The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  Dora opened the door, picked up the rubbish. ‘They won’t bother you,’ she called, throwing the paper in the bin.

  She walked along the promenade, leaving the car door ajar. The tide was out, exposing rocks sharp as stalagmites. It was a long way to the sea, but there were dips in the sand where water had pooled. A mother was holding a baby, legs dangling in the water, splashing its bare feet. Dora heard the child’s chuckles. It had been an age since she’d heard that sound. She stopped and watched them, leaning against the sea wall, her breath in light, dizzy takes. In, one, two, three. Out, one, two, three.

  The sirens of a fire engine sounded in the distance, and two police cars rushed past, klaxons screaming. Dora jumped. A couple were coming towards her, pulled a where’s-the-fire? face as they passed, laughed.

  Agnes had been one of the first to leave, once the war was over. She’d stood there, papers stamped.

  ‘St Malo,’ she said. ‘First stop.’ She looked at Dora straight. ‘Like I said, two of a kind. You and me.’

  They’d never talked about what had happened the night the baby died. No need to. Agnes was never one for small talk, and why bring it up?

  ‘Good luck,’ Dora had said, waved at her as she walked down the stairs. From the back, she was still a young woman.

  Dora felt nauseous at the memory. She staggered back to the car, leaned over, vomited into the gutter until all that came up was bitter yellow bile. She steadied herself, sat down hard in the driver’s seat, her heart pounding, her breath shallow. She needed a paper bag, something to breathe into, steady her, calm her pulse. Memory had been a cheat, all along. A foul, dirty streak in her imagination. She’d justified it to herself, over and over. But she and Agnes. Conspired. Murdered a child. She lifted her arm, bit into it, tearing at the flesh. Punctured her skin so the loathing that squatted like a pus-green demon within her could squeeze its way out. She deserved this pain. Lashed out at herself, at the vile loathsome creature she’d had to drag around for most of her life. Worthless. There was a knock on the windscreen. Dora let go of her arm, lifted her head. It was a policeman.

  ‘You all right, madam?’

  Dora stared at him. A wasp was spinning close to his ear and he swiped it away. He stared at her arm, colouring up.

  ‘You been stung?’

  Can’t you see?

  He looked down at the vomit. ‘You had a bad reaction?’ he said. ‘Shall I call an ambulance?’

  Dora shook her head. ‘No.’ Her voice was soft. ‘There’s no need.’

  ‘Then I must ask you to move on,’ he said. ‘Only you’re blocking the way for emergency vehicles. There’s been an incident.’

  Dora was hardly listening.

  ‘Just move your vehicle back there, onto the slipway. You won’t be in anyone’s way then.’

  She knew where the slipway was. Behind her, to the right, leading to the beach. She turned on the ignition, put the car into reverse.

  Jersey: June 1945

  The other women were returned to France by and by, once their papers were sorted.

  ‘But there’s always one, isn’t there?’ the sergeant said. He was friendly, this Geordie. ‘You being a refugee, and that. Don’t worry, pet,’ he added. ‘That telegram’ll come through any day now. I can feel it in my bones.’

  She sat hunched in the corner, holding her knees close to her chest, rocking. This soldier was her friend, but the other soldiers had eyed her up and down, spat it out, Common whore. Go with anyone for a bob. They didn’t believe what she told them, that she’d been forced to sleep with the Germans. It wasn’t part of war. War was to do with soldiers. Women went with soldiers, the loose ones, that was. The ones without any self-respect, any shame. We know your type, hanging round Arthur’s Hill or the quays in Gateshead. She was alone. She alone had survived. She’d been found wanting, had betrayed all around her. What was the peace for, if not a reckoning? She wanted to wail, to scream, so the laments drilled deep and seeped from her body, keening as she breathed. The war was over. But there was nothing to live for, no one left in her world.

  ‘Now, off you go,’ the soldier was saying. ‘Get some sea air. Do you the world of good.’

  He spoke to her like a child, and Dora was as shaky as one, but he held her hand and led her to the door, pushed her forward and shut the door behind her with a smile.

  ‘You’ll be fine, like, pet.’

  She was wearing a cotton frock that came from the Red Cross. It was too large and flowed over her body. She had new sandals too, that made blisters on her little toes. No matter. She stepped out of the building, walking free. Nervous. Excited. Strange. Take it easy. One step at a time. She hoped she wouldn’t meet anyone she knew. What could she tell them? She wouldn’t go far. Just to the slipway, and back.

  She crossed the road, the sea on her left. The beaches were off limits, even though the Germans were clearing the mines. Three or four men, still in their Wehrmacht uniforms, were sweeping the sands with what the sergeant said were called mine detectors. Others were dismantling the barbed-wire barricades. Dora flinched as she saw them. Remembered. They were the prisoners now. They couldn’t hurt her. Dora wondered how long it would be before everything had gone. She walked slowly, breathing deep. She’d be leaving in a few days, once the paperwork and the visa came through from Uncle Otto – oh, the relief that he was alive – and the Home Office. The beach was unlikely to be cleared before then. She longed to swim in the sea, to dive through the waves, taste the salt, feel the waters purge her, inside and out. Geoffrey had been with her the last time she’d sauntered like this. A different world.

  Had he survived? She hoped so, though goodness knows what he must have gone through. She couldn’t see him again. Not now. How could a man understand? She could tell no one, least of all him. The shame was too much. She couldn’t love him, not anymore, not in the way they used to. She had betrayed him, been unfaithful to him. Had she loved List? He haunted her imaginings. She had lost him. It was the ones you lost who lingered the most. Had he loved her? Had he abandoned her? Used her? She had to bury this past, build a new life. If anyone asked, she’d say she spent the war in Jersey. No more. No less. Her secret. Her silence. Who would understand what she had to say? Who would not judge her?

  Leave and never return.

  She heard some men running behind her.

  ‘Oi, you.’

  She stopped, looked around, but she was the only person. Me?

  ‘That’s her.’

  These were not men she knew. Dora understood, at that instant, that she had to get out of the way. She started to run, stepped out into the road, the Hotel Maison Victor Hugo in view. Not far. Run. Her sandals hurt and her legs were brittle. Move. The men were coming close. She could hear their breath, their shoes as they pounded the tarmac. She tried to scream, Help! but her voice stuck in her throat. She pushed her legs, one before the other, but they wobbled, weak, slow. She couldn’t run, not a step.

  One of the men grabbed her, spun her round, pushed her arms behind her and held them in a tight lock.

  ‘Let me go,’ Dora said. She kicked, caught his shin. He squeezed her tighter.

  ‘Bitch. You’re the nurse.’

  Dora could see more people running towards them.

  ‘Fucking Jerrybag.’

  ‘No,’ Dora said. ‘Let me go.’ She struggled, but the man held her tight. Five or six men closed in on her. One tugged at the shoulder of her dress, pulling it over her arm, bursting the buttons.

  ‘No.’ Dora was screaming. The gang was thickening. Men and women. Three or four deep. She couldn’t see past them. Couldn’t see through them. Peeling her dress off, tearing it. Screaming and shouting. Dora’s knees began to buckle. She must not fall. She’d be pulled apart, limb from limb.

  Someone grabbed her hair, yanked it back. She could hear the scissors crunch as the blades closed round her hair, feel their jagged points as they dug into her scalp.

  ‘Please, please.’ She couldn’t move.
She was held tight, jammed fast. Crushed. Trampled. Her chest was heavy. No breath. She was going to die.

  ‘Jerrybag. Nazi whore.’

  She could hear their jeers, feel their hands as they pulled and pushed her, ripping her dress and tearing it off her. She shook her head, struggled to break free.

  ‘Call the gardaí. Let her go.’

  She heard a whistle. The men released their grip, began to run away. Dora lost her balance, tumbled to the ground. Her dress lay in rags on the tarmac, coils of her shorn hair trampled in the dirt. She pushed herself onto all fours, tried to crawl, hide, felt someone pick her up, put a jacket around her naked shoulders. The crowd were disappearing in the distance.

  ‘Come along, miss. I’ll take you back.’ It was the sergeant. He’d lifted her up, turned to the man with the Irish accent. ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Dora wanted to go home. Leave this hated place and its spiteful, mocking memories. Never visit them again. Ever.

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DORA

  Jersey: June 1985

  There were some public conveniences up the road on the left. Dora stepped out of the car, walked towards them. Her arm was throbbing, the bruising visible. Her mouth was dry and she could still taste the sick. She went into one of the cubicles, locked the door. Her stomach began to spasm and she sat down, groaning. Despite the weather, she felt shivery, as if she had a temperature, as if the stomach cramps and the throbbing arm were exorcising demons, salving a deeper pain within.

  There were stickers on the back of the lavatory door, graffiti on the walls. It will all end in tears. Dora sat staring at the notice in front. Now wash your hands. As if handwashing would scrub away the filth. There was a knock on the door.

  ‘Are you going to be much longer in there?’ The voice was coarse, threatening.

  Dora cleaned herself, tidied her dress and opened the door. A large woman was outside, scowling.

  ‘Sorry,’ Dora said. She went to the basin, turned the tap hard so it splashed her dress and the floor. She washed her hands and face, gargled with the water, spat it out, dabbed herself dry with a paper towel. She was empty, purged. Inside and out. She fished in her handbag for her lipstick, dabbed some on, took out her powder and brushed it over her nose. She ran her finger inside the shoulders of her dress and flapped it, cooling the sweat.

  Took a deep breath, stepped outside. A wasp buzzed around her. Dora lifted up her hand, waved the insect away. Hitting out would make it angrier, but it was a sound she couldn’t bear right now. That angry drone, like an aeroplane.

  Dora had lost track of time back then. She had thought it was March when Hoffmann left. But it must have been the day she gave birth.

  Even that little barrel of a woman, Hoffmann, would have shown signs of pregnancy. Dora had been a midwife, for heaven’s sake, could tell if a woman was pregnant without her having to present a single symptom. And if Barbara was born in February, when Hoffmann disappeared, there was no way they could be mother and child. It must be some other baby that she had.

  What if it was February when she gave birth? What if Hoffmann had taken her baby?

  But her baby was dead. Dora was sure she’d killed it. It never cried, never made a sound. But it had happened so fast, she’d fainted, Agnes returned, Hoffmann snatched up the infant. What if it hadn’t died? It was a plucky little thing, had clung on in her womb, had bounced back from the pelting Agnes had meted out.

  Dora’s waters had broken. Had she been due? Had she mistaken the dates? She hadn’t menstruated the whole time she was in the Hotel Maison Victor Hugo. It was the shock, Dora thought. It did that, closed the body down. They never returned, not even after she’d had the baby. Dora swallowed hard.

  Unless. What if the baby had survived and Hoffmann had taken her child? The dates could add up. Hoffmann and List had talked about going to France, entering the programme, as they put it. That would make sense. Take the baby to France, to Lamorlaye. Brought up as a Lebensborn child. List had left about the same time. What had happened to those babies? Perhaps they were fostered out, adopted even. Could Hoffmann have adopted it? Abducted it, even?

  They could have taken the baby to Germany. The perfect Nazi child. Father: Maximilian List. Occupation: SS officer. Mother: certificated Aryan.

  That baby could be hers. Dora could be the mother. A pneumatic drill started up in the distance, grr-grr-grr, hammered in her head.

  She returned to the car, sat inside, holding the steering wheel. She hadn’t thought about those days. It was a long time ago. The events fuzzed and blurred. She shut her eyes, as if that could conjure up her memories, piece them together, put them into an order, one after the other.

  List had returned to Germany about that time.

  She gave birth.

  Hoffmann left.

  Dora had been bred, like a cow, or mice. That’s what Agnes told her. She was gripping the wheel, knuckles white through the skin.

  If this child was born in February, then Hoffmann could not be the mother. If this child was born in February, List might not be the father. Dora sat still. Two fire engines rushed by. How could she have been so fixated on Maximilian List that she had missed the signs? Who was this person who’d clung to him? She must have been pregnant before she ever met List, before she had been arrested. The baby wasn’t premature. It was full term.

  Dora started the car, put it into gear, steered out into the road. What had pulled Dora into Barbara’s life? She had never resisted it, from that first contact. She’d hummed and hawed, but every time she had agreed. She didn’t believe in fate, in predestination, or anything like that. Yet there had been a fascination with Barbara, an intrigue. She had looked familiar from the start. There was only one man who could have been the father.

  Dora could see it now: Geoffrey. She had his eyes, his complexion. She looked like Dora, too, a resemblance which Dora caught if she turned her head a certain way, looked on the oblique, like that Auerbach painting she’d thought of before. She had to find Barbara, tell her. Explain it all. She couldn’t admit trying to murder her. But it wasn’t murder. She was saving her from the Nazis and whatever barbarism they might have been planning for her. Where was Barbara now? She’d sent her away. Did she still have her address?

  She had tried to kill the baby. She could never tell Barbara that. Her own mother. Could never tell Geoffrey that, either.

  The road came to a crossroads and Dora stopped to get her bearings. The place looked so different, new buildings, supermarkets. Car parks. She pulled out the tourist map from the side pocket in the door, peered at it, at the road signs. It made no sense, but the coast must be to the right. The map was not detailed enough for the side roads, but that was the direction she should be heading for. She heard a clap of thunder, saw storm clouds on the horizon.

  Geoffrey. She had to see him. She felt the same urgency now as she had forty-three years ago. Why had she waited so long? What a waste. What a terrible, terrible waste. Those sins, those secrets, didn’t seem so serious now. She’d never loved List. She’d wanted his attention, the way a child wants to please a bully.

  She turned down a lane, hedgerows either side so deep and tall they touched at the tips and made a canopy. Stopped. Dead end. It was Geoffrey she had loved. She turned the car, grating the bumper on the roots and verges. Hurry. She was in a hurry. She had to go to Geoffrey, beg his forgiveness, feel his caress, hear his murmuring, Dora, Dora.

  She saw a small sign, Anse la Coupe. The road was narrow, turned sharply to the right, left and right again, and there ahead was the bluff, the copse that grew down to the shore, Geoffrey’s hill field with the dell, below it the bay and, beyond, the sea, a deep, dark turquoise. She drove the car down the road, turned into the farm, parked in front of the house, unclipped her seat belt and stepped out.

  The roses needed deadheading and the wisteria needed pruning. She’d do it later. Weeds were growing through the cracks in the path. Nothing that a bit of Roundup wouldn’t solve. She’d
have the place shipshape in hours. Up to the front door. The shoe-scraper had gone. Dora wasn’t sure what that meant. She knocked on the door. There was no reply. Knocked again. Bent down to peer through the letter box, but it was blocked. Disappointment rose like a tide inside her and she had to fight back the tears. He was out. Gone away.

  The back door. Dora ran round the side of the house. There was the shoe-scraper, by the kitchen door. The relief. It was on the left-hand side. What did that mean? Dora couldn’t remember. Was the coast clear, or were there prisoners hiding in the attic? Dora knocked, tried the handle. The door opened and she stepped inside. The kitchen hadn’t changed. There was the Aga, and the two Windsor chairs, the scrubbed pine table in the middle of the room, the blue and white pottery sitting on the dresser shelves. It was a little untidier than she remembered, with a dishtowel draped over the side of the sink and a pile of letters and newspapers on the end of the table. There was a calendar on the wall. John Deere supplies. The picture for June was a tractor.

  The clock in the hallway whirred and Dora counted as it chimed. One. Two. Three. She’d set off at breakfast. Had it taken that long to come here? Perhaps the old clock was losing time, or gaining it. She called.

  ‘Geoffrey?’

  Silence. He was here, in the attic, or reading. She walked into the hall, and opened the door to the sitting room. It was empty, the air had the stale odour of an unused room, the furniture was not in order but placed higgledy-piggledy, and old newspapers cluttered the sideboard and the table. She closed the door, climbed the stairs, onto the landing. Ahead was the attic door. Dora tried the handle, but it was locked. There was no key on the outside. Perhaps it was bolted from inside? He only locked it when there was someone there. Dora called again.

  ‘Geoffrey. Please open.’ Leant with her ear against the door, but there was no noise inside. ‘It’s me.’

  Nothing, not even the scuffling as a prisoner tried to hide. Dora looked along the landing. The door to his bedroom was ajar and Dora walked towards it, stood in the doorway. The curtains were drawn against the afternoon sun, cast a golden light across the room. Dora looked around. The wallpaper had faded and there was a damp patch on the chimney breast.