Empire Day

by Diane Armstrong

  Afterwards, she turned away from him, her face flaming with hatred, disgust and shame. Avoiding her eyes, he uncorked one of the bottles and handed it to her. She shook her head and refused to look at him. ‘I trusted you.’ She spat the words out. ‘You said you wanted to help me. You’re disgusting. I wish you’d left me where I was.’

  He didn’t look at her and, without saying a word, he buttoned his trousers and went upstairs. Alone in the cellar, she folded her arms around herself to stop the trembling and took a slug of the wisniowka straight from the bottle, and then another and another, until her eyes closed and she fell asleep.

  The sound of his heavy tread on the wooden ladder the next day made her start. Before he stepped off the last rung she was already standing in the far corner of the cellar, behind the barrels of pickled cabbage, holding a length of wood behind her back, ready to strike. But he didn’t come near her. He sat down heavily on the last rung without saying a word and held his head in his large hands.

  He was a farmer from the outskirts of Łód who had delivered butter, cream and cottage cheese to her parents’ home in his horse and cart before the war. The cook and the maid had made fun of him behind his back because he spoke ungrammatical Polish with the guttural accent of the ethnic Germans, but she’d heard them whispering and giggling that they wouldn’t mind having his shoes under their bed, even if they were big farm boots.

  She’d been twelve or thirteen at the time and hadn’t understood what they were talking about, but she’d found their bawdy laughter and suggestive glances titillating.

  When he made his delivery the following week, she looked at him more attentively and saw that he was good-looking in a different way from the city men who visited her parents. There was a physical strength in his large head, sinewy arms and broad shoulders, and he smelled of hay, earth and sweat in a way that was unfamiliar but not unpleasant.

  ‘Do you think Mr Hauptmann is handsome?’ she asked her mother, who was amused by her question. ‘I suppose he is, in a rustic way,’ she replied. For her mother, refinement in all things was the goal that civilised people should aspire to, but the lack of it made the farmer more interesting in Sala’s eyes. From the way the cook and the maid made eyes at him and bantered with him, she knew they were flirting.

  She remembered the time when, ignoring them, he turned towards her and chatted with her for a long time about her school and her friends, to the obvious irritation of the two women. The cook put her big red hands on her hips and said provocatively, ‘I can see we’re not good enough for you, you like little girls.’ She made out it was a joke but Sala could sense the resentment in her voice.

  The Germans invaded the following year, and they lost very little time in implementing their stated aim, to rid Poland of its Jews. Sala and her parents were horrified to find themselves interned in the overcrowded ghetto with tens of thousands of Jews from Łód, other Polish cities and Czechoslovakia as well. Even now, eight years later, Sala tried not to remember how degraded, hungry and frightened she had felt in the ghetto where people dropped dead in the street, and ragged, starving children sat on the footpaths, too weak to beg.

  Sala had lost hope when Ernst Hauptmann miraculously appeared. He told them that the ghetto would soon be liquidated, but promised to find some way of getting Sala out. She protested that she wouldn’t leave her parents, but they insisted. She had to survive. Several days later he turned up with his horse and cart, and after delivering cabbages and potatoes he rushed into their room, covered her with rough blankets which prickled and stank of horse sweat, and smuggled her out of the ghetto. Throughout the long and bumpy journey to his farm she wept because in the panic to get away she hadn’t kissed her parents goodbye.

  How he’d managed to get into the ghetto twice without being stopped by the guard at the gate, she never knew, but she suspected that he’d probably bribed the SS officers in charge. He took her to his village and, to allay the neighbours’ suspicions, told everyone that she was his wife’s niece who had come to give them a hand around the farm.

  Sala’s heart stopped beating whenever Gestapo officers or SS men came to visit the Hauptmanns, as they often did. They would sit around the rough-hewn oak table in the kitchen for hours, drinking wisniowka and bellowing rousing German songs. As soon as they left, Sala could hear Urszula Hauptmann urging her husband to get rid of her, but Ernst always argued that the SS officers would never suspect he was hiding a Jewish girl under their noses.

  Sala couldn’t understand why he was risking his life and that of his wife to save her but, not being an introspective or articulate man, he never talked about it. His wife plaited Sala’s hair and pinned it on top of her head like a coronet, the way country girls did, and no one questioned her presence until the day she was serving lunch to some SS officers. Her hands always shook on those occasions, but she knew she had to overcome her fear and look relaxed. She had just placed a platter of pork cutlets and pickled cabbage on the table when one of the Germans asked if she was the cook. Laughing, she’d replied that she wished she were as good a cook as Frau Hauptmann and hoped one day she would be. As she spoke, she was aware that he was looking at her in a strange way.

  It wasn’t until Ernst Hauptmann broke in and told her in slow, emphatic Polish to stop chattering and bring the potatoes that she realised her mistake. By replying in German, she’d given herself away as a Jew.

  After lunch, the SS officer took his host aside and said, ‘I don’t want to see that girl here next time I come.’

  Since then, Sala had been hidden in the cellar, and Urszula’s recriminations had become even more strident.

  Now, as Ernst Hauptmann sat on the bottom rung of the ladder the day after he’d assaulted her, Sala watched him warily from the other side of the cellar. Behind her back, her hands tightened around the wood. She was ready for him. But he continued to sit there in silence, and gradually she relaxed her grip.

  Several weeks passed before he spoke to her again. He was almost incoherent with embarrassment. ‘You’re right,’ he mumbled. ‘I’m a pig. Too much to drink.’ He waved his arm in the air as though to forestall an argument. ‘That’s no excuse, God knows.’

  He lapsed into another long silence, still avoiding her eyes.

  Suddenly he burst out, ‘I’ll be honest with you. When I saw the Jews being thrown out of their homes and losing everything, I can’t say I was sorry. But the day I saw you in the ghetto, there was nothing left of you, just skin and bone, and that empty look in your eyes. I knew I had to save you. I’ve always been a sinner, but for once in my life I wanted to be a good Christian. And now you can’t even look at me.’

  While he was talking, Sala kept her face averted. She didn’t want to see him or hear his feeble excuses.

  Without another word he pulled himself to his feet, set down the bread, buttermilk and boiled potatoes he’d brought her, and trudged back up the wooden ladder. A moment later she heard the front door slam, and she knew he’d gone out to plough the potato field.

  Alone in the cellar again, Sala paced around, seething. She mustn’t drop her guard. Today he was contrite but tomorrow he’d probably be drunk again. Never again would she trust him. In the weeks that followed, whenever he came down with her food she turned her back on him, and he went back upstairs without a word.

  Sometimes Ernst’s wife brought her food. Urszula was a large woman with her hair pulled severely back from her flat face. She never looked straight at Sala and never spoke to her, and only the tight set of her mouth, and the way she banged the plate on the box that served as a table, expressed her resentment. Sala knew that only Ernst stood between herself and death.

  Crazed with anxiety about her parents, and hungry for human contact, Sala paced around the small cellar and fought the urge to escape from her prison and breathe fresh air again. Anything would be better than being cooped up in this musty cellar, at the mercy of this ruffian and his churlish wife. Surely she’d survive somehow. Perhaps she’d work on an
other farm, or go back to the city. But when she recalled the conversations she’d overheard between Ernst and his SS guests who were congratulating themselves on making Łód Judenfrei, she knew it wouldn’t be long before someone recognised her and betrayed her to the Germans. The cellar was her only hope of survival.

  She was so deep in thought when Ernst came down with her food the following day that for once she didn’t have her back to him, and he was the one who looked away. After that, whenever he came down he’d spend a little longer in the cellar, not speaking, but watching and waiting for some reaction. And like a wild animal gradually becoming accustomed to human proximity, she began to feel less threatened.

  In time he started talking about the farm and the outside world, still keeping his distance. Although she listened with grudging interest, she didn’t reply. But the day came when she couldn’t control her anxiety any longer and asked about her parents. He couldn’t conceal his relief that she’d finally broken her silence. Several days later he told her he hadn’t been able to find out what had happened to her parents, but according to his SS acquaintances, all the Jews in the ghetto had been sent to a concentration camp in Auschwitz.

  When he went back upstairs, she felt more alone than ever, and over the next few days she listened for his footsteps and, to her surprise, found herself waiting for him to come down again. About a week later she heard the Germans carousing upstairs. And this time when Ernst came down to the cellar for another bottle of wisniowka she didn’t move away but looked straight into his eyes. Suddenly she was in his arms and he was covering her face with kisses. He stroked her head and held her so tightly that she could hardly breathe, while he murmured endearments she had never heard before.

  ‘I love you, Sala,’ he whispered fiercely. ‘I love you and I want you. More than anything. More than my life.’

  She looked up and saw that his eyes were moist with emotion. He bent down to kiss her lips, gently at first, and then crushing them under his, and to her own surprise, she was pressing her lips against his and wrapping her arms around his neck and losing herself in the embrace.

  He disengaged himself and stood back, looking into her eyes. ‘I’ll never do anything you don’t want me to.’

  The blood rushed to her face and she nodded. This time she believed him.

  From that day she lived in a delirium of anticipation, waiting for his footsteps on the stairs and his touch on her skin. She felt alive only when he was with her. He spent more and more time with her in the cellar, and when he went back upstairs she heard the bitter arguments and his wife’s threats to denounce her to the Gestapo.

  ‘Let them come and get both of you,’ she screamed. ‘It would serve you right.’ Sala didn’t know what he said or did to calm her down, but she didn’t carry out her threat.

  As time went on, the visits of the SS officers became less frequent, the singing stopped, and one day Ernst came to tell her that the war was over. They held each other for a long time without speaking. The news was too overwhelming to comprehend. She had waited so long for this, but now she was in turmoil. She would have to leave the dark, confined space that had become her sanctuary and venture into a strange, empty world she hardly knew. She would have to start living a normal life again, but she no longer knew what was normal.

  ‘I want to stay with you,’ she sobbed, clinging to him. ‘I don’t want to leave you.’

  ‘I’m a farmer, Sala,’ he said slowly, and there was so much pain in his eyes that she had to look away. ‘That’s all I know. But you’re a smart city girl, you’re not cut out to bury yourself in a village and be a farmer’s wife. You owe it to your parents to make something of your life.’

  Urszula was washing dishes at the sink and didn’t turn around to say goodbye, but as Sala climbed into the horse cart she saw her standing at the window, a triumphant smile on her broad face. On the long journey back to Łód, as the cart rumbled over the dirt road, Sala sat beside Ernst with her head on his shoulder, too numb to speak.

  She returned to her family home where the smell of her mother’s perfume and her father’s pipe tobacco still lingered in the silent, empty rooms. A Jewish welfare centre had opened in the square, and she went there every morning to scan the lists of survivors, in case some relative had returned alive. She hung around the centre for most of the day, hoping to run into someone who might tell her what had happened to her parents. One day she saw their old housekeeper crossing the square and started running towards her, but the woman hurriedly turned into a side street and disappeared, and Sala wondered whether she was the one who had betrayed them to the Gestapo.

  Depressed after two years of fruitless searching, she met Szymon at the Jewish welfare office. They’d both lost their families, were alone and desperate to find someone to cling to, to fill the void in their lives. But even though three years had passed since the war ended, Sala could still feel the urgent touch of Ernst’s hands on her body. With him she’d discovered a wildness in herself, an uninhibited capacity for sexual pleasure that surpassed anything she’d ever felt with her husband.

  Alone in the room on Wattle Street, Sala sat on the edge of the bed, confused and depressed. Perhaps Szymon was right. There had to be some reason why Ernst was being charged with war crimes. After all, she didn’t know what he’d done when he wasn’t with her. It was true he’d hobnobbed with SS men, but he might have done it to allay their suspicions that he was hiding a Jewish girl. And the charges against him could have been trumped up by a jealous neighbour or a fanatical patriot who hated ethnic Germans, or even by his jealous wife.

  The more she thought about it, the more possibilities she concocted, until her head ached and she became more confused. She wondered what was wrong with her. Surely a normal woman would know what to do.

  Exhausted by the turmoil, she finally fell asleep. She dreamed she was in Sydney, living in a house with Szymon. ‘See, you wanted to rent a flat, but I’ve bought you the whole house,’ he boasted. But she didn’t like anything about the house and knew she never would. She was trapped in an ugly house she hadn’t chosen. As she paced around from room to room, she noticed a trapdoor she hadn’t seen before. She raised it and couldn’t believe her eyes. She was looking at a cellar stacked with sacks of potatoes, wooden barrels containing apples and pickled cabbage, and bottles of wisniowka. Her spirits soared as though she’d just uncovered buried treasure. There was a cellar here after all! It was there all the time and she hadn’t even noticed!

  When she woke up, the exhilaration evaporated in the sultry air. She was still in the boarding house in Wattle Street and there was no wonderful discovery awaiting her. In the dark, she could make out Szymon’s shape in bed beside her. She turned over very carefully so as not to wake him, and lay awake until the alarm went off at dawn.

  Chapter 29

  In the corridor outside Meggsie’s ward, the orthopaedic specialist took Kath aside. His lips were moving, but there was a ringing in her ears and the words made no sense.

  Seeing her bewildered expression, he repeated it more slowly. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but I’m afraid your son will never walk again,’ he said. ‘I believe you’re divorced, and have other children. My advice to you is to put him in a home for crippled children. He’ll be well looked after, and you’ll be able to devote yourself to the rest of your family.’

  She slumped against the wall, staring at the scuffed beige lino floor whose lozenge design made her feel giddy. ‘A home for crippled children?’ she whispered hoarsely. ‘For how long?’

  ‘Until he’s old enough to be transferred to an institution for adults.’

  The doctor’s face suddenly became blurred and Kath fumbled in her bag for a handkerchief.

  ‘Isn’t there anything else you can do?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Unfortunately some cases just don’t respond to treatment,’ he said. ‘I know this is difficult, but the sooner you accept the situation, the easier it will be for him. Children adapt much better than y
ou imagine.’

  She stumbled from the hospital and started walking towards Parramatta Road, her chest so tight she could hardly catch her breath. Too agitated to wait for the tram, she walked on. At Central Railway Station she sank onto a wooden bench under the clock, and sat there for a long time, unable to gather her thoughts.

  It couldn’t be true. Perhaps the doctor had made a mistake. Sometimes patients recovered despite the doctors’ predictions. You only had to look at little Betty. After Ted Browning’s article, a fund had been set up to help the family. Betty’s mother now came to Sydney every week, and the little girl had started chattering again. Kath gave a bitter laugh. Her intervention had helped Betty, but she didn’t seem able to do anything to help her own son.

  Put Meggsie into a home for crippled children, to live among strangers and be at the mercy of nurses like the ward sister? The thought of it made her feel sick. There must be something she could do. If only she could bring him home, but that was a pipedream. She had to find a job, and he wouldn’t be able to stay home by himself. Besides, he’d need nursing.

  Heavy-hearted, she forced herself to get up. The boys would soon be home from school.

  An hour later, she turned into Wattle Street. Verna Browning, standing at her front gate, took one look at Kath and said, ‘Been to the hospital, have you? How was Meggsie today?’

  Instead of answering, Kath burst out crying.

  Verna took Kath’s arm. ‘Come and have a cuppa,’ she said.

  Although they’d been neighbours for fifteen years, this was the first time Kath had ever been inside Verna’s house. There was a solidarity among the women of Wattle Street, but they confined their chats to the front gate or the back fence and didn’t invite one another inside. Home was a private place, and no one wanted to breach the unspoken rule that safeguarded their privacy.