The Darkest Hour: A Novel

by Tony Schumacher

  “Get these people on the train, we have a timetable!” shouted the German officer. Rossett waded into the pushing group of Jews and police, cast a glance to the German officer, who was now only thirty or forty feet away, then felt a hand grab his collar, dragging him forward toward the darkness of the freight car.

  He reached into the pocket of his raincoat for his sap as he grabbed the bony wrist of the hand that was doing the pulling.

  “Please, Sergeant; please, I need to speak to you!” An old Jew owned the hand that was twisting and wrapping itself up in his raincoat. Rossett had the sap out, and he jabbed it into the old man’s ribs, but still the hand held fast, clinging for dear life.

  “Get on the train.” Rossett was pushing the old man backward up the ramp, but in doing so he himself was boarding the train. Aware that with every step he was getting closer to its cargo, he lifted his sap so that the old man could see it. “Get on the train!”

  The old man pulled him nearer, two hands on his lapels now, eyes bulging, and Rossett felt salty breath on his face. The Jew stepped on tiptoe to draw Rossett closer still. For a moment he thought the old man was about to kiss him.

  “Sergeant, you must listen. My name is Galkoff. You must listen to me.” Galkoff was whispering now, his lips brushing Rossett’s ear. Rossett twisted his head but the lips stayed close. No matter which way he turned he felt the brush of stubble on his cheek, and for a thousandth of a second he thought about his own father and a rare kiss from a dying man on a dirty pillow years before.

  “Eighty-four! That’s the lot!” called a voice from the foot of the ramp.

  “Please, it’s so important. One moment. I have treasure . . . treasure for you,” Galkoff whispered, looking down the ramp past him and then back up into Rossett’s face.

  Rossett finally managed to prise a finger off his lapel with his free hand.

  “Get on the train.”

  “It’s for you, all for you.”

  “Get on the train!” A shout this time.

  “I know you, I’ve seen you come and go to the house many times. I know you are an honest man.” Galkoff clamped his free hand onto the side of Rossett’s face and stared deeply, with desperate, watery brown eyes. The old man released his lapel and looked back into the train, one hand still clutching Rossett’s face, fingertips like ice picks sliding across his skin. “I knew you before all this. You came into my shop. I knew your family, your father, your mother. They were good people, honest people. As soon as I saw you I recognized you. I read about what you did in France. I was so proud of you fighting for us.”

  Rossett vaguely remembered the old man now from the shop on the corner when he was a child. Suddenly, the yard fell away from him and it was just him and the old man, looking into each other’s eyes.

  “I remember, but you have to get onto the train. I can’t help you. It’s my job to put you on the train.”

  The old man pulled him forward again; he gripped Rossett and pushed his mouth close to Rossett’s ear.

  “Behind the bookcase, third floor, front room. My treasure is behind the bookcase. It is payment for you to help me, to do a thing for me. You are a good man, you’ll do it. I knew it the moment I saw you coming to the house, you’ll do this thing for me.” Whispering hot breath on a freezing cold ear caused Rossett to stiffen.

  Just as suddenly as he had grabbed Rossett, the old man pushed him away and stepped back into the freight car as if falling from a cliff.

  “Sergeant?” called the German from the bottom of the ramp. Rossett came to, the spell broken. He looked first at the German and then back into the gloom of the freight car. Ghostly faces with blackened eyes stared back, and he found himself taking a half step back, still looking for old Galkoff, who had disappeared into the darkness.

  “I have a timetable!” called the German again.

  Rossett finally turned and walked back down the ramp, glancing over his shoulder into the freight car, where eighty-four pairs of eyes watched him go. At the foot of the ramp, the German proffered the clipboard, which Rossett signed without checking. The two railwaymen abruptly raised the ramp and swung the freight door shut with the solid clang of a heavy iron hasp and the final screeching stuttering slide of a rusty bolt to hold it fast.

  Rossett looked up at the locked door as the German pulled the clipboard from his hand. The train jolted as the distant engine took up the slack. From inside, Rossett heard some cries as the shock of the movement hit home.

  Rossett felt as if he were in a dream. Galkoff’s whispering so close to his ear had unsettled him. It was more real, less clockwork, more human. He felt that he could still hear the old man, feel his panicked breath on his cheek. Rossett touched his face where the old man’s stubble had brushed and looked around to see if anyone else was affected by what had just happened.

  They weren’t.

  Behind him the HDT and police were already boarding their trucks. He saw that the German officer was making his way back to the guards’ train car. A whistle sounded somewhere, and the train suddenly jerked again, like a circus elephant against a chain, and then slowly, so slowly, the car in front of him started to move along the track.

  He took another step back and looked from one end of the train to the other, from the engine to the guards’ car at the rear, where the German was hopping up onto the ladder before it started to move too quickly. The train picked up speed and as the guards’ car passed him, the German waved from the still-open door and shouted something about seeing Rossett next month.

  Wind blew drizzle into his face, and he wiped it with the back of his hand, realizing he was still holding his sap. He watched the red lights at the back of the train move away for a moment and then turned toward his car. He put the sap back into his pocket, embarrassed that he’d almost used it on an old man, aware that the hand that was holding it was shaking a little.

  He wanted a drink.

  The car windows had misted, and he had to use the back of his hand to clear a four-inch-wide smear on the windshield. It distorted the view of the world outside, and the lamps of the yard became exaggerated stars. The train was already out of sight on its way to the docks. He thought about what Galkoff had said and shuddered again. The little car coughed into life as the troop trucks, their cabs shiny with rain, bounced past him across the rough freight yard to the exit.

  Rossett lit another cigarette, suddenly realizing how many he smoked on mornings like this, and made a decision to try to ease up. He checked his watch. Seven thirty, bang on schedule, just as usual.

  ON THE TRAIN, amid the crying and the clanging, Israel Galkoff leaned his head against the coarse wood of the doors and said a little prayer that his treasure would be safe; it was all he had.

  His only hope.

  Chapter 4

  BY THE TIME Rossett got back to the house, light was breaking through the early morning cloud and the streets were starting to fill with commuters. The drive across town had taken longer than expected, but he was glad for the traffic; it had given him some time to settle his nerves. The encounter with the old man had shaken him, made that morning’s work seem more personal.

  He thought about the old man’s shop, nondescript, just like all the other shops he had followed his mother in and out of when he was on his school holidays. He’d never given Galkoff a second thought back then. He wondered why he was such a threat to society now. The old man hadn’t changed, thought Rossett as he sat at a traffic light and looked at the banner of the Führer shaking hands with King Edward that covered half of the building across the road.

  “The old man hasn’t changed, we have,” he said to himself as the traffic light changed and he moved on.

  When he arrived back at Caroline Street, the two bobbies at the front door of the house straightened up and took their hands out of their pockets when they saw him.

  “Has anyone been in?” he asked
as he slammed the door of the Austin.

  “No, Sarge,” said the younger one.

  “You, come with me,” said Rossett, pushing open the door. “What’s your name?” he said over his shoulder as they marched up the stairs.

  “Baker, Sarge.”

  “Is your notebook up to date, Baker?”

  “Yes, Sarge.”

  “Good.”

  He’d normally have left the search of the house to the removal team that would turn up a few hours after the Jews had left. The team, usually led by a retired bobby or a German civil servant, would inventory the house, take anything valuable, then lock up the property until there were workers who needed accommodation. The landlord would receive a peppercorn rent and a warning about renting his houses to Jews in the future.

  Often, the best-case scenario was that the building was owned by one of the Jews in the first place, in which case the property would have already been signed over to the state on the grounds that since the Jewish Acts in Parliament, Jews were no longer allowed to own property. Rossett knew it was an unfair system but excused it on the grounds that it stopped them sleeping rough and having to be cleared up if they died of the cold on the streets.

  “Don’t we normally wait for the removal lads, Sarge?” Baker said, taking off his helmet to prevent its hitting the low ceiling on the stairs.

  “Not this morning. I want you to witness something.”

  “Witness something?”

  “There are only two things that will get you sacked in this job, son: women and property. You need a witness when you handle either of them; never forget.”

  “Yes, Sarge,” replied Baker, now a little nervous.

  Rossett didn’t know if anyone else had heard Galkoff talking about “treasure” when they had been on the ramp, but he didn’t want to take the risk of word getting to the cleanup team and someone getting sticky fingers. He also didn’t want anyone accusing him of taking whatever was behind the bookcase. Theft from the state carried a death penalty. Whatever was up there belonged to the state, and Rossett intended to see that the state got its due.

  They entered the room, and Rossett noted the upturned chair and bedding thrown across the floor, a broken water jug lying on the bed, and the lock of the door splintered on the inside. The old man hadn’t gone quietly.

  Against the far wall stood a wooden bookcase. It was heavy and old and must have taken four men to carry it to the third floor. Its shelves were less than half full.

  “They must have burnt the books to keep warm,” Baker said, reading his mind and filling in the gaps.

  Rossett nodded. It was a fair deduction except for one thing.

  There wasn’t a fireplace in the room.

  “Give me a hand. They might have hidden something behind it.”

  They both took a hold on the same side, looking to lift one corner away from the wall and pivot it around.

  “What if it’s a booby trap, Sarge? I heard one house up north was rigged with explosives by a load of communist Jews.”

  “Just lift it.”

  The bookcase creaked but moved easily on the bare floorboards. Rossett realized the old man had planned it that way; he’d have known they’d be coming eventually, and had chosen the last room they’d get to so as to have time to hide his secrets from the initial search.

  Behind the bookcase, Rossett could see a hole in the wall where a fireplace had once been. He lifted the bookcase farther out and then squeezed into the gap, bending from the waist and twisting himself to peer into the darkness.

  “Fetch me a candle. I can’t see a thing,” he said, arm reaching behind him, fingers snapping.

  Baker grabbed a candle from the floor next to the bed and lit it quickly. He passed it to Rossett, who, holding it next to his face, pushed farther into the gap. At the back of the surprisingly large void lay some sacking and a small brown suitcase, maybe eighteen inches long and nine high.

  Rossett reached for the case and pulled it toward him, aware that he was getting soot on his raincoat. He was keen to get out of the space and started to back out, but then he stopped.

  It was no good going to all this trouble and then only doing half the job.

  He set the case to his side and cursed as he banged his head on a jagged brick before stretching into the gap again. Some old soot dropped from the chimney above and he rested his hand on it, feeling it crunch under his palm. He took hold of the sacking and pulled it toward him to look underneath.

  Sooty, curly black hair and a pale white face emerged.

  A child, a young boy, maybe seven years old, blinked at him.

  The boy didn’t move. He sat with his back to the wall, big brown eyes staring and lips clamped tight.

  The only movement was the shadow cast by the flicker of the candle.

  Eventually, Rossett spoke.

  “Come here.”

  The child’s eyes stayed fixed. Rossett knew the boy was willing him to go away, and Rossett wished that he could.

  But he couldn’t.

  “Is that a kid?” Baker leaned over his shoulder, straining to see what was going on.

  The little boy’s wish wasn’t going to come true; Rossett wasn’t going away.

  He’d been found.

  Chapter 5

  “BOY, COME.” ROSSETT flicked an impatient finger toward the boy, who gave the slightest of jumps in response.

  Rossett leaned in, grabbed the sacking, and pulled it clean away from the boy, who was wearing a duffel coat and Wellington boots that trapped his calves like flower stems in oversize flowerpots.

  “Come on, now, out.” Rossett grabbed a leg and the boy slithered back farther into the corner, eyes now shut, lips trembling, and hands pulling the coat up as far as it would go. Rossett was about to shout when Baker spoke softly behind him.

  “Come on, sausage, we’re the police. We won’t hurt you.”

  The words hurt Rossett. The child opened his eyes and looked at the young bobby. “Come on, son, come out, please?”

  Rossett realized he was crowding the space, and he nodded his head, motioning that he wanted to get out of the gap and into the room.

  “Maybe he doesn’t speak English, Sarge? Some of them refugees haven’t had time to pick it up yet,” said Baker once they had straightened up.

  “My grandfather told me to wait for him.” A tiny voice from the fireplace.

  “We are the police, sunshine, you can trust us,” replied Baker, bending forward to look into the gap again. The young bobby made Rossett feel impotent and unable to communicate, and he wiped his sooty hands together to clear off the dust. “Come on out and we’ll clean you up and get you a cup of tea. How does that sound?”

  “Is my grandfather there?” said the mouse, and the two policemen looked at each other, unable to lie to a child, but able to put him on a train to an uncertain future. “Can I see my grandfather?”

  “He’s gone ahead.” Finally Rossett found his voice, but he was unable to look at the boy when he spoke.

  “Gone where?”

  “Ahead.”

  “Where?”

  “Please, come out.”

  “I want my grandfather first.”

  Rossett turned to the window and looked out. In the street below he could see the inventory squad had arrived; they were unloading boxes from the back of the truck as they waited for their supervisor.

  He turned to the young bobby and nodded toward the fireplace.

  “Drag him out.”

  Baker nodded, got down on all fours, and disappeared into the gap. A moment later the child squealed as the bobby backed out dragging him by the leg above his Wellington. Rossett bent down to help pull the child, who was by now silent, farther out of the space and onto his feet.

  Baker stood up and wiped down his uniform, then silently stood by th
e door, blocking any chance of a darting run by the child.

  “What’s your name?” Rossett asked, crouching down and wiping soot from the coat of the child, who didn’t reply.

  “Boy. What is your name?” This time more firmly.

  The child stood, silent, head bowed, eyes closed, with the slightest tremble playing on his lips.

  Rossett stood and turned to the tiny suitcase for clues, then turned back to the child again, leaning down.

  “I knew your grandfather when I was your age,” he said softly. “Me and my mother used to visit his shop.” Rossett glanced at the bobby, who was diplomatically studying the palms of his hands and scratching at the soot. “He was a nice man. I liked him,” Rossett whispered.

  The child didn’t look up, and Rossett sighed and wished he was better with children; it had been so long since he’d had to talk to a child, he’d forgotten how to.

  He turned back to the case and tried the catch; it was locked.

  “Do you have a key for this?” The child didn’t respond, so Rossett fished in his coat and produced his penknife. It took him less than five seconds to release the flimsy lock. He lifted the lid and found a dirty shirt that had once been white, some undershirts and underpants, and a couple of pairs of well-darned socks.

  At the bottom of the case were a few envelopes, written in an educated hand postmarked Amsterdam. Rossett took them out and opened one, glancing at the boy as he did so.

  The boy stared back, indignant at the invasion of his privacy, his bottom lip jutting slightly.

  Rossett unfolded one of the letters and turned it over, smelling it before reading the first page.

  “My dearest, darling little Jacob,” he said out loud. Without looking, he felt the boy stiffen. Another secret exposed, another layer peeled away.

  He didn’t read on. He placed the letters into his pocket, but as he was about to close the case, he noticed it felt heavier at one end. He rummaged through the clothes again until his hands brushed against something solid, chunky, and heavy. His hand closed around it, and, on pulling it free, he saw it was a sock with something stuffed inside. He tipped it out into the palm of his hand and a red suede pouch dropped out. He discarded the sock and, loosening the strings on the pouch, emptied some of its contents into the palm of his hand.