Kristallnacht… it had been in the newspapers, but she’d only been fifteen at the time. She couldn’t remember exactly what it had all been about, and she felt a sudden rush of shame at her ignorance.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I don’t know—”
“The night of the broken glass. Jewish businesses were ransacked or destroyed by the Nazis. Jewish synagogues were burned. Jewish men were arrested. And for all of this the Jews were blamed and fined a billion marks.” He spoke flatly, matter-of-factly, yet, for the first time, Lily could hear the German accent he’d been trying so hard to hide. “My father was beaten to death in the office below our home.”
“Matthew…” Lily gulped in horror.
“My mother hid me. I was seventeen, and she was afraid I’d be taken to a concentration camp, like so many others. They were looking, asking for me.”
Lily’s mouth opened and closed. She couldn’t manage a word.
“I left the next day. I went to stay with my uncle in Munich, and when things calmed down—or seemed to—he arranged my visa and transport on a Spanish merchant ship to America, so I could start a new life. I knew English from school, and I took classes when I arrived. I didn’t want to be German any longer.”
“I’m so sorry.” Lily had no other words. Tears swam in her eyes and she blinked, causing them to spill down her cheeks. She felt as if she didn’t have the right to cry; Matthew looked stony.
“I joined the army in 1942, because I wanted to fight the Nazis. I’ve wanted nothing more. I’m no spy, Lily.”
“I know you aren’t,” she choked. “Of course not.”
“But you were right to be suspicious. I’m not… like Tom.”
“What do you mean?”
“I can’t say more than that. I was trained separately from him, and I have separate orders. But, trust me, I hate the Nazis more than you do.”
She stared at him—his fierce eyes, his hands clenched into fists at his side from the force of his emotion. “I believe you,” she said softly. “I believe it all.”
In retrospect, Lily couldn’t be sure what happened next. Did she step towards him, or did Matthew reach for her? It seemed to happen seamlessly, all at once, so that his arms were around her and his lips were on hers—her very first kiss.
She closed her eyes as she reveled in the moment—the hard press of his lips, like a seal, and his arms tight around her, as if he were fusing her to himself. She knew the kiss was goodbye, for however long. Maybe forever, and yet in that moment she was still filled with hope and even joy.
Someone nearby catcalled, and Matthew stepped away from her. “I’ll write to you,” he said. “And will you—”
“I’ll write to you.”
“Write—yes.” That crooked smile. “But also… will you wait?”
Wait? The enormity of his question felt like a wave crashing over her, pulling her under. Wait… for him? “Yes,” Lily said. “Yes.”
“Even though I’m Jewish?”
“I don’t care about that.”
“Your mother will.”
“I don’t care.” She spoke with fierce certainty, but Matthew didn’t look convinced.
“There will be time to talk of such things,” he said, but Lily wondered if there would be. “It’s getting late. Your mother will be worried.” He took her arm and led her down the steps to the station. There was no chance for them to say anything further as they moved with the crowds onto the noisy train.
In front of the little house on Holmside Road, Matthew kissed her again, brief and hard, and then he said goodbye. It happened so quickly, Lily felt as if she could have blinked and missed it; suddenly he was walking away from her, his head down, and she was tottering down the path to her front door, her head spinning. Everything had changed.
Five weeks later, Lily and Sophie woke up in the middle of the night to the loud, insistent drone of planes flying overhead, but strangely no air raid siren, making it seem silent, when it was anything but.
Heedless of the danger, Sophie ran to the window and undid the blackout curtains, throwing open the window to the balmy June night.
“Sophie,” Lily protested, although she knew it would do no good. Since the night she’d walked off with Tom and had only returned in mid-afternoon, she’d been like a different person, remote, preoccupied, as if she were already somewhere else, waiting for her real life to begin.
But then Lily felt as if she were somewhere else as well, her mind consumed by the letters that came from Matthew, two or three times a wee