“And you really think that they won’t do the same thing this time?” Marie asked.
“No, they’re planning to do things differently,” said Nora. “They’re setting up tribunals. All of the Germans and Austrians in Britain who are registered aliens will have to be processed. There will be hearings before the tribunals, and they’ll categorize people based on how much of a threat they might be. Category C will be people who are no threat and free to go about their business. Category B will have some restrictions placed on them. Category A will be considered a threat to security and detained.”
“But they are still going to use the camps?” Mr. Scherer asked.
Nora hesitated. “Yes. The Home Office has already identified locations for some.”
“Just like in the last war,” Mrs. Scherer muttered.
“Will men and women both be interviewed?” Marie asked.
“Yes,” Nora admitted.
She gulped a breath, trying to calm herself, but it was impossible. Months of fears she’d kept bottled up now had nowhere else to go. She’d been spiraling with anxiousness since the Munich Agreement, not believing Chamberlain one bit, and she’d been right.
“What’s going to happen to me? What’s going to happen to my family and Mr. and Mrs. Scherer and our friends?” asked Marie.
“I don’t know,” said Nora softly.
“Nothing is going to happen, because we won’t let it,” said Hazel.
“How can you say that?” Marie asked, her voice rising.
“I’m trying to be optimistic,” said Hazel.
“But you don’t know!” she cried, cutting through the murmurs in the basement. “We could all be taken away tomorrow. Or maybe it won’t be that sudden. Maybe Onkel Albrecht loses his job. Then he cannot pay the mortgage on this flat because no one will hire him. Then what happens? What happens to all of us then?”
“Marie,” said Tante Matilda from her spot down the bench.
Everyone was staring at her. She’d snapped. At her best friends. In front of all of these people.
Marie clapped a shaking hand to her mouth. “I’m so sorry. I’m—”
“Miss Bohn,” said Mr. Thompson, using his cane as leverage to push himself out of his seat. “I hope that you know that, at least in this building, you and your family will always have friends.”
Tears pricked her eyes as most of the people lining the benches nodded. “Thank you,” she whispered.
Nora leaned in to her to whisper, “We’ll always be.”
“Just us three,” Hazel finished the silly phrase they’d started saying to one another their first term of school at Ethelbrook.
Marie nodded weakly. She was still terrified, but she did appreciate the show of solidarity—from her neighbors, from her friends—even if it couldn’t stop what was happening.
Through the silence came the faint wail of the all clear. Mr. Thompson nudged Henrik, who was still leaning against the wall next to the stairs, with the tip of his cane. “Come on, then. Up you go, young man, and open the door for the rest of us.”
Henrik retreated up the stairs, and a moment later the basement filled with light. People began to stand cautiously and file out.
“I’m sorry if it seems as though I didn’t understand why you’re worried. I just don’t want you to lose heart,” said Hazel.
“I know,” said Marie.
“But Hazel was right. No matter what happens, we will do everything we can to make sure that nothing happens to you,” said Nora.
Hazel looped an arm through Marie’s, and Nora did the same on her other side. She squeezed her eyes shut as her friends pulled her close to them. She wanted to believe her friends—she was desperate to—but she knew in her heart of hearts that there was nothing any of them could do if she came up category A.
six
Marie swayed as the bus swung out to take a lazy corner. It was the same bus she always took to work, but for the last few weeks she’d found herself surreptitiously eyeing her fellow passengers.
It was her voice that was still the problem. A dead giveaway. She could look every inch the young British woman, going to work just like so many other unmarried women living in London, but if she were to speak, this entire bus would know.
Still, she would rather take her chances here than cower at home. Tante Matilda spent too much of the day wringing her hands for her relatives who remained in Germany. Onkel Albrecht came home from work every night, his face drawn. He was, Tante Matilda confessed to Marie, afraid for his job and had pored over the family’s bank accounts again and again, trying to predict whether they would be able to hold on to the flat if he lost his job in a wave of anti-German sentiment.
The government had offered all Germans and Austrians a solution to these pesky problems: go home. They had called it “Z plus 7” day—for seven days from the declaration of war, anyone who wished to return to Germany would be able to if they chose. Nora had told Marie that the Home Office suspected few would take the British up on this offer because many of them felt the way the Müllers did. Britain was their home now.
Even Henrik hadn’t mentioned “Z plus 7” day. Instead, he seemed content to waste his hours away in his club. She truly didn’t know why. From what she could tell, it had none of the grandeur or comfort of a place like the Harlan. Instead, it occupied a single floor of a building in Pimlico and seemed to attract a membership of young men who enjoyed drinking themselves silly on beer.
Twice she’d found Henrik in the early morning, facedown on the sofa in the living room with his shoes still on, sleeping off his drink. The first time she’d woken him up and then walked straight to the dining room, having no interest in or sympathy for his behavior. When it happened again last week, however, she’d stayed rooted in the spot.
“Your mother is worried sick over the war. I would think the last thing you’d want to do is add to her misery,” she said, staring down at him with her hands braced on either hip.
Her cousin groaned and threw an arm over his face. Several papers covered in German scribbling came loose and floated to the floor when he moved his arm. The tangy scent of stale beer wafted up to her nose.
With a sigh of disgust, she turned to leave, but he said, “You act as though you’re a part of this family.”
A sour taste rose up in her throat. “I am a part of this family. I have been for years.”
His scoff sounded like sandpaper, but that didn’t dull the derision behind it. “You’re not a Müller.”
“My mother is your mother’s sister. That makes us blood.” But even she couldn’t deny that those words rang hollow. Her mother had foisted Marie on her sister. Tante Matilda and Onkel Albrecht were compassionate and caring, but Marie had always wondered if some part of them couldn’t help but resent her a little bit for that.
Taking perfect aim for the heart of her vulnerability, Henrik said, “You’ve been living off of my parents’ charity for too long, pretending to be a lost little girl whose family doesn’t love her. What did you do that your own parents sent you away, anyway?”
Slash after slash after slash. They were shallow cuts, but together they wounded deep.