Rachel didn’t say much. She was worried about Wolfgang, and all night we expected a knock at the door, but none came. When I looked out of the window, I saw the moon rising slim over the rooftops and heard the boom of guns from somewhere far off at sea.
At dawn, I took a trowel and went down the lane to bury the paper bag. I stopped at a damp ditch and dug a hole good and deep. Once I’d covered it over, I stamped down the earth and dragged rough grass over it. As I was hurrying home, a lone soldier passed me. He gestured to me to look in my basket.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
He saw the empty basket and trowel straight away. ‘You dig potatoes?’ he asked hopefully. His thin and bony wrists protruded from his uniform. He looked about seventeen years old, but his face was gaunt and his eyes shadowed.
‘Yes. But none left.’ I shrugged.
‘Same. Same for us,’ he said. ‘No food anywhere.’ And he walked on by. After he’d gone, I found tears were rolling down my face. I wasn’t sure why I was crying, but perhaps it was for some lost innocence, for the way war had turned us all into less than we were before, and for that boy’s army adventure being so much less than he’d hoped for.
When I got back, two armed soldiers were already on guard outside my house. They stopped me at the door until I shouted, ‘Ich bin Frau Huber!’ at them, and they reluctantly let me pass. Immediately I could hear boots on the upstairs floorboards and my wardrobe door’s familiar creak before it banged shut. I hurried through the shop and searched in vain for Wolfgang’s friendly face, but there was no sign of him. Another armed soldier stood by the fireplace, and Oberstleutnant Fischer, thinner and more tired-looking, sat on the arm of the chair in my sitting room. My senses were so on fire with listening I barely heard his first words.
‘I am sorry about the door,’ he said in German. ‘My men are a little enthusiastic. They hear how the war goes and they are angry.’
‘I was out searching for food,’ I replied, also in German. I kept up the pretence, aware of the bangs and scuffles from the rest of the house, my stomach clenched tight, expecting any moment to hear Rachel’s cry.
I sat down and crossed my legs in a semblance of calm. ‘Any news of Horst?’ I tried to keep my eyes ahead and not on the stairs.
‘No.’ Fischer looked at me closely. ‘I thought we might establish the last time you saw him. He wasn’t a man to shirk his duty. So, to speak plain, we think something might have befallen him.’
I kept my gaze wide and innocent.
‘You don’t think…?’
‘It is war, Frau Huber.’ He sounded weary. ‘A good man disappears, and we must ask questions.’
‘I suppose so,’ I said. Upstairs, the slow scrape of furniture being dragged across the floor. I could barely breathe.
He sighed. ‘The news from Germany is bad. So many cities ruined, destroyed by this war. Dresden, it is rubble. Berlin too, a Pompeii. And what was it for, this great crusade? Thousands dead, thousands lost. A Europe in ruins.’
I was silent. He seemed to have shrunk into himself.
‘Your husband, is he still in France?’
‘No … he … he didn’t make it.’
He closed his eyes. I had to wait a good while before he spoke. ‘My condolences, Frau Huber. Such a bloody waste.’
‘Oberstleutnant! Etwas hier.’ The soldier on the stairs summoned him with a sharp movement of the head.
Fischer didn’t seem to hear him.
‘What is it?’ I stood up too fast. My voice came out dry as feathers.
‘Kommen Sie,’ the soldier replied.
Oberstleutnant Fischer snapped back into himself and took to the stairs, with me following behind. I could barely see through the door for helmeted men. One of them pushed me aside into my bedroom as they hammered on the false wall. What must Rachel be feeling, locked behind there? I knew they would find the hinged door as soon as the bed was moved, and they were dragging everything aside. My hand came to my mouth as a sob escaped.
A sudden shout of triumph made my heart plummet to my shoes.
Crashes and the splinter of wood. They kicked down the partition and dragged Rachel out. Surprisingly, she was calm, even dignified.
‘Who is this?’ Fischer said.
‘A cousin,’ I said.
Rachel shook her head at me. ‘I’m sorry, Céline.’ She turned to Fischer, raised her chin. ‘I am Rachel Cohen.’
‘Identity card?’ he asked.
She shook her head. The soldier who was holding her slapped her hard across the face. She reeled, but recovered herself enough to speak. ‘You have it already.’
‘Don’t hurt her,’ I said, but two men held me back.
Fischer stared at her a moment. ‘I remember. You are the Jew from the bank.’
‘She has a name! Rachel Cohen,’ I said.
‘Well, Fräulein Cohen, you are under arrest and it is time to go. Take her to the car, men.’
They bustled her down the stairs, hands behind her back. She called out, ‘I made her do it. She didn’t want to hide me, but I forced her.’
I tried to follow, but Fischer caught me by the arm. ‘Best not, Frau Huber.’
‘Wait! Where are you taking her?’ I wrenched my arm away.
He sighed. ‘Where all the Jews must go.’
‘Please, Herr Fischer.’ I spoke in rapid German. ‘Germany has lost. You know this now, and we are just waiting for the announcement. You are the last outpost of the Führer’s men. Already we almost have victory in Europe. Why ruin another life?’
‘Because I must do my duty to the end. You have been helping an undesirable. So, there will be a trial for you as soon as the paperwork is completed, and we will follow the correct procedure.’
‘But it’s madness. Today you have the power, but in a few hours it will all change! The British are coming, and you will have to surrender. Forget you found her. Just a few hours, that’s all I ask.’
‘No, Frau Huber. I need my certainties. If I fail in my duty now, I will always wonder why I did not fail in it earlier. Could I have saved more souls? Once orders are no longer orders, then the whole bloody muddle of war becomes a pointless thing. Your husband died for the Reich; he and many more like him. I owe it to them, don’t you agree?’
‘He would have wanted you to save her,’ I said hotly.
‘Perhaps at the beginning of the war. We are all different men at the beginning of the war. We all have compassion then.’
An engine revved up outside, followed by the noise of trucks starting up. He walked downstairs with a heavy tread. I followed and watched in stunned silence as he put on his cap. When he got to the door, he turned back. ‘My men will fix this door. When they send for you, you will report as requested. Goodbye, Frau Huber.’
With the slam of the door, my chest caved in towards my ribs. I ran to the shop window and watched the car drive away. Rachel’s small dark head was dwarfed by the men in the car. The two open-topped trucks full of helmeted men flanked it, either side. So many men for one small person.
I went upstairs and looked through the door to Rachel’s room. The partition was splintered, and torn bits of paper littered the floor, but scrawled in wax crayon on the back of the wall hundreds, no thousands, of times, over and over, was a red letter ‘V’.
Behind the ruined wall, the long makeshift bed still bore the imprint of Rachel’s warm body. The Tilley lamp was still on, and the book she had been reading lay open, face down. The Midnight Folk by John Masefield, the green embossed hardback I’d had when I was seven years old, and kept, even though it was tatty, because I was fond of it. I picked it up and read the familiar lines:
Waking up, he rubbed his eyes: it was broad daylight; but no one was there. Someone was scraping and calling inside the wainscot, just below where the pistols hung. There was something odd about the daylight; it was brighter than usual; all things looked more real than usual.
‘Can’t you open the door, Kay?’ the voice asked.
&n
bsp; There never had been a door there; but now that Kay looked, there was a little door, all studded with knobs of iron. Just as he got down to it, it opened towards him; there before him was Nibbins, the black cat.
‘Come along Kay,’ Nibbins said, ‘we can just do it while they’re at the banquet; but don’t make more noise than you must.’
Kay peeped through the door. It opened from a little narrow passage in the thickness of the wall.
‘Where does it lead to?’ he asked.
‘Come and see,’ Nibbins said.
CHAPTER 36
I hardly slept, thinking of Rachel huddled in a cell somewhere, and the more good news we had, the more restless I became, doubting if the official announcement of victory in Europe would ever come. If it didn’t, then my trial would no doubt sentence me to a long journey to Germany, but this time, as a proven enemy of the state, it certainly wouldn’t be a pleasure cruise.
When I heard the metallic bang of the letterbox, I ran to fetch the newspaper, hoping for news about where Rachel was being held. It was just one sheet — a full-page spread from the Bailiff, Coutanche, urging everyone to listen to the broadcast from the BBC. It would be relayed in St Helier from loudspeakers, but we shouldn’t hoist Union flags until after the end of hostilities announcement came.
Was this it? Was this really it? Had we killed a man for nothing? I had to hear it with my own ears. I walked shakily towards the town, but nothing seemed to have changed; in the distance, the stark silhouettes of German soldiers with rifles were manning the gun towers.
But the square before the Pomme d’Or hotel was different. Before I even got there, I was jostled forward into a road packed to bursting. Then I realised, there were no German soldiers stopping us from gathering. The noise of voices was like the whooshing rush of sea over pebbles, everyone speaking at once.
Goodness, the whole of Jersey must be here! When the crackling voice of Churchill finally came through the loudspeakers, the crowd around me erupted into cheers, but were quickly hushed to a pregnant silence by Churchill’s voice.
‘Hostilities will end officially at one minute after midnight tonight — Tuesday, 8th May — but in the interests of saving lives, the “cease fire” began yesterday, to be sounded all along the front, and our dear Channel Islands are also to be freed today.’
At the words ‘Our dear Channel Islands’ the crowd went wild.
The elderly man next to me lifted me up and swung me round and planted a smacking kiss on my lips.
A skinny woman in a battered felt hat tutted. ‘“Dear Channel Islands” indeed. If we were that dear, why didn’t they help us? We’ve been bullied and half-starved for the last five years.’
‘But it’s over,’ I yelled. ‘No more “verboten”!’
And, finally, even she had to smile.
It was impossible to hear the rest of the speech; it was just a background fuzz against the whoops and shouts all around me. Silence fell again for the Bailiff, who mounted the podium amid a great cheer and clapping of hands to tell us that the navy were already on their way from England to arrange the surrender of the German forces on the islands.
I wondered where Rachel was. It seemed a bitter blow that she couldn’t be here with me, and that she’d been taken so near the end. I cursed Fischer and his pig-headed devotion to duty. But the mood of jubilation was infectious, and I was soon joining in the singing of English songs, with tears running down my face. The curfew was forgotten. Nobody slept. We couldn’t. We were high on adrenalin and hope.
After the jubilation, the bakery seemed a sad, empty shell. I ran my hand along the bare counter and thought back to before the war, to the smell of apple pie and Fred’s cheerful face. I didn’t go upstairs. I couldn’t face the splintered wall, the painful memories, or the room where Horst had died. Nothing would be the same again; I could never get that back. This place would always be a place of both light and shadow. I kept wondering where Fred died, whether Horst had been right, and that he’d really been shot, or whether Horst had just said that to hurt me. Somehow, I’d have to find out.
The next day, more huge crowds filled the roadway below the Pomme d’Or, which had been selected as the new Jersey Allied headquarters. With the rest, I longed for the actual landing of the British troops.
When they finally arrived, the sight of brown uniforms disembarking made me crumple with relief. Right in front of me, a young London Tommy was mobbed, as people surrounded him, anxious for news about relatives or friends or conditions in England. Curfew and all other restrictions were completely forgotten. Grey-green uniforms were replaced by brown and khaki as the Germans hid in their billets or aboard their ships. White crosses sprang up on the German ships and guns.
Queues of dejected Germans crowded the beaches as prisoners of war. Their defeat played out in the dejected set of their shoulders and their trailing feet. How quickly power could turn one nation into a bully, and how soon that power evaporated, running through their fingers like a fistful of sand. I strained to see the Germans’ faces, wondering if Wolfgang was amongst them, and hoped he would be treated well, glad I never had to witness those last desperate moments as he hurled Horst’s body into the sea.
Behind me, a familiar voice rang out. ‘There she is, the Jerrybag!’
I turned. It was as if everything happened in slow motion. Mrs Hedges pointed an accusing finger at me, and from the crowd, a group of men and women burst out and grabbed me by the shoulders.
All I could see were the wide-open angry mouths shouting at me as my arm was almost wrested from its socket. One of my shoes fell off as I scraped along the pavement, resisting as I was pushed and pulled forward.
‘Stop!’ I shouted.
But nobody listened. The crowd were chanting, ‘Whore, whore.’
Outside the barber’s shop, someone kicked me forward. I was surrounded by a sea of faces. In the crowd I saw Mrs Soulier, her arms folded across her chest, shouting with the rest. Four men were holding another poor woman down. She had a placard around her neck with the word ‘Jerrybag’ scrawled on it. Blood dripped from cuts on her scalp as the barber hacked off her hair.
She looked up at me.
‘I did what I had to do,’ she said. Her eyes met mine, and we exchanged a glance of understanding.
They dragged her off the chair, and they would have thrown her in the water, but for the fact she twisted and leapt away. I watched her run through the crowd as they kicked and spat at her and threw stones, but I didn’t see much more because someone grabbed my shoulders and pressed me down hard onto the chair.
Rough hands pinioned my arms to my side, and the sharp edge of a cardboard placard scratched across my face. I felt my hair tugged away from my scalp. There was a clash of scissor blades, and a whisper of hair fell past my face.
‘Stop!’ A familiar voice from the crowd. ‘Leave her alone!’ Rachel. I turned my head to try to see her, but it was jerked back by a slap on the face. Thank God. She was still here on Jersey and not on a ship to Germany.
‘Stop!’ she cried again; this time she’d made it through the crowd, and stood before us, hands on hips, her face contorted and red with anger.
The grip on my arms didn’t loosen, though I struggled.
‘Mr Scott, she saved my life. She hid me all that time. You’ve got to listen! The Germans were just a cover. I’d be dead by now if it wasn’t for her kindness.’
A man’s voice from behind me: ‘She’s a sympathiser! Mrs Hedges says she’s married to a German.’
‘She’s a widow,’ yelled Rachel. ‘Her husband died fighting, you imbeciles! Let go of her!’
The grip on one of my arms loosened, and Mr Scott from the bank stepped forward. ‘Miss Cohen. The Germans told me you were dead.’
‘I was in hiding,’ Rachel said. ‘Please, Mr Scott. Let Céline go. She’s suffered at their hands more than most. I know because I saw it.’
‘She could have said no.’
‘So what would you do with a gun a
t your head?’
‘Jerrybag!’ came a lone female voice from the crowd.
Rachel turned, eyes blazing. ‘If she’s a Jerrybag, then so is every last woman on the island. We’ve all had to collude with them one way or another to stay alive, haven’t we?’ She glanced round the surly faces. ‘Well, haven’t we?’
Something about her conviction, her steely glare, made the crowd fall silent.
‘We’ve all suffered at their hands,’ Mr Scott said. ‘They imprisoned me for six months for employing you.’
‘So let’s not make ourselves as bad as them,’ Rachel retorted.
Rachel plucked the placard from around my neck and cast it on the ground. ‘And before you call anyone else names, look to your own consciences.’ She pulled me up from the chair.
‘Jerrybag!’ the same woman called again.
Rachel rounded on her. ‘You stupid woman. The war’s over. Do you really want it to go on? They give us peace, and you want to fight your own people? Good people who’ve never done anything to harm you?’
Silence.
‘Come on, Céline, we’re going home.’
When I stood up, nobody stopped me. Rachel’s hand on my arm was steady and strong. With as much dignity as I could muster with only one shoe, we walked through the crowd.
‘If you want it, Miss Cohen, your position’s still open at the bank,’ called Mr Scott.
‘Thank you,’ Rachel called back over her shoulder. ‘I’ll be in on Monday.’
Our safety seemed too fragile to risk stopping, and I was too scared to speak. We didn’t even turn to look at each other until we reached the top of the hill. Then, wordlessly, we hugged.
‘I thought they’d scalp you,’ Rachel said. ‘I was more terrified of them than the Germans!’
‘Liar,’ I said. ‘Anyway, I needed a haircut.’
Our fear was too tender yet for laughter. She squeezed my arm and interlaced her fingers in mine. I stared out to sea, then my gaze shifted to the fragile border between land and ocean, between Jersey and the rest of the world.
The Occupation Page 28
