Her strength fell away. She wanted to run and yet she wanted his arms. No – she wanted Michael’s arms.
‘Come back to the van. Please. Let us find a way through this.’
It was easier to follow than fight. She climbed in beside Andrew, her teeth chattering. She couldn’t look at Michael, who was gripping the steering wheel so tight his hands looked like claws.
‘What have I done?’ she couldn’t stop asking on the dark journey home, although both of them begged her to. ‘What have I done?’
‘You did what you had to and now we must live with it.’
It was Michael who answered. This time his voice was as broken as hers.
Ich erkläre hierbei, daβ ich, Andrew James Cartwright, geboren am 13. März 1916 in London, gewillt bin Liese Wilhelmine Elfmann, geboren am 15. Juni 1920 in Berlin, zu heiraten.
Liese read the typed note through to the end while Andrew sat quietly beside her.
‘It’s a declaration of intent to marry. British soldiers wishing to marry German citizens are required to make them.’
‘I know what it is. It’s not the words I don’t understand.’
Her voice shook. She couldn’t stop it shaking. Or her hands. Herr Herber had sent her home on Monday and again on Tuesday, fearful she was starting a fever. If she told him about the dizzy spells, about the hallucinations, about the square shape that kept flickering into the shop and fading out as she turned, he would be convinced of it. If she broke down like she wanted and told him what she had done, how many would she drag behind her to the gallows?
‘It’s an insurance policy.’
Liese struggled to surface from the shop floor’s horrors. Andrew’s voice had changed into Michael’s. Increasingly, she found she couldn’t tell one man apart from the other.
‘In case the body is found. Which it won’t be. But if it is, this keeps us safe.’
She picked up the neatly lined sheet of cream-coloured paper. It was signed by Andrew, witnessed by Michael; officially stamped. It looked weighty, like it already carried their vows. She was still missing something.
‘I’m sorry, but I don’t understand. How does getting married keep me safe? If she’s found and identified, if she’s somehow linked to me, a change of name won’t matter.’
So many ifs. And so many promises.
It will all go to plan, don’t worry. The connection between you and her is too thin to see. Go back to work at once on Monday morning, no matter how impossible that sounds. Act normally and this will pass. You are not alone in this.
Michael making his claims as confidently as Andrew. Both of them convinced she believed their keep-the-future-safe wishes would work. Didn’t they understand that she had taken a life? That crimes as dreadful as that left deep stains and had to be punished? She forced herself to stop shivering and to focus on understanding this latest twist in their plan.
‘You said that, even if the worst happened and the husband was traced, he must know his wife was a Nazi and he wouldn’t want that coming out. If that’s true, surely he won’t want to stir up publicity. So what’s changed?’
Andrew slipped the certificate out of her hands and smoothed it back out.
‘Nothing, except that we’ve had more time to think. The Ravensbrück trial has put the spotlight on the crimes that were done in the camp. Yes, the husband would be a fool to come forward and make a fuss over her death. But others could hold grudges and might recognise old photos of her if any were published. And Suhren called out your name at the camp, Liese; he linked you to Lottie’s killing even if that wasn’t his intention. That may have registered with someone.’
She could see the logic, but it didn’t answer her question about where the idea of marriage had come from. She stared from one face to the other and, for the first time since the guard’s killing, the two men separated out.
‘I don’t understand. Why marriage? And why you?’
Why not the right one?
It hung in the air even though she hadn’t said it.
Andrew looked away.
It was Michael who answered her question, although he sounded like he was reading instructions.
‘If you marry Andrew, he can take you to England. If it falls out like Andrew said it might, you wouldn’t be safe in Germany.’
‘England?’
The idea was so ridiculous, she couldn’t find a question to fit it.
Michael sat back and let Andrew step in. He tried a smile, but his face was as exhausted as Michael’s.
‘It’s the safest place. You killed a mother, Liese. You told us: she had two babies of her own. If you’re caught, you will hang. We would face prison at the very least, but you would definitely hang. I know that you don’t care much for living, but the thing is, we can’t live with your death. At the state’s hands or your own. If that makes us selfish, so be it.’
It was the first time Andrew had directly acknowledged how deep her pain ran, or what it could lead to. Liese couldn’t meet his eyes.
‘I’m sorry…’
She didn’t know how to finish the sentence. She was sorry for killing a woman with two children. She was sorry for all the unhappiness that would inevitably follow her actions. She was sorry she had put Michael and Andrew in danger. She wasn’t sorry the woman was dead. She didn’t know how to put any of that into words. Andrew, as always, spared her the effort.
‘Don’t worry. We’re simply making plans to deal with whatever eventuality arises, that’s all.’
Plans, nothing more; we won’t need to act on them.
Liese forced herself to look properly at Andrew. He was so solid. His words might echo Bardou’s, but the two men shared nothing else. She could lean on him, on his quiet confidence, and know that, unlike everyone else, whether they meant to or not, he’d never let her down. That held such comfort in it. But she couldn’t love him, not in the way he deserved, which meant she couldn’t marry him. She thought that her silence every time he had spoken about the future had told him that. She had never wanted to hurt him.
And yet perhaps by letting him keep hope alive, I already have.
‘Andrew, please. You know how much you mean to me, but this? I can’t—’
Andrew shook his head. ‘There’s no need to say what doesn’t need to be said.’
He picked up the marriage declaration and put it in his pocket.
‘It’s insurance, something to make us all feel safer. It won’t be required.’
Until, as Liese knew it inevitably would be, it was.
‘Two visitors, Fraulein Ettinger? It’s a good thing the snow has kept our customers away this morning or I would have to scold you.’
Liese didn’t need to leave the kitchen when Frau Herber’s tight voice called her, or see the men’s pale faces, to know that the body had been found.
She fetched her coat. The three of them walked without speaking to a quiet café on the Kurfürstendamm.
Michael waited until they were seated and their coffee was poured before he broke the news.
‘They pulled her out yesterday, at Lindenufer, just below Spandau, where the Spree meets the Havel. One of my contacts at the police bureau there told me the news this morning. We still have a number of female comrades missing; he thought it might be one of them. It’s unusual, even in Berlin, to find a woman whose clothes suggest she is of good standing murdered. It will make the papers tomorrow.’