The Survivors

by Kate Furnivall

  That was the sensation that flooded through me when my fingertips brushed the two small innocuous navy blue booklets.

  This will change my life.

  With its gold lettering. Its United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Its royal crowned lion and unicorn. And then at the bottom in the white bar: my name. Neatly written in a copperplate hand.

  My passport. Alicja’s passport.

  My eyes could not leave the dark blue covers. I wanted to take this young woman with her magical skills in my arms and hold her tight to me, to tell her she had saved my daughter’s life.

  But she knew. She knew all this. Just by looking at me.

  She smiled, a tired smile. The passports had taken three hours. It was already gone midnight.

  ‘Twenty American dollars,’ she said.

  ‘Twenty-five,’ I responded. ‘I wish it were more but it’s all I have.’

  I placed the banknotes on the antique rosewood table in her room of books and beside them I placed the beautiful clock in hand-chased silver that I had offered for sale to Fuchs in the bar. The one my clever daughter had unearthed in a garden shed.

  ‘I want you to have this, Salomea.’

  Her eyes shone like stars as her finger traced the workmanship on the clock’s casing. It was perfect. She rose and walked over to one of the laden bookshelves, her purple skirts swirling around her, and removed a slim volume from it. She returned and placed it in my hands.

  ‘For your daughter,’ she said.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  The moon slipped behind the clouds, making the light uncertain. The night felt thicker. But I found the house. The wind had strengthened and thrown an icy blast right into my face for the last ten kilometres of my trek back to Graufeld Camp. But first, the village. Here the wind gave me an advantage. It rocked the tree branches, tugged at pipes and shutters, and rattled the windows in their sockets.

  So who would hear me?

  No one.

  I moved fast across the grass, avoiding the gravel drive. It was exactly as my daughter had described, set back from the road, separating itself from the more humble workers’ cottages. This was a rich man’s house.

  He would pay a rich man’s price.

  ‘Aufwachen!’ I spoke loudly. ‘Wake up!’

  I shone a torch on the bed.

  The two sleeping figures jerked upright, shielding their eyes, blinded by the sudden light in the darkness. Confused and terrified, they were vulnerable and they knew it.

  ‘Thief!’ the man in the bed bellowed. ‘Get out of my—’

  ‘Shut up,’ I cut him off.

  ‘Who the fuck are you?’ he demanded but the woman clenched her hand on his naked arm to silence him. She had seen what I was carrying.

  She had sense, that woman. Because I was carrying a shotgun, one I had removed from the rack on their dining-room wall. It was pointed straight at them.

  ‘Light the lamp,’ I instructed calmly, now that I had their attention.

  The man was all bluster but he struck a match at his bedside. His hand was shaking so badly it took several attempts before the lamp’s wick caught. It threw its burst of light directly up at him. He was dangerously red in the face, hair askew, and I could see, sharp as pinpricks in his eyes, how much he wanted to break my neck.

  His wife swept her long plait of dark hair behind her and sat still, very still. One of her eyes was milky white, but the gaze of her good eye kept straying to the door behind me. I knew that she was thinking of what lay beyond that door. But I had already dealt with it.

  The man had his bare feet on the floor now. He was wearing pyjama bottoms but his chest was naked, muscular and he was breathing hard. A warning of how close he was to the edge. I nudged the shotgun barrel over to the right a fraction, aimed at that broad threatening chest. He stood up.

  ‘No, Gerhard, don’t.’

  She didn’t trust me. She was right.

  ‘Take what you want and leave,’ she said. No panic. Quiet and precise.

  I liked her. I didn’t like him.

  ‘You have a daughter,’ I said.

  It was as if I had thrown a switch. I saw the blood drain from her cheeks and heard the shrillness of her scream. It tore through me. For the first time I wondered whether what I was doing was right. An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth.

  It was not the woman I was here to hurt.

  She leaped from the bed, her cotton nightdress hanging from slender bones and rushed for the door. I shouted, ‘Stop.’

  The shotgun was loaded and cocked in my hands.

  But the woman did not hesitate. She was out the door and racing down the dark corridor and one word echoed back to us in the bedroom.

  ‘Johanna! Johanna!’

  ‘Move,’ I said sharply to the man.

  ‘If you’ve hurt my daughter, I’ll—’

  ‘Move!’

  I pointed the gun barrel at the door and he hurried after his wife with the lantern shaking in his hands.

  ‘What have you done with my daughter? She’s gone. Give Johanna back to me.’

  The woman came for me on the landing, eyes flat and fierce.

  ‘Your husband shot my daughter in the back.’

  That stopped her in her tracks. ‘What?’

  ‘Ask your husband why I have removed your daughter. Ask him what reason I have to come for your Johanna. Ask how he would feel if I blasted a gun at her.’

  ‘No, Irmgard, she’s lying. I didn’t shoot the girl. This is a mad woman, you can’t believe her.’

  I nodded. ‘Yes, I am mad. Mad with anger, mad enough to blow your savage heart right out of your chest. So you know how it feels.’

  His wife had jerked her head round, staring at him wildeyed. ‘You said you shot up in the air that night, Gerhard. To warn her.’

  ‘I did, Irmgard. Believe me, I—’ He reached for her.

  ‘No, no, no.’ She raised the flat of her hand to ward him off.

  ‘I would not be here,’ I said to him, my voice barbed with hatred, ‘if you had not shot my child. In the back. When she was running away from you, offering no threat. I would not have taken your Johanna.’

  ‘You swore,’ the woman said, words ice cold. ‘You swore to me you had discharged the gun into the air.’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Liar.’ I wanted to rip out his tongue. Instead I scooped from my pocket a handful of pellets and hurled them at his cowardly face. ‘Here, take these. They are the ones I took from my daughter’s flesh.’ They fell to the floor like lead confetti, bouncing around his ankles. ‘You shot her.’

  He looked sick, eyes darting from his wife to me. ‘Where is Johanna? I’m sorry, I was angry with your daughter. Please. Give us our child back.’

  ‘Please,’ the woman echoed.

  ‘Why don’t you ask if my daughter is dead?’

  They looked at each other in the shifting light, both guilty.

  ‘Is she alive?’ the woman asked.

  I made them wait. A whole minute of silence in which the only sound was the knocking of the wind and the rasping of the man’s breath.

  ‘Yes,’ I said.

  ‘Thank God.’

  ‘But scarred for life.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.

  I didn’t believe him. He would do it again. He had to learn.

  ‘An eye for an eye,’ I said.

  ‘Don’t hurt her.’ The woman began to weep. ‘Don’t hurt Johanna.’

  Abruptly the big man dropped to his knees, tears rolling down his cheeks. ‘I’m sorry.’ His voice broke. ‘The war has ruined our lives. I have no job, no money, no future. I am at the end of my tether and when I saw your daughter had come to take even more from me, my anger trampled over all else.’ He pressed his hands together as though in prayer. ‘I’m begging you, let our child come home to us. If she is alive still, she must be frightened and—’

  I tightened the stock of the gun against my shoulder. ‘The guilt is yours,’ I
pointed out.

  ‘Please,’ the woman pleaded. ‘For Alicja’s sake. For your love of your own child.’

  A thousand thoughts clamoured in my head. This was not the revenge I wanted. It felt rotten and wretched. The taste of it was not sweet in my mouth. Seeing this trigger-happy man grovelling at my feet did nothing to assuage the rage that shook me each time I bathed my daughter’s back. Hadn’t she been through enough for a ten-year-old?

  I could not bear to look at him. I turned to the woman and regretted the pain that was so sharp, she could barely stand upright. I knew what it was like, that pain. To have a child taken.

  ‘Your daughter is still asleep. Wrapped in her quilt. Inside your pantry.’

  The words were scarcely out of my mouth before the woman was flying downstairs. The man rose heavily to his feet, stared hard at me, then at the gun. I didn’t want to shoot him, but I would if I had to. Maybe he saw that in me, because he turned to the stairs with a noise like a bull and was gone.

  I raced down. Snatched the two silver candlesticks from the dining table and thrust them into my bag. The child was whimpering in the kitchen, the parents’ voices soothing her. I slid out of the window through which I’d entered, the shotgun still tucked under my arm. I did not want a blast of lead in my back. I would discard it in the woods. Without a backward glance I set off into the night.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  ‘Halt!’

  The business end of a rifle was pointed towards me. I halted. The guard’s face behind it looked more than happy to amuse himself with a break from his boredom.

  ‘Who are you?’ a second guard in blue uniform demanded. They came in pairs. They looked snug and warm in their heavy dark blue greatcoats and thick leather gloves. I was tired, footsore and chilled to the bone. I’d walked over twenty kilometres in the dark and cold to get back here to Graufeld, wearing a threadbare coat that deserved to be tossed in the bin and shoes with holes in their thin soles. The soldiers were seeking trouble to enliven their watch of the camp’s gates, whereas all I was seeking was my bed. Dawn was not far off, a hairline crack of gold on the horizon.

  I stepped forward, out of the night shadows into the glare of the gate searchlight.

  ‘Hello, boys,’ I said.

  They were young, their faces fresh, their eyes brightened by the unexpected appearance of a female on their doorstep.

  ‘I know you,’ I said to one of them.

  I had spoken to him several times in anticipation of this occasion.

  ‘Where have you been?’ he frowned.

  I grinned at them. ‘Out for a walk. Look, I brought you back a present each.’

  From my bag I whisked out the two heavy silver candlesticks and held one out to each. These weren’t British soldiers. We understood each other.

  The friendlier guard accepted one and it vanished from sight into his greatcoat. The other guard was less certain. I placed the remaining candlestick into his hands. He stared at it uneasily and I could see the moral battle taking place. Before he could object, the gates had swung open and I slipped through.

  I have passports.

  It was as unbelievable as saying I’m on the moon. Yet there they were. Two embossed British passports. Safe in my hand. Blue and beautiful.

  When I reached my hut it lay in complete darkness and I found Alicja sprawled fast asleep on my bunk, so I didn’t bother to undress, just kicked off my shoes and curled myself around her. I felt the warmth of her young body seep into mine as I inhaled the sleep-scent of her hair and wrapped my arm around her small waist.

  Lying there in the dark with my daughter. The passport still clutched in one hand. My heart fizzing with a bubble of excitement. I closed my eyes and let myself accept what this was.

  It was a moment of happiness.

  I would sleep now. Surely I would sleep. Just for an hour or two. My body was limp with exhaustion.

  But the image of Salomea’s beautiful room in her Hanover basement kept nudging its way into my head. With its rich glow of books, its exotic rugs, its fine antique furniture and its sense of the human spirit rising above the horrors that lay outside its walls. It took me to another place. Another time. Another apartment. Another voice murmuring in my ear.

  ‘So. Do you like it? Is it beautiful?’

  ‘Yes, it is.’

  ‘I knew you’d love it.’

  Oberführer Axel Fleischer was referring to the apartment he had just requisitioned for me in what was left of Warsaw’s smartest street. It was indeed beautiful, with high ceilings, intricate baroque cornices and a row of tall elegant windows through which the sunlight streamed, gilding the polished floor.

  ‘It’s all yours, Schatzi,’ Axel said expansively, waving a hand around the beautiful room as though he had produced it from a hat for my benefit.

  All mine.

  The heavy dark furniture gleaming with generations of tender care. The family portraits on the wall. The collection of Meissen shepherdesses. The gold menorah on the table. The weighty copy of the Torah in pride of place.

  I walked over to it. But I didn’t touch.

  ‘When did the last owners leave?’ I asked.

  ‘Only yesterday.’

  ‘Did you have them removed specially for me?’

  ‘No, don’t give them a thought. They were leaving anyway.’

  I bet they were.

  The Jewish ghetto had a single room with their name on it.

  ‘What was their name?’

  ‘I have no idea. Forget them. They are nobody. I didn’t bring you here to talk about them.’

  ‘What did you bring me here for?’

  ‘To see if you like the apartment, of course.’ I heard Axel’s footsteps cross the room till he was standing behind me. ‘And for this.’

  He scooped up a swathe of my long blond hair and kissed the naked back of my neck. Not a light-hearted peck. His lips were so hungry and hot they burned right through me. A branding iron. His other hand circled round and caressed my breast through my blouse. As if the soft delicate flesh was his, not mine.

  I dragged up a smile and twisted out of his grip. ‘Let me look at the rest of the apartment, Axel. I want to see the kitchen.’

  As if I had any interest in a stove and cupboards.

  He laughed, pleased by my enthusiasm, but caught my wrist and lifted its soft underside to his mouth. His strong white teeth gave my skin a gentle nip, which he then kissed better. When he looked at me his blue eyes were so intense I knew I didn’t stand a chance of seeing the kitchen.

  ‘Let’s inspect this room first,’ he said as he directed me towards a different door.

  It was the bedroom.

  I knocked on the door of my neighbour. It was Apartment 3 on the floor below mine and the door was opened by a glamorous redhead in a chiffon eau de Nil negligee, though it was mid-afternoon. I couldn’t decide whether she was getting up or going to bed. Or maybe she drifted around in her negligee all day waiting for her SS officer lover to turn up. That’s what this apartment block seemed to me to be used for now, somewhere for certain select Waffen SS officers to come and rest their shiny jackboots. It sent a shiver through me.

  ‘I’m Klara Janowska. I live upstairs.’

  Her eyelids flicked like a lizard’s. They registered no interest. She was probably in her early forties with a carefully constructed Rita Hayworth glamour, her vivid hair rippling in loose waves to her shoulders. She held an empty ivory cigarette holder in her hand.

  ‘Oh?’ was all she said. She didn’t offer her name.

  ‘I have only just moved in. Apartment Five upstairs.’ I smiled at her.

  Look friendly. As if you are the kind of person who would happily fritter away your afternoons in a semi-transparent negligee too.

  ‘I have a few personal items I want to send on to the people who were in Apartment Five before me. Do you know their name, by any chance?’

  Her eyes came alive. She suddenly stepped out into the hallway with me and half-cl
osed the door behind her. Belatedly it occurred to me she might have someone in there with her. She lowered her voice.

  ‘Listen, Miss Apartment Five, keep away from the couple who used to live there. You must have no contact with them if you want to hang on to your fingernails.’ She raised her pencilled eyebrows in shock when she glanced at my hands. ‘Their name was Rosenberg, if you must know. If you get my meaning. A nice couple – Samuel and Elke Rosenberg. He was a dentist.’

  ‘Was a dentist?’

  A flush of colour touched her cheek. ‘Is a dentist.’

  ‘Where did they move to?’

  ‘Where do you think?’

  ‘The Jewish ghetto?’

  ‘Forget them,’ the woman hissed. ‘It’s too late.’ She stuck her empty cigarette holder between her lips. ‘Too late for any of us.’

  The envelope was warm in my hand. It had been tucked inside my blouse next to my skin. I wanted it to smell of me.

  ‘Please,’ I said. ‘Please give it to her.’

  I held out the letter. I didn’t think he’d take it, but he did.

  ‘Thank you, Oskar.’

  He opened his desk drawer and slipped it inside with a glance at the name on the envelope. Alicja Janowska. It was the only thread tying me to her, gossamer thin and one that SS Sturmbannführer Oskar Scholz could break with one snap of his fingers. We were standing in his office, a freshly painted utilitarian room where I had to report once a week. Once a month I handed him a letter for my daughter. In the beginning I used to press him.

  ‘Where is she? Tell me, please.’

  But he grew tired of it. Became irritated. To the point where I feared for her and I looped my fingers together behind my back to prevent them reaching for his throat. Whenever he was wearing his smart grey officer’s cap, the urge to rip off its metal SS death’s head and insert it into the parts of his anatomy where it would do most harm was overwhelming.

  But I learned to be polite. I no longer screamed at him. If I was polite he told me things. I couldn’t smile or find any warmth in the coldness of my heart, but I could manufacture something that passed as polite.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Klara. Don’t pester me. Your daughter is in a convent. She is safe.’