The Survivors

by Kate Furnivall

  ‘I am reporting you to Colonel Whitmore as a Nazi war criminal. Klara is beyond your reach now, so your deal is null and void. I do not need to keep silent to protect her.’

  Davide turned on his heel to head directly for Colonel Whitmore’s office. He could at least do that for her.

  ‘First,’ Scholz said quietly, ‘walk with me. And I will tell you the truth.’

  ‘The murder.’ Scholz said the word carefully. The way you would handle a grenade. ‘Let’s talk about that.’

  ‘Which murder are we talking about?’ David said sharply. ‘The ones committed by you? The time you murdered her friend in the street when you arrested her? Don’t look surprised. Yes, she told me about that. Or the murders committed by you and Axel Fleischer every day of the week on the streets of Warsaw because he liked the smell of blood? And because Hitler wanted the Poles destroyed. Are those the murders you want to discuss?’

  They were walking fast. Too fast for Davide’s comfort. His lungs tightening in the cold. They were at the distant end of the Recreation field, far from the other DPs.

  ‘Did she tell you,’ Scholz asked in a polite tone, not rising to Davide’s anger, ‘about the murder in the nightclub?’

  ‘What nightclub?’

  ‘The nightclub called the Glass Slipper. The one in which Klara Janowska murdered thirty-two people.’

  ‘Klara liked nightclubs, Davide. She came alive in them. Sometimes she could be tight-lipped at home, but in the hot, crazy, wild world of nightclubs, she lit up. She burned so bright she put all other women in the shade. You may not think it now when you see her here. Here she is drab. No flesh on her skinny bones. Her clothes looking like shit. But in her jewels and her finery and her hair like a river of golden silk down her back—’

  ‘Klara is never drab.’

  Scholz gave a wry smile. ‘Maybe not. But her appearance is not what it was. You may think she doesn’t care about looking the way she does now, but I know her. She adored what she got from Fleischer, the rings and the necklaces and the fine gowns. She flaunted them.’ He laughed, a happy laugh. ‘I was a fool.’ He halted and lit a cigarette, struggling for a flame in the wind. ‘Like you are a fool, Davide,’ he added, exhaling smoke. ‘She played us both for fools.’

  Davide had heard enough. ‘I am not the kind of fool who falls for your lies, Scholz.’

  ‘No, just for hers.’

  ‘Go to hell, Scholz. I am informing Colonel Whitmore that—’

  ‘Wait.’ He rested his large hand on Davide’s arm. Not hard. Just enough to detain him. ‘Let me tell you about that night at the Glass Slipper.’

  ‘She looked like a goddess.’ Scholz smiled at the memory. ‘Sheathed in silver. A diamond choker on her long swan neck. We all sat at a table together – Fleischer and his hangers-on. And Klara of course. It was Fleischer’s birthday and he was making a big celebration of it to impress his guest of honour, Ferdinand Von Sammern-Frankenegg. One of Hitler’s favourites.

  ‘Klara likes important men. She laps up their attention. When Sammern-Frankenegg paid her scant attention, she did what she always does when ignored. She turned a cold shoulder on him and made a point of dancing with everyone else of rank in the room. She even danced with me. A rare honour.

  ‘Halfway through the evening, people started being sick. Collapsing on the floor. I’m sure you know what is coming. The punchbowl was poisoned with arsenic. Thirty-two people died. As many again were seriously ill. Not just German officers. Their wives as well. Even Polish industrialists who were there. Screaming in agony.

  ‘I know it was Klara. I saw her do it. It looked to everyone else like an attack against the regime by an agent of the Resistance, but I knew her better. It was an attack on the highest-ranking officer in the room who was ignoring her – Sammern-Frankenegg. But he drank whisky. As did Fleischer. As did I. We survived.

  ‘All Polish people in the room were questioned. I saved her. I said she was with me all the time on the dance floor. I lied for her. Risked my own neck for her. I accused the waitress who was serving the cake. I had her shot that same night in front of everybody.

  ‘Do you know what Klara did?

  ‘She slapped my face. For saving her life.’

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Berlin

  ‘Come in, please,’ said the tall woman in the doorway. ‘It is chill out here on the landing.’

  It was scarcely less chill in the apartment. My eyes were greedy to see it. To see the elaborate cornices, the intricate ceiling bosses. The tall elegant windows and the beautiful period furniture. The vast gilded mirror. Yes, Axel Fleischer would have liked that. I could picture him strutting in front of it, flaunting his specially tailored Oberführer uniform and highly polished jackboots.

  The room smelled of him. It couldn’t, I know. But it did.

  ‘Thank you for seeing us, Fräulein. I am Frau Janowska and this is my friend, Frau Pamulska.’

  Magdalena Huber’s face was not accustomed to smiling much but she waved us to a pair of armchairs beside the unlit woodstove with old-world courtesy. Her manner was that of a headmistress. Which is what I knew she had once been. Her mousy hair was swept up into a thick old-fashioned bun on top of her head, adding to her already exceptional height. Her skin was unusually pink and she was painfully thin, but almost everyone in Germany was painfully thin.

  ‘I am looking for Frau Fleischer,’ I said. ‘I believe she used to live here. Do you know where she is now?’

  She chose to stand in front of us, rather than to sit. There was no flicker on her face as she said, ‘Waltraud died in an air raid. In the cinema. Early this year.’

  ‘And Rudi, her son?’

  ‘He was with her. She took the boy to see Der Schneemann. They were both killed. He was . . .’ She closed her eyes and shook her head mutely.

  ‘Nine years old,’ I murmured. Almost the same age as Alicja. ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘You knew them?’

  ‘No. I knew her husband, Axel Fleischer, in Warsaw. He told me about them. And you. He told me about you, how much he admired you and relied on you. He called you wunderbar.’

  It was as if I’d lit a fire inside her. Her pink cheeks burned and her hazel eyes glowed. The sadness that hung from her bony shoulders evaporated.

  ‘He said,’ I continued, ‘that you were far more than just a tutor to his son Rudi. You ran the household while his wife spent her days shopping for gowns. That’s what he said.’

  Magdalena Huber sat down, stiff at first. ‘Thank you, Frau Janowska,’ she said formally.

  But slowly she started to fold forward on herself till her shoulders were almost resting on her long thin thighs. Her hands covered her face. She made no sound. Her body silent and immobile. Minutes ticked past while Hanna and I waited for the wave of grief to pass. Finally I could not bear her loneliness anymore and I went over, knelt beside her and laid a comforting hand on her back. I could feel the tremors within her.

  ‘Did Axel know you loved him?’ I asked softly.

  ‘I didn’t think he even noticed me.’ Abruptly she straightened up, spilling off my hand. ‘Were you his mistress in Warsaw?’

  ‘Yes, I was.’

  ‘Did you love him?’

  ‘No, I didn’t love him.’

  She nodded. ‘I understand. Why would you love a German?’

  She rose to her full height and smiled sadly. ‘I have no food or drink to offer you, I’m sorry. I have nothing in the house.’ She glanced down at her fleshless hands. ‘We are all starving to death and when the winter snow comes, we will lie down and die. The cemeteries will be overflowing.’

  I took her hand in mine and chafed it to bring warmth into it. Beside the cold woodstove sat a pile of chopped-up chair legs waiting to be burned, but clearly she was saving them for winter. I glanced around at the fine pieces of Axel’s antique furniture. The cabinets already stood empty. The pictures had been stripped from the walls. The chairs would all be reduced to kindling before the
year was past.

  ‘Fräulein Huber,’ I started, my mouth dry as I framed the words in my head, ‘I have one question to—’

  A sudden raucous noise – like a goose having its neck wrung – burst through the apartment and made Hanna reach for the paperknife lying on top of the desk in the corner of the room. I spun round to face the door, pulse thumping.

  Magdalena Huber creased with laughter at our alarm. ‘It’s only Charlie,’ she assured us. ‘He’s hungry.’

  ‘Who the hell is Charlie?’ Hanna demanded.

  ‘He’s my friend. Come and meet him.’

  Hanna and I exchanged a look but followed her to what turned out to be a green-tiled bathroom. As soon as the door was opened, a fishy smell hit us and out trotted a very irate, tall but scrawny bird with feet like yellow dinner plates.

  ‘Charlie is a pelican.’ Fräulein Huber smiled fondly at the creature and patted its ruffled feathers. ‘I called him Charlie after Charlie Chaplin because he has big feet and makes me laugh.’

  The bird was ugly and bad-tempered, and his long beak looked like a lethal weapon. I backed away uneasily but Hanna was grinning from ear to ear.

  ‘Roast dinner tonight!’ she laughed.

  Magdalena Huber gave her the kind of look she must have given Axel’s young Rudi when he stepped out of line. ‘Charlie came to me when they tried to move all the animals in Berlin Zoo to safety from the bombing and he escaped. I daren’t take him back because there are too many Berliners out there with the same barbaric thought as you, Frau Pamulska.’

  She didn’t want to lose her odd friend, I could see that. ‘What do you feed him on?’

  ‘Fish, of course.’

  Hanna grunted. ‘You starve, while your ugly friend here gets to dine on fish?’

  The creature rubbed the side of its head against Fräulein Huber’s thigh, rolling its yellow eye. ‘We have a friend, don’t we Charlie, a fisherman called Erich. He goes out in his rowing boat on the Hafel for us.’

  I stared at Hanna. But she didn’t hear what I heard. She was too busy imagining succulent pelican stew.

  ‘Fräulein Huber, I have one more question to ask,’ I said.

  She must have noticed something in my voice, something that told her this is why I had come. Her head turned sharply. Her intelligent eyes studied me.

  ‘Ask it,’ she said.

  ‘Axel Fleischer had a sister.’

  She raised an eyebrow in surprise. ‘That’s true. Irmgard Köhler is her name.’

  ‘I believe she lives somewhere near Hanover.’

  ‘Yes, she did. But I have no idea whether she is still there or even if she is still alive.’

  ‘Do you have her address?’

  Our gaze fixed on each other, this proud woman and myself. What did she see when she looked at me? What did I see in her? I believe we both saw a part of ourselves, a part we were terrified of losing: blind conviction that we could make life better if we worked at it hard enough.

  ‘Come,’ she said.

  We followed her back into the salon, Charlie slapping along behind us. She opened the delicate rosewood desk in the corner – soon destined for the fire, no doubt. After several minutes she handed me a piece of paper with an address written on it.

  ‘Don’t harm her,’ she said.

  I felt blood flush to my cheeks. Is that what she’d seen in me?

  ‘Fräulein Huber, thank you.’ I offered her a grateful smile. ‘Does your fisherman friend ever fish at night?’

  I’ll say this for Magdalena Huber, she knows how to pick her friends. Within an hour we were in a cart that reeked of fish, trundling through the city behind a broad-in-the-beam grey mare. She had an odd rolling gait with a long stride and constantly swivelled her ears, but she pulled hard and didn’t hang about.

  We were travelling with Erich, Magdalena’s fisherman. He was small and reflective, a man who thought before he spoke. He was clearly devoted to Magdalena, regarded Charlie as a naughty child, and took to Hanna immediately with her loud-mouth cussing and mobile bosom. Of me he was cautious. I didn’t blame him. I’d be cautious too.

  He warned us about the city curfew. No one was allowed on the streets between eleven o’clock at night and five in the morning. It was strictly enforced with a fine of 150 marks if caught.

  ‘We have to get you ladies off the streets before curfew,’ he told us.

  ‘What about you?’ I asked.

  He tapped the side of his nose. ‘Too slippery for them Russkie knuckleheads.’

  From Oderberger Strasse we rode seated in the back of the cart with a stinking tarpaulin over our knees that kept the night’s chill off us. It was just before nine o’clock, so Erich did not expect trouble, but if we were stopped, neither of us possessed identity papers. The roads were dark, with spasmodic street lamps and piles of rubble to catch out the unwary. But Erich knew what he was doing. He manoeuvred us safely on to the long straight road that would take us all the way to the Olympic stadium.

  As soon as we were passing through Tiergarten, savagely stripped of its trees for fuel, the horse picked up its feet and I felt hope flutter its wings inside me.

  Hanna fell asleep, her head resting on my shoulder. There was something soothing about the rhythmic clopping of the mare’s hooves in the darkness. I could so easily have forgotten the danger and let my chin droop to my chest if it weren’t for the patrols of Soviet soldiers, which sent shivers through me. But Erich was right. They took no notice of us. A workman and his women on their way home. Nothing of interest.

  I don’t know how long we travelled. An hour? Maybe nearer two. Time seemed to lose its meaning. The night was cold but not wet, for which I was thankful. I tried to ignore the hundreds of burned-out hulks of cars hunched on the sides of the road, grim reminders of the bombing raids and flash fires that blackened the city. I didn’t smell the river but clearly the horse did. Its ears pricked forward and I saw Erich’s back straighten in anticipation. I tried to thank him for what he’d done for us, but he would have none of it.

  He stabled the mare in a barn, his movements swift and silent, and while I waited I could see the moonlight picking out the bulk of the Olympic stadium, built for Hitler’s Berlin Games in 1936. Erich had brought us to Pichelsberg, between Charlottenburg and Spandau. We were to continue from here by boat.

  ‘Come,’ Erich hissed.

  We followed on his heels, down towards Wannsee. The path was deserted and I could hear the murmur of the river. To my horror, Erich started to vent his fury loudly at the filthy state of the rivers Spree and Havel, so polluted by industry and excrement that the barbels, which used to be his main catch, had vanished. He was making do with roach and gudgeons. And eels at night. It was a good thing Charlie liked eels, he laughed.

  The night was colder on the riverbank than I had expected and I pulled my coat tighter around me. His boat was bluntnosed, moored under the overhang of a tree, and once we were all safely aboard, Erich’s words dried up. There was only the water.

  He rowed through the darkness in silence, just the pull of the blades through the water. Long easy strokes that carried us further downstream towards the borders of the Soviet Zone, the chill wind in our faces. Being on water does something to you. It soothes the soul. Being on water in darkness is just you and the stars.

  But every minute that I was away from my daughter at Graufeld Camp, Oskar Scholz was still there. With only Davide to stand between them.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Graufeld Camp

  DAVIDE BOUVIER

  The light in Graufeld Camp was fading fast. The DPs withdrew from the streets into their huts and lit the stoves. Nights were always the worst, the darkness never-ending. The winter was coming and it could only get worse.

  Davide was still on his route march outside with Scholz. He was cold. Hearing things about Klara that he had no wish to hear did that to him. What he realised was that Scholz loved to talk about her, to say her name. He rolled it round his mouth the way
he would a fine wine.

  ‘How many bloody times are you two going to circle this wall?’ A man with a pinched face stepped out in front of them. ‘You’ve been at it for hours. It gives me the fucking creeps, it does.’

  The man was looking for trouble, bored and in need of fun. His idea of fun was to put his fist in a face. This happened somewhere in the camp every hour.

  Davide neatly sidestepped the burly figure blocking their path, but Scholz took the comments personally. Or maybe he too was after some fun. It only took five seconds. He seized the man’s ears and at the same time raised his own knee. The sound of kneecap splintering nasal bone and cartilage was like stepping on a bunch of snails. Wet but brittle.

  Scholz moved on with no comment.

  As they passed behind the laundry and felt the blast of warm air expelled from its vats of boiling water, Davide lingered, inhaling the steam into his tight lungs.

  ‘You love her, don’t you?’ he said.

  It caught his companion by surprise. Scholz shook his head vehemently.

  ‘No. Klara is a clever, scheming, lying, selfish bitch who uses men to get what she wants. Including you. Why the hell would I love her?’

  They walked on in uncomfortable silence for most of half a circuit along the perimeter wall, but Davide was acutely aware of an odd tenuous connection binding them together, step by step. They both loved Klara. Despite the German’s adamant dismissal. But how could a man who loved a woman concoct such lies about her? And yet . . . there were whispers in Davide’s head. Voices. Murmurs. They made him question the Klara he knew.

  Selfish bitch.

  No, no. That was not Klara. She would sacrifice everything for that daughter of hers. Even her life. Scholz had gone too far. Davide halted, in sight of the rear of the Administration building. The daylight was failing and the colonel’s lamp was burning. He should walk in there and speak with him now.

  ‘To hell with you, Scholz. Why should I believe a word you say? You executed her friend in the street the first time your paths crossed. You tore her fingernails out yourself.’ Davide’s voice was rising. ‘You stole her child in order to force her to do your bidding. You, Scholz, are the scheming, lying, manipulative bastard, not Klara. It is no wonder she does not love you.’