What would she say if there was an accident, Christina thought, if one of them fell in a ditch and couldn’t get out, if they got lost somehow or forgot the time, if a bull gored them? What would she say, and would it be worth it?
‘Yes,’ she said.
He began walking and she fell into step beside him, noticing the intricate decoration on the rifle that she would put against her shoulder this afternoon and aim as he directed. It didn’t look like a gun a Nazi would own and it wasn’t like the rifles chained in the cabinet at home, which were plain cumbersome things she could barely lift.
They followed the track towards the Saunders’ farm, which was well used as far as the heifers’ field and then became overgrown. Stefan went in front to stamp a way through, holding the nettles and brambles aside to stop them whipping back in her face. The hedges closed in above them, dripping and glittering so Christina could hardly see for all the tangle of watery pulpy greens, and after a while she found she was walking in a dreamy, fascinated way because the patterns of the shadows and the rhythm of turning her shoulders one way, then the other, to push through the foxy-smelling leafage filled up her mind.
How long they had been walking she didn’t know, when suddenly the track came to a dead end. It should have opened out to pasture, followed by a path that led all the way to an empty pebble beach where they could fire the rifle and no one would hear. But a tree must have fallen last winter, bringing down other shrubs and saplings with it, and now the whole heap had started growing. There was no way through.
They stood facing the wall of foliage and listened to the quiet after all their thrashing and stamping. ‘We’ll have to go back,’ Christina said, finding she was whispering as if they were intruders, but Stefan ducked underneath a bough and dived into the mass of leaves. He was gone.
For a second she was alone, then Christina dived too, putting up her arms to protect her face. She felt his hands on her sleeves guiding her through.
They were in a lush little clearing. The track had disappeared completely and greenery encircled a lawn of fine bright grass and a shallow pool. Birds were calling amongst the leaves and water trickled somewhere under the vegetation. They stood awed by the silence of the place.
Stefan hunkered down, laying the rifle at his side and resting his arms on his thighs, and Christina stood looking down into the water at the bits of bright reflected sky, a leaf floating on nothing and, below it, peaty dark debris. They seemed to have agreed without speaking that they wanted to stay for a time.
Christina said, ‘Do you like it here?’ She meant something more along the lines of Do you like being in this pretty secluded place with me in it too? But it had taken quite an amount of rehearsing in her mind, and nerve, to say anything at all.
Stefan didn’t start at the sound of her voice, as a person who is sometimes jumpy might; he plucked a blade of grass and threw it into the pool. She thought he wasn’t going to answer.
‘I should not be here, Christina,’ he said at last, and to her astonishment his eyes were full of tears, brimming but not running down, as if they were stuck there, shimmering dangerously on his eyelashes with nowhere to go.
‘Oh!’ The cry came out of her quite softly, her eyes filling up too, although she knew her injury was just a bruise and his might be a mortal wound. She realized the enormity of their misunderstanding – how she had meant one thing and he understood another. She had asked a lumpen selfish question and he had heard an infinitely more sorrowful and lonely one, a far older question than she knew how to ask.
She couldn’t hold his hand to comfort him as she would Alice, or take him on her lap like Maud, without an even more mysterious confusion arising. She must try to imagine how a girl of much more than fourteen would gather up this mistake and be sorry but not ashamed, understanding that she had simply opened a door without meaning to.
If she spoke again, she must not compose the words in her head but discover with her heart what he needed her to say, and this would be a different way of talking, a way she had never tried before.
‘Where should you be?’ she asked.
He looked up at her immediately, as if she had surprised him. ‘With Gerda,’ he said. He started picking at the grass and she wondered how things looked to him distorted through a lens of tears. He said, ‘I don’t know where she is. I do not know why I left her. I can’t remember.’
‘Perhaps it doesn’t matter now,’ Christina said. ‘She’s your girl, isn’t she, and you love her so you must find her. She won’t care what happened if you’re sorry and you tell her so.’
The old Christina would never have said all this – or should it be the young Christina, who would have been hurt by the mention of another girl and wouldn’t have known how to talk to a man in love and in need of advice.
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I must go back.’ He stood up and rubbed his face as if he was cleaning something away. He took a step towards her, close enough for her to see the down on his jaw and the white healed stitches in his throat. He put up his hands, so for a second she thought he was going to touch her face, but he moved back her hair, which had half come undone in all the struggles through the bushes.
‘This is very beautiful. Your boy gave it to you?’ He was looking at the silver locket she wore all the time.
‘Oh, no. It’s from Alice. Well, yes. Actually a man did give it to me first.’
‘I hope he is a good man.’
‘I don’t know. I only met him once, years ago, by accident, in the lane. I’m not sure why he gave it to me, he didn’t say. You see? It has an E. It was meant for someone else. He wasn’t in love with me or anything. I’m only fourteen, Stefan, I’m just a girl.’
Saying this felt more grown-up than pretending and she liked talking to him in this private easy way as if she was quite used to it.
‘He was bewitched by you.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ Christina said. ‘Actually, he was wounded. He had a sling so I expect he was mixed up by the pain.’
Stefan smiled – so slight a smile it was almost nothing. ‘If you were my sister, I would make sure of this man. I would take care of you.’
‘You have Gerda to take care of.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I wish … I wish you would come with me.’ It was the truth, she could tell. ‘But I do not want to spoil it with this man who loves you, beautiful Christina.’
Now he was joking but not entirely; also he was sad and more happy than she had ever seen him, and the contradiction between these different Stefans existing all together almost defeated her. Perhaps another aspect of being older was that she needn’t mind if people made no sense.
‘Thank you very much, I’m sure,’ she said to match his teasing.
Something moved way off in the undergrowth, and they both started and turned towards it – a badger, probably, or a deer – then it was still again.
Stefan said, ‘Christina, have you heard of someone called Michael Ross? He knew your mother, and mine too.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I never have.’
They listened to the trickling water and a singing bird, then the rustling started up again, coming nearer. The thing was cracking branches and crashing through whatever was in its way, like King Kong beating back the jungle. The bushes were moving and soon it would burst through. There were no dangerous beasts on Romney Marsh, but Stefan picked up the rifle and Christina moved behind him.
The greenery parted and the spotted pony stumbled out.
‘It’s Toby Schroëder’s pony – I mean the Saunders’ old pony. It’s Little Bear!’ exclaimed Christina, hearing straight away how confusing she was being.
It was a ruin of a pony. Little Bear’s dusty coat was rumpled and his mane and tail were threadbare. He dipped his nose to drink, standing motionless in the water, joined by each leg to his reflection. He blinked his pale blue eyes, breathed a sigh and fell asleep, camouflaged by the dappled light and greenish shadows – a sagging equine shrub growing in the
water.
Another rustling, the bushes parted again, and Mrs Saunders was standing on the far side of the pool, as startled at seeing them as they were at seeing her. She was wearing galoshes and farmer’s overalls. Her hair was under a woollen cap, so she looked almost like a man. ‘I thought so,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t think he’d go wandering off at his age. He gets through the hedge and always comes here to have a drink, I don’t know why.’
‘Hello, Mrs Saunders – Rachel,’ Christina said, doing her best not to be flustered at being discovered though she wasn’t, strictly speaking, doing anything wrong. It seemed polite and correct to introduce everyone. ‘Stefan, this is our neighbour, Mrs Saunders – Rachel, I mean.’ Recently her mother had become friendly with Mrs Saunders and they had been asked to call her Rachel. ‘Rachel, this is my cousin Stefan from Germany.’
‘I know who he is,’ Rachel said, which seemed an abrupt reply.
Stefan didn’t speak – he often didn’t when there was nothing in particular he wanted to say – and Christina had no idea what anyone was meant to do next.
The pony groaned gently in his sleep.
‘Rachel, do you need something to lead Little Bear?’ Christina asked, deciding it was best to just change tack. ‘You can borrow my belt if you like.’
Rachel might not have heard. She appeared to be weighing something up, standing very still but agitated in her mind with a problem Christina supposed was connected with the pony, though what could be difficult about leading him back to his field was hard to guess.
But when Rachel spoke, it was something else entirely. She looked at Stefan and said, ‘Has Elisabeth told you yet? I don’t suppose she has. Elisabeth’s promises never amount to much.’
Stefan didn’t answer and Christina wondered if he was ever going to help with this awkward situation. On his behalf, she said, ‘We don’t know what you mean, Rachel. We don’t understand.’
Then Rachel said another thing that made no sense. ‘He’ll remember his little sister, I expect.’
‘Antje,’ Stefan said – one solitary word and nothing more. Something jarred in Christina’s mind, as if she’d heard the name before. She put her hand on Stefan’s sleeve and thought he was shaking her away, but he wasn’t, he had started shivering. ‘Let’s say goodbye, shall we?’ she suggested quietly. ‘Let’s go.’
‘So her name was Antje,’ Rachel said loudly, as if it was a challenge. ‘You must have noticed Alice has your mother’s mouth. As a little one, she was like me.’
This conversation was baffling and lacking in courtesy, in Christina’s opinion. She had no idea why they were discussing Alice and they didn’t have the manners to explain, so she decided to interrupt, seeing as they wouldn’t notice her unless she did. She spoke up loudly. ‘Actually, Stefan and I were just talking about a Mr Ross.’ She coughed to keep everyone’s attention. ‘Stefan’s mother knew him and we think my mother did as well, so I was thinking, Rachel, you might know him too.’
It was quite a speech but it vanished immediately into the leafy shadows, and the three of them were silent again. There didn’t seem much chance of Rachel Saunders having heard of Mr Ross – why would she? So it was a jolt when she said to Stefan, ‘Michael lives in London. He can tell you everything.’
This was another mystery, one Christina had no time to ponder because Stefan had gone crashing through the branches back the way they had come.
As she fought through the whippy brambles and nettles, Christina realized she hadn’t said goodbye to Rachel Saunders before she turned and followed Stefan. He must have been moving fast because she couldn’t see him up ahead, and when she walked the last few yards of the track, there he was, leaning his hands on the house wall with his shoulders heaving.
She leaned beside him, gasping, and she scraped her hair off her face with her throbbing, nettle-stung hands. ‘You mustn’t mind Mrs Saunders, Stefan. She can be peculiar.’
‘Perhaps she is not,’ Stefan said.
‘Who is Mr Ross?’ Christina asked. ‘And you have a little sister! Where is she?’
‘She is dead.’ He said it plainly; a thing too terrible for words.
Although the shock gripped her heart, Christina stood quietly so Stefan would understand that she wouldn’t shy away, even in her mind, from what he’d told her. If Alice or Maud were dead, she couldn’t go on living, and it was so cruel of Rachel Saunders to mention Stefan’s sister – unless she hadn’t known the little girl had died.
Rachel mentioned Alice too – what for? If Alice looked like Stefan’s mother, how would Rachel know? And in any case, Alice couldn’t look like anyone because she was adopted – they had got her from the Orphans’ Home in Folkestone. Christina had scraps of memory of when Alice had first arrived: her made-up words and her teddy bear called Steven. What did it mean? Something? Nothing? Too many questions filled Christina’s mind, but now was not the time to answer them.
She put her hand on Stefan’s arm. ‘Antje will always be your sister no matter what, and Alice is mine,’ she said softly. These were facts in every way that mattered and all the rest was impossible to grasp.
Stefan might have felt comforted because he put his hand over hers. It was warm and large. A boy’s hand. ‘I have to leave, Christina,’ he said. His face was different and she could see he had already almost gone.
‘To find Gerda?’
‘Yes. And Michael Ross.’
‘When?’
‘I’m going now.’
‘You won’t say goodbye to anyone? Not even Maud?’
‘No. Only you.’
Christina felt as if part of her was tearing. She had never had this feeling in her life before, but she could see that Stefan already knew about goodbyes.
‘I need money, Christina.’
‘I haven’t got any. Maud’s birthday used up what I had. My Post Office book won’t work if I’m not there.’
‘Is there anything? Any money at all?’
‘Wait a minute.’ She ran into the house to the little sitting room. In Elisabeth’s bureau there was a purse for the housekeeping and Christina took it and ran back outside. ‘Take it. Quick. Before they come.’
They stood facing each other. ‘Have my locket,’ Christina said. ‘I know you like it. Please don’t say no. For Gerda. For when you find her.’ She turned her back, holding up her hair so Stefan could untie the ribbon. She felt the warmth of his fingers almost touching her, and when the locket was gone her neck felt cold without it.
There was not much more to say and this was almost the end, but he seemed to hesitate – there was something else and when he asked, it seemed so odd and funny she almost laughed.
‘I would like to have your blue jeans. For Gerda. Please.’
Christina pulled off her shoes, then he turned his back. It was the last time she saw his face. She took off her jeans, standing in her socks and pants and jacket, knowing it was something she never could have done on any other day but this. He put his hand behind him and she gave him the blue jeans.
‘Promise me you won’t turn around until I’m gone,’ she said. One last look: his golden hair, quite long now over his upturned collar, the rifle on his shoulder, her jeans in one hand and the silver locket hanging from its ribbon in the other.
She picked up her shoes and reached out her hand to touch his back very lightly to tell him goodbye.
36
Stefan jogged across the fields to the station, and on the train he put the window all the way down so the air beat on his face and filled up his mouth. He huddled in a corner seat, swallowing the cold and concentrating his mind on the thud of the train, which was like a heartbeat in his chest with no heart of its own any more. He was leaving another place and each leaving became lighter.
He saw his face reflected in the glass against the streaming dark of a tunnel and could not decipher the expression in the black eyes staring back at him. The face seemed closed, unknowable.
The thing the woman, Rachel Saunders,
said could not be fathomed: how she knew that his mother and Alice looked alike. It was true, he saw it now, and perhaps that was why Alice’s face had always troubled him. Elisabeth must have told Rachel Saunders this, but what was the ‘everything’ that Michael Ross could explain?
How difficult would it be to find this man in London with nowhere to start except that he was an artist and a Jew? He would find Michael Ross and talk to him, though about what wasn’t clear. Then he would go home to Gerda.
He stared out at the land he would be leaving soon, the piebald cows and thatched barns, the sudden gleam of a river and the pink brick cottages. The English could play Crazy Golf because the war had never happened here. One day he would bring Gerda to this peaceful untarnished land to help her to forget.
He stowed the rifle under the seat and felt in his coat for Christina’s locket. It was warm to the touch. There would come a time when Gerda would hold up her hair as Christina had done and he would tie the ribbons, kiss Gerda’s neck and be happy to give her so beautiful a present when she had almost nothing. He knotted the ribbons round his own neck to keep the locket warm all the way to Germany.
Although Christina had asked him not to, when they said goodbye he had watched her running to the house in her socks, carrying her shoes: a glimpse of white knickers below the ribbing of her jersey and the too-short corduroy jacket, long bare legs, the tendons flexing at the knees. Her limbs were smooth like the china figurines Gerda used to have on the mantelpiece in Müllerstrasse. Christina knew almost nothing, which must be why her skin was perfect. Gerda knew more than she could bear and she was always bruised.
Someone touched his shoulder and Stefan opened his eyes to see a man in uniform holding out his hand – ‘Tikitpleesa’ – and for a moment Stefan did not understand, as if his English had disappeared in his sleep. The man clipped the ticket and went away.
The sky had darkened to pinkish mauve, the hills cast long blue shadows and the wind through the wide-open window had been buffeting his face while he was asleep. He was cold. He put up the window and stretched his legs to ease the stiffness, took out a cigarette, grateful to George for leaving the packet in this borrowed – stolen – coat. There were no matches. He could go along the train asking for a light, but he was a thief, a fugitive, a filthy Jerry bastard, people would say. He stuck the cigarette between his lips anyway. Even an unlit cigarette slightly appeases hunger and gives some comfort.
The German Boy Page 35