When Victor announced their plans, Audrey’s nanny had resigned, saying Audrey was well on her way to becoming a fine young woman and no longer needed her. Sophie’s sister was also leaving Berlin, and Sophie decided to join her.
“We’re getting out whilst we can,” Sophie had told Audrey before she left. Her brother-in-law was political and deeply concerned about Adolf Hitler’s appointment as chancellor. “Eli has job prospects in Brussels, and I figure I can find a family in need of service, anywhere I go.”
Audrey tried to be strong when Sophie left, and she summoned that strength once more on the day she herself departed for London. She and Ilse held each other outside Audrey’s house in a clutch of despair.
“I shall be lost without you,” Ilse said, her voice thick. “Especially if things get worse. You’ve always been my shield.”
Over her shoulder, Audrey spied the house down the street where an awful boy named Karl once lived. He and one of his mates had cornered Ilse when the girls were about ten years old, hurling insults like jagged rocks. Audrey placed herself between them and Ilse, but it was a trap; a third bully crept up from behind and cut off Ilse’s long braid with his mother’s kitchen shears. The boys had cackled harshly, throwing the braid at her feet and spitting on it. Ilse fled home sobbing. Audrey screamed at the boy, knocked the shears from his hand, and kicked him as hard as she could in both shins. She made sure he was also reduced to tears before she sprinted away after Ilse.
Tears slipped down Audrey’s cheeks now even as she brushed Ilse’s away. “No,” she said, with a sad smile. “I’m not your shield. I’m just the sword.” Ilse laughed despite herself. “I know you’ll be fine,” Audrey continued. “You’re stronger than you think. Besides, your biggest pest is going to be Ephraim, now, anyway.”
Ilse chuckled as they pulled away.
“You must promise to write every other week,” Audrey said. “And so will I.”
“Mama says maybe we can come visit someday,” Ilse added, hopeful. Her glossy dark hair shone in the morning sunlight.
“And I’ll make my father bring me back soon,” Audrey said. “I’ll find a way. I’ll insist.”
“I know you will,” Ilse said with a watery laugh.
For the next two years, Audrey distracted herself with studying acting and music alongside her finishing school classes in London, but her heart was in Berlin. So, in secret, she applied to the premiere konservatorium. It was a prestigious school, but Audrey had guessed—correctly, as it transpired—that her father’s soft spot for her artistic interests might be the ticket back to Berlin, and to Ilse. He agreed to let her return to the continent to attend the conservatory, so long as Ilse’s mother Ruth, a woman of profound caution, kept a watchful eye on her.
But now, her father wanted her back safely in England. Audrey knew, on a level, that he had a point. The attack on Ephraim wasn’t an isolated incident. It was indicative of the climate, the hatred of Jews and anyone who didn’t fit the Nazis’ own definition of who was a “good” or “real” German. But she wasn’t about to waste three years of her time, dedication, and her father’s money by abandoning her program so close to the finish. She’d written back, reminding him that her graduation was only a few weeks away, and she would return then.
She caught her bus at the end of the street. As the vehicle meandered through the city, the prospect of leaving again weighed on her mind. She did miss her father, in a way. Despite his aloofness, he was still her family, and their relationship had improved somewhat as she got older. But she hated the thought of going back to London. Victor had allowed her to pursue an artistic education, but he still believed that a woman’s place was in the home, supporting her husband and bearing children. Audrey didn’t much fancy the looming battle of trying to convince him that she wanted more than a half-life. She didn’t want her own aspirations stifled by the effort of supporting a man. She didn’t want to live for someone else, masquerading under his name. She wanted to see her own name up in lights on a stage someday because of her own talent and hard work.
At her father’s insistence, Audrey had her passage to England booked, but she had buried the ticket beneath a stack of cardigans in her dresser drawer, as though hoping to smother it into nonexistence.
She didn’t know what the alternative was, but she couldn’t imagine leaving the whole Kaplan family when their lives had shrunk so much over the past while. Ilse was forced to abandon her nursing training, and they all had to carry identity cards stating their Jewish heritage. Before the attack on Ephraim, the most recent blow had been when Jewish passports were invalidated and stamped with a J. Prior to that, Audrey had some vague thoughts that perhaps the whole Kaplan family would come with her to London after her graduation. She knew Ruth wanted to leave, as so many Jews were choosing to do, or at least send their children to England on the kindertransports. But Herr Kaplan wouldn’t hear of it.
“This is our home,” he’d said. “And I have my business, Ruth. We cannot pack up and leave all that.” He shook his head. His textile company was one of the few remaining under Jewish ownership.
“Yet with each passing day, it becomes more likely our business will be stripped from us, Ira,” Ruth pleaded. “So many already have.”
“But ours may not. And if we emigrate, we will lose all our wealth to the Flight Tax,” he’d replied. “Germany will regress toward the mean. We must simply wait out the madness. Have faith, Ruth.”
But Audrey could see that Ruth’s faith was tested. As was Ilse’s. Even mischievous, twelve-year-old Ephraim was wary after his ordeal with the Hitler Youth, and Ruth’s sense of caution had blossomed into full-scale paranoia. None of them went outside much anymore. Previously mundane excursions to the grocer or bank were anxious, fleeting errands where Ruth or Ira tried to conduct their business as discreetly as possible under the black and red swastikas draped with imposing ceremony over doorways and on buildings. The emblem that signified the constant presence of the Führer in their daily lives.
Audrey let out a heavy sigh. The bus was stuffy. The Kaplans’ house was still a twenty-minute walk away, but she got off early. She readjusted her grip on her satchel, welcoming the cool autumn air, a tonic after the cloud of gloom that dogged her. When she reached the house, she scaled the few steps up to the front porch, then glanced back across the treed street at her childhood home, now occupied by a couple in their seventies, the Richters.
Audrey turned the key in the lock and the sound of her footsteps echoed inside the expansive entryway. She removed her shoes and headed into the telephone room, which was kitty-corner to the front door. This room was her favourite in the Kaplans’ grand home. It was small, perhaps five feet square, large enough for a utility chair, telephone, and a little desk, which sat right beneath the mail slot on the other side of the porch. The post would slide through and land in a large wicker tray next to a brass banker’s lamp and a smart, six-inch-long silver letter opener with an ivory handle. Seeing the latest Modenschau fashion magazine on top of the pile of post, Audrey hissed in excitement and hurried upstairs to find Ilse.
She knocked but didn’t wait for a response before bursting into Ilse’s room. Her friend was lying on her stomach on her butter-yellow bedcovers, knees bent, stocking feet drifting side to side like a metronome.
“It’s arrived!” Audrey said, holding up the magazine.
Ilse let out a little squeal. “Ooh! Let me see, let me see!”
Audrey handed it over and flopped down beside her.
“How was rehearsal?” Ilse asked, turning a page.
“Good. Fine.”
“Are you feeling ready for the recital?”
“I suppose, yes,” Audrey said. “But to be honest, the fact that none of you will be able to be there has sort of taken the shine off. It’s not right.”
Ilse nodded. “I know. I wish I could. You know that.”
“But it’s really not a big thing, anyway,” Audrey said with a wave of her hand. It was, and she was immensely proud of her accomplishment, but she carried such guilt about it now.
Ilse frowned. “Don’t be stupid. Of course it’s a big thing. You’ve worked hard for this, and you’re talented. I know what you’re doing, and you can stop right now.”
Ilse had a way of seeing straight through Audrey that was both endearing and occasionally problematic.
“All right. But you should have graduated already, Ilse. It isn’t fair that I got to finish this, and you didn’t get your nursing certificate.”
Ilse sighed. “There isn’t much point wailing about it, though, is there? I can’t be a nurse if Jewish doctors can’t practice, and Mama’s made up her mind about our restrictions. She’s half-mad with worry.”
Audrey knew Ilse didn’t blame Ruth. Not really. But she was clearly growing weary of the limitations foisted on them.
“I’ll still be useful in some ways, even without the certificate,” Ilse said. She’d been the one to give Ephraim his stitches. It was becoming nearly impossible to find a Jewish doctor who was still willing to work, even under the table. “But that’s why you need to let me help you choose a dress! At least I can participate somehow. I’m proud of you. You’re going to be a concert pianist one day, I’m sure of it. On some big London stage.”
Audrey nudged her friend playfully. “I doubt it, but I love you for saying so. Though I’d far rather be here instead of London.”
Ilse’s eyes were wistful. “I know.” She squeezed Audrey’s hand. “If we’re to be separated again soon, all the more reason to celebrate now, right?”
