The Children's War

by Stroyar, J. N.

  “They aren’t fond of telling me anything, so I don’t ask, but anyway, I don’t think there would be much on current file. I was hoping you could look at material that has been archived in Berlin or here in London. You know, paper documents.”

  “Phew, dusty work! Why does it matter so much?”

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t know, it just does.”

  Ryszard grunted. “All right, I’ll see if I can find anything, but it won’t be a priority.”

  “I understand. Thanks.”

  “I’ll send whatever I find to Szaflary, it’s easier than trying to send it here. Presumably you’ll be back there at some point.”

  “Yes, temporarily, for the birth,” Peter answered in a muted voice.

  “Temporarily? How long do they plan to keep you here?” Ryszard asked, somewhat incredulous.

  Peter shook his head. “I guess until I learn my lesson, whatever it is.” Regretting his words, he added quickly, “So, how’s your family?”

  Ryszard looked surprised by the question but did not hesitate to answer. “I always miss them when I’m away. I’m always afraid they won’t be there when I get back.”

  “I know the feeling.”

  “And I miss the boys, too, now that Pawel and Andrzej have gone to Szaflary.”

  “What made you send them there?”

  Ryszard gave him a sharp look as if Peter had blundered into sensitive territory, but then he said simply, “It was time.”

  “For Pawel, perhaps. But why Andrzej as well? He’s so young.”

  Ryszard smoked in silence for a moment. Peter noticed how the tip of Ryszard’s cigarette was shaking. As the extended silence grew uncomfortable, Peter glanced at the clock, then suggested, “The pubs should be open. You want a drink?”

  Ryszard nodded. “Sure, why not.”

  39

  AFTER LEAVINGRYSZARD, Peter remembered that Geoff ’s family was from the Lewes area, and he asked Jenny if she could track down an address for him. She agreed on condition that she be allowed to accompany him on his fact-finding mission, and two days later she returned with an address.

  “His official name was Georg,” Jenny explained. “It took a while to connect that to Geoff.”

  “How in the world did his parents get Geoff from Georg?” Peter asked.

  “I suspect, wanting to name their child Geoff, they went to the book and found the first name that began with the same three letters. How did your parents mangle Alan to make it official?”

  “Oh, Alan is in the book, it’s an officially acceptable first name,” Peter explained truthfully, then confided, “But that’s not the name my parents gave me in any case. They called me Niklaus Adolf, hoping somehow that would make me more Aryan.”

  “Klaus Adolf!” Jenny laughed. “You know, I would have thought they were nuts before I had kids of my own. Now I’m a bit more tolerant. I know what it’s like to want the best for your kids, even if it’s not ideologically sound.”

  Peter thought of Joanna and fell silent.

  The next day they strode down the street where Geoff ’s family still lived. It was nothing like what Geoff had described, and Peter wondered if time had really altered it so much or if Geoff had wistfully been recalling a place that neverexisted. It was not even a separate village, rather an ugly concrete development tagged onto the southern edge of the town. The town itself, though showing the usual signs of decay, was quite nice, having escaped destruction during the siege. He and Jenny had toured it a bit and he had registered at the inn that the American had stayed at, but they had not been able to elicit any information or come up with any ideas other than to visit Geoff ’s family and hope they could offer help.

  “Do you really think they’ll be able to help?” Jenny echoed his thoughts.

  “Hope so. We don’t really have many other resources,” Peter admitted. Ryszard had been loath to clue in the English Underground, and so they were on their own for now. “Here it is,” Peter said, giving Jenny a hopeful smile as they turned into the dismal stairwell of an apartment block. They climbed three flights and he rapped on a door.

  A moment later the door opened a crack and a woman peered out. “Who are you?”

  “A friend of Geoff’s,” Peter answered. “We were in the labor camp together.”

  She pulled back slightly, tilting her head to examine him more closely. “That was a long time ago, young man.”

  “I know. This is the first chance I’ve had to come to you.”

  The door closed and a chain was removed, then it opened wide and the woman motioned them inside. “Come in. I’m his mother. You’re Peter, aren’t you?”

  They drank their bitter tea with milk: Jenny because she preferred it that way and Peter because he did not want to raise any suspicions by having any un-English habits. The rest of the family was introduced, and a teenage boy, the woman’s nephew, was sent to Geoff ’s widow’s flat to fetch her so she could hear whatever Peter had to say.

  “She remarried about six months after we heard,” Geoff ’s mother explained. “She’s a sweet kid and I can’t blame her for not waiting longer. After all, she hadn’t seen him in six years.”

  Peter nodded his understanding, remembering how often Geoff spoke of his wife and how much he missed her.

  “You used to help him write his letters,” Geoff ’s mother observed.

  “Yes, anytime he needed help with some complicated concept.”

  Geoff’s mother nodded. “Sometimes we had to get help reading what you wrote, but his wife appreciated all the beautiful phrases. I assume those were yours?”

  “They were Geoff ’s thoughts. I was just sort of the camp translator.”

  “He described you in his letters,” Geoff ’s father observed suspiciously, “but you don’t look much like his description.”

  “I’ve dyed my hair. I’m on the lam. I’m traveling on German papers right now.”

  “So your sentence wasn’t shortened?” Geoff’s mother asked.

  Peter shook his head.“No, I escaped. Please don’t tell anyone I was here.”

  Geoff’s parents exchanged a significant look, then the mother said, “We won’t ask anything more about you then; the less we know the better. But can you tell us, what happened to our son?”

  Peter surveyed his audience: the parents looked sorrowful, the aunt and her husband concerned, Jenny curious. “Yeah, I can tell you,” he said quietly. “When his wife is here, I’ll tell you all so I only have to say it once.”

  After Geoff ’s wife, Dora, arrived, Peter began telling them whatever he could remember of his friend. They were avid listeners, the wife and parents looking to recall something of their lost one, the aunt, uncle, and nephew more interested in what might lie in store for the boy when he was drafted. They asked a lot of questions, looking for memories in the details, and Peter provided them with every anecdote he could remember. The hours passed and still they did not come back to their original question; they seemed to be actively avoiding it as if hearing of Geoff’s death would cause him to die all over again.

  Peter was relieved by this and thought that he might be able to escape discussing those horrible last weeks in the camp, but eventually Geoff ’s mother left the room and returned with a bit of paper.

  “This is all we have telling us what happened in the end,” she said sadly. “Executed for murder. I don’t understand, our boy was not violent, he was not a murderer. Why did this happen?”

  Peter read the heartless words of the notification. It was written in Beamtendeutsch, the worst form of officialese, and he noticed that someone had penciled a few words and phrases in the margins as if struggling with the translation. “Can you read this?” he asked the family.

  They shook their heads. Dora volunteered that a neighbor had attempted a translation, but they were not sure if it had been correct. All they knew for sure was that Geoff had been executed. Peter reread the document, then translated it for them as fluently as possible. The cold words
revealed no more than they had already known, and when he had finished, he saw they were looking at him expectantly.

  Seeing that Peter still hesitated, the father left the table and returned with a bottle of gin. They drank a round to Geoff, then without even bothering to ask, the father poured out a large tumblerful for Peter, saying, “Take your time, we’ve waited this long.”

  Peter sipped the gin. “I wasn’t there when it occurred, but I will tell you what happened to me and maybe then you’ll understand.” He told them then of the Kommandant and his blackmailing the lads in the camp. He told them about approaching the Kommandant as camp leader and how he had demanded the abuse stop. He explained what had happened next, the Kommandant ’s “deal” and all that went with it. He told them of his humiliation and how that had paralyzed him into inaction, and he explained how Geoff’s nonjudgmental, levelheaded advice had rescued him from his isolated hell. “He organized the lads into gettinginformation for me and kept providing me with support and advice as I worked my way into the Kommandant ’s trust. Without him helping me . . .” Peter shook his head at the thought.

  “Anyway,” he continued, “we did finally find something with which we could blackmail him. I used it to arrange an escape but left the incriminating documents at the camp so that the Kommandant would be forced to remain on good behavior. We gave the stuff to one of the older lads because we didn’t want it to be in Geoff ’s hands, figuring the Kommandant would assume he did have it and might search him and tear his barracks apart.”

  Peter chewed on his knuckle as he thought, yet again, of how he could have stayed until Geoff ’s term was up. The family watched him in silence, the father moving only to refill his glass. “I could have stayed,” Peter said at last. “I had no idea. He only had about six weeks to go.”

  “Seven weeks and a day,” Geoff ’s mother amended.

  Peter looked over their heads at a painting on the far wall. An idealized country-landscape. “Anyway, we didn’t think the Kommandant was mad enough to do anything dangerous, except maybe to me. We figured he’d feel insulted by my presence there and so I left as soon as possible.”

  “That’s why you’re on the run now?” the boy asked.

  Peter nodded noncommittally, casting a glance at Jenny, hoping she would not complicate his story. “Yeah. After a time, I heard about Geoff’s execution. I heard that he hit the Kommandant with a candlestick and said it was self-defense. I assume the Kommandant attacked Geoff and it was indeed self-defense.”

  “Do you think it was the documents that he was seeking when he attacked our boy?” Geoff’s father asked.

  Peter hesitated, then decided to tell them what he thought. “The confrontation took place in the Kommandant ’s private quarters, so I would guess not. I think the Kommandant intended your son to be his next victim.” The words hung in the air, and he tried to soften them by adding, “But I don’t know.”

  “What happened to the documents?” Jenny asked.

  Peter shook his head. “I don’t know. I suppose they were fairly useless after the Kommandant ’s death.”

  Geoff’s mother moved her lips as if praying under her breath, his father poured another round of drinks, then broke the silence by saying, “Thank you for coming here. Is there anything we can offer you in return?”

  Peter paused only long enough to be polite, then answered, “Yes. Two things. First off, can my friend stay a night or two here with you? She has English papers, so I can’t register her at the inn I’m at, and I don’t want to try sneaking her into my room.”

  “Of course!” Geoff’s mother answered immediately. “You should stay here, too. We have plenty of room.” She gestured broadly to indicate the spacious two rooms of the apartment that she shared with her sister.

  Peter shook his head.“No, thank you very much, but I want to stay at the inn.I’m looking for information and I was wondering if you could in some way offer help.”

  “Information? How can we help?”

  “I think an important package was passed from a guest of the inn to someone else. I was hoping someone at the inn might have seen something. Do you know anyone who works there?”

  For a moment the family remained in silence, their brows furrowed in thought, then Geoff’s uncle spoke up. “My mate’s daughter used to work there. Maybe she’s friends with one of the staff.”

  They went immediately to visit the girl. Despite her father’s encouragement, she was loath to talk to Peter about anything, intuitively feeling that if information was wanted on one of her friends, then it could only mean trouble. It was difficult to convince her otherwise for, as she quickly pointed out, the connections to this stranger carrying German papers were incredibly tenuous: her father’s friend’s nephew’s never-before-seen comrade from years ago? Wasn’t it all just a bit suspicious? she asked. The three men looked at each other, stymied by her objections, but then Jenny took her by the arm and they went off into a corner and conversed in whispers. After a time the girl returned to say she did personally know one of the inn staff, and she would talk to her to try to get her help.

  “What did you say to her?” Peter asked as they awaited the maid from the inn. He and Jenny sat in a tearoom not far from the inn, sipping their drinks, waiting nervously to see if the girl would appear.

  Jenny laughed. “I told her you were my husband and I knew you were a good man. I gave her a sob story about how we rarely got to see each other because you were on the run from the authorities and how you were hoping to get some information that would let you come home.”

  “And why should she believe you?” Peter asked, astonished that it had been something so simple.

  “I’m a mother,” Jenny giggled. “I have that motherly, trustworthy glow about me.”

  “Ah, well, I guess you impressed her enough to even convince her friend, because there’s the girl we’re looking for.”

  A girl of about sixteen wearing a maid’s uniform stood in the doorway, castinga look around the tearoom. Her eyes settled on Peter and Jenny and she approached their table. “Are you Jenny?”

  “Yes, you must be Louise.”

  Peter stood to pull out a chair for Louise. She seemed surprised by the gesture and it took her a moment to gather herself enough to accept the seat.

  “I know someone who was working that night,” she began without preamble, “and I’ll introduce you, but it’s going to cost.” She paused as if gathering her courage. “One thousand marks!”

  Peter bit his lips to suppress a smile. He had never thought he could get offthat cheaply. His hesitation confused the girl and she amended quickly, “We’ll take eight hundred.”

  “If you really do have information,” he said, “we’ll pay a thousand. Can we go there now?”

  The girl shook her head. “We’ll come to your room tonight. After the day manager has left.”

  They spent the afternoon perusing the local bookstores, and Peter bought a crate of English-language books from a used-book shop for the store in London. He thought the books might sell well, and it also provided him with a good excuse for his journey in case anyone ever questioned him. That evening they ate a meal in a mixed-race pub, and then returned to the inn to await their visitors. Jenny nervously smoked one cigarette after another, while Peter stood impatiently by the window and watched as the street grew increasingly deserted.

  There was a light tapping at the door, and when bidden, a young woman entered with Louise. She introduced herself as Tess and explained that she was the night manager, which meant she opened the door to late-returning guests and carried out some overnight chores such as polishing boots and removing room trays.

  Peter asked if she remembered a Dutch guest, Wim van Wije.

  “Let me see the money,” Tess answered almost belligerently.

  He pulled out twelve hundred marks and gave them to her. “I trust you. You can keep it.”

  Jenny’s eyes opened wide with surprise, but Tess and Louise reacted exactly as he had expec
ted. Their mouths dropped open, they glanced at each other, then they threw away their caution and relaxed. After that they were like trusted old conspirators. Tess explained how the night van Wije had stayed at the inn, there was another young man there, who had been registered for almost a week.

  “Things were slow, so I did a round early that night to get started on the boots, and as I turned into the hallway with van Wije’s room, I saw the other fellow fussing with his boots. I politely interrupted him and told him I was responsible for the guest’s possessions and I could not allow them to be tampered with. I figured he was planning on stealing them, but I didn’t want to say that. Anyway, he skulked off, and I took the boots downstairs to be polished, but I decided not to return them until morning. About five in the morning the same fellow showed up at my desk, put down three hundred marks, and asked about van Wije’s boots. I said I could not return them to anyone but their owner. He put down another three and asked if he could just look at them for a few minutes. I refused. I figured he would have shown some government ID if he was with the police. Finally, he laid down another three and asked if I would do him a small favor.”

  “Did you?” Jenny asked.

  “Yes. I was a bit afraid he would get violent if I didn’t do as he asked.”

  “What did he want?” Peter prompted.

  “He had me remove one of the clasps. He said the topmost one on the leftside of the right boot would snap off easily, and inside I would find a small device which, he said, belonged to him. I should remove it, put the clasp back on, and bring him the device. I went into the back and did as he asked and gave him the object.”

  “What did it look like?”

  “Small, gray, about this big.” Tess held her fingers about a centimeter apart. “Really tiny. I couldn’t figure out what it contained. It didn’t rattle or anything, like it was solid.”

  “Did he say anything else?”

  “No, except not to say a word to anyone—especially the guy who owned the boots.”

  Peter nodded. “Do you have his name?”

  “Yeah, it’s in the register. I can show you.”