The Hidden

by Mary Chamberlain

  ‘But I never paid any attention.’

  ‘That’s a shame,’ Joe said. ‘Perhaps I can tell you all about them, sometime?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Barbara said.

  He wanted to say, And will you come and visit me? He’d like that very much but wasn’t sure that’s what he should say. It might presume too much. Was she even wondering if Joe was her father? Was she waiting for the moment to ask him, in her straightforward German way? It was a difficult thing to broach, Joe understood that. The pair of them. Tiptoeing.

  He stood still and watched her paddling at the edge of the water. She’d rolled up her jeans and was holding her shoes in one hand. She had bright-red toenails, he noticed, but it didn’t make her look common. She didn’t look like Trude, that was for sure. Trude’s face was as round as a muffin, mousy with it. This young woman had a beauty about her which Trude never possessed. She was skinny, mind. Looked like she could do with a square meal. Perhaps she was one of those vegetarians, nothing but bone.

  ‘Would you take food from a poor man?’ he said.

  She looked up and laughed. ‘Do you mean, am I the sort of woman who’d take food out of a poor man’s mouth?’

  Joe felt the colour rise to his face. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean, would you stay for a meal? That’s if you eat meat.’

  She laughed again. ‘You have a strange way with words,’ she said.

  He wasn’t sure if that was a criticism or a compliment, but it made him awkward.

  ‘We don’t have visitors,’ Joe said, by way of an explanation. ‘Apart from Pierre, and he doesn’t really count.’

  ‘Then thank you,’ she said. ‘A meal would be nice. I’d like that.’

  If he boiled up another potato and put some pearl barley in the stew, he reckoned it would stretch to three.

  ‘Then we’d best be going,’ Joe said. ‘I’ve got a lot to do.’

  ‘I can help,’ she said.

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘I don’t need a woman in the kitchen.’

  He looked beyond her, out to sea, where thick black clouds were building on the horizon. A fork of lightning flashed in the distance. Joe began to count, waiting for the thunderclap, a second for every mile. They couldn’t dawdle long. The squall would whip up the sea, gulp it down and spit it out. Joe knew the coastal storms well.

  ‘I was wondering, though,’ she said. She put her head to one side, and Joe was sure she was going to ask him if he was her father. ‘How come you had Dora Simon’s address?’

  There was a roar of thunder. Thor’s anvil, all right.

  ‘Well, now.’ Joe wasn’t expecting this question. ‘That’s another story.’

  He hadn’t told that story to anyone, and wasn’t sure he had a right to now.

  ‘I’m listening.’

  He was disappointed. He didn’t want to talk about Dora. This was his daughter, and the war was a long time ago. Still, he could understand her curiosity. After all, it was finding Dora’s picture that had started her off.

  ‘If I tell you–’ His words were reluctant. ‘Will you promise me you won’t say a word? To anyone. Not Geoffrey. No one.’

  ‘Of course,’ she said. ‘But I’m curious.’ She rubbed the sole of one foot against her leg, brushing off the sand.

  ‘Well,’ he said. ‘Now, let me see.’ He paused to gather his thoughts, jagged memories that had sharpened their edge now that he knew their significance. ‘The war had been over a few weeks. It was June, I remember that.’ A clear, soft sun and the land green and fresh, its ripeness not yet fulfilled. ‘My favourite time of year. Do you like June, Barbara?’ He hoped she did, father and daughter. He wanted to get to know her. This was as good a place as any to start, with the little things to share. And perhaps, he thought, he could distract her, take her round the long way so maybe she’d get lost and forget she ever asked. ‘Do you?’

  ‘Yes,’ Barbara said. ‘But go on.’

  ‘Well, I was sad to leave the farm, I’ll say that. I tried to keep the place in order. It was the least I could do. I thought, if Geoffrey comes back, he’d find it in good trim, more or less, and Pierre had been right. The farm was remote, and the Germans didn’t suspect anyone like me would be there.’

  ‘Weren’t you lonely?’

  Joe thought. ‘To tell the truth,’ he said, ‘the nights were lonesome, in the dark, in the big house. But by day, I lived like a wild man in the copse with the birds and all for company.’

  ‘But how did you survive?’

  ‘I had a few tinkers’ tricks up my arm,’ Joe said. ‘Hedgehogs. Rabbits. Baked underground. I hid out for almost a year.’

  Barbara winced. City girl, for sure. Joe winked at her, tapped the side of his nose.

  ‘And Pierre provided well,’ Joe went on. ‘Filtered off a little from the Red Cross. KLIM powdered milk. Sardines. Tea. I can see it now.’

  There was another fork of lightning, sharp as a trident.

  ‘Cigarettes. Cheese. Not the fresh stuff, the processed kind. KAM luncheon meat. Raisins. Sugar. Oh, and best of all, Lowney’s Canadian Vanilla Sweet Chocolate.’ Joe licked his lips, made a smacking sound. ‘I can still remember the packet with its red lettering. I tell you, I hadn’t seen food like this since before the war. I knew Pierre was up to tricks, but this was like the Monaghan gold of old.’ Joe laughed. ‘Oh, he was a right one for the tricks, was Pierre. I promised I’d never forget him, would pay him a visit. A holiday, perhaps. As a matter of fact,’ Joe said, holding up his binoculars, ‘Pierre got these for me. Zeiss. Spoils of war. I’d had to make do with an old pair of Geoffrey’s, see, there was a crack in one lens and the dust–’

  ‘The address,’ Barbara said. ‘How did you get Dora’s address?’

  ‘Oh, I digress,’ Joe said. ‘It’s just there’s so much of life to catch up on.’ You being my daughter, and all. ‘Forgive me. We were riding along La Greve d’Azette. Tell the truth, I hadn’t believed, until that day, that the war was over and I’d be going home. The tide was out and the sand stretched for miles, with all those rocky needles sticking up. And there was the Wehrmacht, but this time the soldiers were walking along the beach holding hurling sticks, only Pierre told me they were mine detectors.’

  Joe looked at Barbara, all neat and spruce. He’d introduce her to hurling, one day. Take her home to Ireland, perhaps.

  ‘Oh, but the island looked poor, shabby. I thought it would take a while to get it shipshape, rid it of the camps, the railway, the fortifications.’

  ‘Dora–’ Barbara reminded him.

  ‘Oh yes, Dora. It’s just I’ve so much to tell you. Well, then, all of a sudden, there was this crowd in front of us. In the middle of the street they were, yelling. Pierre stopped and I stood up on the driving seat to look. I heard, quite distinctly, a woman’s screams in all the kerfuffle. It was her, you see,’ Joe said. ‘Dora Simon. And after the soldiers got her away, I went to the Red Cross and asked for her address. I said I was a priest and I wanted to write to her. They gave it to me.’

  ‘And did you write?’

  ‘I meant to,’ Joe said. ‘But then there was all the business in Ireland when I went back home and I never got round to it. But you wouldn’t know about that, how would you? I’ll tell you some other time. I kept her address, though God knows why.’

  A gob of rain splattered on Joe’s head.

  ‘You just said, you’ve so much to tell me. What did you mean?’

  ‘Did I now?’ Joe said. He could feel a blush firing up. ‘Well, you know, if we are–’ He paused, searching for the words. He never imagined he’d have to talk about this and wasn’t sure how to start.

  ‘We are what?’ Barbara said. She had been smiling, but her face went solemn. ‘Oh Joe, you don’t think–’

  ‘Will you come inside now,’ he said. ‘Or we’ll all be soaked and catch our death.’

  He turned and walked towards the path. He couldn’t remember happiness, but this seemed close to it. But Barbara’s face, now. Was it puzzlement to
be read there, or anguish?

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  DORA

  Hotel Maison Victor Hugo, Jersey: June 1985

  Dora was throwing out the contents of the boxes, so the tinsel and the paper chains spewed out across the floor. Make a mess. Derange the place, jumble up the tendrils of memory in a cat’s cradle of madness. She took a long drag on her cigarette and stubbed it out on the dusty floor. She lit a new one and threw the match down. Her neck had tensed and the tendons in her arms and legs were stiff and tight. The match caught the tinsel, began to flicker. She threw the cigarette on the floor, watched the snake of smoke rise and curl. She fished for her matches again, lit the paper chains, saw the black, waving fumes as the flames slithered along their quarry.

  Dora walked out of the room, back down the attic stairs. The bedroom was on the right, its door open. The red flock wallpaper still lined the walls and the burgundy velvet curtains festooned the windows. They had faded along the edges and moths had eaten holes in the pile. Net curtains hung close to the glass, yellowed by the sun, greyed by the dust. The fireguard with its folksy scene had gone and the fireplace had been fitted with a gas fire. Dora turned on the valve. The gas had been switched off. The Persian rug with its cobalt and ruby florets and scrolls that she’d stared at each night had been replaced with a mass of swirling green and orange Wilton medallions. She stood with her back to the marble mantelpiece, could see again the brocade sofa, the console table with its crystal decanter of scotch, the large double bed.

  And lying on the bed, Maximilian List, one hand behind his head, the other beckoning her close. Smiling, I was too hard on you. Come, see how I can make it up to you. Dora stepped forward. Will you make love with me, Dora? Like you cared? Stopped.

  ‘No.’ She stared at the bed, but List had evaporated. She pulled at the mattress until it slid off the frame and buckled on the floor.

  ‘What did you do to me?’ He was nothing but bone and tissue.

  ‘What hold did you have over me?’ Skin and scales, a deadly reptile. ‘I am free.’ Dora kicked the mattress, over and over. ‘Do you understand? You have no power over me. Not now. Not anymore.’

  She walked over to the window. Her heart was racing, galloping hooves that thundered on her breast and kneaded her belly. Her fingers were boneless, out of control. She struck a match and held the flame against the net curtains. Another match, to the dusty velvet drapes. Another, to the next window. Three in all. Out of this room, across the hall. Six matches, two for each window. Down the stairs, into the bar. Nets were everywhere, the English obsession with secrecy. Flamed. The bar had the same swirling carpet as the bedrooms, but it had worn by the door, exposing its weft. It took seven matches.

  Fire purified, cleansed. Fire was glorious, divine. Hadn’t God revealed himself to Moses in a burning bush? Consumed Aaron’s sacrifice in flames? Struck Elijah with fire? Lightning now. That was vengeance from the Lord. God didn’t exist, but justice did, and righteousness, and wrath. There was nothing wrong with fire. Dora’s fingers had traces of carbon from the matches. Phosphorus. Sulphur. Didn’t the Christians believe that was hell? Fire and brimstone. Same difference.

  She wiped her fingers down her skirt and skipped across the hall. Bonfires. The English burned a guy every November. Built a bonfire and placed the stick figure on top. Guy Fawkes, that was his name. Uncle Otto had taken her to Hampstead Heath. They’d stood and watched the bonfire, felt its warmth wrap them, seen the effigy shrivel to nothing and the fireworks shoot and drop from the sky. She could smell them now. Like her fingers. Swan Vesta. She was running low on matches. Would have to get some more.

  Catharsis. That’s what Uncle Otto said it was. Catharsis. A bonfire once a year to free the soul of stress and passion. The Nazis had had a bonfire. Burned the books they didn’t like and danced like devils round the roaring flames. Black clouds of smoke swirled across the stairwell and Dora could smell its acrid stench. Forest fires. Burned the old, made way for the new. That was nature. Renewal. Redemption. The basement. Still the basement.

  Dora opened the baize door, down the narrow staircase into the kitchen with its tiled floor and walls. She heard a rustle, saw a rat slither into a hole in the wainscot. The gas pipes that had once fed the ovens rested against the wall, tall copper pipes which had blackened with time. They looked like upright snakes, like the one Dora had seen in Greece, cooling itself in water, long and straight and black. She walked over to the boxes she’d seen, opened them. They were full of paper and old newspapers. Dora crumpled them up and spread them over the floor, a trail to the stairs, to the old pantry, to the boiler room. The empty copper pipes. Dora turned the valve. There was no hiss, but she fancied she could smell gas, even so. She walked into the old dormitory. That night crashed into her memory, thrashing from side to side, slamming against the hard, bone walls of her skull.

  Hotel Maison Victor Hugo: February 1944

  The dormitory was unheated and unlit, save for a dim bulb that hung in the centre of the room. At one end were some washbasins and lavatories. None had doors or seats and the bowls were brown and smelly. The water was connected once a day in the morning when the women were required to wash. The baby was low down, pressing on Dora’s bladder, and for the third time that night she had to push herself out of her bunk and pad her way to the lavatory. She was cold and pulled the blanket over her shoulders as she stepped across the room, groping in the dark for the door to the washroom. As she stepped inside, someone grabbed her from behind. Dora caught her breath, went to scream as the person spun her round and aimed a knee into Dora’s stomach. Dora grabbed the cubicle wall for support. It happened so fast, but Dora smelled her, saw her silhouetted in the doorway. Agnes.

  A thump like that could tear the placenta, kill the foetus. She waited until Agnes had drifted back into the dormitory, before she squatted down, shivering in the late winter cold, trembling from the attack. But it wasn’t blood she felt. It was her waters. They trickled down her leg and puddled in the dank bowl. A cramp, no more than a grumbling, began in her abdomen.

  It was Agnes who took her by the arm, helped her climb the stairs into the Revier. Nurse Hoffmann wasn’t there. It was a Monday, her free day, when Dora was alone in the ward.

  ‘Now aren’t I being kind?’ Agnes said. ‘That’s what a Kapo’s for. To look out for you.’

  Dora lay down on the examination bed, grateful for the warmth of the Revier.

  ‘Looks like you’ll be by yourself,’ Agnes said.

  Agnes had planned this, waited for Hoffmann’s day off before she set the labour going. Dora struggled with her duties all day. Agnes did her bit but left in the afternoon. Dora was on her own as the labour began, hour after hour of racking pain, crouching on the floor, until she felt the baby’s head crown. She ran her finger round its neck, paused, blew out. The next spasm took her like a powerful wave, as one shoulder slithered out. It was over. Another wave, and the next shoulder. She had done it. The body plopped out between her legs, slick as a fish.

  Dora caught her breath. She leaned forward and shut her eyes. List’s baby. She wouldn’t let Hoffmann have it. Or anyone. Boy or girl. Didn’t matter. Hoffmann had led List astray, made him betray her like this, and the child. She knew, when Hoffmann said mein Liebling. She’d rather the baby dead than Hoffmann take it. No. She’d deny her that. Hoffmann had plans. She’d said so. Lebensborn. What future would this child have in that? What barbarity would it suffer? She wouldn’t let it survive for some warped Nazi dream. She’d had to do enough abortions here on the women, what did it matter if another baby died? She and List would have more babies, once Hoffmann was gone, once the war was over. And if he heard the child had died, he’d come back to Dora. I’m sorry, mein Liebling, for the loss of our little one…

  This was not how she had imagined it, with a face and hair and feet. This was not a mound of tissue, a bleeding swab of flesh. Tiny purple fingers. Plump little body. A strawberry mark on its neck. Give me strength. She groped for t
he head with her hands, placed her fingers on the tiny nostrils. Pinched hard.

  Dora fainted, didn’t hear them come in. She felt the sting on her cheek, smelled Agnes, a dank blast of foetid breath grabbing her shoulders and pulling her away from the baby as Nurse Hoffmann screamed and screamed, Tot, tot. Cut the cord and scooped the thing in a towel and ran away with it.

  She heard no cry from the baby. She’d snuffled the life out of it. For her, it would be as if she had never given birth. She’d bury it deep in the folds of memory, forget about it.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  DORA

  Jersey: June 1985

  Dora left the dormitory. She stood by the kitchen door, lit a match and held it to the corner of the paper, waiting until it caught. She backed out, pulling the door to behind her.

  Through the courtyard, out and into the car. She sat for a moment, her hands on the steering wheel, fingering her keys before she turned on the ignition, put the car into gear. Left and left again. La Greve d’Azette. She heard the whoosh, and looked up through her rear-view mirror at the Hotel Maison Victor Hugo, the flames lapping at the lintels and curling around the roof.

  Her hands were clammy, sticky on the wheel. She drove on a small distance, pulled the car over to the side, opened the window, breathed the air. In, two, three, four. Out, two, three, four. There was an ice-cream van on the parade and a small queue had formed, holidaymakers in shorts and T-shirts, and children in flip-flops with sand on their legs. A little girl pulled the wrapper off her ice cream and walked towards the rubbish bin. She stopped, dropped the wrapper on the ground.

  ‘Pick it up,’ Dora called from the car. ‘You don’t want to be a litterbug.’

  The girl looked at Dora. ‘There’s wasps,’ she said. ‘I don’t like wasps.’ She glared at her, ran away.