Page 27 of The Girl with a Secret
They were entirely destitute, Rosa thought, but she decided not to argue the point. “Still,” she said. “I wouldn’t worry about him.”
“I’m not worried.” The reply was automatic, insistent, and entirely unbelievable. Her mother averted her head from Rosa’sknowing gaze, craning her neck so far that Rosa thought she might strain a muscle. “I don’t know why I talk to you about such things,” she continued after a moment, her tone repressive. “You have no idea of what goes on between a husband and wife, Rosa, no idea at all.”
She hadsomeidea, but once again she had no desire to argue the point. “It’s getting late,” she said instead. “Why don’t you get ready for bed, and I’ll make us some hot cocoa? We can listen to something on the radio before we go to sleep. There’s usually a concert on Radio Luxembourg at this hour.” The alternative radio station was listened to more than the nationally licensed BBC, as people enjoyed its light music and variety programs.
Her mother remained upright, her body tense, and Rosa knew she was battling with herself. She wanted to give her usual snappish retort, but she couldn’t quite make herself. She had to be terribly lonely, Rosa thought, sitting in this awful flat all day while her father went out to hold court and impress people; he was a man who would always find his captive audience. A rush of sympathy for her mother overcame her, and she took a step toward her, one hand outstretched.
“Mutti,” she said, her voice quiet and gentle. “Shall I make some cocoa?”
Her mother gave a twitchy, restive shrug. “Oh, very well,” she said at last, as if granting a concession, and she rose from her chair to stalk, her head held high, to the bedroom.
Rosa put a pan of milk on to boil on the cooker in the hall, and then went to change. It felt good to get out of her work clothes, to undo her hair from its scraped-back bun. She spooned cocoa and a precious bit of sugar into the pan of milk and then brought the cups back to the living room, giving one to her mother and taking one for herself.
“Shall we see what’s on the wireless?” she asked, as she turned the dial of the big wooden set that someone from theCentral Fund had kindly donated. Her parents might like to fashion themselves as émigrés, but they’d accepted such charity well enough, Rosa thought wryly as she searched for some light music.
Her mother pulled her dressing gown more tightly around her as she gazed out at the darkening night. “It’s getting so late,” she murmured, and Rosa knew she was thinking of her father.
“Mutti,” she said impulsively, “why don’t you come out with me tomorrow? We could go to a museum, or to the park… there is a zoo, you know, at Regent’s Park. They say it might have to close if there’s a war, we should see it now, while we can.”
“Oh, Rosa,” her mother replied in a fretful tone, “don’t talk about a war.”
“But therewillbe one,” Rosa said quietly. “You must know that, Mother. The newspapers are full of it.” Every day there were alarming new articles about Germany’s territorial aspirations, troops amassing on borders, Hitler’s false accusations of Polish aggression.
There had also been distressing news about the treatment of Jews in Germany itself—just a few weeks ago, the last Jewish businesses had been forced to close. What would happen to them all, Rosa had wondered, without any work? What could the Nazis possibly be intending? She thought of what her father had said would have happened if theSt Louishad been forced back to Hamburg—arrest and deportation. That might be the proposed fate of a thousand destitute refugees, but for every Jew in Germany? Surely not. Such a thing was mind-boggling, utterly impossible to conceive of.
“It’s practically all anyone talks about,” she continued. Even if people didn’t want it; no one relished the prospect of war, not with the last war still fresh in many people’s memories.
Her mother hunched her shoulders. “Well, I don’t want to talk about it,” she said, staring determinedly out the window.
Rosa sighed and took a sip of her hot chocolate. “We could go to a museum, then,” she said. “Or even to the cinema…” She thought, briefly, of the last time they’d been to the cinema, back on the ship. “There would be no Nazi reels here,” she remarked with a small smile.
Her mother, however, without even turning from her vantage point by the window, simply shook her head.
She’d tried, Rosa told herself, even as she wondered why she did. Her mother held her in such little regard, after all; why did she think she could convince her of anything? In any case, if her mother didn’t want to make the most of this life, well, there wasn’t very much she could do about it.
But she wasn’t, Rosa knew, willing to share the same fate.Shewould do something tomorrow, whether her mother accompanied her or not. She would embrace this new life… whatever it looked like and however she could. She’d make sure of it.
CHAPTER 12
JULY 1939—LONDON
Rosa stood on the threshold of the meeting room of the Jewish Day Center, located in a slightly dilapidated-looking townhouse near Belsize Park’s high street. She’d woken up that morning determined to make the most of her day, and so after completing her usual chores—cooking, washing, and shopping—she’d resolutely ignored her mother’s baleful look and headed outside.
It was a balmy, blue-skied day, and already Rosa had been in London long enough to know how rare those were. She was wearing one of her usual somber-colored, belted frocks—she’d determinedly given up trying to look pretty after Ernst—but she’d done her hair a little less severely and pinched her cheeks for a bit of color. It was as far as she was willing to go in terms of vanity; she’d relentlessly squashed that natural feminine desire when she’d realized just how foolish, how utterly stupid, she’d been.
But she wasn’t going to think about the past now, Rosa had told herself, on a day that felt so much about the future. But right then, standing on the edge of a room that was full of people, all of them Jewish refugees like herself and yet looking so much more confident and comfortable, she felt a flicker of insecurity. Theclass was in conversational English, and already she suspected everyone was miles above her in ability. They were talking in English to each other as they waited; Rosa always reverted to German with someone from home.
“Are you here for the English class?” the instructor, a young, serious-looking man with spectacles and a warm smile, asked her in English.
Wordlessly, every scrap of English flown from her head, Rosa nodded.
“Why don’t you take a seat?” the man suggested kindly. “We’re about to start.”
Although she was fighting the impulse to turn tail and run, Rosa murmured her thanks—in English—and moved to a wooden chair on the edge of the room. She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin, determined not to be defeated. Since when had she been soscaredby such things? she asked herself.
Yes, but it was just bravado, came the remorseless—and honest—reply. Still, Rosa told herself, bravado was better than nothing.
The man who had addressed her moved to the front of the room, and the class began. He spoke in English, his tone precise and deliberately slow, but Rosa still missed every other word. She felt her cheeks warm as she glanced around the room; everyone else seemed attentive, understanding. No one, she thought, had the blank, gormless look she feared was on her own face.
