The Viennese Girl

by Jenny Lecoat

  ‘I’ll get my jacket and walk you back,’ Anton said. ‘You shouldn’t be out on the streets alone.’

  Hedy blew her nose and ran her fingers through her hair to push it back into shape. Tonight was a threshold, a time for putting things in order, for packing and storing away. Tomorrow she would buy a bolt for the front door. A large black steel one that would slide into its socket with a solid click. Metal was what she needed now.

  Outside the window, the strongest, brightest stars were beginning to push through the darkness. As she stared at them she thought of the protestors on the streets of Vienna, down on their hands and knees scrubbing pro-independence slogans from the pavements. The Krauts had laughed and pretended that the kicked-over pails and crushed fingers were an accident, and the chalk and paint eventually washed away. But the words and colours of the messages were burned into her memory for ever, and the resolve never left those protestors’ eyes.

  Anton returned with his jacket. Hedy handed him back his handkerchief.

  ‘Keep it.’

  Hedy shook her head. ‘No thanks. I won’t be needing it any more.’

  The morning of 16 September, a day ringed in thick black ink on Hedy’s calendar, dawned bright and clear, though a stiff breeze persisted from the direction of the harbour. The elements had been unpredictable in recent days; a fierce storm had blown in from the Atlantic straight into the Gulf of St Malo, bringing sharp showers and a wind that whipped around the corners of the town’s streets, blowing women’s hats from their heads and catching the new swastika flag that now hung outside the town hall. Such squalls were unusual for the island’s mild climate, not when the leaves were still green on the trees and the evenings were still so light. Yet Hedy had heard no one complain about it; perhaps because there were no longer any tourists to drive away, or perhaps because it seemed a fitting reflection of the island’s new mass depression. Last night, when she had wandered by the sea wall of St Aubin’s bay watching German NCOs rolling out miles of barbed wire along the beach, it seemed to her that even the waves were receding quicker than before, as if they no longer wished to stay in this infected place.

  Hedy pulled her cardigan a little tighter over her dress as she made her way towards the town’s main shopping street, wondering why the purposeful rhythm of her heeled peep-toe sandals echoed so loudly as she hurried along the pavement – so much so that passers-by turned to stare at her, seemingly affronted by the sound. Click-clacking into King Street, it slowly dawned on her that the volume was due to the disappearance of motorised traffic. Apart from occasional German vehicles, the streets of St Helier were once more a maze of pedestrian streets, where every sharp noise bounced and ricocheted around the walls in a mimic of bygone times. She made a mental note not to wear heels in public again. She had not spent the last weeks as a ghost in her own community, slipping into the streets occasionally to buy food or take some air, only to draw attention to herself now.

  Still, she was grateful to have found a new apartment in the centre of town, within easy reach of the shops and the covered market on Beresford Street. It was a big step down from the Mitchells’ family home, but with that property now under legal stewardship, a chilly bedsit at the top of a town house was some kind of home, and better than getting stuck out in the country parishes. Already the shops had sold out of bicycles, and Hedy had spotted a few ageing nags harnessed to tatty old Edwardian carts, piled up with produce from St Mary and St Martin, bringing steaming piles of horse dung back to the modern tarmac roads. Pretty soon, Hedy mused, the streets of Jersey would sound and smell like the streets of her childhood.

  She checked her watch; it was a little after nine fifteen, giving her just enough time to buy new stockings before her appointment. This morning she’d chased Hemingway around the apartment with a newspaper after he’d laddered her last pair, shouting at him that she wished she’d left him behind. Bare legs would simply not do – and certainly not today, when it was vital that she look and feel her very best. She hurried on towards De Gruchy’s department store, passing several local housewives all wearing the same expression – a wary, hunted look of fearful expectation. Each of them quickened their pace as they passed groups of bantering German soldiers – scared to be so close to the enemy, afraid to run in case it should be misinterpreted. And there were scores, perhaps hundreds, of soldiers in the town now, browsing the shop windows and loafing in the parks. How the Reich could spare so many boats to transport them all, Hedy could only wonder. Crossing the road to avoid a boisterous group of off-duty privates sharing cigarettes and slapping each other’s shoulders, she reached the store, pushed open the heavy glass door and made her way through the various elegant counters to the hosiery department.

  ‘Excuse me?’ Hedy tried to neutralise her accent as much as possible without sounding like a parody. ‘I would like to buy some stockings.’

  The assistant, a woman in her forties with hair in a top-knot bun, inclined her head as she prepared her customer’s bad news. ‘I’m sorry, madam, we’re completely sold out.’

  Hedy glanced down at the display drawers under the counter’s polished glass top, and saw that they were almost empty. ‘You have nothing in the back, perhaps?’ She beamed a rictus smile, afraid this obvious approach might backfire, but the woman shook her head.

  ‘Sorry, I can’t help you.’ She leaned forward conspiratorially, her sickly floral perfume rising uninvited up Hedy’s nostrils, and hissed: ‘It’s them. They come in here all friendly, but look! Gone through the whole place like ruddy locusts – sending it all back to their families, see, ’cause they’ve had nothing in their shops for months. Winter coats, kitchen stuff, fabric, you name it. You tried to buy cheese this week? Can’t get it for love nor money.’

  Hedy matched her low volume. ‘Can you not refuse to serve them?’

  ‘This Jerry officer came in, said if we do, our managers will be thrown in prison. But where’s the new stock going to come from, that’s what I want to know? You see them down the harbour this week, sending all our Jersey Royals to France? What are we supposed to eat? Tell you what …’ The woman’s face brightened as an idea occurred to her, and her voice lowered even further. ‘You can have the stockings I’m wearing right now if you can get us a couple of pork chops by tonight? It’s the old man’s birthday and I’ve got nothing for him but a bit of leftover tripe.’

  Hedy stared at her, considering. The thought of putting on a strange woman’s dirty stockings was unpleasant, but more dispiriting was the realisation that even if she wanted to, she was in no position to strike that kind of deal. Only this morning she’d noticed that the butcher at the end of her road had stuck up a sign reading ‘Regular Customers Only’. Special deals were doubtless available to friends and the favoured in this insular little place, but Hedy had no such traction. She saw her future stretching ahead, an endless queue in which she was always at the back, getting what no one else wanted or nothing at all.

  ‘Thank you. I appreciate the thought but I’ll try elsewhere.’

  The assistant shrugged to indicate that Hedy was wasting her time. And so it proved to be. Voisins store, the haberdashers at the top end of town, even the funny little shop behind the market where the old ladies went for crossover pinafores and flannelette nightdresses all gave her the same story. By ten minutes to ten Hedy found herself defeated, heading towards her appointment with still naked legs, and her mother’s disapproving voice ringing in her head, telling her that nice girls never went out like that.

  As soon as she turned into the Royal Square, still bearing the giant white cross of surrender painted on its pink granite paving, she saw the crowd. A chaotic queue of men, snaking around the block into Church Street, huddled together in twos and threes, all shuffling their feet and muttering furtive expletives to each other as they waited to enter the makeshift records office set up in the library. It was, Hedy realised, the registration line for local men between eighteen and fifty-five – a manifestation of the Nazis’ desire
to list, classify and number, and a preparation for future identifications. From now on, the seeking out, hauling up and dispensation of Jersey people would be as easy as taking a memo from a pigeonhole. What was the English expression? Like shooting fish in a barrel. The wind blew again, and she shuddered.

  From somewhere in the centre of the crowd came shouts of anger. Hedy craned her neck to witness a young man in a flat cap gesticulating at two German privates, shouting that they had no right to treat law-abiding citizens this way. She watched the soldiers lead the man away, her heart thumping in her chest, and closed her eyes momentarily. Then she straightened her dress, swung away from the crowd and set off again without looking back. At the far end of the square she turned into Hill Street and, holding her head high, walked briskly into the Aliens Office.

  Lieutenant Kurt Neumann dropped his duffel bag onto the waxed floor of his new quarters, and headed straight for the French windows at the end of the sunny room. He could already feel a grin spreading across his face, like a kid at his first funfair. What a view! If only he had a camera. The garden was gorgeous. Puffy white blooms of alamy roses and exotic seaside shrubs surrounded a neat lawn. At the end was an ornate iron gate, and beyond that – the sea. Or, to use the proper English word from his new dictionary, the seaside. This was not the ocean that Kurt was used to, that scary, churning plain that threatened to swallow ships and suck down soldiers. This was a sweep of sparkling sapphire, licking at a beach of ash-blonde sand and bubbly black seaweed. It beckoned you into it, dared you to rip off your boots and run barefoot along its soft, welcoming shore. If he didn’t have a deployment briefing in ten minutes, Kurt would have done exactly that, right now. He shook his head in wonder and gratitude at getting a posting here.

  The Unterfeldwebel who’d collected them from the harbour a little after dawn had suggested a guided tour of the island before dropping each officer at his allocated billet. In the back of the gleaming Morris Eight convertible, Kurt’s immediate neighbour, a Lieutenant Fischer who proudly mentioned three times that he was from Munich, spread a map over his knees and bombarded their driver with questions about geographical positions and plans for fortified defences. But Kurt, apart from the odd nod of fake interest, simply sat back in the leather seat and looked around, happy to let the information wash over him. There was plenty of time for work later. Right now he wanted to absorb every detail.

  The island, it seemed, was basically a rectangle. They drove first along St Aubin’s bay on the south side, past the quaint granite harbour with its bobbing fishing boats, and over the hill to St Brelade where lush green vegetation tumbled down to a white sandy bay. The road took them up the west side with its vast beach and rolling dunes, then ten kilometres along the north coast, with its majestic cliffs and picture-postcard bays of blue-green water. On the east side, the terracotta moonscape of a barren rocky shore revealed itself as the tide slid out, and the glorious, centuries-old Mont Orgueil Castle rose skywards. At each bend in the winding roads, in every dip and under every arch of thick emerald foliage, Kurt felt a rush of excitement. But by now Fischer and the other officers were checking their watches, muttering about finding their billets and reporting in. Kurt nodded in agreement, while thinking how he’d like to return here with his old chum Helmut after the war; apparently there were plans afoot to turn all the Channel Islands into a high-class resort for the military when all this was over. They could stay at one of those big hotels on the Esplanade, hit the bars, meet some girls. They’d have a ball.

  His billet turned out to be a pretty semi-detached house on the east side, in an area named Pontac Common. The interior smelled of polish and lavender, and had been decorated tastefully in muted floral patterns by its previous Jersey owners. Standing in the garden and looking out towards the sea, Kurt wondered where they were living now. The late summer sun warmed his face despite the chill wind, and bees buzzed among the flowers. Fischer, who was marked on the list as Kurt’s new room-mate, appeared through the French windows behind him, smiling in approval at the view.

  ‘Some place, isn’t it?’

  ‘Beautiful,’ Kurt replied.

  ‘Needs a lot of pulling into line, though. The whole garrison, I mean.’

  ‘Really?’ Kurt noticed that he was wearing an Infantry Assault badge and a bronze Close Combat clasp.

  ‘Public relations directive from Berlin.’ Fischer sniffed and stubbed out the end of a small cigar on the lawn. ‘There was a lot of co-operation with the local government in the first weeks – personally I think that sends out a bad message.’ Kurt nodded, wondering what that meant. ‘Apparently they’ve not even rounded up the Judenschweine yet.’

  Kurt dragged deeply on his cigarette, sensing that the fun part of the day was coming to a close. ‘Do they intend to?’

  ‘They’re being registered this week. Then we’ll see.’ Fischer took in a huge lungful of sea air. ‘Yes. I reckon we can really do something with this place.’

  Hedy watched as Clifford Orange, Chief Aliens Officer of Jersey, arranged himself behind his desk, running his hands over the surface as if savouring its solidity. He was a middle-aged man with skin that bloomed and flaked around his cheeks; his hair was thinning but he sported a small moustache and eyebrows so heavy they looked like they might crawl away of their own accord. From the ceiling hung a chandelier, far too large for the room; the sun poured through the window and splashed off the gleaming floor. Beyond the pane, Hedy could see the trees in the town churchyard. She sat down on the upholstered chair in front of Orange’s desk and folded her hands in her lap on top of her handbag, hoping it might convey conformity and obedience. She offered a small smile but Orange was already lost in the file laid out before him.

  ‘So, Miss Bercu. Let me refresh my memory. You are twenty-one years old, you arrived in Jersey on the fifteenth of November 1938, and you currently reside at 28 New Street, correct?’

  ‘That’s correct, the top flat.’

  He glanced up at her with a curious look. Hedy suspected it was her command of English that intrigued him. She wondered if he’d expected her to bark like a dog.

  ‘When you arrived here you were in possession of a recent British visa in the name of Hedwig Bercu-Goldenberg, a foreigner’s passport issued in Vienna the previous September, and a registration card recording your status as a Romanian national, issued in Vienna in May 1937 in the name of Hedwig Goldenberg.’ He put down the document and looked her in the eye. ‘Can you explain the variation in your nomenclature?’

  ‘I think I have already explained: Bercu was my stepfather’s name, and Goldenberg was my mother’s.’

  ‘Your stepfather?’

  ‘I don’t know who my real father was. After I was born my mother married a Romanian, and I took his name.’

  Hedy swallowed at the end of the sentence and became painfully aware of a film of sweat on her upper lip. She had rehearsed this story a dozen times with Anton in her apartment, but saying it out loud in a formal environment felt different.

  Orange removed his fountain pen from its holder and with great precision made a note on the document. ‘So, Goldenberg being a Jewish name, you are in fact Jewish?’

  ‘No.’

  Orange placed the cap back on his pen and laid it to one side, ensuring that it sat in perfect parallel with the blotter. ‘You’re not Jewish?’

  ‘I was raised a Protestant. My stepfather is Jewish and my mother adopted his religion when they married, but I have no Jewish blood.’ Hedy attempted the smile again but this time it wouldn’t come. Every word of the lie grew like cotton wool in her mouth. Orange’s eyes darted over her and she realised he was staring at her hair, which she had pinned up especially for today’s interview. She knew its tawny blonde colour, a gift from her grandmother’s side of the family, would be her greatest alibi today, particularly to someone like Orange who had probably only seen pictures of Jews in books. But now he seemed to be assessing its authenticity. Perhaps he had been told that all Jewish women wear
wigs.

  ‘You’re telling me that your mother, whose name is Goldenberg, was in fact Protestant?’

  ‘Yes.’ Her hands were now gripping her bag as if it might fly out of her lap at any moment.

  Orange rose from his seat and walked over to the window, gazing across at the Norman church tower in what he clearly hoped suggested a pose of judicious concentration.

  ‘You see, Miss Bercu, I am in a most difficult position. I trust you understand the relationship between the Jersey authorities and the new German Field Command?’

  ‘Not entirely.’

  Orange smoothed his moustache with his thumb and forefinger. ‘It is one, I fear, of immense delicacy. Jersey civil administration continues as before, but we must now accommodate and execute the orders of our new masters. And the Germans have requested that all Jews living within the Channel Islands must be registered separately from the remainder of the populace.’ He turned back to face her. ‘So you see I would be failing in my duty should I fail to register any Jewish persons with German Field Command.’

  Hedy tried to clear her throat surreptitiously before answering. ‘But I am not Jewish.’

  He sighed just loud enough to let her hear it. ‘If you’ll forgive me, I find your explanation unconvincing in the light of the documented evidence. If you were somehow able to prove your heritage—’