There was a time when Elisabeth thought Christina might grow up to be lithe and delicate like Karen. At thirteen, Christina did have a sullen kind of grace; grey eyes, a stubborn pretty mouth and broad features inherited from George. Perhaps one day men would be attracted by her slow serenity and her uncomplicated smile.
Elisabeth and George strolled into the shade of a stand of firs and out into the sun again. A window must be open in the kitchen and sounds carried in the quiet: the clang of a saucepan, crockery being stacked and music on Mrs McCrae’s tinny wireless.
Then suddenly Maud was speeding up the slope with something in her cupped hands which were leaking water down her coat. When she arrived, it had drained away and a tiny transparent fish with sequin eyes squirmed on her palms. ‘What a catch!’ said George. ‘Quick, Maudie, take him back.’ Maud about-turned and scooted back across the grass. She hunkered down again, knees up, socks half mast, the yellow coat with a stain of wet along the hem dipping into the water a second time. Christina sauntered over and leaned in to see.
There was another clatter in the kitchen and a girl began singing to the music on the wireless.
Elisabeth closed her eyes, lifted her face to the cool spring sun and walked blindly in the scarlet behind her eyelids, feeling George’s solidity beside her and the rhythm of his heavy stride.
When I open my eyes, Michael will be here. She had imagined it so many times, the disloyalty to George had become familiar and almost benign. It doesn’t mean I don’t love my husband. I enjoy my life. I have chosen to be content.
The joy and the catastrophe of being young had dissipated to an even tempo which was peaceful and mostly happy. But Michael’s painting had found its way to her. It proved this life wasn’t all there’d ever been, or all there could be.
3
It was almost three months since Stefan had opened the trunk he brought from Germany. He had tied on ropes and carried it for miles, from lorries to trains, from camp to camp of wandering people like him who were waiting to be claimed.
George didn’t ask what was in the trunk when they met at the Dover quayside. Stefan had been prepared to lie and was unnerved that he hadn’t needed to.
When he opened the trunk to give the rolled-up canvas to Elisabeth, he was careful not to let her see inside. She would think he was crazy to be hoarding rubbish brought all the way from Germany. One day he would throw everything away – Hede’s wooden plunger she used for mashing linen in the copper, a cooking pot, a clock without its minute hand, a tin of buttons, an old French hunting rifle found in the wreckage of his father’s study. He had picked over the ruin of his home and scavenged things with barter value but in the end he never bartered anything.
There was a cup with two handles and bears around the rim which used to be his little sister’s. His mother kept it on her dressing table and it would annoy him that she was sentimental and hung on to something so useless. The cup wasn’t damaged when he found it in the rubble but after the journey across the Channel, it was: three pieces. He hadn’t wrapped it well enough. The trunk was filled with things like this – broken filthy things he loved.
The hotel bedroom window was open and voices outside sounded silvery in the cool air. They were expecting him to go downstairs this morning and soon he would. He was almost ready.
He stood by the open trunk, which seemed to give off a gentle heat, and to calm himself he reached in amongst the jumbled things for something familiar. His hand found a piece of mildewed leather which he took out and held to his nose, shutting his eyes to find the memory in its smell.
The pictures in his mind came clear. A boy clambers over a ruined house, raising clouds of dust. He picks over the rubble and sometimes he reaches down a crevice between lumps of masonry and plaster. Suddenly, his hand touches something hairy and the boy freezes with the horror of it, then he’s flinging aside the debris, terrified and wild with hope because although it’s impossible that anyone is still alive, an idea flashes in his head that he has touched his mother’s hair. He has found her. She’ll reach up through the tangle of broken timber and masonry, scramble out and dust off her dress. She’ll say he ought to change his shirt and his hands are filthy, and she’ll smile and touch his cheek.
What he finds is a dog flattened by a ceiling beam. It is the gardener’s wolfhound who was a puppy with milk teeth and oversized paws when the boy last saw him. Like all young things the puppy thought he was a new beginning. He was hope that wasn’t blunted. He was the time before.
The dog’s corpse is as rigid as cardboard as if it has no joints and never moved. The paws are still full of hard flesh but half the head is crushed. One velvet ear is tucked back as if it’s sleeping. It is only a dog, the boy’s mind tells him. His heart says nothing.
He undoes the wolfhound’s collar and puts it round his own neck. A livid sun rises in the night over Dresden, while the boy buries the dog in his mother’s garden of shadow petals blooming in the ash and soot and the soft deep tracks of tanks. He sniffs the earth and finds the pristine scent of worms, so he follows it, down deep into a time when this night could not happen. The perfume of the earth fills his head with lamentations that have no human words and he shakes the dust out of his fur, lifts his muzzle to the wind and hollows out the sky with the sound of blood and loneliness.
People living in the rubble across the street yell at him. ‘The Landau boy’s gone loopy, just like his English Mutti,’ they call to one another. They throw things but he doesn’t notice. He is a sound, that’s all he is, a ghost-hound’s song.
A racket of cawing and Stefan opened his eyes. The wolfhound’s collar was in his hand. Outside the window a gang of crows tumbled in the blue and in the distance there were the snowy tops of the Yorkshire hills.
‘A wireless was playing and a girl sang along in the sunshine. Stefan liked the strange soft vowels of this English he hadn’t heard before. From where he stood he could see a lake and his cousin Christina standing on the shoreline with her arms folded, idly dipping in the toe of her shoe. The little one, Maud, squatted by the water like a yellow frog.
The sun through the open window warmed Stefan’s face. He put on the wolfhound’s collar. It might have been a minute – or more – five or ten before he reached down into the trunk and took out the hunting rifle. It was long and finely made, superior to the clumsy weapons he had used against the enemy. On the polished stock there was a pattern of flowers and trailing ribbons of inlaid mother-of-pearl and silver.
He set the butt against his shoulder and took aim. The little yellow frog was concentrating on something, peering into her cupped hands, then she stood up and ran across the grass. He tracked her in the sights, his eye following the true black line of the barrel. She was endeavouring to keep her hands steady although water was dripping down her coat, then she disappeared under the trees.
He lowered the rifle, letting it slip through his hand to rest on the floor. The branches of the fir trees bounced as if the tiny whirl of her dashing underneath had disturbed them and he watched until the trees were still. Then he saw Christina looking up towards him. She stood against the flashing water so he couldn’t see her face or tell if she could see him standing in the room.
He knew he had been stupid. Sun reflecting on the barrel of a rifle is an elementary error and he was already becoming careless. Now he would have to persuade her not to tell anyone about the rifle.
Christina stared up for a moment longer, then resumed the idle dipping of her shoe in the water.
Elisabeth made a fuss when he joined them outside, overdoing the pleasure and surprise of seeing him so his heart began lurching about and he wanted to turn around and go back upstairs to his room. She said he looked marvellous this morning, very rested. George clapped him on the back and said, ‘Good to see you up and about,’ as if Stefan was an invalid.
‘Let’s all go for a walk and get some colour in our faces,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Maudie! Maudie!’ she called to the little girl, who was still p
laying by the water. Christina yawned and put her arm through George’s. They strolled along a grassy sheep track by the lake, with Maud skipping in front.
Elisabeth and Stefan followed behind George and Christina, and Elisabeth kept talking as they walked, running on like his mother used to when there was something on her mind.
As they climbed the hill, clouds came across, turning the water in the lake below to dark metallic green. Elisabeth was saying he would like their house in Kent because it was old and comfortable and the sea wasn’t far away, but London was near enough to go up sometimes for the day. There were lots of things to do when he came home for the holidays. Did he ride? Did he enjoy the theatre?
Stefan listened well enough to smile or nod when he was meant to. He knew the question she really wanted to ask and he would never answer. She wanted to know how his mother died.
Gerda Seffert had told him one night at the house in Müllerstrasse when they were lying together on Gerda’s mattress, naked under a heap of coats and scratching their flea bites. Gerda’s cat smell was in his nose. She was giggling so he held her tight because he knew that soon the mirth would roll her like a wave into a sea of horror and she would punch her head and yank her hair, trying to claw the memories off her skin.
‘It’s all right,’ he whispered and he kissed her on the mouth to stop her chortling, but she started up again if he let her take a breath. He wondered if perhaps he could knock her out to save them both another night awake. He never asked what made her laugh and fight with no one. They had all seen things they’d be better off forgetting and nothing could be done but bear it.
He tried distracting her. ‘You remember kindergarten, Gerda? Remember when we made the snow house we thought was magic because it was blue inside? And the lizards sticking to the bakehouse wall in summer? And the plums hanging over and dropping in our hands?’
Gerda snorted as if he’d told a joke but she rested her head on his shoulder and he felt her breath becoming softer, and downy on his face. He searched his mind for other things to soothe her. ‘What about that Christmas when we hid under the table and stuffed ourselves with truffles and Stollen?’
The memory of food filled his mouth with saliva. He remembered kneeling on a polished floor with firelight coming through the lace tablecloth on to Gerda’s party dress, heaped around her like a dappled mushroom. Her plaits had flopping satin bows. They crammed in big insolent mouthfuls, so the gritty marzipan, cocoa, raisins and sugared cherries stuck their tongues to their teeth and they couldn’t speak. Stefan smelled the oranges and cloves in the giant Dresden punchbowl and the blazing logs on the fire, and there were thumps above their heads when dishes were put down on the table. He remembered the waitresses, stiff like wood and listless as if carrying a dish was too much effort. People said Jews were sulky and considered themselves too good for honest work.
The room was full of officers and Party men and wives. Everyone was happy because it was Weihnachten and Germany was perfect.
But to Stefan something wasn’t right. The air was trembling with the scent of the fir tree cut down from the forest and he was sorry for the tree – an innocent imprisoned thing longing for its home. It was suffering in the hot bright room and no one even noticed.
The clattering conversation above the table swelled and dipped and he heard his mother’s English accent smoothing the serrated edges of the words. She made German sound questioning and hesitant, her voice lifting up above the others and then sinking like a swimmer in a choppy sea. Although she tried to hide it, he knew she wasn’t sure. She wasn’t as certain as a Party wife should be and it frightened him, although he did not know why.
All that was gone – the officers, the dying tree, his mother – and here he was with Gerda living in someone’s burned-out house on Müllerstrasse.
Stefan pulled the coats over Gerda’s shoulder. She was asleep. He was drifting too and tiredness was beginning to pull him under, then she flung out her arm and even such a skinny thing as Gerda’s limb felt too heavy on his empty belly. She stirred and started muttering and he knew he had to keep talking. ‘Our canoe made out of rugs, remember, Gerda? It was summer, very hot and we paddled down the Mississippi in my garden. Hede gave us honeycomb to lick.’
Gerda sat up, the covers fell off her chest, and she swivelled her waxy pointed face to him. ‘Yes. Your nice fat housekeeper, Hede, gave us honeycomb. She told everyone all about it.’ Her voice was conversational and perfectly normal, and even though she was awake again, he was relieved the diversion had worked. He leaned up on his elbow to pick a string of hair off Gerda’s cheek. ‘Did Hede tell everyone about the honeycomb? I wonder why.’
‘Oh no!’ Gerda squealed. ‘Funny you! Not that. Hede told everyone your mother was friendly with a Jew. Didn’t you know?’
‘It’s a bloody lie,’ he said. In the dark, he could make out the shine of Gerda’s eyes with the whites blinking on and off, clear white although the rest of her was badly stained. She clamped the bedclothes up under her arms, primly, as if he hadn’t seen it all before. There was quiet long enough to hear the mice scrabbling in the ceiling and he lay down again, putting out his hand to touch the curve of Gerda’s spine – rabbit bones under tight cold skin. ‘It definitely isn’t true,’ he said.
‘Oh, but it is.’ He heard her patting the covers, fiddling with the folds in the old coats. The darkness seemed to thicken, and even the mice had quietened, waiting for whatever might come next.
‘A Jewboy’s whore,’ said Gerda softly; ‘that’s what Hede called her.’
He stared up into the speckled dusk, luminescent with moonlight. There were no street lights any more. If the Zippo an American had given him wasn’t out of fuel, he could light a candle. ‘What Hede said, it’s piss. A piece of crap.’ Soldiers’ words came out of his mouth as if someone else was speaking. The tattered damask curtain shifted in a draught and the armchair made a shadow on the wall like a person cowering.
Gerda tittered. ‘Don’t take my word for it. Ask anyone you like.’
Stefan knew she wouldn’t stop unless he put his hands round her throat and pressed his thumbs down hard, but he couldn’t move because his chest felt cracked apart as if he’d fallen a long way on to something hard.
‘Hede told us. I swear and cross my heart,’ said Gerda and bugged her eyes to emphasize her point. ‘You’d gone away so you weren’t there. Your Mutti couldn’t be a Party wife any more and no one cared if your Pappa shot himself for Germany. They shut the door in her face and no one spoke to her. She never guessed it was Hede who told on her. Isn’t that just the biggest joke!’
Gerda’s shoulders started to quiver, which was a sign that laughter wasn’t far away and getting nearer. ‘My Mutti said a leopard doesn’t change its spots even when its husband is a Party bigwig. Not a drop of German blood in Frau Landau so what can you expect, and she needed to be taken down a peg, Mutti said. She had it coming.’
Then the giggling broke out and he knew Gerda was remembering. He knew the pictures in her mind because he had seen what happened when people needed to be taken down a peg – men and women who had it coming. There was no need to make Gerda stop because the story was almost over.
‘Hede said she crawled back to the house. There wasn’t any point in doing much except covering her with a blanket for at least a bit of modesty. The police came later and put her in a car. They held her up because she couldn’t walk.’
Gerda lay down again and she was shaking so much it wasn’t surprising her mind was coming loose.
He realized he was floating way above the mattress. His mother had been beaten but it wasn’t Gerda’s fault. What was the difference between any of them now? No one was who they used to be, except perhaps the dead.
‘Rain!’ shouted Maud. She stopped on the path and her shadow stretched out on the grass. While they walked, the clouds had been gathering behind them and the hillside was glowing darkly in slanting orange light.
‘We’re going to get soak
ed,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Why didn’t we notice?’ The rain started, they turned round and jogged down the path back towards the hotel. ‘Maudie, hold Stefan’s hand,’ said Elisabeth putting a scarf over her head.
The rain got heavier, they ran faster, bumped together, slipped on the grass. George was running with Elisabeth and Maud shrieked with the thrill of seeing grown-ups move so fast. She held tight to Stefan’s hand, then Christina tripped and clutched at him so he grabbed her hand as well, and although Maud was stumbling, he pulled her hard, running faster because panic blossomed in his head like a dream he’d had of fleeing, though from what he didn’t know.
Then he felt Christina yank his arm, ‘Slow down, can’t you, I’ll fall over,’ and there she was beside him with her hair plastered to her cheeks and no fear at all in her eyes. ‘What’s the point?’ she said. ‘We’re soaked anyway.’
She let go of his hand and they walked. Gradually his heart stopped banging inside his ribs. The hills had disappeared inside the clouds and the rain pattered on the lake, making droplets jump. George and Elisabeth were not in sight.
Maud was exultant that the three of them were getting wet on purpose and she skipped beside him swinging on his hand. ‘Will Mummy tell us off?’ she asked.
Stefan licked the rain off his lips. It tasted deliciously of nothing, no sulphurous or fetid taint in it, no particles of bomb dust or ash from burned-down homes. No molecules of incinerated flesh. The rain was like it used to be in Germany – it had fallen all the way from sky to earth and nothing had spoiled it.
He wanted to tell Christina. If it hadn’t been for her, he wouldn’t have discovered this wonderful thing, but she was staring at the ground, rain dripping off her nose. Her skin looked warm and very smooth, and the softness where her teeth bit her lip made Stefan wish she would hold his hand again.
The German Boy Page 3