The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  Joe heard cheering, the banging of metal bowls, knuckles rapping the tables. The cook lay motionless on the floor. Joe had killed someone. God forgive him. He hadn’t meant to. Lying twisted on the concrete, the cook was no longer a monster. He was a man. Like Joe. Like the others. Joe breathed in sharp. He had killed a person. Taken a life. A mortal sin. The worst of all sins. He was a murderer. He sank to his knees, making a small cross on the cook’s clammy forehead.

  ‘Was ist los?’ A guard pushed himself through the crowd. ‘Who did this?’

  Joe nodded. I did. The cook was hand in glove with the SS. They’d kill him, retribution. A life for a life. Joe was ready. It was right. He hoped they’d shoot him. Now. They’d crucified a Russian not that long ago, and that was just for stealing a loaf. Joe’d stolen a life, and a Kapo’s at that.

  The guard turned to Joe. ‘Take it out.’ He pointed to the body. ‘Schnell.’

  Joe took the cook by his ankles, dragged him across the floor. Four or five guards had entered the kitchen. The cook was heavy and Joe stumbled as he stepped backwards. Kept his balance. Pulled him over the doorstep. The cook wore a leather jacket, lined with sheep’s wool, that one of the guards must have given him. Joe took it off, wrapped it round himself. It was far too big but, by God, it was warm. Shoes, too. What use were these to the dead?

  Joe waited but no one came for him in the night, nor at the morning Appell.

  Eins. Drei. Vier. Sieben.

  ‘Ja wohl.’

  He knew what duty he’d be assigned.

  He started with the corpse of the cook, picked up the others along the way. He knew the routine by now. Grab the ankles, over the shoulder, toss them in the back of the truck like carcases in his father’s slaughterhouse. Sometimes they buried the dead from the camp on the heath, if there weren’t too many, one coffin, over and over again. You never knew.

  The truck moved, jerked along the stony road, down to the beach. Joe had a shovel. He’d have to dig the grave in the sand this time, wait for the tide to wash the bodies out to the ocean. Two guards watched him, would shoot if he wandered into the sea or lay down in the shallow trench with the shifting sands and his murdered corpse. Take me too. Would that be so bad?

  The waves broke along the shore, rollers from the North Sea. A bitter wind blasted from the Arctic. Joe was glad for the cook’s jacket. He could stuff it with cement sacks. Never be cold again. He didn’t hear the Kommandant coming, padding like a camel over the sand. Saw only the shiny black boots.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  DORA

  London: June 1985

  ‘Since Mohammed won’t go to the mountain.’ Charles was at the other end of the telephone, his voice catching with humour. ‘The mountain must come to Mohammed.’

  She was happy to hear him, she always was, but she couldn’t talk now, not after what she’d heard. She knew if she asked him to ring back, he’d say to her, What are you doing that’s so important? Why can’t you talk to me now? She couldn’t lie to him, not directly, couldn’t answer him either. She breathed in deep, tried to sound normal.

  ‘So you’re coming to London,’ Dora said. ‘That would be nice.’

  ‘Not only coming,’ he said. ‘Moving. I’m rattling round that house with no one for company. The neighbours are not my cup of tea. My children are too busy to visit. And you, Doralein, never set foot outside London unless there’s neon lights.’

  ‘I don’t like the countryside,’ Dora said. It wasn’t true. She loved it in the abstract, the vistas and the skies, the silence and the dark. But the lowing of cows, the smell of their byre, the houses and hedgerows, they were rambling memories, with burs and thorns.

  ‘So I gather,’ Charles was saying. ‘There’s another reason. You’ve gone silent on me these last few weeks. Are you all right?’

  ‘I’m fine,’ Dora said. Charles, more than an acquaintance. Her friend. Her oldest friend, with a hinterland, a shared history. Why didn’t she tell him about Barbara? Why didn’t she tell him about her war, her real war? Not the ersatz war she fed him, mending and making do on Jersey until the British put a stop to it all. Because, she thought, her war didn’t compare to his. She couldn’t march to the Cenotaph every November with the other veterans, ribbons pinned to their lapels, heads bowed in homage to their dead comrades, brave, strong. He could do that, with pride. Sidling off afterwards to the Reform for lunch and reminiscence over claret and roast beef. A good war. That’s what a good war gave you. Freedom. Freedom to choose your memories, to forget, to forge a fresh path. Dora knew plenty of war dead, but women didn’t count in the same way.

  ‘So when are you going to marry me?’ Charles went on. ‘I’ve proposed twice. I’m keeping count. If I propose a third time, will I be lucky?’

  She twisted the telephone cord round her fingers. ‘Let me think about it,’ she said. Dora put the receiver down, shut her eyes. She needed a moment or two before she went back to Barbara.

  Truth was, she’d lost her nerve. She was used to loneliness now, solitude. It was her condition. Her decision, that day when the war was over and the world had changed.

  Jersey: February 1944 – May 1945

  ‘I am told that you were a nurse,’ Nurse Hoffmann said.

  Dora touched the soap which she kept in her pocket. She held it like a lucky charm, the promise of good fortune, kindness, special treatment. The soap would be stolen if she left it in the dormitory. She lived among thieves. She didn’t tell a soul that she had it. This was for her, the secret bond between her and Maximilian.

  ‘Well,’ Nurse Hoffmann said, vell. ‘It seems you have a surprise.’ She rarely spoke to Dora. ‘Would you like to know what it is?’ She made a snide, knowing grimace. Hoffmann was breaking the news. Alderney.

  Dora raised her eyebrows, couldn’t let on that she knew.

  ‘So,’ Hoffmann went on. ‘He has made you a Kapo.’ She twisted her face into a parody of a smile. ‘Hauptsturmführer List.’

  Dora was not expecting this.

  ‘Agnes.’ She couldn’t think what else to say. ‘Agnes Moreau is the Kapo.’

  ‘Hauptsturmführer List decides who is a Kapo,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘Not Agnes Moreau.’

  Dora took a deep breath. What was it Collette said? Kapos do their dirty business for them. Thick with the Nazis.

  ‘I don’t want to be one,’ Dora said. It was worth a try, saying that. Dangerous, too. Nurse Hoffmann could turn like a snake. You don’t argue.

  ‘It is Hauptsturmführer List’s expressed order,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘Not many are so lucky.’ She sneered and her voice tightened. ‘Perhaps he is a little sweet on you, who knows?’

  ‘There is a mistake.’ Dora shook her head. He was taking her to Alderney, he’d said. Not this. Unless. Of course, it would take time to organise. There would be permissions to seek, paperwork. The Germans were meticulous about that kind of thing. Besides, there was no love lost between the SS and the Wehrmacht. Perhaps this was some kind of temporary compromise, he’d persuaded the Wehrmacht to make her a Kapo in order to expedite the move. He had done this for her, had already taken her out of the brothel, so she could join him. She wouldn’t be a Kapo here. He had no jurisdiction here. This brothel was under Wehrmacht authority.

  What sort of Kapo would she be on Alderney? Perhaps there were women prisoners there. Could she do the Nazis’ dirty business? What if they made her carry out a beating? Or worse? Would she have the courage to say no? For his sake, she’d have to show her gratitude. No. Kapo was a ruse, to bring her over. They’d be together, in his home, she his affectionate housekeeper. She’d be sure this time to keep her distance, not to presume.

  ‘There is no mistake. Here.’ Nurse Hoffmann grabbed Dora’s arm, pushed the green armband up it. The badge of office. Dora wanted to rip it off, knew she wasn’t brave enough. ‘You will work in the Revier. With me.’

  ‘Here?’

  ‘Where else did you think you’d work?’

  This must be tem
porary. Maximilian had a plan. She should trust him.

  The Revier had two wards. One, no more than a cupboard, at the rear of the building, had two bunk beds and was for women too weak or ill to work. Those with VD or TB or who were deemed too difficult were packed off to France. Dora hated signing that form, as if it was a death warrant. Replacements would arrive by the next ship. Dora’s number was two hundred and seventy-one. They were up to three hundred and eighty-eight already.

  The other, in the front, was the ward reserved for soldiers who had contracted venereal disease. Bright and airy, it could accommodate up to ten soldiers and one officer, staying for weeks at a time. Dora had to scrub the floors and walls, wash the men and change their beds. It was heavy work and hard, in her condition, lifting and bending. It could bring on a hernia, or worse. She had to treat the chancres and lesions, fearful lest she contract the disease too, reporting back to Nurse Hoffmann, who wrote the notes and made Dora copy them out in triplicate.

  ‘You make no mistakes,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘It’s as if you knew German.’

  ‘Anyone can copy,’ Dora said.

  Working with Nurse Hoffmann was hard. There was something about her that made Dora especially wary. She had a temper and was free with her fists if Dora’s work was not up to scratch. That didn’t worry Dora. It was her spite, as if she resented Dora, was in some absurd way, jealous of her. Dora lived on a knife-edge, one false step, kaputt. But for all that, it was better than the brothel, and even though Maximilian List had not yet brought her to Alderney, he had rescued her from the whorehouse.

  ‘Do you miss your boyfriend?’ Nurse Hoffmann was injecting one of the men with Salvarsan. It was a painful injection, Dora knew, deep into the gluteus muscle and sometimes the men howled like babies. It was February. It had rained all day, and now it was hailing, thick globs of ice that smashed against the window-panes and turned the light to a sodden gloom.

  She had seen List the week before, the first time since Christmas. Hoffmann had ordered her into the office, made her take off her clothes and parade naked as if she were a prize cow for breeding. He had stared at her with an architect’s eye, at her shape and form, swollen now from the baby she carried inside her. He could see the stretch marks on her breasts and stomach, the veins that crossed her skin like a delta. His face was hard, and he gave no indication of his promise, his tender moments when they had been together. He can’t, Dora thought, not with Hoffmann there. And Agnes, hovering like a harbinger. No, his indifference was protecting her. She’d wanted to nod, smile, I understand.

  ‘Everything is in order?’ He spoke in German. Nurse Hoffmann nodded.

  ‘Herr Himmler has opened the facility personally.’ She was beaming, as if Herr Himmler had singled her out. ‘At Lamorlaye. Mein Liebling.’ My darling.

  List was smiling, nodding, whispered Himmler, as if it was an endearment, a secret bond between the two.

  They must be lovers, Nurse Hoffmann and Hauptsturmführer List. Lovers. He’d let her down. Betrayed her. She was expendable, of course. Powerless. Why had she even begun to dream? She was crushed beneath the leviathan of the Reich, a pawn in its power play.

  Dora bit her lip, held back the tears.

  He couldn’t love that Hoffmann woman with her moon face and squat frame. No. He’d summon Dora later, explain, apologise for his absence since Christmas. The sea was too rough to sail. Run his finger against her cheek. Meine schöne Frau. My beautiful lady. Press his lips to hers, kiss me, Dora.

  He was using Hoffmann as a front. Of course.

  But he hadn’t called for her later and had sent no word since. Dora thought he must be ill. Or had been summoned elsewhere and couldn’t tell her. The Germans moved their men around. Top secret. Or was busy. He was an important man, after all. Dora had often wondered how he’d found time to visit her so often.

  ‘Well?’ Nurse Hoffmann said again. ‘Do you?’

  There was something in Nurse Hoffmann’s voice that invited a chat today, not just an answer. Much as Dora despised and mistrusted her, she longed for conversation, the ping-pong of talk, the possibility of human exchange. But she wasn’t sure if this was a trap, to admit that she had feelings for List.

  ‘How do you know I have a boyfriend?’

  Nurse Hoffmann turned her face away, shifted her body so she stood, back turned to Dora.

  ‘I know these things.’ She threw the words over her shoulder, added, ‘I used to see you. With the farmer.’

  The farmer? Geoffrey? Dora felt a surge of guilt. He had not been her first thought, had been shunted into second place. She wasn’t sure whether Nurse Hoffmann was tricking her into talking. Or bluffing.

  ‘Oh,’ Dora said, sounding casual. ‘Where?’

  ‘At his farm, of course. I thought, how nice you go to visit. He must be a lonely man. How lucky, you are close.’

  She must have known where to spy on them, unseen from the house. What had Collette said, Feldpolizei? Bad as the fucking Gestapo. Who had told her about that spot?

  ‘What were you doing at the farm?’ Dora said.

  ‘Watching birds.’

  ‘That’s unusual,’ Dora said.

  ‘My boyfriend is very keen,’ Nurse Hoffmann said.

  An unexpected confidence that made no sense. List had never hinted he liked birds. This must be somebody else Hoffmann was talking about, another lover.

  ‘And do you miss him?’ Dora said. If Nurse Hoffmann could trick her into talking, so could Dora.

  ‘Yes,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘I miss him very much.’

  ‘He’s not here, then?’

  ‘He’s going to Germany soon,’ she said.

  ‘Why?’

  Nurse Hoffmann shrugged. I can’t say.

  Dora picked up a pile of dressings, placed them in a package. This wasn’t true. List was in Alderney. Dora’s instincts were right. He couldn’t possibly love Hoffmann. She wasn’t talking about him.

  ‘May I ask you something?’

  For all Nurse Hoffmann’s intimacy, Dora knew her mood could turn. Nurse Hoffmann sniffed. She was weeping.

  ‘The farmer,’ Dora said. ‘Do you know what happened to him?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘My boyfriend,’ Dora said. She felt the rip of pain. Torn loyalty.

  Nurse Hoffmann brushed her tears away and shrugged. ‘Sent to Neuengamme. For work.’

  ‘Work?’

  ‘Arbeit macht frei,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘Redemption through labour.’

  Geoffrey could still be alive. Neuengamme. Wasn’t List something to do with that?

  ‘Alderney?’ Dora said.

  ‘Nein,’ Nurse Hoffmann said. ‘Deutschland.’

  Dora felt sick. For one giddy moment she thought that Geoffrey was not so far away, that List could help him. But what would she have said to Maximilian? She’d have to admit she’d had a lover, and she wasn’t sure how he would respond. She’d have to get word to him too, and that would be impossible, unless he called for her. And what would she say to Geoffrey? She wasn’t sure she knew what to say to herself. What was List to her? If he treated her as his mistress, did that make him her lover?

  ‘And the Kommandant?’ Dora said, hoping her voice sounded casual, nonchalant. ‘He hasn’t been here recently.’

  Hoffmann turned and plunged the long needle into the soldier’s other buttock as he screamed.

  ‘Now,’ she said, pressing hard, ‘that will teach you to use protection.’

  Despite herself, Dora felt pity for the soldier. He was so very young. And the side effects from Salvarsan if administered badly were so very dreadful.

  It was early evening when the real pains started. There was no one there, save for the soldiers in the ward next door. Keep walking. Pacing the room, holding on to a bed for support when the spasms hit hard.

  A vice began to grip her pelvis, tighten, tug and wrench her apart, so she caught her breath. There’s nothing to fear. It loosened its grip. She would be fine. The pain began to rol
l again, hammer blows smelting so her limbs felt on fire, stretching and moulding her ligaments. Dora knelt on all fours on the floor in the smaller ward, shut her eyes, screamed, waited as the blows cooled and faded. What if she had complications? The baby was premature, weak, could be stuck in the birth canal. The pains were too close together. It was moving too fast. Who can deliver it, take the forceps, free her? The cramp again, a tank with steel treads trampling her bones, crushing her spine. Dora cried out. She wanted someone there, to hold a hand. It will be all right.

  The baby was pressing down, a hard, heavy skull at the base of her spine. Not too fast. She tried to ride the next pain, to breathe light as a fairy, puffs to blow the spasms away, but it was an army inside her, routing her flesh. She wanted to push, to expel the hard mass within. She hoped she was dilated, knew to be cautious, but the next advance took her breath away. Why was no one here? Dora shut her eyes. She could not think. The pain was tearing her limb from limb, a lump as hard and big as a football bearing down and down. And down.

  The slap across the face jerked her back into consciousness. She could smell Agnes, a dank blast of foetid breath grabbing her shoulders.

  ‘Tot, tot,’ Hoffmann was screaming. ‘Es ist tot.’ Dead. Dora could see her running out the door with the baby. Tot.

  Agnes walked around Dora where she still lay on the floor.

  ‘List’s whore,’ she said. ‘He won’t be able to protect you now.’ She pulled a string out of her pocket. ‘You’ve no brat, no special status, not anymore.’ She flexed the string, pulled it taut. ‘Get up.’ She stuffed the cord back in her pocket, started to shout. ‘Get out. You’ve buggered their plans.’

  She smirked, walked out of the door.

  Dora lay back on the floor, felt the placenta tumble from her, thick and wet as liver.