The Star and the Shamrock

by Jean Grainger

‘And then what?’ Erich asked. ‘If they say Daniel did something bad, will he have to stay in prison until the war’s over?’

  Elizabeth looked into his innocent eyes. For the thousandth time, she deliberated about what to tell him. Inwardly she raged; a little boy shouldn’t have to face these grim realities all the time. His life should be carefree, and instead, it was a series of traumas. She couldn’t bear to tell him that the crime Daniel was accused of carried the death penalty. Anyway, he was innocent until proven guilty, so she decided to postpone telling him yet another dark truth.

  ‘We’ll just have to wait and see.’ She pulled them both into a hug.

  ‘Go to see him, Elizabeth. He must be so lonely in that horrible place all on his own,’ Liesl said.

  ‘So will you go?’ Erich asked.

  ‘I don’t know…’ She was not going to be drawn and have to back out of it later. ‘Maybe. I’ll have to think about it.’

  That night she tossed and turned, but by morning, she knew what she had to do.

  As Daniel predicted, the governor replied favourably to her letter requesting a visit. Sitting on the bus to Belfast, she tried to quell the feelings of terror, dread and excitement that threatened to bubble up inside her.

  She longed to see him. She had finally admitted to herself that her feelings for him were more than friendship, but if the trial went against him, it would all be irrelevant anyway.

  She tried to imagine what it was he needed to tell her in person. That he was guilty? That he wasn’t? That he had feelings for her? That he didn’t? Elizabeth tried to be rational. She was a middle-aged schoolteacher with two vulnerable children to care for. Apart from that night when they almost kissed, nothing indicated their relationship was anything other than friendship. Looking back, perhaps she’d imagined the ‘almost kiss’. Daniel was a very attractive man, and she saw how women looked at him. He could have had anyone. Even the much younger, much prettier girls seemed to simper and blush around him in a way they didn’t with the other men, so she was probably being a foolish old widow. She hoped she didn’t meet anyone she knew today.

  She had eventually decided to tell Mr Morris her plan. He would no doubt hear it anyway, as nobody could do anything in Ballycreggan without it being common knowledge within minutes, it seemed. Sometimes, she longed for the anonymity of Liverpool, where everyone minded their own business.

  She was nervous telling him, as he’d made his feelings about Daniel very clear. But in her heart, she knew he was a decent man, so she hoped as she knocked on his door that she could convince him she wasn’t behaving like some silly lovesick girl.

  ‘Ah, Elizabeth.’ He smiled and looked up from his desk. Several children were out in the schoolyard playing despite it being summer holidays. A big rounders match was planned for the afternoon, so Talia had driven the children from the farm into the village. He stood up and looked out his window.

  ‘I see the refugee children are settling in so much better now. There are lots of little friendships springing up between them and the locals, so that’s a good sign.’

  ‘Yes, they get along well, and it’s good for the Irish children to see not all Germans are monsters.’

  ‘Indeed.’ He thrust his hands in his pockets. ‘Please have a seat. Did you just pop in for a chat, or did you want to speak to me about something?’

  Elizabeth’s mouth went dry. The Morrises had been so good to her and to Erich and Liesl, and she hated feeling like she was going to disappoint him, but she needed to see Daniel.

  ‘Well, I got a letter from Daniel Lieber,’ she said quietly.

  Mr Morris sat back in his chair, his hands in his lap, and said nothing, his face inscrutable.

  ‘And he said he needed to tell me something, and asked that I visit him. The rabbi on the farm goes to the prison every week, but apart from that, I don’t think he has any visitors, and so I would like to go. The children became very fond of him, and so did I, and I…’ – she felt herself colour with shame – ‘I just want to give him a chance to tell me what really happened.’

  Mr Morris fixed her with a stare, his normally jovial expression gone. ‘Elizabeth, do you not think that if Lieber were innocent, the police would have released him by now?’

  ‘Well…I don’t know. I just… I…’ She faltered.

  ‘Look.’ He leaned forward and was kinder now. ‘I understand. He came across as a very nice chap, and all the children loved him – I saw it myself up at the farm when I visited. He was invaluable up there, and he did a lot of great work here in the school as well. It’s hard to imagine him as a German agent, but there is no earthly reason he would have been drawing such detailed maps of an RAF base, complete with coordinates and all the rest, if he didn’t have orders from the Germans. An RAF base, I might add, that was bombed recently with targeted precision. Why else would anyone do that?’ He paused and waited for her to answer.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she admitted.

  ‘And so, Elizabeth, must we not assume that the most logical explanation is the correct one?’

  She didn’t have any words of defence. Mr Morris was right, but she still felt she wanted to see him. ‘I’m not proposing to interfere with due process. What will be, will be, and if Daniel is found guilty, then his fate is sealed. But I would like to speak to him nonetheless.’ She tried to sound forceful rather than pathetic.

  ‘Why?’ She could tell he was trying to understand but couldn’t.

  ‘I’m not sure. I just want to see him, hear his side of things for myself. That’s all really.’

  Mr Morris sighed. ‘As I said before, your private business and your personal life are just that, but unfortunately, the situation here is precarious. This village has accepted what many would see as undesirables because of their German or Austrian backgrounds – and though we don’t say this out loud, let’s face it, because they are Jews – into this community. The situation is far from simple, as you know. Catholics and Protestants here have their own issues going back centuries, and they are both united in their…if not mistrust of the Jews, certainly ambivalence towards them. Mistrust of Jews is one of the few things they can both agree on, if truth be told. However misguided that may seem, Elizabeth, it is the reality. And yet here we are.

  ‘So when one of those that we welcomed is seen to be operating on behalf of the enemy, the enemy that is killing men from this country, this village even, well, I don’t need to tell you, it could be a tinderbox.’ He sighed. She could see he wanted to understand, and she knew he liked and admired her, but his priority was always going to be the community in Ballycreggan.

  ‘You’re a teacher,’ he went on. ‘The children of Ballycreggan are in your care. I know you are primarily with the refugees, but still… I think if it got out that you were visiting Lieber, it would reflect very badly, not just on you personally but on the school as well. Very badly indeed.’

  ‘And if it didn’t get out? If I was very discreet and it was only one visit? I do not intend to make a habit of this.’ She could see what Mr Morris was saying and why he was saying it, and he was right. But what about Daniel’s right to say his piece, or at least see one friendly face before he faced his fate?

  ‘You don’t think he is guilty, do you?’ Mr Morris asked directly.

  ‘No.’ Elizabeth sighed. ‘I suppose I don’t.’

  The silence was heavy between them. The voices of children playing and having fun outside belied the tension in the principal’s office.

  ‘Well, obviously, I can’t stop you,’ he said eventually. ‘But I would rather you didn’t go. So if you insist on visiting Lieber, I would ask that you be as discreet as is humanly possible.’

  ‘I promise you I will.’ She got up, and as she placed her hand on the doorknob, he spoke again.

  ‘Thank you for coming to me, even if I couldn’t convince you. You’re a kind woman, Mrs Klein, even if in this instance, I believe that kindness is somewhat misplaced.’

  She nodded and gave him a small s
mile.

  True to her word, she didn’t get the bus from Ballycreggan, choosing instead to go to Donaghadee and catch a bus to the city from there. Bud was off-duty so offered to take care of the children. He said he thought Talia would stop by once her chores were finished. Elizabeth told them she had a hospital appointment. She assured Liesl and Erich there was nothing wrong, but that she needed a check-up. Luckily, she’d wrenched her back a fortnight ago carrying a heavy box of school supplies, so she told them she was going to have it checked. Everyone had seen her hobbling about with a stick, so a doctor’s appointment was perfectly plausible. She had not given them a decisive answer as to whether she was going to visit Daniel; she knew Liesl in particular was watching her every move.

  She arrived at Belfast Central Station and walked to Crumlin Road Gaol. Her path took her along the banks of the Lagan, and she remembered coming into the city as a child with her father and him buying her a toffee apple. Like all cities across the United Kingdom, the toll of war was everywhere. The strategic bombing of the city in April and May just gone was not as catastrophic as the London or the Liverpool blitz, but nonetheless, the city was a mess of boarded-up buildings, sandbags and warnings to keep your mouth shut.

  Servicemen and servicewomen made their way busily around, intermingling with the locals. The fact that 900 lives were lost and over 1,500 people injured in the bombing raids would not cause people to cower. Not for the first time, she marvelled at the resilience of her fellow countrymen and women. Mr Churchill had a lot to do with that, she knew. He was always making speeches, rallying everyone not to be downhearted or beaten. This was as much a war of ideas as anything. The deeply held belief of peace-loving nations in which people had a right to be whoever they wanted, practice whatever faith they wanted, was horribly juxtaposed by the horrors of what Hitler was trying to do. So often, out of earshot of the children, Daniel would tell her of the atrocities against the Jews he witnessed in Vienna before he got out – the public humiliation, the violence, the utter disregard for their civil rights – and she recalled how his dark eyes burned with intensity, with horror, at what he’d seen. She could never reconcile that Daniel Lieber with a Nazi spy.

  As Elizabeth hurried along the river’s edge, she saw for herself the gaping holes where buildings once stood, the general air of decrepitude that hung over the city like a damp grey blanket. Belfast was battered and bruised but soldiering on regardless.

  Lord Haw-Haw, through his chilling propaganda broadcasts from Hamburg, promised ‘Easter eggs for Belfast’, and true to his macabre word, the Luftwaffe came and bombarded the city. The broadcasts, delivered in his plummy accent sometimes several times a day, opened with the sinister line, ‘Germany calling, Germany calling’. The fact that he had predicted the attacks gave the awful man even more notoriety. The children in school talked about Lord Haw-Haw’s broadcasts. Their parents listened, though it was forbidden by the authorities, because he sometimes gave lists of British prisoners of war. Anyone who had someone missing in action tuned in faithfully. He was a fascist and an anti-Semite, and Elizabeth refused to allow him into her home. His accent was completely contrived, and in lots of ways, he was a ridiculous character, but his pseudo-aristocratic tones crackling down the airwaves gave people the creeps.

  She shook off thoughts of Germans; that was not the mindset she needed. She crossed Nelson Street, and as she did, she spotted someone very like Talia on the other side of the road. She did a double take. Bud had seemed sure Talia would drop by Elizabeth’s house that day, and Talia had never mentioned going to Belfast, though she had popped in to Elizabeth’s the previous day for a cup of tea. Shielding her eyes from the sun, Elizabeth saw the woman go into what looked like a small gallery. She had several rolls of paper under her arm. That made sense. It probably was Talia. Elizabeth knew she was selling some of her artwork in a gallery in the city – that must be the place. Elizabeth hurried on, glad she’d not run into her; she didn’t want anyone to know where she was going.

  As the large limestone building grew closer, she felt the warm sun on her face. She had dressed carefully in her mother’s best dove-grey coat and black and silver cloche, both two decades old. It was an outfit her mother had bought specially for a trip to Knock Shrine in Mayo after Elizabeth’s father died. It was one of the many anomalies of Margaret Bannon: Though she was so religious, she was quite frivolous too; she loved make-up and clothes. The outfit was a bit dated, Elizabeth was sure, but nobody had anything new any more, so fashion was taking on an eclectic flair. Figure-hugging dresses and skirts were all the rage, young girls claiming it was because of a shortage of material – and it was true clothing was hard to come by. But Elizabeth knew they loved showing off their svelte figures, made so by rationing, in the new clinging styles.

  She took off her coat, as it was too warm and she didn’t want to perspire. Under the coat, she wore a pink blouse with red roses carefully embroidered on the collar by Liesl as a gift, and a dark-red pencil skirt, which hit below the knee. She’d pinned her chestnut hair in its usual way, though she did soften the look by framing her face with gentle waves. She wore no make-up, despite finding a whole box of the stuff among her mother’s things. Margaret Bannon certainly didn’t mind putting something as sinful as lipstick on her sour face.

  What would it be like? She’d never set foot in a prison. Would he look different? A moment of panic threatened to make her turn on her heel as she got closer and closer. What on earth was she doing? She swallowed down the lump in her throat. It was just a conversation. Nothing more. She forced her breath into a steady pattern, raggedly inhaling, holding and slowly exhaling. Bit by bit, her heart rate returned to normal.

  As she approached the black railings that formed the perimeter of the prison, she took her letter of invitation from the governor out of her handbag with shaking hands and showed it to the guard on duty. Her stomach churned, and she was too hot.

  He examined it closely, taking the letter into the guard’s hut, and then looked at her. ‘Follow me,’ was all he said. They walked up to a heavy wooden door.

  The Crum, as HMP Belfast was known, was notorious. Women, and even children had been incarcerated there over the years, and up until the early 1900s, public hangings were the norm. She’d read somewhere months ago that now they had an internal death cell, where inmates sentenced to death were hanged, their bodies buried in unconsecrated ground inside the prison walls – only their initials scratched on the wall gave any indication who they were. The image in her head made her blood run cold. Was this going to be Daniel’s fate?

  She followed the guard through the main entranceway, where she was instructed to wait. He left. The building was a grey stone on the outside, and inside, it was painted uniformly a pale green. Doors, walls – everything got the same colour. It had been warm outside, but standing there, she shivered. The air was dank. The flagstones on the floor were eroded from generations of feet – those of the condemned, and those employed to guard them. Several officers milled about, but there were no signs of any prisoners. Eventually, another officer approached her.

  ‘This way, please, ma’am,’ he said, indicating a nondescript corridor off to the right. Green walls again, but there the floor was covered in beige lino that was lifting in the corners. This new officer showed her into a small, sparsely decorated room with just a battered table and two chairs. A high window let in a little light, though the bars on it obscured any view even if one were tall enough to see out.

  ‘Have a seat, please,’ the officer instructed, and he left, closing the door behind him.

  She tried not to shudder. The room was terrifying, not to mention the prison itself. She felt like she was struggling to breathe, and a sense of claustrophobia she had not experienced since childhood threatened to engulf her. She forced herself to inhale deeply again, her breath raspy and ragged on the exhale.

  She was startled as the door opened a few moments later. An officer entered, with Daniel behind. He looked much thin
ner than the last time she’d seen him, that night they drank whiskey in her sitting room beside each other on the couch. He wore a prison-issue grey shirt and trousers. The officer stood in the corner of the tiny room, his eyes on the opposite wall, as Daniel sat down. He was handcuffed, and the officer made no move to remove the shackles.

  He smiled slowly, and his eyes crinkled up as they used to. ‘You look lovely, Elizabeth. Thank you for coming.’

  ‘How are you?’ she asked, very conscious that the officer was listening to every word.

  He shrugged. ‘All right. I am kept alone so I do not speak to others. I think these are the first words I say since Rabbi Frank came last week. Forgive my English. I have been in German in my head.’

  ‘That must be so lonely, but at least you can send or receive letters.’

  He shrugged. ‘Not really. I asked to be allowed to write to you, and they gave me your letter, but that was the only one I ever got in here. Nobody would write to me anyway – why would they? They all think I’m a Nazi.’

  ‘But you wrote to Talia?’ she asked, on some level wanting to catch him in a lie.

  He shook his head. ‘No, I never wrote to anyone else, just you.’

  ‘She said you did.’ The words hung between them. ‘She said you apologised.’

  His brow furrowed and he sighed. ‘I didn’t. Even if I want to, I would not be allowed. The rabbi ask that I be allowed to reply to your letter. They were not really even willing for that. He must have convinced them, I don’t know how.’

  ‘But why would she lie?’ Elizabeth was confused.

  ‘I don’t know, Elizabeth. She…she told me once that she loved me. She wanted us to be more than friends. And I refused, as she is too young, and by then anyway… Well, I wasn’t interested. Maybe she wanted… I don’t know…’ He stopped.

  He was telling the truth, she was sure of it, but speculation would get them nowhere at this point.

  ‘What about your English friend?’ Elizabeth asked. ‘Could your legal people contact him to vouch for you?’