Page 23 of The Girl with a Secret
Their money, it seemed, was nowhere to be found. Or at least, it was not in London. It wasn’t in England, or even in Europe. The life savings Fritz Herzelfeld had boasted about being able to keep, thanks to his eminent Nazi connections, had disappeared into the ether, somewhere over the Atlantic, or maybe into the dark bowels of Havana’s banks. Perhaps a crucial slip of paper had slid from some tottering stack, become wedged behind a filing cabinet or under a desk, forever forgotten. Or maybe, Rosa thought, the Nazis whose ears her father had so smugly thought he had, had simply taken it for themselves, laughing quietly into their sleeves. They might have breezily promised to help the Jewish doctor who cured their unmentionable diseases, but that didn’t mean they actuallyhad.
In any case, it was gone. Rosa’s father came back from the bank that first day, pale and tight-lipped rather than florid and fuming, which scared her because it was so unlike him. There was no bombastic tirade, no insistence that he would complain to the management, demand better service, sort everything to his satisfaction, as he always did. He simply told them, his tone terse, that the money wasn’t available and that was that.
“What do you mean, Fritz?” Rosa’s mother had asked, appalled and trembling. She’d barely moved from her chair the whole time he was gone, even though Rosa had been to the shops and back again. “It can’t just begone!”
His lips had thinned as he’d reached for his pipe, only to toss it irritably aside when he realized he’d run out of tobacco. “It appears it can.”
“But… but all our savings…” Her mother’s voice had quavered with both indignation and fear. “They can be found, surely? They must be. They can’t justtakeit all.”
Theycould, Rosa had thought somberly, and did. Back in Germany, Jews had been having their assets unjustly seized for well over a year now. Did her mother not remember how they’d had to vacate their villa, with all its furnishings, while a crowd of gentile neighbors had watched and smirked? The grand piano, the modernist paintings… they’d had to leave it all behind, for someone else to enjoy. They’d been lucky to take what they had, their linens and the set of Meissen china off which they now ate, at the rough deal table, the sight of the delicate porcelain on the splintered wood seeming both incongruous and pathetically sad.
“I’ll go again tomorrow and speak to someone higher up,” her father had said, his tone repressive, the conversation clearly finished.
But when he’d gone the next day, the result had been exactly the same. No one had any record of the money. “No transfer was possible, as it appeared, Herr Doktor, to all intents and purposes, that the funds did not exist.”
They were,to all intents and purposes, penniless, save for what small amount of savings they’d brought over with them on the ship, a fact that neither of her parents seemed to be able to come to grips with, and what it meant for their lives.
They’d been at the flat in Belsize Park for four days, and Rosa’s mother had barely moved from the threadbare armchairby the window. She dressed every day in her silks and satins, doing her hair and makeup, putting on her pearls… and all just to sit in that wretched chair. Rosa had attempted to cajole her to take a stroll around the park, but her mother had refused.
“Your father will find our money,” she’d said, “and then we’ll get a flat in a more suitable location. You’ll see.” And until that day, Rosa supposed, her mother would simply sit in her chair and wait, while her father went out on his “business”—what that was, Rosa wasn’t sure, but it occupied him from after breakfast until supper.
Meanwhile, Rosa was doing her best to acclimatize to this strange new world. On their first day, she’d ventured to the little market on the corner for tea and other supplies and had promptly forgotten all her English when she’d been at the till. The woman behind the counter had, thankfully, been kind.
“You’re new here, love?” she’d said in sympathy. “Fresh off the boat, are you? You can point if you like. Show me what it is you’re after.”
But while Rosa had at least understood her, pointing had been almost as difficult, for she didn’t recognize the packaging or labels of any of the items stacked on the shelves behind the till. She’d stared helplessly at the strange words and designs while the shopkeeper had looked on patiently, and had ended up descending to miming a charade of drinking tea, putting sugar in.
“Ah, I know what it is you’re after,” the woman had exclaimed, and proudly placed a tin of soup on the counter. Rosa had managed a smile and shaken her head, and then tried miming again, while the shopkeeper had watched in perplexity.
When she’d finally cottoned on that Rosa was asking for tea, she’d measured it out in a little brown paper bag, on an impressive set of brass scales.
“You’re not for a career on the stage, that’s for certain,” she’d remarked, and then erupted into great gales of laughter, which had made Rosa burst into giggles, as well. They’d shared a long laugh while several customers had looked on, nonplussed, and then the woman had wiped the tears from her eyes. “Well, you’ve got the right attitude, love,” she’d said as she’d handed Rosa her items. After some effort, she’d managed to procure sugar, tea, and coffee, which was sold in a bottle, the brown liquid looking something like gravy. Rosa had never seen anything like it before. “You’ll go far in life if you can laugh at yourself, I say,” the woman had finished with a smile, and then she’d kindly helped Rosa decipher the different notes and coins, so she was able to pay the right amount.
It had felt good and somehow healing, to laugh like that, Rosa had reflected as she’d left the grocer’s, a new spring in her step. Maybe she didn’t need to feel so nervous and uncertain, after all. With this newfound confidence, she’d entered a bakery on the corner of their road and had managed to say, in careful, cautious English, that she’d like a loaf of bread. She’d even been understood! At the butcher’s, she’d bought a beef bone to flavor broth; she hadn’t had enough money for anything more substantial, but she decided she would make it stretch with some onions, potatoes, and carrots from the greengrocer. In a spirit of determined optimism, she took it all home, the paper-wrapped parcels bulky in her arms because she had not thought to bring a string bag, as she saw so many other industrious housewives doing.
All of this was new for her, and not just because of the English. Back in Berlin, there had been a maid and cook to manage meals; Rosa had hardly ever shopped for food, and as formakingit… Well, she refused to be daunted by these hurdles. This was her new life, her new chance, and she was determined to embrace it.
Back in the flat, she’d made her mother tea and then gamely peeled and chopped and boiled. The resulting pottage for their supper was edible, if only just. Unfortunately, she’d forgotten to buy any salt.
“I’ll remember that for next time,” Rosa had said cheerfully, while her mother had pushed her bowl away in disgust.
Then, yesterday, her father had returned to the flat, looking grimmer than ever. Rosa had thought it was about the money again, but in some ways, it was worse. He’d flung his medical certificate on the table, his face twisting in derision.
“Worthless,” he spat. “Absolutely worthless in this country, it seems, and I’ve been a practicing physician—an eminent practicing physician—fortwenty years.”
Rosa had stared at the ornate script of the certificate, conferring his degree in medicine from Heidelberg University, back in Germany. “What do you mean, worthless?” she’d asked while her mother had looked on fearfully, fingering the pearls that lay cold and white against her throat.
“They won’t even consider it,” her father had explained, his voice taut with both frustration and fury. “One of the oldest and most distinguished universities in Europe, and it’s as if I’d fished my degree out of a bin!” He shook his head, his face crumpling a bit, revealing the fear underneath the fury. “If I am to practice medicine in this country, they have told me I will have to retrain.”
“Retrain?” Rosa’s mother had straightened in her chair. “But that will take years…”
“And it is beneath my dignity,” her father had replied stiffly. “To retrain, when I have over twenty years of experience! It is utterly outrageous.”
“But then what will you do?” Rosa had asked. She hadn’t been entirely surprised by the news; she had thought of their neighbor, Anna Gruber, on a domestic worker’s visa despite hercredentials. In Southampton, they had encountered too many refugee doctors and lawyers and businessmen who were now pushing mops or waiting tables to believe her father could waltz into a physician’s role as simply as that, as much as she’d wanted to, because, well… because he was her father, and he’d always seemed to succeed at everything he did. This, it seemed, would defeat him.
“Could you take the medical exams here, at least?” she’d pressed. “Without retraining, since you have so much experience?” It seemed an obvious potential solution.
Her father had pressed his lips together. “I suppose I could, but it would have to be in English.”
