Forget him. Move on. Live a normal life once more.

I’ll try, dearest Bertha. I’ll try.

*

Later, when everyone is asleep, I sit up in bed and switch on my reading lamp. Propped against my pillows, I pen a reply to Walter. I will pass it to Erna to send on. I can’t risk Ingrid, the snake, or anyone else reporting back to Vati that I’ve been spotted in the post office, sending letters to England.

My Darling,

I’m so very relieved you have arrived safely and that, although different and strange to start with, you have received a good welcome in England. I very much hope that you are able to live the life you deserve to live and that England stays free of the Nazi ideology.

I cannot begin to tell you how alone I am, now that you have gone. It’s as though my heart has been ripped from my chest. It made me smile when you mentioned the Hetty-shaped hole in your life. You should know that I am living with a Walter-shaped hole in mine. It is, of course, larger, given our relative sizes. I can hear you laughing at that.

Kuschi has been my main comfort, in all honesty, but Erna is also being a stalwart at propping me up and, now that you are gone, I’m allowed more freedom again. So, a return to the interminable BDM meetings and school. I can barely stand the BDM any more, but I have no choice but to go. So I will throw myself into schoolwork and hope that I can gain a good enough result in the Abitur to allow me to study abroad one day. I should still so much like to become a doctor.

I will speak with Erna’s family to see what, if anything, can be done to help your cousins make it to England. I must be careful to not raise suspicion because Vati hasn’t forgiven me.

If only there could have been a way that we could have left Germany together. But there wasn’t, and for this reason, even though it pains me so much to even write it, I know it will be best for you that I don’t stay in contact. I do not want to make trouble for you and your soon-to-be wife. I think of Vati and his secret lover and it’s quite unbearable what this would do to Mutti if she knew. I know you are honourable and good, and you would not want to mistreat your wife. You must start a new life with your Anna properly. I will never be ‘the other woman’.

I am not entirely sure that I will ever completely recover from all of this, but I will try.

Please know that I shall never stop thinking of you, ever.

All my love, now and forever,

Hetty.

31 December 1938

Champagne flutes clink; the purr of quiet conversation. Soft laughter. Background music on the gramophone – Bruckner, I think. Nothing inappropriate for a family still grieving their firstborn and gathered together to see in the New Year. Close family and friends only; comforting with the intimacy of their presence.