by Celia Rees
“It could also be because the Russians wanted revenge,” Harry countered. “For all the things done to them when the Germans invaded their country.”
“There is that,” Jack conceded. “And the Ivans got fuck-all to trade. We always had summat—fags and that. When we got to Italy, there was this little town, practically the first place we come to, they was lining up with their shopping bags.”
“That’s nothing to be proud of, Jack,” Edith interjected.
“Mebbe not, but you can’t stop it. War is war. Chaps is chaps.”
Jack’s salty language and outré stance wouldn’t be acceptable among some people, but he was an unflinching and ferocious realist. Edith had to admire him for that. He lived by his own rules and had his own moral code, which was not always easy to read. He could be exceptionally kind to those he felt deserving of help. Everybody else? Watch out . . .
He’d been to see Seraphina and Anna several times, to take them things they might need, to make sure that they were all right. He had also been instrumental in getting penicillin to the hospital. Edith didn’t know how he’d managed that. Didn’t want to know. It also served as a reason to see his wench, as he called her, Sister Warren. There had to be something in it for Jack. That was one of his rules.
Anna had been moved to a sanatorium: a large brick house with various annexes, set in its own grounds. They drove up a long, snaking drive between snow-covered lawns blindingly bright in the intense sunlight. Patients were lined up inside glittering, glass-covered verandas, the front and sides open to the elements. Fresh air was seen as beneficial, as long as patients were kept wrapped up and warm. Much the same thing happened in Britain. Edith remembered a school friend who had developed TB and been sent to a place in North Wales where patients slept out of doors.
Edith was glad to see how well Anna looked, with color in her cheeks, flesh on her bones, a brightness in her eyes. Seraphina looked better too, less thin and careworn, like a girl again, one with a future, a life ahead of her. She was sitting on Anna’s bed and came to greet them, smiling and happy. When she saw Harry, she drew back a little. She was still shy of strangers.
Harry smiled. “Shalom.”
“You are Jewish and a soldier?”
Seraphina reached out toward the Jewish Brigade Star of David flash he wore on his shoulder, her dark eyes wide with wonder, as if she could not quite believe that he was real.
Harry laughed. “Yes, I am.”
She stared at him, her eyes brimming, the tears not quite spilling. She laughed then and turned away, dabbing with a handkerchief.
“I’m sorry. It is silly of me. It’s just—” She shook her head, unable to find words for what she was feeling. “Come. You must meet Anna. She will not believe such a thing is possible.”
She led him to her sister’s bed. Soon all three of them were chattering away in Yiddish.
“Getting on like a house on fire,” Jack commented. “Harry seems to be just what the doctor ordered.”
“Yes, aren’t they just. We’ll leave them to it. Anna seems much better. I’m going to find the doctor in charge, ask about her progress.”
She left the ward and started off toward the main entrance and the director’s office. She followed the signs down a long corridor with pale-green walls and black-and-white tiles. Nearly at the end of it, she faltered.
She saw him standing in the center of an intersection. Corridors led off in different directions, like the spokes of a wheel. He’d stopped, as though recalling something hitherto forgotten. He was the right height, in a doctor’s white coat, stethoscope around his neck like a collar. He must have been under a skylight, illuminated from above by the strong, white, Nordic light. As he looked down at the files he was carrying, the sun picked out the gold in his hair, cut shorter than she remembered, the sides razored.
It was Kurt. She was sure.
All this in the time it took between one step and another. In the next second, he was gone. She saw the flick of a white coat disappearing and set off after it. She was nearly at the foyer when she collided with Harry.
“Did you see a doctor? Tall, blond. He came this way.”
“No, I—”
At that moment, he reappeared. It was clearly not Kurt.
“Doesn’t matter.” Edith didn’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
“Anna’s resting.” Harry laughed. “The nurses threw me out. See you outside?”
“I still have to see the director.” Edith looked at her watch. “Shouldn’t be long.”
“Gnädige Frau, what an honor. Do sit.”
The director settled his small hands over his ample stomach, eyes blinking rapidly behind rimless glasses. Edith hardly heard his litany of problems and complaints. She was too busy thinking about what she would have done if it had been Kurt in that corridor.
“Food is a difficulty,” he was saying. “Patients won’t recover without good nutrition. To that end, they are taking part in an experiment . . .”
Edith looked up. Hadn’t they had enough of those already?
He went to a shelf, took down a tin box, and opened it with something of a flourish. She thought he was going to offer her a biscuit but it contained lengths of human hair, dark, blond, reddish, coarse, and fine, all combed and washed like hanks of wool. She swallowed hard.
“The hair is collected, sterilized, cut up small, and nutrients extracted through special processes . . .” he explained, passing a plump hand over his own shining pate.
Edith stared at the dead hanks of hair. There was something vile, repulsive about the whole thing. Didn’t they collect hair in the concentration camps? She looked away.
“The end result tastes like fishpaste. Would you like to try?”
She shook her head. “I’ll take your word for it.”
“I have a diet sheet here if you’d like to see it?”
“Thank you, Herr Doktor.” She took it from him and stood up, keen to get away. “I won’t keep you any longer.”
“I will escort you to your car.”
Harry and Jack were on the steps, smoking. They threw away their cigarettes and fell in behind her.
Across the parking lot, a building stood at some distance from the main complex. Tall, redbrick, with a large blackened chimney at the rear of it, the windows boarded. There was a gaunt, neglected air about it. Dr. Beckenbauer had complained about overcrowding; it seemed odd to see this building empty. Perhaps it had been damaged in the bombing, but Edith could see no evidence . . .
“What’s that?” Edith asked.
“A facility for mental patients,” Dr. Beckenbauer replied. “No longer used.” He offered no more information. “Sirs, Madam.”
He acknowledged each of them with a quick bow before hurrying back inside.
26
Fischhaus Restaurant, Blankense, Hamburg
3rd March 1946
Menu
Aalsuppe
Matjes--Marinierter Hering--Pickled Herrings
Schwarzbrot
Smoked Eel--Räucheraal
Kartoffelsalat--Potato Salad
Holsten Beer
Ice-cold Schnapps Berentzen Doornkaat
Very much a Baltic menu, eel, herring in various guises, washed down with schnapps and beer. My male dining companions stuck to the herring and schnapps. One because eels aren’t kosher, the other because the skin is black.
Edith would ask Roz to check Beckenbauer’s fragebogen. There’d been something unsavory about him, and it wasn’t just his peculiar recipe.
“What’s going to happen to the two girls when they get out of there?” Jack asked. “DP camp?”
“Not if I can help it.” Harry stared back at the hospital as they drove away. “They’ve had enough of that.”
“I’ll find them somewhere,” Edith said. “Don’t worry.”
She and Roz had been talking about moving out of their respective billets, Roz declaring that she couldn’t bear sharing a bathroom for another
minute. Edith knew the feeling. She was tired of communal living and her room had been searched again, despite her warning. Fresh scratch marks on the brass plate of her writing slope, as though someone had been at the lock with a hairpin. Once she and Roz had their own place, the girls could stay with them, for a while at least, but what about the longer term?
“What do they want, do you think?” Edith asked. “We’re always deciding things for people, but what do they want to do?”
“They want to go back to Czechoslovakia,” Harry answered.
“That’s natural, I suppose,” Edith said. Even after everything that’s happened, perhaps especially after everything that’s happened, they would want to go back to what they knew. To the world they remembered. A world that wasn’t there anymore. “The trouble is, it won’t be like that, will it?”
“No. It won’t.” Harry stared out of the window. “It’s common. We come across it frequently. They know it’s all gone, but a part of them secretly believes that it’s still there somewhere, waiting. They’re worried no one will know where they are if they don’t go back, and they want to find what’s left of their family. It sounds brutal but there really is no point. In all likelihood, there is no family. They’ll find nothing. All they’ll encounter is hostility. Their homes will have been taken over. If they ask for news of their family, their old neighbors will just laugh and point up at the sky. That’s the best that can happen. I’ve heard reports of new pogroms: Jews, survivors, going home and being attacked, murdered, beaten to death.”
“So? What’s to be done with them?” Jack asked.
Harry did not respond. Edith knew what he was thinking: Tilhas Tizig Gesheften. Up-your-arse business. The girls would be taken care of.
They were nearing Blankense. Edith suggested Jack go to get Kay. They could have dinner together.
“What happened back there?” Harry asked as the waiter brought schnapps.
“What do you mean?”
“At the clinic.” He twiddled a toothpick between his fingers. “Why were you chasing after that chap?”
“I thought I recognized him. He looked a bit like someone I knew before the war.”
“The chap you knew was a doctor?
Edith nodded. “His name is Kurt von Stavenow.”
Harry looked at her closely. “Was that a coincidence, or are you looking for him?”
“The latter.”
“Is he wanted, this von Stavenow?”
Edith nodded again. She’d wanted to talk to Harry about him, about what she’d been tasked to do, but there had never been the right time, the right occasion.
“Nazi doctors did some very bad things . . .” he said, the disgust on his face belying his understatement.
“Didn’t they?” Edith sighed. For no clear reason, she had tears in her eyes. “Didn’t they just.”
A slight frown, a quirking between his brows, a quizzical look in his dark eyes. He knew there was more. She didn’t want to tell him about Kurt. About any of it. Not yet. Not now. Edith downed her schnapps. The cold, clear liquid shuddered through her, tasting like antiseptic but giving her the lift she needed. She looked up, relieved to see Jack and Kay coming through the door.
Kay looked different out of uniform. Much younger and very attractive. She was wearing lipstick, and her short nails were painted red. With her high color, good cheekbones, full mouth, and dark wavy hair there was a little of the Joan Crawford about her. No wonder Jack was smitten.
“Jack says you went to the sanatorium to see Anna and Seraphina,” she said. “I’ve been up there once or twice, keeping an eye on them.”
“The doctor in charge is a bit of an odd character.” Edith smiled. “He was explaining his hair diet to me.”
“Did you try it?”
Edith shook her head, grimacing.
“I did.” Kay laughed. “Looks like Gentleman’s Relish. Tastes similar. I hope it works, for his sake. He’s been in hot water, has Dr. Beckenbauer. He has to mind his p’s and q’s.”
“Why is that?” Edith asked, wanting to know if her instinctive dislike for him was confirmed.
“Did you notice a building? On its own in the grounds?”
“Boarded up?”
“That’s the one. On one of my visits, Seraphina told me there are patients in there. She called them Muselmänner.”
“What’s that mean?” Jack frowned, puzzled. It was a word he hadn’t heard before.
“It means extreme emaciation,” Harry supplied. “It’s a term they used in the camps.”
Kay nodded her confirmation. “So, I go to Dr. Beckenbauer, demand to see inside. He’s happy to show me. Seraphina was right. These patients exhibit signs of advanced malnutrition. They are the mental patients, he explains, they don’t receive the same rations as those in the main hospital. When I ask, why not? All patients should receive the same ration, he’s shocked. He didn’t think the directive applied to them.”
“What happened?”
“I reported it. He got written up. Patients transferred. Facility closed down. Trouble is, we have the same problem with Jerry doctors and nurses as you do with teachers. To practice under the Nazis, you had to belong to the Party.”
“It’s happening all the time now.” Harry frowned. “They’re letting them blend back in. Take their places again.”
“There simply aren’t enough doctors,” Kay replied. “Mil. Gov. has to keep the death rate down among the German population, so they can’t be too particular. German doctors are appointed by a German committee. My guess is most of them are ex-Nazis, but what can you do?”
“Where’s the food?” Jack looked around. “I’m starving.”
Harry refused his soup and lit a cigarette.
“What’s this?” Jack fished out a piece of black skin. “Looks like inner tube. Bet it tastes like it, too. I’m not eating that.”
“It’s good, Jack.” Kay tasted hers. “You should try new things.”
“I’ll leave that to you.” Jack pushed his plate away. “He isn’t eating it, either.”
“I don’t eat eel.”
Not kosher, Edith remembered from some lost religious knowledge lesson. Eels have no fins.
The two men drank schnapps and ate herring.
“What will you do when you get out?” Harry asked.
“Dunno.” Jack laughed. “Haven’t thought that far ahead.”
“What about you, Kay? Nursing?”
“No. I’ve had enough of that. I was at art school before I volunteered. I’m going to apply to the Royal College. Pick up my life where I left it.” Kay touched her lips with her napkin. “Every now and then, I just take off with a rucksack, pack of sandwiches, thermos of tea, change of undies, bottle of whisky, and my sketchbook. I’ve visited galleries and museums in Holland, Belgium, and here in Germany. I’m hoping to get to Paris. I don’t advertise my interest. I don’t tell many that I want to be an artist. They’d tell me to stick to nursing. You know how people are.”
“I really like Kay,” Edith said when she and Jack were on their way back to Lübeck. “I hope you’re treating her properly.”
“I thought you two’d hit it off.”
“So she’s going to study art.”
“Unh-hnh.” Jack peered into the darkness ahead of him. They’d stayed longer than they should have. There was black ice around.
“What are you going to do, Jack? You didn’t say.”
“I’m going to marry her. Ain’t popped the question, like,” he added, almost bashful. “So I’d be grateful if you kept it under your hat.”
It was not quite what Edith had asked, and certainly wasn’t what she’d expected.
“You can count on me, Jack,” she said. “I won’t breathe a word.”
Jack could change a conversation as smoothly as he shifted gears. She still didn’t know what he intended to do, or what he’d done before, for that matter.
They got back very late. All the other houses in the street were in darkness ex
cept for the billet. The curtains weren’t drawn, and all the lights were on, shining yellow on the snowy lawn. Even before she saw the Jeep pulled up outside, Edith knew that something was wrong.
“Looks like the Military Police,” Jack said.
“Something must have happened.” Edith got out of the car. “I think you’d better come in, too, Jack.”
The door opened before she’d even turned her key in the lock. Hilde’s blue eyes met Edith’s and then slid away again. Behind the girl’s usual passivity, Edith could clearly sense fear.
Edith gave her hat, coat, and gloves to her. Jack stood back in cap and greatcoat, arms folded, awaiting developments.
The two military policemen were standing in the center of the sitting room, looking large, masculine, and slightly at a loss as to what to do. The German girls stood against the wall, hands clasped, eyes cast down. Angie, Ginny, and Franny were huddled together on the settee, red eyed and crying. Lorna and Jo were by the window, rather less hysterical but nevertheless pink eyed. Frau Schmidt hovered inside the door, wringing her hands, fat tears rolling down her cheeks.
“What on earth’s happened?”
“Oh, Edith, thank God you’re back.” Angie looked up, blue eyes glassy, lashes wet and spiky. “It’s Molly. There’s been the most terrible accident.”
This set Ginny off, and the two of them dissolved into fresh sobs. She would clearly get no sense out of them. Edith turned to the two policemen.
“Perhaps one of you could tell me what has happened.”
“You are?”
“Edith Graham. I live here.” Edith showed him her CCG card. He inclined his head slightly as he acknowledged her rank.
“There’s been an accident, ma’am. Involving Miss Slater. Fatal, I’m afraid.” He turned his red cap around in his hands. “We need someone to identify the body.”
“I couldn’t! I simply couldn’t!” Angie cried.
“I couldn’t, either!” Ginny looked up, her brown eyes swimming. “It’s just too upsetting.”
Franny shook her head quickly and continued to stare down at the sodden wisp of handkerchief she was winding around her fingers. Of all of them, she seemed the most upset. Despite the cruel jibes, “Good old Goll” had been devoted to Molly.
