The German Boy

by Tricia Wastvedt

  ‘She can’t talk,’ said Christina. ‘She only knows words I tell her.’

  ‘What shall I say, Christina? What will she understand?’

  ‘Crayon,’ said Christina. ‘Paintbox. Teddy.’

  Elisabeth held out a cup of milk but Antje turned her face away, pushing her chin into the velvet collar of her coat. ‘Sweetheart, have a drink, please, my darling. You’ve had nothing at all this morning.’ Antje winced as if Elisabeth’s voice hurt her.

  ‘She doesn’t like milk,’ said Christina.

  ‘Talk to her, Christina. Will you? Be kind to her.’

  Christina put her arms around Antje’s neck, kissing her hard on the cheek. Antje gasped. ‘Not too much, Christina, gently,’ said Elisabeth.

  Christina looked into Antje’s face, their noses almost touching. ‘Antje.’

  ‘Let’s call her Alice,’ said Elisabeth.

  ‘But she’s Antje.’

  ‘She says it differently, that’s all. Her name is Alice and that’s what we must teach her.’ Elisabeth gave Christina a cup of water and she put it to Antje’s mouth. Antje drank and water dripped down her coat. ‘Take Alice into the sitting room to play,’ said Elisabeth. ‘It’s warm by the fire and I’ll bring you some biscuits.’

  ‘On dolly plates,’ said Christina, ‘with cups of real tea.’

  ‘Yes, real tea. Leave Alice’s things, I’ll look after them.’

  The two little girls went off hand in hand. Elisabeth picked up the nightdress. Wrapped up inside it were some beach pebbles and one of Karen’s scarves.

  Alice wandered through the house opening doors, running her hands along the furniture, climbing up and down the stairs, as if the movement stopped the tears from catching up with her. Elisabeth would find herself throwing down her duster, or dripping soap suds from her hands, leaving saucepans boiling over on the stove and running through the house to look for her.

  Alice drew pictures with her crayons: a mountain and a house with rows of windows, a man, a woman and a boy all with yellow hair and blue, blue eyes.

  Elisabeth felt as if Alice was dismantling her, so she couldn’t fit herself together any more. She couldn’t make decisions on the simplest things and sometimes she couldn’t breathe for the weight of loneliness that seeped from Alice into her. They were too much alike, she and Alice, incomplete and always waiting for something that would never come.

  Once, at a tea party for Christina’s dolls and Alice’s teddy on the hearthrug in the sitting room, Alice shouted, ‘Mutti, Mutti, schau mir mal an!’

  Christina pushed the teddy bear into Alice’s hands. ‘He’s so sad.’

  ‘Does teddy have a name, Alice?’ Elisabeth asked. ‘Teddy?’ She pointed.

  Alice turned the teddy over in her hands. ‘Stefan,’ she said.

  She had the dazed unearthly calmness Elisabeth had seen in Christina’s eyes as a new-born, before infant incomprehension overtook her. It was a kind of wisdom, an acceptance of the terror of the situation, and a trust that somebody would come.

  Elisabeth had never felt this for Christina, this binding of her soul so tight it never eased – or she had forgotten. Perhaps time had settled the feelings for her own daughter to an easy equilibrium.

  The love for Alice seemed older, simpler, as if it had always been there, waiting.

  30

  It feels like a reprieve when Elisabeth goes shopping in Hythe and doesn’t bump into Rachel. Eddie plays cribbage with George sometimes of an evening, but Rachel never comes any more to do her knitting or her mending with Elisabeth.

  If Elisabeth had to explain, she’d call it a misunderstanding. Rachel thought one thing and she thought another. But that wasn’t true and the shame of knowing she won’t confess to Rachel makes an apology impossible.

  Elisabeth is haunted by the conversation in which she delivered the lies so flatly that Rachel was left dumb and unable to challenge her. It was months ago, but the memory still keeps Elisabeth awake almost every night.

  Rachel had arrived one morning carrying a shopping bag. She was shaking with some anxiety or upset, and Elisabeth was frightened at the sight of her. ‘What’s happened, Rachel? Is Eddie all right? Is it Vera?’

  ‘It’s you. Tell me I’m wrong. Tell me you wouldn’t do this to me.’

  Rachel has been helping Vera clear out some cupboards at the bungalow, and they come across an old chocolate box of Nanna Lydia’s in which she kept drawings Granddad Lemy did years ago. There are also photographs, dozens of them.

  Rachel empties the shopping bag on Elisabeth’s kitchen table, scattering the contents: manila envelopes and sheets of cartridge paper. She searches through, extracting a pencil drawing of a toddler and also a watercolour of a little girl wearing a too-big gingham dress and sitting in an armchair. Then she pushes through the heap, selects an envelope, tips out the photographs and finds a picture of the same little girl on boy-Michael’s shoulders holding on to his ears, and another of her puffing out the candles on a birthday cake. Rachel lays out the pictures on the table.

  Elisabeth almost smiles with the sudden pleasure of seeing Alice’s face.

  ‘Look,’ Rachel demands. ‘Look.’ Her eyes are furious and terrified. She points to each one as if Elisabeth might not understand.

  Elisabeth looks and says nothing.

  ‘They’re of me, but if you didn’t know you’d think it’s Alice,’ Rachel says. ‘I know she’s Michael’s daughter. I don’t know why, but Karen gave her to you. Don’t lie to me, Elisabeth, just tell me.’

  ‘Alice’s mother is dead.’

  Rachel stares at her.

  ‘Alice is an orphan, Rachel, and we know nothing much about her.’ Elisabeth doesn’t look at the pictures any more. There is Michael. He can’t be more than ten and he has a clear untroubled smile she has never seen before.

  ‘I’ve got a right to know,’ Rachel shouts. ‘Why should you have her, any more than me? You’ve got Christina. I should have Alice.’

  Elisabeth hates the splinter of a laugh she gives. It is nerves but the sound is superior and spiteful. ‘Heavens, Rachel. Children aren’t things to be shared out fairly.’ How could she say it? ‘I’ll show you the adoption papers, though I don’t know why I should. You can look at Alice’s birth certificate. No one knew her father.’

  Rachel is so still it seems as if she isn’t breathing, as if her heart has stopped. ‘I know him,’ she says. She turns, walks out, and Elisabeth hears her footsteps on the path. Alice and Christina are in the garden and Elisabeth runs outside. The two little girls are playing and Rachel has already gone.

  • • •

  Hidden well, a secret is difficult to examine, even by its keeper. As Elisabeth remembers it, the secret she must guard for Karen is clear of outline, honest, loyal. Concealing Alice’s past is a burden, Elisabeth tells herself, and a painful complication in their lives, but it must be done for Karen.

  But there are whispers at the edges of Elisabeth’s mind: Perhaps it’s good that Alice can’t be shared with Rachel. Would anyone be happier? Rachel would want too much of Alice, and I deserve to have a part of Michael for myself …

  As buried things do – unless they’re made of gold – the secret has tarnished and distorted over time. It belonged to Karen but it serves Elisabeth now.

  1938: a year since Alice came to England and six months since Rachel guessed the truth. People know that pretty Alice Mander is adopted, but the kindness of the Manders and why they took the orphan girl has ceased to be a talking point. The secret is settled, buried.

  Then, suddenly, one November night, it shows itself again. It has grown fat and monstrous in the dark. Elisabeth’s guilt is swallowed in its jaws and Rachel’s hurt is crushed beneath its bloody iron hoofs. Karen and little Alice are nothing to it; it always had its yellow eye on greater things. Now it has a name: Kristallnacht.

  A German boy who lives in Paris has heard that Jews are being deported from the Reich, crowding at the borders without food or shelte
r and shot if they defy the orders of the Führer. The boy’s family have been evicted from their home in Hanover because they are Jews of Polish origin, but they’re also German so Poland doesn’t want them either. At the border, destitute and starving, they wait with hundreds like them for someone to relent. The boy’s parents write to him and ask for help.

  He is seventeen. He doesn’t understand it is already too late. He buys a revolver and a box of bullets, then goes to the German embassy in Paris. He shoots an embassy official. In his pocket he carries a postcard to his parents: May God forgive me. I must protest so the whole world hears …

  The world hears but hesitates. Jews in Germany are beaten and assaulted in revenge for the assassination. Some ordinary Germans, mistaken for Jews, are beaten too. Synagogues are burned or ransacked, Jewish graves are desecrated, and windows of Jewish businesses all over Germany are smashed. Kristallnacht. Night of broken glass.

  1941

  31

  A pregnancy at forty-six had caused some consternation at the hospital and when Michael came to visit, Frankie’s letter said, he’d probably cause even more. Watch out for She who guards the prison gates. She’ll think you’re my little brother, so when you tell her you’re the proud pappa, run for cover.

  Michael saw the Matron appraise his uniform, his stubble and his sling. He hoped she’d assume he’d been shot. When he introduced himself, she recovered her composure swiftly. ‘Your wife is sleeping, Mr Ross. You may take a peep at Baby if you wish, but I suggest you come back at five.’ She stood between him and the closed ward doors, and through the porthole glass he could see a line of iron bedsteads. ‘I’m sure you’ll persuade Mother to take Baby to the country. We all have a responsibility to keep the little ones from danger.’

  He knew Frankie would not leave London. ‘Francesca told me she couldn’t be in better hands,’ he said. The Matron’s downy chins pinked with pleasure.

  ‘You have a boy, Mr Ross. Well done.’ She twinkled at him. ‘A little miracle, if I may say so – and handsome, just like Father.’ She looked at the watch lying horizontal on her bosom. ‘We had a tiring labour but we’ll be pleased to see you later, I’m sure.’ She folded her hands across her bulk and shifted to obscure the porthole with the wings of her cap. ‘I suggest you arrive at fifteen minutes to five if you’d like Mother to see you lead the visitors on to the ward.’ She leaned in. ‘It’s so encouraging if Father shows an interest.’

  He backed away. ‘Quarter to five. Thank you.’

  ‘Congratulations, Mr Ross, a fine healthy first-born,’ she called after him as he walked away along the corridor.

  The morning outside was foggy and he stood on the hospital steps wondering what to do. He had forgotten to ask to see his son. It was a fluke that he was here at all; he had been sent home with a broken collarbone, not an injury of war but of rugby. One afternoon in the square of a devastated village they had improvised a ball with a lump of rock-hard dough they’d found in the rubble of a boulangerie.

  He had wanted to stay in France. His injury wasn’t serious and he was an artist for the Commission. He could still paint if he couldn’t fight, or cook if he couldn’t paint, but they said he must be signed off for a month.

  As a war artist, he had special privileges, and as a Jew, special sympathy. People assumed he would take the war personally, but there must be thousands like him in Europe who were suffering for something they were mostly indifferent to. They were marked for cruelty as he was marked for kindness. He did not feel Jewish but had given up denying it. Acknowledging what he was had come to feel like loyalty, long-owed, to Lemuel Jacob Roth, who had given him his art.

  When Michael landed back in England, a message was waiting and he went to the hospital straight away, grateful that attention was diverted from his unheroic homecoming, but he was too late – the baby was born. Frankie would say it didn’t matter and all he could have done was pace the corridor and smoke cigarettes.

  The news of Frankie’s pregnancy had astonished him and Frankie’s joy made him joyful too, although he couldn’t imagine how they would be parents together. His work had been halted by the war but he’d had four successful exhibitions and there were plenty of commissions waiting. Frankie liked to travel, to hold her soirées, stay in bed till noon and entertain until dawn. The shape of their life together had set.

  Their marriage had been a leap of faith, both trusting that the past would be enough to build a future. Or perhaps neither he nor Frankie had anything to lose.

  When she turned up at his studio one summer evening, they held each other tenderly, mistaking gratitude for love. How many times had he written letters to Elisabeth asking her to come to him then thrown them in the fire? She had a husband, a good man who cared for her, and if Michael loved her, he must not see her again. He had fought with himself to stay away.

  He thought Francesca would save him from the endless wrenching of his heart, and for this he would cherish her and not look back.

  At the wedding, Michael felt a kind of desolate relief that there were no more choices to be made. For a while, hope and fondness for the past eclipsed the strangeness of their situation, but gradually they realized that they barely knew each other. Francesca still mourned McCarthy Brion. He grieved for Elisabeth.

  Frankie worked hard at happiness and he admired her courage and her determination to ignore the disappointments of her life. She knew he still loved Elisabeth but she trusted him to keep it hidden.

  He knew he ought to be content and he sometimes was. Francesca was beautiful and clever, they had money and freedom, and now they had a son.

  The day stretched out. Michael could not face the empty house in Bloomsbury and thought of going to the restaurant where he and Frankie often used to eat, knock on the door and ask Marco for some breakfast.

  Fatherhood seemed postponed until the evening visit, and Michael wondered if he would feel the transformation inside himself that friends described the first time he held his son. At the moment, he felt nothing much at all.

  It was late April but as bleak as winter. The fog was so thick the boarded-up statues and heaps of sandbags for makeshift shelters were invisible. London could have been the same. Grey shapes of people in overcoats passed him on the pavements. Car headlamps and cheerily lit buses loomed up and disappeared again into the yellow gloom. He looked for a café but the district was unfamiliar and he had no idea which way to go. People had their heads down, hurrying to work.

  He felt a flutter of jubilation. He must look different. Something about him must have changed. He tried to catch glimpses of the faces passing, but people were wrapped in scarves. He wondered if the men he saw were fathers, if they would recognize him as one of them. Then all at once, between one pace and the next, he remembered. He stopped, someone trod on his heel and a bus passed close with faces staring from behind the streaming glass.

  This was the beginning of another lie, added to the lie that had grown up between him and Frankie. This child was not his first. He’d never told Frankie he had a daughter, because a moment never came when he could be sure it wouldn’t hurt her. If he ever thought of little Antje, it was only a brief, vague contemplation, as if she was a half-remembered dream.

  In the doorway of a tobacconist, he stood staring at snuff boxes and pipes and bowls of tobacco. Brown paper was pasted on the window against the blasts – a picture of Tower Bridge. It looked like something a child would do at school. The shop bell rang and an old gentleman came out to ask if he could help. He handed Michael a cigar. People were generous to injured soldiers.

  The light turned lemon as the sun came out above the fog, illuminating precipices of broken buildings, caves of rubble, a rug hanging over a joist as if it was ready for a maid to beat out the dust, a dissected bedroom with floral wallpaper and a dressing gown still hanging on the door thirty feet above the ground. Beside him, beyond a rope barrier, was a flooded crater with an upended car nose down in water. On the other side of the chasm was a Lyons Corne
r House.

  Michael sat with a cup of tea, hardly aware of the din of crockery and hissing urns. A door was being prised open inside him. ‘Is everything all right, sir?’ a waitress asked him.

  He paid at the counter and left, and he took a taxi to London Bridge. The next train had been cancelled but a blackboard said the one after would run on time. He had seven hours: the first child would be seen before the second. It was ridiculous and made no difference to the lie, or to Frankie, but he had to. Some part of his mind was jeering at the belatedness of this journey and how ludicrous it was to think that visiting his forgotten daughter would absolve him.

  On the train the memories flooded in and he sweated at his disloyalty; on the day Frankie had given birth to their son he was thinking of another life he might have had, and the daughter who was his revenge on Artur Landau.

  Antje would be seven – or eight. He had no idea when her birthday was. He had never thought of it before and to his surprise it hurt him that he didn’t know. Today he would walk to the Manders’ house, knock on the door and ask to see his daughter. He wouldn’t give anything away and would never go again. He’d have a cup of tea like any other visitor, then leave.

  In Kent it was a day of towering clouds and a striding wind. Michael turned up the collar of his greatcoat and started walking. The horizon of hills was the same but the station was ringed around with red-brick semis and suburban gardens. A rash of bricks was everywhere in England. He passed some half-built houses with mock-Tudor façades and leaded windows. Ragwort and nettles were growing amongst the piles of sand and the abandoned wheelbarrows. So many things were interrupted by the war.

  Away from Hythe, the landscape hadn’t changed. The scent of pastures floated with the stink of farmyards, and the orchards were coming into bloom. The rhythm of walking seemed to wear away the urgency that had brought him here, and at the bend in the lane where the chimneys of the Manders’ house came into view he stopped.