Touching the Wire

by Rebecca Bryn

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I told you, Svetlana dropped hers from beneath her skirt. We were all searched. Everything was confiscated…’ Miriam was in tears.

  ‘It’s you I worry about. Possessions can be replaced, even if it does take time.’

  ‘But Svetlana can’t… They shot her. She was an idiot… an idiot.’

  She sobbed in his arms. How much more tragedy must they endure?

  ‘It’s the fault of the Blockälteste. She could have pretended not to see. I hate her. Why does she have to be so vile?’

  ‘Miriam, I heard a story about her. I don’t know if it’s true. She lived in Krakow. Shortly after occupation four German soldiers came for her family, like they came for yours.’

  ‘I’m not vindictive towards the others. We all have stories of how we came to be here.’

  ‘One of them gave her a gun and told her to shoot her family… her parents, her husband and her baby.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t do that, surely.’

  ‘No, she refused. They said they would kill them if she didn’t, but they would die more slowly. Still she refused.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘Two officers picked up her baby, took hold of his legs and tore him in half.’

  Miriam covered her mouth, her eyes wide. ‘A living child? What kind of monster does that?’

  He shook his head. ‘Then they told her that they would do that to every member of her family, slowly, piece by piece, unless she shot them.’

  ‘She didn’t…’

  ‘She shot them all and then tried to turn the gun on herself. They kept her alive to suffer. They made her Blockälteste because they said she was brave. If it’s true…’

  ‘If it’s true then it’s a wonder she’s still sane.’

  ‘It’s a wonder any of us are sane.’

  ‘I’ll pray for her… and for Svetlana. I’ll pray for us all.’

  The book fell from his fingers, bringing him back to the workshop with a thump. He couldn’t change the past. He rewrapped the book and replaced it in its hiding place. He patted his pocket for the bulge of a cigarette packet. Why couldn’t he remember he’d given up? He missed the comforting smell of tobacco smoke. He felt his other pocket for the mints he sucked instead, if the twins had left him any.

  Through the window, the roses he’d planted in Miriam’s memory nodded in the wind. He looked back at the dolls’ houses: he couldn’t wait to see Charlotte and Lucy’s faces when they saw their present. His brief smile faded: the older the twins got the more his conscience troubled him. Since their birth his nightmares had got steadily worse.

  He’d dreamt of him again, last night. He’d woken sweating and shaking; the Wolf of Günsburg still hadn’t been found.

  ***

  Walt patted the seat next to him on the two-seater sofa.

  Lucy sat down with a petulant frump. ‘I don’t want to go to the dentist, Grandpa. He pulled all Kerry’s teeth out.’

  Jennie said it was the current school horror. ‘It wasn’t all of them, Lucy. Just four baby teeth, stopping her grown-up teeth coming. Open...’

  Lucy opened her mouth wide. It didn’t stop her trying to argue.

  He found a wobbly one. ‘Yours will come out by themselves but you still need the dentist to make sure your teeth match that lovely smile.’

  ‘Still don’t want to go.’

  ‘Sweetheart, sometimes we have to do things we don’t want to do. It will be all right, you’ll see… Charlotte isn’t afraid, look.’

  ‘Bet she is.’

  Charlotte looked up from a colouring book, two crayons in one hand and another in her mouth. She removed it. ‘I am not.’

  ‘Then you can hold Lucy’s hand, Charlotte. I’ll have a surprise for you both when you get home.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘If I told you it wouldn’t be a surprise.’

  Jennie shouted from the hall. ‘Charlotte, Lucy… come on. I don’t want to be late. I have work this afternoon.’

  He kissed them both. ‘Go on. Don’t keep your mother waiting.’

  A treasure hunt: he’d set them a puzzle to occupy them while Jennie was at work and Jane was out. The prize could be a small bar of chocolate each. Now, where to start? Clue number one: Be careful you don’t prick your finger. That would lead them to Jane’s sewing box in the front-room sideboard, except the longer words might fox them. He drew pictures as well. The final clue, three tall thin oblongs with a picture of a tree on the left-hand one and a bird on the right-hand one might keep them guessing. He pinned the first clue to the door into the front room, where the twins would be sure to find it when they got home, and slipped the bars of chocolate between two nature books on the bookshelf in the living room. Things hidden in plain sight were often invisible.

  It was how they’d got away with so much during that last year in the camp. The thin veil between now and then tore with barely a sound.

  ‘Doctor?’ The surgery door closed.

  He put down the instruments he’d been attempting to sterilise. ‘Miriam…’

  She put a hand inside her nurse’s blouse. ‘Candy for Arturas and Peti...’

  ‘They’ll love that.’

  ‘They’re getting tired of being cooped up.’

  ‘They must stay hidden.’

  ‘They know. It’s a game we play’ She withdrew another package. ‘Bandages.’

  He took the proffered package. ‘Organised from Kanada?’

  ‘The girls have put aside medicines. There must have been doctors or pharmacists in the last transport.’

  He clenched his fists. Jews from the Polish ghetto at Lodz: no matter how brilliant their minds, they would die if their bodies couldn’t be slave labour for the Reich. ‘Kanada, the fount of all wealth… but for you none of it would come here.’ Did German citizens know where their newfound wealth came from? Women prisoners did the sorting: forced to listen to the screams of those about to be gassed, even as they picked among their most treasured possessions. ‘I don’t know how those girls stand their work.’

  Miriam turned away, arms stiff by her sides, fingers curled and tense. ‘They’re allowed to eat what food they find… Even so, some commit suicide. They risk their lives to smuggle these things out.’

  ‘I know. Miriam…’

  ‘Yesterday the men shared a tin of shoe polish… they could eat their margarine ration instead of rubbing it on their stupid worn-out shoes.’

  Polished shoes: another mockery. He gripped the bandages. Like most of the SS rules, the guards tolerated this ‘organisation’, or clamped down on it, with capricious irregularity. No razors were supplied, yet a man must be clean-shaven. Kicked to death for having a button missing, but they had no thread or needles. A piece of thin wire picked from the ground could save a life. Yet this organisation ran the camp and the guards knew it. ‘Miriam… I’m sorry… I didn’t mean to upset you.’

  She shrugged off his hand. ‘My friend, Ilse, says in November they must package toys and clothes… Christmas presents for German Kinder. Who will play with Mary’s rattle and teether? Tell me who? Not my Mary.’

  ‘Miriam…’ Nothing he could say would take away her pain. He put a hand on each of her shoulders and concentrated on the future. ‘You do know that you are a miracle. Women may live because of these medicines.’ He kissed her forehead. ‘When can we get them?’

  She blushed and rubbed away tears. ‘She can smuggle one item a night, God willing. I promised her bread rations for her and her sister. They…’

  ‘The less I know the better. A word to a friend…’ His mind raced ahead with words unsaid: that friend would have a husband or brother in the men’s infirmary compound, and he’d have a friend in the men’s camp who might have a pass to work in the gypsy camp, or Mexico camp. Messages were exchanged, and goods traded, from one end of the camp complex to the other, with betrayal a constant danger for a starving man would do anything for a crust of bread. He smothered a sigh. ‘Y
ou did well. We’ll find the extra bread.’

  ‘Doctor?’

  ‘Miriam?’

  She smiled awkwardly. ‘Do you have a name?’

  Her smile gave him the strength to find one of his own. ‘When I was small my mother called me Chuck. Yes, when we’re alone, please call me Chuck. It’s a name that conjures happier days.’

  ‘Chuck.’ Her lips puckered into a broader smile. The name sounded more exotic on a Hungarian tongue than a Liverpudlian one.

  ‘I like the way you say it. Miriam, I trust you… you know that.’

  She nodded. ‘And I, you. You give my life purpose… you, and Peti and Arturas.’

  ‘You shouldn’t get too attached to them… I don’t know how long we can keep them hidden.’ He hesitated, knowing she loved them as much as he did, and knowing what he asked. He lowered his voice. ‘I have an acquaintance, someone I helped once. I need to pass packages to her. I can’t tell you what they are.’

  ‘I understand. How can I help?’

  ‘It will be very dangerous. If we’re caught we’ll be hung… or shot, and we won’t be the only ones.’

  ‘We’ll die anyway.’

  ‘You mustn’t think like that.’ His voice was a whisper now. ‘Sturmbannführer Baer suppresses the news but… the war isn’t going well for Hitler.’

  ‘How do you know this?’

  ‘A friend of a friend.’ He could trust Miriam. ‘Someone has built a radio. There will be reprisals. The worse the war goes for Hitler the more all here will suffer.’ He didn’t tell her his fear that if they lost the war, the SS would leave no-one alive to bear witness against them. ‘The resistance movement here is building. Anything we can do to disrupt the gassings… to hold out.’

  ‘What can I do?’

  He opened the door and closed it again: no-one was there but he still kept his voice low. ‘Russian guerrillas are hidden in the mountains. They will bury packages in the fields at night. Internees from the men’s camp work those fields. They’ll dig them up.’

  ‘How big are these packages?’

  His hands made a shape. ‘About the same as two cigarette packets.’

  ‘Small enough to be hidden under shirts or blouses.’

  ‘Persuade your supplier of medicines to tell her contact in the men’s camp that she’ll handle these packages as well. Bring them to me and I will pass them on.’

  Doubt flickered in Miriam’s eyes. ‘Suppose this is a Nazi trick, like the postcards home.’

  ‘The plan comes from a source I trust. They have news of the Polish Home Army… the fight for Warsaw goes on. If, when they win, the resistance here will be ready…’

  Miriam wasn’t convinced. ‘Mother wrote to Uncle László and Aunt Mariska in Trier. She was told what to write, to say we were all well. Now Uncle László is in the men’s camp and no-one knows where Aunt Mariska or the children are. How did the SS find them if not from the address on the postcard? Mother’s card would have reassured them. They’d have believed the Nazi promises, just as we did. Mother is torn with guilt.’

  He paced across the small room and stopped in front of her. ‘If it is a trick, I shall hang too. I’ll take that risk. Too many have died.’

  ‘Then so will I… for Efah and her children, for Mary, for Darja’s baby.’

  ‘And for Arturas and Peti.’ He held her close, her ribs sharp against his: she was still so thin, so tortured by hunger. Here, she could usually have a larger ration. She gave most of it to Ilse, who was now here in the women’s camp, or her mother who, like Miriam, slept in Block IIc, opposite the men’s camp and now the Hungarian women’s camp. It kept them well enough to avoid selection, or let them trade for a pair of shoes that fitted so they could work and were worth feeding. His chin rested on the top of Miriam’s head, which was crowned by a mass of short, black hair that stuck straight up like a porcupine and made her small face look even smaller, even more vulnerable. Where did she find her courage?

  Messages could be wrapped around stones and thrown over the barbed-wire fences that separated the camps. It wasn’t the safest way, if a guard saw, but sometimes, if orders meant he couldn’t go where he needed to go to pass a message himself, it was the quickest. They waited anxiously for two days before the message came back. Tsepochke svyazan.

  Miriam shrugged. ‘I don’t understand, Chuck.’

  ‘I think it’s Russian.’

  ‘Darja may know.’

  ‘She’s Belarusian…’

  ‘Afina seems to understand her. She says Darja was a teacher before she was brought here. I’ll ask.’

  Miriam returned after an hour. ‘Darja says it means the chain is linked.’

  Three more anxious days and the first two packages arrived together, delayed no doubt by their circuitous route. Miriam handed them to him, still warm from being inside her blouse. He put them among the small store of medicine bottles and bandages beneath the table until he could pass them on, hidden in plain view.

  The door flew open and he strode in. ‘Inspection. Now.’

  Arturas and Peti… ‘Yes, Hauptsturmführer.’ He pushed Miriam behind him.

  ‘Come.’ The imperious figure swept out of the surgery and into the ward. ‘This woman… how long has she been here?’

  A selection? His heart hammered. He’d had no warning, no time to falsify records or blood tests. No time to warn the boys to hide and stay quiet.

  ‘I asked how long.’

  The woman had been here three weeks with breathing difficulties, possibly pneumonia, and wouldn’t be fit for at least a week. He made a show of flicking through the red cards. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a small foot protruding from beneath a mattress. He moved to block the camp physician’s view. ‘Only two days, Hauptsturmführer. She’ll be well enough to work tomorrow.’

  ‘And this one?’

  ‘Oedema of the feet.’ She couldn’t put them to the ground. ‘A day’s rest and she’ll be fit.’

  He squashed a bug. ‘Lice… A louse is death, doctor. I do not want a resurgence of typhus. Have all these patients disinfected. Today.’

  His shoulders slumped. ‘Yes, Herr Doktor.’

  ‘I shall inspect them again when it is done.’ He smiled cordially and tapped his cane against his boot. ‘It is good. You run a good hospital, my friend.’

  Friend? Never… and if this was good he hoped never to see bad. Half these poor women would die, forced to stand naked and wet after the cold showers, perhaps all night, while their clothes were subjected to high-temperature baking and the block was gassed free of lice, as the Hauptsturmführer knew well. Truly, lice meant death. Who needed selections with such ruthless efficiency?

  ‘I’ll inspect the surgery, now.’ He ran a finger over the table top. ‘Clean this.’

  There was nothing to be gained by pointing out that they had no water. ‘Yes, Hauptsturmführer.’

  ‘What are these?’ The SS doctor pointed to the smuggled packages with his cane.

  ‘Surgical dressings, Herr Doktor… A pitiful supply. We need more dressings, more medicines. More water.’ He held his breath; if the explosives were discovered they were all dead. One of his hands, held behind his back, clutched Miriam’s: she was trembling.

  He poked one of the packages and leaned forward to peer closer.

  ‘Found it!’

  Fear almost stopped his heart. Charlotte held a bar of chocolate triumphantly in the air. He hadn’t heard them come in. He sat down hard on the sofa and shook: he couldn’t stop shaking.

  Chapter Six

  Walt sat on the edge of Lucy’s bed. Dobbin stood in the corner, long outgrown. ‘Lie down and don’t interrupt. Charlotte, into bed, please.’ How many times had he told this story, overlaid now with embroidered threads? ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, Wselfwulf asked the woodcutter to choose which daughter to give to him to eat.’

  Charlotte and Lucy glanced at one other.

  ‘How could he choose? He couldn’t, of course. He loved them both. Take me,
instead, the woodcutter pleaded. The wolf blinked a long, slow blink. You are tough and old. I want tender little girls.’

  Charlotte grinned. ‘You’re tough and old, aren’t you Grandpa?’

  He laughed and blessed Tykhe for her gift of granddaughters. ‘Cheeky young madam… and I said not to interrupt. You’re only trying to delay bedtime.

  ‘I can’t decide, said the woodcutter. Give me an hour and I’ll tell you. The wolf agreed and sat down outside the door to wait. The woodcutter thought and thought. What could he do to save his daughters? We can’t let the wolf eat our children, the woodcutter’s wife said. We must escape. He packed a bag and threw it over his shoulder. Putting on his green coat and his hat with the feather, he led them through the back door and they crept into the forest. Don’t think you can escape me, the wolf growled, as he appeared from behind a tree. Have you decided?

  ‘The woodcutter stood in front of his family. You promised an hour, he said. They hurried home. I have an idea, he told his wife. You and the girls must stay here, by the window, where Wselfwulf can see you, while I creep away. I won’t be long, I promise. Neighbours had a little girl the same age. He must give Wselfwulf the neighbours’ child.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Remember the chicken? The life of the neighbours’ child was less precious to him than that of his daughters, and he could think of no way to save them but trickery.’

  Charlotte wasn’t impressed. ‘Couldn’t he have killed the wolf?’

  The grey shape in his mind raised a paw and tasted the air, his eyes and ears missing nothing. Could he have? Would it have made a difference? Sometimes no choice was right.

  ‘So he didn’t eat his little girls?’ Lucy pretended they didn’t know, or had forgotten, so he’d tell the story again. He’d thought, at nine, they’d grown out of Wselfwulf, but they still loved a story.

  ‘Wselfwulf was clever. He could see that the woodcutter would do anything to keep his daughters safe so, every week, he promised not to eat them if the woodcutter found him a child. The woodcutter hated what he did, and the wolf knew it. He tried following the wolf into the forest to trap him and kill him, but Wselfwulf was too clever. The woodcutter was afraid and ashamed. You see, Lucy, he’d become as bad as the wolf. Finally he couldn’t bear his guilt and he went to the king. The king also had two daughters. They lived in a castle on a wide sparkling river, surrounded by vineyards and forests. The castle had tall towers built of huge blocks of stone. The towers were round on one side of the building…’