Under Charred Skies

By Greta Sykes

Lene is deeply involved in the cultural awakening of the arts and civil rights after WW1 when the fateful Nazi tyranny tears her life apart. Betrayal and desolation almost destroy love and solidarity enjoyed by the women at the time.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse UK
• Release date: Oct 9, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504990196

Greta Sykes

Greta Sykes is a German-English poet and author, with a professional life in child and adolescent psychology. This is her second novel. Her first novel, Under Charred Skies, is a biographical story which narrates life around her grandmother and mother during the Weimar Republic. It was published in German under Unter Verbranntem Himmel. Greta Sykes's poems have been published in many anthologies. Her most recent volume is called The Shipping News and has a strong focus on nature. She also writes essays. Her work can be found on liveencounters.net and academia.edu. She is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association and London Voices Poetry group. Her most recent essays are 'Secular ecstasies and revolutionary women poets in 1917' and 'Powerful women in 12th century "Early Renaissance" Sicily'.

Book preview

2015 Greta Sykes. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 10/06/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9018-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9017-2 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-9019-6 (e)

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

Chapter 1 The funeral

Chapter 2 The inflation

Chapter 3 The fifty thousand mark loaf

Chapter 4 Soup kitchens and Raffkes

Chapter 5 THE WANDERVÖGEL

Chapter 6 Olga

Chapter 7 Karl Schwesig

Chapter 8 The Zinglers

Chapter 9 Time of Hope

Chapter 10 Kinderspeisung not Panzerkreuzer

Chapter 11 The Charite

Chapter 12 The Reichsbanner

Chapter 13 Studio Z

Chapter 14 The red shoes

Chapter 15 Heartbreak

Chapter 16 Auto Da Fe

Chapter 17 Snow wedding

Chapter 18 Mass emigration

Chapter 19 Kristallnacht

Chapter 20 War

Chapter 21 Rheinstrasse 3

Chapter 22 The burnt-down town

UNDER CHARRED SKIES

Lene has died peacefully after a long life, and her daughter Vera must travel to Hamburg for the funeral. During the train journey from London her thoughts about the past reawaken. During the seventies her mother used to visit her in London and surprised Vera with revelations about a past that she had never before spoken about: Her love stories, the cultural richness and idealism of the Weimar republic, her hopes for a socialist future, her work with the resistance and the fate of the exiled poets. Nazi tyranny had turned her life more upside down than Vera had ever imagined. Vera made notes about the stories of her mother who had sworn her to secrecy until the day she died. Now the time had come to tell her stories.

For Oliver and Stefan

I would like to thank the following persons for their generous help and support:

Karl-Heinz Rabas from the Stadtteilarchiv Rotthausen, Andreas Jordan from the Gelsenzentrum and my sister Ute Woltereck for research assistance. My thanks also go the Jean-Michel Palmier and his book ‘Weimar in Exile’ (Verso, 2006).

The actions, places and persons in the book focus on historical facts, yet have been written with due regard to creative freedom.

PROLOGUE

I was almost ready. The 10.29 left St. Pancras station for Brussels. From there the Thomas Tallis leaves at 13.15 for Cologne. The 17.48 would take me from there to Hamburg. There was nothing else to be done. I had to rush, if I was going to make it to the funeral in time. I’d promised myself I wasn’t going to fly. I needed time on the train to sit and think. So much had happened, but now so much more was about to happen. My brain was fluttering with thoughts like so many seagulls on the beach. Mother had died peacefully after a long life. I would meet with the others at the funeral, and a story would have to be told.

The pink hand luggage case was ready and locked. I checked my face in the mirror. Was I beginning to look like mother? I saw the tears she shed when I left the country. Wrinkles! Crying leaves wrinkles. I gave her wrinkles and made her sad. I sighed while putting on the mascara and eyebrow lines. I used to show her how to colour her eyebrows, and she always managed to get it a bit wrong, but she enjoyed the tuition. She liked learning things. All her life she was prepared to learn something new. Maybe that had helped her to live such a long life. That and her secrets.

When I decided to leave the country our relationship was at a low ebb. My late nights, studies of philosophy (what job can you do with that?) and various boyfriends were a cause for constant arguments. I didn’t want to have readymade answers from her. I fled. I left Germany. In London I felt safe. I could begin to work out what sort of life I wanted to live. The old buildings helped. A city that had not been burnt down! A city with history. I spent months walking through the streets of London. The old yellow and red brickwork of the Georgian and Victorian terraces was comforting to me. The narrow, ancient streets in the city. Pudding Lane. Borough market. Then one day the visits started. I had two small children by that time and was writing my first book. She was to make this journey many times. I lived behind Regents Park near Baker Street station. Every day we walked through the cast iron gate into the park by the lake and over to the rose garden. It was always summer when she came. She fell in love with the rose garden. Its wide avenue from the tall gate in the inner circle contrasted mysteriously with the small paths behind grasses and summer flowers. One of them led up a small hill and down past the waterfall to the roses. The many colours and shapes of bushes. The climbing roses. All had names and she admired each name, colour or scent. We sat down on a bench. At the time I harboured many angry feelings towards her, which I hoped she wouldn’t notice. But thinking of her now several decades later I can understand a lot more about what went on inside her. She had done her hard work. The father of her children had volunteered to join the army and afterwards he was in prison. Then he died not much more than ten years later. After his death she might have experienced a kind of rebirth, when the memories of her tumultuous past came back to her. She needed me for her to relive her past. She had to tell it all to me. Now I was glad and relieved that I didn’t give up and allowed my frustrations to burst forth. I listened to her whole story. I looked back in the mirror. Wasn’t I now about the age she was when she wanted to talk? At the time I forced myself to make diary entries for all her visits, recounting our meetings and her tales, although I was often not in the mood to do so. Now I was pleased and content. Her story was important and now it needed to be told. I was determined not to let all that had happened fall prey to forgetfulness and oblivion. After all, memories are a powerful weapon against men’s exploitation by men. The first time she visited was unforgettable. Here is my diary entry for it.

Diary notes, 7th July 1969

We sat down on a bench. Gabriel had fallen asleep and my little Daniel played with a car.

You left to become a poet and now you have children instead! I’m happy about that, but it is also strange.

I was stunned. What was she talking about? It is true that I had been a wild child, a radical bohemian. Now I was a mother of twenty-five with two small children.

Why is it strange?

It happened to me too.

That’s how it all began. She looked at the blossoms tenderly. The wind blew the scent into our nostrils. London and time ceased to exist. I was puzzled and intrigued and looked at her focusing the distant blue sky with its small cumulus clouds.

What do you mean?

I once wanted to become a poet or a painter too. I had many friends who were poets, painters and socialists.

I looked at her, thinking that’s women for you! But my mother? Surely not! Such a devoted housewife! I didn’t understand. Her eyes were still on the distance; her hands lay in her lap. She was as still as if she had been painted there next to me. I was almost startled to hear her speak.

I want someone to know what really happened. I’ve decided that you need to be that someone. My peace baby!

When I was small she sang to me ‘Guten Abend, Gute Nacht’ and ‘Weisst du wieviel Sterne stehen’ at bedtime. She sometimes whispered to me ‘my peace baby’ before she got up and left the room. Never in front of anyone else. And not for many years. I never thought of asking her what she meant. It was like a secret pact between us, a mystery that gave us a momentary sense of supreme intimacy. I loved her at those moments.

What whole story are you talking about, mother? I don’t understand.

Before I had all my children I had a life as a young woman. I had friends and relationships. I was politically active, just like you. I studied and worked. Like you. But I never spoke to anyone about this life. It took place before the Nazis came to power. I was very happy in those days. You can’t imagine how high our hopes were. We thought we were going to have socialism in Germany. My father, your grandfather, was an outspoken socialist. I learnt a lot from him. You would have liked him. All my life I was loyal to him. But later, after I married my husband, your father, everything changed.

She stopped for a moment and turned her head to look at me, maybe to see the effects of her words on me or to see if I was still there. I sat there motionless and breathless. Gabriel cried, I had taken him on to my lap. Mother held Daniel on her lap. He looked sleepy and closed his eyes. The softness of her voice was like a song in the wind. The last thing I had expected was that my mother, the disciplinarian of my life, would come out with a story that resembled my own chaotic strivings for meaning that I am engaged in. I was not sure whether I would like what she was going to tell me, and I began to feel uneasy. My stomach rumbled, and I longed for a cup of tea. We got up and walked to the cafe.

You mean everything changed when you married our father?

I felt almost sick. My little boy started crying.

Shall we go to the cafe and have a cup of tea?

That would be very nice.

She looked taller when she got up, as if she had grown or had become more upright after her words. I felt smaller and very vulnerable. My muscles ached. The weight of what she might expose felt heavy. We walked slowly into the afternoon sun. She sat down outside in the garden with the children, while I bought our drinks.

There is a lot I have to tell you, but I have to ask you one favour, though, before I say any more.

What favour is that?

You must keep my story a complete secret until the day I die. I want to be able to entrust you with it. Can you promise me that?

My mother’s dark eyes shone, as she looked directly at me. With some of the hot tea inside me I felt reassured and strengthened.

I promise you that. You know me. I can keep a secret well.

She looked pleased and smiled. She was not one who gave hugs freely, but this time she leant over and we embraced each other.

Your father was a Nazi, but he never told me so. He was so in love with me that he decided to spare me this particular truth. I only found out when I already had children. And later on, after the war, well…you know that we were still together… but I have to tell it all in order.

We wandered back. Daniel chased the ducks and Gabriel watched from my arms.

You’re lucky to live so near to this beautiful park.

We crossed back over the curved bridge towards the exit. We spoke no more about her story. A ceremonious spirituality was between us, as if an imaginary altar had been erected. We were going to observe the shape of her story unfold there over time. She came back many summers. I felt quite brave suddenly. Whatever she would impart I would need to brush aside my own doubts and my misgivings about the German past.

End of diary notes.

Money, tickets, passport. A bottle of water. I took my raincoat off the hanger and hung it over my arm. I might not need it, but judging by the weather I probably would. This summer was extraordinarily wet. The taxi was waiting outside, and it wasn’t long before I sat comfortably installed in the Eurostar train with my cup of coffee in front of me, the Guardian front page glaring at me. ‘Germany isolated’, ‘Angela Merkel stubborn’, ‘Greeks burn German flag’. I put the paper away and took Sartre out of my bag. Reading about the past was easier to bear than the comments now unleashed by the press. In ‘The Reprieve’ Sartre’s characters are unable to act in the face of the betrayal that led to war. Is Angela Merkel unable to act? Is Europe again at the beginning of self-destruction, some arguing, with Germany leading the way? Swastikas had started to appear on posters in southern Europe. The financial crisis. That was really what was at the heart of it. And wasn’t it the same country as in my mother’s story, the US, that determined which way the wind should blow? I closed Sartre, keeping my finger on the open page and shut my eyes. I felt uneasy and nervous. The past seemed to creep back like a weed, or was that just an appearance? Had I not left Germany many years ago to escape from a past that seemed to be locked into a politics of oblivion? Don’t mention the war! What did your father do in the war? Our parents kept stony silent faces. The walls of our small kitchen enclosed us in the silence. I tried to breathe deeply, but could feel that I was hyperventilating. My breath raced in and out of my lungs and made me feel dizzy.

It was during the first year of my philosophy studies. I decided to leave the country. The past was like a cement wall on my chest. I felt buried under it. My life was like blotting paper that had absorbed the ink of Germany’s recent history. I had involuntarily inherited a past, and I decided to run away from it. But could I really do this, or was I damned from the beginning? I left for England. I was going to be free, free from the past. I lived a life of a stranger. You speak good English! The foreign town welcomed me. We were so many strangers here. The foreign language didn’t contain all those familiar words. Schuld. Eine Schuldenlast. Konzentrationslager. Truemmerhaufen. Verbrannte Stadt. I obtained a British passport. Now I was British. Or not? Or was I a German with a British passport? Blonde and blue-eyed. They could all see I was German. The pupils in school asked:

Miss, are you Hitler’s girlfriend?

Miss, how was it when you used the showers in the camps?

Two World Wars and one World Cup. The snide looks. The derision! My British passport hadn’t prevented me from being a foreigner. I was condemned from the start. The original sin. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe more slowly down to my feet to calm myself.

We were in the tunnel, darkness hummed around the compartment. I could hear music from somewhere, or was it in my head? I was thinking of Free Will and was searching for it in my life. As my breathing slowed down I felt sleepy and dozed off. After a while I woke and saw with relief that we were travelling through France. The green meadows shone in the sun. I began to be able to shed my ruminations. I thought of the clothes I was going to wear at the funeral. I had an elegant black suit. And I had her secret. I was looking forward to seeing my sisters and brother, but I also knew that it wasn’t going to be an easy step to disclose my mother’s story. Perhaps no one wanted to know about it anymore.

We arrived in Brussels Midi. I took my pink suitcase, my handbag and coat and looked for the Thomas Tallis. I love train journeys. I found my seat and relaxed. I tried to imagine how it was going to be to recount my mother’s story. I took pleasure in watching the north German plain fly by at great speed, and began to doze. It was evening when I arrived. I took a taxi straight to the hotel where we all had booked our rooms. I paid a brief visit to the bar after checking in, found none of my siblings there and so went up to bed.

The next morning noisy embraces and greetings drowned details of individuals in a blur of small talk, smiles and laughter. Not everyone had been able to come. My oldest sister had problems at home with a sick husband, so she wasn’t there. Instead a couple of cousins had joined us. The drive to Ohlsdorf, more akin to a forest than a graveyard with many chapels in a large wood. We had to go to chapel seven. Those of us who wanted to were able to view my mother before the coffin was closed. Only two of us went. We stood silently looking at her dear face, a tiny smile at the edge of her closed lips in her wrinkled face. She had died at a ripe old age and seeing her made me feel a peaceful sadness. I wanted to ask her how it had been in those years with Klaus. Was I Klaus’s child? Can you be genetically the child of one man and in your heart that of another? She smiled softly at the edge of her closed mouth and I was inclined to feel that she agreed with me.

A small crowd collected in the chapel, and the pastor told us of the milestones in her life, two world wars, five children, her charitableness and kindness, her humour and love of her family. Tears were shed. Bach hymns were sung. The angel at the side of the altar lit up briefly from a beam of sunlight. I thought of her story that was hidden from those present and that now had to be brought to life. Some of the colourful scenes she had related to me passed in front of my mind’s eye, her friend Olga’s kiss with Hubert at the Emscher, the night walks with Resistance fliers in their pockets with her friend Inge, her secret meeting with Klaus, her lover, in Mainz. The two small children who stood lonely in the rain, deserted in a burnt out town. I thought of our conversation, when she asked me to make sure the story was told and published in the end.

Diary notes, 15th July 1969

Mother is leaving in a couple of days. All in all, it went well, I think. We didn’t get on each others’ nerves too much, at least I hope not. She seemed at ease anyway, but then she was never someone who was open about how she felt. Apart from now in relation to what she wants to reveal. We were walking back from the park with the children when she came back to the subject of secrecy.

You know I asked you to keep my story a secret until I die.

Yes, and I said that I would keep it a secret.

But I do want you to tell my story. Don’t just keep it to yourself, even if I carry on living for a few more years, it has got to be told.

Sure, I will, I won’t neglect it, you don’t need to worry. I was beginning to feel that she was making too much of a fuss and getting me to sign and seal a contract with her on this.

I don’t worry, but such important things happened then. They are all still relevant and will be for many years to come. Like what happened to my friend Olga, whose daughter was turned against her own mother by the Nazis. Or how my friend Inge and I sorted information about the exiled poets and writers and how they were hunted in the Netherlands and in other countries although they were antifascists. Well, she mused and looked at me, has anyone heard of these writers and poets recently here in London or in Germany? I haven’t. It’s as if they’ve been swallowed up in a black hole.

I looked at her. Was she going to start telling me more details now, when we were on our way back and everyone was hungry? I felt impatient and tried to hide it, but she was right. Much of the existence of these artists and writers was as good as forgotten.

Of course, but you must tell it all to me one thing at a time. I can’t take it in now.

What I’m saying is that there is a lot to it, the politics of the international support for the Nazis and the bravery of people. You have to think about what might be a good way to present it, when the time comes.

What do you mean?

What form you are going to put all of it into…

Yes, sure, I shall have to think about that. Well, I could turn it into a novel, would you like that?

That might be a good idea, it’s got to be attractive to people, so they want to read it, but you need to choose the format. You’re going to be the one who’ll have to write it all down.

We had reached the gate and left the park behind. The noise from the cars drowned out any further talk about this.

End of diary notes.

As the pastor spoke and my eyes were on the angel who was now in darkness I thought of that conversation. She liked the idea of a novel. It would make sense. I would be able to shape the many fragments I was expecting to hear into something that formed a coherent narrative. Something that people might be keen to read. The older sisters might be taken aback. My brother would not believe me. But the story was more than a family story, so their hesitations should not stop it getting to the people. Our fellow human beings, their children and the children of their children needed the memory of this time. It was their defence against the exploiters of their time. Now it would also become my defence against exploitation. I looked around me at the mourners. They were perhaps thinking that a past was now going to be buried. Our mother was now part of the past. She was going to be buried. But her secrets were alive. They would live on and breed new actions that would eventually produce socialism, the socialism she had defended. The socialism which Alfred Zingler and his wife Margarethe had defended. Socialism was not just to do with bread and money alone, but included culture. The whole human being. I cherished these thoughts about her secrets. Hadn’t they also given me strength in my own convictions? In them rested my ability to act. I had guarded them carefully for many years. Forty years of silence. Forty years during which she grew old, very old, while her eyes remained shiny coal black until the end.

The pastor had finished. We followed the coffin to the grave, saw her lowered into the ground next to her husband. We threw flowers and a spadeful of earth. I thought of Klaus, her lover. Where was he now? Who knows, perhaps they were together somewhere now. The evening meal at the hotel with a good glass of wine soothed us all and somehow bridged the distances between us for a short evening. The next morning we would all disappear into different cities and I would start to dig. Dig deep for memories for a better future. I would dig and write and unearth the names she had mentioned and bring them to life. Walter Hasenclever, the poet; Carl von Ossietzky, the writer; Karl Schwesig, the artist. Liesel, who introduced my mother to the social democrats in Berlin. Klaus, who she fell in love with.

Diary notes, 20th June 1970

This year she came early, in June. It didn’t suit me at all. I had appointments booked with a publisher. The children needed a lot of patience. But everything had to wait, because she wanted to rid herself of her past. I had little time to contemplate her concerns. We rushed into the park. It was in full bloom. The colourful flower beds were a feast for the eyes. We had brought bread for the ducks. Daniel fed them. Gabriel was asleep in his pushchair.

I don’t know where to start. I want to make it as short as possible. On the other hand I can’t just leave out important events, do you understand? It’s not easy.

Just start wherever you like… I mumbled impatiently.

You must understand I was only seventeen. That’s when I became aware of politics. Inflation. Murder. Suicides. Soldiers in town. The occupation. You can’t imagine it now.

I remained silent and wished she would start at last. With the essentials. I dearly hoped she wouldn’t stir up everything I had tried to forget or things I was comfortably unaware of.

I don’t know anything about some occupation. Just start somewhere.

Yes, it must have been the year 1923, when a friend of my parents took his own life.

Then she started. We sat on a bench behind the tall trellis circle. It was early and we had the rose garden almost to ourselves. It was a beautiful day and my impatience had given way to a pleasant mixture of pride and curiosity. About her entrusting me with her secrets. She spoke and I listened. I had never heard her talk so much before. It kind of shot out of her, as if someone had opened a valve. Sometimes she was almost hectic, she stood up and walked a few paces, grew red in the face or pale. She used her hands to shape thoughts and feelings in front of our eyes. Tonight we were especially tired and went to bed early. Her tales reached right into my dreams. I think all beginnings are hard.

End of diary notes.

At some point her visits and stories became an integral part of my summers. I decided that I just had to give her this time. There was a lot I didn’t know about politics or the economy. The role of the American banks when Hitler usurped power, for example. The betrayal of the citizens. It wasn’t very surprising. We’re still living under the threat of the same elites so many decades later. Then, at some point, I grew very intrigued and involved and stopped feeling bored and frustrated. I checked when that was. It had to do with two facts, which were also recorded in my diary entries (14th July 1972). I was better able to deal with my own life, and our relationship with each other became warmer and more close. I began to see her as a woman who had fought for her love and for justice, and not just as my mother. She had a remarkable capacity to love, as others may have such an ability to hate. I wanted to learn that capacity from her and was grateful to her. Her last visit to talk about her secrets was in 1975. It was a remarkable year. Not only was the summer good and almost tropical for a London climate, but there were also so many things that happened which we valued. The Vietnam War was lost by the Americans in spite of all their superior weapons and chemicals. The Helsinki Accord was signed. We were optimistic and confident about the future of Socialism, which already included half of Germany.

Now I sat again in the train back to England and had time to reflect on my thoughts after the excitement of seeing everyone again. A feeling of warmth rose inside me. I felt fond of my siblings, as different as they seemed to me. I looked out of the window. Some say that the year 1975 had been one of the best for mankind. More people were then better off than any time before or after. Before is not surprising, but after must make us think. The old elites were pulling strings again: Profits were privatised and debts were socialised. Socialism for the few. Had they stolen our utopia, the hope for a better future, I was wondering. Instead we now had the total surveillance by the American security services. We were living in a world reduced to the present tense of a life of shopping, questions of ethics or conscience discarded. The dictatorship of the presence without past or future. What does that mean for our children?

The restaurant service of the train pulled me out of these miserable ponderings. Yes, a coffee, please, and a croissant. The sun lay green on the fields and cows with full udders stood still like sculptures. The coffee made my thoughts more positive. Hope lay in my mother’s stories which I would now retell. They would reconnect us with the past and give us a new optimism. I was glad that I had the diary entries, as they spoke to us so directly from the bygone time. I imagined that she intended her story to be more than just a family story, more like a piece of history.

CHAPTER 1

THE FUNERAL

I love these green tiles with the fish and seahorses on them, don’t you?

Yes, I do, so atmospheric! As if you were by the sea. I hope you’ll sing for us, well, after dinner anyway…

I might, if I’m not too shy in front of …

She looked round to see if Hubert was near. He was following the two friends into the low ceilinged cavern with fish lamps, ceramic tiles around the walls and fish nets spanning across the ceiling. It was so cosy! They were led to a plain wooden table. The waiter lit a candle and brought the menu.

It was Olga’s eighteenth birthday. Hubert, her boyfriend, had offered to pay and Lene was invited. They had fresh plaice and white wine and toasted each other frequently in an exuberant mood. Going out to a restaurant wasn’t exactly a usual experience. Outside the heavy snow muffled passers’-by footsteps, along with the sirens from the mine towers, the screeching of the trams. Fresh snow was still drifting through the air and sparkling in the light of the gas lamps. Olga smiled with glazed eyes and glowing cheeks, when she stood up and sung for them a burlesque tune from Carmina Burana. Her voice sounded lovely. Hubert took her in his arms and kissed her, while Lene applauded.

What a great voice you have! I bet you’ll be an opera singer one day; I can just imagine you on stage! Hubert and I will get free tickets to hear you and we will applaud you extra loud.

I’d love to be on stage, singing and wearing those amazing costumes that you get to wear, silk, lace, with décolleté, long gloves, fabulous shoes…

The stage! You know what is going on behind the stage, it’s a decadent world! said Hubert, and his big eyes rolled with pretend danger. They doubled over with laughter about Hubert’s funny face.

Hard work, that’s what it is. Eight hours singing a day, that’s not very decadent.

They had often talked about their creative careers, Lene as a writer and Olga as an opera singer, when they used to come home from school. You could easily imagine Olga on stage with her operatic figure with a full bosom and broad hips and there was her remarkable voice. Next to her Lene was a skinny rake with buttons for breasts, although she was taller than Olga with broad shoulders.

All right, I’ll just be singing in a nightclub, then.

No, don’t say that, I didn’t mean to put you off, you should keep your aspirations. I try to hold on to mine, but I can see that I shall end up as a bakery manager, like my mother, Lene sighed.

Now you’re wrong and giving up your ideals. If I’m going to be a singer, you will become a writer. Let’s shake hands on that.

As they shook hands a small bright flame of hope lit in her heart. In that moment she loved Olga deeply.

After the party Lene trotted home carefully, watching her steps on the snow covered paths. With her eyes fixed on the icy pavement she almost ran into her uncle Jakob.

Out so late, Lene? Shouldn’t you be at home?

Oh, Uncle, you gave me such a fright, I never saw you coming towards me.

Well, no you couldn’t have, you were talking to yourself and staring at the street as if you’d seen a ghost down there. Are you all right?

Thanks, Uncle, I’m fine. I’ve just been out with my friend Olga to celebrate her birthday. So glad to see you anyway, the streets seem so empty tonight.

Well, there’s been quite a bit of trouble. Not sure if you’ve heard, but French Troops have started arriving this evening. They are occupying Gelsenkirchen. Also, we’ve had some bad news about a family friend. Your parents will tell you about it, I don’t want to worry you now, it’s late, get yourself some sleep, dear.

Now you’re worrying me more, who was it, Uncle Jakob?

You remember Herr Müller? He was found dead in his cellar, he hanged himself, and they believe it was to do with his debts. His wife found him and called the police. I’ve just been to see her. She’s in a terrible state.

Dear Lord, that’s awful, I didn’t even know he had debts, what did mother and father think?

Have a word with them tomorrow, Lene, best get some sleep now. I’m pretty tired myself, but see you soon, OK?

They had reached Lene’s house. She waved goodbye, shut the door and gingerly climbed up the stairs to her bedroom. She looked out of the window across to Dahlbusch mine silhouetted black against the sky, with coal trolleys rumbling through the air. She listened hard and was certain she heard the sound of men in boots crunching over the snow. It sounded only a few streets away, or was she imagining things?

She dozed off into a restless sleep with vivid dreams. She saw soldiers walking, rifles in hand. Tight groups of uniformed men in darkened streets. Erich, her brother, turned up, a beggar in rags, his eyes wide with terror. She woke early and could hear her father going downstairs to the kitchen for his breakfast. Rosa was usually the first and made coffee and toast for the bakery staff and Hermann Deppermann. Lene had no more taste for sleep. She washed in the enamelled wash bowl and jug in her room, taking an absent-minded look in the mirror and wiping her hair into some order. She looked again. Her hair reminded her of the other death. It was Grandpa’s, a year ago, when she locked herself up in the bathroom to cut off her plaits. I didn’t want plaits any more. First the left