by Derek Hansen
‘Yes.’
‘Yes? Just like that?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then congratulations.’ Gustav rose and reached across his desk to shake Christian’s hand. ‘I thought I’d have to harangue you into making a decision. You surprise me.’
‘I made my mind up last night. It is something I’ve been thinking about since Walter’s death. I realised the time has come for me to take stock of things, to look to the future and examine my options.’
‘Options? What options? Tell me about them.’
‘Gustav, there’s nothing to tell. My choice is to commit to the company or leap off into the unknown. Make a fresh start somewhere, find new challenges. Unfortunately, leaps into the unknown require more than courage and inclination. They require cash and, as you’re well aware, I’m penniless.’
‘So your sudden commitment to the company is based on the lack of an alternative? Excuse me, Christian, but that’s hardly what I want to hear. Tell me, all things being equal, assuming you had funds, what would you do?’
‘If I told you you’d think I was being foolish.’
Gustav smiled. ‘We all take that risk from time to time. My mother takes that risk every time she opens her mouth. For that matter, so do half of the board. It’s something I encourage. So please, don’t let that stop you. Don’t forget that I am in the privileged position of knowing you are anything but a fool.’
Christian drew in a deep breath. ‘If I chose to make a fresh start I would do it in New Zealand.’
Gustav laughed, but with warmth not ridicule. ‘Why didn’t I guess?’
‘It is pure fantasy of course. I know nothing about New Zealand. I know no one there. But ever since receiving that letter I haven’t been able to put it out of my mind. My work at the Centre is almost over regardless of what happens. I’m free to put the war behind me and get on with my life. But when I look at Hamburg I no longer see the city I grew up in. Everything has changed. Everything I knew has gone. My home, my family, my neighbours, my friends; they’re all gone. I feel like a stranger in my own city. It would not be hard for me to leave. But the fact is that this—you, my job—this is all I have left. I’m thirty-nine, Gustav, too old for childish dreams. Last night I realised it was time to accept who I am and build on it. I wrote my reply to the letter so I could bury New Zealand once and for all.’
‘I hope we did a better job of burying Walter,’ said Gustav dryly. ‘If I had my way you’d start moving up through the company and using the abilities I hired you for to the full extent. But if your choice is to go to New Zealand I’m more than happy to help.’
‘No,’ said Christian emphatically. ‘You’ve helped me enough.’
‘And you haven’t helped me? For God’s sake, I had the same obligations to our comrades as you had, but I put my energies into the company instead. You gave the Centre your time, energy, commitment and compassion. All I gave was money…and you. By making it possible for you to help our comrades you became the conduit for my obligations, for my compassion. You were the balm for my conscience. Helping you benefited me. Because of you I could concentrate on building the company. Because of you I could sleep at nights. Surely you can see that.’
‘Even so…’
‘No, Christian, there is one person to whom I cannot delegate help and compassion. That is you. You are the last of us who needs help. For ten years you’ve helped others. Now it’s your turn. The money I’ve set aside for the Centre won’t be needed now. It’s yours. It will fund your leap into the unknown.’
‘I don’t know what to say.’
‘Tell me this, are you absolutely certain that it’s what you want?’
A rare smile lit Christian’s face. ‘I don’t know if I’ve ever been more certain of anything in my life. And do you know something? I don’t even know why.’
Gustav laughed, walked around his desk and embraced Christian. ‘If you knew that, my friend, it wouldn’t be the unknown.’
That night Christian tore up his earlier response to the Church Army captain and drafted another. In it he stated his wish to meet up with Mack again and enquired about sponsorship, job prospects and accommodation while he found his feet. He had to pause as he wrote to still the shaking that kept creeping into his hand. It reflected a sensation he hadn’t experienced since the war—excitement. The spark so long missing from his life had reignited. Ever since his U-boat had been sunk he’d been dealing with the consequences of defeat, but not any more. There was no longer any place for defeat in his plans. The letters and words flowing from his pen encapsulated hope, aspiration and optimism. The fact that the war had not touched New Zealand, hadn’t reduced its cities to rubble or devastated its citizens encouraged him. He was suddenly glad his voyage there had been fruitless, that the troopship he’d been sent to destroy had sailed. He could think of no reason why he would not be accepted there, and no reason why New Zealanders would harbour any resentment towards former commanders of U-boats.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
People die for the silliest of reasons but Fred died for the silliest reason of all. One day Fred came home from school to find a fresh loaf of bread on the kitchen table. It was still warm from the bakery and smelled heavenly. Fred eyed the end crust, immediately washed his hands as he’d been taught to do before touching food and, without asking permission, cut into the loaf an inch from the end. The end crust was his favourite part of a loaf, especially when the loaf was fresh and still warm. He didn’t want to be told to share it with his little sister. It didn’t matter to him that the crust was an inch thick and that there was plenty for both of them. He lathered it with butter, climbed up to the top cupboard where his mother kept the jar of hundreds and thousands and sprinkled them all over until his slab of bread looked as festive as a birthday cake.
Most people would sit at the kitchen table to eat an enormous crust like that, but not Fred. He put the crust on a plate and lay down on the rug in the dining room, a comic in front of him and his plate alongside. Of course his little sister, who was cutting out a little paper uniform to place on a little paper nurse, saw the huge slice of bread with the golden crust below and the hundreds and thousands on top and immediately wanted a piece. Who wouldn’t?
‘Can I have some?’ his little sister asked.
‘No,’ said Fred.
‘Please.’ Little sister gave him the big eyes and the begging look that little sisters are good at.
‘You heard me,’ said Fred.
Trolley Bus, the family cat, came in to see what the fuss was about and immediately took sides with little sister. Trolley Bus got its name because its tail went straight up into the air and curled at the top like the frond of a nikau palm. Its tail actually looked more like the boom on a tram than a trolley bus but trams had been replaced. Together little sister and Trolley Bus watched as Fred steadily ploughed his way through the crust.
‘Please, just a bite,’ said little sister, when Fred had reduced the crust to half its original size.
‘Get your own,’ said Fred, which was cruel because little sister wasn’t even allowed to touch the kitchen knives, let alone use them. He took another big bite.
‘I won’t take much,’ said little sister, which was true because there wasn’t much left to take. Little sister stroked Trolley Bus for comfort. The Russian Grey rubbed its head against little sister’s arm in sympathy.
‘That’s my cat,’ said Fred.
‘Mine too,’ protested little sister.
‘Here, Trolley,’ said Fred. He pretended to offer a tiny piece of his crust to the cat. Trolley Bus left little sister to investigate. At the last minute, Fred popped the piece of crust into his own mouth. ‘Fooled you,’ he said. He stroked Trolley Bus by way of compensation. Fred broke the last of his crust into two pieces and, one after another, popped them teasingly into his mouth. He tried to stroke Trolley Bus again but the cat walked away in disgust. It didn’t matter. The damage had already been done. You could excuse little sister for not k
nowing that you’re supposed to wash your hands after handling animals, especially if you’re eating, but there was no excuse for Fred. He knew that as well as anybody but said to himself, ‘It’s only Trolley Bus,’ and didn’t give it another thought.
But it wasn’t only Trolley Bus. When Fred stroked Trolley Bus he also stroked millions of other creatures, none of which were friendly. A few days earlier, Trolley Bus had got into a fight with its mortal enemy, a ginger tom called Megs that lived two doors up the street. Megs had lost the encounter but managed to sink its teeth into Trolley Bus’s shoulder. It wasn’t much of a bite but cat’s teeth carry millions of germs, and millions more were attracted to the tiny, but nonetheless open, wound. Some of them attached themselves to Fred’s hand. Some of those attached themselves to Fred’s crust. Some of them tumbled down Fred’s throat into the most wonderfully warm and moist breeding ground imaginable.
At first Fred’s mum just thought he had the flu and didn’t call the doctor. Then she thought he just had a tummy bug and didn’t call the doctor. By the time she did call the doctor it was too late.
The stonemason took ages to chisel Fred’s epitaph onto his headstone. It read: ‘Here lies that moron Fred. If only he’d shared his bread, his little sister would be dead instead.’
‘THE IMPORTANCE OF WASHING YOUR HANDS’
When Britain declared war on Germany in September 1939, everybody expected the worst. They thought the sky was going to fill with screaming Stuka bombers and Panzer tanks were going to roll down The Strand to Piccadilly. But nothing happened and continued not to happen until April 1940. Churchill called this period ‘The Twilight War’. Newspapers, with their addiction to puns, called it ‘The Bore War’. The Germans, suddenly aware of the power of their blitzkrieg, called it ‘The Sitzkrieg’ or ‘sit-down war’. It took an American senator called Borah to come up with the label that stuck. He called the hiatus ‘The Phoney War’. I know this because it was a subject often covered around the dinner table when English friends came to visit. Everyone thought Churchill had come up with the phrase but my dad knew better.
Looking back, I liken the period from when Captain Biggs sent his letter off to Christian Berger to the time we received the commander’s reply to the Phoney War. The storm was brewing but we just couldn’t see it. I all but forgot about Mack and got on with my life. Mack was on the mend and there are few things quite as boring as the process of healing. Maybe once a fortnight if there was nothing else to do I’d ride up to the hospital to see him. If Eric came with me we rode on to the War Memorial Museum to drool over the Spitfire they had on exhibition. If Gary came with me we went on to the Botanical Gardens to look at the golden carp in the ponds. Gary loved looking at them and I could spend all day looking at fish.
I scored two goals in the knockout final and as it turned out they were the only goals either side scored. Mum took my heroics in her stride. She expected nothing less. She gave me a hug and rang all her friends to pass on the news. Dad gave me two shillings, a bob for each goal, which I wasted on bait. I say ‘wasted’ because I never got a single bite. The soccer season was over but the fish were frustratingly slow to realise this and stayed out deep. Rod left the club at the beginning of August, on the Wednesday before his birthday. His chevrons and badge were transferred onto my uniform. Yippee! There I was, twelve years old and the youngest captain ever, in charge of boys as old as fifteen. Mr Gillespie took to calling me Captain and always saluted when he saw me. It was our little joke but it made me feel big deal.
School carried on as usual, one interminable day after another. It was still too cold to open the school pool and a constant drizzle closed the playing field. The Maoris called New Zealand ‘The Land of the Long White Cloud’ but leaden, grey cloud would’ve been closer to the mark. The lack of sporting activity drove us crazy and pushed our teachers to distraction. With no means to burn off steam, fights broke out, bottles of milk, which the government insisted every schoolkid in the country drink, got dropped and broken by the crateload and balls shattered classroom windows as games on the asphalt became a touch too exuberant. Ryan got suspended for painting his penis again. He was growing up and managed to paint on two extra hoops. Eric, Maxie, Gary and I all got the strap for stealing a basketball the girls were playing with and throwing it to one another so they couldn’t get it back. We got the strap for making paper darts and throwing them out the window to see whose dart could fly the furthest. Maybe if we hadn’t used old exercise paper with our names neatly printed on the top of the page we might’ve got away with it. We got the strap for talking during lessons, for sneaking out to the boys’ toilet and having pissing competitions—points were awarded for distance, height and duration—and for rifling through other kids’ schoolbags and swapping lunches around. That caused some fantastic fights. We got strapped for sticking pieces of mirror to the floor so we could look up the girls’ dresses. We got strapped so regularly we reached the point where we didn’t feel it any more, and our teachers got tired of hitting us. Together we silently prayed for fine weather.
Even the topics for essays fell victim to the weather. I would’ve loved to have an interesting subject to write about but instead Mr Grainger came up with subjects as dull as the overcast sky. Can you imagine going home with any sense of anticipation whatsoever when you’ve been asked to write an essay on ‘The Importance of Washing Your Hands’? That’s what we were asked to do. It was the sort of topic usually given to the little kids in Standard One or Two. My pals gave up and just pumped out the sort of banal drivel the topic deserved. I refused to give in but it took me a lot of brainstorming before I came up with the idea I finally used. My pals went absolutely ape over the ending.
We talked about going to the storm drains, and during a break in the weather we seized the chance. We levered up the cover and jammed a stick into the crack so we could sit and listen to the roar of the torrent raging below us. Our school had been on an expedition to the Karapiro Dam on the Waikato when the river was in flood. The water roaring down our drain sounded just as frightening as the water cascading down the spillway. We talked about jumping onto Lilos and riding the stormwater down to Coxs Creek. The fact we even talked about such an idiotic, suicidal idea shows how bored and frustrated we’d become. Things got so bad Captain Biggs called an early end to club one night when the hopping barge got out of control and the two teams ended up in an all-out fight not even the youngest captain ever could put a stop to.
We even got tired of flying the old sofa to Dresden. We tried bombing Berlin, Hamburg and the hydroelectric dams along the Ruhr Valley, but the game didn’t change enough to revive our flagging interest. We staged wars with paper pellets fired from rubber bands until a kid called Toby in the year below us copped one in the eye and was taken to hospital. After that pellet fights were banned. We played stone fights across the gully against equally bored Catholic kids until one of the Marist boys—a kid we liked and who often joined our soccer games—copped a rock square in the middle of his forehead. It must have been a tailwind or something to do with the weather because normally our missiles didn’t reach that far. But one did, hit its target, and this time the police were called. That put an end to stone fights.
The only thing of any significance that happened occurred around at Gary’s. We were playing Battleship, the game where opponents each draw their fleet of ships onto a grid of vertical and horizontal lines, and sink the enemy ships by calling out their coordinates. Gary guessed the coordinates of my submarine just as his dad came home.
‘Bugger,’ I said. ‘You got my submarine.’
Gary froze because that was the exact moment when his dad walked into the room. We’d get into trouble for swearing and into double trouble for swearing indoors. I looked from Gary to his dad and held my breath.
‘Got your submarine, eh, Captain?’ said Mr Gillespie. ‘Let’s hope the bugger goes down with all hands.’
Gary and I both burst out laughing from relief but my writer’s ear de
tected something of a hardness to his comment. I thought nothing of it. Turning my indiscretion into a joke was typical of Mr Gillespie. His remark only became significant in hindsight.
The Phoney War in England lasted almost seven months. The first phase of mine lasted just over seven weeks. I’d honestly forgotten all about the letter we’d sent until Captain Biggs called me aside after club one night.
‘Guess what?’ he said. When Captain Biggs got excited about something there was no way he could hide it. He was like a kid on Christmas Eve. Fairy lights danced in his eyes. There’d been a time when they’d danced for the dragon up at the hospital before I’d put a stop to it.
‘Give me a clue?’ I said.
‘Hamburg,’ he said expectantly.
Hamburg? Hamburg was a city we bombed when we got sick of bombing Dresden or didn’t have the time to fly there. Dresden was about the limit of a Lancaster’s range and Eric was a stickler for those sorts of details.
‘Give in,’ I said.
‘Oh, come on!’ said Captain Biggs. ‘You can’t just give in like that. Think. Hamburg…U-boats…Mack…’
The penny dropped. ‘You got a letter back from the U-boat commander?’ I said incredulously.
‘Would you like to read it?’
Captain Biggs had received a reply to the letter we’d written. We had a letter from the commander of a U-boat. The news was almost too big to take in. Captain Biggs handed me the letter still carefully folded and, to be honest, I didn’t give a toss what it said. It was enough just to hold it, knowing the hand that had written it had once held periscopes, fired torpedoes and almost brought Britain to its knees.
‘Read it,’ urged Captain Biggs.
As I opened the pages I couldn’t help recalling how reverently Mack had unfolded the story I’d written for him. I think my sense of anticipation and awe even exceeded his. The handwriting was incredibly neat, the kind of copperplate they tried to teach us in school. He’d written in black ink on blank paper yet the lines of writing were as parallel as soldiers on parade. This didn’t altogether surprise me. To my mind German U-boat commanders were superior beings who did everything better than everyone else.