‘The usual inventory: artwork; large pieces of furniture; furs and other good clothing; curtains and floor coverings. Check all floors.’
He stepped into the hallway as his subordinates fanned out.
‘Has this property and its contents been accounted for?’
Liese couldn’t admit a second time that she didn’t understand. There was no way she would cower.
‘This is my grandfather’s house. It isn’t mine to account for.’
His hand twitched as if he might strike her, but a shriek from upstairs pulled his attention away.
‘Liese, what is going on? Who have you let in?’
Paul came storming down the stairs, his silk robe billowing. He paused when he saw the officer, but, to Liese’s despair, he didn’t make any attempt to moderate his imperious manner.
‘Is that ape who frightened my wife one of your goons?’
Liese waited for a fist, or worse, but the policeman merely consulted his clipboard again.
‘You are Paul Israel Elfmann?’
That stopped him. Paul sagged against the bannister at his new middle name, his mouth flapping. The officer made another note.
‘Another one unaware of how Jews are now titled. The order to register was clearly communicated. As was the requirement for you to account for all of your wealth. And yet you have not collected your Jewish papers and there is no record of this property. Or of the business in Hausvogteiplatz, or the house in Arndstraβe you previously owned.’
Previously thudded through the hall.
‘Do you have some difficulty following rules that I am unaware of?’
Paul gaped at him like a child three questions behind in a spelling test.
‘I can assure you that none of this has been deliberately done.’ Liese was amazed how level her voice stayed. ‘Matters have been overlooked; we are sorry for that. We will, of course, comply with whatever is needed.’
The searchlight gaze switched back to her.
‘Yes, you will. My men will complete their inventory. You will not interfere. You will vacate this house, to which you no longer have rights, by 5 p.m. tomorrow. Which is a generous time allowance, believe me. If you argue, you will leave now. If anything listed is removed, there will be penalties. If the amount recovered from the estate you have concealed does not meet the debt you owe in reparation for last month’s disturbances, additional charges will be levied.’
Liese was still stuck at vacate.
As he turned to leave, she grabbed at his sleeve.
‘But where will we go?’
The blow left her sprawling.
‘Wherever your betters decide.’
He wiped his hands and stepped over her. He didn’t look back.
‘Cuxhavener Straβe 17. Take this. Present it to the building’s Blockwart by 12 p.m. or he will reallocate the rooms.’
‘You have been very kind. I hope your bosses appreciate your efforts as much as we do.’
Angry Michael had gone; the friend she needed had come back the minute she asked for him.
‘Keep smiling. It could be worse. This address is walkable from Charlottenburg. We can make three or four trips to collect your belongings with the time we’ve got. And it’s near the Tiergarten, so maybe there’ll be a bit of space and green around it.’
He had taken the room authorisation and steered Liese away as firmly as he had steered her two hours earlier into the squat building with its endless rows of desks and faceless clerks. Her elbow clutched in Michael’s hand was the only part of Liese’s body that had felt solid since the Security Police had left the previous day.
It had taken her the best part of the night to track him down, through neighbourhoods she would never normally have gone near, but every raised eyebrow and off-colour comment that greeted her enquiries had proved worth it. Michael had charmed the flint-faced secretary into believing they were about to be married and ‘in complete desperation for some privacy’. He had cracked the woman’s thin lips into a laugh, patting down his pockets and enacting the elaborate pantomime of his papers leaping into the wrong jacket. He had winked and flirted and begged for her mercy and, against all the odds, he had won. Liese had scurried out as the tenant of two rooms, instead of the one room other families were being told to be grateful for.
Not that it mattered. Paul had raged when he was told about the move; Margarethe had sobbed. They had trudged through the snow to their new lodgings like prisoners bound for the scaffold, leaving Michael to balance their overstuffed cases. They had refused to participate in any return trips. Every item Liese salvaged from Charlottenburg was the wrong one. Every item she was forced to leave behind was a treasure. The whole day had been a nightmare; the only good thing Liese could find in it was her and Michael’s repaired friendship. She could even have felt safe from the threat of further police visits, except that, as soon as the Elfmanns had moved in, Michael wanted them moved out again.
‘You can’t stay – there’s something not right going on. Never mind that the Nazis are packing these buildings way over what they were built for, everyone’s been cleared from the area except Jews. There’s got to be a reason for that, and it won’t be a good one.’
He was right about the overcrowding. More families had been dumped at the apartment block every day since the Elfmanns arrived, all of them white-faced and bedraggled. Paul and Margarethe shrank from contact with their new neighbours as if danger lurked in the simplest nod. Liese, desperate for news that would explain the world’s redrawing, sought their company out. She picked her way round the children playing in the corridors or huddled in the courtyard, in search of their mothers. She was hesitant at first, conscious of how little she knew, uncertain where she fitted. Some of the women she encountered were Jewish to their bones; some were as newly stamped as she was. Some had been rich and were shocked at how low they had fallen; some had been poor and were simply grateful for a roof. Nobody demanded her story or was concerned when she tried but did not know how to tell it. What they shared was more important than what separated them: whoever they once had been, they were all the lowest of the low to the Nazis.
Everyone had a tale of lost homes and lost professions. Everyone who could pull together the fees and a sponsor and a ticket out of Germany was gone. Everyone who was left was afraid and couldn’t name what their fear was. There were some who watched each other, who worked out space allocations and muttered. They were carefully ignored.
As the weeks stretched on into a snow-choked New Year and food and fuel stretched too thin, most of the families gravitated together and shared what they could. Liese, exhausted by her parents, gradually began to feel part of a community, and that calmed her. That she was making friends, however, did not calm Michael.
‘You’re getting too settled. You can’t do that; you have to leave. If the rumours are true, there’ll be war before the year’s end, and that will mean shortages and rationing. God knows how Jews will fare under that. Your money’s running out and I can’t see your father, or your mother, finding work, unless someone forces them into it. Which could also be coming. You need to be somewhere else, Liese. Prenzlauer Berg or Wedding, where it’s easier to slip round unnoticed, especially with the new papers I can get for you all.’
On and on. The same tirade every time, until Liese’s jaw ached from clamping it. She didn’t want to fight him. She knew what was at the root: Michael couldn’t rescue Otto from the camp he was still held in, so he had to rescue everyone else. His urgency was easy to understand. His plan made perfect sense, for anyone but her. Michael and his network of KPD-loyal contacts were never still: they swam through the city, shifting location, changing their names as easily as shrugging on new coats. Pulling her self-involved parents into such a transient life was impossible. And then, with her pregnant, it became unthinkable.