When the World Was Ours by Liz Kessler

Author:Liz Kessler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon & Schuster UK
Published: 2021-01-21T00:00:00+00:00

ELSA

I’m in bed, fast asleep, when I hear noises downstairs.

I sit up and rub my eyes. Doors slamming. Raised voices. Something that sounds like furniture being thrown around.

Are Mutti and Vati having an argument?

The idea is ridiculous. I have never in my life heard my parents argue. At the absolute most, they have maybe disagreed over minor decisions in quiet voices. They would never argue like this.

Otto appears at my door. His face is white.

‘What’s going on?’ I ask him as I push the covers off and get out of bed.

‘Soldiers,’ he says simply.

‘In our home?’

He nods, then puts a finger over his lips and together we creep out of my bedroom and across the landing to the top of the stairs where we can listen without being seen.

‘You can’t just go around trashing my home like this!’ Vati is shouting at someone.

A voice I don’t recognize – I guess one of the soldiers – replies, ‘That’s what I am telling you. This is no longer your home.’

I look at Otto. ‘Not our home?’ I whisper. What does that mean? Of course it’s our home.

‘I’m going downstairs. I need to know what’s going on. Come on,’ Otto says.

But I’m nowhere near as brave as Otto and the last thing I want to do is talk to the soldiers who have said this is not our home any more. Or maybe that’s the second to last thing I want to do. The last thing I want is to be left on my own. So I meekly follow Otto down the stairs, doing my best to hide behind him as he strides into the kitchen.

‘Mutti, Vati, what’s going on?’ Otto asks.

Mutti rushes towards us. ‘Go back upstairs, darling,’ she urges. ‘Nothing’s going on.’

But Vati holds an arm out to stop her. ‘They need to know, Stella,’ he says. ‘There’s no point in pretending it’s not happening.’

One of the soldiers wags a finger at Vati. ‘See,’ he says, turning to the other two soldiers and laughing. ‘At least one of these stupid Jews has finally understood what’s going on.’

‘Vati?’ I ask.

He crouches down and talks quietly. ‘We have to leave,’ he says.

‘Leave where?’ I ask. ‘Our home? Prague? Czechoslovakia?’

‘Just our home,’ Vati says.

‘For now,’ one of the soldiers says with a laugh, and the three of them guffaw.

I can see Otto’s jaw tightening and his fist curling into a ball. I reach out for his hand.

‘We have to live somewhere else for a while,’ Mutti says, coming over to join us. She takes my other hand. ‘We’ll all be together, like we promised. We just have to move to a different house.’

‘Why can’t we stay in this one?’ I ask. My voice comes out in much more of a whine than I want it to. ‘This is our home.’

‘Not any longer it isn’t,’ one of the soldiers replies. ‘You Jews don’t get to own a home any more. It’s your own fault for choosing to live somewhere so nice. Much too nice for a family of Jews.

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