Never Anyone But You

by Rupert Thomson

  When Claude saw the Germans she ran towards the stairs, but one of them caught her by the arm and pushed her down into a chair.

  “You’re too late,” she said. “You’ve already lost the war.”

  “Search the house,” Bode said in a soft voice. He might almost have been talking to himself.

  “I can show you where everything is,” I said. “Then you won’t have to look.”

  “Ruhe,” he said. Quiet.

  Wolf appeared in the doorway. His dark eyes rested on me for a few moments, then drifted across the room.

  I heard the crash and thump of boots as the soldiers moved about above my head. Drawers were opened. Cupboards too. Something fell over. Something broke. They wanted to search the house. They liked going through other people’s things.

  As Wolf moved towards a framed photograph of Jacqueline Lamba, I glimpsed a movement in the garden. Peter was crossing the lawn, dressed in one of George’s jackets and a pair of wool trousers I had bought on rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré in 1931. I watched as he clambered up onto the anti-tank wall and disappeared over the top. After he had been with us for about a month, he had come to us one evening and wrapped his thin arms around us and kissed our hands. He had told us he would never forget what we had done for him. We were angels, he said. We belonged in heaven. We don’t believe in heaven, Claude had told him. He smiled. I also don’t believe, he said. In truth, we were the ones who were filled with gratitude. He had done more for us, we felt, than we had done for him. At a time when we were beginning to lose strength and weary of our struggles, he had turned up at our door and told us stories. With his mangled French and his made-up sign language, he had dispelled our disillusion. He had given us back the very thing we valued most in ourselves. Our conviction. Our resolve.

  I faced back into the room. Kid had leapt onto the table and was finishing my soup. I glanced at Claude. She was still slumped in her chair. Her eyes were closed.

  Turning away from the picture of Jacqueline, Wolf looked at Claude, and then at me. “I’ve seen you two before.”

  I shrugged.

  Kid was still lapping up the soup with his rough pink tongue.

  When Wolf’s three colleagues reappeared, they were carrying Claude’s typewriter, the radio, my German dictionary, and an assortment of the empty cigarette packets we used as containers for our smaller leaflets. They had found Claude’s gun as well.

  Opening her eyes, Claude spoke to Bode. “This has nothing to do with my sister. I was the one who listened to the radio. I wrote the leaflets, and was responsible for their distribution.” She rose to her feet. “What’s more I lied to you three months ago. I’m Jewish—”

  “Claude,” I said.

  “Outside,” Bode said. “Both of you.”

  I addressed him in German for the first time. “Excuse me, Herr Oberst, but would you allow me to fetch my sister’s medication?”

  His dull eyes seemed to animate at the sound of his own language. It was as if I had brought him back from somewhere far away.

  “What medication?”

  “She has a heart condition,” I said. “Without her pills, she’ll become seriously ill. She might even die.”

  “Where are they?”

  “In the bathroom.”

  He jerked his head sideways. “Schnell.” Be quick.

  Wolf spoke to another officer. “Lohse? Go with her.”

  Lohse had the amiable, inoffensive face of a greengrocer. I could see him with an apron round his middle, weighing onions. As he followed me up the stairs, I asked him what he thought of Jersey.

  “It’s not so bad,” he said.

  “Better than the Russian front,” I said, “in any case.”

  “I have a brother there.”

  “You must be very worried.”

  “Yes.”

  I was talking to calm my nerves, and to normalize the situation. I needed to think clearly. At the top of the stairs I looked towards our bedroom. Furniture had been upended, and the floor was a slew of pictures, clothes, and papers.

  Lohse nudged me in the back. “Keep going.”

  He waited by the bathroom door while I opened the medicine cabinet above the sink and took out a dark-blue glass bottle labeled Milk of Magnesia. I had lied to Bode. Claude’s health might be fragile, but there was nothing wrong with her heart. The bottle contained a barbiturate called Gardénal, which I had been stockpiling against precisely this eventuality. Though I wasn’t superstitious, I had sometimes thought that being prepared might prevent disaster. Like an insurance policy. But here we were, about to be arrested…Heat prickled across my scalp, and the wall began to swell. I leaned on the sink, my head lowered.

  Lohse asked what I was doing.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I feel dizzy.”

  “Please hurry.”

  When we reached the ground floor, Bode’s eyes fixed on the blue glass bottle. “Let me see.” Taking the bottle from me, he opened it and peered inside. “A heart condition, you said?”

  My own heart quiet, like a clock stopped by a catastrophe.

  “Yes,” I said.

  He looked straight at me, his gaze disdainful as before. I didn’t look away. At last, he screwed the top on to the bottle and gave it back to me. I thanked him. Claude had once told me I was like a statue, but it was only years later that I had asked her what she meant. You present a solid surface, she said. You’re hard to read. Bode had just proved her right.

  Out on the road two cars and an army truck were waiting. A light rain was falling, and the sea was flat. There was no sign of Peter. I was glad he had escaped, and hoped he would find shelter. As Claude and I were marched towards the truck, I stopped and took her in my arms.

  “I love you,” I whispered.

  She pulled me closer. “I love you too.”

  To my surprise, none of the Germans interfered.

  We climbed into the back of the truck and sat next to each other, my right shoulder up against the cold metal of the cab. The roof was green canvas, as were the walls. Two officers sat farther down, next to the tailgate. They faced each other, rifles upright between their knees.

  The truck shook itself and moved away, the engine raucous, the canvas all around us flapping. We passed the hotel, then the garage. Then the post office. Our house disappeared from view. We passed Mrs. Brown’s café. We were leaving everything behind. If I tried to think ahead, my brain seized up. In my right hand was the blue glass bottle. I would have to choose the moment carefully.

  As the truck climbed the hill to Route des Genets, Claude turned to me. “I’m sorry, Suzanne.”

  I looked at her. “What for?”

  “It was all my fault.”

  “Don’t be stupid. We were in this together, from the beginning.”

  “But it was my idea.”

  I looked beyond her, beyond the soldiers. The road was like a thread, a clue, something that fed out behind us so we could find our way back to the world we knew and loved. Would we find our way back, though? I couldn’t imagine it.

  “It was selfish of me,” Claude went on. “I’m self-destructive—and now I have destroyed you too.”

  “I would rather be destroyed by you,” I said, “than by anybody else.”

  We were somewhere above St. Aubin. Trees closed over our heads, forming a green tunnel.

  “I’m not afraid,” she said. “Are you?”

  “If I’m honest, yes.”

  “Suzanne.” She turned to me again and held me. I could feel her arms around me, arms I might never feel again.

  “Are you crying?” she asked.

  I couldn’t answer. My throat was raw, and full of obstacles.

  “You never cry,” she said. “It must be bad if you’re crying. It must be really bad.”

  “It’s the thought of not being with
you,” I said, my voice jerky, thin. “It’s the thought of all this coming to an end.”

  “Have I been good to you?”

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t tortured you too much?”

  I smiled through my tears. “Not too much, no. Just a little.”

  “There. That’s more like you.” She stroked my hair, over and over, the way a mother might. “I was difficult, though, sometimes…”

  “Sometimes. But you were also astonishing.” I looked into her eyes. “We’re doing it, then?”

  “Yes. We can’t let them have any power over us. That would be unthinkable.” She glanced at the two soldiers. “Also, I’m nearly fifty. You’re fifty-two. It’s not as if we haven’t lived.” Her face emptied. She was somewhere else. I wondered if she was thinking about the people she had never been allowed to love.

  “And me?” I said. “Was I enough for you?”

  She smiled. “It’s true what I told my father all those years ago. You were my salvation.”

  This was something she felt deeply, and often needed to reiterate, and I thought of the unlikely marriage that had made sisters of us. My mother’s gift to Claude’s father had been calmness and consistency, qualities he must have craved. Perhaps my gift to Claude had not been so dissimilar.

  “Do you believe me?” she asked.

  “Yes, of course.”

  When the soldiers weren’t looking, she kissed me on the lips. Her tongue tasted of zinc or iron. This was panic’s residue. That mad moment when she fled towards the stairs.

  “I do have one regret,” she said. “I’m sorry we won’t see the Nazis lose the war.”

  One of the soldiers’ heads jerked in our direction. “Nicht reden.” No talking. I noticed his ears, which were unusually large and fleshy. Was this Erich, the young officer who had been so curious about the island’s history?

  We passed the brick Martello tower in Beaumont. The sky was overcast. Gray sea showed between the houses. In ten minutes we would reach St. Helier, and it would be too late. I glanced at the two Germans. They were watching the coast road unwind behind us. One of them—Erich—seemed on the verge of sleep, his chin falling forwards, onto his chest. Shielded by Claude, I opened the bottle and tipped the pills onto my palm. We were to take half each. I passed Claude her share.

  “Is something wrong?” she asked.

  “No,” I said. “Nothing’s wrong.”

  She began to swallow the pills. I did the same. The Germans were still staring at the road and didn’t notice.

  WICKED WHITE

  1944–1945

  The truck turned in through the gates of the prison on Gloucester Street and came to a halt in a small courtyard of blackened brick. Is something wrong? Looking at my share of the pills, I had had sudden qualms about the dose. Twenty tablets would probably be sufficient for Claude—she was much more slightly built than I was—but I suspected I might need something to help me finish the job. Climbing down out of the truck, I kept my eyes open for anything that might serve as a blade. When I saw a shattered roof tile lying at the base of a wall I bent down, pretending to tie my shoelace. I waited until the Germans looked away, then I pocketed the fragment with the sharpest edge.

  We were escorted into a starkly lit room filled with military personnel and prison guards. Bode began to issue orders. I didn’t listen. We sat on hard chairs against the wall. It was hot in the room. Claude’s eyes closed, and she started to fall sideways. I had to hold her up. A guard pulled my arm from around Claude’s shoulders and told her to sit up straight. No longer supported, she slid onto the floor.

  “Aufstehen!” the guard shouted. Stand up.

  Claude failed to react.

  Wolf came over. “What’s happening here?”

  “I think she fainted,” I said in German.

  Looking down at Claude, Wolf kicked her shoulder. She murmured, but didn’t move. He kicked her again. This time his boot caught her forehead.

  “Stop that,” I said.

  “You don’t give the orders round here.” Wolf spoke to a nearby guard. “Put her in a cell.”

  The guard led me down a dim gray corridor. I couldn’t seem to draw any air into my lungs. We climbed a flight of stairs, and then another. My legs grew heavy. My head seemed to have floated free. I thought of a child holding a balloon, then letting go. The balloon drifting up into the sky. From far away came the jingling of keys. A door opened, and I was shoved into a small dark room. It was a kind of luxury to sink down onto the pallet bed. The door clanged shut, a key turned in the lock.

  I closed my eyes.

  I was lying on my stomach, one arm beneath me. There was a smear of vomit on the mattress. I was still alive. And Claude? My vision was blurred, and the inside of my head felt soft, like mud at the bottom of a pond. Claude was weaker than I was, and she had lost consciousness before me. She must be dead—surely…The thought was bland. It had no force.

  I wondered how much time had passed.

  I turned my head. The mud slid sideways. There was a small window high above me, very little light. I tried to sit up. My skull seemed to split in two, the pain so abrupt and vicious that I couldn’t move. I felt I had gone deaf. The headache stopped me hearing.

  Sometime later, I remembered my hidden weapon. I pushed the sharp edge against my wrist and dragged it sideways, hard as I could. There was a shriek. I knew it was me, but it seemed to come from somewhere else, somewhere outside my body. Outside the room.

  Then nothing.

  To my left was a huge, high wall. I couldn’t see over it. Curving off into the distance, it was a screen of pastel colors. Mauve and tangerine and gray. The pink of artificial limbs. A sickly pale green. There was no landscape, just an empty plain. Ground like powder. Dust. What was the wall made of? It looked solid, but behaved as liquid does. A smooth, dense liquid, like oil or soup. The colors kept undulating, pushing against each other, without ever mingling or forming new colors. I felt nauseous, and there was a steady buzzing sound, like an insect. A machine. My body was supported, but not defined, distinct. I would have given anything not to be looking at that wall, but I couldn’t seem to turn away. Wherever I looked it was always there.

  I rose to the surface, my left arm throbbing. A white wall circled me, its eyes on me. It was a different room. A sink stood near the bed. The pallet I was lying on was covered with dark stains. My clothes as well. There was a bandage round my wrist. My head had been cut into two sections which had then been crudely fitted back together. When I thought about the join I coughed and almost vomited.

  A nurse bent over me. I tried to speak.

  My sister…

  The words wouldn’t come out. My voice had rusted solid.

  A few days after my second failed suicide attempt, I was taken to Silvertide to be interrogated. It was Bode, the head of the Geheime Feldpolizei, who was seated behind the desk. The man with the greengrocer’s face—Lohse—stood by the window. I had not heard any news of Claude, and assumed that she was dead.

  When Bode looked up from the file he was studying, his eyes moved from my face to my wrist. “You didn’t do a very good job, did you.”

  Since he had spoken to me in German, I replied in German. “It would seem not.”

  “Your sister also failed.”

  “She’s alive?” My heart was beating so hard that there was a strange, transparent pulsing in my vision. I was desperate to find out how she was, but I couldn’t afford to reveal my true feelings. If I showed concern, or even curiosity, it would weaken my position.

  “Yes,” Bode said, “though she has kidney problems. Uremia.” He consulted his dossier again. “There is, however, nothing wrong with her heart.”

  “No.”

  Without opening his mouth, he ran his tongue over his front teeth, as if to cleanse them of an unpleasant taste. “You think you can fool us.”
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  I kept silent.

  “You’re lucky,” he said, “you and your sister.”

  Once again, I chose not to speak.

  “If you had not attempted suicide,” he went on, “you would probably have been transported to the camp in Aurigny, on the mainland—and from there to another destination, farther east…”

  His words had an understated menace that I didn’t understand.

  “As it is, you missed the last shipment of prisoners to France, and there won’t be any more.” He sat back. “If you hadn’t tried to kill yourselves, you wouldn’t have survived. Amusing, no?”

  I looked at the documents on the desk, each one stamped with a German eagle. I looked at the drab yellow walls and at Lohse, still standing by the window, and then I looked at Bode, his lips thick and contemptuous, his bald head like an egg laid by a dinosaur.

  “Perhaps I didn’t survive,” I said. “Perhaps I’m already dead, and in a kind of hell.”

  Bode eyed me with an interest that seemed genuine, then returned to his dossier. For the next half hour he went through my personal details while a clerk typed my answers. When he had all the information he needed, he asked how long I had worked for the Resistance.

  “I didn’t work for the Resistance,” I said. “I didn’t work for anyone.”

  He leaned forwards. “You expect me to believe that you produced and distributed all those leaflets by yourselves?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  He looked at me steadily, but said nothing. It was the pronounced arches of his nostrils, I realized, that made him look disdainful.

  “We acted alone,” I said.

  “You and your sister?”