When almost everyone had eaten their dessert but Hannah, who had not touched it, the boys pushed their bowls away, made a show of clutching their stomachs. Then a tall boy, Albert, with high cheekbones but soft, dreamy eyes, stood up, striking his knife on his tin mug. Emil saw that he looked at Hannah. Perhaps they meant to thank their hosts, on their last night. He hoped they would make it brief. It was possible the police would come. They had made agreeable noises when he told them about the maps, but he caught their smirks. He was not expecting much.
Albert continued to regard Hannah, and she summoned up a smile. From the demeanour of the other boys, smiling, waiting, it was clear he was about to sing. Emil had noticed this one enjoyed his own voice. He sang loudly on their hikes, often as they came into the courtyard, so he had an audience beyond his friends. The others stood, ready to join him, and Hannah held the boy’s gaze as they began. Their voices together made the hair on the back of his neck rise. The room was filled, every corner, with this unearthly clarity and volume. Then the words became clear, the song known to him. ‘Yes, when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives, things will go twice as well.’ Emil saw the gooseflesh on Hannah’s arms. She seemed frozen, as he was, for a moment. Then he was standing, his scraping chair cutting across their voices. He addressed himself to the boy, Albert, in English. ‘You will not sing those songs here. Clear the table, please.’
The voices petered out until there was only the sound of the water beneath the floor. The boy was standing stiff and straight. It took a moment for his mouth to close. He had turned to Emil but could not hold his gaze for more than a moment. His chin trembled minutely. The others began to pass their bowls to him in silence.
‘No,’ said Emil. ‘He will get them himself.’ Albert walked along the table, stacking them. Hans stood to help him. ‘Sit.’ Emil pointed at his chair and Hans sat down, staring at him. It took several minutes for Albert to clear the long tables. The boys shifted in their seats and kicked their chair legs. The hall was filled with china clinking, Albert’s footsteps creaking, no voices. Ava was staring openly at Hannah, her expression unreadable. Hannah herself kept her eyes fixed on the boy as he walked the length of the room to the kitchen and back, over and over again.
Eventually, Hans, unable to sit still any longer, ran upstairs. The other boys took this as a sign to leave the table, and traipsed silently up after him, delivering little pinches and shoves on the narrow stairwell. Ava followed them with a nod goodnight. Hannah did not wait for Emil to speak, but went out into the evening, closing the door very carefully behind her, as though she would not give them the satisfaction of slamming it.
With this many sleeping in the house, could he really be the only one awake? Hannah had come into their room late, where he sat trying to read, and changed into her nightgown without speaking or looking at him. He put down his book but she turned out the lamp and in the light from the moon he saw her turn away. He listened to her breathing. She fell asleep quickly. He had never known her angered into silence and he sat for a while at the edge of the bed, the bright moon at the window, watching her shape under the sheet. This light was like the light at sea some nights. It felt, sitting here, accompanying her sleeping shape, that all his anchors to the world were drifting quietly over sand. He lay down on top of the counterpane, clothed, waiting for the sounds in the house to settle.
His socks brushed the boards as he crossed the floor, took the three steps to the stairs. One of the boys snored, a bed creaked. As he descended, their sounds were replaced by running water. You could never quite believe as you stepped onto the floor of the common room that it would be dry. He made his way between the tables. No one would hear the creak of his steps above the water, but neither would he hear anyone approach.
In the kitchen, in the dark cupboard, ziggurats of coins were piled behind an empty box of soap flakes. They were not sorted into pounds, shillings and pence, but according to which account Hannah meant them for. This was the only money in the house, except for a little he was allowed for cigarettes and beer that he had already put in his satchel. There would be none to spare until Hannah was paid for her last translation job, and the unions were slow these days. He took a few coins from each heap, thinking, Hannah, I am sorry. He unhooked his satchel from the kitchen door and went down towards the millrace.
Under the house, moving slowly so that the money in his pockets did not chink, he felt very cold. The water hit the mossy walls and sprayed his legs on the stairs. He opened the laundry door and reached towards the bench to his right for the torch, assaulted by the smell of a room that was never completely dry. He shone his light over the lines of white shirts and grey shorts to a row across the corner of the same clothes, slightly miniaturised. He had put them through the mangle this morning but when he took the fabric between his fingers now it was damp. They always needed an hour in the courtyard in the sun but there was no way to manage it that he could see. He folded the clothes carefully, placed them in the satchel, left the flap open to keep them from mildewing, and put the satchel where it would not be seen immediately, on the hook on the back of the door.
Back in bed she shifted, her leg grazing his. ‘You are wet and cold,’ she murmured.
He said nothing. Perhaps she was not truly awake.
‘Those boys,’ she said. ‘Do you know what makes me so cross? Their dreadful manners. I have made their sandwiches and washed their sheets.’
‘I think it was not meant at you. They believe everyone loves to hear such songs. Their parents would applaud them.’
‘I have never felt like this in Germany. I know what to expect. And my friends are wonderful. So brave. Now I’m surrounded.’
‘Not Hans. Not me.’
‘Oh no.’ She found his hand, lying on the covers. ‘Of course not. That is not what I meant at all.’
‘I could kill them all in their beds.’
Her hand was still. ‘I cannot see your face. You are not serious.’
‘No, Hannah.’
‘Your humour is certainly dry.’
He squeezed her hand. ‘They will all die soon enough.’
‘Oh, you must stop. It is not even remotely funny.’
‘I know.’ He closed his eyes. He imagined them returning to their homes, their mothers taking them in their arms at the doors of their houses and apartments. Their fathers would come in from work and shake their hands. Not all fathers needed to embrace you, force the air out of your chest. They would return to gentle families. Some favoured soul would catch Hitler right in the eye with a lovely silver bullet. He would like to see that bullet, flat at one end, through the glass of a museum case one day. Then they’d hang the others in a row outside the Reichstag, and the boys sleeping next door would be free to go quietly through life, with women, with their own boys, working, drinking, walking in the fields. Long, insignificant lives in which they harmed no one.
When he woke she was already at her desk in the corner where the roof sloped low. He opened his eyes, knowing instantly what he had to do today.
‘Tell me,’ she said, letting her thick dictionary fall on the desk in exasperation. ‘What is the word for the person who makes the moulds into which the hot metal is poured? I don’t even know the English. I am getting nowhere with this.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘I have the union conference in three weeks. Metalworkers and miners. Miners I can manage, but the vocabulary is impossible when you barely know the English in the first place. You must go through all this with me when you have the time. If I know what people do I know what the unions are likely to discuss.’
‘Former.’
‘Former?’
‘The word for moulder. The one who makes the mould.’ Father was a moulder, that was his trade.
‘Oh, goodness. So simple. Thank you.’
She had not looked up once. Her concentration made her beautiful, the more so because he doubted another would see it, that a seriousness of purpose could make a perso
n lovely. He heard the boys calling to each other in the common room below, clattering the plates, shovelling coal into the stove in the kitchen. ‘The boys were marking maps. I saw them yesterday.’
She did not answer.
‘They were marking the places where you put the bombs. The best places, the most effective.’
She dropped her pencil on the page in front of her. Now she turned in her chair. ‘No!’
‘Yes, I followed them. I saw it.’
‘You must go to the police,’ she whispered.
‘I did. But they are—unschuldig. What is it?’
‘Innocent. Or stupid, rather. Well, we must get the maps off them before they leave.’
‘You think so? How?’
‘Take them out of their bags. They’re going today. We must get on with it.’ He regarded her for a moment. ‘Well of course we must,’ she insisted. ‘Or else the blood of the people killed by those bombs shall be on our hands. It might even be us. They’ve been busy packing, ready to go after breakfast. I’ll go down and get them all eating. You do it then.’
‘Yes, all right.’ He felt light for a moment. He pulled on his clothes as she scribbled something down, stood, smoothed her shorts and made for the door. He took her hand and kissed her on top of the head. ‘You must be normal.’
She laughed. ‘I shall try my best. And you must be quick. Imagine if they caught us!’
‘You are talking about embarrassment? It does not matter.’
‘No, I suppose not. Mustn’t be so British about it.’ And she was off down the stairs, and greeting Ava and the boys as though no one had called her a traveller or sung those songs in her house.
Food would keep them busy for perhaps fifteen minutes. The door to the dormitory was ajar. He stood on the landing, peering in. The rucksacks were lined up against the wall, their satchels leaning on the bigger bags. Each boy had folded his sheets and blankets and placed them at the foot of the bed. The window was open to air the room. There were twelve sets of bags; he could allow himself no more than a minute for each. Perhaps all the maps were in one bag. He went in, along through the bunks, read the name tags sewn into the lip of the packs, found Albert’s, unbuckled the straps, reached down into the bag. He felt clothes, soft, probably unwashed. It did not smell good in there. A glass bottle. Alcohol perhaps. They had masked it well. A soap box, toothbrush, paste. Nothing that felt like a map. He heard one of the boys downstairs, laughing. It might be Albert. It was one of those who liked to draw attention to himself, who laughed too loudly. He refastened the rucksack, felt about in the satchel, did the same for the others. Penknives, compasses. His fingers searched for paper. He went through them all. It was hot up here, under the eaves. He lined the rucksacks neatly against the wall and began to straighten the satchels. He heard footsteps on the stairs, ran his hand over the remaining satchels and rucksacks quickly to set them straight, and slipped into his own room. The door opened as he stood beside the bed, a light sweat over him. It was Hannah.
‘Anything?’
‘No.’
‘Nothing?’ she said quietly. ‘You couldn’t be mistaken about what you saw?’
‘No. They must keep the maps in their clothes.’
‘Well, we cannot search them. It’s not even as though we are enemies. Do you think they might have posted them home already?’
‘There has been no time since I saw them. I have done my best. The English don’t deserve to be warned, I think.’
‘Don’t say that. If they knew what was happening . . .’
‘They choose not to know. It might put them off their pudding. Go down. I will think for a moment. Perhaps there is something.’
Hans giggled at the end of the row of boys lined up along the towpath. Emil swung his cane under his arm as he walked one way along the line, and then the other. ‘Attention!’ The boys smirked and trembled. He saw Hannah watching at the bedroom window, below her a group of children on the bridge pointing down at the spectacle on the towpath. ‘Important English tradition!’ he shouted as he paraded before the boys, hiking stick tucked under his arm. Every now and then he tapped a boy’s leg or arm with it to make him stand straighter. Hans at the far end of the row, smaller than the others, blonder, laughed until he was bent over. ‘All men to leave English shores must begin the journey by water!’
He had reached Hans. He handed him his stick, looked into his eyes until the boy stopped giggling, and stepped backwards into the river, fully clothed. He felt his clothes cling in the cold water, opened his eyes and a curled-up body shot down past him in a stream of bubbles, then more of them, the water a blur of bubbles and boys’ peaceful faces, eyes closed, drifting back to the top. He surfaced to their shrieks and saw Hans, alone on the bank, waiting with the cane. He called up to him. ‘Come, Hans. The water is lovely.’ The boy laid the cane carefully on the grass and jumped into the air, knees gathered up in his arms, his face open to the sky, enraptured. As Hans came splashing down almost on top of him, Emil moved to one side, the boy missing his head by a centimetre or two.
He trod water, Hans paddling furiously in front of him, watched the others shout and dunk each other, dark, sleek heads like otters, racing to the other bank while he bobbed in a private orbit around the head of his son, paler, catching the light. Hans filled his cheeks with river water and floated on his back, spouted like a whale. The Germans’ shirts ballooned behind them. There would be no time now to put their clothes through the mangle before they caught their train. He thought of the damp, mildewy parcels they would hand their mothers at the other end of their journey. The ruined papers in the pockets. How they would disintegrate along the folds, come apart in the women’s hands.
The boy was quiet, in a mood Emil did not recognise. Perhaps he was overwhelmed by the crowd at Waterloo, on the tube. He was not used to large cities, though they had changed trains in London before, when he first arrived in England. Emil took hold of his hand as they hurried down the long escalator, the wind rushing up from the tunnel as a train approached. The boy withdrew it. ‘I’m not six anymore, Papa.’ Emil looked at him, but his face was set on his destination below.
Walking through the quiet streets of Hampstead, Hans said at last: ‘Mama did not mention this.’
‘I asked her not to ruin the surprise.’ He felt for the key in his pocket. He knew that Hannah’s mother was away in Wales, but hoped that Benjamin or Geoffrey were home. He would rather surprise them on their doorstep than have them come home late and find a boy asleep in one of their beds.
He thought he would take him through the heath and go in the back door. It was like something from a story, that house, in its row of different-sized English terraced houses all looking over the pond.
‘Where are we going?’ the boy asked as they set off into the long grass that led around the water. It was midsummer and there were children rowing, splashing their oars.
‘Shhh. Surprise.’
‘Can we go out in one of those boats tomorrow?’
‘We can go tonight, when everyone’s asleep.’
‘Really?’
‘Why not?’
They pushed through the overgrown path. As Emil stepped over the low wall into the garden, Hans took his hand and pulled him back. ‘Papa!’
He turned and smiled. ‘What?’
‘You cannot go into the rich people’s garden.’
‘Ah . . . but we know these people, and they’re not really rich.’
At the French windows, Emil cupped a hand over his eyes and peered into the dining room. Geoffrey was there at the table, his long back hunched over some papers. Emil fished in his pocket for a coin and rapped on the glass.
Geoffrey peered at him, saw the boy, came towards them and opened the door. ‘Bloody hell, Emil. Last person I expected to see.’
Hans loitered at Emil’s back. ‘Come on, Hans. Have a guess who this is.’ Hans stared solemnly. ‘Can’t you guess?’
Geoffrey thrust down a hand. ‘Pleased to meet you. Geoffr
ey Jacob, at your service.’
Hans looked up at his father. ‘Jacob?’
‘Yes, it is Hannah’s little brother, believe it or not. Can we come in?’
Geoffrey took a lunge backwards. ‘Of course, of course. Is my sister not with you?’ Emil gave a slight shake of his head, caught his eye. ‘Do you want to have a look around the house?’ Geoffrey asked Hans. ‘There were fairies in the attic last time I looked.’
Emil translated for him.
‘Only little girls believe in fairies,’ he told his father.
Geoffrey laughed, answered in German. ‘You are too quick for me. See if you can find my brother’s flying trophies. We’ll hide them. It makes him crazy.’
‘Your brother is a pilot?’
‘He’ll be back soon. He’ll tell you all about it, for hours and hours.’
‘Better find them before he gets here,’ Emil said. ‘Go on, see where they are. He hides them in a new place every time.’
He went along the corridor to the stairs. They heard his shoes going up slowly. ‘What’s going on?’ Geoffrey said, in English now, because Emil had always insisted. ‘Where’s Hannah?’
‘She doesn’t know we’re here.’
‘Jesus H. Why not?’
‘We left without telling anyone. His mother’s taking him back to Germany next week. Nothing I say can change her mind. I just need time to think. Somewhere safe.’
‘Mother’s back Monday. And Benjamin’s around this weekend. He could go either way.’
‘If you could just keep it all quiet, until we’ve gone, help Hans not to worry.’
‘You’re going to have to tell him what you’re doing at some point.’ Emil watched his face for a sign of what he would do. The landing creaked above them. Geoffrey put his fingers through his hair. ‘I do have friends though. People who might sympathise with your situation. Let me think about it. We can talk about it in the morning.’
Hannah & Emil Page 23