Page 29 of The Banned Books of Berlin

Los Angeles, November 2024

It was the best Thanksgiving Maddie could remember. Daniel and Eva came to dinner and of course Ben was there, too, along with his housemates, Josh and Ethan. Steve had been invited but preferred to stay at home, which was fine. Ethan helped Sharon in the kitchen, mashing potatoes and making cranberry sauce, while Ben and Josh played video games in the family room. Sharon had pulled out all the stops in terms of decorations and the dining table groaned with so many pumpkins, china turkeys, candles and dried leaves, there was hardly room for the plates and cutlery. This year, she had added bright-green candles in the shape of asparagus stalks and silver-plated candlesticks and napkin rings; the discovery of an English grandmother seemed to have gone to her head. She was messaging Felicity Covington-Chambers almost every day, from what Maddie could make out, and plans were already being hatched for them all to visit Beechwood Grange in the spring – including Eva.

‘Well, my father should see where he was born,’ Sharon said. ‘Do you think they still have servants at the Grange?’

‘They’d be called staff now, Mom,’ Maddie replied, ‘and I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Felicity’s very down-to-earth – she’s not like a character from Downton Abbey .’

Still, at least finding out about her British heritage distracted Sharon from interrogating Maddie about Daniel. Word had soon leaked that they were a couple, since Eva had guessed what was going on and told Gramps, so Maddie had to tell her mother before he did.

‘I’m happy for you,’ Sharon said, hugging her. ‘He’s such a lovely boy, not your usual type at all. Looks like you’ve finally picked a good one.’

Ben was pleased, too. He was in a good place: life in the shared house seemed to be working out as well as anyone could have dared to expect. He had been a little homesick at first, but Sharon visited several times a week and he became more settled as the days went by.

‘We’re getting on so much better,’ Sharon told Maddie. ‘We were suffocating each other before, and now it feels like we can breathe again.’

She was volunteering regularly with the local Down syndrome association, and loved it. ‘I’m actually making a difference,’ she said. ‘If only I would have reached out for help all those years ago, when Ben was born and I was groping around in the dark. Honestly, Maddie, this is what I was born to do.’

So this year they had a lot to be thankful for, all things considered. The turkey hadn’t dried out, the new bread stuffing recipe was a success and the pumpkin roll was as delicious as ever; Ben had three helpings. When they had finally finished eating, Gramps tapped a knife against his glass and got to his feet. He was wearing a new burgundy velvet smoking jacket with a yellow bow tie and looked blooming.

‘Well, here we are once again,’ he began, almost shyly. ‘I want to thank you all just for being yourselves, my dear family and friends. This has been one of the most remarkable years of my life, and who knows how many more I’ll be granted. As you know, I’ve spent some time putting things in place for my departure—’ And here he broke off to say, ‘Sorry, Daniel. I’m not going to dwell on the D word,’ before clearing his throat and adding, ‘But now I’m going to focus on the future, and making the most of every precious day.’

He turned to Eva, who’d been sitting beside him, and his eyes softened. Maddie’s heart contracted, and Daniel took her hand underneath the table and squeezed it. They could sense what was coming.

‘This morning, I asked this wonderful woman to marry me,’ Gramps went on, ‘and I’m delighted to say she agreed. It may seem a sudden proposal but at our age, it doesn’t pay to hang around.’

Eva got up too, and they kissed, and then everyone around the table clapped, whistled and cheered, and Daniel went to open two bottles of champagne that had magically appeared from nowhere.

‘Did you know this was happening?’ Maddie asked him.

‘Grandma told me this morning,’ he answered, grinning. ‘She was so excited, but she made me promise not to spoil the surprise. Apparently your grandad wanted to take her to Europe as his wife, rather than his mistress. He thinks that wouldn’t have been respectable. They’re going to visit his father’s grave in France after they’ve been to Beechwood Grange.’

Everyone sat around the table for hours, talking about weddings and honeymoons and English stately homes. Maddie went to the kitchen to brew some coffee and Gramps followed her.

‘Will you come outside for a moment, Madeleine?’ he asked mysteriously. ‘There’s something I’d like to show you.’

They walked into the yard and she sat beside him on the bench.

‘Such wonderful news, Gramps,’ she said. ‘I’m so happy for you both. Eva’s just lovely.’

‘What about a double wedding, then?’ he asked.

She laughed and shook her head. ‘Daniel and I are taking things slowly. And to be honest, I’m not sure I ever want to get married. Not after what happened before.’

‘Maybe if we decide to have children,’ Daniel had said the other day. So actually, not that slowly. She was crazy about him and the feeling seemed to be mutual.

Gramps took an envelope from his pocket. ‘This is what I wanted to show you. Felicity sent it to me, unopened. It’s a letter my mother wrote for me – my English mother, not my German one – shortly before she died. If it wasn’t for you, I probably would never have read it. I showed it to Sharon earlier today but you should see it too. Is there enough light?’ It was growing dark.

Maddie switched on her phone’s flashlight and unfolded the paper, soft with age.

My dear Bobby, the letter began …

I should have written this note months ago and given it to Freya to keep until you are old enough, but I didn’t think of that so here we are. I could send this letter to her in America, I suppose, although to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure whether she would pass it on. In spite of everything we’ve been through, I’m not sure we entirely trust each other, even now. Isn’t that odd? So instead, I’ve told my family to give you this letter if you ever come looking for me.

Anyway, I just wanted to let you know that giving you up has been the hardest thing I have ever done. I could only go through with it because there isn’t a better person in the world to take care of you than Freya Amsel – sorry, Freya Cole. She is capable of great love and will tell you all about your father, Leon, whom we both adored. I couldn’t marry him for various reasons, mainly to do with the war, so I was glad he married her, rather than a complete stranger. I think they made a go of things and I’m sorry for her sake that he and I fell in love all over again in France. Although, am I? The most wonderful thing to come out of our affair was you, darling Bobby: my hope for the future. I believe you will make Freya happy too.

I don’t like talking about my feelings but needs must, so here goes. I love you with my whole heart, dear little Robert: the most passionate and selfless love that I never imagined was in me. I haven’t let Nanny bath you once – much to her fury – and for the first six months I took you out of your cot in the nursery at night and smuggled you into bed with me, which was heavenly. I don’t particularly mind about dying but I do mind not seeing you grow up, find a nice girl (or boy, if you’re that way inclined – it’s all the same to me) and perhaps have children of your own. That’s bloody awful, if you’ll excuse the language. But the doctors have told me that my time’s running out and sadly they seem to be right.

I’ve left Freya some money in my will to put towards your education and I’m sure she’ll make good use of it. She’s very conscientious, as you probably know by now. By the way, if she ever starts droning on about something that made her leave Berlin in a hurry, don’t pay any attention and tell her to buck up. That’s all in the past and she needs to look ahead.

Now I’m getting tired and there’s nothing more to say. I hope you do read this letter one day, Bobby, and that you’ll come back to Beechwood and see the place where you were born and lived for a couple of years. Don’t be sad about Nigel inheriting the house – there’s dry rot in the attic and it needs a new roof. Much better to grow up without that millstone around your neck!

Good luck, dear boy, and try to be happy,

Your loving mother

Violet Framley-Chambers

Maddie didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. ‘I’d say both your mothers are pretty awesome,’ she told Gramps, putting the letter back in its envelope and passing it to him. ‘No wonder you turned out well.’

‘You’re right there,’ he said. ‘About the awesome mothers, that is. Violet sounds quite the character – wish I could have known her.’

‘But you did know her,’ Maddie said. ‘And she knew you, like no one else.’

They sat for a while in silence, and then Gramps said, ‘What do you think she meant about Freya having to leave Berlin in a hurry? Mom never mentioned anything about that to me.’

‘I guess we’ll never know,’ Maddie replied.

In fact, though, she had a good idea. She had read Freya’s collection, Underground Whispers , so many times that she practically knew the stories by heart. One of the most powerful concerned a young girl who had killed the man who was about to rape her, a Nazi stormtrooper; she stabbed him with a kitchen knife and loaded his body into a packing crate, bound for the hold of a cargo ship. Coincidentally, Eva had mentioned that she’d been researching what had happened to the members of the Amsel household. The maid, Hedwig Müller, had married Ernst Amsel in 1934, but the lodger, Walther Grube, had met a grisly end. A short newspaper report revealed that his body had been discovered one day in 1936, packed inside a trunk washed up on the bank of the River Spree. He had been identified by his dental records.

‘It doesn’t matter now, anyway.’ Maddie reached out a hand to help her grandfather up. ‘We need to look ahead, like Violet said, and there are plenty of exciting things on the horizon. Daniel’s going to ask how you’d feel about submitting Freya’s stories for publication. A friend of his is an editor at one of the top publishing houses and she wants to look at them, if you agree.’

‘Sure,’ Gramps said. ‘The more people who get to read them, the better. Are you disappointed not to be related to Freya by blood? From the writing perspective, I mean.’

Maddie shook her head. ‘We’ve all inherited so much from her. Look at what she taught you: to be loving and steadfast, not to turn away from difficult things but to embrace life’s challenges and make the best of them. You passed those lessons on to Mom, and she’s handed them down to Ben and me. I lost my way for a while but now I’m back on track.’

‘And how’s the book going?’ Gramps asked.

‘I’ve started a new idea,’ Maddie replied, ‘one that’s closer to home. I’ll tell you more about it when I’m a little further along.’

She’d been writing a novel about a woman taking revenge on an internet troll but progress had been slow and she didn’t actually like any of the characters she’d invented. ‘It all seems so trivial,’ she’d said to Daniel. ‘I mean, compared to what Violet and Freya went through.’

‘Then why don’t you write about them?’ he’d suggested.

‘Do you think I should?’ she’d said. ‘Maybe their stories aren’t mine to tell.’

‘Well, no one else is going to, and I can’t think of anyone better qualified.’ He’d kissed her forehead. ‘Do your research and trust your imagination and your great-grandmothers will be delighted.’

And so Maddie had started writing about a young woman who adopts a child in a country that is still new to her, and through loving and caring for him, begins to recover from the trauma of her past. It was hard work, dreaming up something out of nothing, and sometimes she doubted whether she could – or should – continue. Reading her story back, though, it seemed the most authentic, interesting work she had ever produced. She pictured Freya leaning over her shoulder and urging her on.

Now she and Gramps walked back to the house to find Sharon waiting for them in the open doorway.

‘Have you read the letter?’ she asked, and Maddie nodded.

‘You know, it is kind of exciting, discovering I have English relatives who live in a huge country house,’ her mother went on, ‘but actually, Dad, I’m so happy Freya brought you back to America. I wouldn’t change a thing about my life. Everything that’s happened has brought me to where I am now, and that’s a pretty good place.’

‘Same here,’ Maddie said, smiling. ‘We’re lucky, aren’t we?’

Gramps put an arm around each of them. ‘We sure are. In fact, I’d say we’ve won the lottery.’