Keith waited for her to join him behind the trees, then took her by the arm and guided her quickly in the direction of the pavilion. He stopped every few yards to kiss her, and had located the zip on her skirt with at least twenty-two yards still to cover.
When they reached the back door, Keith removed a large key from his jacket pocket and inserted it into the lock. He turned it slowly and pushed the door open, fumbling around for the light switch. He flicked it on, and then heard the groans. Keith stared down in disbelief at the sight that greeted him. Four eyes blinked back up at him. One of the two was shielding herself from the naked light-bulb, but Keith could recognize those legs, even if he couldn’t see her face. He turned his attention to the other body lying on top of her.
Duncan Alexander would certainly never forget the day he lost his virginity.
7.
The Times
21 November 1940
HUNGARY DRAWN INTO AXIS NET: RIBBENTROP’S BOAST THAT “OTHERS WILL FOLLOW”
Lubji lay on the ground, doubled up, clutching his jaw. The soldier kept the bayonet pointing between his eyes, and with a flick of the head indicated that he should join the others in the waiting lorry.
Lubji tried to continue his protest in Hungarian, but he knew it was too late. “Save your breath, Jew,” hissed the soldier, “or I’ll kick it out of you.” The bayonet ripped into his trousers and tore open the skin of his right leg. Lubji hobbled off as quickly as he could to the waiting lorry, and joined a group of stunned, helpless people who had only one thing in common: they were all thought to be Jews. Mr. and Mrs. Cerani were thrown on board before the lorry began its slow journey out of the city. An hour later they reached the compound of the local prison, and Lubji and his fellow-passengers were unloaded as if they were nothing more than cattle.
The men were lined up and led across the courtyard into a large stone hall. A few minutes later an SS sergeant marched in, followed by a dozen German soldiers. He barked out an order in his native tongue. “He’s saying we must strip,” whispered Lubji, translating the words into Hungarian.
They all took off their clothes, and the soldiers began herding the naked bodies into lines—most of them shivering, some of them crying. Lubji’s eyes darted around the room trying to see if there was any way he might escape. There was only one door—guarded by soldiers—and three small windows high up in the walls.
A few minutes later a smartly dressed SS officer marched in, smoking a thin cigar. He stood in the center of the room and, in a brief perfunctory speech, informed them that they were now prisoners of war. “Heil Hitler,” he said, and turned to leave.
Lubji took a pace forward and smiled as the officer passed him. “Good afternoon, sir,” he said. The officer stopped, and stared with disgust at the young man. Lubji began to claim in pidgin German that they had made a dreadful mistake, and then opened his hand to reveal a wad of Hungarian pengös.
The officer smiled at Lubji, took the notes and set light to them with his cigar. The flame grew until he could hold the wad no longer, when he dropped the burning paper on the floor at Lubji’s feet and marched off. Lubji could only think of how many months it had taken him to save that amount of money.
The prisoners stood shivering in the stone hall. The guards ignored them; some smoked, while others talked to each other as if the naked men simply didn’t exist. It was to be another hour before a group of men in long white coats wearing rubber gloves entered the hall. They began walking up and down the lines, stopping for a few seconds to check each prisoner’s penis. Three men were ordered to dress and told they could return to their homes. That was all the proof needed. Lubji wondered what test the women were being subjected to.
After the men in white coats had left, the prisoners were ordered to dress and then led out of the hall. As they crossed the courtyard Lubji’s eyes darted around, looking for any avenue of escape, but there were always soldiers with bayonets no more than a few paces away. They were herded into a long corridor and coaxed down a narrow stone staircase with only an occasional gas lamp giving any suggestion of light. On both sides Lubji passed cells crammed with people; he could hear screaming and pleading in so many different tongues that he didn’t dare to turn round and look. Then, suddenly, one of the cell doors was opened and he was grabbed by the collar and hurled in, head first. He would have hit the stone floor if he hadn’t landed on a pile of bodies.
He lay still for a moment and then stood up, trying to focus on those around him. But as there was only one small barred window, it was some time before he could make out individual faces.
A rabbi was chanting a psalm—but the response was muted. Lubji tried to stand to one side as an elderly man was sick all over him. He moved away from the stench, only to bump into another prisoner with his trousers down. He sat in the corner with his back to the wall—that way no one could take him by surprise.
When the door was opened again, Lubji had no way of knowing how long he had been in that stench-ridden cell. A group of soldiers entered the room with torches, and flashed their lights into blinking eyes. If the eyes didn’t blink, the body was dragged out into the corridor and never seen again. It was the last time he saw Mr. Cerani.
Other than watching light followed by darkness through the slit in the wall, and sharing the one meal that was left for the prisoners every morning, there was no way of counting the days. Every few hours the soldiers returned to remove more bodies, until they were confident that only the fittest had survived. Lubji assumed that in time he too must die, as that seemed to be the only way out of the little prison. With each day that passed, his suit hung more loosely on his body, and he began to tighten his belt, notch by notch.
Without warning, one morning a group of soldiers rushed into the cell and dragged out those prisoners who were still alive. They were ordered to march along the corridor and back up the stone steps to the courtyard. When Lubji stepped out into the morning sun, he had to hold his hand up to protect his eyes. He had spent ten, fifteen, perhaps twenty days in that dungeon, and had developed what the prisoners called “cat’s eyes.”
And then he heard the hammering. He turned his head to the left, and saw a group of prisoners erecting a wooden scaffold. He counted eight nooses. He would have been sick, but there was nothing in his stomach to bring up. A bayonet touched his hip and he quickly followed the other prisoners clambering into line, ready to board the crowded lorries.
A laughing guard informed them on the journey back into the city that they were going to honor them with a trial before they returned to the prison and hanged every one of them. Hope turned to despair, as once again Lubji assumed he was about to die. For the first time he wasn’t sure if he cared.
The lorries came to a standstill outside the courthouse, and the prisoners were led into the building. Lubji became aware that there were no longer any bayonets, and that the soldiers kept their distance. Once inside the building, the prisoners were allowed to sit on wooden benches in the well-lit corridor, and were even given slices of bread on tin plates. Lubji became suspicious, and began to listen to the guards as they chatted to each other. He picked up from different conversations that the Germans were going through the motions of “proving” that all the Jews were criminals, because a Red Cross observer from Geneva was present in court that morning. Surely, Lubji thought, such a man would find it more than a coincidence that every one of them was Jewish. Before he could think how to take advantage of this information, a corporal grabbed him by the arm and led him into the courtroom. Lubji stood in the dock, facing an elderly judge who sat in a raised chair in front of him. The trial—if that’s how it could be described—lasted for only a few minutes. Before the judge passed the death sentence, an official even had to ask Lubji to remind them of his name.
The tall, thin young man looked down at the Red Cross observer seated on his right. He was staring at the ground in front of him, apparently bored, and only looked up when the death sentence was passed.
An
other soldier took Lubji’s arm and started to usher him out of the dock so that the next prisoner could take his place. Suddenly the observer stood up and asked the judge a question in a language Lubji couldn’t understand.
The judge frowned, and turned his attention back to the prisoner in the dock.
“How old are you?” he asked him in Hungarian.
“Seventeen,” replied Lubji. The prosecuting counsel came forward to the bench and whispered to the judge.
The judge looked at Lubji, scowled, and said, “Sentence commuted to life imprisonment.” He paused and smiled, then said, “Retrial in twelve months’ time.” The observer seemed satisfied with his morning’s work, and nodded his approval.
The guard, who obviously felt Lubji had been dealt with far too leniently, stepped forward, grabbed him by the shoulder and led him back to the corridor. He was handcuffed, marched out into the courtyard and hurled onto an open lorry. Other prisoners sat silently waiting for him, as if he were the last passenger joining them on a local bus.
The tailboard was slammed closed, and moments later the lorry lurched forward. Lubji was thrown onto the floorboards, quite unable to keep his balance.
He remained on his knees and looked around. There were two guards on the truck, seated opposite each other next to the tailboard. Both were clutching rifles, but one of them had lost his right arm. He looked almost as resigned to his destiny as the prisoners.
Lubji crawled back toward the rear of the lorry and sat on the floorboards next to the guard with two arms. He bowed his head and tried to concentrate. The journey to the prison would take about forty minutes, and he felt sure that this would be his last chance if he wasn’t to join the others on the gallows. But how could he possibly escape, he pondered, as the lorry slowed to pass through a tunnel. When they re-emerged, Lubji tried to recall how many tunnels there had been between the prison and the courthouse. Three, perhaps four. He couldn’t be certain.
As the lorry drove through the next tunnel a few minutes later, he began to count slowly. “One, two, three.” They were in complete darkness for almost four seconds. He had one advantage over the guards for those few seconds: after his three weeks in a dungeon, they couldn’t hope to handle themselves in the dark as well as he could. Against that, he would have two of them to deal with. He glanced across at the other guard. Well, one and a half.
Lubji stared ahead of him and took in the passing terrain. He calculated that they must be about halfway between the city and the jail. On the near side of the road flowed a river. It might be difficult, if not impossible, to cross, as he had no way of knowing how deep it was. On the other side, fields stretched toward a bank of trees that he estimated must have been about three to four hundred yards away.
How long would it take for him to cover three hundred yards, with the movement of his arms restricted? He turned his head to see if another tunnel was coming into sight, but there was none, and Lubji became fearful that they had passed through the last tunnel before the jail. Could he risk attempting an escape in broad daylight? He came to the conclusion that he had little choice if there was no sign of a tunnel in the next couple of miles.
Another mile passed, and he decided that once they drove round the next bend, he would have to make a decision. He slowly drew his legs up under his chin, and rested his handcuffs on his knees. He pressed his spine firmly against the back of the lorry and moved his weight to the tips of his toes.
Lubji stared down the road as the lorry careered round the bend. He almost shouted “Mazeltov!” when he saw the tunnel about five hundred yards away. From the tiny pinprick of light at the far end, he judged it to be at least a four-second tunnel.
He remained on the tips of his toes, tensed and ready to spring. He could feel his heart beating so strongly that the guards must surely sense some imminent danger. He glanced up at the two-armed guard as he removed a cigarette from an inside pocket, lazily placed it in his mouth and began searching for a match. Lubji turned his attention in the direction of the tunnel, now only a hundred yards away. He knew that once they had entered the darkness he would have only a few seconds.
Fifty yards … forty … thirty … twenty … ten. Lubji took a deep breath, counted one, then sprang up and threw his handcuffs around the throat of the two-armed guard, twisting with such force that the German fell over the side of the lorry, screaming as he hit the road.
The lorry screeched to a halt as it skidded out of the far end of the tunnel. Lubji leapt over the side and immediately ran back into the temporary safety of the darkness. He was followed by two or three other prisoners. Once he emerged from the other end of the tunnel, he swung right and charged into the fields, never once looking back. He must have covered a hundred yards before he heard the first bullet whistle above his head. He tried to cover the second hundred without losing any speed, but every few paces were now accompanied by a volley of bullets. He swerved from side to side. Then he heard the scream. He looked back and saw that one of the prisoners who had leapt out after him was lying motionless on the ground, while a second was still running flat out, only yards behind him. Lubji hoped the gun was being fired by the one-armed guard.
Ahead of him the trees loomed, a mere hundred yards away. Each bullet acted like a starting pistol and spurred him on as he forced an extra yard out of his trembling body. Then he heard the second scream. This time he didn’t look back. With fifty yards to go, he recalled that a prisoner had once told him that German rifles had a range of three hundred yards, so he guessed he must be six or seven seconds from safety. Then the bullet came crashing into his shoulder. The force of the impact pushed him on for a few more paces, but it was only moments before he collapsed headlong into the mud. He tried to crawl, but could only manage a couple of yards before he finally slumped on his face. He remained head down, resigned to death.
Within moments he felt a rough pair of hands grab at his shoulders. Another yanked him up by the ankles. Lubji’s only thought was to wonder how the Germans had managed to reach him so quickly. He would have found out if he hadn’t fainted.
* * *
Lubji had no way of knowing what time it was when he woke. He could only assume, as it was pitch black, that he must be back in his cell awaiting execution. Then he felt the excruciating pain in his shoulder. He tried to push himself up with the palms of his hands, but he just couldn’t move. He wriggled his fingers, and was surprised to discover that at least they had removed his handcuffs.
He blinked and tried to call out, but could only manage a whisper that must have made him sound like a wounded animal. Once again he tried to push himself up, once again he failed. He blinked, unable to believe what he saw standing in front of him. A young girl fell on her knees and mopped his brow with a rough wet rag. He spoke to her in several languages, but she just shook her head. When she finally did say something, it was in a tongue he had never heard before. Then she smiled, pointed to herself and said simply, “Mari.”
He fell asleep. When he woke, a morning sun was shining in his eyes; but this time he was able to raise his head. He was surrounded by trees. He turned to his left and saw a circle of colored wagons, piled high with a myriad of possessions. Beyond them, three or four horses were cropping grass at the base of a tree. He turned in the other direction, and his eyes settled on a girl who was standing a few paces away, talking to a man with a rifle slung over his shoulder. For the first time he became aware of just how beautiful she was.
When he called out, they both looked round. The man walked quickly over to Lubji’s side and, standing above him, greeted him in his own language. “My name is Rudi,” he said, before explaining how he and his little band had escaped across the Czech border some months before, only to find that the Germans were still following them. They had to keep on the move, as the master race considered gypsies inferior even to Jews.
Lubji began to fire questions at him: “Who are you? Where am I?” And, most important, “Where are the Germans?” He stopped only when Mari�
��who, Rudi explained, was his sister—returned with a bowl of hot liquid and a hunk of bread. She kneeled beside him and began slowly spooning the thin gruel into his mouth. She paused between mouthfuls, occasionally offering him a morsel of bread, as her brother continued to tell Lubji how he had ended up with them. Rudi had heard the shots, and had run to the edge of the forest thinking the Germans had discovered his little band, only to see the prisoners sprinting toward him. All of them had been shot, but Lubji had been close enough to the forest for his men to rescue him.
The Germans had not pursued them once they had seen him being carried off into the forest. “Perhaps they were fearful of what they might come up against, although in truth the nine of us have only two rifles, a pistol, and an assortment of weapons from a pitchfork to a fish knife,” Rudi laughed. “I suspect they were more anxious about losing the other prisoners if they went in search of you. But one thing was certain: the moment the sun came up, they would return in great numbers. That is why I gave the order that once the bullet had been removed from your shoulder, we must move on and take you with us.”
“How will I ever repay you?” murmured Lubji.
When Mari had finished feeding him, two of the gypsies raised Lubji gently up onto the caravan, and the little train continued its journey deeper into the forest. On and on they went, avoiding villages, even roads, as they distanced themselves from the scene of the shooting. Day after day Mari tended Lubji, until eventually he could push himself up. She was delighted by how quickly he learned to speak their language. For several hours he practiced one particular sentence he wanted to say to her. Then, when she came to feed him that evening, he told her in fluent Romany that she was the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. She blushed, and ran away, not to return again until breakfast.
With Mari’s constant attention, Lubji recovered quickly, and was soon able to join his rescuers round the fire in the evening. As the days turned into weeks, he not only began to fill his suit again, but started letting out the notches on his belt.
The Fourth Estate Page 9