Three days later, I was still worrying about Horst as I got the Aga ready for baking. It would be too wasteful to use the big oven, and Mrs Flanders had given me a bag of corn kernels she’d saved from gleaning in the fields so I could make my own proper bread. ‘Don’t use the German flour they issue,’ she’d said. ‘It’s poison.’ As I wound the handle on my coffee grinder to make the precious flour, I realised I’d need yeast from the outside storeroom. It was after the nine o’clock curfew by now, but I could risk it, claim I was baking for the Germans.
I fiddled with the padlock in the dark and finally got it open. The yeast was kept on a shelf behind the door. I felt for it with my hand.
‘Céline?’
I gasped and nearly shot through the ceiling.
In the darkness I could just make out a human shape, a dark silhouette against the half-empty sacks of flour. I’d no time to think before Rachel emerged towards me, shivering in a thin cotton dress and shoes with no socks or stockings.
‘You idiot! What the hell do you think you’re doing? How did you get in here?’ My heart was still thudding like crazy.
‘How d’you think? I pushed the water butt up to the wall and climbed through the window.’ Her face was pale but defiant.
‘You nearly gave me a heart attack! Do you know they’re searching for you?’
‘Of course I do. I’ve been hiding for days. I don’t know where to go. It’s getting too cold now for the woods, and yesterday German soldiers were in there, looking for firewood.’
‘You’re supposed to be dead.’
‘I know. It wasn’t very clever, but it was all I could think of. There was no time for a better plan.’
‘Sorry, Rache, but you can’t stay here. Fred’s brother is in Jersey.’
‘Horst? The Nazi?’
‘I don’t know about Nazi, but he’s a German officer and he thinks he should keep an eye on me. It wouldn’t be safe for you to be here. And what would you have done if I hadn’t come, stuck in a locked storeroom? How would you have got out?’
‘You weren’t supposed to know. I climbed through, but then I fell in, and I couldn’t get out of the blasted window again. That’s what comes of being short. I thought this place would be full of sacks of flour and provisions, like it used to be, and I’d be able to eat something and then climb out. But now there’s only these two half-empty sacks and I can’t reach the window.’
‘But what will you do?’
‘If you could just let me have something to eat, and leave the door open, I’ll get a few hours’ sleep and be gone before morning. If they catch us, it will be deportation for me and arrest for you. But that way, if anything happens, you can say you just forgot to lock the door and you know nothing, right? You haven’t seen me.’
‘But where will you go after that?’
‘I’ll be fine; I’ll find somewhere.’ Her words were brave, but we both knew the whole island was swarming with soldiers. She looked at me as if daring me to contradict her, arms crossed as if to hug herself, and her fists clenched into the thin material of her dress.
‘I was going to make bread,’ I said uncertainly. ‘That’s why I came for the yeast. So I can feed you at least.’
‘No. Go now. I’m scared someone will hear us. But leave the door open.’
I hurried inside clutching the packet of dried yeast, with my heart hammering. I still hadn’t got over the shock of seeing Rachel there, like a wild animal, forced to forage and live in ditches and outhouses. Yet harbouring her would be dangerous. All Jews were supposed to have left the island. Those who helped them would be arrested.
I took out my worry on the grinding and made bread. It was a tiny loaf, hardly big enough for the loaf tin, but as soon as it was in the oven, the smell made my mouth water. All the time I thought of Rachel, huddling in the dark in my storeroom, hungry and frightened, in that thin cotton frock, whilst I was inside in the warm. What on earth would she do in the winter? I thought of her parents, their wedding photo, and wondered if they were still alive, or in a concentration camp somewhere. And I thought of Fred, and how Horst said he was too lazy to fight. It all ran round in my head, like rats in a maze, until I could bear it no longer. I threw open the back door and ran to the store.
As I burst in through the door, Rachel cowered back against the sacks, hands up to protect herself.
‘It’s me, you fool,’ I said. ‘Come inside. You can’t stay out here. Not whilst I’ve a spare bed.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’
‘Just get inside.’ I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Quick, before someone sees.’
We ducked and scarpered around the corner, and as soon as we were in the shop I slid the bolts home on the door.
Rachel went straight to the range and stretched out her palms to the heat. She turned then, eyes unexpectedly full of tears. ‘You don’t have to do this. I don’t want your charity.’
‘It’s not charity; it’s common sense. And you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’
‘I don’t know. It could end badly.’ It was a bald statement of fact.
I stared at her, at her lank, unwashed hair, the dark shadows under her eyes, at her arms prickled with gooseflesh.
‘Wait there.’ I bounded upstairs and came back with one of my thick wool pullovers. ‘It’ll be huge on you, but warm,’ I said, thrusting it towards her. ‘We can heat water on the range for a bath later.’
She held it up. ‘Chanel, darling, how luxurious!’
‘Fool!’ But it broke the tension to hear her jest the way she used to.
She struggled into the pullover and already looked better with the scarlet wool next to her face, but I noticed her hands shake as she edged closer to the range.
I leaned over her to open the oven door, but the bread was so small a loaf it was already cooked, and I left the door open to bring more heat into the room.
‘I’ve no butter,’ I said, ‘only dripping. Mrs Flanders let me have the scrapings from her pantry.’ I handed her a plate and tore the loaf in half, wincing as the hot crust burned my fingers.
‘Doesn’t matter,’ she mumbled, cramming the bread into her mouth.
I wasn’t much more restrained myself, for it was steamily fragrant and startlingly good after the grey gravel we’d been calling ‘bread’ for the last six months.
‘I knew you weren’t dead,’ I said, once we’d emptied our plates. ‘You’d never drown yourself. You’re such a good swimmer the waves would just laugh and throw you back.’
‘Pity of it is, the Germans think the same. Should’ve known they’d see through it.’ She gave a little laugh. ‘Stupid idea. Still, it was either that or end up herded into a camp like my parents. I’ve thought a lot about it, dying. There might come a time where it’s a choice I’d make. But not willingly. So much has changed in these last years. I’ve begun to see that the Nazis really do intend to cleanse the world of Jews.’ She gave me a rueful look. ‘It still seems faintly unreal, that they can do that and nobody will lift a finger to stop them, but then I’ve seen this whole island begin to cave in to fear. It only took a few deportations and arrests before people began to be too scared to stop them.’
‘I know. I can feel it, the terror. It’s like an undercurrent, as if we’re all looking over our shoulders the whole time. We thought the war would be short, but it drags on. Lord, how I wish it were over.’
Rachel stood up and went to sit in the sagging armchair. ‘But what if it’s never over?’ There was a desperate edge to her voice. ‘What if the Nazis win?’
‘Don’t even speak of it. I refuse to live on Bratwurst and Sauerkraut.’
‘You’ll be all right. You’ll have Fred.’
‘I never really think of him as German. He’s just … well, Fred.’ I heard the catch in my own voice. To cover it, I pushed my specs further up my nose and got busy. ‘You hang on there, and I’ll go and get a pail of water, and we can heat it on the range. You
can have your bath in front of the fire.’
I ran the tap, blinking back tears. ‘Stupid,’ I said to myself.
By the time I’d got the bucket to the range, Rachel had pulled off her shoes and was asleep, feet curled underneath her bottom. Exhausted, I guessed.
I set the bucket down quietly and fetched a blanket from Tilly’s room. Rachel didn’t even stir when I covered her. She’d have to stay there for the night at least. I checked the curtains were pulled tightly shut and fetched the alarm clock with its big bells. I’d set it to ring at four in the morning, before dawn. She must go by the morning, I knew that.
I also knew that turning her out of my door to an unknown fate would be the hardest thing I’d ever done.
CHAPTER 21
The rapping at the front door made me leap out of bed, bleary-eyed and fumbling for the alarm. Light seeped through the crack in the curtains. With horror, I groped for my glasses and picked up the clock. Six thirty. How the heck did that happen? Oh Lord, I hadn’t forgotten to set the alarm, had I? I’d meant to, but could I actually remember doing it…? What a blethering idiot. And now here was Mrs Flanders, come to get started with the baking.
I threw on my candlewick dressing gown and shot down the stairs, almost tripping over the dangling cord as I went.
Rachel was hopping up and down putting on her shoes.
‘Quick! Upstairs!’ I hissed at her.
The knocking was even louder now, and I heard the letterbox open. A voice boomed into the shop. ‘Céline! Get up, you lazy lump. It’s six thirty! Let me in.’
I was about to go and open the door when I saw our two plates still on the table. I shoved them both into the cupboard under the sink and ran to the door.
‘Sorry, Mrs Flanders,’ I said, out of breath, ‘I must’ve overslept.’
‘I can see that. You look like you’ve spent the night in a hedge. Well, get out of the way, then, and let me in. And get yourself dressed whilst I get the oven lit. There’s a frost this morning and that wind’s sharp.’
I rushed upstairs again, and seeing no sign of Rachel in my bedroom, I stuck my head around the door into Tilly’s room. A tap on my shoulder made me yelp. Rachel was behind the door. I flashed her a warning look and put my fingers to my lips.
‘You all right up there?’
‘Fine,’ I called out. ‘Just stubbed my toe.’
I dressed in a panic, throwing on an old skirt and a darned jersey, and splashed my face in the bedroom washbowl. There was no soap of course.
By the time I got downstairs, Mrs Flanders had got the ovens heating and was kneading the first batch of bread. ‘We’ll have to get a shift on,’ she said. ‘Best leave it to prove whilst we do the cows, and then you can finish it off when I drop you back.’
Deliberately, I got into the van without my coat. As the engine roared into life, I shouted, ‘Wait! I forgot my coat!’
‘You’d forget your head if it wasn’t screwed on.’
I leapt out and into the house. ‘Rachel,’ I hissed, ‘it’s only me.’
Her head poked out from the top of the stairway.
‘I’ll only be a few hours. Don’t answer the door. Get your bath and take some of Tilly’s clothes, whatever she’s left. We’ll decide what to do later.’
‘I’m not staying —’
‘I haven’t got time to argue. You can’t leave in the light — too risky. Just do as I say, okay?’
‘All right, Miss Bossy Boots.’
I was a long time coming back from the farm, because Mrs Flanders was teaching me to drive the van, and I kept stalling the damn thing. After I waved her off, I unlocked the shop door to smell the aroma of baking. My mouth watered, but these days the loaves often smelt better than they tasted. I followed my nose and there was Rachel in the bakehouse, already kneading the next batch of bread.
‘I had to do something,’ she said. ‘Sitting about waiting is just too nerve-wracking.’
‘I like your outfit,’ I said. She looked better already, dressed in one of Tilly’s plaid kilts and a jersey. They were still too big, and she looked like an orphan, but at least they were more practical than the thin cotton frock she’d been wearing yesterday.
‘I couldn’t take anything from my apartment,’ she said, ‘or it would have looked suspicious. My dress had to go on under the clothes I left at the beach, in case the neighbours saw me go out. I carried the shoes wrapped in brown paper. Good job I had a spare pair, even if they’re more hole than shoe. I tell you, I was scared I’d be blown to bits by a mine. The beach is littered with them.’
‘Soldiers went to your apartment. I went to look for you and they were kicking the door in.’ I explained what I’d seen.
‘I got out just in time, then.’ Her smile was the same, but there was a tension around her jaw. ‘Would it be all right if I took Tilly’s coat?’
‘Well, she’s not coming back from England for it, is she?’ I caught her eye, and we held each other’s gaze. ‘Look, Rachel, you can’t just leave. You can stay here. If you go out there … well, anything could happen.’
‘No. I told you. It would be too much of an imposition. If they catch us —’
‘I know, I know. Don’t keep saying it.’
She pulled the oven door open and dragged out the tray of loaves and set them on the table. ‘Ugh. Those look horrible. But beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.’
‘Rachel, you’re changing the subject.’
She sighed. ‘Do you think I don’t want to stay here? But I know what it will mean. It will change your life. You will never be able to be easy again. And I … I will always have to be grateful. I’m not very good at being grateful, Céline. And I can be bad-tempered and awkward, and bloody-minded. And what about Horst? I couldn’t live with myself if something happened and they caught us. You’d get the blame.’
‘Then we’ll just have to make sure they don’t.’
She shook her head, but I could see she was tempted.
‘God, you’re stubborn. And I don’t care how bloody-minded you are, if you’re still alive.’
‘You might just regret saying that.’
I rushed over to hug her. For a moment, we stood just gripping each other.
‘We’ll make it, you’ll see. And you can help in the bakery. They’ll wonder why my bread suddenly tastes decent. And you can have Tilly’s room, but you’ll have to be still and quiet when customers are in the shop — her floorboards creak and they’re right above it.’
CHAPTER 22
Paris, September 1942
Fred
Berenice was thinner and more careworn, and her clientele were all uniformed Germans now. She’d had to agree to serve only the German Army. The French were visibly shrinking as the Germans grew fat on black market beef and potatoes. Of course, Henri and Sebastien still sat at their usual table to play chess and watch the world pass by, but no longer were they allowed coffee in front of them. The Nazis tolerated them only because they were old and harmless.
Whenever I was driven to Avenue Foch, I waited until Vogt was in the interrogation rooms before taking my translations through to the in-tray in his office. There, I’d try to empty the filing cabinet of at least one file by slipping it inside my own file.
It was hit and miss, because my heart nearly beat out of my chest at the thought he might appear. Today, I just had the cabinet open and had leafed through the files to ‘V’ for Verkehr — transport communication — when I heard his voice in the outer office. I slammed the cabinet shut just as he came in.
He glared at me. ‘You’ve no need to be in here. You can give the files to my secretary. What were you looking for?’
‘I just needed to cross-reference a translation with a previous one. The transmission I’m doing, well I’m almost certain it’s the same man, the one from last month where we lost the trail.’
‘I don’t keep files of enemy agents in that cabinet. They’re in the one in the outer office.’
‘My apologi
es, Herr Vogt. I won’t disturb you any further.’ I eased myself towards the door.
‘Wait.’
I swallowed, dreading him calling for Bauer and Schuster.
‘Here.’ He picked up an envelope from his desk and held it out.
‘For me?’ I couldn’t believe it. My first thought was that the letter might somehow be from Céline.
But then I saw it was franked in June with a German Army interior postmark and addressed via the Wehrmacht command at the Paris office. The army-issue envelope bore my brother’s fat, childish handwriting.
‘I’m sorry, it’s taken a while to get to you,’ Vogt said.
It was unlike Horst to write unless someone forced him to. Was everything all right at home?
‘Allow me.’ Vogt passed me a paper knife.
I slit it open and withdrew the stiff regulation postcard.
Dear Siegfried,
I asked after you and all they’ll tell me is you’ve been given ‘special duties’. Knowing you, that means sitting on a sofa with a pretzel and a book! You’ll never guess — when the chance came up to volunteer for field duties, I took it, and I’m being posted to Jersey. All these years and I never got there, so my fingers are crossed. I know you will be relieved that I will be able to check on Céline for you whilst I am there. Make sure she’s behaving herself! Good news from me, I’ve been promoted TWICE. So you must call me Oberleutnant Huber now! Mother and Father both so proud, and send love. They ask me to tell you to write; Mother had no birthday card from you and she worries so.
Give Paris hell from me, Heil Hitler
Horst
There was no return address. How could I have forgotten Mother’s birthday? Guilt washed over me, along with a prick of resentment that Horst was so clearly a success when I was floundering. And worse, he was going to be posted to Jersey.
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