Free Let Me Whisper You My Story by Moya Simons Page A

take away never come back. Never.’
    Friedrich’s eyes welled with tears. With his hand on his face, he blurted, ‘Turn her in. You can lie, Oma. You can say you found her hiding in the stairwell. The people, our neighbours, living below us, the old man above us, they will find out. We shall all die. Please, Opa, don’t do this.’
    Heinrich looked at Gertrude and he looked at me. I had withdrawn to a corner on the floor near Gertrude and sat, shivering. Heinrich shook his head. He did not want me there.
    Well, that made two of us. I didn’t want to be there either. I should have gone with my parents and Miri. At least we would have been together. Now I was stuck, fear knotting my insides, and alone. All alone.
    ‘Opa, please. At Hitler Youth they will call me a traitor. One boy turned in his own aunt and uncle for talking badly about Hitler. You cannot have her here.’
    ‘We’re going to keep her,’ said Gertrude firmly. ‘We still have enough food. She will eat better with us than she did with her family. We will manage.’
    Heinrich argued, ‘You know we’re taking a big risk, Gertrude.’
    I trembled. They were talking about me as if I was vermin. My throat hurt. It felt tight and sore, the lump was so big.
    Friedrich’s hostile eyes bore like knives right through me. I thought he might burst with hate.
    Gertrude’s husband watched me. I watched him back as he sat in the living room, on the hard chair near the window studying me. There was nothing he could do to me that was worse than being away from my family. He stared at his wife. His gaze flickered to Friedrich. He scratched his thin grey hair, then studied the faded carpet. Finally, he nodded.
    Friedrich stood near the window. He was trying hard not to cry. He fumbled with his fingers and chewed his nails. Strands of hair fell over his forehead like loose threads. What would Hitler say? he must have been thinking.
    His grandmother came over to him and patted his shoulder. ‘There, there, Friedrich, don’t cry. Deep down I know you are like my daughter. You don’t have a bad heart. It’s just the times and the way propaganda gets fed to you children. You will get used to Rachel. She will be like your sister.’
    Friedrich stiffened his shoulders and began to wail loudly.

Chapter Eleven
    I COULDN ’ T SPEAK anymore. The lump in my throat must have covered up my voice-box because not a sound would come out of me. It didn’t bother me much. It was the aloneness that frightened me. I began to dream that my voice, disembodied, had accompanied my family, and left me behind. My voice talked to them, but they only caught the ghost of sounds. ‘Where is Rachel?’ they were saying. ‘I can hear her speak, but I cannot make out the words.’
    Gertrude put her weathered palm across my forehead. ‘Not hot. You are not ill. Little bird, speak to me.’
    I can’t speak. Not until Papa says it’s all right. I once danced between the furniture. My mama once held me. My papa’s eyebrows once almost shook hands with each other. Miri once wrote poetry. My cousins once danced down the hall when the bombs hit outside Leipzig. Erich once played the violin.
    I shared Friedrich’s small room, which gave him something else to hate me for. His bedroom was plain. In a metal frame on a small sideboard was a picture of a man in uniform and a woman with long blonde hair.His parents, I supposed. He had a dark wooden wardrobe, thick curtains covering the window, a bed with a curved wooden frame and a small bookcase where books were neatly stacked.
    I looked at the wardrobe. A sudden warmth filled me. I once had a wardrobe.
    ‘This side of the wardrobe is yours. This side is mine. You own your sleeping space on those cushions Oma has put down for you, the bedding and that chair which I am giving to you, so you will not be untidy, because I like neatness. Each morning you will fold your bedding and put it on the chair and put the cushions back in the lounge room.’ His