“Joseph!” The word burst from her. “You’re mad!” She began to laugh. Her laughter infuriated him.
“Be quiet! It’s you who are mad!”
“I won’t be quiet!” she shouted. “You stand there and tell me the children murdered that old man! Are you crazy? Their gang is a black market one. They run coffee from Belgium. Oh, I know it’s wrong—but they all work some fiddle now. They’ve gone without things for years and now they want everything quickly. Hank told me about it. I got it out of him.”
“When?” cried Joseph urgently. “When?”
“The night he carved Robert’s back,” she faltered, terrified at what she saw in his face. For at the thought of Hank’s lies to his mother, rage had seized him again. “What’s the matter now?” she asked, bewildered. “Joseph, don’t be so angry! You must move with the times. All the kids do these things now. They want money! It’s the war, and the films they see.”
“They don’t murder!” shouted Joseph. “Your son’s a murderer! By his own admission. Not once, but twice. And you laugh. You don’t believe me. You tell me it’s some coffee racket. I tell you, a few hours ago, he stood where you are now, and told me so. Begged me to help him. He’s at his wits’ end because of Krista. Otherwise we’d have known nothing of this until the police caught up with them.”
Moe stood clutching the coat she had flung round her shoulders. She stared speechlessly at Joseph. She saw that he wasn’t mad. He wasn’t making it up. It was true! In one quick flash of feminine intuition, she knew it. Everything fitted into place. The gloves, the blood, the belt, Katie’s apathy and nervousness. Robert’s terror and nightmares. The child knew something . . . and Hank knew that he did. The glibness of Hank’s explanation to her, the sullen reluctance of Katie to answer at all. She saw it all now.
“The police?” she whispered through dry lips. “Hank said you won’t help him. They’re on to him?”
“They will be,” he said grimly; “unless he takes Krista for the gang to use as a decoy tomorrow night, Leo is to give him up for the murder of the caretaker.”
“Hank told you this?” The disbelief in her voice goaded Joseph.
“He did. Go in and ask him yourself. He seems to have led you up the garden path all right.”
“But why? Why did he tell you?” He was furious and yet triumphant to sense in her voice that she couldn’t understand why the boy hadn’t gone to her, rather than to him. She’d have helped him to escape.
“I told you. He’s in love with Krista. It’s because of her. He asked me to save her from the gang.”
At the mention of Krista and of Hank’s feeling for her, there was a flicker of an emotion which Joseph couldn’t fathom in Moe’s face.
“So she’s the price of silence? Is that it?”
He was, as always, amazed at her quickness. “Yes,” he answered heavily.
“And you? What did you say?” Her voice was unnaturally high.
“There is only one thing to say. Hank must go to the police. Or I will.”
“Joseph!” From her shocked incredulity he saw he had been right in his decision not to consult her. Women were hopeless where law and order were concerned. He had known her reaction would be to help Hank to escape.
“What else is there to do?” he shouted, his anger rising again at the scorn and fury in her face. “He admits the crime. He’s not in the least sorry. He’d kill again. He said so. That’s our son. Yours and mine. He’s only come to me because of Krista. He imagines he’s in love with her.”
“Well, and why not? Aren’t you?” She screamed wildly, “It’s Krista, Krista all the time. Not Anna, Katie or Carola. Always Krista. You’re besotted with her. God damn the day you found her!”
At her reckless insinuation, Joseph went cold. She must be mad. He stared dumbfounded as she went on shouting, “She’s the real reason for all this. But you want to take it out on me because of Rudi. You’d go to the police and give Hank up for her!” Her eyes went suddenly to the floor to that heap of black garments and she stopped.
“Yes,” he said, answering her look. “Katie too, and the twins.” She remembered suddenly those threats of Hank’s about dragging in all her brood.
“No, no!” she cried frantically. “Not the twins! Not them, Joseph, you can’t go to the police. Think of them! They’re only children. No! Oh no! You’d give them up for Krista?” Her face was incredulous.
“What else can I do?” he said wearily. “They’ve committed murder! Think of their souls! Think of that. Hank stood there and told me he had no soul!”
She burst into wild noisy sobbing, rising to hysteria. “You’d give away your own flesh and blood for a girl you found in an air-raid! You’re unnatural! Vile! A Judas! A filthy Judas! You never loved them. Never! Only that girl and Robert. And now listen, just listen to me. Your darling Robert. Well, he’s not yours. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. I hope you’ll enjoy it. He’s the son of an Englishman! One of the conquerors! Yes, your Robert. Now d’you see why he likes to go next door so much? He’s the son of a man who gave me food. Food when the kids were starving. But don’t think he demanded payment. I gave it. Of my own free will. I liked him. Just as I like Rudi.” Her voice had become a shrill harsh monotone and suddenly she was laughing. The sound was appalling in the quiet garden. He took her by the shoulders and shook her violently. The coat fell from her arms and she stood in her thin nightdress. He struck her sharply across the face several times. The laughter ceased. She looked at him in horrified surprise and began to cry.
“Don’t take it out on me through the boys.” she pleaded, “I know I’m bad. But not Hank and the twins! Not them. Please Joseph. You can’t understand. Only a mother can. Please . . .” She had fallen on her knees on the dirty floor and gripped him urgently. He was icy cold from what she had said about Robert, but her sobs unnerved him. For as he looked at her with contempt as she pleaded for her boys he hated her—but at the same time he loved her. She was his woman. There would never be any other for him.
“Get up!” he said roughly. “And listen. Nothing that you’ve done affects this. I don’t care about your whoring. What matters are the children and what we’ve done to them. Yes, you and me! We brought them into the world, and they’re liars, thieves, and murderers. Not only through what we’ve done, but through what we’ve failed to do. What does your whoring matter compared to this horror? Go with your blasted men, but you’ll not see the children any more. I’ve been blind. Blind. Blinded to what is right and what is wrong. There’s nothing else. Nothing. Everything comes down to that.”
“You’ve been taken up with your damned politics and the wretched house,” she cried violently. “All your thoughts have been on that—and on Krista and her American. You’ve had no time for us. If you’d let him have her, none of this would have happened.”
“Don’t you see that it’s all one and the same thing? Our children have lost all sense of right and wrong. Why? Not only because you and I haven’t shown them, but because of a bloody Government which encouraged crime and vice.”
“People get the government they want!” she shouted hysterically. “Why won’t you see that? Governments don’t make people good or bad. They’re born that way!”
“Like Hank? He’s your son and mine.” She flinched.
“What are you going to do?” she shot at him stormily.
“There is only one thing to do. I’ve been awake all night deciding it.”
“No! No! You shan’t! Leave it to me. Let me warn Krista. She’ll understand. She owes us something.”
“No. Hank doesn’t want her to know anything about it. That’s why he came to me. You keep out of this now. And don’t you breathe a word of it to the others. It’ll all be settled tonight after I come home.” He had taken her firmly by the shoulders and thrust his face close to hers. She stared at him unbelievingly. Was this the man who had been unable to take a decision of any kind? The man who until recently had taken any amount of back-chat from Hank?
Who had not protested when she had been regularly visiting her lover?
In the blazing eyes and the firm set mouth she saw the Joseph of before the war. The clamorous male who had had to be obeyed. The hardness and determination in his voice, the grim lines in his face amazed her. For suddenly the dead mists of the past with their cloying doubts and indecisions had been swept away from him. In place of the maze of by-ways was one clear path ahead. An extraordinary strength, like that of a man possessed, re-born from a slow death, overcame the bodily exhaustion from his terrible conflict. He saw the dawn of something like admiration in her face, and at the same time he felt disgust and shame at exulting in having vanquished her; at still wanting to crush and subjugate her. Her body showing through the thin nightdress taunted him. She was still on the floor.
“Get up!” he said more gently. But she did not move.
“The twins?” she cried desperately. “You’ll keep them out of it? They’re only children.” Her hair fell over her white shoulders, her eyes were frantic. He put his hand on her bare skin. It was months since he had touched the satin-smooth body which another man had been enjoying. He pulled her roughly to her feet.
“It’s no use. It’s too late. What d’you think the police are doing? They’re on to it. Why d’you think they’ve come here twice. They’ll come again—you said so yourself.”
She snatched up the bundle of notes, recognizing the perfume as Katie’s.
“These could get Hank away!” she cried, clutching them. “Money will do anything.”
“Give them to me,” he said. And at the iron authority in his voice she handed them over. “You can’t do it! You can’t!” she cried desperately.
“Be quiet. The neighbours are up now. Remember what I said. If you interfere, I’ll throw you out! You won’t see any of the children again. I’ll deal with this when I come home tonight. You’re not to breathe a word to any of them.” They stood staring at each other, and in that moment both knew that they were bound together by those other lives—bound inexorably, whatever had happened or might happen. Joseph might say that he would throw her out, but he knew and she knew that he wouldn’t, for he had mastered her. The long battle with her, with the children, with work, politics, with life itself was all one and the same thing. He had avoided it, by-passed it, shut his eyes to it. But now it was here; and there was no weakening in his determination, no tipping of the one scale against the other. They had balanced.
XXX
KATIE had made careful plans of her own for luring Krista to Eddie’s room, but she was inadvertently helped in her plot by Moe. Moe, agitated and exhausted after the scene with Joseph, slipped on some of the potato peelings which she herself had thrown down, and wrenched her ankle badly. It began to swell rapidly and by midday she was obliged to tell Katie that she wouldn’t be able to get to the hospital that afternoon to visit Carola, and that Katie must take her place.
Katie thought her mother looked strange, but she put it down to the pain and annoyance of the foot. When she was sent to the village to do the shopping she rang up Leo from a call-box. He knew about her plan and was delighted at hearing how fate had played into their hands.
“Come straight to Eddie’s room from the hospital,” he told her. “I’ll get off early from the yard and be there waiting for you.”
Moe hadn’t spoken a word at breakfast. Pa had gone off without any. Hank had seemed distraught and uncommunicative. He had sat there looking at Krista. Katie laughed when she thought how they were going to fool him over her. Anna had been peculiar too. When Katie had asked her what was wrong with everyone, she had replied cryptically that she would soon find out: and she had given Katie the most meaning and unpleasant look.
When Katie went to Moe to get the small luxuries for Carola, Moe was pale and very short-tempered with her. She looked hard at the girl and said, “I don’t like your going. Come straight back. I can’t get about easily with this foot and you’ll have to bestir yourself. Besides, your father wants to speak to you all tonight.”
The peculiar tone in which her mother said this frightened Katie. Had he found out anything? Her heart gave a jump, but Moe would not enlighten her about what he was going to say. What a good thing that she and Leo had been able to fix their plan for an earlier time than this. She would be well away with it before Pa got home. She noticed that Moe had been crying, and she was worried. Moe looked older suddenly. As if she’d had some kind of shock. Probably Rudi was getting tired of her. Men were all the same. Katie shrugged her shoulders at her mother’s silence. Men! Just wait. She would learn to hurt them as they did her.
“How are you feeling?” Moe called after her. “Are you all right? It’s a long way to the hospital; you’d better start at once.”
She listened to all the admonitions and messages for Carola, assuring Moe that she would remember them all. Moe looked at her again, as if she were on the point of saying something vital. Then she set her lips firmly and told her to be off.
When Krista came out of the factory with Rosa that evening she was astonished to be approached by a tall youth who got off a motor cycle. His face was vaguely familiar. When he spoke to her she knew suddenly that she had seen him with Leila from the next village.
“Katie sent me,” he began politely. “She gave me this note for you.” He handed her a piece of blue-lined exercise-book paper which Katie had torn from one of Robert’s school books. On it was scrawled in Katie’s handwriting:
Dear Krista,
I have been taken ill in the town. Please come with Eddie. I am in his room. He will bring you on his motor cycle.
Katie
Krista read the words slowly. She was perturbed. What was Katie doing in the town? Then she remembered that Moe could not go to Carola today. She had slipped and hurt her foot. It had happened just as she and Anna were rushing off. Katie had at once offered to make the visit. Of course. Katie had been right out to the hospital and on this hot thundery day had been taken ill. She did not hesitate. Turning to Rosa she said quickly, “My sister’s ill. I’m going to her now.”
She was terrified at having to ride on the back of Eddie’s motor cycle. She asked him anxiously if it were far. Couldn’t she walk there? No, it was quite a way, replied Eddie. Much too far to walk. It was on the river, on the wharf, some distance from the big bridge.
“Oh, don’t be silly,” urged Rosa. “It’s fun to ride pillion. I’ve often done it. Don’t go too fast. She’s not accustomed to it. Be careful.”
She watched Krista get up behind Eddie. She did not like him. He was a good-looking boy, but there was something she distrusted in his sardonic, unpleasantly narrow face. There was going to be a thunderstorm. It had been heavy and close all day. Now great streaks of lightning shot across the dark sky and the ominous rumble of thunder startled Rosa. She knew Krista was nervous of thunder storms, and she suddenly felt afraid for her. She had received no answer when she had twice asked Eddie where he was taking Krista. Why hadn’t he said? Was it so secret? The first drops of rain began to fall and she hurried away home.
Krista was frightened of thunderstorms but she was far more afraid of Eddie’s motor cycle. She got up fearfully behind him as directed, and put her arms round his waist. He was not yet an expert driver. Like Hank’s, his machine was a new one. Obliged to stop constantly for the traffic signals, Eddie had difficulty in restarting. The rain kept off after those first few drops, but as they sped on through the busy streets towards the town, flashes of lightning and crashes of thunder terrified Krista. She begged Eddie to stop. They would shelter somewhere until the storm was over. But he laughed. Lightning couldn’t hurt them, he scoffed. And what about poor Katie? She was waiting for Krista.
In reality Eddie was cursing the storm. If it did not break soon it would wreck all their plans for this evening. The whole success of the plot depended on the tourist being on that terrace in the restaurant garden. No one would stay outside in a thunderstorm. Tomorrow the man left the country. This was the last
chance of getting him.
The sky was now so dark that, although not yet seven o’clock, it was as if it were dusk. Cars had their headlights on. In many windows lights showed. Eddie cursed. It looked as if the evening would be a washout. They reached the house where he lodged. Leo opened the door to them. Beyond him the passage was in darkness. A sudden fear came over Krista at the sight of Leo. A shiver of acute apprehension ran through her at something secretly exultant in his glance as he drew her in. She shrank back at his touch, but he signalled to Eddie to shut the door behind her.
“Where’s Katie?” she asked sharply. Her voice was high with fear. What had they done to Katie? Had Leo been hurting her? She knew he was tired of Katie.
“She’s upstairs,” said Leo soothingly. “She’s lying down.”
She followed them up the narrow stairs to a small room. Again they closed the door after her. Katie was not lying down. She sat smoking in a chair, her face hard and determined.
Krista looked at her anxiously. “Are you better?” she asked anxiously. “Eddie said you were ill.”
Katie began to laugh, a horrible taunting laugh. “Ill? . . . so that’s why the little saint came, to help her sick sister. Well, I’m better. Very much better, as you see. And now we want a little talk with you. Sit down.”
Krista looked round at the two lads and then at Katie. She was now terrified. “No, no, let’s get back if you’re better, Katie. Let’s get home.”
Katie laughed again. “Home? Home? That’s just where you’re not going, little Snow-White. We’ve got a little job for you to do first.”
Krista turned towards the door. Eddie barred the way. “Please, Eddie, will you take me back. I’m tired. I’ve got to get home.”
“Tell her about the job,” said Katie tersely to Leo.
“Come here,” said Leo roughly. “Come here, and listen to what I’m going to say.”
Krista began to tremble violently and the sight filled Leo with pleasure. He loved it when his victims trembled. He caught her by the arms and drew her caressingly to him. “You tell her, you’ll enjoy it,” he said to Katie. “I’ll enlarge on it if necessary.”
A House on the Rhine Page 29
