Fires in the Dark

by Louise Doughty

  The man stood in the middle of the stream, legs planted wide on the brown stones with the clear water rushing over his white bony feet. He was dressed in rough trousers and a vest, a brown cap askew on his head and face reddened from sunburn. He was glancing from side to side, fearfully. He saw Emil peering through the bushes, and froze, like an insect paralysed by its own reflection.

  Emil stared back, heart thumping. He knew he should turn and run, but he was mesmerised by their mutually captivated stare.

  The man broke first. ‘Have you got anything to eat?’ he asked. He pinched his fingers together and lifted them to his mouth. ‘I need to eat.’

  Emil shook his head while pushing his hands into his jacket pocket, meaning, no, only this.

  He held out the small piece of flatbread that his mother had given him that morning with a fried mixture of potato and cabbage. He had eaten half of the bread and kept the rest for later.

  The man glanced around, then mounted the bank in two swift strides. Rounding the bush, parting the twigs, he reached out and grabbed the bread from Emil’s hand. He nodded while he chewed and swallowed.

  Emil said. ‘It’s all right. I know what it is to be hungry.’

  ‘Who are you?’ the man mumbled.

  They were squatting next to each other beneath the bush, like two old drabarnis. Emil said, ‘My name is František.’ He glanced around. ‘Are you being followed?’

  The man shrugged. ‘I don’t think so. They shot the others. Four of us made a run for it. I heard them go down.’

  ‘Do they have dogs?’

  He shook his head. ‘No. We wouldn’t have run if they did. It was my fault. I said, they’re going to shoot us anyway after what we’ve seen. They’ll never let us go back and tell everyone.’

  Emil looked around uneasily. He wanted to hear the man’s story but they couldn’t just sit there while Germans scoured the area. His family was only two fields away. He stood and beckoned to the man. ‘Come,’ he said.

  He led the man upstream, through the water, then turned and, gesturing for him to crouch, ran along a low hedge, up to the copse. At least from there they would have a vantage point. He made the man wait in the bushes, then went to the edge of the copse so that he could look down to where smoke still drifted above the village in the afternoon haze. He had a clear view of the fields. There was no one making their way towards them.

  He returned to the man and squatted down beside him. ‘So,’ he said. ‘You are a prisoner. You have escaped.’ He had never seen a prisoner before. He’s filthy, Emil thought, and he stinks. Maybe he’s a robber, or a murderer.

  The man nodded. He had recovered his breath. ‘I think I’m the only one who got away. I heard the shots but I didn’t look back. There were several bursts. When I reached the stream I paused but nobody was behind me. It was my fault. It was my idea.’

  ‘Where are you from?’ Emil gestured towards the man’s prison uniform.

  ‘Terezín. You’ve heard of it.’ He hesitated. ‘I am a Jew.’

  Emil shook his head. ‘We try and stay as far away from the news as we can. But I know the Jews are having a bad time.’

  The man gave him a long, steady look; a look at once empty yet full of hostility. ‘A bad time,’ he said eventually. ‘Is that how you would describe it …?’

  There was a long silence. Emil was anxious to get back to the others. If he was much longer, his father would set out to find him – maybe he would even go as far as the village and who knew what would happen then. This area was not safe, that much was clear. But what if the man followed him? He rose tentatively. ‘Well, God be with you …’

  The man grasped his arm and looked up at him, bony fingers digging into his arm and eyes huge in the thin face. ‘No. You must help me. I have to get away from here.’

  Emil sat down. ‘We must be fifty kilometres from Terezín.’

  ‘They brought us in trucks, thirty of us. They brought us to dig the graves. I’ve done a lot of jobs since I became a Jew. Bricklayer, carpenter, tailor. I was a Geography student before they closed the university. My parents had converted before I was born. I didn’t even know I was Jewish until they came for us.’

  ‘Dig graves for who?’

  The man fell silent, then lifted his chin in the direction of the village. ‘The men who killed Heydrich, that’s what they were saying. Or their friends. I don’t know. None of them looked like trained men to me. They were just villagers, a schoolteacher, a policeman, peasants. They sent the women and children to the camps. Some of the children were being taken to Germany, the blond ones, the ones they thought would make good Germans. I heard them talking …’

  Emil thought, if they are clearing this area, then we must leave. It won’t be safe any more. He glanced around the copse. The few large trees gave them enough shelter but he could see down across the fields. He would see his father if he crossed the field and made for the stream.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked.

  The man looked at him with wide, searching eyes, as if weighing up the possible benefits of telling Emil what he had seen. ‘You’re just a boy …’ he murmured. At the same time, Emil could see him calculating. This boy holds power over me. He must be humoured.

  This is what desperation does, Emil thought, pitying the man briefly. It makes your thoughts wide open, so that any stranger can see exactly what you want.

  ‘You’re a local?’ the prisoner said, looking him over.

  ‘No, Biboldo, Unbaptised One,’ said Emil indignantly, glancing down at the shiny buttons on his waistcoat. ‘I’m not a gadjo, I’m a Rom, a Gypsy man. Do I look like a white man?’

  The man ignored his indignation. ‘So you don’t have relatives down in that village, whatever it’s called?’

  Emil shook his head. ‘I was born near here. We were living in Moravia when the Order came through. They gave us two months to settle, so we tried to head back here. There’s a gadjo my father knows we thought would help us. The police made us settle. They burnt our wagon. They come to the hovels where we are staying and count us all the time. I have to go to school.’

  ‘What I meant was, did you know them? They are all dead, that’s why I ask. All of them.’

  Emil glanced down over the fields, keeping an eye open for his father, then brushed the loose dirt from an angular stone at the foot of the tree and sat down. ‘Everybody? They just came and shot everybody?’

  ‘The women and children were already gone by the time we got there. The Schupo’ had sealed off the village the previous day, then the Gestapo moved in. They brought along some farming experts to tell them if any of the machines were worth keeping. It was all piled up by the side, along with the bicycles and perambulators and sewing machines. The rest of the village was burning, the church, the school, every house. They said it took them two trucks full of barrels of petrol. In the truck I arrived in, from Terezín, there was a barrel of lime and a whole pile of shovels and pickaxes. They took us to an allotment …’ His voice drifted. Then his gaze hardened again. ‘I was staring so hard at the green plants that I bumped into the man in front of me. That was when I saw the corpses, row after row, a hundred and fifty, two hundred. Some of them had many bullet wounds. They had all been shot in the head. I saw brains spilled out. The rats had started already. The Commander had come along and he showed us where they wanted the grave dug. It had to be done by nightfall, he said, and if it wasn’t we would be joining the traitors in there, he said, and they gave out the pickaxes and spades. There were mattresses and hundreds of bullet cartridges on the ground and empty bottles of beer and vodka. Some of the Gestapo were drunk. There were explosions and shouting in other parts of the village, and the smell of burning and petrol. We could hear the banging and leaping of the flames. I didn’t know flames could make so much noise.

  ‘To start off with the soil was light. It was just on the edge of the orchard, well cultivated. Then it got harder and they began to beat us. Some of us were sent to get firewood so that
they could build a fire and we could go on digging after dark. After dark, the corpses next to us were just black shapes on the ground …’

  He sighed deeply, and removed his cap. ‘I got this cap from one of the corpses, towards the end of the afternoon. To protect my head. It was the only one I could see that didn’t have blood or brains on it.’

  He turned the cap over, then replaced it on his head.

  Emil looked up at the sky and felt momentarily surprised to see that it was still a pleasant, mid-June blue. He shook his head, as if he had something in his ear he wanted to dislodge.

  ‘They cooked geese for the Gestapo the next day,’ the man was saying. ‘But nobody gave us anything … I saw him, Frank himself, come from Prague to take a look. He’s tall …’

  ‘Why did they do this?’ Emil asked, but the man gave him a scathing glance and ignored his question.

  ‘Finally the grave was deep enough for them, they kept measuring it all the time and shouting and beating us. As we were lowering the bodies in, the Commander said if anyone stole anything from one of the corpses they would be shot, and I was terrified about this cap. I nearly threw it into the grave but I had already been wearing it for a day, and I thought if I removed it then that might draw attention to it. So I left it on my head, and the whole time I was waiting for one of them to notice that I had arrived without a cap and now I had one. The bodies felt heavy. There was a Czech policeman with a big moustache. And some boys who were just children. A priest, old men. Strong men, small men. It didn’t make any difference. They had killed them all. Some corpses had no fingers or eyes. Then we scattered lime over them. As we piled the soil on top, the breeze started to blow. We were coughing …’

  Emil blew air out from his mouth, puffing out his cheeks. His kumpánia should go back to Moravia, like his father wanted. Emil saw himself at the divano that night, sitting amongst the other men, revealing what he knew.

  He rose. ‘I must go,’ he said to the man.

  The man looked up at him beseechingly. ‘I have to get back to Prague. I have friends there who will help me. My parents, they’ve been sent to the East.’ From his crouched position he seemed much younger than he claimed to be.

  ‘I’ll try to return,’ Emil said. ‘If I can, I’ll bring food. I don’t know, though, they might not let me. I can’t promise.’

  The man nodded.

  Emil did not meet his gaze as he turned and walked swiftly to the edge of the copse, scanning the fields below to see if it was safe to cross.

  He heard something behind him and turned. The man was still crouching where he had left him, hissing something in a harsh, urgent whisper.

  ‘What?’ Emil hissed back, pulling a face as he strained to hear.

  ‘I said …’ the man hissed. ‘I said, my name is also František …’ He nodded his head and grinned, nodding and nodding.

  Emil turned without reply, and ran down the hill.

  *

  When Emil returned to the cart, his parents were doing precisely what he had imagined them to be doing. His father was pacing beside the cart, up and down the dirt track, gesticulating. His mother sat pale and determined-looking, Parni leaning against her and Bobo on her lap, his face buried between her breasts. Bobo always behaved as though he regretted being born and would much rather be back inside his mother.

  Emil ran up to the cart, breathing in swift, excited gulps. ‘They have killed the villagers,’ he called out to his family, as he approached. ‘Over the rise, they shot them all, we have to get back …’

  His father took a step towards him, drew back his hand and smashed him across the face. Emil spun a full circle in the air before he hit the ground.

  His father dragged him up by the lapels of his coat and slammed him against the side of his cart. Emil felt his chest cavity thump inwards as the breath left his body. His teeth made a mechanical vuh-vuh sound as they clattered together.

  His father’s face was very close to his. ‘If you ever disobey me again Emil, if you ever leave the cart without my permission, I will beat you so hard that you will be crippled for the rest of your life. You will limp worse than your father ever did, I make you that promise.’ He pulled him by the shoulder to the back of the cart, lifted him bodily and threw him in.

  As the cart pulled off, he huddled into a corner, licking the salty blood from his burst lower lip. His mother sat rigid-backed next to his father. Only Parni turned round to gaze at him. He turned away from her, staring back down the road to where wisps of smoke were just visible upon the horizon.

  *

  His father’s anger had not abated by the time they reached the hamlet. Tekla was there to greet them and she looked from one to another as they descended from the cart.

  She stepped forward and gathered him in her arms, even though he was a head taller than her now. Only then did Emil begin to sob. He tried to stifle the sounds, ashamed of them, but the more he tried to stifle them the louder the sobs became, until the great, hollow noise of them shook his body.

  Sensing his wounded pride, Tekla turned him away from the others and led him away from the cottages, down to the stream. She sat him by the stream and said, ‘Stay here, I will fetch a cloth to wipe your mouth.’

  While she was gone, Parni came down to the stream to stare at him, two fingers stuck in her mouth, her eyes round and wondering. Emil said wearily, ‘Go away, Parni.’ His little sister didn’t move. He waved a hand at her, uselessly, without anger, but she did not stir until Tekla returned and dismissed her with a toss of her head.

  While Tekla wiped his mouth she said, ‘Your mother told me. Fear can make a man very angry, you should know that.’

  ‘He didn’t even give me a chance,’ Emil mumbled resentfully. He had swallowed blood and saliva. He felt sick.

  Tekla made a sceptical clucking sound. ‘Boys, men, you and your explanations.’

  ‘You listen, Aunt …’ Emil said, and told her about the Jewish student in the woods and the bodies he and the other prisoners had buried.

  Tekla sat very still while he told her. Then shook her head. ‘Ever since they killed that Big Hitlerite, it was bound to come to this. I don’t know what they’re playing at. Are they trying to get everyone in the whole damn country killed? The Hitlerites have gone crazy now. How stupid can you get?’

  ‘I will tell him. Then he will see,’ Emil said, unable to keep the resentment out of his voice.

  ‘Stay away from your father,’ Tekla said. ‘I will tell him.’

  ‘It’s my story. I found the Jew.’

  Tekla shook her head. ‘Emil, no …’ She fell silent for a moment, chewed at her lip, then sighed. ‘We cannot help that man. I’m sorry but it’s true. We have enough to do trying to save our own black hides. Think of your little sister and brother. Think of your mother.’ She crossed herself. ‘God forgive us. But the Germans are sending the Jews away and you can bet whatever they do to the Jews they will do next to us.’ She rose. ‘I’ll tell your father what he needs to know. They can discuss it tonight.’

  Emil jumped to his feet. ‘I will be at the divano. I’ll tell them myself.’

  Tekla shook her head. ‘You will stay indoors with us tonight, šavo dilo, until you learn to be more prudent. Don’t even let your father set eyes on you …’

  She turned and mounted the rise.

  Emil sat back down and cried, gently, at the shame of having to remain with the women and the children while the men decided what was to be done.

  CHAPTER 8

  ‘Anna …’ Josef said, stroking her long hair, right from its roots on her fine skull down the length of the oiled braids to the fluffy tips, light as rabbits’ tails. ‘Anna …’

  They were lying in the shade of the tall bushes that lined the fields. Anna had her back to Josef and her eyes closed. He was spooned against her, his head propped up on one hand, the other hand stroking her braid, his voice a whisper.

  ‘Anna …’

  She smiled but did not reply, her eyes st
ill closed. She loved this habit of his, after they had lain together, the way he spoke her name; softly, firmly, sighingly, as if after all these years he could still not quite believe that he had a wife, and that her name was Anna.

  His hand became still and she opened her eyes, turning her head to look at him. His face was drowned.

  ‘Do not think of it,’ she said calmly. ‘He’s alive. We’re all alive.’

  ‘This afternoon …’

  ‘Think of me, of us …’

  Josef rolled over on to his back. Anna turned to him and rested her head on his chest, her face turned up to him. He put both arms behind his head to pillow it, and she played with the buttons on his shirt, inhaling the soft smell of heat from his skin.

  ‘When we heard the shots,’ he said. ‘And I looked at you, and our eyes were locked, and we were the only two people in the world right at that moment. We were both thinking, our son has been shot. I wanted to run, to follow him. Your eyes were locking mine.’

  ‘I know,’ she sighed, dropping her head.

  ‘And I thought, this is just the beginning. Emil is dead. I will go to find him and they will kill me too. Then they will come and find you, and the Little Ones. I swear, when he returned, I had to hold myself back from beating him into the ground. I could have killed him with my bare hands. I thought he was the murderer of all of us.’

  ‘He didn’t die. None of us died.’

  ‘Not today …’

  ‘Not tomorrow!’ she raised herself up, her face close to his, glaring at him.

  ‘We might all die tomorrow.’

  ‘Hush!’

  ‘No, Anna, don’t hush me, listen. We must talk about it. If it happens it will happen so quickly there will be no time for talk. Even the Little Ones. We must make them understand what they must do if they are separated from us. I’ve been putting it off, just like you, like all of us. None of us wants to believe it but we’ll be sorry if we don’t talk now.’