by Eliza Graham
A cat stretched out in front of the stove. The animal ought to be removed. Yet I had a hunch that carrying out the interview in this warm but homely room might work in our favour. Let the prisoner think that this session would be gentler than the interrogation in the cage. Let him relax.
‘You’re being well treated by the family?’ I asked, in German. ‘And by the Italian prisoners?’
He nodded.
‘Please give me spoken answers.’
‘Yes, they treat me well.’
‘Dull work, though, pulling up turnips? Mucking out the pigs?’
‘Better than being indoors.’
‘You prefer the outdoor life?’ We could use the threat of keeping him indoors at the camp, if necessary.
He eyed me curiously, still seeming puzzled that I was running the interview, but nodded.
‘Your parents didn’t need you to work inside the hotel?’ I continued.
‘No. I mowed the grass and fixed the mower.’
‘Anything else?’
‘We had boats, too,’ he said grudgingly. ‘For the guests. I varnished them and serviced the motor boat when I was home from university.’
‘What did you study?’
‘Engineering, but only for a year.’
‘How much contact did you have with the guests?’
He shrugged. ‘Not much.’ Something in his tone made it sound as though he hadn’t minded this.
‘You didn’t serve them food and drink?’
He straightened his back. ‘I wasn’t a waiter.’
‘A family hotel? And you the only son? You must have played quite an important role.’ I tried a more flattering tack.
‘Sometimes I took guests’ wives out on the lake if they didn’t want to row themselves.’
I raised my eyebrows encouragingly.
‘And if they wanted to sail, I took them out in our dinghy.’
Something pulsed through my nervous system.
‘Who exactly did you take out in the boat?’
His expression took on the vulpine quality I remembered from Kensington. ‘Whoever asked me.’
‘Including?’
‘Guests from all walks of life.’
‘Even once the war started?’
‘As time went on we lost some of the regulars,’ he admitted. ‘We’d always been noted for our food and our location. And we were famous for our red shutters.’ A faraway look passed over his eyes.
I noted these points.
‘I’d imagine it was more important political types who came?’ Fewer pleasure trips for everyone else in wartime.
He nodded.
‘Answer me properly. You know the deal we made with you. You can go back to the cage for more questions about exactly where you were at the time of Dunkirk if you prefer.’
He glowered at me. ‘I had nothing to do with the shooting of those British prisoners, I—’
‘Who were the guests?’ I asked.
‘Some fairly senior SS men,’ he muttered. ‘And their womenfolk.’ He listed them. William took notes.
‘What did they talk about?’
He gave us snippets of gossip that could have come from anywhere, most of which we’d already heard. And a joke about Hitler visiting an asylum and complaining that one man didn’t salute him. ‘I’m the nurse,’ the answer came. ‘Not one of the lunatics here.’
William put the lid on his fountain pen. ‘I’ve heard that one before.’ We liked jokes, fresh jokes, pulled from the factories and bars and made – unwisely – on public transport. Often we broadcast them before they’d gone beyond the confines of the neighbourhoods where they’d started. Spreading an obscene or unflattering quip about some Nazi bigwig gave Beattie particular pleasure. He’d add a little twist about people being arrested for passing on the joke. Without any evidence that this had happened.
Schulte crossed his arms.
I forced myself to breathe slowly, picking up the scent of prisoner: wet wool, leather and sweat. Not unpleasant, not quite. He’d obviously been availing himself of the shower block at the POW camp.
‘None of this in the cage.’ I gestured at the cat by the stove.
‘I’m telling you what I know, sergeant.’ A note of mockery as he used my rank.
‘You’ve had days to rake your memory. When you get letters from home your family use a kind of code to pass on more interesting information, don’t they?’
He looked at me silently.
‘So, tell me, Lieutenant Schulte, why are you giving me this shit?’
He blinked at the language. Good. ‘The man who came to Kensington to see me . . .’ He looked down at his hands.
‘What about him?’
‘He seemed to understand what it was like in the hotel, how we had to go through the pretences.’ Schulte seemed to relax as he talked about Beattie. ‘It was as though he were a sorcerer,’ he murmured, almost to himself.
Ah, so he was pining for Beattie. Wouldn’t be the first time. Beattie had a way of making himself feel like the solution to people’s problems. He would actually be the cause of very many problems if Schulte didn’t talk. I closed my eyes, trying to draw on the internal energy needed to float into someone else’s world, inhabit their hopes and fears. I was as good as Beattie. No, I was better. I was a woman, and a scarred one at that, more reliant on imagination and empathy than power.
I hadn’t ever been to Lake Constance in the far south of Germany, but I could picture hotels like the one the prisoner had grown up in: locals working in the kitchen and garden and as chambermaids, the owner-managers who knew the best local butchers and bakers, who’d once welcomed returning guests year after year. Now they were hosting a different kind of clientele. Some of the staff would love the proximity to the powerful. Others would despise the bragging, the vulgarity.
‘Some of the middle-aged female guests, the wives, are lonely,’ I said slowly. ‘They see their husbands flirting with the pretty young things brought in each night to wait on them and entertain them. You went home a few times on leave, lieutenant, didn’t you?’
He nodded.
‘The last time being June last year. And some of the wives of important men asked you to take them sailing out on the lake. You’re a nice-looking young man.’ He folded his arms, but I watched his face carefully as I went on. ‘A good listener. I imagine you’ve always got on well with your sister.’ I looked closely at him. Schulte’s face softened almost imperceptibly. ‘She confides in you, doesn’t she? So do the wives. They tell you their worries about their husbands. The conversation with the chief that went the wrong way. The threatened posting to the east. And about the heavy drinking, and the pills so many of these senior men take.’
William shifted his position on the kitchen chair.
Schulte tilted his head, eyes on the table, his body very still. I continued. ‘And here’s this handsome young man on leave, handling the boat so neatly, nodding so sympathetically.’
A log inside the stove fell. Schulte jumped.
‘How did you know all that?’ His face hardened; he reminded me once again of the fox.
Some of it was inference based on a close reading of Beattie’s notes. And the rest was that growing ability to pick up on the emotions playing out behind someone’s expression. The loss of my looks had caused me to pay more attention to other people than I had as a self-absorbed young woman who never, frankly, needed to make much of an effort to draw people to me. ‘People are always interested in you, Anna,’ Grace had told me once. Perhaps if my face hadn’t been so disfigured I’d never have had the patience to enter someone else’s head. Or the inclination.
‘You were this handsome boy who wasn’t judgemental about the drugs and alcohol,’ I went on.
William glanced at me, eyes narrowed. I’d overstressed the point, scared Schulte off continuing. We waited.
Schulte let out a breath. ‘Actually, there was this woman, a Frau Lauder.’ He shook his head. ‘But it’s frivolous, it can’t be—
’
‘We’ll be the judge of that.’
He paused, looking down at the fingers he was steepling on the table. ‘She said something about drugs given to senior officers in the army and Luftwaffe, to keep them awake at night. And another kind given to make them sleep off duty. Frau Lauder joked that there must be whole factories producing uppers and downers for the same people.’
‘And?’ William’s voice had an edge to it. ‘What else did she say when she was mocking these drug users?’
Schulte looked around as though worried we’d be overheard. ‘We were out in the middle of the lake, nobody could hear us. She said some of the pills her husband had been given by their doctor had made him . . . unable to . . .’ He shuffled in the chair.
‘Have intercourse with her,’ I said. A more Anglo-Saxon expression had come to mind, one which Beattie would undoubtedly have used, but I’d censored myself, perhaps because of William’s presence.
Schulte looked down at his hands.
Nice. Not a new story, but close to the bone. Our colleagues broadcasting to German troops might be interested . . . Doctors have found a way of counteracting a side-effect of the medication prescribed for those brave men needing to keep themselves on full alert . . . German fighting men will no longer be distressed by lack of amorous ability . . . It would work for civilians, too. The wives sitting at home might prick up their ears, but it would have to be discreetly phrased for our audience.
The leaflets people might also like the story for some of the more pornographic printed material the RAF sometimes dispersed above German troops. Their artists could produce some interesting illustrations.
The prisoner’s face was set, probably worried he’d said too much.
‘Tell me what’s on your mind.’ I dropped my voice, trying to make it sound sympathetic.
‘My sister . . .’ He shrugged. ‘She’s seventeen.’
‘Quite a bit younger than you,’ I said. ‘You must be worried about the groups of drunken men milling around in the bar when there are receptions and parties.’ Through my mind flashed an image of Micki at the same age, ducking lecherous drunks in bars. I looked him directly in the eye. ‘Surely your parents must want to rid themselves of these unseemly guests?’
‘On that last leave of mine, we thought of claiming manpower shortages, closing the hotel. But the local Party wouldn’t let that happen. They’d insist on bringing in their own staff to serve in the restaurant and bar.’ He pursed his lips. ‘And that would be worse.’
‘You’re wondering how they’re managing now?’ William said, his voice soft. ‘Worrying that you can’t do anything to help?’
‘Yes.’ Schulte’s face had lost some of its stoniness.
‘You can help Grete,’ I said, folding my papers, sounding as casual as I could.
‘What do you mean?’ Schulte asked.
‘We might be able to put in a word for your family when the war ends.’
Schulte’s eyes widened. He tapped his fingers on the table. William and I let the silence sit there. Perhaps Schulte thought the war’s end was so distant that he couldn’t even imagine it. To be honest, I couldn’t myself. Beattie said he’d put money on an Allied invasion of Europe taking place next year, but who knew how long it might take to reach Berlin.
‘There were many conversations like the one I had with Frau Lauder,’ he said slowly.
‘But?’ William asked.
‘Suppose what I tell you is linked to my family, Fräulein?’ He swallowed, looking younger and less certain of himself.
‘Sergeant,’ I corrected him as I stood up. ‘We make no promises, Lieutenant Schulte, but this must be better than the cage.’
‘If I thought I was endangering my parents and sister I would have to go back to the cage.’ He spoke calmly.
I looked at William. ‘Would you take the lieutenant out? Mrs and Miss Waites can come in now. Mrs Waites will be wanting to cook the lunch.’
William went into the yard, returning with Mary. Schulte walked off towards the barn.
Mary had recently completed school, I recalled from our notes on the family.
‘Is Lieutenant Schulte pulling his weight?’ I asked her.
‘He’s very fit. Quite practical. Hasn’t worked with farm animals like the Italians have, but learns quickly.’ Mary was trying hard not to look at the right side of my face. She was probably feeling the mixture of pity and relief some attractive women felt when a competitor was out of the ring.
‘He’s not like the Italians,’ she said. ‘They’re cheerful. They don’t feel like enemies, really. This Nazi should be doing something harder.’
‘He’s a regular army officer, not obliged to work at all.’
She made a scoffing noise. I stared at her. ‘Why haven’t you transported him to Canada with the other Germans? We don’t want him here.’ She looked up, chin jutting out.
‘Even though he’s pulled all those turnips for you?’ I pointed through the window at the sacks piled up against the barn. ‘How many would you have managed if it were just you and the Italians, Mary?’
‘Even so—’
I looked at her hands. ‘Are those callouses sore?’
The girl scowled and glanced from her hands to mine. ‘Unlike some, I haven’t got time to put on hand cream and manicure my nails. What’s the point when it’s dawn till dusk in the muck? We’re told we must feed the nation, that it’s down to us to prevent people starving. I was going to go to secretarial college, make something of myself—’
I put a hand on her shoulder. ‘You work hard. And this prisoner is part of your war effort, watching him for me, helping us interview him.’ I opened my satchel and pulled out a card. ‘Here’s a telephone number.’
The girl took the card, her face still troubled.
‘Ring us if anything gives you cause for concern.’
Mary sighed. ‘It was hard to get him indoors for your interview. I came up with some story about needing him to fill the stove with logs. The Italians gave me funny looks. Helping you is taking me away from my farm work.’
‘Helping us is as important as producing food.’
She looked unconvinced. Mary wouldn’t have a clue about our radio broadcasts, how we waged war with Germany by influencing civilian disenchantment, perhaps eventually even opposition.
I remembered something. ‘You might want to let Schulte have a look at that tractor. He used to service the motor boats at his family’s hotel.’
‘Dad loved the tractor,’ she said quietly. ‘We’d only just got it when he . . .’ She swallowed.
‘You’ve had quite a time of it, haven’t you?’ For a second I experienced my own pain after the fire again, knowing everyone expected me to readapt to the world and do my duty when part of me was still struggling inside a burning church.
Mary gave a fierce shrug.
In the car on the return to Aspley Guise, William and I discussed the interview with Schulte and subsequent conversation with the girl. ‘It’s going to be harder than we thought to set up interviews with Schulte,’ I said.
‘I saw a small piece of woodland on the edge of the farm as we drove up the track,’ William said. ‘They probably kept it for game birds. Any chance our fellow could tidy it up? We could talk to him there, out of sight of the fields.’
‘Could work,’ I said. ‘Otherwise, there’s always the tractor. Perhaps it could develop a fault that only Schulte can mend, in an outlying field.’
William scribbled a note to himself on his writing pad. I looked at him enquiringly. ‘Schulte will be missing his brother officers,’ he said. ‘And his men. All those years he’s spent with them, by now he’ll feel quite isolated. And I don’t think the Italians can fill the gap. There’s no shared language. We should exploit his feeling of isolation, that sense that he’s lost his brothers, his former purpose.’ He looked sombre. Was William too still missing his old martial companions and career? We sat together in silence in the close confines of the rear sea
t, William readjusting his position and wincing as the poorly sprung car bumped over a pothole. No large Austin for us. And no Atkins. I didn’t recognise the driver. ‘Isolation,’ William said softly. ‘When you feel that the people who meant so much to you have gone.’
Gone because they’d died or because you’d left them behind. He seemed to be talking about himself rather than Schulte now. ‘While they’re alive, there’s always hope of a reunion.’ I was trying to cheer him up, remind him that some of his flying companions were probably still around.
William nodded very slowly to himself.
Mentally I ran over what the prisoner had told us. I’d write up my notes as soon as we were in Mulberry House. Beattie would want to see them and was apt to pounce on me if he felt I’d neglected important questions or failed to properly follow through on prisoner answers. He’d be interested in small details such as the cat lying by the stove while we interrogated Schulte and whether Schulte, like Frau Silberman in Lisbon back in February, had reacted positively to the animal’s presence.
William looked pale again. Perhaps the crash landing was still taking its toll. He wouldn’t be the only one of us whose body found it hard to forget the past. My face felt itchy this afternoon; I wanted to scratch at the carefully applied pancake make-up. Perhaps the scar tissue was moving again, as the doctor had warned me it might. William was looking out of the car window. I gave my cheek a furtive rub.
I remembered my mother once warning me that physical attractiveness could be a handicap, drawing the wrong kind of men to a woman. Perhaps. But if I could have just another day of being unscarred I’d take the risk. One more day with Patrick, as we’d been before.
Why was I thinking of Patrick now? Something about the interview with the prisoner had unsettled me, made me forget that I was the professional Sergeant Hall, entrusted with important POW interviews. I was just Anna Hall, twenty-three years old, remembering what she’d once had.
‘I don’t know how you manage to do these interviews and look as cool as a cucumber, Anna,’ William said.