well be on their way to the country house now.’
‘The apartment has already been compromised?’
She nodded. ‘There were SS men stationed outside. We have to leave the city; they won’t stop looking for us.’
Ava gripped Eliana’s hand tightly, wishing things were different, that they could have had longer, that everything had worked out as it was supposed to. She also wished that there was some way they could warn Eliana’s family, because right now the Goldmans were in grave danger with nowhere to go. The attic was the first place they’d look if they stormed the house, and there was only so far David could protect them with one gun.
‘We have to leave now, Eliana. There’s no time.’
Eliana pulled her hand from Ava’s and disappeared from sight. Ava looked around, nervously considering everyone in the queue, although no one seemed interested in two young women with their heads bent, whispering. They were all far more concerned with their stamps and peering around to see what was left on the barely stocked shelves. Food had a way of doing that – before the war, all the old ladies would have been craning their necks to hear what itwas they were whispering, and now they argued over sausage meat and bread, their growling, aching stomachs all they cared about.
When Eliana reappeared she was hand in hand with Ethan, who had turned a ghostly shade of white. Ava watched on as Eliana stood on tiptoe to kiss his cheek, wishing they had the luxury of time so that she could let them say goodbye properly. Ethan was a good man, and he didn’t deserve to lose Eliana like this – it was obvious to anyone watching that they’d fallen in love in the short time they’d had together.
‘I have family just outside Cologne,’ he said, as Ava moved closer to them, his voice only loud enough for her and Eliana to hear. ‘If you make your way there, they will give you somewhere to stay, even if it’s just for a night to rest. You can trust them, I promise, and as far as I know their home is untouched by the bombing, so they should still be there.’
‘Thank you,’ Ava said. She needed to thank him for so much – for not only taking Eliana in, but for the help he’d provided to others, and for risking his life. But there was no time, and so she settled for giving him a quick hug once he’d scribbled the address on a piece of paper.
