That’s the way it’s supposed to be. I and Roman. Against the world.
Tobias could smell the sour heat of her despair and forgot to correct her.
Roman and me.
Jimmy knows that I know. He says he will hurt Roman if I say anything. I know he will.
Rosa cried then. The sound of her cry startled Tobias although it was a cry he associated with her – a quiet cry, one that didn’t want to draw attention to itself.
The sound dimmed, became distant like a door had closed against it and he was a boy again and it was Dresden that was weeping. Dresden that was burning still. People ran like tributaries to the Elbe. Some waded into the depths of her icy water, submerged themselves beneath her grey, churning surface. Not all of them re-emerged as the fast-flowing river took her toll. Some lay in the mud of her bank, rolled in it until they were indistinguishable from the stinking, sodden earth. Some just sat there and stared at their city. At Dresden, burning. These people looked stunned, as if they did not believe what was there in front of their eyes. What was as real as the war itself. All the long years of it.
Tobias ran. Along the east side of her bank, in the direction of the flow of her waters. He had no plan, no provisions, no people.
He kept running.
Even years later, when he thought about that time, after the bombs dropped, he could never recall how long he ran. How far. He ran until he stopped. Hours that felt like days. That felt like his whole life.
He ran through the rushes, trying to keep out of sight of the planes that continued to roar through the low-hanging clouds, the glare of their lights sweeping along the river, along the banks, training their guns on people who moved and even on those who didn’t.
Any time he slowed, he thought about his mother in the cellar. Dead now, her burnt body perhaps still clutching baby Greta to her breast. He saw the blackened remains of his little brothers, wrapped around each other like cubs in winter.
He had not saved them. Had not saved anyone. Only himself.
He ran on.
He finally stopped when his hunger and his exhaustion became big enough to banish all other thoughts from his mind. He was in a thick knot of woodland. It was difficult to know how far he had come. He sheltered behind the trunk of an oak tree which cut the worst of the wind. He lay on the forest floor. Already he could feel the damp seep through his clothes.
He did not eat. He must have slept.
When he awoke, there was a gun pointed at his face. A hand grabbed his shoulder, reefed him to his feet, shook him.
‘Who are you? What are you doing here?’ The man was tall. Gaunt. He had a ferociously angular face. He was old but his body, while thin, retained a measure of sinewy strength.
Tobias shook him off, pulling his father’s gun from the waistband of his trousers. His father had taught him how to shoot the gun. He had never used it before. Now, he cocked it at the man. ‘You shoot me, I’ll shoot you, understand?’ he said in a voice he barely recognised as his own. His voice had finally broken and his first thought was of his mother, who had laughed these past months when his voice had gone from a screech to a growl during the course of a single sentence. ‘Your voice will break when it’s good and ready, Tobias,’ she’d told him, ruffling his fringe the way he always told her not to.
His father’s gun felt too big for his hand. Too heavy. Still, he didn’t lower it. It was a woman, in the end, who stepped between them. An old woman with a ragged shawl around her shoulders, wearing boots that seemed much too heavy for her twig-like frame. Her eyes were swollen into slits, the whites red and veiny, like she’d been weeping.
‘There will be no killing of our own,’ she said in a voice that was as ragged as her shawl. ‘If you want to shoot each other, you will have to shoot me first.’ It was almost an invitation, the way she said it. The tall man lowered his weapon, never taking the hard blue of his eyes off Tobias’s face. Only when the gun was by his side did Tobias tuck his father’s weapon back into his trousers.
There were about ten of them. All running from Dresden, just like him. Old men and women mostly. A few boys Tobias’s age. They studied Tobias as if he might know something they didn’t. As if he might have come up with a solution.
‘Where are you going?’ he asked them.
The old woman pointed south. ‘I’ve been telling them. We should go back. We need supplies.’
‘There are no supplies. There’s nothing left.’ This from a boy about the same age as Tobias, with blood drying on the front of his shirt. He sat on a wet rock, his face buried in hands that were blue with cold.
‘If we continue on, we’ll freeze to death. And starve.’
‘If we go back, we’ll burn.’
Nobody said anything after that and Tobias sat back down, not wanting to draw attention to himself. The group continued arguing amongst themselves and Tobias had the curious sensation that he wasn’t there at all. That he was perhaps already dead, unnoticed and unnoticeable. Another part of him – the part that had run and run until he could run no longer – knew that he was alive, that he would do anything to stay alive for reasons that were now beyond his comprehension.
They boiled water in a blackened pot a woman produced from a straw bag over a fire fed with thin branches the blood-stained boy had cut from trees. The rabbits Tobias caught and skinned did not go far and Tobias felt hungrier after the food than he had been before. The old woman who had stood between Tobias and a bullet handed him a hunk of bread, hard as a rock. Tobias tried not to cram the whole lot into his mouth, chewed it for as long as he could, anxious to make it last. She took her rag of a shawl from around her shoulders and offered it to Tobias who shook his head. ‘Take it,’ she said. ‘You are young. You have your whole life ahead of you and the night will be bitter. I have my coat.’ She pointed at her ill-fitting coat, none of the buttons matching.
Tobias stretched the shawl on the ground and lay on it. The fire had been doused so its flames would not give them away but the old woman lay beside him, her back to him. ‘We’ll keep each other warm,’ she whispered.
When Tobias opened his eyes the next morning, the woman was staring at him. Her eyes were milky blue and her lips were parted. Tobias knew she was dead but a vague warmth persisted from her body, as if some essence of her remained. Tobias found himself unafraid. Perhaps this was what happened when you survived. It left you unafraid. He was not afraid of this old woman who lay dead beside him. Instead, he felt a sadness deep inside himself that stretched and stretched and threatened to burst out of him and he swallowed hard and closed his eyes and allowed the last of her to warm him.
Later, Tobias tried to dig a hole with his bare hands but the ground was hard, unrelenting and his fingers too stiff with cold to make much headway. In the end, the tall man carried the old woman to the river, lay her on the bank and rolled her in. The river accepted her swiftly, carried her away.
The decision was made to keep to the river, head back to Dresden. The sky had issued no sound during the night, so perhaps the planes had finished their work. There would be no more bombs. Tobias didn’t think any of them really believed that. People had said the Allies would never bomb Dresden. The Florence of the Elbe. They had been so certain.
Tobias followed the others. In the distance, he could see the city – his city – glow beneath great plumes of black smoke.
Now, looking into the past, seeing that young, rudderless scrap of a boy, Tobias wants to say, Stop. Go back. Turn the other way. But then again, what would have happened if he had ventured away from Dresden instead? Something worse? It was wartime, after all. Happy endings were in scarce supply.
Instead, he walked on, followed the others. He didn’t remember how far he walked before it happened. In his memory, it seemed endless, the walking. The insistence of one foot in front of the other. And again. And again. Like life itself, the walk. Relentless.
He stopped when the others stopped. Craned his neck to see what they saw. It was an airman. He was
injured, huddled at the base of a tree. One leg lay at an unnatural angle from his body. Blood poured down his face from a deep cut on the side of his head. Pieces of his parachute were snagged on the bare branches of the tree, the fabric straining south in the biting wind that swept down the river.
The tall, gaunt German shouted at the airman, stabbed the muzzle of his gun towards him. The airman tried to raise his arms over his head and the tall man spat at him and Tobias saw the saliva sliding down his face, turning pink as it mixed with his blood. The tall man squatted in front of the airman, roughly pulled the man’s jacket off, his belt, his hat.
Then he looked at Tobias. ‘Do you have any bullets in that gun of yours?’
Tobias nodded, removed his father’s gun from the waistband of his trousers, offered it to the man who shook his head. ‘You must do it, it’s your gun.’
‘Do what?’
The only noise was the river on his right, intent on her journey south. Tobias looked at the airman, who was talking now, fast and urgent. Tobias couldn’t understand what he was saying but the tone was undeniable. A pleading tone.
‘He’s Polish. He’s one of the bastards who killed your family,’ the tall man shouted at him. Tobias hadn’t mentioned his family but such a story could be assumed of any of them. He thought about Greta’s pink face. How soft her skin felt between his fingers when he gently pinched her cheeks. The way she laughed like she would never stop. And how her laugh made the rest of them laugh, no matter what the day had brought.
He straightened his arm, pointed the gun towards the man, who was shouting now, a steady stream of words, getting louder. Some of the words were German. Tobias heard the word for ‘wife’, the word for ‘children’, the word for ‘baby’, the word for ‘love’, the word for ‘home’. The Polish man had a wife. Three children. Another one on the way. He loved his wife. He loved his children. He wanted to be a father. He wanted to go home. He was crying now, his head bent towards his chest like he didn’t want them to see his tears. His shoulders moved up and down with the force of his cries, heavy with resignation.
Tobias hesitated. Could feel his arm lower.
The tall man thundered towards him, lifted Tobias’s arms until the gun, which he held in both hands, was trained on the man.
The airman knew then. That he would be dead soon. His cries quietened. He wiped the tears on his face with a filthy hand. He looked at Tobias, waiting. Tobias could see him waiting in the hard set of his shoulders, in the clenched fists of his hands, along the lines of his ruined face.
‘This is your chance, boy,’ the tall man said.
Tobias cocked the gun. The man flinched.
‘Do it for the Fatherland.’
Tobias’s mouth was dry. He trained the gun at the man’s neck. Could see a pulse jump there. Imagined what the man might look like afterwards. Imagined him dead.
The airman looked at Tobias, his hands still in the air. Then he closed his eyes and Tobias saw him take a breath and he knew that if he didn’t do it now, do it immediately, he wouldn’t be able to do it at all.
He pulled the trigger. The shot unbalanced him and he staggered backwards.
The noise was sharp, enormous. It seemed to reach up into the bare branches of the trees, make them shudder. Tobias opened his eyes. He had missed. The tall man shouted at Tobias, grabbed his arm, pulled him, trained the muzzle of the gun inches now from the airman’s head so that Tobias could see the mud entrenched along the folds of the man’s ears, could see the pink veins threaded through the whites of the man’s eyes. His mouth was frozen on a word, on one of his few German words: wife or children or baby or home. One of those words.
Tobias fired again. The bullet lodged in the side of the man’s neck and blood spurted from the wound and it was bright red. It was the brightest red Tobias had ever seen, and there was so much of it.
The man’s eyes dulled and something like a smile crept across his face, as if a part of him were glad. Glad perhaps that the war was over.
At least it was for him.
‘Rosa? You OK?’
Tobias felt the draught of another person arriving into the room. Rosa stood up. Tobias heard the legs of her chair rasp against the floor.
‘I go now,’ she said, even though she was adept at the future tense. The same as the present tense, Tobias had explained, with the word ‘will’ inserted before the verb. I will go. She had understood almost immediately.
‘What will you do?’ Tobias had asked, as an exercise. ‘In your future?’
‘I will look after my son.’
‘What else?’
‘I will go to work.’
‘What else?’
She had paused then. Tobias had drummed the fingers of his good hand against the wood of the table in the library.
‘I will improve my English and buy a flower shop and Roman and I will move into our own apartment and it will have a balcony with a chair where I can sit and watch the sun set.’ She’d laughed her small laugh when she said that, as if it were a wish rather than a statement, and he’d nodded curtly, as if it were a statement rather than a wish.
‘Rosa? You OK?’ It was the man. The detective. Tobias focused on his voice, grabbed at it, allowed it to bring him back into the room, into the present.
He could usually manage his thoughts. Quell them, when it became necessary.
It was different here, in this narrow hospital bed with the inconvenient tubes and the antiseptic smell. It seemed as if his memories had taken him hostage. Were holding him to ransom.
‘Here.’ Tobias could hear the detective rummage in his pocket, pull something out. It must have been a tissue because then he heard Rosa blow her nose, her small thank you afterwards.
‘I’ve been looking for you. Did you get my message?’
‘The nurse told me to turn off my phone,’ said Rosa.
‘I called into your house. Had a little chat with your landlord.’
‘Jimmy?’ Fear gripped her voice.
‘Why are you protecting him? He’s going to hang Roman out to dry.’
A pause, then, ‘I don’t know what you mean.’
‘Look, Rosa, you and I both know that Roman’s a good kid who got mixed up in a bad situation.’
‘Yes. He is a good boy.’
‘Help me to help him. You recognised Jimmy’s voice, didn’t you? At the bank. You can help us identify him?’
Rosa said nothing. Tobias could hear the tick tock of the detective’s watch.
‘I can protect you, Rosa. You and Roman. You just need to trust me.’
When Rosa exhaled, Tobias could hear the shake of it. ‘Have you heard when the hearing will be?’ she said.
‘Not till the day after tomorrow, I’m afraid. Monday, three o’clock.’
‘He won’t talk to me.’
‘I’ll keep an eye on him, Rosa. He’ll be OK.’
‘Thank you.’
‘I haven’t done anything. You won’t let me.’
Rosa said nothing but perhaps she might have nodded. One of the nurses came in – they were always coming in, prodding and poking him. The detective left.
‘Cheer up, love,’ the nurse said to Rosa, as if they were in the middle of a conversation. ‘He could wake up. Any minute. It happens. I’ve seen it happen.’
He could not hear Rosa respond. Perhaps she had smiled her quiet smile instead.
Tobias knew that Rosa did not think he would awaken. They were cut from the same cloth, he and Rosa. Or was it Rosa and he? He was appalled to find that he did not know for sure, felt it was part of this process he was embroiled in.
This slipping away.
Fourteen
When Martha got home from the restaurant, Dan was standing at the entrance to her apartment block, holding an enormous bouquet of roses in one hand. In the other, an egg tray accommodating twenty-four Cadbury Creme Eggs, which happened to be Martha’s favourite confectionery, although even she found the sight of twenty-four of them challenging.
‘For you, my precious,’ Dan said, managing only a small bow, constricted as he was by his wares.
‘Why?’ Martha couldn’t help smiling. Few people could, in Dan’s vicinity. It might have been his huge blue eyes, or his short, blond hair, immaculately cut in a pageboy style. Or perhaps it was his short legs and long feet which lent him a clownish air, an impression encouraged by his dress sense.
Today, he wore a brightly coloured short-sleeved shirt – patterned with some class of exotic fruit (lychees, he told her, shaking his head at the enquiry) – and linen shorts to his knees. His only concession to the bitterness of winter was to don woollen socks, which he wore with brown leather sandals.
He looked about twelve. He would be thirty-nine on his next birthday.
‘They’re first and foremost a get well soon token,’ said Dan, ‘following the recent traumatic events at the bank.’
‘And secondly?’
‘Happy anniversary, darling.’ Dan thrust the flowers towards Martha. His smile, always wide, widened.
‘I’m not sure it’s appropriate for us to celebrate our wedding anniversary while we’re waiting on our divorce.’ Martha needed her two hands and much of her arms to accommodate the flowers.
‘Two years,’ he told her, holding open the door to her apartment block and ushering her inside. ‘It’s not nothing.’
They by-passed the lift with its habitual out of order sign and climbed the stairs.
‘You do remember that we were only married for four months of those two years?’
‘Four months and three days, actually.’
‘How can you be so sure?’
‘You broke my heart, sugar plum fairy. Clean in two.’ He stopped on the landing, placed his hand on his chest, affected a pained expression.
Martha fumbled inside her bag for her keys. ‘Are you sure you’re not gay?’
This Is Now Page 18