‘Of course,’ Hummel was leering again, ‘and we don’t need two attractive young ladies in one house, now do we?’
Erika was genuinely confused whether this was another creepy compliment or a suggestion of something more sinister on her part, so she opened her mouth to explain that there would surely be another patient waiting by now, but Hummel once again beat her to it.
‘Anyway, I’m sure I’ve taken up quite enough of your time today, doctor,’ he said, rising and donning his cap. ‘You have to get on. And so do I. This town isn’t going to police itself, now, is it?’ He rolled the paper back into a truncheon shape as if he expected to be assaulted upon leaving the room.
Erika scowled at his back, which appeared to be giving him no pain whatsoever, as he left and, although to her he was undoubtedly still frigorific, she wasn’t quite so sure she could describe him as an ass any longer.
Netta was happy. Yet another morning free of double cream. Milla was happy. Yet another morning full of double cream. Frau Auttenberg looked happy when she told Netta to go and see Herr Kahler, as he had a special job for her this morning. Milla looked disappointed when Frau Auttenberg told her that didn’t mean her too, and she sank back into her chair watching Netta’s golden hair get even more golden every time she walked through a shaft of sunshine coming in through the windows on her way out of the big dining room.
Netta found Herr Kahler in his office. ‘Well, where else do you think you’ll find him?’ Frau Auttenberg had said when Netta had asked. He looked as red-faced as ever and his grey hair stuck up all over the place. Netta was surprised Frau Auttenberg didn’t ever tell him off for not looking presentable like she did the kids every morning before breakfast. He gave her a quick look as she came in, but was more interested in whatever it was he was trying to fix with a screwdriver on his lap. It looked to Netta as if it was a very hard job and one that was making Herr Kahler redder by the second.
‘Your job is to sweep the sand from the driveway this morning. There’s a broom over there,’ he grumbled, but, since he was too busy to point to exactly where there was, Netta had to look all around the room until she found it hiding behind the door.
She then waited a few seconds, which seemed like minutes, in case there were any more instructions. Nothing else came out of the man except a few grunts as he tried to twist the screwdriver, so she left her room dragging the long broom behind her like a tail – at least that’s what she told herself it was, which made the whole business of sweeping sand from the driveway less of a bore.
It took a long time for a little girl with a big broom to sweep a wide driveway, but it would have taken less time had she not been distracted by the smell of seaweed and the sound of the waves munching at the beach and sight of all that beige sand just waiting to be played on. Not that it was empty. There were holiday makers dotted all about it. Their white towels laid out next to picnic baskets told Netta they were planning on staying all day. Their voices reached her on the back of the sea breeze. The excited squeaks of kids, the low pitched warnings of their parents. Kids with their parents at the beach. That was how it was supposed to be for her too, but here she was sweeping the driveway like Aschenputtel in her Brothers Grimm book while everyone else got to go to the ball. She wondered if any of the little white huts by the sea wall were empty. Perhaps she could run away from this place and stay in one of those until her parents came back for her. Then she could play on the beach whenever she wanted – as long as Frau Auttenberg or Herr Kahler weren’t looking.
Eventually the job was done and she swished her tail behind her all the way back to Herr Kahler’s office. He wasn’t there, thankfully, so she put the broom back behind the door and hurried off to find Milla in the garden where they played for what little was left of the morning.
After lunch, Henrick, the first boy to get his arms tied up in a coat hanger the other day, walked briskly into the garden, stopped in front of Netta, pushed his glasses up his nose and said in a shaky voice, ‘Herr Kahler wants to see you.’
Netta had never really spoken with Henrick before so she wasn’t sure if his voice always sounded like that or if he was scared of something. But there wasn’t time to think about that now. She dragged herself away from the garden and back to the office.
Herr Kahler wasn’t trying to fix anything this time. He was just sitting there staring at Netta from under his thick grey eyebrows, which stuck up in greasy clumps all over the place as much as the hair on the top of his head.
‘What did I tell you to do this morning?’ he growled.
‘Sweep the sand from the driveway,’ she answered.
‘And did you do that?’
‘Yes I did,’ she said.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Yes I did, Herr Kahler,’ she added to make sure she wasn’t sounding rude. She didn’t want to sound rude. She was just telling the truth.
‘I beg your pardon?’ he repeated.
‘Yes I did!’ She raised her voice ever so slightly in case he was having difficulty hearing her.
‘I beg your pardon, but if you had done what I’d asked you to do, why was there sand all over the driveway when I went out at lunchtime?’
Silence, except for the sound of children enjoying themselves in the garden. Netta couldn’t think of anything to say.
‘I’ll tell you why.’ The red face was getting redder again. ‘Because you’re a lazy, spoilt little girl, that’s why.’
Netta had to tell him this wasn’t true. She had to explain that she had done the job. ‘No, I—’
‘I beg your pardon?’ he shouted, slamming his hands on the table and pushing himself up, just as her papa had done that night when the tall man who said penis came to dinner.
‘I—I—I… yes, I—I’m lazy, Herr Kahler.’
‘And?’ He sang the word like a motorcar speeding up.
‘And spoilt,’ she said, but the words tasted foul in her mouth because she was sure they weren’t true.
‘Yes you are.’ He came out from behind the desk and Netta flinched, but he passed by her and grabbed the broom from behind the door. ‘Now, you’ll go and do it again and you’ll make sure you do it properly otherwise you’ll get the slipper, do you hear?’
She took the broom, but it didn’t feel like a tail anymore. It felt like it was made of lead. She went outside. The driveway was covered in sand. Her whole body drooped. But she swept it all away again, more thoroughly than she did the first time with the thought of the slipper hanging over her.
Milla found her at dinner time slumped in her chair at the round table.
‘What happened?’ she whispered.
‘I’m too tired to even tell you,’ Netta sighed.
The two girls ate their fish and cabbage that evening in the kind of silence Frau Auttenberg expected every evening. When the cod liver oil came round Netta opened her mouth obediently, as she had done ever since that long night when she had first done battle with the battle-axe. And when she was allowed to leave the dining room she spat out the oil she’d been hiding into the potted plant on the windowsill in the stairwell, which was growing much faster and looking much healthier than Netta was for its daily dose of fish oil.
But before she could begin to get undressed, Paul, the boy whose bottom had bled, came up to her and said, ‘Herr Kahler wants to see you.’
Netta almost cried right there in front of Paul, but somehow she held it in and got herself back downstairs to the office. And it all sounded very familiar.
‘What did I tell you to do this afternoon?’ he growled.
‘Sweep the sand from the driveway,’ she answered.
‘And did you do that?’
‘Yes I did.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Yes I did, Herr Kahler.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Yes I—!’
‘I. Beg. Your. Pardon?’
She knew what the answer was supposed to be, but she couldn’t believe she hadn’t do
ne it properly this time.
She opened her mouth to speak.
‘Think very carefully before you answer, young lady,’ he snarled.
She couldn’t hold back the tears any longer. If she told the truth she would get the slipper. If she lied and said she had been lazy again, she would get the slipper. This was so unfair!
Herr Kahler got up. He was wearing his pyjamas already with an open red dressing gown on top and red leather slippers to match.
He closed the door quietly and took Netta by the wrist.
The six kilometres back to camp seem no more than a couple to Max, intoxicated as he is on the part he’s just played in the successful delivery of a Russian officer’s baby. The wind that had molested him on his trudge into town this morning is gone and the atmosphere now is halcyon. Even the Northern Lights put on a brief show for him and he would stop and bow at the green dream cloud saluting him was he not flanked by two moaning Soviet guards completely ignorant of the miracles going on all around and above them that day.
Or is it that he is floating back to camp because he has just been reunited with Jenny? She might have been a prostitute, but she was his friend and confidante back in Breslau before they were all captured and shipped off to the ends of the earth. And now, having been instructed to check the health of the women who service the Russians in town, all holed up together in a rotten little apartment block, he finds Jenny among them, like an apparition. And in the second it takes him to accept that it’s her in front of him, alive and well, it’s all he can do not to throw his arms around her. Jenny, however, possesses none of the same boundaries when it comes to decorum and hugs him with such affection it comes as a shock to Max. He hasn’t been embraced in this way, embraced by a woman since… well, since the last time he’d seen Jenny in Breslau that day in the convent, where Hitler vindictively housed all the prostitutes, when she’d congratulated him on his Iron Cross. So it takes a moment for him to allow his body to receive such a gesture, but at the welcome end of that paralysed period he melts and reciprocates with a fervour and duration that almost has Jenny feeling self-conscious in front of the other girls.
It seems he is on his way back from both events at the same time, which is impossible because they both happened on different days, he is sure. But dreams are strange like that. As strange as nightmares. But it doesn’t matter. He doesn’t care. All he knows is that his wife in the future (or is that the present?) is pregnant with their second child and he has a picture of a black Madonna in his pocket, a gift from Jenny to keep him safe. Life is good.
The guards leave him at the gatehouse and Max walks back toward the barracks alone, unaware of Volkov behind him, until the barrel of the sergeant’s rifle is jammed into Max’s back with unnecessary and vindictive force, shepherding him away from the barracks, away from the hospital, away from the kitchens, away from any part of the camp Max is familiar with to the row of squat wooden huts downwind of the cesspit.
‘Can you explain to me, please, what this is all about?’
‘Get in!’ is the only answer as Volkov grins at one of the huts. ‘Get in!’ The grin is twisting. ‘And if I have to tell you again you’ll be shot.’
Max has to crouch to get in the doorway and once inside the windowless cage it’s only shards of moonlight, slicing through the gaps in the logs that make up the roof, which show him the cell is a square, just long enough for him to lay down in either direction. There is nothing in there but a bucket in the corner for a toilet. He knows this because of the stench coming from it. The door is slammed and bolted.
Max hears the fading crunch of boots on frosted grass and he’s filled with a claustrophobic panic that has him shouting, ‘How long? How long do I have to stay in here? How long? How long?’
It was easy for Kahler to drag the sobbing girl over to the chair and put her over his lap; he was so much bigger and stronger than her. He told her to pull up her dress and pull down her knickers, in a quiet voice that was almost as shaky as Henrick’s when the boy had delivered his message to her in the garden after lunch. He leant over to reach down to his feet, squashing Netta between his big hot belly and his thighs. When he straightened up he had one of his red leather slippers in his hand. He hesitated for a moment. Netta managed to quiet herself listening for a sign that it was over, that he had changed his mind, that this was just a threat, but next time, young lady… She furiously blinked away the tears as she hung there looking at the floorboards with just the sound of her sniffing and his breathing for the longest second of her life so far. And then the first blow came with a raging sting. He beat her and beat her. And he spoke as he did. He said a syllable with every whack on her bottom and sometimes she felt spit from his mouth landing on her skin before the burning took over:
‘Now-you-will-sweep-the-sand-prop-er-ly-to-mor-row-mor-ning-o-ther-wise-you-will-get-the-slip-per-a-gain-do-you un-der-stand?’
She howled that she did understand and put her hands in the way to stop the pain, but they just got beaten too, and then he easily held them by her sides with one big heavy arm across her back while he gave her a few extra blows for putting her hands in the way, he said.
She was shivering with the pain. He was shivering with what Netta thought, as he released her, might have been pain too, but it was hard to tell through such tearful eyes. What she was sure of was that he was slumped in his chair now, head back, mouth open, panting.
‘Get out.’ He gulped.
She did.
She slept all night on her tummy. Every time she rolled over, her sore bottom woke her and she rolled back again. Even the blanket was too heavy on her wounds and she thanked God it was summer and it was warm enough for just a sheet.
Milla was devastated for her friend and couldn’t stop watching from the corner of her eye the way Netta perched painfully on the edge of the knobbly wooden chair at breakfast. Every time Frau Auttenberg came around she’d tell Netta off for not sitting properly and stand over her until she hoisted herself back onto the chair. Milla winced on Netta’s behalf and secretly gave the matron a very dirty look, but as she did so she noticed how even Auttenberg did not seem to be enjoying the sight of Netta flinching and quietly gasping as much as she expected her to.
After breakfast, Netta limped out to the driveway using the broom as a walking stick and began sweeping with a feeling of utter pointlessness. The breeze was strong and cold this morning, so at least Netta could enjoy the way it cooled the wounds which bit into her skin.
She jumped as Herr Kahler bowled out of the house, but he was only getting into his car and going off to town. He’d be back after lunch to inspect her work.
The breeze was a wind now and Netta suddenly stopped and watched the way the sand she had swept into little piles in the flowerbeds was being picked up by the wind, which was twirling and whirling and smearing it mischievously all over the driveway again. And then the truth hit her like a North Sea wave.
No wonder it looked like I hadn’t swept up properly, Netta cried to herself, the wind always comes along and ruins it all by the time Herr Kahler takes a look. And I bet he knows that too! She threw down the broom, stamped her foot and went inside.
‘What’s the point?’ she told Milla when she found her in the dorm. ‘He’s going to beat me anyway, so why should I even bother doing the stupid work?’
‘Because,’ Milla said with a terrified look on her face, ‘he’ll beat you twice as hard next time.’
‘Well, good,’ Netta said, sounding brave, but feeling petrified inside. ‘Perhaps he’ll beat me so hard I have to go to hospital and then I’ll be free of this stinking place.’
Milla was even more terrified now, not just for Netta, but at the idea of being stuck here without her best friend.
Netta ate even less than usual at lunchtime and since Milla had wolfed hers down and was already out in the garden playing, there was no one to give her leftovers to. But before she had to worry about what Frau Auttenberg would say to that, Henrick came in with t
he message she was expecting.
‘Herr Kahler wants to see you.’
‘Does he really?’ Netta said, cramming so much of the sarcasm she had absorbed from adults so far in her young life into the words that Henrick’s eyes became even more magnified than usual behind his glasses.
She slouched into the office trying not to imagine how the pain would feel a second time on top of the pain that still pinched her backside and the silly script began again:
‘What did I tell you to do this morning?’ he growled.
‘Sweep the sand from the driveway,’ she grumbled, her bottom lip already quivering.
‘And did you do that?’
‘Yes I did.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Yes I did, Herr Kahler.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
Her stomach twisted and tightened, but she had to tell him she knew what his little game was, ‘Yes I did, but the—’
‘Yes you did!’ he bellowed.
I did? She thought. I did. He said I did, but what about the..? He’s not reaching for a slipper. He’s just sitting there, elbows on the table, resting his chin on his thumbs.
He prodded that chin with those thumbs in a painful looking way and said again more quietly this time, ‘Yes you did.’
He looked a little defeated for a second and Netta felt her body relax. She was safe! He couldn’t give her a beating if he said himself she had done the job. Although how he could think that, when she had left the broom and the sand all over the driveway, was way beyond her imagination. But perhaps that was what he wanted to see when he told her to sweep the driveway. It made absolutely no sense whatsoever, but he was an adult and if there was something Netta was sure about, something she had learned better than any subject in school, it was that adults and their world made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
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