by Carol Gould
‘How did you know we were arriving?’ he demanded, grasping his driver’s richly-woven coat lapels.
No reply was forthcoming, and Hana grinned.
They walked.
‘They knew we were on our way – amazing!’ Hana whispered, hopping on to her toes to make Josef hear.
‘This is an impressive edifice,’ he said, choosing to ignore her as if at any moment a gunman might jump out from behind a pillar and cut him down for speaking out of turn. He peered up at the ornate ceiling as they marched along a wide, echoing corridor.
‘It has been occupied since 1908 by some English oddity called the Automobile Association,’ the accomplice explained. ‘They have kindly given us the seventh floor, which has a clock on each corner. My office is underneath the clock of Leicester Square.’
‘Kind? – I would go insane!’ Hana exclaimed, her step overtaking the others. ‘Are you sure this gesture was not some sort of joke?’
The two British agents for the Polish government in exile walked on in silence. When they reached the end of the corridor, their guests were escorted through a heavy, window-less door, into a debriefing area. This also served as a storage cellar for the AA but the Poles had been allowed to set up an assortment of makeshift, windowless offices that had a sinister ambience out of context with the Englishness of the dank, mediaeval odour emitted by its walls.
Josef and Hana sat down and were relieved that food and drink had been laid before them and that the two men, now facing them across a wooden table, were smiling. Hana grabbed at the food, gulping down a sausage roll and a cup of lukewarm tea.
‘Can you give me my mother’s address, please?’ she asked, her speech interrupted by a hiccup.
Her escorts exchanged glances, and Josef, deeply involved with a sandwich, seemed uninterested in the proceedings.
There was another long silence, and Hana hiccupped again. ‘My mother brought the Kranz family to England and she was to stay a while before going back to my father.’
One of the men, clad in wool, came to life:
‘Our concern is for your comfort and safety. As you know, the Air Transport Auxiliary is keenly in need of expert pilots, and we have been instructed to engage your services for them immediately.’
Josef choked on his food. ‘God Almighty! I am not a ferry pilot – I am a fighter. Surely they could use me. I would not have risked my life, or Hana’s, to come here and ferry Queen Bees.’
‘Indeed,’ said the giant of the two, ‘Queen Bees are your first assignment. A pair will be needed for delivery to St Athan as soon as possible. Can you start now?’
‘No!’ screamed Hana, rising from her chair. She was dirty and she hated the way she smelled, wanting to be clean to greet her meticulous mother.
‘There is nothing more to say,’ said the small man, his expression pained. ‘We were expecting you, and the British government needs your expert services for special missions ferrying across perilous routes.’
Josef had now risen to his feet. ‘Hana and I must bathe and rest. Then we must see her mother, who is the great ace Vera Bukova.’
One of the men produced a sheaf of papers. ‘Please sign these and we will find Madame Bukova for you.’
Josef and Hana were feeling strangely lethargic and as they sat once more and perused the documents they realized they might never again see daylight if they did not agree to the absurdly simple terms on offer. Josef felt an urge to assault these characters for using Hana’s mother as a bargaining tool. Their dungeon had an unspeakable stillness about it and the damp smell had begun to permeate their clothes. Reading the print, which covered several sheets of impressively headed paper, the two pilots learned that they were each to take a short test, and that Hana would be restricted to single- and twin-engined aircraft, should she pass. Josef would be inducted as a senior ATA man, on a handsome salary with room and food provided. It was attractive, and they were sick with tiredness.
They signed.
*
That evening Hana waited in a hotel room overlooking Maida Vale, her expectations rising with each passing hour as the prospect of news intensified. She had been promised a personal visit by the Polish Consul at nine o’clock precisely, and from the lively tone of his voice she assumed her mother would be found within the plush confines of his limousine, fueled for all contingencies even while Royalty volunteered for rationing. At this moment Hana did not care about the British, or the smouldering, bombed-out ruins of Northwick Terrace she had seen in a dream as she slept in her chauffeured car; the disgorged skeletons of Northwick Mews, the flattened entrance to which until that day had been a church. She was not moved by the fact that in Lisson Grove an orphanage was now in a state of carnage. She did not care that the electrical generating station on Aberdeen Place had been the target the Luftwaffe had missed, nor did she care now whether the light in her room violated the blackout. This was the longest gap she had ever known away from her parents and the prospect of ferrying Spitfires made no impact as she awaited the arrival of familiarity in a sun-baked but worried country full of brave strangers.
Her wristwatch, a gift from her great-grandfather, ticked loudly and she smiled at the thought that she had been the first female to wear it in the history of the Bukova family. Now its delicate hands showed nine and she moved from the small bed, her leg tingling as the circulation returned after having been tensely tucked under the other in a corner of the bedding. Walking to the door, she turned the icy-cold brass handle gingerly and moved across the corridor, listening for the slightest sound from Josef’s lodging. Her hand moved to tap at his door and then stopped, Hana realizing two minutes had passed and that the hotel was silent …
At midnight Hana, her hands frozen and her mind nearing distraction, went again to Josef’s door, there to hesitate once more before returning to her room and curling up on the cold mattress. No-one had come, not the Consul nor her mother, and she watched from the window as a light show in the eastern sky seemed a laughing reminder of the war she thought she had escaped. Hana resolved that in the morning she would go to the Consulate in person and demand to see the highest in command. Her mother was Poland’s greatest female ace, she would shout, and surely they would let the two women meet at last. Secretly Hana had always wanted her parents to split their union, and now there was a chance to enrol her mother in ATA, where the two could serve as a team.
She had it all mapped out, and with that Hana slept.
47
‘While we are here we can write a history of the Blood Libel.’ André Grunberg had not envisaged spending his war within the confines of a British internment camp on the lovely Isle of Man. He could have blamed his plight on Friedrich Kranz, but the two needed each other in these unspeakable circumstances and the past would have to be filed away in a mental cavern.
‘I imagine there is no scholarly account available in this country,’ Grunberg continued, pushing a wedge of white bread into a pool of gravy that swilled on a green plate. ‘We would be doing the Ur work by delving into mediaeval manuscripts. It would raise a few eyebrows up in East Anglia, don’t you think?’
‘How would we do research, Grunberg? Here in this ridiculous camp? You’re mad.’ To adjust to this sudden detour in his life, Friedrich Kranz had had to set aside debilitating worries. His family, whom Vera Bukova had been paid to evacuate, and the Englishwoman he craved, seemed to have evaporated into this island’s foggy air. For months he had heard nothing, nor had the occasional newspaper allowed into the camp revealed the latest achievements of Valerie Cobb; she had disappeared from the headlines as the grim war news brought 1940 to its cold conclusion.
‘There is a library nearby, and these officials here are quite civilized. They’ll let us go there, under escort.’ Grunberg leaned forward in his bunk and placed the plate on the concrete floor.
‘Believe me,’ Kranz said, ‘at this point the Blood Libel is not the focus of my life.’
‘What is the focus of your life, may I ask?’<
br />
‘My children! My wife, for God’s sake, you idiot,’ Kranz shouted, leaping off his bunk and towering over the ballet master. He paused. ‘My mistress.’
André Grunberg looked up at his brilliant compatriot, amused at the afterthought. ‘Your fantasy?’
‘She’s not a fantasy,’ snapped Kranz, moving back to his bed and sitting down again. ‘This woman is very real – she writes poetry and lives in a caravan with another female – a young girl who idolizes her.’
Leaning back against the barracks wall, André Grunberg wondered how he, distinguished choreographer and senior ballet master, had arrived in such a state so late in life. In Vienna, he reflected, he would have been removed by the Gestapo, probably in the middle of a class, and sent to a death camp. At least the British, with greatly apologetic gestures, had sent him to what he had come to call a ‘Life Camp’. Still, it was a form of imprisonment and he had been flabbergasted when the authorities had arrived at his studio – having been tipped off by his landlady of twenty years standing – to whisk him away from his young dancers and the plinking piano. Here he had met Friedrich Kranz, who had rescued his sanity with a breathtaking knowledge of music and of history, and whose family, like Grunberg’s, was spread across the ghettoes of Eastern Europe as well as being assimilated within the enlightened walls of Vienna.
Nonetheless, that same assimilation had brought the same result for his relatives as the Warsaw Ghetto had brought for those in Poland. He wondered if Kranz knew the full extent of the horrors now taking place; the businessman seemed never to receive any post, his cursory perusal of the infrequent newspapers leaving him indifferent.
‘Why haven’t you told me about your caravan lady before?’ he asked, smiling back at Kranz, whose colour had returned to his sunken cheeks.
‘Something about the Blood Libel,’ he mused, his long fingers rubbing the side of his face, as if to extinguish a searing pain. ‘Since you mention it – her friend, Shirley, found the subject fascinating. Listen, Friedrich,’ he continued, relentless in his quest, and now curious about the other man’s liaison. ‘If you can get permission to contact this girl Shirley, we could say it is with reference to a useful historical research project. Then we could enlist her help in explaining to the authorities that we are harmless Jews, not Nazi spies, and at the same time we could find your lady.’
‘What makes you think I am trying to find her?’ Kranz demanded, his voice strained as he felt an odd onslaught of tears approaching.
‘Don’t think I haven’t noticed you receive no post, but that you pine for a woman who isn’t your wife.’
‘For a man with no wife, you receive a hell of a stack of communications – perhaps you are a spy of some sort.’
‘Those letters are from my students. They claim to love me, but none has lifted a finger to protest at this curious incarceration.’ Grunberg leaned back against the wall and curled up into his cool, damp corner. No heat ever reached these barracks, and the sanitary facilities were a shock to the elegant, meticulous folk the British had seen fit to intern regardless of their religion. It was the height of absurdity, Grunberg reflected, that a bunch of assimilated Jews, each an expert in his field, should be cooped up in this makeshift concentration camp just because His Majesty’s government thought all German-speaking people were followers of Hitler.
Grunberg laughed to himself.
‘What is so funny, old man?’ Kranz leaned over, poking his head into André’s corner.
‘We are brought here, forced to neglect our work, and left to languish while the British, in their great Christian wisdom, think they are guarding society against Nazis.’
‘I suspect you were a lapsed Jew before this happened.’
Grunberg smiled:
‘Friedrich, I never even thought about being one of the tribe until the British authorities chose to remind me. I’m sure it was the same for you.’
Kranz rested his head against the side of the bunk and listened as other men chatted, mostly in their native German, while some played chess and others listened to music on the old phonograph provided by a sympathetic guard. Closing his eyes, he thought of Valerie, and the smell of her skin was as fresh in his nostrils as if she had been sitting beside him on this atrocious concrete. Grunberg knew nothing of his torment, nor of the horrible consequences his actions must surely by now have had on Valerie’s life. Reflecting back on the past months, he wished everything could be reversed: there was not one occurrence of which he was not now ashamed.
Only his passionate joining with Valerie was worth preserving, and even that would most definitely never happen again. Could he continue to live this way? Why did he not think of his wife, or of his mother and children? He closed his eyes and recalled the string of events that had culminated in his present imprisonment.
When Friedrich Kranz had left Truman’s estate and found himself at Cambridge, it had been a stroke of luck to meet André Grunberg, whose organ virtuosity captivated him and forced him to linger in the chapel far longer than he had intended. He drifted off to sleep, and when his eyes opened again the music was still playing but night had fallen and Truman’s wallet still pressed against his clean, scrubbed chest.
The two men had made friends instantly, Grunberg a legend in the ballet world but now unemployed and on the run from the authorities. They remained in Cambridge, André playing daily in the chapel and Friedrich spending his days discovering that war was in full swing and that anyone wishing to purchase a private aircraft would be regarded as either a madman or a visitor from another planet. All civil air activities had been halted months before, and when a suspicious manufacturing executive from Australia had listened nonplussed to Kranz’s calm request, he alerted the authorities.
Why would Kranz want an aircraft?
How had he found access to so much cash?
After leaving the inquisitive, unhelpful Australian millionaire, Kranz comandeered a small car and with a full petrol tank the pair moved on. The boarding-house landlord eyed them quizzically as they departed, half wondering if Grunberg’s story about an organ virtuoso festival had been rot.
Traversing a series of villages, and blissfully unaware of petrol rationing Kranz reflected on his confrontation with the Vickers magnate. Something about the man had struck him. He wanted to see him again, but would officials in suits be at the factory gates in Southampton next time he visited the premises? Thoughts of Southampton brought back sensations he wanted to bury – Valerie might be at Hamble, the new ATA pool he had just read about in the national press. If he went back, this time by car instead of by train – a train filled with rows of hostile eyes – he could find her and relieve her uncertainty about his fate.
Surely she must think him dead.
‘What am I looking at?’ cried Grunberg, pointing straight ahead. Kranz had flicked from his reverie to the sight ahead, bringing the car to a swerving halt.
A carload of men in uniform, all sporting wings on their shoulders, had stopped and were blocking the road.
Friedrich felt a wild urge to turn back, but one of the men was already approaching their vehicle.
‘You look young enough to serve,’ Noel Slater declared, his face so close to Kranz’s he could feel the hot alcoholic breath sweeping past his left cheek. Soon Slater had been joined by a curious Jim Mollison and Sean Vine, tailed by a timid character hovering in the background. Sam Hardwick seemed to be studying the automobile.
The three men had been rude and sarcastic, while quiet Sam circled the car several times and smiled at the two Austrians.
‘What are your wings – ?’ Kranz had asked, his voice weak and croaky.
‘ATA,’ Vine replied, folding his arms across his chest. ‘Saving Britain, without glory.’
Kranz had been genuinely terrified, but Grunberg could only smile back at the circling Sam, seemingly unperturbed by Noel and his taunting band.
‘So healthy and not in uniform,’ Noel continued, his face now brushing against Friedrich�
��s. ‘In the next town along it will all catch up with you.’
‘What will catch up with us?’ Grunberg challenged him, speaking for the first time.
‘The fact that dogs will growl at your scent,’ Slater said, winking.
Indeed, when they were allowed to pass and the Austrians could no longer see the bevy of pilots as they sped along the road, the next town offered up its local MP, who had been called to a public presentation in the main square. As he laid a small wreath on the war memorial, his Labradors growled at the two onlookers, and soon the crowd’s attention had been drawn to the men eating a meagre lunch in their muddied automobile. The dogs had become agitated. Their owner finally left the podium and shouted to the animals, and when he did this Friedrich dropped his stale roll, and when Tim Haydon came closer to pull his dogs away from the scent of foreigners Kranz knew his chances of seeing Valerie had been obliterated.
‘It occurs to me that your lot shouldn’t be eating pig,’ Haydon said, calmly observing the bedraggled travellers, their food now being devoured by the dogs.
‘Pig?’ Kranz asked.
‘Is it not some form of primitive blasphemy?’ the MP asked, peering at Grunberg. ‘My friend Captain Slater makes a habit of setting up roadblocks to capture wanted criminals, when he is not ferrying for ATA. Who is your cohort?’
‘André Grunberg, ballet master,’ he offered, outstretching his hand.
Haydon looked at them both, a small crowd gathering around the car.
‘Valerie has married me,’ Tim said quietly.
Kranz felt his chest tightening, the roll burning in his gullet as his heart thudded unsteadily. He wanted it to stop, but its fibrillation made his head reel.
Grunberg was talking:
‘Congratulations,’ he said, grinning at Tim.
‘I shan’t invite you to tea, Mr Kranz, but I will be taking you into custody.’
The dogs were whining at Kranz’s feet, their slobbering making him dizzier as he thought of this horrible man violating Valerie – his pallid, clammy skin against hers, its unkempt odour permeating her cells and making them both dirty and faded like old torn vests. He did not care, now, what Haydon did with him, but he lamented Grunberg’s victimization. In a distant haze he could feel strong hands and unloving arms lifting him from his seat as his head knocked loudly against the roof of the car.