by Anna Ellory
Her name is Hani.
Hani thought that her hair was being cut before she was hanged or killed, maybe. She didn’t understand and some terror or story had invaded her senses that they were preparing her for death. She would not sit, she thrashed and screamed and cried and bit and scratched. A big guard hit her across the face so hard Hani flew across the room, hitting her head on a chair. Everyone was silent. I got up to help her as she wobbled to her feet.
The guard slapped me across the back of my newly shaved head. The noise reverberated across the room, across my skin, and shook me a little.
You do not help.
You feel it. Each woman looks down, avoiding eye contact, but Hani was up and ready to fight.
The guard walked over, so calmly, raised her baton and struck Hani clean across the jaw, blood and teeth spewed from her mouth like vomit as she hit the ground hard. The guard looked at me. She was challenging me. Will you go to her? she seemed to be asking me.
I did not.
I watched as the prisoners, doing the guard’s work, stripped Hani of her clothes, each item removed efficiently, as another cut her long hair off, roughly.
It took the time for my body hair to be shaved and a ‘uniform’ allocated to me, before Hani came around. We were not allowed to put our uniforms on, just carry them. The room chattered with shivering, naked women.
‘Photos,’ she said, but it was hard to understand with her missing teeth. ‘Where are my photos?’ Bringing her hand to her mouth she found her face had changed shape.
‘Mama, family, God, my photos?’
She looked around her, pulling on the guard’s clothing, begging, searching. The guard called a dog to heel. The German shepherd, whom the guards fondly called ‘Daisy’, was a large, drooling dog with teeth bared, and had been called to bite and growl and menace us since we walked in. The guard looked ready to let the dog at Hani.
At that moment, another ‘political’ prisoner had got hold of a pair of scissors and threatened a guard, her arm around the guard’s neck, scissors pointing into his skin. It was a last attempt and she knew it, you could see it in her eyes. The guard towering over Hani turned to watch the scene unfolding.
Without thinking I said, ‘Up. Quick now.’
Hani looked so shocked to hear words in a language she could understand, she stood straight up.
She’s a head shorter than me, she looked up with oversized eyes as a puppy would at its master. A broken puppy.
As the guard, so confident in her own authority, had turned her back, she didn’t see Hani try to attack her, and she did not see me step in the way.
‘They are cutting our hair to stuff pillows and mattresses,’ I said. I spoke fast, in beautiful Dutch, enjoying the nourishment of a language across my tongue again. The words melted like butter. ‘They are not killing us. They are using us to help the war. You hurt her she will kill you.’
Hani was seething, but the language had captured her. She was listening.
‘The photos are gone,’ I said with a lump in my throat. ‘You love your mama?’ She bobbed her head, captivated by my mouth creating the words that she could understand.
‘Then she lives here.’ I touched her chest, suddenly aware how naked we were, avoiding her tiny breasts. I had never seen another woman naked, it is strange how insignificant this was.
‘Not in a photo,’ I said as I pulled us away from the crowd that had formed around the guard and the woman’s attempt to take control. The dog was set free and attacked. I did not look as the dog snarled, tore and bit. The screams echoed for days after.
Avoid the dogs.
I grabbed Hani’s hand and pulled her body in front of mine. Blue welts grew red across her back from where she had hit the chair, they shone from the swelling, a fountain of blood poured from her face.
We passed through the showers with no issue. Hani was allocated two shoes, both for the left foot. I managed to keep my boots.
Once this ordeal was over we covered our heads and bodies again. The clothes are full of lice, the fabric scratchy, ill-fitting; it looks like we are all wearing our mothers’ clothes.
I found Hani’s hand in my own. It stayed like that as we were shoved and pushed into rows of five, marched and counted and marched some more and then thrown into a ‘holding’ tent. The number of women in this small space must be in the high hundreds. There was no space for us yet we were pushed in by the volume of others behind.
I do not know if she held me or I held her, what I do know is that neither one of us let go.
We have been starved, attacked, shaved, beaten, humiliated and only when we are treated worse than livestock do we realise that we have survived thus far. We realise we have names, and it seems that we have each other too.
The crumbs of bread from the cattle wagon were long gone, but they weighed heavy on my mind as I rested head to head with Hani, both leaning back against the side of the tent, a small space where we could sit. We were so tired we rested together and as I did so, letting my head lie heavy, I prayed for a miracle.
Shocked and untethered. The letter, raw, unfiltered and devastating. Miriam waits to comprehend the horrors she has just read, on paper that has survived all this time.
And time, for Miriam, rushes ahead so that her vision is blurry, and slows so that the flicker of an outside light feels like one long, slow blink.
Praying for a miracle.
A tick of time.
Axel kneeling on a towel next to her while she was in the bath, smoothing bubbles over her skin.
A beat of absence.
Axel wringing the sponge in his hands. The bubbles frozen. The water cooled.
A drum of loneliness.
A cold so deep her bones ache.
As she dried, like a dog, naked on a blanket. On the floor.
13
HENRYK
It was almost two years to the day, from our first kiss, when everything changed. I was leaving to meet Frieda when Emilie returned from work early.
‘I can’t do this anymore,’ she said, resting her back against the closed door. ‘They found me today, they asked about you, where you were, when I would be expecting you to return.’ She breathed heavily and her legs gave way. She tucked her feet in, her arms wrapped around her knees, and rested her head back into the door. ‘I can’t do this anymore. I can’t pretend that you and Frieda . . . that it’s . . . that I—’ She stopped suddenly and I sat next to her and pulled her into my arms.
‘Who found you?’ I asked.
‘That’s what you heard? From what I just said?’ She took an exhausted breath then continued, ‘It was them. The SS. They came to my work. They came to find you,’ she said.
‘What did you tell them?’
‘Nothing. I said I hadn’t seen you since you left the university. They asked where I thought you would be, who you were staying with, friends you may have.’ She paused.
‘Did you mention Frieda?’ I panicked.
She bristled and pushed me so I was thrown off balance and toppled over on to my elbow.
‘No. No. I did not mention the fact that my husband has a lover.’ She pulled knotted hands through her cropped hair. ‘That he chooses to gallivant off with her rather than stay here. With me. That you are more concerned about her safety than you are for your own wife! Henryk, it is you who is putting everyone in danger. Leave the girl alone.’ Then she asked, more gently, as though it was an enormous effort, ‘What are you doing?’
I said nothing, resting my head on the door as she had a moment before.
‘Please, you have to end this thing with Frieda. She’s young, she’ll forgive you. But we must leave. Now. I don’t think we will get another chance. My friend Margot, she can help us. Please, Henryk, see sense. If they can find me at work, they can find us here. Then what?’
‘They aren’t after you,’ I said slowly, watching her pacing her thoughts out, step by step. ‘They are after me.’
‘And in being after you, they w
ill also want me. Can’t you see, I am your wife! I am harbouring a wanted man.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘Take back your political ideals, say you have converted – join the Nazi party. For heaven’s sake, what does it matter?’
‘What? Never. You know I would never. Ever.’
‘Then leave with me, now,’ she said, bending down. ‘We can be a family again. We can forget all this happened. We can have a baby. Come away with me now. Let’s start over.’
I saw the desperation. Her tears flowed down the beautiful channels of her face, but behind her tears, she knew. No matter how much I should leave, how my head was saying that if I stayed, death was the only option, Emilie knew I wouldn’t leave Frieda.
‘I can’t,’ I said.
And Emilie, my beautiful wife, let out a frightful yell, a howl. A screech that would befit a cat. ‘Then leave me,’ she bawled. ‘Leave me alone. Make your choice, Henryk . . . because this’ – and she motioned around with her hands – ‘is all I have. I’m not her and I never will be. So go—’ She launched her arms at the stack of books next to the chair, and they toppled to the ground. Grabbing one, she was about to throw it at me, but hurled it to the floor instead. Then stormed into the kitchen.
‘To hell with you, Henryk, and Frieda. Both of you be damned,’ she sobbed.
I stacked the books back up and was about to go to her in the kitchen. She had put her apron on and was scrubbing at the work surface. Dashing tears away with the back of her hand as she worked. Her apron untied.
I watched her until tears stung my eyes. I closed the door silently behind me, walking fast and keeping my hat pulled low, my eyes down. Aware that at any moment a hand could rest on my shoulder and I would disappear into a night fog.
MIRIAM
Reading the letter somehow brings Axel alive, unbidden and in the room. Numb was how the letter described it. Numbness settles like film over her skin. She spends a long night unable to keep the chill from her limbs and by the time the grey morning seeps in, her body aches and she cannot peel off the sensation of being both wet and cold.
She doesn’t move from the chair, other than to care for her father.
She doesn’t speak.
The oppression of him, as though they were sharing the same air. Right. There. Keeps her from answering the door when somebody knocks.
‘Hello,’ a voice calls through the letter box.
She doesn’t answer.
‘Miriam? It’s Hilda. Are you in?’
She rises from the chair, the dress unfolded and draped on her lap like a blanket. When she opens the door, Hilda is on the other side.
The eclectic pattern on Hilda’s skirt catches her eye as it sways.
‘You missed it,’ Hilda says. ‘Your appointment, nine a.m., remember?’ She consults her wristwatch. ‘It’s one thirty.’
‘It is?’ Miriam opens the door fully. ‘What day is it?’ she asks and yawns widely, which is followed by a shiver. But looking at Hilda’s face she rubs her arms vigorously and puts a mask of normality on her face.
‘It’s Tuesday,’ Hilda says. ‘Dr Baum told me some of your history. Why didn’t you tell me?’
‘Dr Baum?’
A variety of expressions pass over Hilda’s face as she walks past Miriam into the living room. It seems she goes from concern to trepidation to confusion with such rapidity that Miriam smiles.
‘I like you, Hilda,’ Miriam says. ‘Your face is honest.’
‘Miriam, please,’ Hilda says and sits. Miriam follows suit. ‘I cannot tell you how serious this is,’ she continues. ‘Dr Baum is thinking of sending your father back to hospital; he thinks you are unstable. I can’t say otherwise, neither can you . . . You didn’t attend. God, Miriam, you are not helping yourself.’ She pulls fingers through her hair. ‘The meeting is on Friday,’ she says with finality.
The fog clears and the room comes into sharp focus.
‘Please, Hilda, I forgot . . . nothing sinister, I promise. Can I see another doctor to explain? Dad cannot go back into hospital . . . not now.’
Hilda sighs so heavily, Miriam can smell garlic on her breath.
‘Okay – right now. See if we can fit you into the open clinic. Last chance, Miriam.’
‘Let me just check on Dad. I’ll be there.’
‘I’ll wait.’
She follows a step behind Hilda, unable to keep up with her pace. Hilda says nothing on the walk. Miriam follows the green and purple flowers of Hilda’s skirt as she is frog-marched across the busy streets, the trees hold the low clouds like leaves.
They wait at a pedestrian crossing beside a mum with a pushchair. The child is howling, red-faced, tear-stained. When the lights turn green she pushes on ahead, the toddler using its entire body to break free from the restraints of the pushchair. The mum walks with speed and deliberation. Miriam wonders if the mum can hear the plea in the child’s voice or if she has become numb to it, and at what point the child will give up.
In the medical centre, recently refurbished, the smell of paint mingles heavily with the old and the sick, plus the heating makes Miriam want to leave almost as soon as the doors open. The waiting room is a thoroughfare, people bustling around, coughing. Window cleaners are polishing the glass of a full window that frames the car park.
Hilda marches to the reception desk, looking as comfortable here as Miriam imagines she does in her own home, and motions for Miriam to sit while she confers with the receptionist.
Eventually she comes over and says, ‘The doctor will call you when he is available.’
‘Thank you.’ Miriam is sitting between a man puffing on a pipe with his leg in a cast and a mother clutching a child with red-raw cheeks and teary eyes. She watches Hilda’s receding figure.
The noise of the centre bustles along, interrupted by coughing fits and a loud retch.
She picks up a discarded magazine and puts it down. She crosses and uncrosses her legs. She plays with the pleats in her skirt, flattens, then separates each fold.
The child whimpers, moulded into his mother’s body. She soothes him with her voice and Miriam is reminded of the box, the mother and child, and Eugenia hiding . . . waiting.
She looks up, aware of someone. She scans every face and looks out of the glass doors.
He is standing there.
Arms folded, hands tucked into his armpits.
Watching her.
Like the sun, his presence is borne with such force that to gaze directly at him would blister.
She stands, then turns.
‘Frau Voight – room 6 please,’ a male voice calls into the open-plan waiting area. Miriam knocks into people as she runs through the pharmacy attached to the medical centre. Away. As fast as she can. In the opposite direction.
‘Frau Voight,’ the voice rebounds around her.
She runs until her legs numb and she’s running on feet alone. Not looking back. At the top of the hill she doubles back on herself, there is no one there.
She allows herself to walk slower, count the steps, focus on moving forward. Keep going.
‘Keep going,’ she says to herself. ‘Almost there.’ She continues to try and soothe herself with her voice. ‘Couldn’t have been him. Couldn’t have been him.’ Her feet move faster and her words run into each other. ‘Was it him?’
‘Scissors and sorry, in sickness and cold, Hani and gypsy and bread and cold. Missing and shivering and no more, and don’t leave don’t leave don’t leave.’ Talking to the rhythm of her feet.
‘Miriam,’ Lionel calls to her as she keeps following the drum of her feet ‘home’ to the stairs.
‘Fräulein,’ he calls again. She stops on the beat of home. ‘Letter for you.’ He passes her a manila envelope.
She holds it away from her body. ‘I don’t want it,’ she says to Lionel.
‘It’s from an Easterner, she said she was a lady friend of yours. She was insistent that I gave it to you. In person.’
Miriam looks at her name on the front. Not in h
is handwriting. She holds the envelope closer.
‘You be careful, pet. Can never be too cautious of those Easterners hanging around now. My cousin over in,’ he points over his shoulder, ‘had terrible trouble with the . . .’ But she turns away.
The feather in the door, safe.
The water in the tap, hot.
Her hands bleed, peace.
She places plasters over some of the wounds. The wooden block of knives in the kitchen and the sewing scissors she shuts away in a drawer. Yet her fingers pull and tug at the skin. She digs the nail of her thumb into her wrist where a graze has scabbed over and pushes it as deeply as she can, drawing it across her skin horizontally, watching her skin go from pink to white under the pressure. Pink to white then red, pulling at the broken skin until it bleeds.
The silence of the house thrums in her ears and she finds a loose eyelash irritating her eye and starts pulling them out, more and more. Until she is blinking them away with tears.
‘Dad,’ she speaks into the silence.
‘I saw, I mean, I know, but I cannot be sure. I . . .’
‘Miriam,’ he says and lifts his arm to the side and there is a tiny space in the bed. She doesn’t think twice.
‘Dad,’ she sobs. She moves on to the bed; the air mattress shifts and groans as she moves awkwardly into his straight body. The cardigan buttons remind her of twisting and playing with them as a child. She draws circles into the buttons with her finger. Around and around.
His arm closes her in. He is frail and she can feel the bones of him as she moves into his arm.
‘He’s back,’ she says.
14
MIRIAM
The days and nights become unfocused. They seep into each other like a watercolour. The only determination of time is her father, he is drinking, he is eating tiny amounts. And he talks, mumbles and sometimes calls out.
‘Frieda. Frieda. Frieda.’
His mouth opens and closes and most of the time no words leave it, but his whole body is fighting.
She hopes she can help him, but as she rubs the chill out of his hands, and massages his arms and legs, she knows caring for him is the only thing she can do.