The Search

by Maureen Myant

  He looks up at her. “I hope we have heard the last of this. It worries me that they’re admitting it came from gossip. That means what we suspected is true, that Marguerite did hear us that day. I don’t see her letting this go.”

  Gisela is determined to look on the bright side. “She’ll be punished. She won’t bother us again.”

  “I hope you’re right,” says Friedrich. He jumps up from the table. “Dammit, you are right. It’s time to celebrate. I’m going to tell Wilhelm.”

  The hope that they won’t be searched again lightens Gisela’s heart, but she is not foolish. She knows they have to be careful, and Wilhelm stays for the most part in his tiny space behind the false wall in the attic. For one thing, Helena mustn’t know that he’s still at home for she might say something to betray them. Luckily she’s so young that she almost seems to have forgotten that she ever saw him, and she rarely mentions him. When she does, both Friedrich and Gisela are careful not to react. They hope that by doing so she’ll forget all about him. And it seems to work. As the stress leaves Gisela, and she is more relaxed, so too does Helena blossom. She starts to speak more, and her accent sounds less strange. Gisela knows she should seek out other children for her to play with, but she seems happy enough with just their company. Time enough for other children when she is of an age to go to school. Gisela can’t bear to think of her going to school. Not only does she dread the indoctrination it will bring, she doesn’t want to be separated from this lovely child who has brought back some joy into their lives.

  It is almost springtime, a year since Helena came to them, and Gisela decides she would like to buy her a present. This means going into town, something she has avoided for many weeks now. When people called to see them in the aftermath of Wilhelm’s “death” she was so quiet and sad-looking that they gave up trying to talk to her, and soon they were left in peace. Friedrich arranged to have their food supplies delivered. It’s been hard, for they’ve had to feed four people on food meant for just two adults and a child, but Gisela is good at making meals go further by adding potatoes and vegetables from the farm to eke out the little meat they have.

  There’s a difference in the town. It’s not just that the buildings are shabbier; the people look more tired, less confident. The news from the war is not good. The Allies seem to be gaining strength, and the Eastern Front in particular is no place to be. Every day there is a huge list of casualties. Gisela doesn’t read the newspapers, though; she leaves that to Friedrich, barely listens as he tells her what is happening. She feels detached from this war; detached from the country she loved so much. It seems to her that everyone has turned mad.

  The shops have little in them, and she wonders whether she will manage to buy the child anything at all. The haberdashers where she used to love to shop, is closed. She stands with her nose against the window, trying to see what has happened to it. Is it shut for good, she wonders, or just for the day? The little that is in the window looks tired and out of date, and she thinks it may have closed down. As she stands there, wondering where else she can try, she feels that someone is staring at her. It is not pleasant, and even as she turns round, she knows who she will see standing there.

  But it takes her a second to fully recognize Marguerite. The plumpness has left her cheeks: they are now sunken and pale. Her mousy hair has turned grey, but it is her eyes that strike Gisela with force. They burn with hate.

  “You,” breathes Marguerite. “You dare to show yourself here in this town.” Her breath is foul, smells of death, and Gisela recoils. She manages to control herself, however, and stands her ground.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I don’t know how you did it. I don’t know how you managed to keep him hidden from the SS, but I wish they’d found him.”

  “I assume you’re talking about my son, the same son who was blown to bits, who died for his—”

  “Spare me the histrionics, meine Frau,” Marguerite spat the last two words at her. “I know you were hiding him, I know because I heard you and your husband plotting. I heard it all. Your faces when you saw me! How I laughed as I walked home that night!”

  Gisela turns to walk away, there’s no point to this encounter. Marguerite follows her, shrieking at the top of her voice. Thankfully most of it is incoherent. She hurries across the road, praying that Marguerite won’t follow her. It’s maybe too soon to hope, but the noise seems to be lessening. She takes a risk and glances back. The parish priest is holding Marguerite, seems to be gently chiding her. She’s so busy watching she doesn’t look where she’s going and bumps into someone coming the other way.

  “Excuse me,” she says, without looking up. It is rare that Gisela ever looks at anyone outside her family in the eye these days.

  “Gisela.” The voice is that of Herr Knoller, Wilhelm’s old teacher. “How are you?”

  She licks her lips, wishing her mouth didn’t dry up with fear every time someone speaks to her. “I’m all right,” she says, thinking as the words come out that she sounds like a sullen school girl.

  “Are you really?” His voice is so kind that she wishes she could go to sleep to its tones. He sounds as though he really cares. She daren’t look up at him in case he sees the tears in her eyes.

  She says, “Yes, I’m fine. Really.”

  “Your friend isn’t so good, though.” He nods at the scene across the road. Marguerite is still shouting, though in a feeble, hopeless way. She punches the air around her, like a madwoman.

  Gisela nods. “Yes.”

  He puts a finger under her chin and raises it so that she has to look him in the eye. “She’s a dangerous woman, that one. Like a bear whose cub is threatened.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s been doing everything to try to stop her son being sent to the Eastern Front. Informing on her neighbours, telling lies. She told the mayor of the town that her next-door neighbour hadn’t put up a flag for the Führer’s birthday. Turned out she’d taken it down, hidden it in a cupboard in her house. They found it when they searched the house the other day.”

  Gisela is struck by this. So it’s not only her family that Marguerite is targeting. “Why did they search her house?”

  “She went too far in claiming that Wilhelm is a deserter. Your letter set the authorities thinking. They started to think that she was up to something, had something to hide.”

  “You know about that?”

  “Yes, the whole town is talking about it.”

  Gisela blushes to think that the whole town knows her business. He hurries to reassure her.

  “Please, don’t worry about it. It isn’t gossip. It’s… Well, everyone knows that you lost one child already, and there’s a lot of sympathy for you. When people heard your farm was searched, not just once but twice, well…”

  “Well what?” asks Gisela. She can’t imagine that anyone would have objected, not officially at any rate. These days it’s best to keep your head down. He seems to know what she’s thinking for he gives a sad smile as he answers her.

  “Nothing, really. Everyone’s too… Well, you know how it is. But there was a great deal of sympathy for you, please believe me.”

  Gisela says nothing. There’s nothing to say. After all, if it had been another family who’d suffered like theirs, would she have spoken out? She knows the answer only too well, thinks of the Jewish families in the town, driven out years ago, disappearing to God knows where. Did she speak out then? Did anyone?

  “Gisela, I know what you’re going through, and I can only repeat, if I can ever be of any help, you only have to ask.”

  Yet again she has the impression that he knows about Wilhelm. She nods and thanks him before adding, “Why is Marguerite doing this?”

  “She wanted to keep her son safe. She thought that if she gave the SS good information, that they would release her son from the army or at least ensure he had a desk job away from danger. Instead she’s ensured that he’ll be sent to the Eastern Front. He
goes next week.”

  Despite everything, despite all the terror that Marguerite has caused her family, Gisela feels a sharp pang of pity for the woman. The Eastern Front. It’s everyone’s worst fear these days. The casualties are high; the conditions terrible. Gisela can’t condone what Marguerite did, but she can begin to understand it. “I see,” she says.

  “You’re a remarkable woman, Gisela.” Herr Knoller smiles at her, before raising his hat and taking his leave of her. She watches as he walks down the street, hoping she’ll never have to ask for his help. He seems genuine, but who can be trusted these days? She shrugs and continues to walk down the street in search of that elusive present for Helena.

  They decide that this day will be a special one for Helena. Gisela has made a cake. She couldn’t find anything that would pass as a present, but Wilhelm has whittled a piece of wood into a puppet for her. Gisela made dresses for it out of scraps of material, including Helena’s old nightdress which is now too small for her. Friedrich performs a little play for the child. Helena watches entranced as the puppet dances around her. “More, more,” she cries as the puppet twists and turns in a frenzy. Gisela and Friedrich join in with her laughter, and for a brief moment their cares are forgotten. Gisela wishes Wilhelm could join them, but takes comfort in the fact that he can hear the child’s laughter and hopes that it will bring a smile to his face.

  Wilhelm smiles little these days. He is only too aware of the danger he has put his parents in. For a week or two after the letter came from his Kommandant, he let himself believe they were safe. But as the time goes on he is falling further into despair. He reads the paper every day, but it is nothing but propaganda, and he wonders if he will ever be free of what he has done. The war has gone on for ever, since before he was an adult, and it feels like this is all he has ever known. Sometimes he thinks he should try to escape to the other side and throw himself on their mercy. It surely can’t be worse than what would happen if he were discovered here.

  Today it is worse than ever. He hears the laughter from down below and feels abandoned. The laughter is an offence to him. He doesn’t begrudge them their happiness, how could he when he has been the cause of so much worry to them, but laughter seems inappropriate when death is lingering so long in the land. He puts his hands over his ears to try to block out the sound, but it is there in his head, mocking him.

  ‌22

  Two days after the attack on the soldiers, Jan and Zygmund are sent to a village to pick up supplies. They’ve never been sent so far away before, it will take them most of the day; Marek tells them it is twenty kilometres, maybe more. He walks with them to the edge of the forest and gives them directions. Jan wonders if they will ever find their way back as the directions are complex. But Marek makes them repeat them many times before allowing them to go. At last he is satisfied that they know what to do.

  “Take care,” he warns. “Stay by the edge of the road, so you can hide if you hear anyone coming. There aren’t any troops stationed anywhere on the road, so you should be all right, but be on the lookout anyway. When you get to the village, go to the baker’s. He’ll tell you what to do after that.”

  The two boys set off down the road. The sun is shining, and for a time it feels almost as if things are normal. They walk briskly, chatting as they go along about school and how they miss it. Jan thinks he must have changed a lot. Two years ago, he hated school, despised his teacher and lived only for the afternoon when they were free to leave the classroom and roam the village. Now he would give anything to sit at a desk knowing that he could go home to his parents and their nagging about learning to read and write so he can better himself.

  “Were you clever at school?” he asks Zygmund.

  “So so. Not the top of the class, but nearly there. I wanted to be a doctor.”

  “And now?”

  “Now, I want only for this war to end. After that I’ll think about what to do. If I’m young enough I’ll go back to school, and we’ll see what happens then.”

  Jan falls silent. He can’t imagine the war ever being over. Yet surely one day it must be. At night the talk is of Allied victories, and Marek has said that it won’t be long now before the Russians get here. Marek is always upbeat, trying to motivate the men, but Jan isn’t sure if he believes everything he says; sometimes there’s an air of desperation surrounding him, the look of a man being hunted.

  They continue to walk along the road, kicking up dust as they go. It’s good to be out in the sun for once. It heats them through. Even in summer the forest can sometimes be chilly. And dark. Out here in the open, Jan remembers how light it can be. Although he is now used to the forest and its gloominess, he misses sunlight, the open expanse of sky. It’s a joke among the men that he follows the patches of sun around their part of the forest as much as he can. But one of the problems with so much sunlight is that they get thirsty. Marek has given them each a bottle of water, but it soon becomes apparent that it will not last for the twenty kilometres they have to walk.

  Zygmund takes a tiny sip of his water and sighs. “I want to gulp all of this down. All of it. In one go.”

  Jan looks at his bottle. Less than half a litre left, and they’ve only been walking for an hour. Even at their quickest pace, that’s only about six kilometres. And they haven’t been walking particularly fast. “We’ll have to find a stream. There must be one somewhere.”

  Zygmund shakes his head. “No, I don’t think we should wander from the road. It’s complicated enough as it is. We’ll just have to ration ourselves.”

  “I wish we’d thought of it sooner,” says Jan, holding up his bottle to the light. No matter how much he stares it doesn’t get any fuller.

  They continue to walk along the road, listening for any sound of traffic. There’s nothing, only the sound of a blackbird singing as it builds its nest. The cheerful song makes Jan feel better, but then, underneath the song, drowning it out, there is something else, a rumble. “What is it?” asks Jan.

  “I don’t know,” says Zygmund. “But we’d better get off the road.” He drags Jan to the side of the road where they drop down into the ditch. For several seconds they crouch there listening as the rumble gets louder. It’s much louder than a truck, then a screech of a horn alerts them to what it is. “A train,” they say simultaneously.

  “Might as well get back on the road. There’s nothing anyone can do if they see us from a train.”

  Jan frowns. “They might report us.”

  “On what grounds? Two boys out walking on a summer’s day; what’s suspicious about that? No, the only problem is if someone stops us and starts questioning us about where we’re from, where we’re going, that sort of thing. Your accent would be a giveaway.”

  “Yes, of course, you’re right. Let’s get on with it.” Jan springs out of the ditch and back onto the track.

  A few minutes later they realize why the train sounded so loud. The railway line is very near the road. Jan frowns as he looks at it. “Marek didn’t mention a railway line.”

  “No,” agrees Zygmund. “I wonder why not.”

  “Do you think we’ve lost our way?”

  “I don’t think so,” says Zygmund. He thinks for a second. “No, we couldn’t have. We had to turn left at the first fork in the road, then right at the next one, and that’s what we did. No, it’ll just be that he forgot or didn’t think to mention it.”

  “Mmm. Yes, you’re right. And most probably it will lead to the village, so we can follow it.”

  Zygmund shakes his head. “I don’t think so. We should follow Marek’s instructions exactly. Otherwise we could get completely lost.”

  It’s nearly midday now, and the boys are hungry. All they have with them apart from the water is some bread. Jan wants to stop and eat it, but Zygmund insists they carry on. “We should try to get at least halfway, maybe more, before we eat anything. We won’t get anything else to eat until we reach the village.”

  Jan scowls, he knows his friend is right,
but, nonetheless, he’s starving. He kicks the dust on the road, raising it into a cloud, which catches in his throat and sets off a coughing fit. Damn, now he’ll have to use some of his precious water. He gets out the water and takes a sip. He swirls it round his mouth, feeling the dryness disappear, even if only for a moment. Reluctantly he screws the lid back on. Zygmund is watching him. “I know it’s hard, Jan,” he says. “But we have to be sensible.”

  Jan nods, he doesn’t want to waste energy speaking.

  They carry on in silence. Jan stares at the ground as they walk. His feet are sore, his head aches from the sun. The forest’s coolness would be most welcome now. He thinks of the tall pine trees with longing. How they stretch up into the sky, the sharp scent of the needles rising from the ground. You never feel thirsty in the forest. Out here in the open it’s so dry and dusty, and a wind has sprung up making the dust swirl round. Jan has rarely felt so hot and miserable. He’s so sorry for himself he doesn’t notice that Zygmund has slowed down, is pulling at his shirt to slow him down too.

  “What is it?” he snaps, when he finally realizes.

  “Up there, there’s a train, stopped.”

  “So what?”

  “We need to be careful, going past.”

  “I don’t see why. Nobody’s going to get out and come after us.” Jan quickens his step. He really is in a bad mood. Zygmund has to run to catch up with him.

  “Look, Marek put me in charge. You’ll do as I say.”

  “Will I? You wouldn’t even help him when he asked you. I don’t know why he put you in charge.”

  Zygmund holds out a hand to Jan. “I don’t want to fight with you, Jan. I’m bigger than you, it’s hot, we’re hungry and tired. There’s a thousand reasons we shouldn’t fight, not least because we’re on the same side.”

  Jan turns away. He knows Zygmund is right, but he doesn’t want to admit it. He waits to see what Zygmund will do now.