The Occupation

by Deborah Swift

‘Don’t be ridiculous. Where would we hide? It’s a small island, and everyone knows me and —’

  ‘Exactly. You’re not German anymore. You live here, on Jersey.’ My voice rose in panic.

  He put a hand on my shoulder. ‘I am German, Céline. It’s no use pretending I’m not. Germany’s a part of me. Ever since war was declared, I’ve been thinking of my mother and father in their little house in Dortmund, and whether they’re all right. Every time I read a paper saying the British are going to bomb the Ruhr I feel my insides grow hot and my blood boil, because whatever your English papers might say, it’s not just industry in the Ruhr. I know it. I grew up there, and it’s houses, and schools and hospitals. It’s factories, like my father’s engineering works. And they’re all full of people. My people,’ he said sadly. ‘My school friends, my teachers, my parents. Don’t you see? I must do it for them.’

  ‘For that madman Hitler?’

  ‘No, of course not for him.’ His eyes couldn’t meet mine. ‘It’s complicated. Germany’s my childhood, my school days, the smell of pine logs burning and the taste of my mother’s cooking. My homeland. Who wouldn’t want to protect that?’

  ‘And you’d choose that over me … over us?’

  He pulled me to his chest, gripping me tight and speaking over my head. ‘I’ve worried about it for a long time. It’s nearly driven me mad, wondering what you’d say when the summons came.’

  ‘What?’ I pushed him away. ‘You mean you knew it was coming?’

  ‘They wrote to me once before. Beginning of last year. I panicked because I thought they might deport me. So I was relieved. And I didn’t tell you then because Germany wasn’t actually at war with England, and once we were, I thought the war would be short, and it would be over by the time my papers came.’ He rubbed a hand through his hair. ‘And I knew how I felt, that I would have to go, and I didn’t know what you’d say.’

  ‘Oh, Fred.’ I sighed and shook my head. ‘You said we’d never keep secrets.’

  ‘I thought it better to keep quiet than to hurt you. I can’t just siphon the German out of myself; it’s a part of me, like Jersey is part of you.’

  ‘But how on earth will I manage here, without you?’

  ‘Albert will do the baking. He’s learnt a lot since he started, and he’s old enough for the responsibility; and besides, I won’t be away for long. The war will be over soon and then I will be home again, and we will all be back to how we were.’

  I shuddered. The war still didn’t seem real, not here in my sitting room. The thought of it being over was no comfort either, because someone would have to lose, and one of us would be the loser.

  On the day Fred went, we shut the bakery, and I went down to the harbour to see him off. I’d told no one where he was going; I was ashamed. Our different nationalities had never mattered when we met in Vienna. He was training to be a pâtissier and, as my parents were dead and I was still single, I was working as a nanny to two children. I kept going back to his shop, partly for his vanilla kipferl, but mostly for him, for the twinkle in his bright blue eyes and his open face. One day I forgot my purse, we were so busy chatting, and he had to run after me, waving it in the air. When he caught up, I saw what a fine, tall man he was. I’d only ever seen him behind the counter before that, and it took my breath. I still found him handsome, despite his extra weight.

  Today we walked arm in arm towards the boats, in an uneasy truce. It was a glorious hot day, and Fred looked out of place in his dark suit, with his raincoat tucked over his arm. His bushy fair hair was pressed flat with water and his leather suitcase, used for so many holidays, swung at his side.

  The ferry to Cherbourg was late, the harbourmaster said, for it had run into trouble with a German blockade. It was ironic that Fred was in danger from the very army he was trying to join. I looked out to sea, and the whole thing seemed crazy; that my lovely soft husband was going to go to France all alone, and who knew when I might see him next?

  We sat on the harbour wall staring glumly out to sea, not knowing what to say, and watching the gulls dive into the glittering water for any small fleck of floating debris. The war seemed a long way away from our twisting leafy lanes and white sand beaches. Please, make the boat not come, I prayed.

  I glanced at Fred. His eyes were fixed on the dark line of the horizon where a black dot was growing larger. The boat. And with it, the terrifying thought that in battle people had to kill or be killed. I gripped his arm, overwhelmed by utter helplessness.

  ‘There it is,’ Fred said, standing up.

  ‘Wait,’ I choked out. ‘I love you.’

  He drew me close and wiped the tear from my cheek where it leaked out from under my glasses. ‘Chin up. Isn’t that what the English say? I’ll be back before you can whistle.’

  When the boat docked, we followed the queue of people to the gangplank, where the harbourmaster and the remaining officers were examining people’s tickets and passes. I looked at my shoes as they checked his passport over, aware of one of them whispering to the other and making a private joke. They stamped the papers and handed them back with impassive faces. Fred turned back to me, his eyes glassy.

  ‘Stay safe, liebchen,’ he whispered, reaching out to give me a last hug.

  The German word was a stab in the heart. It was what he’d always called me, but now it made me afraid. That he could be my country’s enemy and might have to shoot at us, or worse. I couldn’t speak; I was too churned up, one thought chasing vainly after another.

  Fred grasped me tight and kissed me on the lips, a kiss like a seal on a letter, like an ending. And then he was walking away.

  No. Not this soon. ‘Write!’ I shouted. ‘You’d better damned well write.’

  He turned to give a wave and then stood on the deck staring back at me.

  As the boat slid away from its berth, Fred was nearest the stern, his eyes fixed on my face.

  ‘Filthy Boche!’ It was the officer who’d stamped his papers. He shook a fist at Fred. ‘We don’t want you here.’

  His words were like a physical blow. I pressed my lips together and ignored him, my eyes fixed on the sea. As the boat moved away, I had the urge to claw it back, to tell them it was a terrible mistake, that my husband was just Fred the baker. Like in the game Happy Families. I wiped a tear away. Would he even reach Cherbourg? Or would some English Tommy take him prisoner? Would his boat be shot at, or bombed? I simply didn’t know.

  I turned to walk back towards the town, a chasm in my chest.

  ‘Jerrybag!’ yelled one of the men by the harbourmaster’s office. ‘Whore!’

  A moment later, a stone whistled past my ear. I set off at a run, stumbling up the hill as fast as I could, clutching my handbag over my head.

  Jersey wasn’t supposed to be in this conflict at all; but in that moment, some sort of war had already started.

  CHAPTER 2

  Over the next weeks, I oversaw the bakery as best I could without Fred to help me. I had Albert, Fred’s nervous young assistant, all arms and legs like a young colt, and Tilly, our shop girl and chief fetcher and carrier, who lived in. Albert lived at home but came at dawn and did the early baking: all the bread for the hotels on the seafront. When that was done, he and Tilly made pies and pastries for the tourists, for we still had plenty of summer visitors, despite the war.

  One morning though, when I came down to the bakehouse, there was no smell of bread. I put my hand out to the bread oven. It was cold. There was no sign of Albert. Was he sick? I went to the door to see if I’d missed a sick note, but there was no letter, and the shop door was still locked. Nor was there any sign of Tilly.

  I went up to her room, but the bed hadn’t been slept in. She’d been to visit her mother on the other side of the island the previous night, but I’d expected her back for the morning jobs. I lit the oven myself and dragged a sack of flour from the brick storeroom at the back of the house.

  The doorbell sounded and I hurried into the shop. It was Rachel, her d
ark hair tousled by the wind, and a look of agitation on her face. She always came in for her boss’s bread before she went off to the bank where she was a cashier, and sometimes she’d stop for a cuppa whilst we caught up with each other’s news.

  Before she could even ask, I was apologising. ‘Sorry, Rache, I’ve no bread yet. I can’t think what’s happened. Albert didn’t come in this morning and the ovens haven’t been lit.’

  ‘Haven’t you heard? He’ll have gone to sign up.’

  I was bewildered. ‘For the army?’

  ‘No, silly. Evacuation,’ Rachel said. ‘It’s chaos. I’ve just been down there. They’re taking precautions in case the Channel Islands are invaded. There are notices up everywhere.’

  ‘No! Whatever for?’ I stared at her, unbelieving. ‘They won’t come here. The Jersey Evening Post says these islands are not worth conquering. At least, not unless Hitler wants an ice cream and a ride on a donkey.’

  ‘We’re so close to France though. And my boss, Mr Scott, says that on the other side of the island you can hear the boom of the German guns and see the smoke from bombs. I don’t know what to do.’ She stopped and bit her lip.

  Fred’s name hung unspoken between us. She was the only person I’d told that Fred was fighting for the Germans. Everyone else assumed he was fighting for the British. I’d had no news of him, and his absence chafed every minute.

  ‘I thought you’d have heard,’ she went on. ‘They’ve called women and children, and men between the ages of eighteen and thirty. That’ll be why Albert’s not at work. We’ve got until ten o’clock tomorrow morning to register.’

  ‘Oh Lord. I bet that’s where Tilly’s gone too. She’s probably still with her mother. She could have let me know! Hell’s bells, what will I do with no staff?’

  ‘It’s so quick. There’s been no time to make proper arrangements,’ Rachel said. ‘They’re shipping everyone off to England. Where will we all end up?’

  ‘Will you really go?’ I asked.

  Rachel leant over the counter, tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. ‘You know my situation. It’s hard with a name like Cohen. Mr Scott says he’ll keep my job open for me, but that I should go if I get the chance. I weighed it up before, and I really think I’m safer here than in England. That’s the place the Germans really want, and they’ll go all out to get it. And I’ve no job or house in England. But now, with all this talk of invasion, it’s getting scary.’

  ‘I won’t go,’ I said. ‘Someone’s got to feed everyone. Do you really think Albert will be going? He’s got two small children.’

  ‘A lot will go,’ Rachel said. ‘There’s queues already around the town hall. I came to see if you were going.’

  ‘You’re not serious?’

  ‘People are saying that if trade routes to England get cut off, and Germany holds France, we’ll starve. But Mr Scott won’t budge. He says you can only take one suitcase and he doesn’t want to be a penniless refugee at his age. He’s nearly sixty.’

  I went to the window and turned the hanging sign to Closed. ‘I’d no idea. I haven’t been into town. I’ll get my coat. Better take a look at those notices.’

  But even before we got anywhere near the port, the queues wound around the town like a thick dark snake. I gripped Rachel’s arm, unable to believe what I was seeing. ‘Bloody hell. Half the island must be going, and right in the middle of the tourist season too.’

  ‘Do you think they know something we don’t?’

  As we got closer, waves of panic and indecision came from the queue. A large woman in a flowery apron was begging her husband to tell her if it was better for her children to be bombed in England or starved in Jersey, and meanwhile, hearing all this, the children clung to her apron in tears.

  ‘There’s a new notice gone up,’ Rachel said, pushing through the queue towards the bank.

  I pulled on her coat sleeve. ‘Rachel, this looks bad. If this many are leaving, maybe there’s some truth in it, and we might be taken over by the Germans.’

  ‘Let’s hope it’s just scaremongering,’ Rachel said, but her usual carefree face was pinched.

  The document pinned to the bank door was headed ‘Evacuation’.

  ‘Twenty pounds is the maximum withdrawal allowed,’ I read aloud. It was signed, ‘by order of the Bailiff’.

  ‘It looks terribly official,’ Rachel said. ‘It looks like the bank will be cleaned out.’ She twisted her hands around the strap of her bag. ‘What do you think, Céline?’

  ‘I think you should go. I’ve heard rumours, passed from the French fishermen to ours … about what happens to Jews when the Nazis arrive.’

  ‘I’ve heard those rumours too. But they must be an exaggeration, surely? Wartime propaganda and all that. I can’t believe they can be true. What would Fred say? Does he think they’re true?’

  I sighed. ‘Before all this, he couldn’t decide if Hitler was a genius or a madman. But he told me there’s strong anti-Jewish feeling in Germany.’

  Rachel dragged me away from the crowd around the notice.

  ‘I know one thing,’ I said. ‘Fred loves the bakery. He built it up from nothing. So I know for a fact he wouldn’t want me to abandon the shop.’ The thought of Fred, fighting somewhere in France, and then coming home to no shop, made me cover my mouth to stop it trembling.

  Rachel put an arm around my shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you. He didn’t want to leave either, did he? I know he had no choice.’

  ‘Oh, it’s all such a mess.’ I fished a handkerchief from my pocket, took off my glasses, and angrily blew my nose. ‘But one thing I do know is, if the troops come here, we’d never get out of their way. There’d be nowhere to hide. Can you imagine? Jersey’s only eight miles long; they’d overrun us in a few hours.’

  She blanched. ‘You’re right. Maybe it’s time for me to leave. I’ll put my name down, if you will.’

  I was caught then. I’d scared myself and I’d scared Rachel.

  CHAPTER 3

  We queued for six hours at the town hall and finally got on the list for transportation. I immediately regretted it. That night, I couldn’t sleep. I wandered around the house and the shop, scrubbing the ovens and the counter, emptying the bins, as if I were going on holiday. One suitcase was all we were allowed, and my small leather suitcase lay open on the candlewick counterpane whilst I agonised over what to take.

  How could I do it? Just leave everything — everything Fred and I had worked for since we got married — and set off with just this one case? To England, where I knew not a soul? I stood, dithering, a bag of hair rollers in my hand. I stared down at them. Hair rollers. It seemed stupid to be worrying about how frizzy my hair was now.

  In the end I threw the rollers down on the bed in despair and sat in the dark, drinking tea and thinking of Fred, wondering where he was, and where he might have been posted, and agonising over whether or not to leave.

  When the clock showed four o’clock, I peered outside to see rain sheeting down from a black sky. Bloody Jersey weather. I stuffed my brown leather shoes in the case on top of the other clothes and dressed warmly in a tweed suit and a mackintosh, and a headscarf over my hair against the rain.

  In the hall I put on my galoshes, picked up the case, and braced myself.

  Don’t look back.

  As I shut the door and turned the key in the lock, I had to close my eyes. All my life was behind that door: the shelves Fred had made himself, the curtains I had sewn, the badly painted pictures I’d done at art class. When would I ever open it up again? I gulped back tears and ran down the unlit road, down towards the harbour, the handle of the case making a groove in my palm.

  Though it was dark, I knew every inch of the island and had no trouble navigating. Rachel, in her checked swing coat, was hunched under an umbrella, outside the bank where we’d arranged to meet. I joined her standing under the eaves, to keep out of the downpour.

  ‘I can’t believe we’re doing this,’ she said. ‘It feels l
ike running away.’

  ‘Let’s try to stick together.’ I grabbed her arm and we headed for the harbour.

  The queues were even worse than earlier. In front of us, a little girl with her hair in ragged plaits was weeping inconsolably. Her mother, a big-busted woman with two suitcases by her feet and a damp cloth bag over her arm, tried to quieten her.

  ‘Dottie’s lost her dog,’ the woman explained. Her voice dropped to a whisper. ‘He couldn’t come with us so we had to go to the vets and…’ She mimed slitting her throat. ‘You wouldn’t believe the queues yesterday. The poor man’d done two hundred by the time we got there. I’m Ivy, by the way.’

  Rachel and I looked at each other. Killing pets? It seemed barbarous, but of course they couldn’t come with us, and there seemed to be nothing we could say. Rachel found a piece of ribbon in her pocket and engaged Dottie in a game of cat’s cradle until she stopped crying and Ivy was able to hand Dottie a handkerchief to dry her face.

  When the first wave of boats arrived, with a series of short blasts on a horn, the crowd surged forward. The rain was just a drizzle now, but a shove in my ribs from behind made me stagger forward, flailing to stay upright. In front of me, Rachel hauled Dottie into her arms to stop her being trampled. Everyone’s feet slid on the wet tarmac, and in the scrum, Rachel’s suitcase was kicked out of the way.

  ‘My case!’ Rachel yelled.

  I fought my way back, but the crowd was pressing forward, all elbows and chests and bags, in a tide that couldn’t stop. The case was just out of reach. I saw a woman in high-heeled shoes stamp on it as she was pushed forward. A few moments later and I couldn’t see it at all.

  Another boat must have arrived, because I feared I’d be crushed to death as the crowd shunted forward again. Rachel’s hat flew off, knocked by someone’s umbrella, but she still had Dottie clamped to her hip.

  ‘Mummy!’ Dottie screamed, as Ivy was carried forward.

  By the time we got near the front, my shoulders sagged. Only one boat was left. Suddenly, I was determined to get on that boat. Behind us, a hundred people were pushing. In the water, one was leaving, crammed with people. There wasn’t a spare place anywhere on deck, and it looked ominously top-heavy as it motored out to sea, growing smaller and more vulnerable in the swell of the sea.