The Children's War

by Monique Charlesworth

  When Ilse told Toni how much she loved her new school, Toni was amused and said that she was very unnatural. Tentatively—for fear of imposing—she asked if she could please have a cotton dress and a smock like the ones the others wore. Toni cast her eyes to heaven, but she took out a tape measure and measured her carefully across her nonexistent bosom and skinny hips. Ilse did not have the courage to ask for a cross, for fear of Toni’s mockery.

  Toni took her to the souk to buy fabric. Water-sellers were ringing their bells in the dusty square and a tooth-puller sat on a little stool with his implements glittering on a soft cloth. Black-eyed children clustered round Toni, chattering and offering to be her guide, each elbowing the next. Toni, who had brought a big basket, distributed the treasures inside—pencils and sharpeners—but the children did not cease importuning until one of them had been chosen to accompany them into the shady interior.

  “You see they want to lead the foreigners through the dangerous labyrinth and then back out to safety. Because without them, we would get completely lost and never come back.”

  Ilse had supposed, wrongly, that Toni did not care much for children. With these children Toni was at her ease, teasing one, then another, heaping her gifts into the outstretched hands of a single lucky boy, only to turn away and then back again, suddenly finding pencils for all of them. And they seemed to know her, for they ignored other Europeans and vied for position, stretching out their chests and knocking one another out of line. They were so intensely alive, jittering on thin legs, chattering like starlings. The first boy seized the empty basket and drew himself up with the air of a man of considerable responsibilities. Importantly, he led them on. Crisscrossed with thin laths, which gave a striped shade, the souk was cool after the heat of the square. Ilse breathed in the dizzying smells of spices, which each different corner overlaid with its specific stronger odour, whether of mint tea or leather or cedarwood. Toni did not need a guide. She showed Ilse where the potters plied their trade and that the hammering sound came from the beaters of copper bowls. She pointed out which meandering way would lead to the embroiderers, who made beautiful blouses, and where—should she chance to need them—Ilse might find the weavers and woodworkers.

  The little boy Toni had selected fell back, trotting respectfully a step behind. From time to time, conscious of his duties when somebody came the other way, he would let out a cry of “Balek—balek!” This meant to take care. Ilse was drawn by each fresh vision. She longed to watch the leatherworker cross-legged on his sheepskin in his Aladdin’s cave of soft, pointed slippers, but she dared not stop. The golden figure of Toni, so precise in her heels and brilliantly coloured dress, moved ahead, blurring and twisting in the dappled light like the skeins of wool and cloth dyed in rainbow colours. If she looked away for too long, Toni might vanish into the pattern of a carpet or be absorbed into a red-threaded jar of saffron. She, whose moods were so various, might filter through the heaped baskets of ginger and chick peas, fava beans and split peas into some other realm. And so Ilse kept up until, suddenly slackening her pace to a crawl, Toni neared a particular trader’s stall and dawdled before it and the one next to it, touching muslins and velvets and then asking the price of a heavily gold-embroidered cloth, then moving on, a person with all the time in the world and no particular interest in anything. When at last she flicked a finger at the cotton fabrics the girls wore, it was a random and disinterested selection. The stall-keeper was a broad middle-aged man who, bringing forth glasses of tea almost too hot to hold, tirelessly unrolled bales of magnificent silks and velvets from every corner, pressing their virtues on Toni, who saw everything, liked nothing, and finally, in a leisurely way, got up to go. They eyed each other. Perhaps she would have some of the cotton. Now the bargaining began in French too rapid for her to understand. Ilse, who would never have disputed the price anyone asked and would have been ashamed to ask for a reduction, watched Toni’s animated face. Her pouts and sighs and exclamations of dismay were well matched by the hand-wringing of the seller until—agreeing to a price that would ruin a poor man like him—he was suddenly transformed into smiles. He wrapped up the cotton and then cut a long length of silk in a deep amber colour and reached down an apple green velvet, smiling at Ilse. He bowed extravagantly. “All for Mademoiselle, says Madame.”

  Ilse, open-mouthed at the magnificence, turned to Toni, who was not to be thanked, ever.

  “These are your colours,” she said. “Always remember that.”

  Ilse had been at school for two weeks when the nun from the boat reappeared. The small woman came to the door of the classroom and stood just inside it until the chatterbox girls noticed her presence and, falling silent, slipped back to their desks. The very outline of her head indicated authority. Ilse knew how recognisable she herself was. Although the nun said nothing, her eyes signalled that she remembered. Ilse felt sick. The maths lesson began. In the bustle of handing out exercise books, Anne whispered that Soeur Marie-Joseph was the principal of the school, had just visited France and then been on her annual retreat.

  Ilse waited for her to denounce the Jew. She felt an acute consciousness imprinting itself on her brain. The words of the others floated by her, she was inside a bubble and set aside. She was aware of where Soeur Marie-Joseph was, of the precise angle of her slight figure at the blackboard, of the slanting light on the chalk and the raising and falling of her hand against the darkness. She could not take in anything the quiet voice said. Though the nun did not address her, it was only a matter of time.

  At mid-morning there was a quiet moment when everyone rested. Ilse, itchy with misery, could not stand it one minute longer. She walked through the courtyard, pushed open the gates and picked her way down the long dusty road. She knew that she was not supposed to go anywhere on her own. She wandered around, looking at the streets and the houses. Some had courtyards with palm trees and green gardens glimpsed through half-open doors. Her head was milling with confused thoughts. Her skin was too white and she could feel it burning. She did not know where she was going or what she would do when she got there. A woman in a veil smiled at her and gave her dates to eat. After a while, because her legs had started to feel wobbly, she sat on a wall. A big dog barked. She got up and walked away. Men driving a lorry called something to her. She trudged on and on. She was hopelessly lost.

  Around the next corner, low brick walls rose above a concrete slab. The bold red letters of Willy’s company sign shone out. With sandals dusted white and feet aching from tiredness, she ventured onto the building site; a dozen men were working. He might be angry, but she could not go on. One of the men pointed. Another joined him. They were talking about her.

  “Do you know where to find Monsieur Lindemann?” she said.

  The first man ran over to a little wooden hut in the corner. She knelt in the dust. The man came back with a bottle of lemonade, offered it to her. She refused; her mother would not have liked her to drink from it. Her head felt buzzy and light. She stared up at the sky and a black bird far away. The two men were joined by others, who stood around and looked at her as the first one fanned her hot face. They said things. Time passed. The men started shouting.

  Willy’s car came round the corner. “You must get out of the sun,” he said. The hut with its corrugated tin roof was very stuffy inside. He did not scold her, but knelt and told her that she had to drink something and now, obediently, she did. He gave her a handkerchief and she wiped her hands and face. It came away grimed with sweat and dust. When she was feeling better, he introduced her to all the workers, one by one. My only niece, he said, my precious girl. The men nodded and smiled. When they finished their day’s work and left the site, Willy drove her slowly back to school. All the other girls had gone home. They sat for a time in silence outside the gates.

  “This is the best school for girls in Meknès,” he said. “Of course I’m no expert, but everyone says it.”

  She could not get out of the car. She felt weak.

  “The
nuns have a fine reputation for good works.”

  Ilse could not meet his eye.

  “It’s not a Gymnasium. I realise that it must seem very different from Germany.”

  When he started to open the car door, Ilse pulled him back. She begged him not to go in, said that they did not like her. His face was grave. She said that they had mocked her red hair, that the girls had been unkind, that the nuns were very cruel. He sat for a long time looking at the steering wheel without saying a word.

  “Are you sure, Ilse?”

  Tears sprang from her. She cried, with great sobs, both for the wickedness of the lies that she had told and for all the lies that there were in the world. She had wept like this when her teacher in Wuppertal had snapped at her that she was an idiot, that a half Jew was not permitted to join the Bund deutscher Mädel. Then she had realised that, though she knew nothing about Jews and their beliefs, she would never wear the uniform the others proudly displayed. Jews could not attend a Gymnasium; she was tolerated only because her mother was not Jewish. She was extremely lucky that they had not expelled her when they got rid of “the other dirty yids.” She could never manage breakfast because her stomach churned with fear of what her teacher might say and do, and of the little rod he used so freely. She never spoke to anyone in her class and learnt to avoid meeting anybody’s eyes. They said hateful things, and there were boys who enjoyed twisting her arm and yanking at her hair. But after that first shock, she had schooled herself never to react. She would not let them see that she suffered.

  “Ilse?” He was looking at her still. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” she said, trying to control her voice. Then, because the lie made her uncomfortable, she added to it. “It’s my parents. It’s not knowing about them.”

  “You mustn’t worry about them. They’ll be all right.” He lit a cigarette, waited.

  “Not Vati. Nobody would give him a visa. Nobody would have him.” She blew her nose. True words had come out of her mouth before she knew what she was going to say.

  “Your father is a fine man. He’s a good German. There aren’t many of them left.”

  “I know all about that,” she said. “For years, I’ve heard about fighting the fascists. But what if you can’t fight them?”

  He smoked and thought for a moment.

  “Nobody can promise that it will all be all right. But your father will look after your mother.”

  “You don’t know how it is,” she said, not wanting to say straight out that it was the other way round. Mutti was the one who worked and earned money. “He’s always away or in prison. So he can’t look after her, can he?”

  Willy’s eyes were kind. “They’ll find a way. I haven’t seen him for years. But I know what he’s like. You know, when Lore said she was marrying again, I interviewed him.” Willy laughed. “I said I wanted to look him over, meet for a meal. He told me to get lost. Said he was going to marry her no matter what.”

  “Really?”

  “He didn’t care what anybody said or felt. We had a meal anyway. I liked him. Is he still like that?” She nodded.

  “He gets his own way. Doesn’t he? You see, it’s the defining thing about him.” Ilse saw. “You have to have confidence in that.”

  “I’m all right now,” she said. Willy turned everything round in her head. She had been wrong to imagine that her parents would separate as soon as she was gone, if they had not done so already.

  “All right enough to go in?”

  She nodded. When the puffiness round the eyes had gone down, they went in. Soeur Marie-Joseph greeted them in her quiet voice, said she had been worried. What had happened? Ilse opened her mouth to speak.

  “It is all my fault,” said Willy rapidly. He had made a mistake, had offered to take Ilse swimming—she had thought it was a half day and gone to meet him. He blamed himself entirely. The nun, who held her head to one side, looked from one to the other and must have seen her red eyes, but did not mention it. Ilse stared at her knees, which still had streaks of dust upon them. There was a long pause when he finished.

  Soeur Marie-Joseph leant back in her chair. She looked at Willy and gave her head a little shake, then stood. Willy stood and so did Ilse.

  “Fräulein Blumenthal,” said the nun in careful German, “I speak to you in your language because I want you to understand exactly what I say. I am responsible for every girl. I must know that every girl is safe. You must not go away in the middle of the day. Will you give me your word that it will not happen again?”

  “Never. I promise.” They shook hands on it.

  Ilse floated to the car, she felt so light.

  “I can’t tell a nun a lie,” said Willy, shaking his head. “I’m going to have to buy you a bathing suit right this minute.”

  Because in the afternoons Toni had her siesta, Willy collected Ilse after school and took her to the club, which was shady with long beautiful lawns sprinkled each morning to keep them velvety green. Girls she knew from school swam and drank Coca-Cola and ate baguettes, the fresh soft bread split in two and stuffed with squares of chocolate which melted deliciously as you bit in. People dived in and called to one another across the water, and Ilse swam with Anne, who was like a fish. She had long been afraid of the water, but would jump in if Willy was watching. He, who was so tanned, said her white skin was beautiful and that she need not mind being skinny. Toni had been skinny as a girl. She might grow, later, and if she didn’t, she must not mind being small. Toni was petite and look at her. As for him, it was breaking stones in the desert that had turned him that colour and that was not to be recommended. He stretched out on a towel luxuriantly. “My friend Heinz developed shoulders like an ox.”

  “Why were you breaking stones?”

  He laughed at her big eyes, staring at him. “Breaking up big stones into little ones to make roads. In the French Foreign Legion.”

  “Why?”

  “For hundreds of years, generations of Legionnaires have sweated in the desert, handling these stones. Discipline. They like to keep you busy.”

  “It’s terrible.”

  “It’s a hard life. But Heinz was clever. He got us moved into the kitchen, said we were cooks. He learnt fast. He can make salami out of a donkey.”

  “But why did you join up?”

  “I looked so good in the kepi.” He was laughing again.

  “Really?”

  “I had to get out of Germany. But I loved the Legion.”

  “Why did you have to get out?”

  “A woman. With me it’s always cherchez la femme.”

  “Please, tell me about her.”

  “When you’re older.”

  “I’ll understand, I’m old enough.”

  He groaned and bent his back and hobbled, pretending he had a stick and was a very old man. “This old?” She had felt that she was old, very old. Here, she was just a girl of thirteen, the same as other girls.

  Willy never talked about the past if Toni was there. She always said that they had to live for each day. Toni could not stand anything sentimental and especially not what she called Willy’s soft butter side. Germans were all like that, she said, civilised and soppy until you gave them a knock and then they turned as hard as flint. When she shouted at him (the two of them always spoke German though her occasional endearments came out in French), Willy held his tongue. That annoyed her the most.

  “He is perfect,” Toni said sarcastically. “The perfect German knight.”

  Ilse did not understand.

  “Ask him about the Ritterpflicht,”8 she said. “He knows all about that.”

  When she wagged her finger, Willy shrank back, pretending to be scared. He loved doing that.

  “She thinks I’m some kind of medieval knight errant. That it’s my quest to protect a lady with my life. I’ll have to be a cat with nine lives, now that I have two ladies.”

  “You see? He doesn’t have a single bit of common sense,” said Toni. “It’s deep in the psyche
of the nation. Germans can’t help themselves. Like the holy fool, Parsifal, swearing fine oaths and sent out to fight for a noble cause without even knowing what it is.”

  Ilse, puzzled, cast a look of appeal at Willy.

  “Don’t worry. She’s crazy,” he whispered, loud enough for Toni to hear. He waited for her to respond, but she would not. Ilse watched the stubborn, beautiful little face and was struck by an obvious thing she had nearly overlooked: how very seriously Toni took things.

  Every night, they went out to dinner. Toni never cooked; she said it was no fun eating in your own house. Ilse was expected to dress up. She now owned three cotton dresses as well as the silk and velvet. Willy had insisted that she must have decent clothes. Since putting a clean dress on and brushing her hair only took five minutes, she would be ready, skipping up and down while they waited. Toni always took her time. While they were on their own, Willy could be persuaded to tell her secrets her parents had never disclosed.

  “Tell me about Mutti’s first husband.”

  “Rainer? A big fellow, very nice looking but also very weak. Very good old legal family, a long line of judges. He was the precious only son, but they all disowned him in the end. Lore married him for all the wrong reasons. Remember, Ilse, always beware of your first great love.”

  “But Jewish?”

  “No. Why should he be?”

  He puffed a beautiful smoke ring.

  “Oh.”

  Ilse had always assumed that the first husband, a wraithlike figure compared to her substantial father, must have been Jewish too. This was a great surprise. She might have been the wholly Aryan child of that first husband, who had gone to the bad and after the divorce had vanished from all their lives. She could not stop turning this over in her head, wondering how bad he really was and whether, if he had been her father, she would still have been herself.