Chapter Four

Ava walked around her childhood bedroom, touching framed photographs and looking at all the books on her shelf, the mementos she'd collected over the years. If the war hadn't happened, she'd likely have spent a lot more time at home, but instead she was usually at the Berlin apartment, which was many times removed from their country house. It was modern and warm, with three bedrooms, and positioned conveniently close to everything in the city, but it still never felt like home, no matter how many nights she slept there. Some days she loved walking out on to the cobbled streets and being able to meet her friends or have coffee with them, but other times she craved the solitude of Bogensee, often wishing she was there. And over the past year there had been the matter of the air raids, which were getting closer and closer, and more intense in their ferocity and volume.

She knew that parts of the countryside were being hit relentlessly too, but she felt so much safer with space around her than the close confines in the city. Not to mention that their bomb shelter in the garden here was much more desirable than the nights she had to go down to the basement of their apartment block, or hide in a public shelter if she was on her way home when the warning siren sounded.

Ava had walked to her dresser and sat down, deciding to brush out her hair and change into her nightgown in preparation for bed, when she heard a thump, and then another. She smiled to herself and rose, quick to discard her hairbrush. Over dinner they'd talked about old photo albums and memories of their little vacations by the water many years ago, and she guessed that Hanna must have decided to poke around and look in the attic before bed. Ava had missed her terribly over the past few years, as they had more often than not lived separate lives due to the long hours they both worked – Hanna even more so than her – and so she decided that bed could wait. She could catch up on sleep later, especially if it meant spending some one-on-one time with her sister, and she was also eager to see the photographs if Hanna managed to find them. She was also conscious that Hanna might be finding it hard to sleep; Ava imagined the memories she was wrestling with wouldn't be conducive to slumber, which made her want to be with her sister all the more.

Ava walked to the very end of the hallway and saw that the narrow staircase had been pulled down from the ceiling. She'd been right, Hanna was definitely up there. They'd left their parents sitting in front of the fire, so she knew she wouldn't be disturbing her mother or father – they'd seemed content in each other's company, reminiscing about Christmases past as they threatened that they would haunt their daughters forever if they sold the country house when they were gone. Ava and Hanna had both smiled to each other across the room – they were both united on the decision that the house would stay in their family for generations.

She climbed the stairs, careful with each footfall, although there was some light coming from a lamp flickering upstairs that helped to guide her way. As children they'd sometimes snuck up in the dark, each trying to pretend they were so brave when in fact they were almost paralysed with terror at night.

‘Hanna, what have you found!' Ava called out, her eyes trained on her feet so she wouldn't misstep. ‘I heard—'

Ava froze. Her words died in her throat, gurgling away as if she were choking on them. Four strangers were sat on the floor, cross-legged and blinking back at her, eating from white plates with little blue flowers on them that she recognised from her own kitchen, and what appeared to be a replica of the very same meal that Ava herself had just consumed. The youngest of the two men had a piece of meat on his fork, but it was suspended between the plate and his mouth, a line of grease across his lips as he stared back at her.

‘Papa!' Ava screamed, almost falling down the ladder as she stepped back. ‘Papa, come quickly!'

The light from the single oil lamp flickered, and Ava found that she couldn't tear her eyes from the four people looking back at her: two men and two women. Who were they? And what were they doing in her attic? What were any strangers doing in her house! As she heard her father's heavy footfalls approaching, one of the women spoke, taking her by surprise. Ava edged back further, careful to avoid the open trapdoor behind her as her eyes darted around for a weapon, anything to protect herself with. She reached out, hoping to connect with an unused lamp to defend herself.

‘Ava,' said one of the women, softly. ‘It's me. Eliana.'

The younger of the two women slowly stood, leaving her plate of food on the floor. She smiled, nervously, and there was something familiar about her face, as shadows from the lamp flickered across her skin, something—

‘Eliana?' Ava whispered, her heart racing as she took a tentative step forward, the lamp she'd been reaching for forgotten. Eliana, her old neighbour and school friend? Eliana, the Jew? ‘Eliana Goldman?' Ava looked at each face in the attic more intently, her fear rising instead of abating, even as she realised that they were not strangers to her. But they were Jews, and that was possibly even worse.

Ava's stomach twisted as Eliana nodded. She needed them to get out of her house, and she needed them out now!

‘Papa!' she screamed again.

‘Ava, I'm so sorry you had to discover us here like this.'

‘I, I—'

Ava's father appeared beside her then, and when she looked at him, when she saw the way his face seemed to crumple as he looked between her and the family, she knew. This wasn't a surprise to him. If it were a surprise, he'd have yelled and strode forward, taking the two men seated in his attic by force, marching them from his home. Instead, he only nodded to the family, before turning his attention back to his daughter, with a look that could only be described as annoyance. And the annoyance wasn't directed at the intruders, but at her.

Her mother came up the ladder then, followed by Hanna, and Ava had an unfamiliar sinking feeling deep in her stomach as they all stood and blinked back at her. She was the only one who hadn't known who was hidden in their home. They'd all been keeping this a secret from her, all of them! They'd sat together and had dinner only hours earlier, sharing memories and laughing, all while keeping what was truly going on in their home a secret from her. Without telling her that they were hiding an entire family right above her!

‘Would someone please tell me why the Goldman family are hidden in our attic?' Ava asked, hearing the high lilt of her voice as she finished her sentence, the unmasked panic of her words. ‘We will all be hung if they're discovered!'

‘Ava,' her papa began, his brow furrowed as he stared at her. ‘Please just take a moment to—'

‘No!' she cried, not caring how hysterical she sounded, as she looked at her mother, her sister, and then her father again, not knowing how they could all seem so unflustered, how they could all be standing there so calmly while she felt as if she could explode. ‘No, I will not take a moment to do anything! They cannot be here! We have to get them out of our house!'

Why was everyone looking at her as if she were the crazy one? As if she were the one in the wrong? As if she were the one making them uncomfortable?

‘What is even happening here?' she demanded. ‘We have to check all the doors are locked, that the curtains are drawn. If the SS—'

‘No one would dare to enter my home without knocking and waiting for me to open the door, most especially any member of the SS,' her father said, coming to stand between Ava and the Goldmans. ‘Ours is one of the safest homes in Germany, given my rank, which is precisely why I made the decision to allow this in the first place.'

Ava closed her eyes, her head beginning to throb. I thought it was Hanna. I thought we were going to spend time together, just the two of us. I thought my sister was in the attic.

‘Papa,' she murmured, as she opened her eyes. ‘Papa, you know what happens to those who help the Jews. You must know that it's not worth the risk, not for anyone. I know you think I don't understand, but I understand very clearly what would happen to us. ‘

‘Ava, if you knew the truth, if you understood what was happening, you would know that it is very much worth the risk. And it's because of your blindness that we chose to keep this from you.'

Ava recoiled from her father's words. Her blindness? She swallowed, her mind swirling as everything began to make sense, including her mother giving Zelda time off work. She'd never given her two full days off before.

‘Ava,' Hanna said, coming to stand beside her and placing her hand on her arm, at the same time as her mother went to sit with Frau Goldman. ‘Please let Eliana tell you her story, of how they ended up here. I would like you to understand how they came to live in our attic, if you'd give them the chance. It's time you listened, so that you can understand the truth.'

Ava looked at the faces all turned to her and recognised hope, sadness and possibly desperation, mixed most likely with despair at the way she'd reacted. But how was she supposed to act, when this went against everything she knew and believed in? Was she not supposed to be hysterical at finding Jews in her attic?

Ava brushed tears from her cheeks and looked around the dimly lit room, at the books stacked on a small table, at the piles of clothes and belongings, at the makeshift beds where the Goldmans had been sleeping. It simultaneously broke her heart and filled her with fear; her family had done something so deeply kind for others, but in doing so, they had risked all their lives.

‘Ava?' Hanna asked.

She didn't feel as if she had a choice other than to listen, not with her family and the Goldmans all watching her, and so she reluctantly went and sat beside her mother, her knees tucked up to her chin as Eliana finally stopped her pacing and sat down across from her. Ava was struck by how pretty she was, how wide and beautiful her eyes were, but she shouldn't have been surprised – Eliana had always been one of the prettiest girls in the neighbourhood, and for many years they'd been friends, often walking home from school together, or chatting at the park or when their families had dinner together over summer. But Ava would have been lying if she'd said she'd thought about them in the years since. She had dutifully joined the youth groups for girls along with her other eligible German friends, swept up in the excitement of the time, of the new Germany that was being created under Hitler. Never once had she wondered what became of them, or what it must have been like for them to try to survive.

Where had Eliana been when Ava and Hanna had been at summer camp, training with all the other girls who'd been chosen to join the League, dreaming of meeting a dashing soldier and doing their duty to have beautiful, blonde, blue-eyed babies?

Where had Eliana been when Ava had stood on the streets, waving little flags and screaming out Heil Hitler with the rest of the crowd? Or when she'd lined up to join the party with her other friends, chatting excitedly with their ten-mark notes in their hands to pay their membership dues.

‘Where would you like me to start?' Eliana asked as their eyes finally met.

‘Start from the very beginning,' Hanna said, before Ava had a chance to respond.

Eliana looked at Ava once more, and she nodded to her. ‘Yes,' Ava said, clearing her throat and deciding that she would hear her out, that if the rest of her family had chosen to help the Goldmans, then they must have good reason to. Perhaps there was something that she didn't understand, that made them different. ‘Please, start at the beginning, Eliana. Please, tell me your story.'

She watched as Eliana turned to first her father and then her mother, waiting for them to nod their approval, before she folded her hands in her lap, the soft lilt of Eliana's voice forcing Ava to consider how she'd ever forgotten about such a kind-hearted, gently spoken friend. Her face felt hot and she knew it would be bright red, her embarrassment impossible to hide.

‘I knew the world was changing for a long time,' Eliana said. ‘I think we all did. But I also don't think any of us could have comprehended what would happen next.'

Ava wondered when the last time was that Eliana had raised her voice beyond a whisper, how long they had actually been hidden in her home. Had they been here last time she'd been to visit?

‘Even when I was the last Jewish girl in class at school, even when I was told not to return by a teacher who had once praised me for my academic achievements, when I was told that I couldn't swim in the pool because I had the Jew disease, I still didn't believe...'

Ava found herself holding her breath as Eliana looked to her family again, pausing for a long moment before continuing. She remembered that day; she had sat there and listened to Eliana be berated by their teacher, and not once had she imagined what it must have been like for her.

‘I still didn't believe that my people would be persecuted and murdered so brazenly, that people who'd once been our friends, who'd once frequented my father's shop, would stand by and not even think to question such violence against their neighbours.'

Eliana's arms went around herself, as if she were suddenly cold, as she spoke of her memories, as everyone watched and listened to her, and it was so quiet Ava could have heard a pin drop.

‘You were subjected to violence? Personally?'

Eliana met her gaze, and Ava saw a sadness there that she knew would haunt her forever. ‘We were subjected to violence long before your father smuggled us from the city, when crowds of Jews were being rounded up and dragged from the streets, as fathers were murdered for trying to protect their families. That's when I understood that everything I'd heard was true, that no one was going to stop what was happening to our people.'

Ava looked over at her father; her father who'd only hours before been dressed in his perfectly pressed SS uniform, the picture of a dedicated Nazi, a man who was so well respected he was on a first-name basis with the highest-ranked party members. Was the SS truly using such violence against the Jews?

‘We lost everything, Ava. Our home, our business, our friends.' Eliana's mother began to cry as she listened to her daughter speak, but Eliana only lifted her chin. ‘Everything we once loved and cherished, it's gone. It was all taken from us, as if our lives never existed in the first place.'

Silence wove deeply between each and every one of them as they sat with Eliana's words ringing in their ears. Ava shuddered as she digested what she'd just heard, as she acknowledged how little she truly knew about what had been going on around her. She'd believed the Jews were being relocated, she'd thought it was peaceful. How wrong she'd been.

‘Tell Ava about Kristallnacht,' Hanna murmured. ‘About the night of broken glass, and what it was like for you. Tell her what happened.'

Eliana's gaze was fixed on Hanna. ‘You want me to tell her the truth of what happened that night?'

Hanna nodded. ‘I think it's time she understood everything, don't you?'