“I would like to be a doctor but that dream will cost too much money. Maybe I could go nursing. I think they will need nurses in Palestine.”
“You want to go and live in Palestine?”
“Yes, among my people. My brothers, Gavriel and Izsak went there, I think.” Rachel took a deep breath. “We will be safe there. I wanted to go there for years but my father wouldn’t listen to me. He not like to listen to children. He thinks he knows everything. Now he is dead.”
Sally knew Rachel wasn’t as heartless as she sounded. It was her way to stop the hurt from destroying her. She’d seen how well the girl cared for Ruth, as well as Liesl and Tomas.
“I think your parents did a wonderful job with you, Rachel. I would be proud to have a daughter like you. What do you think of Heinz changing his name to Harry?”
“I think he is running away from himself. He is so angry. Has been since his father married his nanny. Heinz loved his mother, but she wasn’t a nice woman. She was very demanding and made life difficult for everyone. Or so Mama said. Trudi, Liesl’s mother, was a young girl without a family. She didn’t steal Heinz’s mother’s place. If anything, his father is to blame for what happened. I don’t believe Trudi saw Heinz's father as anything other than her boss until he, he… what you call it when men give you flowers and perfume?”
“Courted her?” Sally was going to use the word seduced but quickly remembered Rachel, although fifteen, appeared to be very innocent.
“Yes, he courted her. She loved the boys, not just Tomas. She and Heinz were very close but that changed when she fell pregnant with Liesl. Trudi married his Papa and that was when he started being angry with everyone. The Nazis, we can understand.” Rachel shrugged. “You cannot find a Jew who likes Hitler but with Heinz, he hates everyone.”
“Except Tomas and you…” Sally prompted. Rachel colored.
“He loves Tomas. Tomas loves him too, but Tomas also loves Liesl. How could anyone not love Liesl? She is a baby. Totally innocent of everything. Heinz is stupid. Trudi sacrificed a lot to get him out of Dachau and onto that train. He has no idea.”
“Dachau? What was that?”
Rachel’s face whitened. She bent to pick up a stick and snapped it in two. “A camp where they sent the men after Kristallnacht. Some boys too, including Heinz and my brothers. He doesn’t talk about it. Bad things happened there. My father, Mr. Beck and other men we knew didn’t come back. Mama was told to collect my father from the police station. When she arrived, they gave her an envelope full of ashes.”
Sally stopped walking, horrified at what she was hearing, and the fact Rachel spoke in such a monotone as if this was something that happened every day.
“Rachel, that’s horrific. Your poor mother and you girls. I’m so sorry.”
“They said he died from heart problems, but we heard rumors of people being murdered, being beaten up, and even tortured. I don’t know what happened to him, but he is dead. At least we know that for sure. Some people just disappear, like my brothers.”
“I thought you said they were in Palestine.”
“Rumors. That is all we have. They were alive when Heinz left Dachau. So, he says.”
“You don’t believe him? He’d have no reason to lie about something like that, Rachel. Would he?”
Rachel shrugged. “People lie all the time. Sometimes to protect you but it is still a lie. Like they said that Mama and the women would be safe. Why would they send us away if that was the truth?”
As Rachel got more agitated, her English got worse. Sally wanted to reassure her but, how could she?
“It was better when I could get letters. But now, nothing. I hate not knowing where Mama is.”
A tear fell from her eyes and then a second one. Rachel swiped them away and kept walking. Sally wanted to hug her but didn’t, sensing the girl was close to breaking point and she didn’t want to push her over that edge.
18
They walked along the lane in silence. Sally glanced at the blackberry bushes. She should bring the children up here at the weekend to collect the ripe berries. They could make blackberry crumble or blackberry and apple tart. She smiled, as memories of her own childhood hit, the taste of the berries squishy on her tongue, the juice running down her lips. Her mother warning her to watch out for thorns and Maggie telling her mother to leave the child be.
“You have a nice smile,” Rachel commented, breaking the silence.
“I was just thinking of my childhood; we used to pick blackberries up this lane. Me, my Mum, and Maggie.”
“Your mother lives near here?”
“She did but she died when I was twelve. We lived with my grandmother, but Maggie was the one who looked after me. She taught me how to cook and keep house and got me a job up at a big house in Virginia Water. That’s not too far away from here.”
“You couldn’t stay with your grandmother?”
“No.” Sally didn’t add her grandmother had never wanted her. She blamed Sally, for her being born on the wrong side of the blanket, as she called it.
“What was she like, your mother?”
“Mum smiled a lot, even when she had little to smile about. She worked very hard, even when she was sick. She dreamed about buying Rose Cottage, the house I live in now. That was her dream. My husband’s father was born there but his family moved away when his dad was young and the house was left empty. Mum used to keep it clean, ready for when the family wanted to come down from London, but they never did.
“So, how did you meet your husband?”
Sally’s cheeks turned red.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to make you shy,” Rachel apologized.
“You didn’t. I always go red when I
