Solitaire

by Jane Thynne

  As he paused to stub out his cigarette the pain of these memories seemed to pass viscerally across his face.

  ‘Funny thing, Clara, it wasn’t the totality of it, it was the little things that stuck in you like thorns. At one point we got a rest because they decided to transport us some of the way by train. It was a cattle truck and on its side was a sign saying Hommes quarante, Bêtes huit. Know what that means? Forty men or eight cattle.’

  He stalled, seemingly exhausted at the weight of it, and looked around the room. His lips were beaded with sweat and she realized he was in pain.

  ‘You were injured.’

  ‘Shot in the side. I was lucky.’

  ‘How’s that lucky?’

  ‘The muscle was torn but it missed anything important so I could still walk. I’d been patched up pretty well when it happened, though I’d lost a lot of blood.’

  She imagined the jagged scarlet wound beneath his shirt, the flimsy dressings failing to stave off infection.

  ‘How did you escape?’

  ‘Ah, that. Quite suddenly, as it happens. We were approaching a narrow bridge and from the other side a cart was coming, piled high with a family’s possessions, so our guards ran up front to manage the jam. There was a ditch running alongside the road, covered with weeds and brambles. I took the chance to duck down and roll myself to the bottom. I couldn’t believe they hadn’t missed me. I crouched there for hours. Eventually I got the courage to make my way to the river and took a drink and when I looked up there was a corpse in a tree, staring back at me.’

  His jaw trembled, and Clara felt an echoing shiver on her skin.

  ‘Full in the face. Just a lad. He looked surprised more than anything. He was halfway up the branches. Must have got himself shot as he tried to hide.’

  ‘But you were shot too. You must have been in pain.’

  ‘Sure. In fact, I was certain I would die too. You know, Clara, losing a lot of blood induces a kind of serenity in you. You feel yourself quite ready to let go. But even while I was lying there, feeling my life leaking away into the mud, there was still a part of me thinking of all the things I’d never do. All the books I’d never read. Forgive me if I embarrass you, but I had the thought that I’d never again hold a woman in my arms. Feel the softness of a woman’s skin, or the scent of her. That tormented me.’

  Clara was quite still, watching the words form on his lips, the images of his memories passing in her mind as though they were her own.

  ‘A couple of days later I had the good luck to be found by a farmer. I was covered in earth, every inch and crevice of me, but he took me in and laid me on his sofa. It was a lovely old velvet thing, like an heirloom, and even though I was in pain, I kept thinking, how will they explain away these bloodstains? The wife tore up her nightgown to make bandages.’

  ‘They must have been risking a lot. Rescuing a British soldier.’

  ‘Their lives. And they knew it. All over the region the Germans had put up posters, warning people not to help – the penalty’s death for men, or a camp for the women. But they’re heroes. The risk doesn’t stop them. There are hundreds of men like me trapped in France, shut away in barns and attics and bedrooms, and these people are putting themselves in danger, and their families in danger, to help us. From what I can gather, some are liaising with authorities back home to find us documents, ID cards, currency, clothes.’

  ‘Who are these people?’

  ‘Can’t say. It’s a network, but they don’t want to give it any kind of name, not even describe it as an organization. I suppose names or any formal identification makes it more likely they’ll be targeted by infiltrators.’

  ‘So do you have your ID?’

  ‘Not yet. Two days ago I came south, first in a cart, then in a cargo carriage, and they passed me on to the chap who brought me here. As soon as I have my papers, the plan is to get me out of Paris any way they can.’

  ‘What will you do then?’

  ‘With luck I’ll make my way down through the unoccupied zone. Then to Perpignan and through Spain to the coast. From there I can sail for England. I’m just waiting for the word. Until then,’ he gestured with a dry smile to a pack on the table in front of him, ‘it’s cards.’

  ‘Are you frightened?’

  Why did she say that? What a question to ask anyone in a war. Yet still, he paused to reflect on it.

  ‘Of course. Not of pain or death. But frightened of never seeing the people back home. Of my life ending before it’s really begun. There’s a poet I think of called Chidiock Tichborne – I used to teach him to my schoolboys. This fellow was consigned to the Tower of London back in Queen Elizabeth’s day and he lamented the fact that he would be dead before his time. He wrote:

  My tale was heard, and yet it was not told,

  My fruit is fallen, and yet my leaves are green,

  My youth is spent, and yet I am not old,

  I saw the world, and yet I was not seen.

  ‘My lads liked that poem because it rhymes. Makes it easy to learn, you see. I like it because I still think I’m young.’

  He rubbed the bulge of bandage on his flank.

  ‘Despite feeling like a crock.’

  His eyes flitted to the door.

  ‘I’d like to do something to thank these people, but what can I do? It seems sacrilege to complain about boredom. It helps having a window to look out of but I wish I’d paid more attention to the French lessons I had at school. I can’t tell you how good it is to speak to another person in English. What about you, Clara? Do you live in Paris?’

  ‘I live in Berlin.’

  She saw the shock widen his eyes.

  ‘It’s not what you think. I’ve lived in Germany for seven years. I can be useful there.’

  Understanding passed between them, swift and silent as electricity. The previous two months had opened Ned’s eyes to a world of networks and secret connections and he knew to probe no further.

  ‘Married?’ She sensed him glance at her hand.

  ‘The man I would have married was killed last year.’

  Speaking it aloud – the truth that she had never declared to anyone – sent pain lancing through her. The fact was that war had left her no space to heal. It was as though the body of Leo still lay unburied on that blood-soaked tarmac, covered only with the slightest scattering of earth.

  Ned blanched visibly. It was hard to gauge his reaction, but it seemed like genuine sorrow. Despite the fact that he knew nothing of the man she had mentioned, or how he met his death.

  ‘I’m sorry. Are you getting through it?’

  What could she say? Some days were harsh with jagged edges, sharp with memory. Other days were numbed and sedated. Nothing was normal. There was no guidebook for grief. No manual, like Goebbels’ instruction leaflet, with its bullet points of advice for guarding against dark instincts. How was it supposed to feel when you lost the love of your life?

  ‘I think so.’

  Ned didn’t respond. He simply looked at her.

  ‘Anyway.’ She made a hesitant move to depart. ‘My train leaves at two o’clock from the Gare de l’Est.’

  She saw the instant flicker of dismay.

  ‘You should go then.’

  He was smiling, but those eyes were trained intensely on her, asking her to stay. The weariness she had felt earlier from her late night, and then the early start, vanished and she sat down again.

  ‘No. Not yet.’

  On the narrow windowsill a bird alighted, the colour of wet leaves, with a dull sprinkling of speckles on its wing. Ned glanced up.

  ‘There’s some interesting ones here. Different birds, they have. I’ve been trying to remember the names.’

  ‘Do you know about birds then?’

  Clara recalled Leo telling her how much he had learned from birdwatching. How he had schooled himself to observe the minutest detail, not just of the bird, but the environment around it and its interactions with others. How sometimes it was important to
ignore a brasher or more colourful creature so as to keep focus on a bird that melted into the background. How that ability had trained him for espionage and endowed in him the skill of a professional watcher.

  ‘Right from a boy. I’ve always loved observing them, even the ones that seemed dull to other people. Up on our moors we get curlews and golden plovers, peregrines, merlins. You see them making their nests in the heather and raising their chicks.’

  She saw the harsh moorland, where gaunt trees stretched their branches beneath a slanting north wind. While they might be in the heart of Paris, the soldier in front of her seemed rooted in another place, a place of safety, far away.

  ‘One of those nights when I was lying in that French field I distracted myself trying to identify a bird from its call. It was a kind of churring sound, almost mechanical. Took me hours to get it.’

  He beamed.

  ‘A nightjar.’

  She laughed at his boyish delight and he gave a deprecatory swipe at his lock of hair.

  ‘Enough of me. You’re too good a listener, Clara. I want to know more about you.’

  So she began. Talking about herself, her acting, and her youth back in England. Pacing the difficult path back to her own childhood. A rambling Edwardian building in a cleft of gentle hills with farmland sloping up towards the south. Inside, the fragrance of log fires and beeswax polish, and outside the long fields where horses grazed. A rust-coloured house that still came to her in her dreams, filled with cut flowers and unhappiness. Sitting in the powdery haven of her mother’s room at her deathbed, scenting gardenia perfume, holding her frail hand. How her mother had been the connective tissue between the family and how her death had left them fractured and dislocated. Then came her own early days in the London theatre, trying to be pleased with the bit parts, the maids and servants and minor roles, and her all too frequently fruitless trips to her agent’s cramped office in Soho. Her impetuous move to Berlin, escaping a disastrous love affair and finding a new career in film. Erich, and Mary Harker. Clara realized she was talking to this stranger in a way she had spoken to nobody since Leo’s death, but when she apologized he only urged her to continue, fumbling in his pocket.

  ‘My last one, I’m afraid. Care to share it?’

  He took out the cigarette and struck a match. The flame leapt up like a tiny flower, illuminating all the planes and angles of his face and his eyes, which remained fixed on hers. She leaned over the flame, like a candle lit in church, and they shared the cigarette equally, passing it from one to the other, their eyes locked on each other’s.

  Somewhere, deep in the ashes of her life, an ember flared into life.

  Chapter Eleven

  The latest batch of orphans had arrived. Katerina looked up from her Abendbrot and scrutinized them carefully. They fell on the evening meal as if famished, tearing at the musty rye bread as though if they didn’t bolt it, someone might take it away. There were six of them, ranging from around five to twelve years old, and a pair of twins so tiny that they needed an older child to help them cut their cheese. Shy as deer when you looked at them, as though they were poised to run away. At first glance, with their white-blond hair, pudding bowl haircuts and the same neat uniforms that everyone, even babies, wore here, they didn’t seem too different, but there was something about their sharp features and the shifting anxiety in their eyes that marked them out. And when you heard them talk it became clear.

  They couldn’t speak. Or at least, they couldn’t speak German.

  ‘What’s your name?’ Katerina asked the girl next to her, a child of around eight with hair secured at the side with a clip, and ice blue eyes like a husky dog. It was Vegetarian Day, and supper was potato soup and bread spread with Brotaufstrich, a greasy new invention that was supposed to replace butter and margarine. The child was grappling with cutlery as if she had never used it before.

  ‘Don’t know,’ she stumbled thickly, with an accent she could have cut with her own knife.

  ‘You don’t know your own name?’

  ‘I know what my name used to be. Beata Sosnowska.’

  ‘So I’ll call you that then.’

  ‘No.’ Childish fear sparked in her eyes. ‘I have a new name now.’ She hesitated. ‘Barbara. Barbara Sosemann, I think.’

  ‘You think?’

  ‘I’m sure,’ she corrected herself.

  ‘Why can’t you speak properly?’

  Silent tears slid down the child’s cheeks as she abandoned the knife. She had an exceptionally sweet face, with a rosebud mouth and a feather of near-invisible eyelashes.

  ‘I miss my mother. I want to go back to her.’

  ‘You don’t have a mother. Hardly anyone does here. That’s why it’s an orphanage.’

  ‘I do,’ said the girl, stubbornly.

  Katerina had barely any idea of her own mother, who had died just days after she was born. Having no recollection of her face, she sometimes thought of her from the inside, like the shell of a pink conch beneath which she herself had curled and divided, wholly perfect until the violent birth that left Katerina maimed and her mother dead.

  ‘Where is she then?’

  ‘At home.’

  ‘You’d better not say that.’

  The child’s lip wobbled.

  ‘The men who took us said we were going to a beautiful place with meadows of flowers and streams to swim in and woods with berries and mushrooms.’

  ‘There is a garden,’ said Katerina doubtfully, thinking of the parade ground of cabbage and asparagus laid out in tight formation behind the orchard.

  ‘I miss my home.’

  ‘Shhh. Be quiet. This is your home now.’

  The child stared around as if seeing the place for the first time.

  ‘Do you miss your home?’

  Into Katerina’s mind came the tall building in Wilmersdorf with its art nouveau entrance. The lift doors that opened like an accordion and took you three floors up to an apartment with a brass plaque inscribed Herr Otto Klimpel, behind which was a parquet-floored drawing room, whose mantelpiece was lined with Dresden china objects, alongside Papi’s collection of pipes and his complete set of Goethe. The Bösendorfer piano that Sonja would play when she visited, and beyond, Papi’s bedroom and the heavy Biedermeier dresser where he kept a nest of Chinese boxes with crimson lacquered dragons and silver orchids. There were seven of them, fitting into each other and getting smaller and smaller until you reached the tiniest one, where her mother’s jewellery was. Then came Katerina’s own room, with its miniature desk and bookshelf.

  Now, by contrast, home was a hall where Brown Sisters patrolled to stop older children stealing the younger ones’ food. A draughty dormitory with ranks of beds and rough sheets, where nights were never still from coughing or snoring or the shudder of silent sobs. Lying awake thinking of stories from HundeWelt to distract yourself. The army is harnessing the intelligence of dogs for the war effort! Dogs are being trained to communicate by tapping out words with their paws . . . The Tier-Sprechschule near Hanover led by Frau Margarethe Schmitt has trained an Airedale terrier to write poetry and sing.

  The truth was, she missed everything about her home. Papi, Anka, her bedroom, the Bösendorfer and the books, yet she kept it all folded tightly inside her, like a map, tucked away neatly for no one to see, and only occasionally would she get it out and allow herself to look at it.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I hardly miss it at all.’

  Across the room, above the scraping of china, some orphans were singing a nursery rhyme:

  Corrupting our youth

  Stands the Jew in good stead.

  He wants all peoples dead.

  Stay away from every Jew,

  and happiness will come to you!

  The smallest of the new arrivals quickly picked up the tune and joined in, their faces wreathed in smiles. The younger they were, the more they resembled little rubber balls because they bounced back so quickly. They were like puppies, who could never be sad for more th
an a minute.

  ‘I wish I could be a bird and fly back to my home,’ said Beata, looking sideways at Katerina.

  She liked that idea. She herself would be an eagle, soaring over Mitte, gliding on the updraughts of the air, floating on the warm currents of the breeze.

  ‘I would fly into the kitchen and my mama would feed me paczki. With sugar on.’

  ‘What’s paczki?’

  ‘It’s . . . cakes?’

  A fat tear formed at the corner of the child’s eye and Katerina reached out a hand. Beata flinched, as though any form of touch was freighted with fear.

  ‘You have to stop thinking about all that. You’re here now.’ Katerina summoned an expression of bright resolve she did not feel. ‘Are you coming to lessons with us?’

  If the children couldn’t speak German properly, how were they going to manage?

  ‘No. We have tests.’

  ‘What tests?’

  The child frowned, as if trying to summon the correct terminology, then gave up and poked a finger at her chest.

  ‘Body tests.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to be?’

  ‘With doctors.’

  The thought of doctors was enough to remind Katerina that her leg was aching again. Indeed it had hurt increasingly ever since Sonja insisted the caliper be taken off, unbuckling the straps with impatient fingers.

  These doctors don’t know anything. Start walking with it and you’ll be fine. You’ll build up the muscle. Like an acrobat, you know? Or a dancer. You want to be a dancer, don’t you?

  That had been calculated to please. Sonja knew there was nothing Katerina craved more dearly than to become a dancer. Whenever Sonja was singing, Katerina would watch the cabarets wide-eyed. One day she would be a dancer. That or a dog-trainer.

  But now, without the caliper, the pain was getting worse. It hurt all the time. Indeed she began to wonder if Sonja had been telling the truth about making the leg stronger. The fact was, her limp was more noticeable than ever and it took an even greater effort to straighten the foot round to near normal. The terrible thought occurred to her that Sonja was actually ashamed of having a cripple for a sister. Was that why she wanted the caliper gone?