by Clare Harvey
Gerhardt looked at the German girls, almost out of sight now, their voices no more than sparrows’ twitters in the distance. He didn’t really want to have to pay for it. He’d rather have a girl who liked him, who wanted him to do it. But he couldn’t say that to Josef.
‘Let’s get something to eat first,’ Josef said, throwing his cigarette into the street. It plopped and fizzled in a puddle by the kerb. ‘We can have a nice steak and a few beers before heading on.’
‘Steak?’ said Gerhardt.
‘Don’t worry. Just don’t ask any questions about what animal it’s from. Tastes fine though, eh, Norbs?’ Norbert nodded and did up the top button of his coat. Gerhardt followed his two colleagues out into the clammy chill of the late-winter evening.
Vera
Vera crossed the tail end of Oxford Street and reached Marble Arch. It was late, long past blackout. There was a momentary stilling of the wind as she passed under the cold stone archway, and then she was out in it again: tugging at her skirt, hissing down her neck. A taxi passed, speeding towards Bayswater; she thought of waving it down, but she had no money left in her purse – there never seemed to be any spare money these days. Silly of her to spend cash on presents for agents and the like, she rebuked herself, thinking of the solid-silver powder compact she’d given Yvette in the last moon period. But something like that could make a difference – one could hock a bit of silver, if one needed to raise funds urgently. Vera thought of her own precious earrings, and the overdue bills for the apartment in Nell Gwyn Court. But perhaps she could keep her diamonds a while longer?
Vera had waited late at work to check that the BBC announcers had voiced all the necessary messages on their French broadcast: The lion has left the enclosure. The milk jug is between the sugar basin and the teaspoon, and so forth. The radio chaps had started getting a little shirty about the volume of messages these days, not understanding that what to them was mere nonsense gave the French Resistance vital information about drops of weapons, explosives and rations. She’d had to visit Bush House, ingratiate herself, and stroke a few egos earlier that day. It was worth it, though: Vera imagined a group of Maquis huddled round a crackling radio set in an abandoned farmhouse, cheering at news of a weapons drop. Mother is hanging out the washing – that was the message they’d used for Yvette’s drop, wasn’t it?
She crossed into Hyde Park, taking the path towards the gun emplacements. Oak trees creaked like ship’s timbers in the wind, and branches knocked against each other overhead. The moon, just a sliver, hovering behind her, periodically lit the path: a pewter line snaking forwards into the night. But when a cloud scudded across, the view blackened into shadows and Hyde Park was just a navy-grey sea of darkness. Vera stepped off the path and strode on.
There were occasional shouts from the girls manning the ack-ack guns, to her left, their voices caught and spat out by the wind. Vera thought again of Yvette, of the afternoon she’d first met her, when she’d walked her back to Hyde Park Barracks, where she was stationed with her ATS chums. Probably not up to your standards, Colonel Potter had said on the phone earlier on, telling her about the potential recruit that he had in his office, a bit of an officer’s groundsheet – off sick with so-called ‘appendicitis’ at present, and we all know what that means, don’t we? Shall I fob her off for you? But Vera had insisted on meeting the girl: a pale young woman with sandy freckles and red hair, who looked no older than a schoolgirl. And there’d been a spark of ferocity in those pale blue eyes, and despite her impeccable manners, she wouldn’t be bossed about. During the meeting at Lyons Corner House and the walk along Oxford Street to Marble Arch, Vera had been reminded of herself at that age: naïve, eager to please, but stubborn, underneath it all – a fighter. At least, that was what she’d told Colonel Potter when she called him back to tell him she was sending the girl off for training immediately.
Now Vera skirted the perimeter fence of the anti-aircraft battery, and on into the blankness of the night-time park. One heard stories of what went on in London parks after blackout, but it didn’t do to dwell on them. Needs must when the devil drives, she thought.
The ground was already limned with frost, but it wasn’t yet frozen hard, and her heels sank into the earth, slowing her down. She’d have to clean her shoes when she got home, clean them herself, because the days of housekeepers, maids and stable boys were long in the past now. But one day, she thought, one day when Dick and I are married and he inherits Felbrigg Hall – then the life I deserve will be mine again.
Vera pushed on, even though the moon was behind a cloud, and all that lay ahead was inchoate shapes in the gloom. When she reached the avenue of beeches, she paused, and then came to a complete rest underneath a large one to her right, listening to the bare twigs clattering against each other overhead. The moon reappeared, highlighting treetops like cobwebs: shivering, silver. She put out her right hand to feel the bark. There was nobody about. Her fingers moved over the tree trunk: rough and smooth, sharp places where old branches had broken off. Up and down and around she felt, as if she were reading Braille. Until she found the hollow: ah, that’s it, there.
She needed to think. She reached into her handbag for her cigarettes and lighter. She had to cup her hand around the flame: the wind kept threatening to extinguish it, but eventually it caught – a flare of orange, shooting up like a tiny distress signal. She inhaled deeply, drawing in chill air with the warm smoke.
If Dick were here, would she ask him what to do? She exhaled, remembering all the earnest discussions they’d had when they’d first met on the cruise: setting the world to rights. She remembered the colours of the Mediterranean sunset, and the feel of Dick close to her, but not quite touching, as they watched the reflection of the lowering sun linking up with the ship’s wake, like a pathway. But that was so long ago, now.
‘What should I do, darling?’ she said aloud, her voice mixed with smoke, snatched away by the wind. She turned, looking back the way she’d come, through the trees, past Hyde Park Barracks, to where the sickle moon rose in the cloud-dappled sky. Had the sun already set out there, and was Dick, too, gazing up at the moon, having a smoke, thinking of her?
She inhaled again and let go of her cigarette; it was caught by the wind and whirled away into the night. Dick wasn’t here. And in any case, there were so many things she’d never be able to share with him.
She turned back to the tree, felt again round the broad trunk until she found the hollow, damp against her fingertips. She pushed inside. There it was. She pulled out the envelope, fat with what it contained, and thrust it deep into her pocket. As she checked her watch again, the moon went in, and the air-raid siren began its yearning wail. She broke into a run, heading for home, not looking back.
Gerhardt
Gerhardt wasn’t sure exactly what he’d been expecting, but this wasn’t it. Other than the pretty little waitress and the moustached proprietor, everyone was German. It didn’t feel like Paris at all. He may as well have been in a workplace canteen, he thought, looking round the room. Everyone was in some kind of uniform: army, civil service or police. The waitress hovered like a hummingbird, the only splash of colour her orange-and-blue frock as she flitted between the grey throng of customers. The portly proprietor wiped his hands on a dirty white apron and smiled round the packed café. Someone played the piano in the corner. Gerhardt thought of the English prisoner. She played, didn’t she? He thought about her supple pianist’s fingers, and the tools on the table at place des États-Unis – he’d interrupted just in time. He frowned: Father would certainly think it wrong to feel sympathy for a terrorist. He pushed the image of the girl prisoner out of his head and focused on his first night out in Paris.
The steaks were good – he was hungrier than he’d realised – and the beer made his head buzz pleasantly. On the piano someone struck up ‘Lili Marlene’ and a few people clapped to hear the familiar tune.
‘I don’t know why the cheese-eaters hate us so much,’ said Josef, wi
ping grease from his lips with a red napkin. ‘Look at the business they get from us. If you ask me, we’re improving the place.’ He slapped the waitress casually on the behind as she passed by with frothing mugs of beer. ‘You could have her if you want,’ he said to Gerhardt, indicating the waitress’s departing arse. Gerhardt looked as she scurried away between the tables. She was attractive enough, with black hair and high cheekbones. ‘You’d have to wait until the end of her shift, though. And she’s a bit of a fighter. I paid top whack though – cash and cigarettes, so she shouldn’t have had any complaints. You had her, too, Norbs?’ Norbert gave a grunt, which could have meant either yes or no, and took a huge gulp of beer. Josef said that Norbert was a dark horse, and slapped him on the back.
Gerhardt shoved extra potatoes into his mouth, even though he was already full. He didn’t want to have to take part in this conversation. Josef had just said that the waitress was a bit of a fighter: did that mean he’d forced himself on her? Gerhardt had a vision of Josef following her outside after her shift, pinning her against an alley wall – and afterwards the girl weeping, scooping up cigarettes and coins from the gutter. Was that what Josef meant really?
Gerhardt wanted to lose his virginity, more than anything. He was nearly nineteen, after all. It was ridiculous that he still hadn’t lost his cherry. But like that? That wasn’t how he wanted it to be. He chewed the potatoes and fried onions and swallowed, the food going down his throat in a big fatty gobbet. It felt as if there was a cannonball in his stomach.
The piano player had changed melody now, thumping out something modern and jazzy, fingers stumbling over themselves on the out-of-tune keys. He thought again of the English girl, imagining her playing: slender fingers stretched over the cream keys. He imagined singing with her, but what? Stolz, perhaps? He thought about how after the song finished she’d turn and reach up with her pianist’s fingers to touch his cheek. And she’d smile at him and say, ‘Gerhardt.’
‘Gerhardt! Mate – come back to us!’ It wasn’t her voice. It was Josef, nudging him in the ribs.
‘Sorry,’ said Gerhardt. ‘Miles away.’
‘Thinking about the waitress?’ said Josef.
‘Something like that,’ Gerhardt replied.
At that moment the café door banged open. ‘Beers all round!’ came the shout as a cluster of men in Gestapo uniforms stormed in. The room erupted into a cheer.
‘You got them, then?’ Josef asked the tall, skinny one.
‘Ach, Josef, we got them good. Those bandit bastards got what they deserved tonight and no mistake.’ He grinned, white teeth a fissure in his chiselled face. ‘Pierre, put it on the tab,’ he shouted over to the proprietor, who nodded, grabbing beer glasses from the shelf.
Gerhardt made sure he was smiling too. Free beer, and the promise of losing his virginity later on: what hadn’t he got to be happy about?
Gerhardt scraped his chair to one side to make place for the skinny Gestapo, who sat down between him and Josef. The others clustered in. The table was tiny, and their knees all touched. A full, foaming glass of beer was placed in front of him, frothing head wobbling like a courtesan’s coiffure. Gerhardt drank greedily. Whilst he drank, there was no need to talk.
The waitress was struggling with the rush. There were good-natured calls for her to hurry up. Her hair was coming loose, and patches of sweat showed in the armpits of her floral frock as she dodged and trotted round the packed room.
‘Have they all been taken in, then, mate?’ Josef said to the skinny one, who was wiping foam from his upper lip with the back of his hand.
‘No. The brief was eradication. So all we had to do was find them and slot them.’ He made a shooting gesture with the forefingers of his right hand.
‘Good to get a bit of live target practice in,’ sniggered another of the Gestapo boys – the one with the chipped tooth, sitting next to Norbert.
Gerhardt swallowed, put down his drink. ‘But don’t you need them for questioning?’ he said. ‘I mean, they’d have useful intelligence, surely?’
‘Not necessary,’ said the skinny one. ‘Your boss told our boss he’s got a double agent, a direct link with London now. Some girl transmitting from your place – you must know that – so he has no use for her colleagues.’
Gerhardt took a swig of beer. It tasted acidic. He wanted to spit it out. With an effort he swallowed, and looked at Josef. ‘But Kieffer told the prisoner that he wouldn’t kill her colleagues. They did a deal. I was there.’
Josef gave Gerhardt a look. ‘Well of course he’d say that. What did I tell you about Kieffer: he doesn’t like to get his hands dirty. If he said he wouldn’t have her colleagues killed, then he wouldn’t. Doesn’t mean someone else wouldn’t do it, though.’
Gerhardt remembered Kieffer giving his word, shaking the girl’s hand. He remembered taking her up to Dr Goetz’s room for her transmission, how she was dizzy with exhaustion, had kept slipping into unconsciousness. She had thought she was saving her colleagues’ lives. He took another swig of beer to hide his dismay.
‘A man and a woman,’ the Gestapo bloke continued, recalling their triumph, ‘coming out of Café Colisee. We got them down a side street.’
‘Ach, but the woman was a fighter,’ said the small man from across the table. And Gerhardt was reminded of the way Josef had talked about the waitress: she was a fighter, that one.
‘So, Herr Kieffer gets the Gestapo to do his dirty work for him?’ Gerhardt said.
‘You catch on quick, mate,’ said Josef sarcastically. ‘It’s just division of labour. We’re the brains; they’re the brawn.’ He cocked a thumb in the Gestapo bloke’s direction and laughed. ‘Makes no difference really. We’re all on the same side, mate. Isn’t that right?’ He held up his glass to chink it with the others’. Gerhardt joined in, clinking glasses, wishing the men ‘Gesundheit’ and necking the rest of his drink. Even though there was a twisting in his gut and he’d begun to feel queasy. He laughed and joined in because, after all, what else could he do?
‘Let’s go,’ said Josef. The café door banged once more behind them, letting out a gust of piano music, laughter and smoke. The Gestapo boys had stayed on inside, saying they’d join Josef later. Josef had made some comment about ‘sloppy seconds’ and everyone laughed. The ground shifted under Gerhardt’s feet. An icy rain fell, but Gerhardt felt hot: hot and sick. ‘This way,’ said Josef, leading them into an alley. The ground undulated; Gerhardt struggled to stay upright. Too many beers, too quickly – he wasn’t used to drinking like that.
His fingertips grazed the wet bricks of the buildings on either side. Norbert was breathing heavily behind him. Up ahead, Josef was bouncing off the sides of the alley like a garrulous ping-pong ball. ‘Like to get there early, while the girls are still fresh, you know? Got a perfect one in mind for you, Gerhardt mate – blonde, a bit more mature, knows what to do: she’ll show you the ropes, all right. Her name’s Marie,’ he called back behind him as they tumbled on into the darkness. The raindrops were like cool fingers tickling Gerhardt’s neck as he struggled to keep up. But heat rose in waves up his chest and queasiness lapped his throat.
At last Josef stopped. There was a doorway in the wall on the right-hand side. The paintwork was peeling, but the brass doorknob was smooth and shiny from the touch of so many strangers. Josef knocked three times and the door opened to reveal a ferrety man, who looked them rapidly up and down before ushering them inside with an angry frown. Norbert slammed the door behind them.
Indoors it was almost as dark as the alley. Gerhardt had the impression of a dusty brown corridor and he could smell dried rose petals. He swallowed down another wave of nausea. The floor was still undulating. He put a hand out to steady himself on the wall. His palm touched bare plaster: gritty-dry. Josef was talking to the ferrety man, nodding and pulling out his wallet. He could still sense Norbert behind him, hear his panting breath. And then there was a woman. Her breasts were handfuls of dough that had been left to prove, rising out o
f the front of her too-tight dress.
He was too hot, sweating now, blinking raindrops and perspiration from his eyes. ‘Schatzi,’ she said. Little darling – she spoke the German word with a French accent, running a long fingernail over his cheek.
His head spun. He gulped down a dribble of bile that had forced its way into his mouth. Her breath smelled of tobacco and peppermint, like their neighbour’s back home: old Frau Schmidt, with her walking stick and her sausage dog, who he used to have to kiss in return for a sweetie if he met her in the street.
He tried to focus on her face. She had a black stripe in the parting of her yellow hair, and Gerhardt was reminded of a banana someone had given him, a long time ago, before the war, which suddenly struck him as funny. He gulped again as his stomach churned. He was about to lose his cherry to this banana-haired woman, who had breath like an old woman. It was a huge joke, really.
He opened his mouth to laugh, but what came out wasn’t laughter, what came out was a stream of vomit: half-digested steak, potatoes, onions and beer, upchucked and acrid, mostly over himself, but also over Marie and the dusty-brown linoleum whorehouse floor.
‘Sorry’, he kept saying. ‘Sorry’. Entschuldigung. Desolé. He said sorry over and over again, in English, German and French, trying to wipe the brown gobbets of sick off Marie’s crêpey décolletage, his feet sliding on the vomit-slicked floor.