The Whispers of War is coming to paperback in North America on September 22nd. To celebrate, I’m sharing with you an exclusive excerpt of the book—the moment that Britain enters WWII and three best friends, Marie, Hazel, and Nora realize just how dangerous life in London has become for Marie, a German expat, and her family.
She cleared her throat. “May I put the radio on?”
“Where is Henrik?” asked his father, folding the edge of his paper down to peer over the top of his spectacles.
Tante Matilda’s lips thinned again, so Marie knew her aunt had also heard her cousin fumble with the lock and stumble into the flat around two that morning.
Onkel Albrecht sighed. “I’ll wake our son. I cannot imagine anyone sleeping through this morning.”
Marie turned the dial of the large radio inside the polished walnut cabinet that stood in the corner of the room.
“Not too loud,” said her aunt immediately, as though that would somehow make the next few minutes better.
Dutifully, Marie turned the volume dial down just as the doorbell rang. She jumped, but Tante Matilda put her hand up. “Calm, calm, mein Liebchen. I will answer it.”
Marie sank down into a seat, her hands folded in her lap to keep them from trembling as the last prayers of the church service being broadcast finished. Just two minutes until the deadline.
The drawing room door swung open and a rumpled Henrik shuffled in. “You look terrible,” said Marie automatically.
He scowled at her. “Where’s Mutter?”
“She just went to answer the door,” said Marie, peering closer at him. “You almost slept through a war.”
“I wasn’t sleeping, I was just resting my eyes,” said Henrik, dramatically dropping onto the end of the sofa not occupied by his mother’s abandoned knitting.
“Marie,” called Tante Matilda, “your friends are here.”
Nora and Hazel burst into the room, their hats still perched on their heads although they’d shed their coats between the front door and the sitting room. Her aunt followed them, a pleasant smile fixed on her face.
Marie shot up out of her chair and hugged them each. “Oh, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“Miss Walcott, Mrs. Carey, it is always a pleasure to see you,” said Onkel Albrecht, switching to English out of courtesy to their guests.
“And you, Mr. Müller. I hope you don’t think us rude to come crashing in like this,” said Nora.
“Not at all,” said Onkel Albrecht. “We’re grateful you took care of Marie on Friday.”
“Nathaniel is with his mother this weekend, so I rang Nora up and told her that if there was one place we should be this morning, it’s with you,” said Hazel. “Luckily she was already halfway out the door to a cab, ready to come collect me and loop back around to Bloomsbury. I hope you don’t mind.”
“What happened on Friday?” asked Henrik.
“Nothing,” said Marie.
Her cousin narrowed his eyes, but Marie ignored him, not wanting to revisit the humiliation. It had not been the first time she’d felt anger directed at her because of her nationality. It was simply the first time her friends had seen it.
“Are you sure that—”
But Tante Matilda was cut off by Prime Minister Chamberlain’s voice crackling over the radio.
“‘I am speaking to you from the Cabinet Room of 10 Downing Street. This morning the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note, stating that unless we heard from them by eleven o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us.’”
Marie’s gaze swept around the room. Tante Matilda and Onkel Albrecht gripped each other’s hands, eyes fixed on the radio as though praying Chamberlain would take it all back. Nora wore a grim look of resignation, and Hazel—Hazel was actually tearing up. Only Henrik seemed to be unaffected by the prime minister’s words that held all their lives in the balance. He sat with a leg hitched up over the arm of the sofa, rumpled and unimpressed as a nineteenth-century fop.
“‘I have to tell you now,’” the prime minister’s broadcast continued, “‘that no such undertaking has been received and that, consequently, this country is at war with Germany.’ ”
A presenter came on then, but slowly Onkel Albrecht rose to switch off the radio, his hand hesitating over the dial before turning back around to face his wife.
“Mein Liebchen,” he started as tears began to roll down her face.
“You said it would not happen again,” Marie’s aunt said in German. “You said that if we moved here we would have a new life and no more war.”
“I don’t know. I don’t know what to say,” Onkel Albrecht murmured.
“Twenty-six years, Albrecht!” Tante Matilda’s voice rose. “Twenty-six! Now you know what’s going to happen to us. We’re enemies. They’ll send us away to those horrid camps they put people in like during the last war.”
Marie’s gaze cut over to her friends, both of whom stared dutifully at their hands, knowing they were witnessing a fight between husband and wife even if they couldn’t understand the language. She knew she should herd them off to her room or out of the house entirely, but she was rooted to the spot.
What will happen to me? Will I be allowed to stay? I don’t even know if I would recognize the house in Leopoldstrasse after all these years. What are we going to do?
Her breath came short and fast, and she pressed a hand to her chest over her frantically beating heart. This was Britain, a people of manners and honors and codes, yet the scars of the last war were deep. Everyone had sent their sons and brothers, husbands and cousins to fight, and so few of them returned. Marie saw the reminders every day. Veterans begging on the streets, some missing limbs or wearing half masks to hide the scars on their faces. The men who dropped their regiment casually into conversation to show they’d done their part for king and country. The furrowed brows as people calculated her age and realized that while she couldn’t possibly have been born before the last war, they still didn’t trust her.
“This wasn’t supposed to happen,” her uncle muttered again.
Henrik slammed his first down on the rolled arm of the sofa with a thud. “Who cares if Hitler runs the entire German army over Poland’s borders?”
“Henrik,” his father said sharply.
“I’m going to my club,” Henrik spat in German.
“To do what?” Marie asked.
“What do you think?”
Her aunt and uncle fighting. Henrik determined to get blotto. It was though the declaration of war had ripped open a seam, and her family was coming undone.
The unmistakable, high-pitched wail of an air raid siren cut across London.
“Oh god,” Hazel murmured, wide-eyed.
“Is it real?” Tante Matilda asked through her tears. But it was very real. They were at war.
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