April 19, 1939
Why are you avoiding me?” The hurt in Erna’s voice echoes down the telephone wire.
“I’m not . . .”
“I don’t understand, Hett. Please tell me what I’ve done. If I said something to upset you—”
“You haven’t upset me.”
“That makes it worse. Pretending it’s nothing . . .”
“It’s the truth. You haven’t done anything, Erna—”
“Then why have you avoided me for the last three weeks, Hetty? You’ve not been at school. I’ve called at the house, I’ve phoned. It’s as if you’ve got the plague or something.”
“It’s the spring holidays, Erna!”
“I know, but we always see each other during the holidays.”
I feed the telephone cord through my fingers.
“Come over,” I say after a pause. “This afternoon, while Mutti is paying her monthly visit to the soldiers’ home. Come at four.”
I replace the receiver. She is going to find out soon enough anyway. Mutti has written to the school to tell them I shan’t be returning after the holidays.
Better that Erna hears it from me.
VERA LETS ERNA into the house. I hear her pound up the staircase, then her quick tread along the corridor. I force myself to face the door as she comes in, the shame of my bump clearly exposed beneath my clothes. I hold my breath and wait for her disgust.
“Hetty?”
She walks toward me, looking at my face. Instinctively, my hands drop to my belly and only then does she lower her eyes.
“Christ Almighty!”
“Yes.”
“That’s why you’ve been avoiding me?”
“It might as well be the plague . . .”
“Oh, Hetty . . . How . . . Who’s the father?”
“Do you really have to ask?”
“Walter?”
I nod and begin to cry. Big, fat tears. They never seem to end.
She’s beside me, her arms around me, and I sob into her shoulder.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I couldn’t. I was so ashamed. I hoped it would just . . . go away.”
“But . . . but . . . how far are you?”
“I’m five and a half months.”
“For the devil’s sake, Hett, how did you keep it hidden?”
“Desperation.”
She sinks onto the bed and stares at me. “You should have told me,” she murmurs. “I could’ve helped.”
“How? What could you have done? I’m doomed. That’s all there is to it.”
“What d’you mean, doomed?”
My nose is running, and I search for a clean handkerchief in my top drawer. Finding it, I blow my nose and sit next to Erna on the bed.
“When Vati found out, I thought he was going to kill me. I really did. He hit me so hard. . . .”
“Oh no, that’s awful . . .”
I show her the scab and the remaining lump on the side of my head. “If Tomas hadn’t walked in at that moment, I really think Vati would have.”
“Tomas? I thought he was staying away.”
“He wrote and said he’d had enough of that, and he wanted to take me out for lunch. Anyway, he turned up in the middle of this almighty row and announced the baby was his.”
“What? Why?”
“Exactly. He’s . . . not right in the head. He thinks I’m some kind of fallen angel who needs saving. He told Vati he’ll marry me. At first, I was relieved. I don’t want to marry Tomas, but I thought if it means Walter’s baby will be safe, and if we can live together as a family, well, I could make that work.” I gulp. Take a breath. “But he told me I have to give the baby up. Put it in an orphanage . . . He said he couldn’t bear to raise a mischling child. He’s forcing me to give it away . . .” I begin to cry again. “How can I bear to do that? I hate him, I loathe the sight of him, and now I have to marry him!”
“No, you don’t. You don’t have to marry anyone, Hetty, not if you don’t want to,” Erna says, putting her arm around me again.
“But I do. If I marry Tomas, I’ll save myself, but sacrifice my baby. If I try to go it alone, what then? Vati will disown me. I’ll have no money. No way of supporting us. Besides, without proof the father is of pure German blood . . .” I don’t bother to finish the sentence.
Erna squeezes me tight. She lets go and walks to the window, staring out at the falling spring rain. I lie back against the pillow, resting my head on the headboard. My belly, firm and round as a small melon, protrudes beneath my dress.
She turns to me. “You have to tell Walter. If you’d told him earlier, before—”
“Before he got married? How would that have helped? It just would have ruined his life as well as mine. I’m not doing that to him, Erna. He’s no good to me here, and if he can’t stay in England because of this, I would be no good to him, either. I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going to destroy his chance of a good life.”
“Christ, Hetty, that’s all very noble, but he has a right to know. It’s his child too.”
“I can’t tell him. It would ruin everything.”
“Shouldn’t you let him decide? Perhaps it wouldn’t be as bad as you think. Perhaps you would be able to go to England too.”
“Oh what, then the three of us could live together in perfect harmony? Walter and his two wives? He is living with her family and is totally reliant on their support to remain in England. You’re being ridiculous.”
“But he’s there. Maybe the English will let his child join him, and as the mother of his child, you would be able to go, too, maybe not right away but—”
“Stop it, Erna. It’s never going to work. I can’t go to England, even if he wanted me to, what would I do there? All I can do is try to find a way to save this baby. From whatever fate Tomas has in store. I’ve only got a few months to find a solution. Please help me to think.”
“What about Walter’s mother? His aunt? Couldn’t they take it in?”
“I thought of that, too, but how could I dump a baby on them? They have nothing and they’ve been forced to live in that Jewish house on Humboldstrasse. I couldn’t send my baby to live in such a terrible place. The men remain in Buchenwald, assuming they’re even still alive. I would be consigning it, to what fate? Besides, why would they ever want to help me?”
“And what about you?”
“I will just have to marry Tomas. I don’t see I have a choice. Perhaps if he has me, he will change his mind about the baby.”
The look on her face confirms what I already know.
That this baby, with the blood of a Jew coursing through its veins, is condemned before it has even been born.