The Survivors

by Kate Furnivall

  I found a church. When I say church, what I really mean is the remains of a church. A sad, angry shell. No roof, no altar, no stained glass, just the ruins of high pointed walls spiking up towards the moon like a row of sharp teeth, baying their rage. Aegidien Church was its name. No good to anyone tonight. Except me. I ducked inside, deep into its musty shadows, and started to dig a large hole among its rubble of stone and timbers. I tucked my sack inside it. Please don’t think that I came to this city unprepared. Not just with the torch and knife in my canvas shoulder bag. No, I came ready for Hanover. I had leeched information about the place from anyone in the camp who had been there, including Benny, my generous driver. So I knew exactly where I had to go.

  Hanover was an important railway junction and an essential industrial centre for the Third Reich, so no wonder the Allies gave it a hammering. Eighty-eight air raids. Nearly a million incendiary bombs.

  Imagine it. The look on the faces of the top brass of RAF Bomber Command and of the US Army Air Force when they saw the photographs of half-timbered buildings going up in flames like a haystack. The same way that, night after night, I imagine my husband’s P.11 fighter over Poland shot down by a German Messerschmidt. The flames roaring towards him to burn out his eyeballs. The commanders must have been beaming with pride while children in Hanover fled their houses with their hair on fire.

  The city had to go. Of course it did. It was producing a never-ending supply of tyres for Hitler’s military vehicles, providing guns and tracked vehicles for his army, and an AFA factory was manufacturing batteries for his submarines and his lethal torpedoes. So the centre of the city was ninety per cent obliterated. Bombed and incinerated.

  That was precisely where I was heading.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  ALICJA

  ‘Alicja, what are you doing?’

  ‘Reading.’

  ‘It doesn’t look like reading to me.’

  ‘I’m drawing as well.’

  Hanna looked sceptical but returned to her conversation with the Berlin woman three beds away. She was Alicja’s guard dog for the evening, keeping a close watch on her charge. The moment Hanna’s head was turned, Alicja went back to sketching the illustration in the book she’d taken from the library. It was a book on the history of French medieval warfare, presumably scavenged for the camp from a school or university.

  Rafal was peering over her shoulder, in awe.

  ‘There,’ she said after a few more minutes. ‘That’s the best I can do.’

  He reached forward and lifted the sheet of paper as if it were a holy relic. His dark brow pulled tight in concentration as he examined the details of the drawing. It was of a crossbow.

  ‘They were good with crossbows, the French archers,’ he muttered in her ear. ‘At the Battle of Crécy.’

  ‘You really think you can make one?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘One that works?’

  ‘Of course.’

  He blushed a rosy pink all the way to his hairline when he saw her look of admiration.

  ‘I’m good at woodwork. With a bit of metalwork too, it’s not so hard,’ he muttered. ‘It’s working out the stirrup and the roller nut positions . . .’

  He forgot her as he stared at each detail of the drawings, and she smiled at him now that he could not see. Focus, Rafal, focus. It is the only way.

  They were seated on Mama’s bed and Alicja ran a hand over the spot on the pillow where her mother’s cheek would lie. If she kept her palm there all night, would it bring her mother back? For a moment she bent down and laid her own cheek on the thin pillow and breathed her own breath over Mama’s pillowcase.

  ‘Is your back hurting?’ Rafal’s voice was soft with concern.

  ‘No.’ She sat up immediately.

  The muscles of her back still felt as though they had fishhooks caught in them, but they were healing each day and she didn’t want Rafal to think she was a girl.

  ‘Rafal, will you do something for me?’

  He laughed, folded up her drawings and slid them into his pocket. ‘You want a game of chess?’

  ‘No.’

  She stood up and removed an envelope from under her own pillow on the top bunk. She scooted close to Rafal and passed it secretly into his hand, unobserved by his mother.

  ‘What’s this?’ he asked.

  ‘A letter I’d like you to deliver.’

  She watched her friend’s handsome face carefully and noticed for the first time that he had soft dusky down starting to sprout along his jaw. He was twelve, nearly thirteen. She didn’t want him to leave her behind. She put her hand on his bony knee as if that would hold him with her.

  ‘Who’s it for?’ he asked and turned the envelope over to see the front. It was one of a handful that her mother had snaffled from Davide’s office.

  ‘Someone in Hut W.’

  ‘That’s the rough end of camp. I’m not supposed to go . . .’ He stopped, embarrassed, and ran a hand through his dense dark hair to rumple his thoughts.

  ‘Forget it,’ Alicja said and snatched the letter back. ‘I’ll do it myself.’

  ‘No! Don’t.’ He shrugged. ‘I’ll go. Early in the morning.’

  He held out his hand. There were yellow calluses on some of his fingers from where he used his slingshot. She placed the letter on his outstretched palm and he made it disappear before she could blink. She placed her hand back on his knee. It felt warm and alive. She felt cold and half dead.

  ‘Don’t worry, Alicja,’ Rafal murmured and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. ‘She’ll come back. Your mother would never abandon you.’

  Something in his voice was all wrong but she didn’t know what.

  ‘Who is the letter for?’ he asked.

  ‘A man called Herr Jan Blach.’

  ‘Is he a friend of your mother’s?’

  ‘I think so. Back in Warsaw. I need to talk to him. She won’t tell me what happened to her after I was locked away in the convent, but I need to—’

  Rafal ruffled a hand fondly through her short blond curls. ‘Sometimes it’s better not to know, Alicja.’

  ‘She’s here in this camp because of me. But why did she run from Poland? Why is she so frightened of going back?’

  Rafal dropped his voice to a whisper, one eye on his mother’s broad back. ‘You know why. Because she was in the Resistance. The Soviets in Warsaw now will have her shot if she is sent back there.’

  Alicja was shaken by a tremor that made her teeth rattle. ‘No, there’s more to it. I know there is. I have to find this Jan Blach.’

  CHAPTER TWENY-THREE

  Günther’s Bar was long and thin. The air in it hung thick and heavy as cat fur; coils of cigarette smoke joined a fog bank on the ceiling. It was more crowded than I’d expected. But what else is there to do in a city like this, except hide in the bottom of a glass?

  I found myself a table near the door and ordered a beer. Even in my drab dress and headscarf I drew glances. Of course I would. Every other woman in the place wielded a professional smile and plunging cleavage, so the men looked me up and down like I was a dusty sparrow that had hopped into a cage of gaudy lovebirds by mistake. I kept my eyes to myself and waited for my beer to arrive.

  It was Hanna who had given me the name of Günther’s Bar. It seemed my laundry-obsessed friend had lingered a while in Hanover before arriving at Graufeld Camp and so could pass on to me directions from Aegidien Church, down Marketstrasse, then right to Osterstrasse. Easier said than done. The old town centre used to be the happy hunting ground of criminals and prostitutes but now its destruction had left just a confusion of masonry. The military had gouged random paths through the ruins of people’s homes and I’d picked my way along them, clambering into the darkest patches.

  How in God’s name would Germany ever get out from under all the rubble?

  Hanna had also muttered a name in my ear – Bruno Fuchs – at the same time as running a finger along her throat. But I had laughed.
>
  ‘I lived with danger every day in Warsaw,’ I told her. ‘I can live with it here too.’

  But neither of us was a fool. We could both recognise bravado when we heard it.

  ‘Noch etwas?’

  The man who placed my beer on the table had a long white apron and a long white face that looked as if it had never seen the sun.

  ‘Danke,’ I said and smiled pleasantly at him. ‘I’m looking for someone who comes here sometimes. A man named Bruno Fuchs. Do you know him?’

  His eyes flicked to a figure in the small booth at the end of the bar. I needed no more. I made to rise to my feet but Herr White Face leaned down over me, preventing it.

  ‘This is no place for you, gnädige Frau.’ His tired eyes were full of concern. ‘Bruno Fuchs is not a man for you to be dealing with. Drink your beer and walk out of here. That’s my advice.’

  His kindness caught me unawares. I was a total stranger. Not even German. Why bother with me? To my horror I had an urge to press my face against his spotless apron and cry my thanks.

  I looked up at his face for a long moment, at the decency in it, and I knew he was right. I forced myself to say, ‘Thank you, but I need to speak with him.’

  ‘None of us needs a Bruno Fuchs in our life,’ he answered in a quiet undertone and moved away to his bar.

  I stood, picked up my beer and walked over to the booth.

  I slid on to the bench opposite the man with fierce ginger hair and one lazy eye. His cheeks were so fat they were obscene in this world of fleshless wraiths, but I took it as a positive sign. It meant he was good at what he did. Filling his pockets with money.

  ‘Guten Abend, Herr Fuchs.’

  His pale honey-coloured eyes regarded me in their lopsided way over a forkful of cheese that paused on its way to his mouth.

  ‘And who are you?’

  ‘Someone who wants to do business.’

  ‘I don’t do business over dinner. It spoils my digestion.’

  In front of him on a platter lay a hefty slab of Tilsiter cheese, thick and creamy and tempting. The tangy smell of it made my stomach churn with hunger. Herr Fuchs continued to shave strips off it and fork them into his full mouth with the relentless rhythm of a machine.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ I said.

  He gave the thinnest of smiles but his eyes invited no discussion. He shrugged, straining the buttons of his shirt across his chest, indifferent to the food stains down the front of his black jacket. A dusting of cheese crumbs fell from his lips, which glistened with brandy, as I sat there and watched in silence. After about twenty minutes he pushed his plate aside and lit a black cheroot. He leaned forward as far as his bloated belly would allow and blew smoke into my face. It stank like cat shit.

  ‘Talk,’ he said lazily.

  I picked up his cheese knife. ‘Maybe this blade can talk for me.’ I said it pleasantly enough.

  A big meaty bodyguard reared up from the nearest table and was reaching for me, but Fuchs waved him aside. I had his attention now.

  I would be lying if I said I wasn’t frightened. I was. The kind of fear that drains every instinct out of you except the instinct to run. There was something about this obscene bastard of a man that was evil. Just the smell of his sweat chilled my blood. I wanted this over quickly.

  ‘I am here to do business,’ I announced once more.

  ‘What business is that?’

  ‘This business.’

  From my shoulder bag I removed an object and placed it on the table. It was a clock no higher than my hand, but in an exquisite hand-chased silver casing. It seemed to raise not a flicker of interest in him and I felt my hopes teeter on the edge.

  ‘Nothing else?’ He sat back against the bench rest and it creaked in protest.

  Was he bluffing?

  The timepiece had been discovered by Alicja, hidden under a sack of potatoes in a dingy garden shed. It was fine work. Very fine. A valuable piece. I didn’t let my disappointment show, but instead gave the kind of shrug he’d given me.

  ‘Do you know,’ he sighed with exaggeration, ‘how many silver watches and clocks and jewellery boxes and bracelets I am offered each day? Do you? Can you guess?’

  I said nothing.

  ‘So many that they are more worthless than shit. A bag of flour is all your clock will get you now.’

  ‘I do not want a bag of flour. I want money.’

  His puffy nose puckered up in a sneer. ‘Bring me diamonds and then we talk real American dollars. Do you honestly think the people of Hanover want a clock?’

  He turned his gaze from me to the men in the bar. They wisely kept their eyes on their own business, careful to keep their nose out of his.

  ‘What about this, Fuchs? Do they want this?’

  His heavy head jerked round sharply. In my hand sat a small brown-glass container. I shook it. It rattled. The unmistakable sound of tablets.

  I had him.

  This is how it worked.

  Tablets came top of the list.

  Tools came second.

  Cigarettes came third.

  Blankets and clothing came fourth.

  Pretty things came last.

  Exceptions were lipstick and hairbrushes, which were always in demand. Unfortunately there were no lipsticks or hairbrushes in my sack, but everything else was there.

  Any fool should know that the last thing the people of Hanover needed right now would be something to tell the time. You can’t eat a clock.

  Fuchs and I faced each other in a stand-off among the ruins of Aegidien Church. A stiff wind rattled the loose timbers and skimmed the sharp edges of the ruin, while the moon threw soulless shadows across our faces.

  ‘Two hundred marks,’ he said flatly.

  ‘Dollars,’ I said. My head was pounding. ‘I don’t want worthless Reichsmarks. And no Allied Occupation Marks either. I need hard currency.’

  He uttered a sour laugh. We both knew I was in a corner.

  ‘The tools alone are worth more than two hundred marks,’ I pointed out.

  ‘So find someone else to sell your sack to.’

  I looked around me. As though another more amenable black marketeer would step out of the night to make me an offer. I was desperate and Fuchs knew it. Sweat trickled down my spine despite the chill wind.

  ‘A hundred dollars,’ I said. ‘No lower.’

  He let his eyes linger on the sack at my feet. He’d examined the objects and knew exactly what was on offer. It was worth at least one thousand marks. Probably more. His thick-necked bodyguard was prowling around us in a restless circle, his boots crunching down on the masonry underfoot. He was supposedly searching for intruders but it didn’t feel like that. Not to me. I kept an eye on the brick wall of his shoulders as he moved in and out of the darkness and every time he passed behind me the hairs on my neck prickled and the muscles in my back twitched.

  ‘Two hundred marks,’ Fuchs repeated.

  ‘Ninety dollars or I walk away.’

  ‘You can walk away anytime you like, but leave the sack here.’

  ‘Two hundred marks is robbery.’

  ‘Scheisse! Because you are pretty and because I am softhearted, I will make it thirty dollars.’ He put a pudgy hand into his pocket, pulled out a fold of banknotes and started to count them out.

  ‘Eighty,’ I demanded.

  ‘Thirty is my final offer. Take it, you bitch!’

  I’d always known this could happen. It was why I carried a knife in my shoulder bag. But fear does odd things to your mind, it blurs the boundaries between thoughts and pulls the rug out from under your decisions. Instead of reaching for my knife, as I should have done, I reached for my sack and broke into a run, haring over the rubble.

  Before I had gone a dozen paces the brutal hand of his bodyguard seized my short hair from behind and yanked back my head, so hard I thought my throat would snap. A razor-sharp blade bit into the soft skin of my exposed throat and I froze.

  I couldn’t swallow. Couldn’t spe
ak. Could think of nothing except my promise to Alicja to return to Graufeld. And the certainty that I would not be keeping that promise.

  The lumbering figure of Bruno Fuchs loomed up in front of me. He snatched the sack. Punched me in the stomach. My body convulsed instinctively and my throat pressed down on the blade. I felt a sharp sting. My skin split open and I felt blood flow down between my breasts.

  ‘Alicja!’ I screamed my daughter’s name.

  Death put out its hand to me. But instead of seizing it, I arched my neck back from the knife blade so that all I could see was the vast black pall of the sky, stabbed with the pinpricks of stars.

  ‘Wait!’ I shouted. But the shout sounded faint to my ears.

  ‘Finish her,’ Fuchs ordered.

  ‘No, wait. You need me.’

  ‘I don’t need you. I have your sack of stolen goods.’ A guttural sound came from him and it took a moment for me to realise it was a laugh. ‘You should have taken the thirty dollars when they were offered.’

  He would have killed me and dumped my body under the rubble, whatever price we’d agreed. Abruptly my heartbeat ceased. No sound at all. No thunder in my ears. Just silence. As though my body realised before I did that my next breath would be my last.

  ‘I can help you,’ I said.

  But the tendons in my throat braced themselves for the final cut.

  ‘Help me?’ His tone was scornful. ‘How?’

  ‘Tell your gorilla to remove the knife first.’

  Fuchs grunted. The blade vanished.

  I tried to press the palm of my hand to the wound to stem the blood, but I was shaking too badly.

  ‘Graufeld Camp has food,’ I said in a raw whisper. ‘Thousands of tins of it in store. And medicines. Why kill your golden goose?’

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  DAVIDE BOUVIER

  ‘Goodnight, gentlemen.’

  ‘Goodnight, Colonel.’ Captain Percy Jeavons saluted smartly.