Gerda lowers her head and shakes it from side to side. “You must speak to your Mutti. That is all I have to say.” Then she disappears from the room.
Lilli has been lying awake for hours. Threads of various thoughts trail aimlessly through her head. It has been three days since the shopping trip and nothing has changed. In the silent, sleeping house, she hears a faint click, perhaps the turning of a key in a lock.
Mutti has been out this evening, as she often is lately, modeling the new fashions or perhaps attending a supper party. In the morning, she will be gone again. When will Lilli have a chance to speak with her?
Halfway down the dark stairway that ascends to the attic, there is a landing with a doorway to Gerda’s room. Lilli creeps past on bare feet. It must be very late, perhaps two am. She can hear the sound of Gerda’s snoring and prays it will continue.
Now she has successfully reached the landing of the second floor, where the elder Bayers, Mutti, and Elspeth have their quarters. She pauses there, wondering if Mutti has yet gone to her room, or is still on the main floor of the house.
As Lilli listens, she becomes aware of the deep, droning vibration of a male voice coming from the drawing room. She temporarily pulls back in shock, then continues creeping partway down the main staircase to give herself a view of the space below.
Sure enough, the voice is his, that of Captain Koeppler. He sits beside Mutti, who is dressed in glamorous evening wear, a white fur around her neck and silver, high-heeled, T-strap evening sandals on her slender feet.
Lilli listens to words that at first make no sense to her and are, at the same time, terrifying. “I am sorry, Martina, I know I promised both. But there is only room for one, and probably not until late summer.”
Mutti murmurs a few words that are unclear. Lilli can tell she has been crying.
“The darker one,” Koeppler replies. “She is the most endangered. Be reasonable. You will come through much better than most. There will always be that black mark against you . . . and them.”
Mutti chokes back a sob. “Helga has not got the temperament for it. Even Elspeth would do better, spoiled as she now is. But I won’t give up my littlest one. Never!”
There is movement now in the room below. The tall Nazi officer rises to his feet and pulls Mutti, limp and glittering, into his arms. Even at this horrifying moment, Lilli can’t help admiring her mother’s loveliness. She wears her thick pale-gold hair in a coiled bun at the base of her neck, exhibiting the beauty of her finely chiseled features.
Instantly, she pulls away from Koeppler and sighs deeply. Is the Captain just a helpful old school chum as Mutti has said, or is there something more between her and this hostile “friend?” Lilli is wracked with so much emotion that she fears she may cry out. Clapping her hand over her mouth, she turns and scampers rat-like up the stairs, past Gerda’s room, and into her attic fortress.
It is the first time since Helga and Lilli have come to live with their Bayer grandparents that Gerda has informed them they are to descend to the small dining room for breakfast.
This news is amazing to Helga, even more so than the announcement of the recent shopping trip with Grossmutter. But to Lilli it is no surprise. Her swift retreat up the stairs from her hiding place in the wee hours of the morning had been detected in the drawing room after all. Mutti had followed her to her bedroom and tearfully explained that plans were being made for the safety of all three girls, plans which would be revealed in the morning.
Grossvater is seated at the table reading the morning paper. He is as cheerful as always, and he greets Helga and Lilli as though their presence at the family breakfast was an everyday affair. Grossmutter, who is solemnly pouring coffee, nods in a semi-friendly way and indicates where the girls are to sit. Mutti comes into the room, and Gerda is dismissed to take care of Elspeth, who isn’t present.
Grossmutter places bowls of hot porridge before her granddaughters. Helga obediently digs in, but Lilli winces. Her breakfast choice is coffee and rolls. Mutti, who knows this, removes the porridge and sets bread and butter down before her. Grossmutter overlooks this and compliments Helga on her healthful choice of food.
Lilli glances at her yet-unknowing sister, for much has become clear to her during the many wakeful hours of the early morning. Something . . . she does not know what . . . has been planned for “the darker one,” which would be Helga, who has Papa’s olive-toned complexion, and his deep-brown eyes and hair. Lilli is fair, with gray-green eyes and honey-toned hair.
The innocent Helga finishes her porridge, and Grossmutter offers her breakfast cake and milky coffee, which she accepts politely. Lilli seethes. She knows that there are plans to send Helga away. Why doesn’t somebody say something?
Then, as though has heard Lilli’s inner plea, Grossmutter seats herself directly opposite eleven-year-old Helga and declares, “Grossvater and I have good news for you, my child. How would you like to travel to a good home in England, where you can hike, swim, and skate, go to school with other children, enjoy the cinema and other pleasurable outings? Wouldn’t you like such an opportunity? It would be only until things are easier in Germany. Then you could return to us.”
“Yes, my child,” Grossvater chimes in, “you are lucky, for it has been arranged with the Jewish committee for the saving of the children that you are to have a place on the Kindertransport . . .”
Lilli jumps to her feet. She has heard vague talk of taking tens of thousands of Jewish children out of Nazi-occupied Europe by train and boat—from Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia—before Hitler’s armies invade even more of the continent.
“Yes!” Lilli declares. “And I want to go, too. We must all go, Elspeth, too. Papa would want it that way. How can you think of separating us so cruelly?”
But no one is listening to her. All eyes are on Helga, who has dashed her coffee cup to the floor and run screaming from the breakfast room, “No, no never! Never will I be such a coward as to let myself be driven out of Germany. Never.”
It is the middle of the long, hot summer of 1939. Several months have passed since the anguished scene at the breakfast table in May, and there has been no further mention of sending Helga away on the Kindertransport.
Yet, everyone knows that the danger for Jews hiding in Germany is drawing closer every minute. And so, too, is war with England. The girls’ tutor, Mr. Anton Hess, is their main source of information. He has told them that England is threatening to attack Germany if Hitler attempts to occupy one more country in Europe.
“Ah, but,” says the all-knowing Mr. Hess, his pincenez glasses flickering as he lowers and shakes his head in scholarly fashion, “the Fuhrer has already announced in May that Germany must have more Lebensraum, living space. He has vowed that he will have his armies in Poland by late summer.”
The threat of war, as well as further actions against Jews everywhere, has started all sorts of rumors. Gerda has murmured tidbits to Helga and Lilli about the attic room no longer being a safe place in which to hide them from the Nazis, in spite of the Bayers’ connections with members of the government.
“Where will they put us then?” Helga challenges.
Lilli looks at her sister anxiously. Helga has changed a great deal in the past months. She has become more assertive and outspoken.
Gerda tosses the girls fresh linens with which to make up their beds and replies as she leaves the room. “There is perhaps the coal bin.”
Helga and Lilli stare at each other, wide-eyed. Then they do their room chores and, as usual, don the drab clothes that Grossmutter purchased for them in the spring. It’s become obvious that their grandmother’s intention was for the girls to be