Clara looked up from the coffee she was making, noticing the frown on her husband’s face. ‘Everything all right?’
‘She sends her apologies, but she won’t be able to see you today after all.’ Friedrich kept his gaze fixed on Clara.
‘Oh.’ Clara wasn’t sure what to say. She was disappointed but she was also aware this was the third successive meeting Gertrud had cancelled. Clara put the coffee pot down on the table. ‘Did she say why? Actually, you don’t have to answer that. I understand.’
‘Clara.’ Friedrich crossed the kitchen and once again put his arms around his wife. This time to comfort her rather than seek solace. ‘I’m sorry. I will speak to her.’
Clara pulled back and shook her head. ‘Don’t do that. It’s not necessary.’
‘But you are family. She cannot treat you this way.’
‘I am family but, in your mother’s eyes, I am first and foremost British.’ Clara couldn’t help feeling hurt by the rejection. She knew it was coming but it still hurt. Gertrud was just another German citizen who had distanced themselves from Clara, as to be British in a foreign land became increasingly restrictive.
‘She still has no right to do this to you,’ Friedrich said. ‘I will not allow it.’
Clara put her hand on his chest. ‘She has every right. It’s not fair but it is her right. And I do not want to be the cause of a rift between you and your mother. Just let it be.’
They sat at the table and switched on the radio.
‘Attention! Attention! This is the Greater German Radio with today’s news. Polish aggression against German minorities has reached an alarming peak in the last twenty-four hours. Reports from Danzig confirm further attacks on ethnic Germans. The Führer met with military advisors yesterday in a special session to discuss the situation.’
Clara froze, her hand paused on the handle of her coffee cup. She looked at Friedrich.
Her husband got to his feet and turned the volume of the radio down, before closing the window and returning to sit at the table. He took Clara’s hand. ‘They’ve been saying the same thing every day this week,’ he said quietly. ‘And every day it’s the same. It’s Polish aggression, despite the fact it is German troops at the border.’
‘So it’s all a lie,’ Clara whispered.
Friedrich’s jaw clenched and he took a deep breath before answering ‘It’s a story. And stories are powerful weapons now.’
‘They are going to invade, aren’t they?’ whispered back Clara. ‘All this is to try to justify an attack on Poland.’
Friedrich nodded, dropping his head as if ashamed. He looked back up at Clara. ‘I think you should contact your sister. The British embassy is right. It’s not safe for you to stay in Germany.’
‘No!’ Clara went to snatch her hand away.
Friedrich held her gently but firmly. ‘We knew this day might come,’ he said.
Clara was shaking her head before he’d even finished. ‘I’m not leaving you,’ she said. ‘Never. Besides, how can I go back to England? I’m married to a German, remember? I don’t belong there anymore. I belong here with you.’
She put down her coffee cup. ‘You ask me to go, but how could I?’ she said quietly. ‘Every part of this city is our life. The thought of waking up somewhere else and not knowing if you’re safe would torment me. I’d rather face whatever comes here, beside you, than sit in England wondering if you’re alive.’
Friedrich reached for her hand, his thumb traced the edge of her knuckles. ‘I’m just frightened I might not be able to protect you from what is coming.’
She took a deep breath. ‘England isn’t my home anymore. I left because I couldn’t breathe there. Far too many rules about what I should be doing, whether I should be working, the expectation of staying at home and making sandwiches and small talk with the vicar – that’s not me. Here, I can work, pursue the career I love most in the world. I can be myself. You know how much that means to me. Here, I have a purpose.’
There was a weariness to his expression. ‘And that is what I admire you so much for,liebling, but Germany is not the same now. Every day it grows darker and that is what scares me.’
Her gaze softened. ‘If I left now, it would feel as though everything I’d done here, all the women I’ve helped, all the years I’ve spent learning the language, building a place for us, means nothing. And if war is coming, then women will still be giving birth. They’ll still need someone to help them.’
She picked up her cup, taking a sip, before buttering her bread. She ignored the old feeling of being stuck between the two worlds of Germany and England. She had felt like that when she had first moved abroad but she had immersed herself in German culture, learned the language, worked and done everything to be accepted.
‘So please don’t ask me to go,’ she added softly. ‘If the world is about to fall apart, I’d rather it fell around us together.’
Friedrich nodded slowly. ‘Then that is settled,’ he said after a moment. ‘But promise me one thing. If the day comes when they start detaining foreign wives, you’ll leave before they reach this door. Because if they order me to stand against you, I won’t obey. I’d choose you, Clara, no matter the cost.’
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. The radio crackled faintly in the silence, a voice somewhere far away announcing troop movements as if they were the weather. Clara felt the weight of Friedrich’s words, they were both a comfort and a dread.
She reached for the coffee pot and refilled their cups, her movements slow and deliberate. ‘We should finish breakfast,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ll be late otherwise.’
