Paul exploded.
Liese heard the roar but not the words. She was too busy trying to work out which of Otto’s sentences to grab hold of first. Banned? She knew that needed unpicking, but the nonsense that was guilt was chiming too loud. Grandpa Nathan wasn’t guilty; he was crippled with grief. And what was neglected? How could he have neglected Minnie when she was the centre of his life? Not that he’d ever admit it, not in public anyway – and there it was, clinging to the tail of Liese’s recollection: not the words but the little pause Minnie would leave at the end, which Grandpa never filled. Like he never took her side when the rows broke out, in the way Paul always championed Margarethe.
Inside the office, her father was still shouting.
‘You’ve no right to accuse me of being like him. As if I would ever do anything that endangered my wife!’
And now it was Liese waiting in the gap to hear how much Paul valued her; to hear the lengths he would go to in order to protect his only child.
Nothing came.
He neglected you.
Liese folded her hands to stop them from shaking as Otto’s words crashed back. Couldn’t the same be said of her father? Paul wasn’t as cut off as Grandpa Nathan; Margarethe mattered to him as much as the business, possibly more. But did she? If she wasn’t his heir, would he see her at all?
Liese spread her hands out again, stared at the veins tracing across them. Were blood ties that could prove dangerous, and the bricks of a fashion house, all that bound her to this thing she called family? She was still pushing at that thought as Otto’s voice replaced Paul’s.
‘Then prove it. Take me seriously this time and sell.’
His anger had slipped under a weariness that sounded like it pulled from his bones.
‘I know how successful we are, how valuable we still seem to be. But that won’t last, for all your hoping. This isn’t 1933: one day of boycotting Jewish shops and a pile of shattered windows while the Party showed who was boss. This is the start of a purge and it’s controlled, it’s organised. Go to Hertie and you’ll smell it. Hertie. How I hate that name. The Tietz brothers were trampled over so fast, they didn’t see the takeover coming. What more proof do you want than that? It’s like a fire spreading from building to building. Do you know what the driver told me today – and isn’t that a warning, that we get our news now from drivers? – Georg Wertheim can’t set foot in his own stores: if he tries, he’ll be arrested. They swapped the board out under his nose and no one can argue because, according to the new logic, as a Jew he had no right to be there in the first place. That’s the new reality, Paul; that’s our new world. Jews don’t get to be anything anymore, except Jews.’
Liese was beginning to understand where Michael got his passion from: if she closed her eyes, it could have been either of them in the office shouting.
‘And they’re good at this, don’t forget that. They know how to turn the truth on its head and make their stories stick.’
Suddenly, Otto laughed. The sound was so filled with bitterness, so unlike his usual rich bellow, Liese flinched.
‘The truth of how we became the kings of German fashion has all been washed away. It doesn’t matter now that clothing was the one trade we were allowed to work in, or that we learned our skills from the bottom up, grubbing a living restitching the dirty rags good Germans wouldn’t touch. That’s not the story anymore. Jews made it to the top because we stole; because we’re swindlers and cheats. So now they’re going to take it all out of our hands and let good Germans prosper. Another year and we’ll be gone – from the department stores, the tailoring houses, the fabric suppliers and the fashion houses. They’ll disinherit us properly – make no mistake about that. They’ll invent a law to legitimise our destruction. And they won’t stop. Not until the German fashion industry is cleaned up and pure.’
His voice suddenly dropped so low, Liese had to crane to hear it.
‘Paul, I’m begging you. If you sell now, we could leave. We could start again somewhere else. Paris or London. Or America: they’re crying out there for designers. Wherever you want, I can fix it, like you’ve always trusted me to do. But sell. If you don’t, one morning very soon, that choice will be gone.’
Sell.
The word broke through the emotions fighting for space in Liese’s head. She so wanted Otto to be wrong, for ‘we’re different’ to be right, except Bruckner’s contempt had cracked that lie open. But to sell, to leave Berlin, not to be Haus Elfmann anymore. The salon was the one thing that gave them a shape; her role there was the one thing that gave her a future beyond the too narrow path of marriage and motherhood her social position expected. Liese couldn’t remember a day that wasn’t governed by the needs of the business; she didn’t want to. To sell was unthinkable. To sell was impossible. And yet… To have it all taken. To be designated as one of the twisted creatures in Der Stürmer. To be banned from every part of her life. To be reclassified like that was as impossible to imagine as not being Haus Elfmann. Except that it wasn’t.
Liese gripped the doorjamb as the world shifted round her. Michael’s words swirled back: there’s no such thing as this kind or that. She closed her eyes as tight as a child wishing for Christmas and willed her father to hear the world changing.
‘No.’
Paul’s answer was too quick, too easy. It pushed Liese through the door and into the office. Neither man noticed her; they were too busy squaring up.
‘Things are difficult, I’ll grant you that, but I refuse to believe we’ll fall victim to this hysterical nonsense. Hitler will calm down; we just need to be loyal and wait out his excesses. You’ve had a difficult meeting and your nerve has gone, or maybe the strain of Michael’s behaviour is starting to tell on you. Perhaps you need a holiday.’
Paul’s patronising tone had bunched Otto’s hands into fists and turned his back rigid. Liese waited for her father to notice his friend’s distress and soften. He didn’t.
‘Haus Elfmann is my life, Otto. I thought it was yours. My father, who you seem to have such little regard for, built this business from a tailor’s shop. I am not going to dismantle it and run away because a few store owners are in trouble. Perhaps the Tietz and Wertheim stores were riddled with irregularities, did you think about that? If so, fine. Let the Party bring in their bureaucrats and their moneymen. Anyone can run a store. What we do is special: we create dreams; we transform lives. That’s not a job for uniformed pen-pushers. So tastes are changing? Isn’t that the nature of fashion? If they want loose waists and drab colours, we’ll make them a line. And we’ll carry on with the rest. There will always be women like Frau Goebbels who want life’s finer things. I’ll talk to her. Get her to talk to him. This will blow over. The Elfmann name is irreplaceable; it is Berlin at its finest. Spook yourself as much as you like: I’m not going to sell.’
‘Then you’re making a mistake.’
Liese’s voice rang out so loud, both Otto and Paul jumped.
‘Liese, I told you to wait outside. This is not your argument.’
‘I’m what?’ Paul moved slowly round the desk, brushing away Otto’s flapping hands.