She started again. ‘I am . . . desperate.’
She lifted her gaze from his shiny brown shoes, up the razor-straight crease of his trousers to his face. It had changed. The straight lines had melted. He was rubbing a hand back and forth across his bushy eyebrows.
‘Alicja, the Soviets have every right to request an interview with your mother about crimes committed.’ His voice was heavy. As if his mouth was full of stones. ‘What is it you want me to do?’
Alicja darted to the side of the desk. Snatched up the telephone receiver and held it out to him, forcing it into his hand. Startling him.
‘Call them. Order them to give her back.’
CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT
‘Is it safe?’ I asked.
‘Probably.’
The farmer shrugged his shoulders. The kind of shoulders you get from hauling pigs around all day. He’d stopped twenty kilometres earlier to give us a lift in his ancient wheezing truck with three rowdy black and white pigs in the back. Scharz-Wesses, he said they were. Three ugly ill-tempered sows. It was tempting to light a fire on the side of the road and roast one of the fat creatures. I could see Hanna eyeing them with the same thought.
‘Safe enough,’ the farmer muttered, as he shifted gear to an accompaniment of grinding metal and a bone-jarring judder.
‘It doesn’t look good,’ I said uneasily.
The bridge looked anything but safe to me. Soldiers in Soviet uniform patrolled each end of it. The German army in retreat blew up the old bridge across the Elbe, so this one was a temporary pontoon one that the Russians had installed to keep traffic flowing.
‘What are you going to do then?’ the farmer asked. ‘Swim across?’
He meant it as a joke. His bearded face broke into a hairy grin, revealing a black hole where his front teeth should be.
I didn’t take it as a joke.
I took it as an option.
I studied the glittering silver skin of the river that lay directly ahead of us and I weighed up my chances.
‘No,’ Hanna snapped. I could hear fear snag in the word. ‘No, no swimming. We can always wait until dark to cross the bridge.’
I couldn’t wait. I couldn’t. It was asking too much. It had taken us most of the day to get this far. The Elbe was one of Germany’s main shipping arteries and had marked the boundary between East and West. But in July the Allies had backed off further and allowed Soviet Russia to grab even more of Germany. The border had shifted fifty kilometres to the west, from Magdeburg to Helmstedt.
‘They’re too lazy.’ The farmer chewed on the blackened stem of his pipe. ‘They won’t bother us.’ He nodded towards the Soviet guards who lolled against the edge of the pontoon bridge. ‘You want to take the risk?’
I pulled my headscarf low over my forehead and clambered with Hanna into the back of the truck with the pigs.
I took the risk.
I am back. Do you hear me, Alicja? I am back.
Within spitting distance of Graufeld. But he will come for you. I know he will. And when he does, you must be ready to run.
I have run, Alicja, I have run my heart out for you. I have run my feet to blisters for you because you are in every step I take. He will not be expecting me. Not yet.
If at all.
As long as he thinks I am a plaything of the Soviets in Berlin, where they are trained to dismantle a person piece by piece, he will believe he is safe.
But if he knows I am free . . .
Then run.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Graufeld Camp
ALICJA
Alicja ran. She ran like there was a wolf at her heels. She raced from the Administration building into the drizzling rain that was starting to fall. Her heart was beating so hard, it deafened her ears.
Mama was free.
The words sang in her head. Mama was free. Alicja had walked from the chapel, where prayers drifted from pew to pew like smoke, to Colonel Whitmore’s office, and in that short time God had lifted a finger and set her mother free. He had listened to the priest. Not to her. To the priest. His prayers were powerful.
Mama was free.
The colonel had not used those words. Of course not. He had said – after speaking on the phone to three different people – your mother has gone missing. But there had been a shine to his eyes that wasn’t there before. A twitch to his lips.
Your mother has gone missing. They don’t know where she is.
‘And Hanna Pamulska?’
Hanna Pamulska as well.
As she ran she shouted to Rafal. ‘Find Davide. Go to the canteen. Find him quickly.’
She flew to the Recreation building in case he was still there, but as she hurried towards the door a hand shot out. It fixed around her arm. She looked up. It was Oskar Scholz. He was leaning against the wall beside the door, wearing a dark shirt and a scruffy old jacket that glistened in the rain. It felt like a big black spider had just latched itself on to her.
‘Alicja,’ he said, ‘I’ve been looking for you.’
The heavy grey sky seemed to slam shut on the camp. She tried to pull away but he held firm.
‘Let me go.’
‘Stop it, Alicja.’ His voice was sharp. ‘I have news for you.’
She ceased struggling. ‘What kind of news?’
‘About your mother.’
Her scalp prickled. ‘You know already?’
‘Know what?’
But the cat suddenly got hold of Alicja’s tongue. She shook her head.
‘Come with me, Alicja. Let’s go somewhere private where we can talk.’
He pulled her wrist but she dug her heels in. She could feel the strength of him, a man accustomed to having people jump to do what he said. She squirmed her wrist back and forth, burning her skin.
‘No,’ she shouted.
He took as much notice as he would if the dirt under his feet spoke up. He dragged her one metre, two metres, gathering speed, till Alicja was stumbling along against her will. But a sudden crack brought him to an abrupt halt. Like the sound of bone on bone. He arched his body in pain.
Alicja knew that sound. A stone had thudded against the bony spot between his shoulder blades and now lay on the ground at his feet. She whirled around, still in his grip. Rafal was there. Thirty metres away. Slingshot in hand and loading a second stone. No one else was nearby. Just when she needed the crowds, they deserted her.
‘Scheisse!’ Scholz cursed. ‘I’ll break that bastard’s neck.’
He dragged Alicja down the side of the Recreation block to the rear where there was a lean-to shed stacked with sawn logs. He pushed her up against the wooden planking, his hands either side of her head. She was sure that he was about to crush her skull.
‘What news,’ she asked quickly, ‘of Mama?’
‘They are transferring her back to Warsaw.’
‘You’re lying!’
His face came closer. Filling her vision. His spectacles were spotted with rain. ‘It’s true, Alicja. The Soviets are taking her away to—’
‘No, no, you’re lying. You’re lying. They don’t know where she is.’
‘What?’
‘They’ve lost her. Colonel Whitmore said so.’
‘You mean your mother has escaped?’
‘Yes.’ She flung the word at him with pride. ‘She’ll be coming back to—’
His hand closed around her throat. She could make no sound. The back of her head thumped against the shed and she couldn’t see straight. Her hands tried to claw at his fingers. She scratched. She kicked. Her lungs begged for air. She felt sick and dizzy and the sounds in her ears were like an express train roaring through her head. She could feel the life draining out of her.
Her feet slid from under her, so that just his hand held her upright. Her lips fluttered, trying to speak, but there was no breath in her. He was saying things. She knew because his lips moved and his teeth showed, but the sound of his words was flattened by the express train. She wanted to shout �
��Mama’. But it was too late. Something was unravelling inside her.
The blow came out of nowhere.
She saw it, rather than heard it. A solid thwack on the side of Scholz’s head with a heavy log. A blur of movement. Scholz vanished. There in front of her one moment, gone the next. The iron band on her throat vanished with him and air swooped into her lungs with a noise that set her teeth on edge.
She would have fallen, but hands held her on her feet, gentle hands. A man’s quiet voice in her ears. Davide’s voice. She laid her head on his chest. Waited for thoughts to climb back inside her brain. Davide’s hand stroked the back of her head and it made her tears trickle on to his shirt.
‘Rafal fetched me,’ he said, holding her tight. ‘Alicja, if you ever run off on me again I will throttle you myself.’
She had to laugh at that.
CHAPTER SIXTY
The odd thing was how easy it was. No questions. No rifles in our faces. No bullets in our brains. Nothing. Honestly, nothing.
The further we travelled from Berlin, the less anyone cared where we were going. Or where we’d come from. Everywhere refugees were on the move. Everything was in chaos. Grey figures in headscarves and dusty suits. Some bent double under back-breaking loads or hauling carts piled high with blankets and thin-legged children. Others walked sedately with no more than the clothes they stood up in.
All fleeing from Stalin’s boot. Yes, at the border with West Germany itself there were a few flimsy checkpoints across the roads, but we all had the sense to avoid them. In the fields and forests there were no fences. No guards. Not yet anyway. They would come soon enough, I was sure of it. Just as soon as it dawned on Stalin that his territories would end up deserted and his economy in tatters, if he didn’t put a stop to the haemorrhage of humanity.
It was Hanna who wangled a lift for us in a British Army truck, once we were safely in the West again. With a bunch of six bright long-limbed young men who were full of whistles and noise and laughter because they had survived the slaughter of war.
They offered to trade cigarettes and chocolate for a kiss on our cheeks. Hanna took the trade.
‘Wait for me, Hanna.’
‘I thought you were in an almighty rush to get back to the camp. To see your daughter.’
‘I am.’
‘Then why stop here? We’re so close to it.’
‘I have something to do first. Someone to see.’
‘I’ll never understand you, Klara.’
Hanna sat down to the ground on top of a crunchy heap of bright orange leaves and slumped back against a tree at the edge of the forest. She lit a Players cigarette and sank her teeth into a bar of chocolate.
‘Off you go, Klara, to see your someone.’ She exhaled a skein of smoke contentedly. ‘No rush.’
This time I walked up the gravel drive in daylight. I knocked on the front door. Instead of creeping round the back like a thief.
The house was even more impressive than when I’d seen it at night. Half-timbered with decorative brickwork and fancy lattice windows that were speckled with the first drops of rain. I tried to picture Axel Fleischer here, striding up this same drive in his gleaming black boots. Knocking this same oak door. His sister opening it with a welcoming smile and drawing him inside with a warm embrace to the house he’d lived in as a child.
I didn’t know this was her house. Not that first time. With hindsight, I might have guessed. But the last time I was here in the village of Hagendorf I had other things on my mind. I stand here now and wait. Sweat on my palms. My heartbeat rattles my ribs.
I lift the brass lion’s head and knock.
The door opened sooner than I expected. The woman with an eyepatch stood in front of me, her long black hair swept back. It emphasised the likeness to her brother.
‘Hello, again, Frau Köhler.’
Her polite expression crumbled. ‘You,’ she said. An accusation.
She slammed the door in my face.
I knocked again. And again. I kept banging down the brass knocker until the door snapped open once more.
‘Stop that! You’ll wake my child.’
I held out my hands, palms up. ‘I am unarmed. I intend you and your daughter no harm. Please, let me—’
‘Go away.’
‘Please, let me have a moment of your time and then I will leave you in peace.’
She took her time making the decision. She studied my filthy coat and damp dishevelled hair. But mostly she studied my face. I didn’t like to think what she saw there, but she stepped back inside the house. With a stiff jerk of her head she indicated that I should enter.
I nipped in smartly. Before she could slam the door on me.
It was the kind of house you wanted to touch, to run a palm over the polished surfaces of the heavy furniture. To trail a finger along the elegant Meissen porcelain figurines. Axel Fleischer and his sister liked nice things around them. I was one of his nice things.
She led me into the dining room. The dining table was conspicuously bare.
‘You stole my silver candlesticks,’ she said without preamble.
‘Yes. I was angry and I needed them to get back into the camp.’
‘So what is it you need to steal from me now?’ She folded her arms, pulling her primrose-yellow cardigan tight around her thin frame.
‘I’ve come to give you something.’
Irmgard Köhler sat in her green velvet armchair, weeping into her dainty handkerchief. I felt a wave of sorrow for her. I remembered only too well what it felt like to lose a brother, but I could not join in her grief for Axel Fleischer. That was her affair. Hers alone.
She had been informed of his death two months ago, she told me. But she had clung to the desperate hope that – in the wild chaos and confusion that had turned the country on its head at the end of the war – the authorities were mistaken. That he had vanished into thin air, like a million other Nazis. To evade retribution. She told herself every morning that one day soon he would knock on her door.
This all came out of her in gasps. Raw and painful.
Then followed the question. The one I’d been dreading.
‘How did he die?’
‘In my arms. Shot by a Resistance fighter.’
‘Was the Resistance fighter arrested?’
‘No.’
‘Where did it happen?’
‘In my apartment.’
Irmgard wiped the tears from her face and ran her handkerchief behind her eyepatch. I tried not to stare at it. She lifted her chin and sat upright.
‘My brother died in your apartment?’
‘Yes.’
‘So you were his whore?’
I swallowed back the words that leaped to my tongue. ‘Yes.’
‘Is your daughter his?’
My hand went to my throat. It felt like ice. ‘Of course not. She is much too old.’
Her dark eyes regarded me with intense anger. I knew it was not really directed at me. It was at the damage. The havoc that war had brought to us all. But it was hard to sit and take it, when it was her husband who had shot my daughter in cold blood.
‘So why are you here?’ she demanded.
‘I told you. To give you something.’
‘All you’ve given me is bad news.’ She turned her face away from me. ‘Leave now.’
‘I came here to tell you how your brother died. Which I have done because I thought you’d want to know.’ I kept my voice kind. She’d been hurt enough. ‘And to tell you that as he lay in my arms, his last words were of you.’
Her breath raced in and out. She cradled a hand over her eyepatch as though all this emotion was making the socket hurt.
‘Tell me,’ she said.
‘He said he was sorry.’
‘Sorry? For what?’
‘For frightening you so much in the forest when you were young together.’
Her eyes widened. ‘He said that?’
‘Yes.’
She shook her head and for
one horrible moment I thought she would say she didn’t know what Axel was talking about. But no.
She shook her head again, but in amazement, not bemusement. ‘We used to cycle to the Deister forest. He always liked to go and climb one special tree. A vast oak with twisted branches and bark that tore your skin off.’
‘You didn’t like it?’
‘I hated it. But he used to make me climb. Higher and higher.’ Again she wiped the eyepatch. ‘It amused him. He’d make me edge further and further out on a branch and then he’d shake the branch.’
I wanted to put my arms around this woman whose whole body shook at the memory of her fear. That was Axel. That was Axel all over.
‘One day . . .’ She was quiet now. Too quiet. ‘One day he shook the branch and I fell. From high up beside a rook’s nest. I fell and broke my leg.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘And a twig spiked into my eye.’
Axel had done worse. Far worse. I had seen it. But this woman’s story clutched at my heart. I sat in silence with her, wondering how she could grieve for a brother who had done such things to her. Irmgard gathered herself together and went into the kitchen. She made us a cup of something that tasted of acorns.
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘Thank you for coming to tell me Axel’s last words were of me. That he was sorry.’
I didn’t look away. I looked right back at her dark grateful eyes. But I hated lying to her.
‘I would like to go and visit that oak tree,’ I said softly. ‘As it obviously meant a lot to Axel. Can you draw me a rough map to show where I’d find it in the Deister forest?’
She smiled at me for the first time. When she should have scratched her fingernails down my face.
‘Of course. It’s at the Wennigsen end of the Deister hills. Just off the main trail. I’ll fetch some paper.
It was that easy.
As I watched her draw a map of the forest trails, I felt the muscles between my shoulder blades start to unknot. The pulse in my throat eased off.
The Survivors Page 25
