by Jenny Lecoat
Hedy glanced back at the parish hall, where two youths were arguing with a German private, drawing attention from other soldiers. A woman in her sixties, emerging onto the pavement, was weeping on her husband’s shoulder.
‘We certainly won’t!’ Dorothea was shaking the old man’s hand. ‘And I say my prayers for our troops every night.’ Hedy drew a breath at the disingenuous irony of this remark, but the Deputy was already bidding them good day and heading back towards the parish hall.
Dorothea turned to her. ‘Thank you so much for your help, Hedy. I couldn’t have carried that here on my own. Would you like to come over this evening? I’ve got enough potatoes to make vegetable rissoles, if you have a couple of carrots you can share?’
Hedy hesitated. The BBC news and the discussions that followed it were the only thing that had made recent visits to West Park Avenue bearable, as they kept Dorothea off the subject of movie stars or, worse, how much she missed Anton. The thought of an evening with nothing but conversation between them was a grim prospect. But her promise to her old friend kept tapping her on the shoulder.
‘Thank you – maybe just for an hour.’ She protected her eyes with her hand as she looked upwards into the blue, feeling the warmth of the sun burning her skin. ‘It’s hard, the first night without your radio. I remember.’
‘Oh, we can still listen to the news.’ Dorothea’s tone was bright.
‘I don’t understand?’
‘I handed in my wireless, just as they asked. I just didn’t hand in the one in the attic.’ She beamed as she tripped lightly along the road in the direction of the park, leaving Hedy watching her, astonished.
‘Same again?’ Kurt, with a broad smile, raised two fingers towards the skinny, bored waitress. ‘This brandy is excellent. I might see if I can get myself a bottle at the stores.’
Wildgrube knocked back the dregs of his own glass – his fourth large one tonight by Kurt’s reckoning – and licked his lips in agreement. Even in the muted light of the club, Kurt could see that his face was starting to flush, the puce-coloured streaks echoing the heavily applied rouge of the club hookers. Already his gestures were becoming expansive, and his watery eyes danced around, taking in the latest batch of Normandy whores, enthralled by his own sense of wellbeing. Kurt suspected that he didn’t receive many social invitations.
‘Now, my father’ – Wildgrube took a drag on his cigarette and continued as if Kurt hadn’t spoken – ‘worked in a factory. No interest in his appearance. Used to clip my ear when I spent my money on quality shirts and decent shoes, called me a little fairy.’ He threw his head back and laughed uproariously. Kurt mirrored the laugh precisely, at the same time using the moment to empty most of his own brandy into the aspidistra on the ledge behind his shoulder. ‘But look at me now! Just these cuffs alone …’ He displayed the crisp white cuffs of his shirt as if modelling them for sale. ‘Always pressed to perfection. I tell you, the housekeeper at our billet – ugly as a bulldog, but my God can she iron a shirt! And her stews are pretty good too!’ He patted his belly and laughed again.
Kurt pretended to take a sip from his nearly empty glass, thinking that the woman probably pissed heartily into every dish she served him. He glanced at the clock – seven thirty. It was the fourth time he had brought Wildgrube to the club in three weeks, and experience told him that by eight he should be able to push him in any direction he wanted. The tricky part was catching him in the golden moments between professional discretion and passing out.
Kurt’s first invitation to join him on a ‘boys’ nights out’ – a phrase Kurt had picked deliberately, knowing that it would appeal to the spy’s ego – had been met with scepticism. Wildgrube possessed the bullied child’s instinct for knowing when anyone was looking down on him, and Kurt had to work hard to convince him that the whole thing wasn’t some practical joke. But Kurt knew that, whatever reservations or suspicions Wildgrube might have about him, they would eventually drown under the weight of curiosity and desperation for approval. On the first three occasions Kurt had played it safe, keeping the conversation to German architecture and what cup size created the best female figure, while also dropping in meaningless titbits about himself and the others in his billet. But Kurt was beginning to assess Wildgrube’s powerlessness and indiscretion around booze. How the man had risen through the ranks with such an obvious flaw was baffling, but then, Kurt thought, on that basis how would you explain Göring? In any case, Kurt sensed that tonight, if he could get the levels of enjoyment just right, he could move in for the kill. And Wildgrube appeared to be having a whale of a time.
‘This is wonderful. I love this place.’
Kurt nodded. ‘Good to get away from the hoi polloi, spend time with your own kind. Not that I’m in your strata, Erich. Access all areas, cosy chats with all the big boys – am I right?’
Wildgrube shrugged, lapping it up. ‘I know a lot of people. Not just here.’
Kurt twirled his glass in his fingers. ‘You mean, in Berlin?’
‘Oh yes. Got friends there who’ve done very well for themselves. Inner circle, you know?’ Then his manicured hand brushed away the topic like an imaginary fly. ‘How often do you come here on an average week?’
Kurt thought quickly, aware that his answer could well be checked later for accuracy. ‘Not too often. Don’t want to make a pig of myself!’
Wildgrube laughed hard and slapped his thigh. ‘You see that one?’ He pointed to a young blonde of around seventeen, wearing a tight flimsy dress and tossing her hair in an obvious bid for sales. Kurt wondered if her mother knew where she was and what she was doing. ‘That’s the one I’m having later. Fantastic little arse, don’t you think?’ He leaned towards Kurt, conspiratorial. ‘Though I have heard that some of the new ones are not that clean. Might just tit-fuck her to be safe – don’t want to catch a dose of something.’
The waitress put down two new glasses with a wide, artificial smile. Kurt raised his towards Wildgrube’s for a toast, and heard the glass almost crack as Wildgrube went in too hard.
Kurt decided it was time to change tack. ‘So tell me, Erich, how’s it going in your department?’ He let the term hang in the air, vague enough to be interpreted as ignorance. ‘Who’s giving you trouble at the moment?’
Wildgrube blew dismissive air through his thin lips. ‘Ah, you know. The usual suspects. Black marketeers. Dumb Einheimische who think they’re Rosa Luxemburg. You know, some of the labourers we brought over have escaped from their compounds? Turns out some of the locals are actually hiding them in their homes!’ He knocked back half the brandy in a single gulp. ‘Serve them right if they get raped or robbed, stupid fuckers.’
‘And how are things back home? Is it true the Führer’s planning a new offensive against the Soviets?’
Wildgrube tapped the side of his nose to indicate that Kurt had overstepped the mark. Kurt, realising his mistake, held up one palm and turned his head away, as if deferring to a greater power. But the next moment Wildgrube was pulling back to the forbidden path, prudence swirling in the bottom of his glass. ‘Big man’s doing great work there. Of course, the best stuff is hush-hush.’
‘I’ll drink to that.’ Kurt held up his glass again, and once more Wildgrube drained his own in one. Kurt leant in and glanced ostentatiously around him, deliberately whipping up a sense of drama. ‘But come on, give me a clue at least? Something to do with the Jews, am I right?’
Wildgrube wagged his finger, with a look a parent might give a naughty child they’re about to forgive. ‘You’re a bugger, Neumann! Of course it’s the damn Jews. Finally found a solution. Bloody clever too. But’ – all the fingers went up now, suggesting a barrier that could not be crossed – ‘I can say no more. Tell me …’ He beckoned Kurt in further. ‘These pretty little bitches. Which one is yours?’
Kurt grinned, pretending to be entranced by the game, and cast a slow, thoughtful gaze around the room. The decor in the club was gaudy, a collection of gold-plated light fitting
s and red velvet armchairs that probably looked ghastly in daylight. Everywhere he looked drunken officers and grim-faced, malnourished women sprawled. In the far corner, Fischer was sitting with some of his hardline cronies, playing some kind of drinking game with a pack of cards. Dear God, Kurt thought, why was he even putting himself through this, for a woman he’d sworn never to see again? Images of Hedy floated through his mind. That soft mouth and those sea-green eyes; her startled expression when he entered a room; the smile that sank softly into a pillow. The last months without her had been the most unhappy he could remember. A dozen times he’d walked from his billet all the way to New Street and stood outside her building, waiting for a glimpse of pale skin or tawny hair at the window. Once he had even got as far as the door. Each time, a prickling resistance – pride, perhaps a sense of betrayal – held him back. But the thought of being with any other woman left him limp and dispirited.
Wildgrube was waiting for his answer, his tongue lolling at the side of his mouth like a raw clam. At random, Kurt picked out a tall, willowy brunette draped across the end of the bar. ‘That one.’
Wildgrube laughed again. He would laugh at anything now. ‘Ah, you like them tall and dark? For me, has to be a blonde. Nice Aryan girl.’ He picked up Kurt’s brandy, mistaking it for his own, and finished that too. ‘Soon that’ll be all that’s left, you’ll see! They’ll get all the scum in the end. Every one of them.’
Kurt sensed the door was opening, and warned himself not to push too hard for fear it might slam again. At the same time, he knew he didn’t have too long – Wildgrube was so drunk now that he could barely make segues between his own sentences. ‘Let’s hope so, eh? Won’t be easy, mind.’
Wildgrube scoffed. ‘Shooting fish in a barrel. They don’t know, see. No idea where they’re headed, what they’re walking into.’ His speech was slurring now. ‘SS chum showed me some photos last time I was home. Genius – way they pack them in, nice and easy.’
Kurt kept his body perfectly still. ‘Pack them in?’
Wildgrube gave a smile that Kurt would remember for years afterwards. ‘That’s the beauty of it.’ He cocked his head to Kurt, telling him to come a little closer. ‘Keep this to yourself, now – this is just between us, understand?’
Hedy was fast asleep when the banging started. Her first response was rage. So many nights recently she had lain awake until the dawn chorus began around four, dragging herself to work in a state of exhaustion. Tonight was the one night she had actually managed to drop off at a reasonable hour, and now some idiot … For a few seconds she thought it was coming from one of the other apartments. Then she realised it was coming all the way from the communal street door. Someone was demanding entry, and someone – probably Mrs Le Couteur – was opening it. Hedy spun around to the clock: almost three. Now she was upright in bed, her ears pricked like a wild animal. Pictures of German soldiers with arrest warrants swam in her mind. Grabbing a woollen cardigan from the chair, she jumped out of bed and ran to the apartment door, pressing her ear against it. That was when she heard the footsteps on the stairs and the familiar voice: ‘Hedy? Hedy, please, I know you’re in there.’
With her heart almost jumping out of her chest, Hedy pulled back the bolts and threw open the door. Outside, the hallway felt shockingly black and draughty. Kurt stood swaying on the landing, his hair sticking up at strange angles, a wild expression on his face. As soon as he saw her he threw himself into her arms, knocking her backwards several steps. Cautiously she placed her arms around him and somehow manhandled him across the threshold.
‘Kurt, what’s happened? What are you doing here?’ His face was buried in her neck now, and it sounded as if he was crying. Hedy disentangled herself and managed to get a firm grip on his arm. She pulled him into the apartment and steered him towards the chair by the table, where he slumped as if he hadn’t sat down for a week. She could smell the alcohol on him, strong and sour. She raised the blackout to relieve the intensity of the darkness, then sat down next to him.
‘Tell me what’s happened.’
He looked up at her, the moonlight from the window lighting one side of his features. She could see that he was crazy with booze-heightened emotion, but as he stared at her he seemed to sober up, and with one gentle hand pushed the hair back from her face the way he had when they were lovers.
‘Hedy, I am so sorry.’
‘For what?’ Her mind was spinning with awful possibilities.
‘I didn’t believe you, didn’t believe any of it. Thought it was just stories. I didn’t think people could really behave that way.’
‘Like what? What are you talking about?’
‘I honestly thought … they said it was farmland. Just relocation. I didn’t know. I swear to you I didn’t know.’
And then it began to tumble out – the facts that Wildgrube had confided, and the connections Kurt had put together for himself. The secret plans, the liquidation of the ghettos, the burning of synagogues with Jews locked inside, the round-ups, the ‘special’ cattle trucks, the purpose-built extermination camps. The separation of men and women at the gates, the classification of prisoners, the removal of belongings, the overalls, the forced labour, the trickery of the fake showers, the chambers piled up with bodies.
Hedy sat in silence beside him as the phrases kept coming, sometimes choking him, sometimes spewing out in a bilious stream. The words landed on her like burning tacks, blistering her skin. Crematoria … chimneys … gas. As the words became pictures, and the pictures a reality, she began to lean away from him. She wanted to hit him in the mouth to shut him up, to stop this knowledge from reaching her brain, to punish him for being one of them. And at the same time she wanted to hold him, and tell him that he couldn’t have known – who could ever know something so inhuman, so incomprehensible? As Kurt ranted on, she felt herself growing smaller, shrinking down like Alice in Wonderland. By the time he got to her parents, confessing that if they had been transported they were probably already dead, she was a speck of humanity on the vast expanse of the earth, tiny and inconsequential.
Slowly, in small sputtering fits, he reached the end of his story and fell into a deep, brooding silence. Hedy rose slowly, staggered across to the sink and vomited for several minutes, clinging to the porcelain, feeling the wet streaks on her face, but too numb to move. Eventually she hauled herself up, rinsed out her mouth and dragged herself to the bed. Kurt moved slowly to join her, and they sat, wordless, staring at nothing but the shafts of moonlight arcing their way across Hedy’s pillows. Then, as Hedy remembered it, she must have fallen asleep for a few moments, because when she stirred, the moonbeams had been replaced by a dim leaden light in the distant sky, returning outlines of furniture in the bedroom and hints of colour to their skin. Somewhere outside, the first birds began to call to each other.
Kurt put his hand on her knee. ‘Tomorrow I’m going to walk into College House with my Walther P38 and take out the Field Commander.’
‘Don’t be stupid.’
‘I mean it. I have to do something. You were right: I’ve been a part of this, I’m responsible. I have to find some way to atone for what we’ve done.’
‘You’d be dead before he hit the floor.’
Kurt shook his head. ‘Doesn’t matter what happens to me.’
‘It would do no good. Berlin would just send someone else.’
‘Then I’ll go to Berlin, take out the lot of them. I have to do something, Hedy, I have to make this better. And somehow I have to win your forgiveness.’
Hedy felt a surge of tenderness. She took his face in her hands. ‘Kurt, listen. That stuff I said months ago – I was just angry. You’re not responsible for what they’re doing. You said yourself, you had no choice, no more than Anton. And you have to stop talking like this. No suicidal mutiny on this little island is going to save a single Jew.’
‘But I have to do something …’ His voice was growing weaker, like a child.
‘You already did, Kurt, don’
t you see? You saved me! But for you, I’d have been sent to one of those camps!’ She gripped him harder, her fingers pressing the blood from his face. ‘That’s not war, that’s not hatred – it’s goodness, it’s love! That’s who you are!’
He placed his hands on her shoulders, and a calm seemed to descend on him. ‘Then let’s fight them – both of us! I don’t know how exactly, but we can try, can’t we? If we’ve got each other, then we’ve both got a chance. Maybe we can get out of this alive, together. Please, Hedy?’
She looked at him, knowing that he meant it, and in her gut she felt something lift. It was hope, and possibility. She breathed in deeply, and whispered, ‘I’ve never stopped stealing petrol coupons.’
He stared for a moment, as if she’d spoken in another language, full of incomprehension. Then he started to laugh. ‘You never stopped stealing coupons? You never stopped?’ She could feel the tension seeping from his body, until he became helpless with laughter and fell onto his back, pulling her on top of him. ‘Oh, Hedy, I’m so proud of you! I love you so much!’
He pulled her body towards him then, and kissed her with an intensity that melted her, that stirred a sense of life within all this destruction, and soon their two bodies merged, rolling back and forth across the mattress as the dawn pushed through the tiny attic window.
7
It was a spring tide. The ocean had been dragged so far out of Belcroute bay that the shingle gave way to gleaming, rarely exposed sand at the water’s edge. Blurred, shadowy outlines of rocks could now be seen beneath the calm turquoise water. Like sharks, Hedy thought, lying in wait beneath the surface. The morning was hot and clear, but she shivered anyway. As if reading her mind, Kurt extended his arm and pulled her into his body a little tighter. With a sigh, she leaned into him and rested her head on his shoulder.