All the Broken Places

Arriving in London during Christmas in 1953, Gretel runs into the Queen (Queen Elizabeth II, who occupied the position from 1952 to 2022) on the train platform. They exchange pleasantries, but Gretel wonders how the Queen might have treated her if she had known her true identity.

Gretel gets a job at Harrods department store, takes a night class in payroll, and earns a promotion to Harrods’s payroll department. A colleague, Miss Aaronson, has a tattoo from the camps. Gretel is scared, but Aaronson tells her that people must see her tattoo and remember what happened. Her entire family died. Gretel goes home and cries.

One afternoon, Gretel has to track down a worker because he didn’t tell her he received an extra pound last week. She runs into Edgar, who’s looking for David Rotheram—an assistant manager whom the girls like. David appears, and Gretel introduces herself as Ms. Wilson. They flirt, and David asks her out for a beer. If he doesn’t, Edgar might. Gretel agrees, and she lets the worker keep the extra pound.

Gretel calls Eleanor to talk about Alex and his family, and Eleanor arrives with coffee and brownies. She tells Eleanor everything that’s already happened, and she illustrates what occurred this morning. She was at her mailbox when she heard Alex scream at Henry: If he wet the bed again, he’d throw Henry through the window. She heard a sound and then a scream. Later, she saw a red mark on Henry’s cheek.

Eleanor promises not to tell anyone but says they have to do something. Eleanor also kept her promise not to tell Caden about the psychiatric hospital.

David doesn’t talk politics or history—he’s “fun” and takes Gretel to plays, concerts, and comedy shows. They openly discuss sex, and Gretel likes having sex with him. He’s had more partners than her, and he encourages her to have sex with anyone who will consent, believing life is too short for “playing games.”

Edgar often tags along when they go out to bars. Edgar mentions an ex-girlfriend, Agatha, who didn’t want to have sex before marriage. Gretel calls Edgar a “dish.” She asks him if he likes anyone currently. He says she already has a boyfriend, and David encourages him to take her away from her boyfriend.

When David goes to the bathroom, Edgar says Agatha didn’t like David: She doesn’t like Jewish people. Edgar discusses his interest in history and the Holocaust, and he invites her to see a documentary about it. David returns, and Edgar tells him about the documentary. David wants to go, but he hasn’t told Gretel about that “part” of his life. Gretel can’t believe she didn’t know David was Jewish. She should have realized from his last name.

Gretel sees Henry reading in the Winterville Court garden. He’d rather hang out in Hyde Park, but he’s not allowed, and he doesn’t have friends to go with. Henry updates Gretel on his mother: She sleeps a lot, but he takes care of her. Gretel wonders who takes care of Henry.

Gretel asks Henry about his father, and Henry says that Alex calls Madelyn stupid and says she doesn’t listen and that she has to learn. Alex believes mothers can’t work: They have to stay home and not ask questions. Henry says that when Madelyn misbehaves, there are “consequences.” Gretel wonders what kind. She pulls up Henry’s sleeve and reveals a big bruise. Henry claims he fell.

Gretel doesn’t want to see the documentary, but David and Edgar do. World War II will become Edgar’s primary subject, and, in the future, he’ll publish a prize-winning three-volume history on the topic and become famous in academia.

The documentary covers the events leading up to World War II. It features Hitler’s “mesmeric speeches” and top Nazis. When it pivots to the Holocaust, Gretel grips her armrest, and Edgar asks her if she’s alright. The documentary shows the prisoners and the gas chambers, and David cries. It shows how Nazis tried to portray the camps as relaxing, benign places. Gretel remembers filmmakers coming to her camp, and in the documentary, she hears her father talking about the camp’s many amenities. The documentary then cuts to Gretel’s house and her family.

In the movie theater, Gretel hears an inhuman sound. The moviegoers look at her, and Gretel realizes she’s making the sound. She stumbles out of the theater and throws herself in front of a bus.

Eleanor thinks Gretel must tell the police about Alex. If something bad happened to them, she’d feel guilty. Eleanor doesn’t know about the guilt Gretel already possesses. She thinks about Kurt and how he told her his life was in her hands.

Eleanor and Gretel go to the Kensington Central Police Station. They tell Detective Kerr what Henry whispered in Gretel’s ear: If Henry or Madelyn told on him, he’d dump gasoline on them and set them on fire.

The detective asks for Gretel’s background, and she tells him she was born in Berlin, and he lifts an eyebrow. Kerr says his grandpa fought in the war as a part of England’s air force—he survived. Kerr asks about her family, but Eleanor intervenes—it’s irrelevant, and Kerr agrees. He realizes Edgar was Gretel’s husband, and Kerr has all of Edgar’s books. Eleanor leads Kerr back to Alex, and Kerr says he’ll talk to him and try not to bring up Gretel’s name.

The bus swerved and didn’t kill Gretel, but she’s in the hospital, and she has a broken ankle and ribs. Edgar and David take turns sitting with her, and Edgar is there when she wakes up. She tells Edgar the documentary “upset” her, but a witness claims Gretel intentionally threw herself in front of the bus. Gretel says that’s not true.

Edgar tells Gretel David’s story. He’s from former Czechoslovakia, and he and his grandparents left before the Nazis came, but his older sister just had her appendix removed, so her parents stayed with her. The Nazis sent them to the Treblinka concentration camp, where they died.

Oberon tells Heidi that she can’t come to Australia with him, and Heidi wonders who’ll look after her. She says Edgar and Gretel are kind, and Gretel reminds her that Edgar is dead, but Heidi keeps talking about him as if he’s alive, so Gretel doesn’t contest.

Gretel says neither she nor Heidi will let anyone displace them from Winterville Court, but Heidi says Oberon wants her to do a “home reversion”—she sells the flat to someone else and can stay in the flat till she dies, and Oberon can use some of the money to buy a home in Sydney. Gretel says home reversions are a scam. Heidi wants Gretel to talk to Edgar about it, as she believes men are better with money. Gretel disagrees, but she promises to speak to Edgar.

Before speaking with Heidi, Gretel noticed a gift outside her door. With Heidi gone, she removes the ribbon and bow and opens it. The gift is an academic history book, The Final Solution: Hitler’s Plan to Exterminate the Jews, featuring a picture of Gretel’s father. The phone rings—it’s Alex. He wants to make sure Gretel got his gift. He thought it’d spur “happy memories.”