The Violin

by Lindsay Pritchard

  The musicians were ordered to play on a central bandstand. The Red Cross inspection delegation was conducted on a tour following a predetermined red line to show, apparently, only happy, healthy residents.

  Ruth and her friends knew exactly why they were being used in this way. She had said to Esther, “Shall we do something to show that this is only fiction?”

  Esther advised her.

  “This is not the time to be heroic. We must do as we are told and be careful. Better to live and to make music than to make a gesture which condemns us to death.”

  Through music, obedience and by keeping the lowest of profiles they were able to avoid being listed for onward transportation to destinations where, guards let slip with macabre humour, there were no return tickets.

  *

  One of the duties of the musicians was to play marching tunes as the inmates were sent away each morning to work in the various factories and fields near Theresienstadt. They were also required to play as prisoners boarded trains onward to their lethal fate. One day at the station, a convoy of lorries disgorged a long line of shuffling prisoners, thin and, you could see in their demeanour, debilitated. Yet even in their grievous state, their eyes showed that they knew their destiny.

  Devorah, Esther and Ruth stood on the station platform having been ordered in a gruesome gesture of superiority by the authorities to keep the lines moving. This duty always saddened Ruth but there was no alternative. Suddenly she caught sight of a figure. There is something in the gait and bearing of someone you know that automatically draws your eyes to them.

  It was her father!

  As the line passed he looked up at the musicians registering at least one last stir of his heart. From a few yards away he recognised Ruth and their eyes met. For a few seconds, it was all they both could do to remain where they were, Ruth still playing. Michael looked directly at her and shook his head.

  His finger went up to his lips. The gesture said, ‘Keep quiet. Save yourself. Here is one last kiss.’

  Ruth’s eyes filled with tears as he went past.

  And then he was gone.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  In the midst of war, time stands still. The tides still ebb and flow, the hands of the clock still turn and the seasons change, but all the forward motion of people’s lives stays suspended. Ruth Frankel in Dachau could visit her past in her mind – the scent of mimosa, the memory of her mother’s voice calling her inside, the notes from a Bach concerto. Yet the present was not a path that led anywhere, as there could be no future.

  There was a simple repetition to life that merged every day into the next. An attempt to keep clean and warm. The sip and swallow of starvation rations. An occasional escape into music. But she could not allow herself the luxury of thinking about the future. This was all there was and any hopes and dreams were exiled to a quiescent corner of her mind which she would not allow herself to visit.

  In the same way, in England in 1940, today was all there was. At any time, life could be obliterated in city or village. Brothers, sons and fathers could disappear as only a few lines in a telegram and a small box of personal items. There were not the torments that were being endured in Germany, France or Russia. Yet with such unpredictability there was a sentiment to seize the day and block out the potential future of invasion, subjugation, poverty or death.

  Eve and Norman Crostwick, of course, would never have publicly entertained such notions. They preferred to live their lives with a quotidian defiance typical of the spirit of the Blitz. So Norman went about his poultry business in Rye in Sussex with an almost heroic ordinariness.

  As a rearer of chickens and supplier of eggs in his poultry shop in Mermaid Street, he was excused conscription as a reserved occupation – helping to feed the citizens of the locality – and also being marginally over the legal age. Eve and Norman fiercely protected the normalities of life. The shop was opened every weekday on time. The two youngest girls, Margaret and Maud, were sent to school. Their eldest daughter, Nancy, helped with the shop and household duties. They attended the local church and, daily, adopted a gallows humour that is often the unexpected counterpoint of those directly in the line of fire.

  “Fritz won’t be over tonight. I hear they’ve run out of bratwurst to put in his sandwiches.”

  “Yes, and even if he does get his old crate off the ground, he won’t be troubling us here in Rye. Nothing worth hitting except the old castle up on the hill. That’s already ruined but he’d probably miss it altogether anyway.”

  “More likely he’ll nip up to London for a bit of showing off.”

  “Yes, well, that’s if he can get past those RAF boys. I hear they’re letting them out of school early for a spot of target practice.”

  In that hot summer, ‘getting on with it’ was the predominant state of mind. In an uncertain world the old order – planning, saving, changing, predicting – were redundant. Here and now was all there was.

  Norman and Eve observed the normal rhythms of life and tried to maintain a stout normality, but always with one eye on possible disaster. The Third Reich was intent on the obliteration of Britain and the shortest route to the capital was over the south coast and the Sussex Downs.

  The Crostwick family heard regular reports on the crackling radio and in the press of coastal towns and ships being attacked, factories and railways blown up and also of the nightly havoc in London itself. They had even seen aerial dogfights over the Downs with planes seemingly playing Free Chase, a game of deadly tag between towering white cumulus clouds against a background of a blue-curtained sky.

  But the skies darkened. The call came from local coordinators to evacuate children. Margaret and Maud, aged ten and eleven, were put on a train to Cornwall along with many other local children, to stay out of harm’s way. How long for, nobody knew.

  Nancy, having left school and now working productively in the family business, stayed in the farmhouse attached to the smallholding. It was a time of upheaval. Local men, some still only boys, signed up or were conscripted. News of deaths began to become routine. Eve’s nephew was killed as part of an early British Expeditionary Force in France, devastating his mother.

  Rationing began. Radio reports became more ominous and the prospect of a German invasion was seriously discussed. Norman did his bit as a fire warden in Rye on the night shift and Eve and Nancy pitched in with local efforts. Part of the smallholding was allocated as a dig for victory allotment and they started a Pig Club to collect swill to supplement the diet of the stock in a neighbouring farm. They also started a knitting club to provide the boys with balaclavas, gloves and vests.

  It became clear quite early in the war that colonial forces would be needed. British soldiers were likely to be sent abroad as theatres of war opened up in North Africa, across Europe, possibly even the Far East. Resources would be stretched. The decision was taken to supplement the war effort by drafting in Canadian troops.

  In early 1941, the Canadian Active Service Force travelled from Nova Scotia via Greenock and Aldershot and then were deployed in vulnerable areas in the South East. The Regiment de Quebec were billeted near Rye on the Sussex coast. The soldiers brought a taste of exotica to the town of Rye with their Canadian accents, spending power and access to items that were in short supply – coffee, sugar, evaporated milk, chocolate.

  Although carefully pre-briefed, disciplined and courteous, the servicemen began to integrate into local life. The Regimental Commander, sensing that there was more to the war effort than endless drills, offered detachments of men to help with local projects. One group of twelve was deployed to the Crostwick smallholding to help with digging, irrigation and transport. It was there that Nancy Crostwick met Private Henri Ladouceur.

  At sixteen, Nancy, although an ingénue, had the figure of a woman, visible even through a rough and unflattering serge dress. As she served tea at break time from an industrial tea u
rn, there were many admiring glances at the young woman with the heart-shaped face, clear eyes and a slide in her brown crimped wavy hair.

  Some of the detachment attempted to strike up a conversation with her but she would reply only politely and sociably. However, she had noticed Henri, a tall and handsome young man in his late teens with dark hair and blue eyes. In looks and manners, he was quite unlike any of the local boys. He cut a striking figure in his blue Canadian uniform. His maturity for his years was underlined by the polite but smiling formality of his conversations with Nancy. She noticed that his eyes, unlike the other men, did not sweep over her body and breasts but looked her full in the face. There is a period of time when a glance becomes a look, a look becomes a gaze and a gaze becomes a connection. The attraction that has happened in all places, over all of time, began to happen.

  “You always lived round here?” asked Henri.

  “Yes, my parents have owned the smallholding and the shop for about twenty years. I was at school in Rye but work in the business now. How about you? What’s your name and where are you from?”

  “Private Henri Ladouceur, ma’am,” he said with a smile and half-salute. “Just a farm boy from Hicksville Quebec. Thought I’d do my bit for the war effort.”

  “You have a strange name for a Canadian,” she said with a new familiarity.

  “Guess them Frenchies have a lot to answer for. That’s why we’re called Les Mitrailleuses. Sounds a bit fancier than machine-gunners, eh?”

  They took to having a conversation every day. After a while, the winks and asides of Henri’s colleagues diminished, and they did not, in any case, notice them as their liaison deepened.

  Henri was invited to the farmhouse to the great interest, but cautionary eyebrow, of the Crostwicks. He comported himself with charm and appropriate formality and deference to his hosts. He talked about his family and showed pictures of his parents and younger brothers. He painted a verbal picture of his life in his home town before his enlistment.

  Henri asked Nancy to accompany him to the George Hotel in Rye for the evening. At first, Norman was all against it but listened, eventually, to the reasoning of his wife.

  “Let her go, Norman. She’s a sensible girl and he’s a lovely young man. And, remind me, how old were you and I when we started courting?”

  “Around fifteen, I suppose,” he reluctantly offered.

  “Exactly,” she said, “and with this war and all, who’s to say where we’ll all be in a year’s time. Let the girl enjoy a little bit of time in the sun,” she said with finality.

  *

  By the winter of 1941, Henri and Nancy were meeting regularly. The combination of deep mutual attraction, hormones coursing round young bodies and a realisation that tomorrow everything might change, led to an intense, albeit initially chaste love affair. Holding hands progressed to kisses. Kissing evolved into a confluence of sensations too sweet to stop. Eventually, and inevitably, they engineered an opportunity – a decision that had become ineluctable – to be together in the room of a guest house in Winchelsea.

  “Well, we can’t be seen in Rye or that will be my reputation gone,” said Nancy.

  The landlady pulled the old-fashioned key off the hook and gave it to them with a world-weary look that suggested disapproval.

  In the room, Nancy sat on the candlewick bedspread, her hands demurely on her lap.

  “I’ve never been in this situation before. I hope you don’t think I’m common,” Nancy said.

  “Well that makes two of us. I’ve never been alone in a bedroom with a girl before either. We don’t have to do anything, you know. Maybe just lie here and be close. I don’t want to make you do anything you think isn’t right.”

  Their bodies’ reactions soon overtook their rational brains and any compunctions they may have had. Primitive urgings coursed through their blood. Nancy, with momentary caution said, “I don’t want to get… you know…”

  “I know,” said Henri “I’ll fix it.”

  Then they lost themselves in the moment. Love plus passion equalled total abandonment. At the point of no return, Henri did attempt to pull away although he was not quite sure, in the frenzy of orgasm, that his timing was successful.

  “Sorry, I did try. I think it’s OK. Are you OK?”

  Nancy, mopping her belly and legs said, “I think we’re all right. It’s not a bad time for me. But you might need to readjust your sights in future Gunner Ladouceur!” she said with the new intimacy of shared lovers.

  They laughed and held each other as the sun set on the cobbled streets outside. Henri looked at Nancy with slow blinks of his eyes.

  “I love you, you know? It must be fate that brought me halfway round the world to this place to meet you. When it’s all sorted I want to take you to Canada to see my town, Quebec, all of Canada, meet my family.”

  Nancy, a little more cautious and practical said, “One thing at a time, Monsieur Ladouceur. There’s a lot of things to happen before then. Who knows where this war is going. And, by the way, I’m not yet seventeen and my mother and father might have something to say about that. If they knew what we’ve just been doing…”

  “But they like me, don’t they?”

  “Oh they do. But if they got any wind of this…” she said, oscillating a finger between them, “my father might just requisition your machine gun and stand you up against the chicken coop!”

  Over the spring of 1942, the young lovers met several more times. The guesthouse landlady, now understanding the urgency of young love, smiled at them more cordially when handing them their key.

  “Your usual room, dears.”

  To avoid any further potential mishaps, Henri had been to the camp stores and obtained a stock of prophylactics, as they were quaintly described. Nancy became a more than willing participant.

  Children have all manner of parental injunctions in their heads.

  “Don’t cheek your elders.”

  “Ask before leaving the table.”

  “Speak when you’re spoken to.”

  “Nice girls don’t flaunt themselves.”

  But with Henri, with this boy, at this time in her life, at this perilous time in Britain, she was abandoned, hedonistic, unrestrained.

  Suppose, she thought, a bomb dropped tomorrow. At least I would have had this.

  *

  As the spring of 1942 melted into summer, Henri was a frequent visitor to the Crostwick household, accepted as a likeable, solid and courteous boyfriend. If Eve and Norman suspected anything more than a chaste attachment, then they kept it to themselves.

  In the summer of 1942, the Canadian Infantry were called into action. Henri softly advised Nancy.

  “We’re off on Friday. No one has told us where except that we have a few months on training manoeuvres then we will leave from Shoreham and Newhaven for Dieppe, first stop although keep that to yourself. But don’t worry, I’ll look after myself now that there’s someone special waiting for me. I love you Nance,” he said, gripping her to him.

  “Just come back safely. I’ll be here,” she murmured.

  She did not tell him of her other worry. No point adding to his pressure. For the last four months her periods had stopped. At first she put it down to irregular hormones, or maybe just the sexual activity. Eventually it became a problem she had to face. She arranged to see the family doctor, McCracken, a Calvinist of the old school. Following medical convention he also, against Nancy’s wishes, called in her mother.

  The examination was brisk and conclusive. Dr McCracken had seen this condition only too often, particularly with impressionable local girls prey to the blandishments of army types with loose morals.

  “Pregnant,” he announced matter-of-factly while towelling his hands. “About four months I’d venture at a guess.”

  Nancy’s mother looked at her, purse-lipped and shaking her hea
d.

  “How could you be so stupid and bring such shame on us? We thought we could trust you and this is how we’re repaid. And we trusted him as well. A nice boy, or so we thought.”

  “But we were careful. We…” she gave an exasperated flap of her hands, “… we did take precautions.”

  “Obviously not very effective ones,” sermonised Dr McCracken. “Well, you’ll need to decide what to do with it now it’s on its way. It’s either just another mouth to feed or I can put you in touch with people who will take it off your hands. A well-trodden path. No time for sentiment. Life’s complicated enough!”

  Nancy wept. Her mother softened and put a consoling arm round her shoulder.

  “Better let me tell your father and then we’ll have a think about what to do for the best.”

  *

  After much heart searching and raised words, eventually the decision was taken to put the child up for adoption.

  She had not heard from Henri. The Canadian Light Infantry had stormed the beach at Dieppe into a withering hail of murderous enemy fire. Of around 6,000 soldiers, more than two thirds had been killed, wounded or captured.

  Although there were rumours and concern for the soldiers who had been stationed locally, by the due date for Nancy’s confinement she had no definitive news about Henri.