Our Castle by the Sea

by Lucy Strange

  Mutti must have noticed the direction of our gaze, as she turned to look behind her. Pa looked up too then and stopped walking. There was a very odd moment when all four of us were looking up at this mysterious man, and he was looking steadily back at us. Time seemed to hold its breath. The wind dropped. Pa raised his hand in a sort of wave, but the old man turned his back to us and walked away.

  I couldn’t have explained it at the time, but I was somehow aware of the significance of this moment. A shiver scuttled down my spine.

  I asked Mutti about the mysterious old man when the two of us were up in the lantern room later that day. We were drawing together, as we often did. I looked and looked at the view, then closed my eyes, folding up the sea and the stones and the sky into my mind. Then I opened my eyes again, picked up my pencil, and tried to unfold it all onto the paper. But the sea was all wrong, and the sky had no depth, and the standing stones were just flat, childish shapes.

  I sighed and put my pencil down. “But if you don’t know who he is, why did Pa wave at him?”

  Mutti said nothing. She was sketching a cloud, shading and shading its full, gray shape until it looked as if it was about to burst with rain.

  “And wasn’t he the man who was so horrible to you in the bakery? You said he had lost his brother in the Great War? You knew him.”

  “Please, Pet,” Mutti said. “Can we talk about this another time? I have so much on my mind today. I just want to draw.”

  Barnaby the cat prowled into the lantern room then—the lion of our lighthouse. He trotted towards me, leapt onto my lap, and patted my pencil with a huge fluffy paw. Then he sniffed at my sketchbook, and lay down on it, his big soft belly obscuring my scribblings. I sighed and gave up.

  “Everything has a song, Pet,” Mutti said softly. “If you listen carefully to the song of something as you are drawing, it will help you to capture its soul.”

  I listened, trying to let go of all my questions for Mutti’s sake. She was obviously upset about something. I tried to hear the song of the sea. The sea has many different songs, I thought. There are days when its song could be played upon a harp, but that day it would have been something much more solemn: a slowly bowed cello, perhaps. The water was like mercury—heavy and quivering.

  I was starting to understand what Mutti meant, but I still wasn’t sure how to draw it.

  Then there was a high, whistling noise from the speaking tube, and Mutti leapt up. Barnaby leapt up too, digging his claws into my legs as he flew from my lap and disappeared down the stairs. My sketchbook and pencil clattered to the floor.

  The speaking tube is a long hose that connects the lantern room and the kitchen in the cottage below. Mutti removed the whistle from the brass end of the tube and put it to her mouth. “I’m here,” she said. “Is there any news? Has it arrived?”

  It must have been Pa, down in the kitchen. We usually used the speaking tube to tell Pa that dinner was ready, or he might use it to ask us to bring him up a cup of tea; this conversation looked a lot more serious.

  “When?” Mutti asked, and pressed the brass piece to her ear once more. The long white hose wriggled and shook in her hand.

  “But that’s so soon,” she said, and she sank back into her chair. “That’s the day after tomorrow.”

  “What is, Mutti? What’s the day after tomorrow?”

  But she was listening to Pa. Eventually, she fixed the whistle back into the brass mouthpiece with shaking hands.

  It took her a moment before she could say anything. “I’ve been summoned to a tribunal, Pet,” she said at last.

  “A what?”

  “A sort of trial. I have to go to court.”

  Because Mutti had been born in Germany, she was officially an “enemy alien,” and every enemy alien in the country now had to be officially assessed and categorized according to the risk they represented to the security of Great Britain. The three categories were A, B, and C.

  Category A aliens were considered a serious threat and were to be locked up in internment camps; Category Bs were not to be locked up, but they faced restrictions on where they could live and what they could do; Category C aliens were not considered to be dangerous at all and were free to continue their lives as normal.

  In the next village there lived a nice old couple called Mr. and Mrs. Miller (they had changed their name to Miller from Müller when they moved to England from Germany). Mr. Miller was a writer and his wife was a musician. They had disagreed with a lot of the things that had started to happen in Germany, and it had become too dangerous for them to stay there. They had decided to leave and start a new life somewhere else before it was too late. Their tribunal had taken place just a few days before and they had been classified as Category C, so they were free to return to their home.

  “There is nothing to worry about,” old Mr. Miller had said to Mutti as the four of us stood on the sunny steps of Dover magistrates’ court that morning. “This is a good country,” Mr. Miller said. “A free country. They will see the truth in you.” He smiled warmly, and so did Mrs. Miller, her face crinkling up like tissue paper.

  The three magistrates sat on what looked like wooden thrones, side by side behind a long table.

  “Three Wise Monkeys,” whispered Mags. I shook my head at her, but she was spot-on—as usual:

  1. Sir Alan Darsdale, sitting on the left, deaf as a post and half-asleep in a dusty ray of sunshine, was Hear No Evil.

  2. Mr. Gibbons, in the middle, peering suspiciously at Mutti through his glasses, was See No Evil. His eyeballs were inflated into Ping-Pong balls by the thick glass of his spectacle lenses.

  3. Mrs. Baron sat on the right. Her arms were folded and her lips were pressed together in a benign and professional smile. For the time being at least, she was Speak No Evil.

  Mrs. Baron began proceedings. “Another straight forward case, I’m sure we all agree,” she started.

  Mutti turned her head towards Pa. He tried to smile at her, but she couldn’t smile back. Her hands were white, twisted together tightly in her lap.

  “Mrs. Angela Smith …”

  “Mrs. Angela Zimmermann Smith,” Mr. Gibbons corrected.

  “Thank you,” Mrs. Baron continued. “Born in Munich but moved to England in 1922 when you were eighteen—is that right?”

  “Yes.” Mutti nodded, standing up quickly. “… Your Honor.”

  “And you came here because … ?”

  Mutti hesitated for a moment. “I was supposed to go to Paris to study art, but my family’s savings were no longer enough …”

  “Ah—yes, we’ve all heard the stories—wheelbarrows of money just to buy a loaf of bread—that sort of thing?”

  “Yes. So it was decided that I would come to England instead—to work. My mother’s cousin ran a small hotel here—Mrs. Fisher.”

  “Of course—we all remember Mrs. Fisher. The flowers in the village church haven’t been the same since she passed away …”

  There was an indignant “Hmph!” from an old lady called Bertha Daley, sitting at the back. She had taken over floral responsibilities at the church just a few months ago.

  “I met Frederick, and we married not long after.” Mutti smiled at Pa. I could feel him wanting to reach out and squeeze her hand. I wanted to as well.

  “And you registered as a German national when you moved to the country?”

  “Of course—as soon as I arrived.”

  A pause while Mrs. Baron checked the paperwork in front of her. “Yes.”

  A different voice now—it was Mr. Gibbons: “Do you still have family in Germany, Mrs. Zimmermann Smith?” He squinted at her through his glasses.

  “Both my parents have died,” Mutti said, her voice a little quieter.

  “Eh?” shouted Sir Alan Darsdale.

  “Both my parents are dead now,” Mutti said more loudly, her voice catching a little.

  “Ah,” said Sir Alan Darsdale, and nodded, his eyelids starting to close once more.

  “But
there are … cousins, I think?” said Mrs. Baron. She was looking at a piece of paper.

  “One cousin. Max,” Mutti replied. “But we are not in touch.”

  I noticed that Pa gripped his knees so tightly his knuckles had gone white.

  Mrs. Baron pushed the piece of paper up to Sir Alan Darsdale, who snored at it. Mr. Gibbons then read it, holding it up close to his face. He stared hard at Mutti and his Ping-Pong-ball eyes looked bigger than ever.

  “Where does your cousin live?” he asked.

  Mutti paused for a second—just a second. “In Berlin,” she said, then added, “I believe.” Someone behind me inhaled loudly and whispered something.

  “And when was the last time you had contact with him?”

  Mutti paused again. She seemed unsure. “I have not seen him for many years,” she said at last.

  “Really?”

  “Yes,” Mutti said. “Not for many years.”

  Mrs. Baron paused and then said, “Is there anything else of which the court should be aware?”

  “I don’t think so …” Mutti began.

  But then something happened.

  “There is something else, I’m afraid,” said Mr. Gibbons, and he held up a folder of papers. Sir Alan Darsdale jerked awake. This was most irregular. “Apologies to my fellow magistrates for the lack of formal procedure,” said Mr. Gibbons, “but this only came to my attention immediately before the session.” He frowned a little and looked at someone sitting at the front of the court—a tall, thin man in a very smart pin-striped suit who stretched his legs out in front of him and folded his arms across his chest. The man’s face was craggy—the wrinkles and worry lines that marked his forehead were so deep they almost looked like scars. He cleared his throat—a dry little sound that sounded a bit like the cough of a fox—and he nodded, almost invisibly, to Mr. Gibbons.

  Mr. Gibbons then whispered something to Mrs. Baron and pulled the documents from the folder. He leafed through the pages, showing her one after another.

  Mrs. Baron grew very pale. Her hand moved towards her mouth.

  The same documents were then shown to Sir Alan Darsdale, who said nothing but raised his bushy white eyebrows until they almost met the curls of his magistrate’s wig.

  Sir Alan Darsdale cleared his throat. “The court will take a brief …” he announced loudly, then muttered, “What’s the wretched word?”

  “The court will adjourn for a few minutes,” said Mrs. Baron, and I noticed that her voice had changed.

  Automatically, my hand reached for my sister’s. She placed her other hand over mine quickly.

  As soon as the three magistrates left through the rear door of the court, the room erupted with noise. I looked around. Everyone was chattering, their eyes alight with the melodrama of the moment. I thought perhaps I was going to be sick.

  “Pa?” I said. But he was having a silent conversation with Mutti.

  What’s happening? her eyes said to his.

  I don’t know, I don’t know, said his in reply. I had never seen Mutti look so white and small. She suddenly looked terribly young, younger even than me. I noticed that a policeman who had been sitting on the front row had stood up and was now hovering a few feet behind her, watching her warily, as if she were a wild animal, or a bank robber with a gun.

  When the magistrates came back into the courtroom, Mrs. Baron’s face looked very strange, as if it had been stitched up and the thread pulled too tightly.

  “I’m afraid we have a very difficult decision to make,” she said. “The police in London have intercepted a package on its way to Germany. A package of information and drawings. There are records and charts on the movements of British naval vessels, and drawings depicting Stonegate harbor, the port of Dover, and surrounding shipping hazards such as the sandbank off Dragon Bay. What can you tell us about these drawings, Mrs. Zimmermann Smith?”

  “Drawings?” said Mutti. They were passed to her, and she looked at them, shaking her head.

  Mr. Gibbons’s full-moon eyes were fixed upon her: “You said yourself that you were destined to study art in Paris. You told us that just now, or do you deny it? You are an artist, are you not? You draw?”

  “I draw, yes,” she said. “But these are not mine. I draw the sea, the cliffs, the storm clouds, the birds in the sky—these are …” She struggled to find the right word. “These are more like maps, diagrams.”

  Mr. Gibbons shrugged. He did not see the difference.

  Then a voice called out from the back of the court: “Of course they’re her drawings. She’s always out on the cliffs with her flamin’ pencils.” It was Arthur Briggs.

  Mags held my hand more tightly.

  “Order!” shouted Mrs. Baron. “If you have evidence, Mr. Briggs, proper evidence, you had better stand up. If not, you must keep silent or you will be removed from the courtroom.”

  There was a moment of silence. Mutti was staring towards the back of the court, her mouth slightly open. She was breathing quickly. Then Arthur Briggs got to his feet.

  “All I’m sayin’, Your Honors, is that I’ve seen her.” A few people nodded. Mags was facing forward, quite stiff and still. She was holding my hand so hard it almost hurt.

  “She’s been creepin’ about on the cliffs,” Briggs went on. “I’ve seen her meself. There’s new army buildings being built up that way, aren’t there? Bunkers? Guns? Things Jerry would want to know about, I’m sure!” A murmur bubbled up from the benches at the back.

  “Order!” shouted Mrs. Baron again.

  I remembered Kipper Briggs and his accusation: She’s been seen. I thought of that misty morning when I had followed Mutti up onto the south cliff. I knew she wasn’t creating diagrams of the harbor or the new army buildings—of course she wasn’t—but … what was she doing there? Who had she been following? It didn’t make any sense. I felt Mags shift in her seat beside me. Her hands, clasped around mine, suddenly felt clammy.

  “And she lives in the lighthouse for Pete’s sake!” Briggs added, “She’s probably flashing secret messages to Fritz every flamin’ night!”

  Another murmur of noise.

  “How do we know she wasn’t to blame for the fire in the village?” someone else shouted. “Or that bomber that our guns took down? She might be using the lighthouse to signal to the bloody Luftwaffe for all we know!”

  People were muttering in agreement, heads nodding all around us now.

  Who were these people?

  I will tell you who these people were. They were our friends. People from church, the village shopkeepers and fishermen, the parents of the children we had grown up with. But something had changed them. The war. The enemy plane. The things they had heard on the wireless and read in the newspapers. The rumors, the whispers. They were angry. And they were very, very frightened.

  “Thank you, Mr. Briggs,” said Mrs. Baron. “You may sit down.” She looked at her fellow magistrates, and the two of them nodded at her gravely.

  Then Pa stood up, and my heart leapt—he was going to defend Mutti. “I wish to …” he started, but Mrs. Baron did not want any more interruptions or surprises. “I think we’ve heard quite enough from the court’s spectators today, Mr. Smith. I’m so sorry. Your loyal support of your wife is noted. You may sit down.”

  Pa stayed standing, his mouth open. He seemed unsure of what to do.

  “You can sit down,” she said again, looking into Pa’s eyes, her tone firm. Trust me, she seemed to say.

  When Pa eventually sat down, Mrs. Baron took a deep breath. “Mrs. Zimmermann Smith,” she went on, “has shown herself to be a woman of excellent character, as everyone in the village knows.” This remark seemed to be directed towards the back of the courtroom. I looked at Pa. A woman of excellent character. It was going to be all right, wasn’t it?

  “We are at war, though, and a huge responsibility rests upon our shoulders. We must …” She stopped. I had never seen Mrs. Baron lost for words before. She looked at Mr. Gibbons and he stood up.
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  “Ladies and gentlemen, these drawings are frankly rather frightening,” he said, addressing the courtroom as a whole. “They suggest that someone in the area is indeed attempting to provide information to the enemy for the purposes of strategic advantage, attack, and possibly even invasion.”

  Several people gasped.

  “We cannot at present prove Mrs. Zimmermann Smith’s guilt in this respect, and indeed, we are not here today for a criminal prosecution of any sort—that responsibility will lie in other hands.” His eyes flicked briefly towards the pinstripe-suited man sitting on the front row. “I am afraid, however, that there is sufficient evidence to suggest that Mrs. Zimmermann Smith might be a potential threat to national security, and we can’t take that risk. We are under very strict instructions.”

  Mags gripped my hand tighter. We were rigid—still as stone. Tears were running down my face. They can’t …

  “Category A,” Gibbons announced.

  A triumphant release of breath from the back row.

  “Eh?” said Sir Alan Darsdale.

  “CATEGORY A,” shouted Gibbons.

  Excited muttering all around me.

  “Mrs. Angela Helene Zimmermann Smith, you are to be indefinitely interned as a matter of national security …”

  Everything was blurred now—the faces in front of me, the white wigs and wooden thrones, the sound of Mr. Gibbons’s voice, the words themselves … Interned. Indefinitely interned. Imprisoned. Taken away. My Mutti.

  “Pa?” I grabbed his sleeve, but he was just staring at Mutti. His lips were moving silently, as if he were trying to say something.

  Mutti stood up, but the policeman had to help her. He took her by the elbow and led her out of the courtroom. Her eyes did not leave Pa’s until she was forced to turn at last through the dark doorway.

  On the steps of the court outside, the sun was still shining as brightly as it had been before, but now it felt all wrong. Everything felt all wrong. Four of us had gone into the court, but only three of us had come out. I had that horrible, incomplete feeling you get when you know you have forgotten something very important. I felt sick.