by Rebecca Bryn
The snow in front of him was smeared and spattered with blood, and confused by prints. He followed the trail; there were other than human predators in the forest and it could be a still-warm kill he could scavenge. Black wings flapped in his face: carrion crows, rising towards the tree tops. What remained of the body, by the clothing a woman, had its guts spilt across the snow. Not far off a wolf howled and was joined by others. A grey shape rose in front of him, shaking off its white shroud. He pulled the pistol and aimed, trigger-finger squeezing.
‘Don’t shoot.’ The man raised his hands. ‘British. Albert… Albert Carr.’ He waved a hand in what he’d guessed was the rough direction of the camp. ‘Prisoner of war… Buna-Monowitz.’
He lowered the weapon with a sigh and held out a hand in greeting, his cheeks cracking a frozen smile. ‘British.’ His mother’s green eyes smiled in his mind as she spat on her hankie. Come here, chuck, and let me rub the grime off those knees. Miriam’s generous mouth formed a brief kiss as she pronounced his pet name with her Hungarian accent. ‘Call me Chuck.’ It was who he was now.
In the distance came the rat-a-tat-tat of gunfire. Smoke hung above the horizon and the sun glistened on the frozen surface of a lake.
Brown eyes peered into his. ‘You got food, Chuck? I ain’t eaten in four days. Nothing but snow…’
‘I’ve nothing.’
Albert squinted into the sun and twisted back. ‘Something’s burning.’
‘Where are you headed?’
Albert shrugged, coughing. ‘Anywhere but here… England. You?’
‘England, via Gdansk, but first I’m going back to the camp.’
‘Back? Why for God’s sake?’
‘My wife, Miriam. She’s still there, ill with scarlet fever. I have to get back to her.’
‘So you can starve with her? The Nazis took everything.’
‘England’s hundreds of miles. You’ll never make it alone. We’d stand a chance travelling together, helping each other, but I’m not leaving without Miriam.’
‘You don’t even know she’s alive.’
She had to be. ‘In a week or two, when she’s stronger, the weather may be better. I have sulfa… There’s enough for you, too, if that cough gets worse. Come with me. At least we’ll have shelter… blankets.’
‘It’s food we need.’
‘I found eggs this morning. We’ll find more. We can head north later, all of us.’
‘And risk ending up in a Russian labour camp for the rest of the war? I’ll take my chances.’
‘At least let’s travel together while we’re going the same way.’
They fought towards the smoke, skirting the lake and avoiding columns of Soviet soldiers by taking to forest tracks. He held out his hand and steadied Albert when he stumbled.
Albert didn’t fail to notice the strength of his grip. ‘You weren’t a POW long, then?’
‘I…’ He couldn’t meet Albert’s hollow stare.
‘What? You were a Kapo?’
‘Kapo?’ He spat his disgust onto the bone-hard ground between the trees. ‘I’m a doctor. I survived. Most of my patients didn’t. Isn’t that bad enough?’
Albert shook his head and walked on. ‘You shouldn’t blame yourself for surviving. Normal rules don’t apply in that place. I did what I had to. Stole bread from a starving man, to stay alive… to get back to my family. At least they’re home, safe last I heard.’ He stopped and faced him. ‘You lose someone, Chuck?’
‘Too many good people.’ A low drone grew louder, filling the sky: German or Allied? He hurried Albert deeper beneath the forest canopy.
Smoke wisped from the chimney of a cottage that was surrounded by a patch of hedged garden. Two children, muffled in scarves, played with a dog. A woman jabbed at the frozen earth with a pick while chickens pecked with little more success. Somehow the Germans and Soviets had missed these.
‘Maybe she’ll give us food.’
He waved Albert to a halt, pressed a finger to his lips and his mouth close to Albert’s ear. ‘I can’t risk it. I have something that mustn’t fall into the wrong hands. You have to trust me.’
‘I’ll eat the bloody dog if I can get it to come near enough.’
‘They must have food or they’d have eaten it themselves by now.’ Using the trees for cover he moved stealthily forward. He felt in his pocket and scraped together a few grains of corn left from his night in the chicken shed. He fell to his knees, made a small gap in the hedge and threw the grain towards the chickens. One moved closer, clucking quietly. A little closer… peck, closer, closer… He silenced the squawk with a swift twist of its neck, moved branches to close the gap and retreated.
Half an hour later they came across a pine tree whose branches reached almost to the ground: beneath them the forest floor was clear of snow and carpeted with fallen pine needles. It made a shelter of sorts.
He bent beneath the boughs and sank to the ground. ‘I can’t go any further tonight. We have to rest.’ He brushed ice from his eyebrows. ‘Wish I had a flint. If we don’t light a fire we’ll freeze to death.’
Albert brought out a pouch that hung around his neck. ‘Flint, knife, spoon… and tobacco. Traded four bread rations for the flint and a twist of tobacco. Made the knife out of a tin can.’ He laughed. ‘God bless Kanada.’
They collected a small pile of pine needles, twigs, and thin branches, dead and dry. Albert struck the flint against his makeshift knife.
‘Try again.’ A spark caught and he blew on the needles, willing them to smoke. A small flame crackled into life and he fed its hunger with the driest tinder until they had a fire. Pain burned in his fingers as they came back to life. He poked the fire with a stick and threw the gutted chicken carcass into the centre. The stench of burning feathers filled the shelter, sending Albert into another coughing fit.
Chicken fat dripped down their chins as they tore at the meat with their teeth. They sucked the bones clean and licked greasy fingers, then Albert melted snow in his spoon and they shared sips of blissfully hot water.
Albert lay back on the pine needles and stared up through the branches. ‘Best meal ever, Chuck. Best water I’ve tasted too. You’re right… together we have a chance of making it home. I’ll come with you.’ He smiled. ‘I wouldn’t have left my wife if I’d had any choice in the matter, either.’
‘What’s her name?’
‘Irene… her name’s Irene.’ His voice was a whisper. ‘I miss her.’
‘Where do you call home?’
‘Midlands. You?’
He took another sip of water. ‘Mother’s family came from Liverpool. Father died at The Somme. I’ve got a sister.’
Albert coughed again. ‘Such a story to tell Irene and the kids.’
‘And your grandchildren.’
‘Yes, a story to tell our grandchildren.’
Next day they continued south-east, hunger constantly gnawing, and tormented by thirst snow couldn’t quench. They left the forest behind and travelled narrow roads between snow-covered fields. The light was failing again when Albert pointed to tall structures and regular block shapes in the distance. ‘Watch-towers. Must be the camp. We can be there tomorrow if it don’t snow again. Just have to… catch my breath.’
He stopped beside Albert, glad to rest but afraid of delaying. Ahead were farm buildings. He yanked open the nearest barn door: cows moved aside, their warm smell comforting, their pink teats promising milk. They sank exhausted onto straw banked in a corner and huddled together for warmth.
At last Albert stirred. ‘If we can’t find eggs, a rat, anything, we’ll have to risk going to the farmhouse. Maybe they’ll take pity on us.’
‘Albert, I can’t risk the farmhouse and I can’t ask you to go hungry. There may still be German soldiers about, or Soviet soldiers who wouldn’t understand. What I carry… it’s evidence. It mustn’t be lost in a midden in the wilds of Poland. If you go to the farmhouse, say you’re alone.’
Albert got to his feet a
nd nodded. ‘I’ll bring you something, I promise.’
He followed Albert outside, and scanned the lane: he was so close to Miriam. Was she still alive? A light showed in a window of the farmhouse. He glanced back at the white-roofed barn, its eaves hung with swords of ice. The wind crept between the fibres of his coats and chilled his bones. They needed more than an egg or a rat. Like Albert, he was getting daily weaker. Each day they covered less distance, and the longer it took them to reach camp the greater was the chance of them not making it. He longed to be there, but his legs wouldn’t carry him another mile without rest.
A tapestry of pale stars reduced him to insignificance as he surveyed the patchwork quilt of woods and fields between him and the camp. Not a light showed from barrack block or guard tower. The camp looked abandoned in the light of an almost full moon, lifeless under its blanket of snow, like a child’s nightmare made from toy bricks. He raised his head to the heavens, wanting to howl like a wolf. ‘Miriam…’
Chapter Twelve
A late-January wind cut across the allotments, the sky to the north bruised: snow was on the way again. Walt leaned on his spade, contemplating the rows of freshly-turned earth, and rubbed his sore back. He stuck the spade in the earth and went into his allotment shed. It was forty years to the day.
He drew a packet of candles from a bag and arranged them on the potting bench. Miriam had lit candles for her dead. He lit them one by one: Miriam, her parents and grandparents, her first husband, Benedek, Efah and her children, little Mary, Ilse, Darja and her baby, Aaron Schaeler, his own mother and sister, buried in a bombed-out house… and the children.
He stood for a moment in quiet reflection: Aaron’s friendship, Ilse’s kindness, his mother’s smile, his sister’s laughter, the boys’ gappy grins and wide eyes, Miriam’s love and gentle courage. That was how he wanted to think of them.
Justice and retribution? He’d paid with the lives of those he loved, not his own. His promise and his debt to Tykhe were not yet honoured. He’d failed to protect Miriam. Aaron had died so he might live. Still he was less than he could be. Still he had to find his courage and his good day to die.
He watched the flames gutter and smoke. Candles to burn… hair of innocents. They’d been numbers, as anonymous in life as they were in death, except to those who’d survived to remember them. He snuffed the flames between thumb and forefinger, his anger curling upwards with the smoke.
He pulled his spade from the earth and jabbed it into the spit, turning the dark earth in a neat row, trying to bury his memories. Five spits: walking skeletons in columns of five. He dug to the end of the row and straightened. He was too old for all this digging, all this pain and anger. He jabbed the spade in again; the job had to be done before the early crops went in.
‘How’s it going, Walt?’ Eric, seventy-two years old, the same age he was and still working two plots, approached with a jaunty step.
‘I’ve dug a bit over. It’ll let the weather do its work.’
‘Gives you a good feeling, don’t it, Walt, seeing the earth turned over, ready for spring.’
‘Job satisfaction, Eric. That’s what they call it these days.’
‘You’re right… Nothing like working with your hands… seeing things growing. Still, I wasn’t sorry for a bit of a breather, end of last season.’ He waved a hand at the disparate scatter of allotment sheds higher up the slope. ‘Some of the lads from top end are organising a fishing trip off Lowestoft, June time. You interested?’
‘I haven’t been fishing for years.’ The last time he’d been on a boat on the North Sea… He pushed the thought away. ‘Don’t think I’ll be able to make it. Jane…’
‘She’d be glad to see you out enjoying yourself. You work flippin’ hard on this plot all year. You got to do these things while you still can, Walt.’
‘That’s true enough.’ He felt every one of his aches and pains, especially with this bone-biting cold. ‘I’ll see what she says, if we can afford it. It would be something to look forward to.’
‘The more as goes, the cheaper it gets, mate. The boat’s the same cost whether it’s two or twenty. You’d be doing the rest of us a favour.’
‘I’ll let you know. June, you say?’
‘Ted says he’ll book it when there’s enough people interested.’
‘I’ll let you know tomorrow, if you’re going to be here?’
‘All day, Walt, if it don’t snow. I still got a load of digging to do. Best crack on.’ Eric walked back to his plot, a spring in his step.
One more spit then he’d call it a day.
***
Walt sat in his armchair and flattened out the broadsheet he hadn’t had time to read that morning. The miners were slowly drifting back to work, despite Scargill’s intransigence. Greenpeace, on board Rainbow Warrior, still harassed French nuclear testing on Moruroa Atoll.
He scanned page two and his heart missed a beat. A group of survivors had returned to the camp to celebrate the anniversary of their liberation. He steadied his breathing.
Had he known of the reunion he wouldn’t have had the courage to face that place again. The name he could hardly bear to think, his name, took centre stage. Fear and loathing tightened his chest. The other survivors would feel the same even after all these years. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. Some, it seemed, had managed to put the past behind them. Father Forgive. The words haunted him. He would never forgive.
He read on. A trial ‘in absentia’ was planned for the beginning of next month at Yad Vashem. He had escaped justice all these years and this determined group had decided, in his absence, that the Wolf of Günsburg, the Angel of Death, should be tried and convicted for his crimes. Pressure was being brought to bear at last; outraged public opinion might yet kick-start the justice that had been denied his victims.
He closed the paper with a rustle and folded it with shaking hands. Just when he’d thought the world had forgotten. He couldn’t blame the victims for stirring new media frenzy, and those responsible deserved to be brought to justice, but while the wolf still slumbered he could stay where he was loved.
He pushed down rising panic. Yad Vashem… He had vital evidence that should be heard: he’d promised Miriam, owed it to the children, but neither side of the law would hesitate to sacrifice him and his family. His lips alone could condemn, should condemn. Years ago they’d have hung: it would have been finished.
He longed to speak out and keep his promise but it wasn’t just him, or Jane or Jennie, it was the twins. Newspapers loved a good story. If he let go of the wolf it would hound them to the gates of hell.
***
The cold wind of January abated at last. The weather turned unseasonably warm. With luck, February would see the last of the winter digging finished before the weather turned again and made the ground too muddy to walk on. If there was anything he hated more than snow, it was mud.
Eric came out of his allotment shed with a shiny new spade. ‘I was hoping to catch you, Walt. The lads have caught this fishing bug. They don’t want to wait until the summer. They want to go now, while this good weather lasts. They reckon we can get a cheap rate this time of year, particularly a last-minute booking, and the forecast sounds good all week. You interested?’
He rested on his spade. ‘Cheap sounds good.’ It would help take his mind off the public trial at Yad Vashem. ‘That’ll suit me fine. Jane says the change will do me good.’
‘They’re hoping for tomorrow, Saturday or Monday.’
‘All are good for me.’
Eric polished his spade with his jacket sleeve. ‘I’ll let you know, then.’
The sea air would do him good and he’d be able to think better away from home: he had a decision to make. He cleaned his spade and put it away, and then locked his shed. He weighed the key in his hand. The wolf stirred. How much time did he have? He left the key under a flowerpot by the door, looked back at the neat spits of freshly-turned earth and walked away.
&n
bsp; Jane was out when he arrived home. Where had she said she was going: an over-sixties club lunch? He made coffee and switched on the television for the lunchtime news: it was still about him. He had to know. The United States Justice Department has announced that the case is being officially reopened. Reuters reported today that rewards are being offered for information leading to the apprehension and conviction of… He grabbed the arm of his chair and sank into it, hot coffee slopping on his hand. The West German government alone had offered three hundred thousand dollars. The rewards totalled more than a million dollars already, and more were due to be published.
Every criminal and law-abiding citizen alike would be out looking; it would only take one person who could connect him with the camp, and the vital, missing evidence. What if he was recognised? Witness protection wouldn’t protect his family from the backlash: it was a million dollars too late for that. Wselfwulf stretched, and bared his fangs; it was time, finally, to put his trust in the Fates. He walked up the garden path to his workshop. The small book lay where he’d hidden it. He carried it into the house and telephoned Eric.
‘I was about to ring you,’ Eric answered cheerily. ‘We’ve booked tomorrow. The minibus will collect you at the top of your street at six in the morning. We’ve got the boat from eight o’ clock so we may as well make the most of the bugger.’
‘I’ll be there.’ He put down the phone with numb finality, relieved that he didn’t have to prolong the agony, and went upstairs.
He put the book in his sock drawer where Jane would find it. He knew the pages almost by heart: they filled his mind through the sleepless hours before dawn. He closed the drawer. He needed warm clothing. He had to look the part. Jane’s bus rattled the sashes, as always, the sound suddenly unbearably precious. The front door opened and clicked shut.
‘Walt?’
‘Up here, love.’ He took a deep breath, marshalling his self-control. ‘They’ve organised the fishing trip for tomorrow. It’ll be cheaper than waiting until June and the weather forecast is pretty good, according to Eric.’