A Wartime Wife

by Lizzie Lane

  Feeling uniquely privileged, he explained, ‘They do not know I am here. They have a visitor from England.’

  Eyebrows around him were raised. ‘From England?’

  Michael had nodded. ‘He’s my uncle.’

  ‘Another Pastor Deller?’ groaned Johan.

  ‘No. He’s not a pastor. I think he has a shop. His name is Joseph Rosenburg.’

  He noticed one or two exchanged looks of surprise, but he gave it no account. They probably hadn’t met many English people themselves and it made him feel good. No one he knew had English relatives.

  ‘Let’s swim,’ ordered a boy he knew as Hans, a ringleader at school and apparently the same in uniform.

  The conversation ended. Leaping and yelling, the boys stripped off, Michael with them, shouting louder than they, leaping higher and racing for the cool water with just as much joyous zeal.

  That part of his memory – splashing, swimming, pushing each other beneath the cool water – was best of all. Better still was the feeling of being accepted by boys his own age.

  Two blasts of a whistle and the shouted order of the lieutenant changed everything. Although still joyous, the boys obeyed, laughing, pinching and punching in fun, their naked bodies glistening as they filed out of the water.

  And still Michael laughed with them as he stood in their circle, pulling underwear over his damp skin.

  The beaming lieutenant, fists on hips, stood in the centre of the circle, nodding approvingly as his beady eyes swept over their bodies. There was lust in those eyes, though Michael didn’t know that at the time. On that day Lieutenant Schwartz had singled him out, though certainly not for sex or favouritism.

  His pink face visibly deepened in colour. His expression hardened and a fat finger pointed at Michael’s loins.

  ‘What is that?’

  The boys about him fell to silence, their attention drawn to where the finger pointed.

  A few frowned; some shrugged; most gave no response, unsure of what had been discovered.

  Michael trembled, not sure why his penis should be of such interest to either the lieutenant or the boys. It differed little in size or colour from anyone else’s, though he noticed the tip was shaped differently.

  ‘This boy has been circumcised!’

  The statement was shouted so loudly that a flock of crows in a nearby tree took flight, squawking disapproval as they climbed.

  There were intakes of breath. Michael was mortified. ‘I don’t understand …’

  The lieutenant leaned close so the tip of his nose almost met that of Michael’s.

  ‘You’re a Jew, aren’t you? A filthy, stinking Jew.’

  A gasp of horror, but also of surprise, swept among those gathered around him.

  ‘Please, sir,’ said Johan, stepping forwards and saluting smartly, though only half dressed. ‘Michael is the son of Pastor Deller. He cannot be Jewish.’

  The lieutenant’s eyes narrowed.

  Michael lowered his eyes, uncomfortable at having his penis so closely scrutinised by anyone, and especially here amongst his peers. His face reddened.

  He winced as the lieutenant’s square-ended finger stabbed at his shoulder.

  ‘You have Jewish blood somewhere, don’t you? That is why your penis has been cut. That,’ he cried, his arm sweeping across his chest, ‘is the sign of a Jew. Mark it well all of you.’

  Trembling, Michael had shaken his head. ‘I honestly do not …’

  ‘He only has English blood,’ blurted Johan defensively. ‘His uncle is from England. He told me so himself.’

  The lieutenant looked taken aback. This wasn’t quite what he’d expected to hear. ‘Is that so? And what is your uncle’s name?’

  ‘Rosenburg,’ blurted the incredibly naive Johan. ‘Joshua Rosenburg.’

  Then he had known what it was to be Jewish; what his father was, what his mother had been. It all made sense, or at least as much as he knew made sense.

  The lieutenant addressed the boys, hands clasped behind his back, head high and his eyes piercing into Michael as though pinning him to the ground.

  ‘We do not want your kind here. Pure Aryans such as you do not mix with Jews.’

  Something like a consensual tremble ran from one boy to another.

  Michael opened his mouth, meaning to shout that he went to church just as some of them did, but the words would not come. In his heart of hearts he knew it would not matter whether he professed to be Christian or otherwise. They could see what he was – or rather what he had been born – for themselves.

  The lieutenant’s eyes blazed with a joy born of intimidation, the right of the strong over those weaker or different. ‘Drive him from here! Drive him like the vermin he is.’

  In the uncertain minutes that followed, when some boys hesitated while others picked up sticks and stones, Michael gathered up his clothes and ran.

  Clothes bundled beneath his arm, boots swinging from their laces, he ran as fast as he could. At first the stones hurt his feet, but once he had gained the warm, smooth surface of the road, he sprinted away beneath a barrage of sticks and stones.

  Some caught him on his back, his buttocks and legs. A sharp stone hit the back of his head. It hurt and soon he felt blood trickling onto his neck and down his spine.

  He did not know the exact moment when they stopped pursuing him. The road baked at the end of a hot day. His feet were blistered, his body bruised, but the tears in his eyes were of anger rather than pain.

  Before they had perceived him as different because he was kept from their company, but now he was physically different and he didn’t want to be. He vowed to do something to hide the mark of the Jew that they said he was.

  The grown-ups had taken their drinks into the garden, their conversation buzzing like drowsy bees getting ready for sunset. He could see them through a gap in the bushes. He recalled his mother insisting the bushes be trimmed this summer. So far they hadn’t been. Their leaves, big as a man’s palm, tumbled in gleaming layers from a great height. They hid him well, their shadows falling over him and the blue and red tiles of the garden path soothing his blistered feet.

  The house was cool and echoed with emptiness, but Michael heard only the cruel jeers of contempt.

  Hot and red-faced, he ran through the kitchen where the smell of food lingered temptingly. Normally, he would have stopped and opened the pantry: food was expensive and scarce, though the Ministry of Propaganda insisted things would soon get better.

  Today, he ignored temptation and left the warmth of the kitchen for the dark, dankness of the cellar. A previous pastor, an avid engineer and inventor, had left a few tools and bits of machinery down there.

  He reached for the light switch and a single electric bulb threw a pool of light, beyond which everything was in shadow.

  Wooden shelves holding bottles of wine, preserves and pickles lined one wall. On the other side was a workbench. At one end was a lathe. At the other a press, for driving ball bearings into place, so he’d been told. It had a handle at the side and a gauge for selecting pressure.

  Michael gave no measured thought to what he was about to do. Blinded by his need to belong, to be as everyone else, he selected what he thought was a suitable pressure. He’d seen it done; the old pastor, who had retired and lived fairly locally, had demonstrated the force and weight of the press with an apple; it had been smashed to a pulp. He didn’t need it to be as heavy as that, but just enough to right what he considered to be a very great wrong.

  Pressure selected, he took out his penis and lay its tip off centre to where the apple had been. Taking a deep breath, he released the handle. The last thing he remembered was screaming in pain. After that, darkness …

  Chapter Fifteen

  The brown liquid still hadn’t done its job. Mary Anne decided a little assistance was needed. It was Saturday, the larder needed restocking and she had a plan in mind.

  She asked Lizzie to keep an eye on Stanley, who was kicking his heels against the
dresser, aching to get out to play and sullen because he wasn’t allowed.

  Lizzie’s reluctance showed on her face. ‘Do I have to?’

  ‘Well Daw can’t. She’s still sulking upstairs because John’s leave wasn’t as long as she’d hoped for, Harry’s working and as for your father …’

  ‘Lunchtime session down the pub,’ said Lizzie, and looked up suddenly. ‘Why do you put up with it?’

  ‘Put up with what?’

  ‘Dad being drunk so much. Why do you put up with it?’

  Surprised at her daughter’s insight, Mary Anne busied herself with her coat buttons. They were square-shaped and awkward to fasten. Today they were made more awkward by the question Lizzie had asked her.

  ‘We’re married. Until death do us part. That’s the way it must be.’

  Mary Anne tried to prevent her consternation from showing on her face. Why did Lizzie always make her feel so ineffectual? From when she was small, Lizzie had always questioned the ways of the world, often the questions as disconcerting as this one.

  ‘Why must it be that way? I mean, haven’t you ever thought about leaving?’

  Mary Anne fixed her with a steely gaze. ‘Lizzie! How could you suggest such a thing?’

  The truth was she had fantasised about living a different life; she’d imagined herself making the grand tour of Europe as they had in previous centuries. Florence, Rome, Paris and Pisa all beckoned from the books she’d read. In her imaginings, she was alone with her thoughts and the sheer exuberance of being able to indulge in history and books without having to worry about appearing too clever in front of her husband. In her mind, she wandered around cities that were vibrant with knowledge and culture, but the woman in her mind was not the dutiful wife and mother, but one who lived for herself, and Mary Anne found that very hard to do.

  Lizzie was sitting in the comfortable armchair reserved for her father, her feet tucked under her, reading a book and sucking on a custard cream.

  ‘I’d live alone rather than live with a man like Dad.’

  ‘Not if you’ve got children you wouldn’t. Children need a stable home.’

  ‘Mother, you may not have noticed this, but soon it will be just you and Dad. Three of us are grown up and likely to fly the nest before long, and Stanley won’t be that far behind.’

  Lizzie’s sharp observation struck a chord with them both. They looked to where Stanley was leaning against the back of a chair, a brooding, angry look on his face.

  Alarmed by his disgruntled expression, Mary Anne immediately bent to him, looking closely into his face and stroking his hair back from his glistening forehead. ‘Is something wrong, my darling? Are you feeling ill?’

  Lizzie sighed in exasperation. ‘Mother. He’s fine. Stop fussing.’

  Mary Anne’s attention was firmly fixed on her son, her hands clasping his and her eyes full of apprehension.

  Stanley shook his head and wrenched his hand from her grasp. ‘Nope! Why can’t I go out?’

  ‘Because your chest is bad and this damp weather will make it worse.’

  ‘He is better,’ said Lizzie after he’d slumped off into the front parlour where his bed was still situated, slamming the door behind him.

  Mary Anne was adamant. ‘You can’t be too careful.’

  Lizzie didn’t look convinced. ‘Is he really still that ill?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mary Anne snapped. The worry of being told by the doctor sometime back that he had a fifty–fifty chance of recovery was still with her, and no matter how well he might seem she couldn’t take the chance.

  ‘Sometimes I think you feel guilty if you haven’t got something to worry about,’ Lizzie said, dropping her gaze back to her book.

  East Street was busy with late shoppers, the shrewder of whom always left buying fresh fruit, vegetables and meat until late on a Saturday when the best bargains were to be had.

  Mr Sampson wrapped her up a large piece of brisket and two breasts of lamb and from there she went to the greengrocer’s for vegetables, Reynolds’ for a bag of biscuits, and David Gregg for a hambone, a pint of cockles and two pounds of smoked haddock. Hearing on the wireless that bacon and butter would be rationed as from mid-December, she’d bought two pounds of collar and three pounds of butter, after waiting in a queue that had formed.

  Usually after shopping for groceries, she took the bus back from East Street, but after two went by full to the platform, she decided to walk, even though the weight of shopping threatened to pull her arms from their sockets.

  It was getting dark. In peacetime she wouldn’t have minded this, but the pools of amber light thrown by shop windows were no more. The blackout had made the world a much duller place, and the gloom of evening started at around three in the afternoon. Ahead of her a group of small boys huddled against a blacked-out shop window and around an upturned orange box.

  ‘Penny for the guy, missus?’

  A host of grubby palms thrust forwards as Mary Anne walked past, her arms stretched with the weight of three bags of shopping.

  Cheeky devils. Her lips curved just short of a smile.

  ‘I can’t give you anything. My arms are full.’

  One of them she recognised as Paul Grant, a boy of around twelve, who lived in the next street and had a bad reputation. A dog-end of cigarette, no doubt picked up from the gutter, dangled from his mouth. Thumbs hooked in his braces, he stepped out in front of her, barring her way.

  ‘We’ll look after yer shopping while you get a tanner out of yer purse, or we can get the money out of yer purse for you, missus. Kind like that, we is.’

  Mary Anne eyed the frayed pullover and the grey flannels skimming his dirty knees. Paul Grant was the sort likely to succeed in going to prison before he was much older. She gave him a jaundiced look. ‘I bet you will!’

  Unperturbed and cocky as you like, his top lip curled back to reveal his large, protruding teeth. ‘Mean cow! Give us a penny!’

  Like a pack of worrying dogs, his mates gathered round, full of bravado because they were all together and she was alone.

  Finding her way barred, Mary Anne stopped dead in her tracks. ‘You little devils. Let me pass.’

  ‘No. Can’t do that,’ said Paul. ‘Not until you give us a penny – no – thruppence for our guy.’

  Mary Anne bristled. Bedminster was a tough area. She’d known that before she’d come to live here and she might have given in if it hadn’t been for the fact that there was something about Paul that made her see red. Henry! That was it! He reminded her of Henry!

  Swinging her shopping bags – one of which held ten pounds of King Edwards – she pinned him to the wall.

  The look of surprise on his face was worth seeing. So was the fact that he couldn’t wriggle free, the potatoes heavy against his chest.

  ‘Don’t go thinking you’re too big to have your mouth washed out with soap and water or that I won’t pull down your trousers and wallop your backside, Paul Grant!’

  His bottom lip quivered. ‘I’ll tell my ma about you!’

  Mary Anne was defiant. ‘You do that. And you can also tell her that if she does take it into her head to come and see me, remind her to bring the three bob she still owes on that hat she bought off me for your granny’s funeral. The old dear’s been in Arnos’ Vale Cemetery for six months now and I’ve not seen hide or hair of the money or the hat. Tell her that!’

  At the first swing of her shopping bags, the other boys had ran off and now huddled around the guy sitting on the orange box. Initially, the ramshackle figure had seemed no more than a ragged jacket and oversize trousers stuffed into worn-out boots. Most of his face seemed composed of a beard made from horsehair pulled from an old sofa. A greasy trilby covered the upper half of his face including his eyes.

  Now it sat upright, hat shoved back to reveal a pale face and defiant blue eyes. Her own son!

  Like the others, he was open-mouthed, staring at a shamed leader pinned against the wall with pee dribbling down his leg.

&nb
sp; ‘Stanley! Come here this minute!’

  ‘Aw, Ma!’

  Whispers ran from one boy to another.

  ‘That’s your ma?’ asked one.

  Stanley, his face like thunder, didn’t answer but pulled off the smelly outfit, showing his temper by flinging each item onto the ground.

  ‘What a bloody battleaxe,’ commented another.

  Mary Anne threw him a warning look. ‘And you’re another whose mouth could do with washing out,’ she shouted.

  Round-eyed, the boy clapped both hands over his mouth.

  Mary Anne turned her attention to her son. ‘And you’re getting a good bath the minute we get home,’ she scolded, eyeing the bits of straw sticking to his clothes. She didn’t want to think of what else the old clothes had left on him; they’d been far from clean.

  Stanley’s face remained stiff with defiance. ‘I don’t want to go home. I want to stay out with my mates.’

  His accusing look was disconcerting. It made her want to ask him what she had done wrong and the firm jutting of his chin was totally at odds with his cherubic features. Where was her little angel, and why was he acting like this? Deep down she knew the truth, but pushed it aside, still not able to face the fact that Stanley, the most innocent, the youngest of her family, knew the true state of her marriage. She hated Henry for that.

  Stanley sloped along behind her and stayed in a foul mood all the way home. When they got back to Kent Street, she immediately put the wash boiler on and got Harry to get the zinc bath down from the backyard wall.

  But Stanley was still rebellious, and transferring hot water from the washhouse boiler into the bath would take time.

  ‘Come here, you little blighter,’ she said, as Stanley dived under the kitchen table.

  ‘Nope!’

  ‘Nope! That’s his favourite word,’ she said, too exasperated and tired to chase him any longer.

  Sweeping her hair back from her face, she slumped onto a chair at the table, her tiredness washing over her in dizzying waves.

  Lizzie noticed. ‘Mum. Are you all right?’

  Mary Anne nodded from behind the hand with which she shielded her face. Mum. Lizzie always called her that when she was worried.