The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  ‘One day,’ Joe said, ‘we’ll feast for real.’

  He and Ernst and the others. Those who survived. The numbers were getting thinner by the day. The Jews had been sent back. France. Germany. Who knew where? Even List himself. Rumour had it that some of the Jews had escaped in France, and they wanted List’s head to roll. But nobody countermanded his order for Joe to teach them boxing and he took the SS through their paces. Some of the OT guards from Lager Nordeney or Helgoland took to hanging around. Stripped to their vests and underpants, hands strapped and gloved, he had them all skipping and running, sparring and punching.

  It was early June, 1944. They were sitting outside, on the step of the hut, still damp from the previous day’s storm. It was late, dark. The moon was full, but the sky was overcast, clumps of cloud blowing with the breeze. It had whipped the sea into a noisy froth. Joe could hear it slap-slapping the shore and see white horses in the flickering moonlight.

  ‘Sssh,’ Ernst said.

  The distant drone of an aeroplane. Joe and Ernst sat in silence as the sound came closer. Louder. Not one aeroplane. A squadron. Heavy bombers. They came from England, heading to France. And boom. Boom. The Germans fired up at them, heavy weaponry which shook the earth but fell short of their targets. Joe stood up on the step, peered through the wire fencing, saw the coast of France blasting orange and red, the smoke from the bombs furling mushrooms into the clouds. He fancied he could feel the heat from the fires that burned on the Normandy coast, breathe in the smoke from the blasts, taste the cordite on his tongue.

  He smiled, the first time for months.

  Gulls and guillemots. Shags and cormorants. Even before they climbed onto deck, Joe knew they were back in Jersey. He could see them through the hatch, flying low, silent in the storm. Too rough to sail to France. Or dangerous. If the skies swarmed with Allied bombers, the seas would be full of their ships. Early July the order had come from Berlin to evacuate Alderney, send the prisoners to repair the defences in France. They had filed out after Appell, down to the harbour and the boats. Joe waited on the wharf. The ship was called the Minotaure. The monster that ate humans, Joe recalled. Hundreds were shoved into the hold before the hatch was closed.

  Joe was directed towards a neighbouring vessel. Crossed the gangplank, onto the deck, into the damp, dark space beneath. Schnell. Schnell. The vessel was much smaller than the Minotaure. Joe reckoned there must have been fifty prisoners or so crammed in the space with no air or water and a single bucket for their use. The ship began to rock, rain hammered on the deck above, and Joe heard the wind tear through the harbour buildings. The weather had broken.

  A crowd of civilians had gathered and watched the prisoners as they stood in the sun on the quayside in St Helier. Why would anyone want to gawp at them? Was misery so compelling? A spectator sport? Joe hoped no one recognised him. He kept his eyes to the ground, his face out of their gaze. But if they did spot him, he thought, could they not plead for him? This man shouldn’t be here. Let him go. He looked up. He saw no one he knew.

  Now the prisoners mustered, five abreast. There were other prisoners, too, some in striped shirts and trousers, others in rags, like Joe. He wasn’t sure whether they were waiting to embark or had just come off some other ship. They were silent and sullen, dulled by starvation. But of the Sylt men, word got round. The Minotaure had gone down. Blown to smithereens. Ernst with it. Joe prayed he hadn’t felt a thing. Drowning, they said, was a peaceful death.

  It was evening before they moved. Some were sent east. Joe and the others, west. Past the wharves and the customs house, the yellow beaches criss-crossed with razor wire. The esplanade looked strange to Joe now, as if he no longer belonged. He knew every paving stone and brick, but he felt disorientated, anxious, each step a churn in his gut that made him light-headed and disconnected. Homesick, for the home he’d come back to.

  They were turning right into Pierson Road. Right into St Aubin’s Road. Oh, Joe knew the way. Ahead of them, a large building with white stucco and curly Dutch gables. West Park Pavilion. Joe’d been there for the Christmas bazaar and Pierre said they held grand dances, before the war. It was not so far from the hospital and the little park. Perhaps they’d stay here. Perhaps the war was over. Over. Joe felt hope for the first time, a fierce buoyancy that lifted his chin.

  They were marched up the steps and into the main hall. Joe recognised the SS guards from Sylt, but there were others too, from the OT or the Wehrmacht. The prisoners had to stand in line, file past as a scrawny wretch doled out watery soup in tin cans. They were given orders to sleep on the floor. No room to turn. They’d be shipped out in the morning.

  Joe lay awake all night. The war hadn’t ended. This was his only chance to get away. Now he was back in Jersey, it made another day, another moment, in captivity, unbearable. He had to escape. Two seconds. That’s all he’d need. Slip free of the guards. He knew the town. He’d find his way out. Didn’t Pierre have a sister who lived nearby? Change of clothes, and he’d be on his way. He’d apologise for the lice, advise her to burn the garments. Go to the convent? No, he couldn’t put the nuns in danger again. Improvise. He’d think of something. Head out to the country. Speed. That was of the essence. He’d leave the cook’s shoes behind. He couldn’t run in too-big shoes.

  Up at first light. Appell. Always Appell. This would be the last Appell if it killed him. The SS guards from Sylt lined them up, marched them out. Two led the prisoners at the front, two at the rear, rifles at the ready. Two others, with shaggy Alsatians that pulled at their leashes, kept watch. Six guards for fifty prisoners. Not so many. Joe wondered where the rest had gone. He pulled back, a step at a time, out of the line of vision of the dogs and their handlers, worked his way, little by little, to the nearside ranks, checking with each move that none of the guards had noticed. Links, links. Singen. Sing, bastards. How about this? Hitler has only got one ball.

  There was a lane coming up, off to the left, just by the bend in the road. Göring has two but very small. Little shops, small tradesmen. Doorways. Alleys. Himmler has something sim’lar. This was his chance. His only chance. He could feel the fire light in his stomach, his tendons tense, muscles stretched and at the ready. His big fight. His big flight. The guards were looking at the men in front of them or to their side. Joe paced himself, filling his lungs with oxygen. Timing was all. Five, four, three. One bungled step, and that would be the end. He straightened his spine, relaxed his chest and arms, up on the balls of his bare feet. Two, one. Pivoted, spun, flattened himself against the alley wall and held his breath as the rest of the prisoners, and the guards at their rear, tramped past. It would take them five minutes to reach the harbour. They’d do a roll call, discover he was missing. Five minutes there. Five back. He had ten minutes.

  There was a horse standing further up the road, a chestnut. It pawed impatiently with its foreleg, hoof on the tip. It was harnessed up, standing between the shafts of a black delivery van. Joe guessed the time was about five o’clock in the morning. Too early even for tradesmen, though someone must be up, ready to go. Joe looked behind him. The street was empty. He hadn’t been spotted. He ran to the van.

  Pierre Besson and Co, Joe read. Purveyors of Quality Groceries and Meat.

  ‘Well thank you, Lord,’ Joe said to himself. ‘You’ve answered my prayers.’

  The back doors of the van were unlocked. Joe climbed inside, pulled them shut. It smelled of ammonia. Slivers of the dawn came through two small rectangular windows, one in the back, one in the front.

  Easy. Joe laughed. And Goebbels has no balls at all.

  There was the sound of clawing in the van. It took a moment for his eyes to grow used to the dimness. There were shelves either side. Rabbits, scratching the hard, wooden base of their cages. Above them, he could see baskets of eggs. Eggs. He took one, cracked its shell, poured the soft yolk and albumen into his mouth.

  He heard the footsteps. Felt the sweat on his forehead. Eejit. The van would be the first place the soldi
ers would look. Open the doors, yank him out, shoot him on the spot. He had no idea where Pierre was. The footsteps passed. Joe fingered the doors, but there was no catch inside. He was shut in.

  They came close again. Joe heard the metallic scrunch as the handle turned and the door opened.

  Daylight snapped in. Joe was sitting on the floor in full view with his mouth full of egg.

  ‘Out,’ Pierre said. ‘Now. You. Out. Raus.’

  ‘It’s me,’ Joe said.

  ‘Out. Before I call the Gestapo.’

  ‘It’s Joe.’ Added, ‘Father O’Cleary.’

  Pierre leaned into the van, pulling the doors to behind him. He stared at Joe, as Joe wiped his mouth.

  ‘Father O’Cleary?’

  ‘Help me, Pierre,’ Joe said. ‘For God’s sake, man, help me. Don’t hand me in.’

  Pierre looked behind him, turned back to Joe.

  ‘Crawl under the shelves and cover yourself with the tarpaulin.’ He pointed at a canvas roll in the corner. Slammed the doors, locked them tight. Joe heard him walk to the landing board, felt the van rock as Pierre clambered up, jolt as the horse moved off.

  Joe lay curled inside the tarpaulin. It smelled of pig and dried blood. The egg left a cloying taste in his mouth, was too rich for his stomach. The van was rolling and bumping over the roads. He felt sick, his guts were cramping up, his heart punching hard against his ribs. Up hill and down dale. He had no idea where they were heading. Up and down. Side to side.

  Rocking. Rocking.

  He woke with a jolt as Pierre opened the doors wide.

  ‘Jump out,’ he said. ‘We’re here.’

  Joe pulled himself free of the tarpaulin. The sharp smell of the sea caught his breath. He heard the gentle put-put of waves in the distant cove, the cry of a circling curlew crou-eee, crou-eee. His eyes filled with tears, salty drops that dribbled down his cheeks and into his mouth. He began to shake, as if his rattled bones were sloughing off his skin, knocking at the ligaments that held him together. He sat down, pushed himself forward to the edge of the van.

  ‘No,’ Joe said. He wanted to run but his feet were as heavy as concrete, his frame frozen in a hurly-burly of terror as he saw again the dead boy’s blasted skull spilled on the ground, the haunted faces of Geoffrey and the nurse as they climbed into the Kübelwagen. He heard the brutal chug of its engines as they drove out of the yard and up the hill. ‘No, Pierre. Not here.’

  ‘My God, Father,’ Pierre said. ‘If you weren’t in such a lousy state I’d shake your hand at the very least.’

  ‘Did you hear me?’ Joe said. What kind of joke was the man playing? After all he’d been through. Pierre had brought him here, to the place he’d betrayed them all, to sip his guilt, slow and bitter as quinine. He could taste the mucous from his nose, the sweat from his lip. So near, so very near. He didn’t have strength anymore. He had seized his chance to escape. He couldn’t do it again.

  ‘This is Geoffrey’s farm.’

  Did Pierre know?

  ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘It was my fault,’ Joe said.

  ‘What are you talking about?’

  ‘That Geoffrey was caught. And the nurse. I opened my big mouth. Brought her to the farm.’

  ‘Plenty of people have big mouths, Father,’ Pierre said. ‘And sharp eyes. Keen imaginations, too, some of them. There’s nothing like an occupying army for settling old scores.’

  Joe looked up at Pierre. ‘It was me. I was here. I saw it all. They murdered a boy.’

  ‘From what I understand,’ Pierre said, ‘you tried to save Geoffrey and the nurse. And you put yourself in the firing line. You weren’t to blame. You weren’t to know, if it’s any consolation.’ He pulled out a packet of cigarettes, lit one and offered it to Joe. Joe took it, smelled the coarse black tobacco, breathed in the heady smoke. He felt dizzy, grabbed the side of the door for support. Coughed.

  ‘What happened to you?’ Pierre said.

  Joe stubbed out the cigarette on the floor of Pierre’s van. He had no words for where he’d been, no shape to the story of what happened.

  ‘I’ve done terrible things, Pierre.’

  He’d got used to it. The humdrum horror of it. That was a terrible thing, too.

  ‘I killed a man.’ He was quaking, out of control, as if a palsy, or the devil himself, had taken over his body.

  ‘Did you have a choice?’

  Choice?Joe hadn’t thought.

  ‘There was no temptation, if that’s what you mean,’ Joe said. His spirit had hardened, atrophied. He saw corpses on the floor. ‘And no remorse, either.’

  He was tired, an unfathomable weariness that could slay him. He couldn’t return, ever. He’d throw himself off a cliff, hang himself on a beam.

  ‘Will you turn me in?’ Joe said.

  ‘No,’ Pierre said.

  Joe hesitated. Pierre supped with the devil when it suited him, Joe knew.

  ‘Will you give me a chance to escape, if you change your mind?’

  ‘I won’t change my mind,’ Pierre said.

  ‘Only I couldn’t go back. No. That I couldn’t.’

  He pushed himself forward again, dangled his legs over the end of the van.

  ‘Lightning never strikes twice.’ Pierre was smiling. ‘This is the safest place you can be.’

  Perhaps, Joe thought. He’d dreamed about a day like this, after all.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  DORA

  London: June 1985

  Dora tugged at her skirt, smoothing its apron. She needed time to steady herself. She went upstairs to the bathroom, peered into the mirror. She had aged like her father, his lines criss-crossing her cheeks, his jaw, hers. Vati. What would he have done? She pulled at the toilet roll, blew her nose hard and flushed the tissue down the loo. Opened the cabinet and dabbed on some lipstick, went downstairs and walked back out into the garden.

  ‘Apologies,’ she said. ‘An old friend.’

  She piled the empty cups and plates onto the tray and took them into the kitchen. She hoped she’d stayed calm, looked indifferent. Maximilian List. Alive. He had a wife who looked after him. Children most likely. Grandchildren. Lucky him. He’d got away with it. Dora’s head tightened and she could feel her anger bubble. Did his conscience play tricks on him? Did he ever think about what he’d done? Did he ever think about her?

  She placed the tray on the draining board, looked out over the garden to where Barbara sat, leaning back in her chair, chin in the air. Hoffmann’s daughter. She gripped the side of the sink. List’s daughter. Hoffmann and List. Dora’s war, shrunk to two people. Stretched by two people, as if she’d been on the rack and they had turned the wheel until her tendons tore and her bones broke. Her life in ghostly, ghastly tatters, while they lived out their days without a care. She had survived, Uncle Otto kept telling her that. Millions hadn’t. But numbers meant nothing when faces brought it home. Their child, their progeny, sitting butter-wouldn’t-melt in her garden.

  Dora resented this woman for being alive, for being somebody else’s daughter. She would have liked a child, a daughter, like her. But List and Hoffmann had destroyed any chance of that.

  Did Barbara know anything? If her mother had lied about her father, and about being in Jersey, what else had she lied about? Barbara must have a birth certificate, or had she forged that, too? Lost in the bombing. Born in the countryside. No records. It was so terrible here in Germany. Nobody thought about ordinary people. Been widowed by it? Poor me. I had to bring my daughter up all by myself. She could see Nurse Hoffmann now, with her plain, round face and little mouth, weeping, My boyfriend leaves for Germany soon. She left not long after. Perhaps List took her with him. They made no secret of their affair, Hoffmann and List, that was for sure. Mein Liebling. My darling. Those words had stung Dora like a hornet.

  Barbara was coming towards the house. Slim, elegant, a professional woman. Perhaps she had List’s physique, his brains. Daughters often took after their fathers. Th
e sins of the fathers. She wanted to be repulsed by her, but there was an innocence about Barbara and Dora believed her when she said her mother never spoke of the war. Not many people spoke about the war in Britain, and they were on the winning side. Too busy putting it behind them, moving on.

  Even the victims, Jews who’d escaped before the war. Others who’d survived the camps. Why me? What more could have been done? Survivor’s guilt, that’s what Uncle Otto called it.

  ‘But I lied,’ Dora said to him once.

  ‘And the truth would have helped you how?’ he said. ‘No one can be a hero against the tides of history. You can only swim with it and hope it doesn’t drown you.’

  ‘But I did it to save my own skin.’

  ‘I ran away and left my sisters to die. Now, there’s guilt for you.’

  Why should Barbara feel guilt? Her war was nothing other than history. Still, Dora thought, what kind of a shock would it be to discover these sorts of things? To entertain the possibility that Maximilian List was your father? List was in the SS- Totenkopfverbände, Death’s Head units, ran a concentration camp. Dora had heard nothing about what went on in Alderney, but a camp was a camp and Lager Sylt had been a satellite of Neuengamme, and there had been plenty about that camp in the trials after the war.

  She heard Barbara climb the steps up to the kitchen and enter, her heels click-clacking on the wooden floor.

  ‘Thank you for the coffee,’ she said.

  Dora smiled. ‘You’re welcome. I never really got used to tea, not in the afternoon.’

  ‘I should leave you,’ she said.

  But Barbara made no move to go and Dora sensed she wanted to talk some more.

  ‘What’s the time?’

  Barbara checked her watch. ‘It’s six o’clock. I’ve stayed too long. You have things to do.’

  ‘Well,’ Dora said, ‘I can miss one night of bridge. It’s not too early to have a glass of wine. It’s not often I have visitors. Perhaps you would join me?’