Page 72 of The Berlin Sisters
Eliana nodded. ‘He is. Although I was able to find records for his parents. It appears their involvement was discovered soon after we left, and they were shot. Even after everything we’ve already lost, hearing that they were gone, people who’d risked so much to keep me safe and alive, was almost impossible to believe.’
‘I’m sorry.’ Ava looped her arm even tighter through Eliana’s. ‘I know how much they meant to you. But don’t give up on searching for Ethan. Surely miracles are still possible, even here in Germany? Even after everything?’
‘Of course they are,’ Eliana said. ‘Miracles are always possible.’
‘I would feel that way if it were David,’ Ava said shyly, watching him as he looked up and caught her eye, his smile just for her. ‘I would walk until the end of the earth to find him if I lost him, so you must hold on to hope. There is every chance that Ethan is still alive.’
As David and Max began walking towards them, Ava turned to Eliana and clasped her hands, trying to hold back her tears while she prepared to say something she’d been waiting for so long to say.
‘I know so much time has passed since we were girls, but I want to say sorry to you, Eliana. I want to apologise for the way I treated you, for the unforgivable way I turned my back on you at the beginning of the war.’
‘Ava, please—’
‘No, let me. No matter what has passed since then, no matter what we’ve been through, I want you to know that I’m sorry. I wish I could have seen what was happening right in front of me, and instead I chose to be part of it, and I also wish that I’d been brave enough to apologise to you that very first night in the attic, when you shared your story with me.’
‘The difference,’ Eliana said, clasping her hands back just as tightly, ‘is that you changed when most did not. But if you need to hear it, then so be it. I wholeheartedly accept your apology, and there is no need to feel guilty for not saying it earlier. Your actions spoke louder than any words.’
Ava’s breath shuddered from her. ‘Thank you.’
‘Eliana,’ David said as he reached them and embraced his sister. ‘I’d say it’s good to see you, but you seem to be making my wife cry. Please stop.’
They all laughed, and Ava scooped Max up into her arms and brought him close so they could all bend their heads together, all so relieved that they’d made it. She closed her eyes, remembering though at the same time trying so hard not to, for when she did, all she could see was Hanna’s face as she’d said goodbye. As she’d so bravely sent Ava on her way, knowing that she was never going to leave herself, that they’d likely never see each other again.
Hanna’s letter was still in her pocket; she had carried it every day since David had given it to her. But after today, she would find somewhere safe to keep it, once she’d fulfilled her sister’s wishes. Until now, she’d wanted to keep it close as evidence of her intentions.
I made you a promise, Hanna, and I intend on keeping it. After today, your final wish will have been fulfilled.
Later that day, Ava stood in the back part of the garden that was partially hidden by a low stone wall. The last time she’d stood here, she’d found her sister, on her knees, with two glass jars beside her, tears streaming down her cheeks. Now it was Ava who was crying, her eyes filling with tears as she placed her shovel down and dropped to her knees.
David had offered to help her, but she’d asked him to stay at the house with Max so she could have a moment alone. She wanted to remember Hanna, to cry without being self-conscious, to feel the strength of her sister on her own as she followed through with what she’d started. But as she placed her hands on the cold ground, she’d never felt so alone. She’d wistfully hoped that she’d feel Hanna’s presence, that she’d feel as if her sister were kneeling beside her in the dirt as she dug up the earth, but instead she’d never missed her more nor felt her absence more keenly.
There had been a time when Ava had truly believed that she’d be able to reunite the children Hanna had saved with their families. For months, she’d imagined passing the information to the authorities and felt certain they’d slowly be able to locate families as they came forward, looking for those they’d been forced to leave behind or send away. But it hadn’t taken long after the war had ended for the atrocities against the Jews to become clearer. The losses had been in the millions, the number of people murdered as part of the Final Solution greater than even she could have imagined, the chance of family reunions almost impossible. Which had given her the very real understanding that any children who had been saved would no longer have parents looking for them; there was very little chance that those parents would still be alive. Nor their grandparents, aunts or uncles even.
Ava pushed her shovel into the dirt, thinking little of the plants her mother had carefully placed there in order to hide what was hidden beneath. She was focused on one thing only now, and that was digging up those jars. She had to be careful as she excavated, conscious that the glass could break, and the moment she heard even the softest of clinks, she would begin to dig by hand, the dirt caking beneath her nails and dampening her skin as she frantically fought to uncover the precious gifts below.
The first jar brought her to the ground, her body trembling. She carefully took it out, falling to her elbows when she saw the handwritten note inside.Hanna buried this. Hanna gave her life for this. My sister was the last person to touch this jar.
She sobbed into the earth for the longest of moments, before forcing herself back up, picking up the shovel again and beginning to dig once more. Soon, she was surrounded by jars, piling them up behind her as she kept digging. Ava didn’t know if Hanna had buried more than the sixteen she’d helped her with, and she didn’t want to miss even one, not when the information inside of each onewas so important. Not now she was a mother with her own child, her own precious son; a son who, had he been born then, may well have ended up being a name in a jar. An orphan with no one left to come looking for him.
‘Ava?’
When she heard David say her name, she couldn’t look up. She hadn’t wanted him to see her pain, but when he knelt beside her and wrapped his arms around her, she took refuge in them, wishing he’d been there with her all along.
‘I’m never going to be able to reunite them,’ she cried. ‘All these jars, all these families, they’re never going to find one another. There’s so little chance that any of them are even alive now.’
David rocked her in his arms, his lips to her hair as he soothed her pain.
‘Ava,’ he finally said, when she sat back on her haunches and looked at him through eyes still blurred with tears. He gently stroked her hair, gazing at her with such tenderness that it hurt. ‘I want you to imagine that we were one of these parents, that we had risked everything to save our son, to give him a chance at a life that we knew he would never have in Germany.’
She shuddered at the thought, but nodded to David in reply anyway.
‘In their hearts, they knew that they would likely never see their children again. I think all of us Jews knew that nothing was going to get better for us, not here. But they sent their children away anyway in the hope that they would have the chance to live a full life far from Berlin.’ David touched his hand to his chest. ‘Their hearts were full of so much love, that they chose to let their children go. And what’s important here is that Hanna cared enough to preserve this information, and that you care enough to pass that information on. It’s all you can do.’
‘So why doesn’t it feel like I’ve done enough? Why do I feel as if I’ve done nothing at all? As if I’ve failed?’
David pulled her towards him again, holding her and rubbing circles on her back. ‘Because you’re trying to make up for the evils of so many, and you are just one woman,’ he whispered. ‘Sometimes we have to know when we’ve done our best.’
‘But have I?’ she whispered. ‘Done my best?’
