Today seems as good a day as any to depart, Elsa thought as she took a turn around the small garden. The morning was warm and there were a few hours of daylight still left to endure.
She had spent yet another morning filled with hope that Sam would return for her and that he would have news of Klara. She hoped he would finally come out of hiding and give her a sign. His failure to make contact felt like a blow to her stomach. Where was Klara? Was he still looking after her? Would he wantto remain responsible for someone else’s child when he wanted nothing more than to return to his own country?
As if to torture herself more, she imagined Sam with his family and friends, happy to be on English soil again, while Klara scavenged, terrified, through bins in a bombed-out city. In ten or twenty years, if Sam still remembered Elsa and Klara, they would be sub-characters in his daring escape from Nazi prison guards — that’s if he admitted to knowing them at all. Would Sam erase their existence from his story? Elsa herself had denied knowing him.
Yet denying him did not erase him from her thoughts. His voice was constantly in her head — comforting, berating and questioning her, but always in a gentle tone, something that could not be silenced. And although Elsa did not relish her responsibility for Klara, no longer having her near felt as if something fundamental was missing and in its place a hole that would always be there.
She stepped through the back door of the cottage with a firm conviction that she would have to leave later today to search for them. She faltered when she noticed Gertrude fondly touching the glass of the framed photograph in her hand. The soft smile on her lips told Elsa the moment was too personal to intrude upon so she retraced her steps, quietly opened and more loudly shut the door to announce her return. She waited briefly before entering the room again. Gertrude was carefully placing the photograph into a drawer and closed it as she entered.
‘Ursula,’ she said, as if Elsa had asked a question, before slowly turning away and walking out of the room.
* * *
The act of packing her rucksack twisted the knife of severance and confirmed that she was now truly on her own. It was beginning to seem more likely that Sam had broken hispromise and left her behind. The realization was raw and hard to bear.
‘Walter says you’re leaving.’
Elsa felt Gertrude watching her from the doorway of the bedroom.
‘Yes.’ Elsa turned to face her, her rucksack, with its half-loaf of bread hidden in the bottom, suddenly heavy and cumbersome. ‘I was going to tell you.’ She felt a pang of guilt. ‘Walter gave me the rest of the loaf. I hope that is all right with you.’
‘I know. He told me.’
Gertrude walked into the room and stood before her, each fingertip neatly touching in front of her waist. ‘Walter can give you a ride to the station in the wagon.’
‘I don’t have any money for a ticket.’
‘I would like to think if our positions were changed, your mother would have bought my Ursula a ticket — if she were still alive.’ She lifted her chin. ‘Would she have done that?’
Elsa thought of their home in Gollnow, bursting at the corners with refugees.
‘Yes, I think she would. Who is Ursula?’
‘My daughter.’
Gertrude opened a drawer, withdrew a pair of socks and offered them to her. ‘Take these. We have plenty. All I seem to do these days is knit and darn socks.’
The gift was generous, especially as it had come from this woman who had shown her no warmth beyond providing her with a bed and food. Generosity she could do. Emotional comfort or friendship she could not.
Elsa reached for them. ‘Thank you.’ She ran her fingers over the soft wool. ‘You have both been so kind.’
Gertrude’s nose wrinkled at the word. ‘I am not sure if I know how to be kind any more.’
Her admission caught Elsa by surprise. ‘Oh, but you—’
‘The man who brought you here was kind.’
Elsa’s heart sank. She didn’t want to talk about Sam to Gertrude. She was only just coming to terms with the fact she had lost him. She didn’t want to share what little she had left with a woman she barely knew, despite her kindness. She turned away and set about packing the socks. ‘Yes, I suppose he was. I can’t remember him.’
‘He was about the same age as my son would have been if he had lived. Diphtheria is a cruel disease.’
Elsa rearranged the bread and the socks, then rearranged them again. The silence stretched between them but Elsa did not know the right words to say. One wrong word and she would be marked as a collaborator. Gertrude broke the silence. ‘Kind people can still bring trouble.’
Elsa paused but did not turn around. ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Then you should learn before it’s too late.’ Gertrude took her rucksack from her and efficiently fitted the socks between the bread and her gloves. ‘It’s best you go by train. The sooner you find your mother and sister, the better.’
She offered the bag back to her and Elsa slipped the strap through the buckle, fastened it and swung the rucksack over her shoulder. ‘I intend to.’
