One of the cafés buzzing with life caught her attention. Karen began to watch the customers flowing in and out. There were plenty of groups and couples, but, unlike in the tea shops at home, there were also women sitting alone, some with books, some simply watching the world pass by; all of them looking perfectly at ease. Spotting a vacant table, Karen shook out her shoulders and dived in.
‘Ich möchte einen Kaffee, bitte.’
The waiter appeared to understand and an ashtray and matches followed as her confidence increased.
Karen sipped her coffee, lit a cigarette. Nobody knew her; no one was judging. When the waiter returned with the bill, she had her map and the fragmented addresses copied from the wedding certificate spread out ready.
‘Konnen Sie mir helfen? Ich versuche Haus Herber zu finden.’
He shrugged.
Karen scrabbled round the remains of her German.
‘Es ist in Budapest Straβe?’
He grinned. ‘English?’
Karen nodded.
‘I don’t know Haus Herber, but Budapester Straβe is by there.’
He pointed towards the belfry that was now drilled into Karen as the Kaiser Wilhelm Gedächtniskirche.
‘It’s only a few minutes’ walk away.’
‘Danke. And how would I get here?’
Karen passed him the piece of paper with the Lindenkirche’s address. He studied it for a moment and then pulled out a pen and drew a black line joining two underground stations.
‘That is not so close. Too far to walk. It’s not interesting. Houses, nothing special. I can show you better places.’
He was very attractive and, from his surprise when Karen got up without taking the bait, not used to being turned down.
She left the café with a spring in her step that lasted almost as long as it took her to walk twice up and down Budapester Straβe. There was nothing to see. The shop was long gone; she should have guessed that it would be. And then, as she rubbed at her eyes to stop the pricking tears betraying her, she finally spotted them. Faded letters on a narrow building’s lintel, half-hidden by a larger sign, but picking out the name she’d been searching for: Haus Herber, the word Früher etched above it in slightly smaller script. Karen couldn’t remember that exact word, but it was enough like the word Frühling, the one for spring, to make earlier a reasonable guess.
She pushed open the glass door to a tinkle of bells.
‘Guten Tag. Kann ich Ihnen helfen?’
Karen hovered on the doorstep, uncertain of anything except that O-level German would be no match for this.
Despite the modern-looking nameplate outside, the interior of Richters Schneiderei was a soft-hued time capsule. Wooden drawers lined one wall, spilling over with pastel spools of lace and curling ribbons. Bolts of cloth stretched along the other two, grouped in a rainbow of patterns and shades. A solid-looking counter marked off with metal numbers ran across the waxed floor like an elongated tape measure. Karen had a sudden image of her mother smoothing fabric across its top, slicing sharp lines with her scissors, and had to swallow a sob.
‘Sprechen Sie Englisch?’
The woman standing behind the counter moved forward. She was neatly dressed in a dark blue skirt and blouse and far younger than Karen wanted her to be.
‘Ja. Some. Are you wanting material?’
Karen shook her head. ‘No. I’m looking for someone. My mother. I think she worked here, when it was Haus Herber. She was a seamstress.’
The woman frowned.
Karen groped for the word on the wedding certificate that she had seen echoed on the sign.
‘A Schneiderin – seamstress? It was a long time ago – 1947.’
‘1947?’
The woman gave a low whistle, which made her look even younger.
‘You said your mother, but you are English?’
‘Yes, but she was German, from Berlin. Her name was Liese Elfmann.’
‘1947 is too long for me. But my grandmother perhaps could help. She worked here in the 1940s, before my family eventually took the business over. She is upstairs.’ The woman stuck out her hand. ‘Hannah Richter.’
The firm handshake made Karen feel steadier.
‘Karen Cartwright.’
Hannah bustled away, calling for Oma. Karen stayed where she was, listening to the footsteps overhead, the murmur of voices. Trying not to hope for the impossible.
When Hannah returned, she brought her older self with her.
‘Oma has no English. Tell me again and I will do my best.’
Karen spread her story out; Frau Richter watched her intently as Hannah translated it into German. When the old woman answered her granddaughter, she spoke in a stream far too quick for Karen to follow.
‘I am sorry. Oma did not know her.’
All those words just to say no? Karen tried to keep her smile in place.
‘Thank you. For your time. For trying.’
She turned to go, nodding to the old lady whose lined face was unreadable. ‘Danke. Auf wiedersehen.’
‘No, wait – Oma says she didn’t know your mother herself, there were a lot of girls who worked here apparently, and some didn’t stay long. But she knew the name you said – Elfmann. She remembers a Haus Elfmann in Berlin before the war. It was a famous… I don’t know the word in English; here we say Modehaus.’
‘Fashion house or salon?’ Karen could hardly breathe.
‘Yes, that sounds right. Salon. Like the French would say it. Oma says it dressed everyone. The father was Paul and there was a daughter, she thinks, called Liese.’
Karen could have leaped across the counter and kissed them both.
‘That must be her! That must be my mother! Where is the salon now? How do I find it?’
She stopped. Neither woman was smiling.
‘What?’
Hannah’s English suddenly became rather more stilted.
‘It’s not possible. Where it was isn’t there anymore.’
‘Do you mean it’s like here, it’s changed hands? But someone might still remember. Like your grandmother did.’
The old lady whispered something too low for Karen to hear.
‘No. You don’t understand. Hausvogteiplatz, where the old Modehaüser were based, is in the East now. Behind the Wall. There’s nothing to find, no one to ask.’
The answer was half-expected, but it still shook her.
Karen was about to make her excuses and take her misery outside, but Hannah hadn’t finished. She glanced at her grandmother who sniffed.
‘And, also…’
The air shifted. Karen felt it like a temperature change.
‘The Elfmann family. They were Jewish.’
Karen frowned as Hannah started fussing with a length of green fabric heaped on the counter.
‘You must know that many Jews lost their businesses during the war? That many didn’t survive.’
Many?
Karen wasn’t sure that was the word she would have chosen to describe the Holocaust, but she didn’t know how to say that without causing offence. Hannah still wouldn’t meet her eye. Her father had said Liese was German, but he had never mentioned anything about her being Jewish. Unless that was another secret.
Karen kept her voice neutral. ‘But my mother did survive it. Are you sure the Elfmanns were Jewish?’
The old woman sniffed harder.