by Tara Heavey
Uri was starving all the time. Of course, he had been permanently hungry ever since he’d arrived at the camp, but there was a new quality to his hunger now. It was insatiable. His father said it was because he was growing that his body needed more food. Uri could see for himself that he had grown a good two inches since his arrival because his trouser hems now floated somewhere above his ankles. At night, he got strange pains in his legs, not the usual ones. Dr Frankl told him they were growing pains. Then Dr Frankl was transferred to another camp and they didn’t see him any more. At least, they hoped that was what had happened to him.
The delectable smells that floated out to the garden from the commandant’s kitchen window mocked Uri daily. There were times when he felt he’d go crazy with food lust. One day, when he was pushing his wheelbarrow past the window, he happened to look inside. Sitting on the kitchen counter, completely unattended, was a tray of dumplings. Uri was filled with an uncontrollable craving. He walked on with his wheelbarrow and tried to immerse himself in his work. He got a spade and dug and dug and dug. After a while, he took up his wheelbarrow and walked past the house again. There was no harm in looking. They were still there. Still unattended. A trickle of steam rising from them. He glanced down to the other end of the garden. His father was thinning onions, oblivious to all else. The house was as quiet as a tomb. His head turning constantly, Uri set down his wheelbarrow and walked as rapidly as he could down the path. His heart hammered wildly as he inched open the back door, which was, as usual, unlocked. Nothing. Nobody. He went into the kitchen, the tray now looming ahead of him, just a few sweet feet away. One last look around and he was on it. There were so many of them that no one would notice. He crammed one into his mouth and closed his eyes. It was better than he’d imagined. The softness, the warmth, the sweet spicy apple flavour. He thrust another into his pocket and turned to leave. He stood stock still. Framed in the doorway was the commandant’s wife. At first she was silent and they stared at one another. The seconds ticked slowly by – one, two, three – then she was screaming at him.
‘What are you doing here? Dirty Jewish boy in the kitchen. Stealing my food. Get out! Get out!’
She grabbed a broom and struck him with it. Uri crouched on the floor, adopting a submissive position, his hands shielding his head. He heard footsteps – running – getting closer. Now he could see the black boots.
‘What is it?’
‘This boy. This Jewish rat. He’s been touching my food. Stealing from me.’
A guard yanked him to his feet and dragged him out of the house. He threw Uri on to the lawn where he lay cowering. Then he tore off his shirt and started to whip him. Once. And again. And again. Uri was vaguely aware of his father’s voice. Shouting. Running footsteps. Then the whipping stopped. Uri lay there for a few seconds, anticipating the next strike. When it didn’t come he looked up. The guard was on the ground and Samuel was sitting on top of him, his hands around his throat. The guard’s face was red, Samuel’s hands were tightening. A shot rang out. The crows on the roof of the commandant’s house rose in black unison, cawing and croaking their cacophony. Samuel’s hands loosened and he fell to the side, a gaping red hole in his left temple.
‘No!’ Uri fell on his father, shaking him first, then cradling his head. The guard rolled away, coughing and clasping his neck. The soldier who had fired the pistol came running over and crouched beside him.
‘What is the meaning of this?’
The commandant strode across the lawn. He stood over Uri and his father. ‘Who did this?’
The second guard stood up and saluted.
The commandant slapped his face. ‘This was the best gardener I ever had. What has occurred here?’
‘Sir.’ The first soldier spoke through his coughs. ‘I caught this boy stealing food from your kitchen.’
‘Stand up, boy,’ said the commandant.
Uri stood up, swaying slightly, his face awash with tears, his mind with grief. Through his tears he could see the face of the commandant’s wife, screwed up and hard, pressed against the window. Then he heard the click of the gun that her husband was pointing at him.
Uri closed his eyes and awaited oblivion. Nothing happened. The gun clicked again and he opened his eyes.
‘Better not,’ said the commandant. ‘I’ve already lost one gardener today.’ Then he raised his gun and struck Uri across the face with it. Uri fell to the ground, not caring. Someone with big boots kicked him in the back.
He lay on the ground, bleeding profusely, until long after he was able to get up. His father’s body was gone. He walked unsteadily to the onions that Samuel had been working on and knelt on the ground. Then he finished the job his father had started, his blood mingling with the earth.
Back in his hut, the men he lived with waited for Samuel’s return. Until it got too late. Some of them mourned. For others it was too late.
42
Uri didn’t know if he could fill his father’s shoes. Had Samuel taught him enough for Uri to pass himself off as a gardener? Increasingly, Uri didn’t care. And then came the day when it really didn’t matter any more.
It was April, tulips bobbing their pretty red heads in the breeze. But there was no other sign of activity in the garden or the house. There was an almost unearthly silence. Where were the guards? It seemed that they had vanished overnight. Even the watchtower was empty. Prisoners emerged from their huts to stand around in straggly groups, whispering and shaking their heads, as if they were afraid it was all some elaborate trick and that, at any moment, the guards would jump out with their guns and their whips, their vicious dogs barking.
The silence was broken by strange sounds emanating from the other side of the camp. The sounds were strange because they weren’t of a type that the prisoners were accustomed to hearing. Shouting, singing – jubilation. They looked at each other and started moving towards the sounds, slowly at first, getting faster.
Uri couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Seven giants surrounded by prisoners, who were whooping and hugging and kissing them. The giants were dressed as soldiers but they were not German. As Uri drew close, he recognized the uniforms as American. They were young men, older than him but not much more than seventeen or eighteen. It seemed they had cut through the wire. They were there to liberate them.
Uri joined in with the general mayhem and jumping around. But part of him felt that it was happening outside himself. Liberation. What did it mean? What would happen to him next?
There were lots more Americans outside the camp. They set up tents for the sick, which was just about everybody, but the sickest went first. Uri watched them stretchering out the half-dead. It took three people to lift each one. The first took the head, another the body and the third the legs. They had to go slowly so the skin wouldn’t tear. He wandered out after them, stepping for the first time beyond the boundaries of the camp. He didn’t feel so different. Part of him wondered if he’d ever feel anything again.
One of the American soldiers handed him a package. Uri sat on the ground and opened it. It contained a tin of meat. The soldier crouched beside him and held the tin in front of Uri’s face. ‘Spam,’ he said. Then he made a gesture, bringing his fingers to his lips. ‘Eat. It’s good.’ The American tried to smile at him but he didn’t quite make it. He was looking at Uri with the oddest expression.
There was chocolate in the package too, and some milk powder. Uri ripped open the wrapper on the chocolate and rammed it into his mouth.
‘No!’ Somebody wrenched the rest of the bar out of his hand. Uri cowered instinctively and covered his head with his hands. Another man hunkered down beside him. He was older and spoke gently to Uri in a language he didn’t understand. When he got no response, he switched to German. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘but you mustn’t eat that. Your stomach is unused to such food and it will make you sick. Please spit it out.’
Reluctantly, Uri spat it on to the grass and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. The man spoke ste
rnly to the soldier in the language Uri didn’t understand. Then he held out his hand and helped Uri to his feet. ‘Come with me,’ he said in German.
Uri followed him into one of the tents. The man spoke rapidly to a woman in uniform. Then he turned to Uri. ‘This lady is a nurse. She will look after you.’
The nurse bade Uri to sit on the makeshift bed. Then she gestured for him to take his top off. Uri did so. He continued to sit there for a long time, waiting for her to do something. But she just stood there staring at him. She made a funny noise in her throat but she didn’t say anything. At last she moved towards him. She prepared a needle and indicated to Uri that she was going to stick it into his shoulder. He let her do it. It only stung a little. Then she walked around the back of Uri and gasped. He knew she must have seen the red weals and felt ashamed. He watched her as she picked up a tube of cream. She held it up to him and pointed at his back. Uri nodded. The cream was cold at first and he winced, but soon it started to feel good, soothing. The nurse’s head was above his. He felt her hot tears landing on his scalp but she made no sound. It reminded him of his mother and now he was crying too, silently, but his shoulders shook. The nurse wrapped her arms around him – gently so as not to hurt him – and he tucked his head under her chin and cried some more. They stayed like that for a very long time. Long enough for some of the humanity to seep back into him.
Later, the man from before came back into the tent. By now, Uri had worked out that he was a doctor. He told Uri he was going to examine him.
‘Can I have something to eat first?’
‘You can have a cup of tea.’
‘But I’m so hungry.’
‘I know, Uri, but we have to take it slowly.’
Tea! Were these people trying to starve him too?
The doctor and nurse exchanged a glance and the doctor looked at Uri. Right in the eye. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘Who could do this to a child?’
Uri felt like telling him that he hadn’t been a child for a very long time. That he never would be again.
After two hours, they let him have some weak, milky mixture. He signalled to the nurse that he wanted some more but she smiled sympathetically and shook her head. Uri lay on the bed, hungry and frustrated, and pulled the covers over himself. He didn’t think he’d sleep with all the activity going on around him, but he did. He didn’t dream, though. For the rest of his life, he never had another dream.
When he woke up, he was allowed a kind of broth, then every couple of hours, a little more. The food got better and more solid. The next day, some potatoes. The day after that, meat. The doctors and nurses stared as he gobbled everything they put in front of him, then looked for more.
It took them four days to fill him. The doctor smiled as he watched him hoover up the last of his stew. ‘Is there anything else I can get you, Uri?’
‘Yes. My mother and my sister.’
43
Seth and Aoife collected the children together, on their first day of school. They were lucky to make it on time. Liam and Kathy accepted their joint appearance as totally natural, which of course it was. They babbled about the morning’s goings-on.
‘We did colouring and then we played with Marla.’
‘You mean Plasticine.’
‘It’s called Marla.’
‘No, it’s not, it’s –’
‘Hey, hey. Never mind that. What else did you do?’
‘We went out to the playground and we ran around,’ said Kathy.
‘Super fast,’ said Liam.
‘Daddy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Why is your T-shirt on inside out?’
‘It’s not.’
‘It is. Look at all the knobbly bits sticking out. And there’s the label at the back.’
‘I must have put it on like that this morning.’
‘No, you didn’t. It wasn’t like that when we came to school.’
‘I know what it was. I was doing some work outside and I took my T-shirt off because it was so hot. I must have put it back on inside out.’
‘Oh.’ She lost interest.
Seth squeezed Aoife’s hand. ‘Okay, kids. What do you want to do this afternoon? We all have the day off so we can do anything you like.’
‘I want to play in the garden.’
‘Me too.’
‘Are you sure? You can go anywhere you like.’
‘The garden!’ they chorused, then ran ahead hand in hand, laughing and chattering.
They stopped off at the Good Food Store to buy themselves a picnic lunch – luxurious, celebratory, no holds barred. ‘Would you ever tell Mrs Prendergast to bring over some more of her gourmet pies? They’re flying off the shelves.’
‘Will do, Mrs Harte.’
As they walked along the hot city streets towards the garden, Aoife felt a peculiar lightness. A long-forgotten, once-familiar sensation. And she realized she was happy. It crossed her mind for a second that she should feel guilty and she thought of Michael. But at that moment she knew with absolute certainty that he’d be happy for her. She smiled up at the flawless sky and, for the first time, felt forgiven – by Michael and, more importantly, by herself.
When they arrived Uri was working alone. Despite the sweltering heat, he was formally clad as usual, in his shirtsleeves – although he had undone his top button.
‘Grandad, Grandad!’ The two children ran to him and he hoisted them both up in a massive bear-hug.
‘How was school?’
They chattered to him like a cage of budgies newly released. Then: ‘Grandad. Will you tell us a story?’
‘Yes, with lots of dragons in it.’
‘After lunch, kids. Here, Dad. Take this drink while it’s still cool. You look like you need it.’
They set out the food, laughing and talking – the atmosphere pure carnival.
‘Where’s Mrs P?’
‘She’s gone to collect Lance. They’re letting him out of rehab today. They’ll be back soon.’
‘What do you mean “they”?’
‘He’ll be staying here.’
‘So she can keep an eye on him?’
‘No. Because his house has been repossessed.’
‘That’s serious. So we’ll have to suffer him for a while.’
‘He is her son, Seth,’ said Uri.
Seth kept quiet.
The sun beamed down hotter than ever. The children took their shirts off and protested vociferously as Aoife slathered them with sunblock. They wriggled like little wet fish in her grasp. Seth lay back on the grass and shielded his eyes.
‘Daddy, why don’t you take your T-shirt off if you’re hot?’
‘You know, I think I will.’
‘Don’t forget to put it back on the right way around this time.’
‘I won’t.’
‘Mummy, why don’t you take your top off too?’
‘It’s okay, Liam. I’m not that hot.’
‘Can I take my vest off?’
‘You can if you like, but you’ll have to have more lotion.’
‘No, thank you. Why don’t you take off yours, Uri?’
‘I’m too old. I might frighten you with my hairy chest. You might think I’m a bear. Grrrrr!’ He held up his hands like claws and made a gruesome face. The children screamed and giggled.
Seth peeled off his top and Aoife got to see his tattoos for the second time that day.
‘What are those pictures on your skin?’
‘They’re called tattoos, Liam.’
‘Where did you get them?’
‘A man gave them to me, using needles.’
‘Did it hurt?’
‘Only a little bit.’
‘My daddy has my mammy’s name tattooed on his arm. Look.’ Kathy held up Seth’s arm for everyone to see.
‘I’m having it removed,’ he whispered to Aoife.
‘What’s that star on your other arm?’ said Liam.
‘It’s called a Star of David.’
‘But your name isn’t David.’
‘I know it isn’t.’
‘What have you got it for, then?’
‘To show that I’m proud of who I am and where I come from.’
‘Stoneybatter?’
They all laughed, except Liam who was evidently confused.
‘Grandad, why don’t you show Liam your tattoo?’
There was a change in the atmosphere. Barely discernible, but it was there. Uri sat perfectly still. Then he unbuttoned his cuff and rolled up his pure white left sleeve to the elbow. Aoife froze. It was something she’d suspected, but to see the evidence up close – that was another matter.
‘It’s just numbers.’ Liam was distinctly underwhelmed. ‘Why did you want numbers on your arm?’
‘I didn’t.’
Liam wrinkled his nose. ‘Then why do you have them?’
‘Some bad men gave them to me.’
‘Like baddies?’
‘Yes, like baddies.’
‘Where are they now?’ Liam raised his eyebrows and looked slightly alarmed.
‘They lived far, far away a very long time ago.’
‘So they’re gone now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Come on, Kathy. Let’s play football.’
‘Okay.’
They ran off in pursuit of the ball and Harriet ran after them in her own arthritic way.
The day was just the same. The sun was still as high in the sky and the sky was just as cloudless. But everything was different. The party was over and Aoife felt sick. ‘I didn’t know,’ she said to Uri. ‘I’m so sorry.’
Uri nodded and rolled down his sleeve.
‘You must have been a child.’
‘I was ten.’
She closed her eyes and swallowed.
‘Back to work,’ said Uri. He got up and walked away without looking back.
Aoife watched him go and turned to Seth. He was sitting up, his chest still bare, his elbows resting on his knees. His brow was furrowed. ‘He doesn’t like talking about it?’ she asked.
‘No.’
‘What happened to his family? His parents?’
