The Occupation

by Deborah Swift

  I headed behind the bead curtain and surveyed the jars of broad beans, the eggs, the sack of flour, and the pigeon breasts under the meat cover. She was right; this wasn’t much. We’d have to come up with a way of getting more ingredients. Already I was thinking ‘we’, as if Berenice and I were on the same side.

  A male voice from outside. ‘There’s a dead dog just outside in the road, didn’t you know?’

  I froze, pretending to examine the crock of pâté I’d just found on the shelf.

  ‘Yes,’ Berenice said wearily. ‘They found the Finkelsteins. It was their dog. Poor Chantal. They shot Guismo right in front of her. Bastards.’

  ‘How did they find them? I thought Madame Fournier was a safe house?’

  ‘Hush.’ Whispers I couldn’t hear.

  I came out from behind the curtain. ‘I suppose it’s beans with everything then,’ I said brightly.

  ‘So you see my problem,’ Berenice said.

  I looked to the young man who was staring at me with interest. ‘I’m Édouard,’ I said. ‘I was just helping Berenice.’

  ‘Édouard, this is … this is my friend, Antoine,’ Berenice said.

  ‘How do you do?’ Surely this was the same man Berenice had called Pierre only yesterday.

  ‘Édouard’s from Jersey,’ Berenice explained. ‘But he’s stuck here. Can’t get home.’

  ‘Tough luck,’ Antoine said. ‘Where are you staying?’

  I told him, whilst aware it was the very question I wanted to ask him. ‘And I think I’m living in the apartment of your friends,’ I said to Berenice. I told her about the marks on the door, and the name ‘Emil’. ‘The landlord was glad to let me have it at a cheap rent. A French friend arranged it because I couldn’t travel to Jersey.’

  ‘They haven’t sent you to a work camp yet then,’ Antoine said. ‘My friends have all been delegated to camps or factories. Separated and sent God knows where.’

  ‘So how did you get out of it?’ I asked.

  He looked to Berenice. She gave a nod, as if to confirm I could be trusted.

  ‘I dodged them,’ he said. ‘I was a mechanic, so I wasn’t in a reserve occupation like farming or feeding the bastards, so I’m what you might call “on the run”. Berenice helped me find a place to stay. She has many friends and we help each other.’ He turned to Berenice. ‘Have you a tarpaulin?’

  ‘There’s one in the larder, under the shelf,’ I said. ‘I saw it earlier.’

  ‘Good, then let’s get that dead dog out of the way before curfew, and bury him before he starts to stink. Will you give me a hand?’

  We took the tarpaulin out and he lifted the dead animal into it. ‘Fine-looking dog,’ he said, stroking his soft yellow ears.

  Between us we rolled it up. Antoine took one end and I the other. ‘Where will we take it? We’ve no spade,’ I said.

  ‘The river,’ he said. ‘Best we can do.’

  We carried him to the embankment, found some loose stones to weight it down and knotted it all up tight. ‘Poor Guismo,’ I said. ‘He didn’t deserve to die. Bloody pointless, and you should’ve seen the girl’s face.’

  We lowered him in and watched him sink. It was a strangely emotional moment, watching the bubbles rise, glinting in the black oily water.

  ‘Rest in peace, Guismo,’ Antoine said. His voice was serious. He looked at his watch. ‘Almost ten. We’d best get off the streets unless we want to go the way of Guismo here.’

  We shook hands and I gave him a wave as he disappeared back towards the café. Was he staying there? In the rooms above? I was fairly sure this was Pierre Severin. Of course, I’d no real proof. But he’d seemed genuine, despite the false name, and I really didn’t want to know his address. If I knew, I might have to confess it to Vogt.

  CHAPTER 10

  Céline

  The meeting with Rachel left a bad taste in my mouth. The thought that people were being uprooted, with no way to resist, appalled me, and that somehow Fred was implicated in this horror made me squirm with guilt. Writing to Fred’s brother would do no good. Horst and Fred had always argued over politics, and as Horst was the older one, he’d always insisted he was right and that his little brother was naïve. According to Horst, the Jews were sucking all the wealth out of Germany and must be stopped. Writing to him would merely point Rachel out as another Jew and make things worse.

  A few days later, I needed to go from the farm to the greengrocer’s and before that to the bank to withdraw some money, so I took my bicycle. It was a glorious day, the verges fragrant with cow parsley and purple vetch, and the hedgerows buzzing with bees. As I freewheeled down to town, I saw evidence that the farms were struggling; fields were emptier of cattle than usual and many houses had broken windows. Weeds were strangling their vegetable gardens, cars with missing wheels rusted outside. Mrs Flanders, never one to miss a juicy bit of gossip, had told me that whole herds of cows had been slaughtered because there was nobody to look after them, and that there’d been a rash of looting since the evacuation.

  When I got to the bank, Rachel was helping another customer at the counter. I couldn’t think what to say to her, so I deliberately chose another cashier, but when I saw her watching me, I attempted a smile.

  She turned away, cutting me dead, as if she hadn’t seen me. I swallowed and pretended not to care, but it smarted deep inside. Dispirited, after I’d queued with my ration book for my shopping, I went to the beach. It had been work, work, work all week, and surely I could spare myself an hour in the sun before cycling back to do the milking. I parked my bike against the railings and walked down the promenade towards the steps to the beach.

  I was vaguely aware of planes flying low overhead, but they were a common sight, and my attention was taken by Rachel coming towards me from the direction of the bank. I steeled myself, debating whether to avoid crossing her path, but I decided to make one last attempt to speak to her.

  She was going to go past me, but I grabbed her arm and had just opened my mouth to speak when there was a deafening staccato noise. Further down the promenade, people jerked and fell to the ground.

  I threw myself flat, my nose to the concrete pavement. Machine-gun fire. My mind finally caught up with my body. Rachel was on the ground too, and I realised I still had hold of her arm.

  There was a tremendous bang, and all the glass from the windows of the hotel flew out. Another huge blast. The ground reverberated under my chest, and I covered my head with an arm as debris rained into the road. Rachel hauled me to my feet and we stumbled to shelter at the back of a tea shack and pressed up against the wall, our backs to the beach.

  A woman pulling two small girls by the hand ran crazily in zigzags, unsure where to go. By the bandstand, a man in shirtsleeves crawled on his belly towards us for shelter, and he paused to look up. I followed his gaze into the summer sky and saw two more German planes flying low. Against the blue, black pencils of bombs rained from their underbellies.

  ‘Christ Almighty.’ I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Duck!’ Rachel yelled.

  A shudder and crash, and the hotel right in front of us burst into flames. Further down the road, plumes of smoke rose up behind the chemist’s in the direction of Voisin’s on King Street. A man in shorts and sandals ran past screaming, blood pouring from his head and down his shirt.

  When the noise of the planes receded, there was a deathly silence. Rachel didn’t move.

  ‘Are you all right?’ I asked. But I couldn’t even hear my own words.

  Rachel nodded, dazed, and let go of my arm. Into the silence came a distant wailing. A siren. My ears had stopped working. I hit them with my palms and shook my head.

  ‘What the hell’s that?’ Rachel said.

  ‘Only the bloody air raid siren,’ the man who was propped next to us said. ‘What use is that? Too bloody late. And it’s not as if we’ve even got any shelters to go to.’

  I stood up and peered out from behind the shack. The beach was deserted. On the prom
enade there were two holidaymakers still lying down. Blood leaked from their bodies in dark pools. Close by us, an elderly woman lay on her side, her handbag spilled open on the pavement, her hands clutched to her bleeding stomach.

  ‘Why isn’t anyone doing anything?’ I asked helplessly. ‘Where are the fire services and the ambulances?’

  ‘Gone to join up, or evacuated,’ the man said glumly.

  ‘Well, don’t just sit there,’ Rachel said. ‘We have to get them to hospital.’

  We ran over to the woman groaning in the street.

  ‘Lie still,’ I said. ‘Help’s coming.’

  Rachel didn’t look at me, but she took off her nice new cardigan and covered the woman to keep her warm. A black-uniformed hotelier rushed out with a bottle of brandy and a basket of china teacups and thrust one in my hand, before moving to others who were helping. From behind us the sound of screaming made the hairs on my neck stand up, as black smoke billowed overhead.

  I held the teacup to the injured woman’s lips, but she couldn’t stay still enough to drink it, as she twisted and writhed in pain.

  ‘Here.’ I thrust it at Rachel, and wordlessly she downed the lot.

  Finally, a fruiterer’s van arrived and we were able to load the woman in the back and send her to hospital. We watched it go in silence.

  ‘I never thought the war would come here,’ Rachel said, still not looking at me.

  ‘Where are the RAF?’ I said. ‘Why didn’t somebody do something?’

  ‘We’ve been demilitarised,’ Rachel said.

  ‘Someone should tell that to the bloody Germans.’

  A pause. Fred’s unspoken name loomed large.

  ‘Suppose I’d better go and see if my apartment is still there,’ Rachel said. Her dress was stained with blood. She gazed down at the stain as if it might disappear.

  ‘I’ll come with you,’ I said.

  ‘There’s no need.’ She was still frosty.

  ‘I’m coming, Rache, and that’s that. Just hang on whilst I fetch my cycle.’

  Miraculously, it was where I’d left it. The tyres crunched over the debris of broken glass, broken tiles and dust, with me trying to steer it away from the worst of it. Every noise made me startle and cringe, and I couldn’t stop looking up in case another wave of planes should come over.

  Pier Road was completely impassable; the Royal Yacht Hotel had been hit, and the area around the weighbridge. Chunks of masonry and bricks blocked the street, and policemen, their navy uniform shoulders grey with dust, were keeping people away. We averted our eyes from a body covered in blankets on the pavement.

  ‘If the bombers come again, where’s best to go?’ a distraught woman asked one of the policeman.

  ‘Under the table, love, like the rest of us,’ was his answer.

  Rachel’s apartment had lost its windows, though it was still standing. She pointed across the road. ‘Look at that.’

  A villa on the other side of the street was half-gone, and a huge crater filled the road.

  ‘Looks like I was lucky,’ she said.

  She opened the door with an unsteady hand and we went up the stairs.

  I followed her into her apartment, although she hadn’t invited me. Shards of glass littered the carpet and the curtains dangled awry, blasted from their hooks.

  ‘Lord, what a mess. Have you a dustpan?’ I asked.

  Between us, we swept the floor of glass, and the sound of the broom gave me a sense of returning normality. As I came to wipe down the mantel, I paused in front of a photograph; I’d seen it before: a pretty, petite woman in a lace flapper dress with a long wedding veil swathed down to the ground. She carried a huge bouquet of roses and was looking up at a dark-haired man in a stand-up collar and bow tie. Her expression was somehow serious, although there was a smile on her lips.

  Her parents.

  She saw me looking. ‘Still no news,’ she said defiantly.

  ‘Oh, Rache, I’m so sorry,’ I said.

  Her eyes filled with tears, and all of a sudden we were both crying, clinging to each other, weeping like children.

  ‘You must hate me,’ I said.

  She said nothing, just pulled out a handkerchief from her pocket and held it out.

  I took it and cried some more. ‘It’s the shock,’ I said. ‘Don’t mind me.’

  ‘Tea,’ Rachel said. ‘The answer to everything.’

  The feeling that she had somehow forgiven me made me almost light-headed.

  Saturday brought many tales of horror into the shop, so by Sunday I was glad of my day of rest. But the next morning, church bells startled me awake with their clanging. I pressed my face back into the pillow. I kept seeing the bombs falling, and the bodies on the pavement twitching under the onslaught of bullets. A noise of an engine made my heart race, and I leapt out of bed even before the insistent hammering at the door made me hurry down the stairs.

  ‘Mrs Flanders?’ I paused and listened before unlocking the door.

  ‘Let me in!’

  I opened the door. She was dressed in her best hat and coat and stepping from foot to foot in agitation.

  ‘What’s the matter?’

  ‘We’ve had it. They’ll bomb us again if we don’t surrender. Look.’ She unfolded a creased piece of paper onto the counter. ‘Planes are dropping these all over Jersey.’

  I unfolded the paper and read it. It was in English — a demand that white crosses be painted on the airfield, and that white flags should be hung out to indicate surrender. My heart did a flip. ‘We’re surrendering already?’

  ‘There’s white flags flapping all over the place. Never seen anything like it. It’s barmy. We’ve no soldiers, and there’s not a single anti-aircraft gun on the island.’ She paused to suck in a breath. ‘The Jerries can just walk in, and there’s not a damned thing we can do to stop them. Makes me sick, it does. Your husband should be here, fighting them off, not in France where they’ve already lost.’

  I felt guilty, but I didn’t enlighten her.

  ‘Have you a white sheet?’ Mrs Flanders asked.

  ‘I don’t know … yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘Better get it out then. Don’t want to get shot.’

  ‘They wouldn’t shoot us, surely?’

  ‘I’ve heard the Germans are the worst. They say they’ve been bayonetting babies in France and shooting anyone who resists.’

  ‘Rubbish. It’s just a stupid rumour.’ I screwed up the paper again and threw it into the wastebasket. ‘Germans are just people doing their job. Just ordinary young men, like our Tommies. Get a grip, Mrs Flanders.’

  ‘But what will happen? Will we all have to speak German, or what?’

  ‘I’m sure we won’t. The Bailiff of the island, he’ll get it all under control. Now calm down and let’s go and get those cows milked. Invasion or no invasion, the cows know no difference, and we’ll still need milk.’

  ‘I’m not dressed for milking.’

  ‘I can see that. Why are you all dressed up?’

  ‘We have to have some pride. I’m making sure they see we’re a respectable people. That they can’t just ride roughshod over us like the Frogs.’

  I closed my eyes. God give me strength, I thought.

  But as we travelled up the lanes in the hazy dawn, with the hedgerows sparkling in the dew and the mist hanging low in the folds of the fields, my hands gripped tight to the seat. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like, to be under German law.

  Don’t worry, I told myself, they’ll be like Fred. But inside I felt a resistance growing. Despite Fred, I didn’t want to be German. I was English and a Jerseywoman, and I didn’t want anything to change my dear little island home. And I remembered with a shudder the letter about Rachel’s parents, who had been shipped off somewhere and would probably never come back.

  The day after the Germans came, the shop telephone was eerily silent. Usually it rang constantly, and the shop was full of people wanting bread and cakes. I was so disturbed by the eerie
quiet that when the paperboy brought the paper, I almost snatched it out of his hand. Gone were the usual headlines about fishing or milk yield, and instead there were proclamations from the new German Kommandant ordering the handing-in of weapons and the surrender of all British soldiers on leave. There was to be a suspension of sales of spirits and petrol — did they really think we would make bombs? — and we were to be forbidden the use of a boat without a permit. All the phone wires to England had been cut. Immediately, I went and dug out the wireless, but frustratingly, no mention was made of Jersey on the BBC.

  We didn’t see any soldiers for two or three days; apparently the Germans had flown in, and they couldn’t yet land their troops for fear of the English blowing up their troop carriers. The hot summer weather had returned at last, and the first time I saw a German was when two of them came into the shop for bread. They weren’t in full uniform. In fact, they looked like any other tourist on holiday, except for their shiny army-issue boots. One of them looked about sixteen; he had white-blond hair, and his shirtsleeves were rolled up over pale, freckled arms. He had caught the sun, and his nose was peeling.

  ‘Good morning, miss,’ he said in perfect English, ‘I would like a small loaf, and do you have an apple pie?’

  ‘It’s too early for apples, but I have rhubarb.’

  ‘Rhubarb?’ He looked to the other older German, who shrugged.

  ‘It’s very nice,’ I said. ‘Sehr gut.’

  The sunburned one grinned broadly. ‘You speak German. Wunderbar!’

  I was about to ask them where in Germany they came from but bit my lip, my cheeks hot with embarrassment. Should I be nice to them or not? Were they the enemy or not? I didn’t know. Hurriedly I fetched the rhubarb pie and put it on the counter. They paid in Reichsmarks and pfennigs, and I baulked, but I didn’t feel I could refuse. Already, the feeling that I couldn’t refuse bothered me.

  When the door clicked shut behind them, I sifted the coins in my hand, full of unease. I wondered where Fred was — whether he was buying bread somewhere in France — and my heart ached.