The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  ‘One of the perks,’ Agnes said. ‘With certain women. Chosen women.’

  It must have happened early on, that first night even. ‘No wire for you,’ she said. ‘They’ve got other plans.’ ‘What do you mean?’ Agnes laughed. ‘Just wait.’

  A worm within, an invasion. Dora eyed Nurse Hoffmann’s curette, but wasn’t sure she could use it on herself, even though she felt dead to the child. Perhaps that would be enough to kill it. Willpower alone.

  Nurse Hoffmann made sure Dora had extra milk.

  Jewish. If only they knew, Dora thought, with their spurious science. You have to laugh. Only that would be too dangerous. Laugh inside. She could tell no one, not even Collette. Every evening she sweated, nerves tight as a drum. It would be so easy to let something slip.

  Yet her guard was down so often with List now. He took his time, had become easy with her, and Dora wondered whether he’d grown to like her, even to love her a little, despite himself. He talked with her, took to staying the night, curled by her side, hand on her belly. Dora was comforted in those times, when she could lie in a soft bed with clean sheets, listening as his breath grew slow and deep, feeling his limbs grow heavy and relaxed. He made life bearable.

  Then he kissed her once again. A soft pucker on her sleeping eyelids, the tip of her nose, his lips resting on hers, as if to say, May I enter? A kiss was intimate. A kiss touched her inner fibre, joined her body to its spirit. She had little left of herself to give or withhold. A kiss was private, was freely offered. Don’t let them kiss you, Collette once said. They think they own you then.

  He didn’t force her, no bulbous muscle rummaging in her mouth, just a tender touch, lip to lip, and despite herself, Dora opened her mouth and there was the tip of his tongue and that was all.

  He had vision, schemes. What young man didn’t? Perhaps, after the war, if the Germans won, he’d realise them. What would she be doing? Would he come for her, make a case to free her, let this one go? Did he wonder if they would be together when this was all over? In the house he designed for her? Dora’s house.

  He was a professional, a perfectionist, and she admired that in him. Everyone was caught up in this war. He was only doing his job. You couldn’t blame him for that. He didn’t send her to the brothel. He was, after all, a man. Not a monster, not like Knackfuss or Zepernick. She began to think about his visits, almost to look forward to them. He wasn’t a bad man, she knew. Something had turned him. Ambition. Signed up with the Nazis to get the better commissions. Who could blame him? She couldn’t believe he shared their attitudes to the Jews, turned a blind eye to the Nazis’ worst excesses. If he discovered she was a Jew, he’d protect her. Plenty of Germans disagreed with the Nazis, after all. Why would an SS officer be different?

  She began to like his smile, the fine lines round his pale grey eyes, along the contours of his mouth.

  She ran her finger along his cheeks, traced the form of his nose and lips.

  He took her hand and rubbed it against his chin. ‘Perhaps you could shave me?’

  ‘I don’t know how. I’d be scared I’d cut you.’

  He leaned over, his mouth close to hers. ‘Shave me. My razor is in the bathroom.’

  Dora had watched Vati shave from when she was a little girl, standing by the basin in the bathroom as he pulled his face this way and that. ‘It’s not hard, Doralein,’ he’d said. ‘Thirty-degree angle, down, up.’

  It had been one of the most private moments of the day, just she and Vati. They had their best talks then, shared their deepest secrets.

  ‘Go on,’ List said. ‘There’s plenty of hot water. Soap.’ He smiled.

  Dora picked up the facecloth and ran it under the hot tap so it steamed. She returned, laid it on his face. Fetched the soap, and the blade, tying the strap to the bedpost as she prepared to strop it.

  ‘You’ve done this before,’ List said, his voice muffled by the steaming flannel.

  ‘I used to watch my father,’ Dora said. ‘But I’ve never shaved anyone.’

  He pulled her close. ‘It is one of the most intimate things you can do for a man,’ he said. ‘Despite my better judgement, this is what I want from you.’

  She rubbed the soap onto his face, lathering it with her fingers. The soap the women had to use was made from lye and scoured the skin. But this was soft and fragrant, tender as foam in her hand. She felt its balm anoint her own skin, its goodness seep through as she massaged it into his cheek with gentle circular movements.

  She took the knife and laid it flat against his skin, pulling it back at an angle, stretching the skin as she remembered her father doing and running the blade down his cheek. Her hand was shaking, so she held the shaft tight. Keep steady.

  ‘You could kill me,’ he said.

  ‘Then I’d die too,’ Dora said. They’d execute her, for sure.

  ‘But would you die inside?’ He took her hand and pushed it against her chest. ‘What do you feel there, in your heart? Do you see a monster, or a dutiful man?’

  ‘Not a monster,’ she said, after a moment.

  ‘Don’t you want to kill me?’

  She shook her head. ‘No.’ Her voice was soft. ‘No. I want you to live.’ This man who shielded her from the other men when he visited. And frightened her. Could danger be enchanting? Did she thrill to that? Did that make his love elusive, enticing? Exotic, even?

  He smiled. ‘Carry on.’ He shut his eyes as Dora scraped, lifting his face, left, right, up, down, before patting it dry. He rubbed his hand around his chin. ‘You have just been promoted,’ he said. ‘Barber to the Kommandant.’

  He took her hand and led her to the bed. ‘Make love to me,’ he said. ‘As if you care.’

  Dora smelled the scent of the soap, the delicate, freshness of violets.

  Afterwards, they lay together in bed. He watched her, stroking her skin with his fingertips.

  ‘Why don’t you sing me a Swedish song?’ he said.

  She felt the blood drain from her body, rush to her head. This was it. He had been tricking her, waiting to catch her off guard.

  ‘I don’t know any,’ she said.

  ‘No? I heard the Swedes were great singers.’

  ‘Not me,’ Dora said, adding, ‘I’m afraid.’ Adding, again, ‘You sang a song once. Something like ‘Liebchen, ade.’ Will you teach it to me?’

  He smiled at her. ‘You heard me sing that?’

  ‘In the bathroom,’ she said. ‘I thought it sounded pretty. Far prettier than any song I know. Please sing it to me. You have a good voice.’ She meant it too, she realised.

  ‘If I teach you the song, will you teach me Swedish?’

  Dora swallowed hard. Now she would be caught out. Why did he want to learn Swedish? Nobody spoke Swedish.

  ‘But you are German,’ she said. ‘The most powerful country in Europe. We must all learn German.’ She warmed to her theme. ‘Swedish will be forgotten.’

  Vati had gone to a medical conference in Stockholm once. He learned how to say hello, thank you, goodbye, and Dora practised the words. She was five years old. It was their private code, their special way of saying goodnight, just she and Vati. Hej då, Sverige. Arms round his neck and his moustache tickling her chin. Hej då, Tyskland. Here Vati was, protecting her now, even from the grave. And here she was, sharing those words with a German.

  ‘Hej då, Sverige,’ she said, raising her arm in the air. ‘Swedish,’ she added.

  ‘How do I know you’re not insulting me?’ he said. ‘Or Herr Hitler?’

  ‘Because,’ she had become cunning, ‘you like me, so why would I insult you?’

  ‘So what did those words mean?’

  ‘Goodbye, Sweden. I believe you would say, auf wiedersehen.’

  He laughed. ‘You learn well,’ he said. ‘Do you like me, Dorachen?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said. She couldn’t imagine anything else now. ‘Do you like me?’ Love me, even?

  He pushed himself off the bed and walked to the bathroom. She he
ard him wash, watched as he came out and strode towards her. He grabbed her arm and with his free hand smacked her across the cheek. She breathed hard, feeling the smart as the blood rushed to the blow.

  ‘What am I doing here? With you?’

  He yanked her onto her stomach and forced himself into her from the rear, a sharp thrust that made her scream in pain. She lay silent on the bed, quivering, fearful. She felt his hands grip her shoulders and he flipped her on her back.

  His eyes were glacier-pale in the half-light. ‘You made me do this,’ he said. He snatched his clothes from the chair, pulled up his underpants, shook the trousers before he threaded his legs through them. ‘Help me dress.’

  She felt faint, feeble, her skin clammy. Shock. She knew the symptoms.

  ‘Now.’

  She crawled to the edge of the bed, stretched her feet onto the floor. Her legs buckled and she fell back on the bed, her breath in short, anxious starts. A log fell in the grate and the sparks snapped too loud. She had been unprepared for this, lulled by his manner.

  She heard his steps on the floor, felt his presence before her, his finger on her chin as he lifted her face.

  ‘Did I hurt you?’ he said, his voice quiet and calm once more.

  Dora nodded. It wasn’t the physical pain, though that was bad enough. It was her own stupidity, her naivety, to think he cared.

  ‘I’m not a brute,’ he said. ‘But I like order. Things in their place.’

  He turned, pulled on his shirt, grabbed his jacket and cap, his gloves and boots, and left.

  She was summoned the next morning. Agnes pulled her out of the workshop.

  ‘Hoffmann wants to see you.’ She’d made a toothpick from a feather stub, was digging at her gums. ‘Now.’

  Dora laid the webbing flat, walked up to the Revier, knocked on the door of Hoffmann’s office. Maximilian List was sitting at the desk, his cap on the table, his gloves, flattened and smoothed, next to it. Hoffmann stood beside him. Dora shut the door behind her, leant back for support. This was it. He was ordering her to leave, would send her to Germany.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ he said.

  ‘Tell you what?’

  ‘That you’re pregnant.’

  Dora looked at the nurse, but Hoffmann’s face was hard and impassive. ‘I wasn’t sure if you should know,’ Dora said.

  ‘Of course I should know.’ He smiled. ‘This is wonderful news.’ He stood up, walked towards her, flattened his hand over her belly and the coarse linen shift that draped it.

  ‘I can feel the baby move. You should be proud,’ he said. ‘Are you? Are you happy?’

  I am a prisoner, she wanted to say. You brutalised me. Rejected me. How can that make me happy?

  ‘Remove her from the brothel. Forthwith.’ He was addressing Hoffmann, a rebuke. Dora understood that tone.

  Collette died two days before Christmas.

  ‘Du und du.’ The soldier pointed to two women, his breath unfurling, frosty and cloudy against the night sky. ‘Holen Sie das Stück.’ Get the piece. Collette wasn’t even a body, had no dignity, even in death. She was a piece, a bit. Dora’s eyes welled up and the tears overflowed down her cheeks.

  There was a Christmas tree in the centre of the hallway, a lanky pine that reached to the ceiling and shed needles that worked their way into the women’s feet. They always had a tree, she and her father, in that comfortable flat in Charlottenburg. The housekeeper, Anni, insisted on buying it each year, decorating it with candles. So what, Doralein, he’d say. Let her have it. We’re Germans, after all. Now, it was mocking home with its remembrance, its scents.

  She’d only known Collette a few months, but she felt her death as keenly as she had her father’s. It was ten years since he had died. December, 1933. Six months since her capture. It felt like time had reversed, that her father was alive yesterday, that this prison had enclosed her for a decade.

  That evening, Maximilian List called for her. There was a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket. He poured her a glass.

  ‘I have been thinking,’ he said, handing her the glass. ‘I was too hard on you.’

  Was this a trick? Would the nurse burst into the room, see her with the drink, charge her with impertinence, or theft?

  ‘At another time,’ he went on, ‘you would be my mistress.’

  Was he lulling her again, or wooing her?

  ‘Drink,’ he said. ‘It’s good. Moët and Chandon. A vintage year.’ He lifted his glass. ‘To victory,’ he said and linked his arm through hers as they sipped and the bubbles burst on their open mouths, sharp and close to.

  ‘Victory,’ she repeated. But for the Allies, not for you. Was she being disloyal? What would happen if the Allies won? Would she try and save him?

  ‘I’ve been thinking too,’ he went on, taking her hand and leading her to the sofa. There was a fire burning in the grate, homely logs that cast a warm, flickering light across his face. He placed his hand on her stomach, laid his head against her breasts. ‘Perhaps I should take you to Alderney.’

  ‘Alderney? Away from here?’

  He nodded. ‘Have you for myself. Would you like that?’ He cupped her chin in his hand, searching her eyes for an answer.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. To be free of here, of its stench and pain, of the daily toil.

  ‘I designed the residence myself.’

  Was he planning on making her his housekeeper? Das Dora Haus. Why else would he tell her that? She’d learn to trust him again. She’d like that. Sitting together in the evening light. And when the baby was born, the three of them, together. She’d learn to love this baby.

  ‘I forget the war when I am with you,’ he was saying. ‘You give me strength. If you were by my side every night, I could achieve so much. Are you enjoying this?’ He nodded towards the champagne, reaching for a small package from the table. He gave it to her. ‘Open it.’

  She undid the ribbon, spread the wrapping paper. He had used the portrait he had drawn of her. Inside was a smaller packet, covered in waxed paper.

  ‘Please use it when I visit,’ he said. ‘Sweet violet. Soft on your skin. We can imagine we are lovers and you will remember me by the scent.’

  Savon de Violette. She pressed it against her nose, breathed in the flowery aroma, fingered the soft wax, the powdery crumbs.

  ‘Frohe Weihnachten,’ he said. ‘Happy Christmas.’

  She cried. Soft on your skin. He had noticed. Cared.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  JOE

  Jersey: June 1985

  Joe couldn’t get the image of Trude out of his mind. It was a solemn likeness, an official mugshot, the sort you have for a passport. Unsmiling, face-on, stiff-necked. Joe sat in his caravan all afternoon, tried to distract himself. He made the bed, cleaned the kettle, repaired the faulty window catch. But the photograph sat like a magnet, drawing him back. Trude. Did he feel for her now? Well, for sure, but not the way Geoffrey still had feelings for Dora.

  At teatime, he went over to the house to make dinner. There was bacon, eggs, tomatoes in the pantry, a tin of mini frankfurters left over from Christmas, some Co-op baked beans and a bit of black pudding. Cold potatoes from yesterday. He lifted the old cast-iron frying pan onto the Aga, melted the lard, flicked the sausages and bacon over as they hissed and spat.

  Ate in silence, dipping bread and butter into the yolk of the egg, knife squeaking on the plate as he sliced into the bacon, wiping the tomato juice from his mouth with the back of his hand.

  He looked up: Geoffrey was studying him.

  ‘Would you mind telling me what’s going on,’ he said. ‘Have you bankrupted us?’

  ‘No.’ Joe looked up. ‘Why do you say that?’

  ‘Because,’ Geoffrey was smiling, ‘I’ve never seen you so distracted. Have you seen a ghost?’

  Joe stood up and filled the kettle for their tea. ‘Perhaps,’ he said.

  ‘And would it have anything to do with the letter you received today?’

  �
�How did you know I had a letter?’

  Geoffrey laughed. ‘The postman told me. Said it was from England. Said the sender had a German name and he wondered what you were doing, corresponding.’

  Joe poured the water into the teapot. ‘It’s none of his business.’

  ‘He’s curious. You’ve lived like a hermit for forty years and suddenly have a penfriend. That’s how he sees it. Thinks you have a fancy woman.’

  ‘Why does he think it’s a German?’

  ‘Hummel. He said that’s a German name.’

  ‘Does he now,’ Joe said.

  Was it a coincidence that the same woman had images of both Dora and Trude? My mother had some connection with Jersey. Perhaps her mother wasn’t English. Perhaps she was German. Joe had taken Barbara Hummel in good faith. But now she’d shown him Trude’s photo too, he wasn’t sure who she was, or what she was after. How could he break that to Geoffrey after all he’d been through?

  Geoffrey had poured out his heart to Joe. Joe should come clean with him. He owed it to him, after all these years, to confess his part, hard though it was. He poured the tea, sat with his elbows on the table, spooning in the sugar and stirring his mug.

  ‘I have something to tell you,’ he began. ‘About the day the Feldpolitzei arrested you, in the war.’

  He stared at the tea eddying in the mug, brown rings and froth.

  ‘You see,’ Joe took a deep breath and went on. ‘It was me who led them to you.’

  Joe paused, watched as Geoffrey raised his head and looked at him. ‘You?’

  ‘I didn’t mean to,’ Joe said. ‘But there was this German nurse, you see.’

  He lifted out the spoon and it fell with a clatter on the plate.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, picking it up and laying it down silently. ‘I don’t know how to say this, but I had an intimate relationship with her. Yes.’ Say it how it was, that’s what they called it in the papers. No time now for euphemisms. ‘And in the course of that I led her to the field with the dell, where I watch the birds.’

  ‘You?’ Geoffrey said again.

  ‘It was me who led her to the farm.’