Page 58 of The Girl with a Secret
She’d written to her parents, as well as Sophie, with an address to write to her—no more than a postbox in London where mail was forwarded on to the relevant place and person. While she could divulge no details about what she was actually doing, she assured her family and friend that she was happy and productive, and that the work was interesting.
Three days after she’d arrived, she’d gone to the dance at the local village hall with Peter and a few dozen others from the camp—they all tended to be young and enthusiastic, and thedance floor was crowded for the entire evening. Rosa had danced with Peter, and then with several other young men whose faces blurred and whose names she’d forgotten if she’d ever known them in the first place; there were far more men than women at Cockfosters and so Rosa, like the ATS girls, was in high demand.
As she had come off the dance floor, breathless and laughing, Peter had pressed a glass of lemonade into her hand.
“You looked like you needed a drink,” he’d remarked wryly, “and this is the only way I think I’ll be able to spend time with you!”
“I’m sorry,” Rosa had replied, regretful but also energized. She hadn’t had so much fun—hadn’tletherself have so much fun—in years. “I can’t remember the last time I danced so much!”
“Maybe back in Berlin?”
Rosa had glanced at him sharply, but she could tell from the relaxed look on his face that there was no hidden edge to the question. She really needed to tell Peter about her life back in Berlin, she’d acknowledged as she’d taken a sip of lemonade. But how to do it? She didn’t want to jeopardize their friendship, and in any case, it was all in the past. She wasn’t the same girl who had fallen for Ernst Weber, SS Obersturmführer.
Sometimes, as she read the transcripts of the prisoners, men who had served in the Luftwaffe or theKriegsmarine, she wondered what Ernst was doing in the war. Was he still in Berlin, working in administration, or had he joined the Waffen-SS, the military arm of theSchutzstaffel? He’d always been so keen to prove himself, his valor, and as a young, fit man he would, Rosa suspected, be expected to fight.
When, at the end of June, it was announced that Germany had invaded the Soviet Union, with all of the Waffen-SS formations involved in the operation, she wondered if Ernst was among them, pushing forward in a never-ending line of tanks toward Moscow.
The news had been a cause for celebration at Cockfosters, and indeed throughout most of the country. With Hitler’s forces amassed along an eighteen-hundred-mile border with the Soviet Union, there was little leftover to fight the other Allies. The relentless bombing of London and other cities began to subside, and it felt, especially when taking the mood of the prisoners into account, as if the tide might slowly but surely be turning.
“The end is a long way off yet,” Peter warned her as they walked through the house’s parkland, away from the prisoner block.
It was a lovely summer’s day in late July, the trees in full leaf, the sun shining high above in a hazy blue sky. They’d taken to going on such walks during their breaks from work, or into the village for a drink in the evening. They were still just friends, but Sally had remarked, with a waggle of her eyebrows, that she’d like afriendlike that. Rosa had simply smiled, hoping she was right.
“But Hitler’s completely abandoned the Western Front,” Rosa argued now, good-naturedly. She felt optimistic, almost fizzy with hope; while the news from Russia was bad—with the Wehrmacht now a mere two hundred miles from Moscow—it did seem as if Germany’s Western front was collapsing under the lack of manpower. And meanwhile, her parents, along with thousands of others, had been released from internment camp; they were back in Belsize Park, sharing their old flat with the Rosenbaums, who had kept everything safe for them, just as Peter had assured her.
Her mother had written, and Rosa had been able to feel her excitement leaping off the page.
Zlata and I are going into business together. Dressmaking, of course! Zlata as seamstress and I doing the designs. We are mainly serving the émigré community, repurposingwhat they’ve brought with them. I like to think, in our own small way, we are contributing to the war effort. As is your father, would you believe! He is taking English classes and volunteers with the Home Guard, to treat those who have been injured in bombing raids who can’t get to hospital—the air raids have been terrible, but at least they are tapering off now. It is good to see your father occupied. It is what he has needed. Something changed in him while in camp, and I think it has been for the better.
Rosa had marveled at the change in her parents, and been thankful that they were free, and more importantly, were making something of themselves in this new life, just as she was. She still wasn’t quite sure how her father had arranged for her to come to Cockfosters Camp, but she was grateful for his hand in it. She hoped one day she’d be able to tell him so. It all gave her a heady sense of the future, formless as it remained, and all it might hold… Something she was acutely conscious of, walking in the summer sunshine with Peter.
“But just because Hitler’s stopped bombing us here,” he continued seriously, his hands shoved into the pockets of his trousers, his hair flopping down on his forehead, “doesn’t mean we’ve beaten them, or even come close to beating them. We’ve got to take back all of Europe, for a start, and that surely means an invasion.”
It was an inevitability that was on everyone’s minds, and yet still felt so far away. “When do you think that will happen?” Rosa asked.
Peter shook his head. “Not for some time, I should think. We can’t have another Dunkirk. This time it’s got to stick.”
“When the Americans get involved…” Rosa began hopefully. She’d heard from Sophie, and it seemed, judging from the vagueness of her letters, that she was involved in some kindof hush-hush work, as well. And if that was the case, Rosa reasoned, then surely the American government was preparing for war? It just had to be a matter of time.
“When,” Peter asked ruefully, “orif?”
“They can’t give up all of Europe!” Rosa argued. “No one wants war, I understand that, but some things must be fought. Surely the Americans realize that. They might be all the way across the Atlantic, but a Europe controlled by Hitler couldn’t be good for them.”
“You sound so fierce,” Peter replied with a smile. They’d slowed to a stop underneath the spreading branches of a cherry tree, and now he turned to her, a serious look coming over his face that made Rosa’s heart skip a hopeful beat. “And you’re right. Some things must be fought… and some things must be said.”
Rosa caught her breath, her heart starting to beat double time. Did he mean what she thought he did? What shehopedhe did?
Peter reached for her hands, clasping them in his own. She could feel the crooked, bent length of the two injured fingers on his right hand and it made her ache with both pride and sorrow. He was such a brave, good man. A man she knew she was falling in love with, bit by cautious bit.
After Ernst, she’d been so wary to give her heart away again, and she’d felt she didn’t deserve such happiness, but those old fears had blown away like cobwebs in a clean, healing wind. She wanted to be happy now… and she knew she wanted to be happy with Peter Gelb.
“What sorts of things?” she asked, her voice coming out in a breathless whisper.
Gently, he squeezed her hands. “I think you know, but I’ll tell you anyway. I’ll gladly tell you, because I’ve been wanting to say it for weeks now, if not months.” Once more, his handstightened briefly on hers. “When the Rosenbaums told me you’d been interned… and I didn’t know if I’d ever be able to find you again…” He swallowed hard. “It made me realize what I’d almost thrown away, Rosa. I know I let your father come between us, and that was stupid and wrong. Why should you be beholden for another’s choices? I didn’t expect to feel that way, honestly I didn’t. I’m not even sure why I did.” He paused, his throat working, his forehead furrowed in thought. “I suppose because I knew so many people who suffered terribly under those beasts. Men who died in Dachau, or wished they had. Neighbors who were arrested in the middle of the night, taken away, never to be seen again. The thought that your father had avoided all that by cozying up to the people I’ve hated, that we all should hate…” He trailed off, shaking his head.
Rosa’s heart, once beating so hard with hope and happiness, now felt as if it had completely stilled in her chest. Her hands were cold, clasped in Peter’s. She’d put off telling him the truth about her past for so long, had convinced herself it had become irrelevant, but Peter’s words put paid to that naïve notion.
“Peter,” she said quietly, slipping her hands from his, “if you are going to judge my father for his choices, then you must also judge me for mine…”
