Geoffrey sat there shaking his head.
‘I’ve never had the courage to tell you, see,’ Joe said. ‘I was a coward. I thought if I stay here I can make amends. Atone. It was a terrible sin, what I did. And there’s no excusing.’ Joe stood up, pushed back his chair so the legs grated on the flagstone floor. ‘I can pack my bags now, if that’s what you’re wanting. I quite understand.’
He picked up his mug and walked towards the door.
‘I’ll be in the van.’
Joe stepped out into the evening, with a light head. He should have confessed forty years ago. He was a weak man, that was for sure. Feeble. Faint-hearted, a moral slouch. A charlatan. Oh, he had guilt, by the shedload. But what was guilt, without true remorse? Without penance? An indulgence, that was all. An affectation. All breast-beating and mea culpas. Empty, selfish gestures.
He let himself into the caravan, turned on the lamp, kicked off his shoes. He’d be out of a home now, of course, but he could throw himself at the mercy of the Little Sisters, if needs be. He sat on the window seat that doubled as his bed and looked across the yard at the kitchen. The light was on and he hadn’t cleared away the tea things. He watched as Geoffrey pushed himself up, held the table for support, lifted a plate and took it to the sink. No, he couldn’t just walk out, like that, after all these years. Geoffrey needed help.
Joe put his shoes back on, crossed the yard and opened the door.
‘I can leave in the morning,’ he said. ‘We–’ He corrected himself, ‘You can hire a nurse.’
‘Stop being so daft,’ Geoffrey said, sitting down, indicating to Joe that he sat too, his arthritic hands trembling on the back of the chair. ‘And that’s the end of it.’
Joe wasn’t sure he should sit, but he also knew that he could no sooner leave Geoffrey now than run a four-minute mile.
‘I’ve been thinking about what you said.’
It was a few evenings later, after supper. Geoffrey was sitting by the stove, on his usual chair. The varnish on its arms had long worn off, and the bare wood was polished with age. The kitchen faced north and was always cool, but the Aga gave out a gentle warmth which they were always grateful for, even in the summer.
Joe looked up.
‘It made no sense. You’re too hard on yourself.’
‘For what?’
Joe heard Geoffrey take a breath, pause before he spoke. ‘For what happened to Dora and me.’
Joe folded the newspaper he had been reading. They had talked more about the war of late. It had something to do with that Hummel woman, churning up old memories. Something also, Joe thought, to do with a reckoning, now their span was nearly up.
‘Why do you think that?’ Joe played for time. He hadn’t meant to betray them, but that was little consolation. His sin had had consequences.
‘Because the light reflected off your field glasses,’ Geoffrey said. ‘In the top field. And I thought to myself, he’s there, watching. He’s seen everything.’
Joe opened his mouth, lost for words. He had no idea he’d been spotted, could be spotted. Geoffrey had known all along that it was Joe. Had never said a word, for these past years. His voice was gentle. Had he forgiven Joe? How could he? Joe wasn’t sure how to answer him. This was such an intimate thing to say.
‘I couldn’t bring myself to say anything to you,’ Joe said. Be frank, after all this time. ‘I was too full of shame. Guilt.’
A coward, two and three times over.
‘Why?’ Geoffrey said. ‘You had nothing to do with it. You couldn’t have stopped it.’
Well no, Joe thought, maybe not from the field, not as he watched it all unfold. But before, there was plenty of time. If he’d never fallen in love, if he’d never broken his vows, none of it would have happened.
‘But don’t you see?’ Joe said. ‘I had–’ he hesitated. Tell the truth. Get it off your chest. ‘Trude. I shouldn’t have, I know. I was a priest.’ He looked at Geoffrey, but Geoffrey sat, impassive. ‘She was a German,’ Joe went on. ‘Don’t you understand? With the German army. Not like your nurse, with the British. I took her with me, birdwatching. In your field. I’m sorry. Had I realised–’ he paused, swallowed. ‘She knew.’
Geoffrey laughed. ‘But how would she know, unless she had been spying on me for months?’
‘Well, you see,’ Joe said, ‘I think now that’s just what she did. I think she went there at night, spied on you. She’d hoodwinked me. Tempted me. She was a Jezebel, for sure. And I gave her Naboth.’
Why blame someone else? He alone was responsible.
‘I fell for her womanly wiles,’ Joe said. ‘I was as guilty and as gullible as Ahab. Or Adam.’
‘No, Joe,’ Geoffrey said. ‘More likely one of the men we helped was caught, and talked. Or was a spy. They knew exactly where to come.’
Pierre had hinted, too, that anyone could have betrayed them. People with a grudge. And here was Geoffrey wiping away his sin, absolving him.
‘And you tried to save us,’ Geoffrey said. ‘Even though it cost you dearly.’
Well, Joe thought, he had tried to undo it, after all, and had ended up a prisoner for his pains. Perhaps he had made too much of it. Why had he thought he was the only one to blame? Flagellated himself over it for all these years? Confessing made it easier, lighter, absolved him in some way.
‘I hope I’ve made amends,’ Joe said. ‘Guilty or not.’
‘You’re a fine man,’ Geoffrey said. ‘A true friend.’
‘I tried,’ Joe said.
Geoffrey reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. He wiped his mouth. He’d been drooling of late, as if his muscles had lost their clinch. ‘When I’m gone, will you promise me one thing?’
Joe hated when Geoffrey spoke like that. When I’m gone. The hints at his mortality. This will see me out.
‘And what would that be?’
‘That you move into this house,’ Geoffrey said. ‘And tuck yourself up at night in a warm bed. That leaky old caravan is no good for old bones.’
Joe laughed. ‘Is that all?’ he said. ‘I’ll gladly do that. That I will.’
He flicked open his newspaper. The light was fading and the print was hard to read. He heard Geoffrey’s breath, rasping a little, as if his lungs had got rusty after all the years.
‘Why didn’t you ever say anything to me?’ Geoffrey’s features were in the shade, out of sight. Perhaps, Joe thought, it was easier like that.
‘I wanted to,’ Joe said. ‘But could never find the words or the right moment. But it roiled me. It did that. All this while.’
The clock in the hall whirred and chimed. Joe had got it going again when he came back in 1945, and it had never stopped since. It ran a little slow, these days, but didn’t they all?
‘Nobody wanted to talk about the war,’ Geoffrey said. ‘It was a painful time. People wanted to forget. Nobody wanted to listen.’
Joe and Geoffrey never spoke, so why should they expect differently? Who wanted to hear, anyway? What would be the point? The history of the occupation was written. Why stir things up? People wanted the past to be forgotten.
‘Our war was different,’ Geoffrey said.
Joe supposed it was, come to think of it. At least, from the rest of Britain. France and Holland knew what it was like to live under the Germans.
‘It’s never been brought to book,’ Geoffrey continued. ‘Our war.’
Why should it? Joe thought. What more could be said?
‘Some people did well out of the war,’ Geoffrey went on, his thoughts rolling free now. ‘Our friend, Pierre, for a start. Got off scot-free.’
He’s right, Joe thought, there was no accounting, not for what went on. Pierre had spent some time in Britain, after the war. Never said why. Had slunk back some years later, none the poorer.
‘But they’ll pick on some wretch of a woman fast enough,’ Geoffrey was saying. ‘Shame her for sleeping with the enemy. Shave her.’
Joe creased his forehead. Per
haps Geoffrey was thinking of Margaret. He was shaking his head, his eyes rheumy and watery. Hadn’t she gone with a German? Now, it wasn’t right to sell your body, Joe knew that, but what wouldn’t a man – or woman, come to think of it – do to survive? Oh no, Joe wouldn’t condemn a soul for that. He’d been there himself, right enough.
‘Still,’ Joe said. ‘It was tough.’ He’d admit that, though he wasn’t sure where this conversation was leading.
‘Tougher for some more than others,’ Geoffrey said.
You and me. Joe stared through the open window at the darkening sky. This time of a June evening, it folded around them like an indigo scarf. The silence was broken by the chirring of a nightjar, his soft hum rising and falling. It was a difficult bird to spot. Bad enough by day, impossible by night unless you caught it flying. But you could hear it. Listen and look.
‘Nobody wanted to hear about the war’s victims,’ Geoffrey continued. ‘Only its heroes.’
Joe looked up. ‘That’s not true,’ Joe said. ‘There were trials in Germany.’
‘It happened here,’ Geoffrey persisted. ‘There were victims here. But no trials.’
‘Victims leave no trace,’ Joe said.
‘That’s not so,’ Geoffrey said. He twisted in his chair and Joe heard it creak as it adjusted to his weight. ‘The traces are all around, in every bunker and gun placement, in every sea wall and tower.’
Joe hadn’t considered it like that, in those words. People went to look at the bunkers, never gave a thought to the poor buggers who built them, suffered and died for them. Geoffrey put those thoughts into words so much better.
‘I’ve banished it out of my mind,’ Joe said.
‘Some things can’t be banished,’ Geoffrey said. ‘They come back and maul you later.’ He wiped his mouth again, the white handkerchief glowing in the dusk. ‘Would you care for a Jameson?’
‘Aye,’ Joe said. He’d never seen himself as a victim, not till now. Geoffrey was right. His war was not the war the British fought and won. His war was one of cruelty and loss. Guilt and betrayal. Savage as wolves that return to their prey, that it was.
He pushed himself up and padded over to the cupboard, lifting out the whiskey and taking two glasses from the shelf above. He walked over to the window, poured out the measures in the last of the light. He didn’t want to turn on the lamp yet. There was something comforting about the dark, about this conversation. Geoffrey had spoken about Neuengamme, but that was the war over there. People talked about that war, but not this war, at home.
Joe sat back in the dark, charged by the fire from his whiskey, and began.
Lager Sylt, Alderney: February 1944
It wasn’t long before Joe’s hair was as clogged and tangled as the rest, his skin the colour of ash, his trousers stiff with concrete. They stood up by themselves when he took them off at night, rubbed his flesh when he put them on in the morning. The lice left painful bumps and rashes on his skin, had darkened it too. He’d been wearing his clerical shirt when he was arrested, but now it was as stiff and soiled as his trousers, frayed at the seams. His shoes were ripped and torn, but it was all he had. He’d hang on to them as long as possible. Cement bags, the only alternative, were no protection, he knew, and now the nights were short and the winter rains were cold and heavy, he’d need all the armour he could get. He hoped whoever had stolen his clerical jacket needed it as much as he did. Joe couldn’t begrudge him that.
He could live with it all except the hunger. He barely thought of Trude now. Her suffering was over, at least. Starvation devoured him from the inside, as if the whale had not heeded Jonah’s prayers and was digesting him, bit by bit. He could only think of food. He and Ernst, and the others. They took it in turns to sneak into the Germans’ fields and pull a potato, sharing it between them, eating it raw, a mouthful each. They talked of nothing but baked ham and plum dumplings. They listed the ingredients, worked out the recipes, cooked them over the roaring ranges of home, roasted them in the oven. Argued, even, dried paprika or fresh hot peppers? Did you fry it first to release the aroma, or plunge it directly into the stew? They drank the best wines. Riesling. Weissburgunder. Spätburgunder. Trollinger. Vodka. Brandy. Poteen, Joe said. Poitín. Now, there’s a drink to put hairs on your chest.
Joe was digging foundations, trenches a yard deep and two yards wide, hewn and hacked from the rock with nothing more than a pickaxe and shovel. If they fed us more, Joe thought, we’d work harder, and men wouldn’t drop like flies. Six months, Joe reckoned. That’s how long it took to work someone to death. An extra slice of bread cost a cigarette, and sometimes that bastard cook, forgive me Lord, charged double. Cigarettes were in short supply, until the next Red Cross parcel. It wasn’t right that a man had to barter for his food.
The men were fearful of the cook. He had a temper and pointed teeth that grew in crooked rows, and he used them when crossed, sunk them into his victim and spat out the flesh. He’d snarl as soon as look at you. Even the guards, Joe noticed, gave him a wide berth. A wild shark of a man, that was for sure.
There was a raw, urgent cry. Joe looked up. The man next to him had fallen in the trench. The mixing machine on the edge of the footings was spewing out the wet cement, filling the dug-out ditch, moving fast.
‘No.’ Joe threw down his pickaxe. ‘Turn that thing off.’ He dropped to his stomach, crawled alongside the top of the trench, reached with his hand. The trench was at least three-feet deep, but if he stretched down far enough, and his neighbour up, they could do it.
‘Grab it,’ he yelled. The concrete was running like a lava flow, splashing Joe’s hand. He flexed his fingers. ‘Now.’ The man had no strength left, Joe could see that, not even a will, not in his eyes. He shook his head, let it fall forward into the cement. Joe saw a bubble, and that was all. He pushed himself up, stood face to face with an SS officer in a peaked cap. The officer said nothing, signalled. Keep pouring.
Arbitrary. That’s what Joe couldn’t take. You never knew when death would strike. A beating for nothing. Garrotting for less. Drowned in cement. Thrown to the waves. We walk in the valley of the shadow of death, Joe thought. He wished they’d shot him with Trude.
It was an Irish rain. Light and steady, soaking to the bone in a quiet polite fashion. Belied its menace. There was heather here as well, long past its bloom, squatting with the gorse and the scars where the Germans had stripped the soil. Joe’s cap kept the worst of the rain from his face, but his shirt was wet through, and his trousers too, his shoes brittle from the dirt, soles separating from the uppers so they flapped when he walked. Twelve hours a day, seven days a week. They got up in the dark, stood for Appell in the frost or the fog, worked till the winter day drew in. German hours, so the night was later, longer.
Joe had cut holes in a cement bag, head and arms, tucked the sack underneath what was left of his shirt so the Germans couldn’t see. One extra layer against the biting wind. His hands were calloused, but his arms were strong, and swinging a pickaxe or raking cement or shovelling grit kept his boxing muscles firm, even if he didn’t have the protein to build them up.
‘Only fools give in,’ Ernst said almost every night. ‘And who here is a bigger fool than the goons who run this place?’
Ernst kept Joe going, buoyed him up. Buoyed them all up, Joe thought. They couldn’t do much to resist, but they wouldn’t give in. Even their Kapo had respect for Ernst. Ernst was a gentleman, polite, considerate, though his language was sometimes blue. But who could blame him? He protected Joe, befriended him, never asked why he no longer said his prayers, slipped him a cigarette if he had one spare.
They all had coughs, thick catarrh that clogged their sinuses and filled their lungs. Or airy coughs that spat blood. Shivered and sweated at night. Died. Or left to die. The bastard cook, forgive me Lord, refused to feed the sick.
‘Orders,’ he said, his sharp teeth a warning. ‘Why waste food on the dying?’
Only that night as they queued for their meal, Joe stoo
d next to an old man he hadn’t seen before. He wore a yellow star. The Jews were French, so Ernst said, newly arrived. The old man must have been over seventy, watery eyes and hands with liver spots that shook as he held his bowl. Joe had seen him struggle with the rest, the sledgehammer too great a weight for his frail frame. He coughed. The cook looked at him.
‘Juif,’ he said.
Went to the next man, poured the soup half in the bowl, half on his hand. The man behind him, likewise.
Joe pointed to the old man’s bowl.
‘You missed him,’ he said. The old man was shaking his head at Joe, leave me be. No, Joe thought. Only fools give in. Joe left the line, doubled back, came up behind the cook.
‘Feed him.’ Joe never shouted, but he did now, filled his lungs and bellowed. A band of fear and anger had snapped inside him, pumped his body with fury, his muscles with adrenalin. The kitchen went quiet, but the prisoners’ eyes cheered loud.
The cook spun round and flew at Joe, his lips curled back like a dog, but Joe was fast and sharp. He darted, danced, sparred. Fists up. On your toes. Rage was in the cook’s eyes, but he couldn’t focus. Joe was moving too fast. Jump, left, right, right and left. Dainty as a sanderling. The cook was a big man, clumsy, all fury and brawn. Boxing’s not a sport for angry men. Joe had never fought someone outside of his weight, but the cook was floundering, screaming, lunging at Joe as Joe ducked and weaved. Joe knew he couldn’t keep this up for long, had to throw the knockout soon. He’d have one chance only. The cook was right-handed, baffled, maddened. This was not the way he was used to fighting. Strike. The cook was trying to scrap like Joe, like a boxer, closed fists, arms up, aim hard. He had no technique, no idea. He could be beaten even though he was twice as heavy as Joe, but if Joe got it wrong, the cook would sink his teeth into the back of Joe’s neck. He could feel the brute tensing and grinding his jaws. He flailed out with his right and Joe saw his chance. Now. Head down. Go. Joe breathed hard, slammed an uppercut to the liver, hammered the kidneys with his last ounce of strength, a single, vital thrust of adrenalin mustered from the deep. Caught the beast unaware, watched as he twisted and sank to his knees, walloping the back of his head on the hard cement pillar and his temple on the floor as he fell. He lay crumpled, his neck bent. A trickle of blood oozed from his ear and a black trail of lice were leaving the body, crawling towards Joe.
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