The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

  He was as good as his word, but during his absence I decided it must be how a mouse feels when it is forced to move out in the open, knowing agile and cruel predators are all around.

  Tomas arrived back at the car, all smiles. ‘Not another customer in sight,’ he reassured us, handing me a box of sweetened cheese pastries to share in the car. He put the loaves he’d also purchased onto the back seat between the girls and I felt more at ease once we were on our way again, with the car smelling of the spicy anise aroma of warm caraway.

  Licking sugar from our lips made the world feel happy for a few seconds. My sisters perked up in the back and began to plan their unexpected sabbatical from school. It was uplifting to hear their happy chatter.

  ‘What about you, Tomas?’ I said, testing the grown-up taste of using his name. ‘I mean, this is surely not safe for you?’

  He lifted a shoulder. ‘I offered, Katerina. Your father once gave me money when I needed new equipment to keep the factory going. He did not ever discuss the return of it.’ Tomas gave a gust of sadness. ‘He said one day he may need a favour and knew I would give it without hesitation. That was nearly a decade ago and his investment, if I could call it that – although we both know it was a gift – has helped to make me an extremely wealthy man. Without his help at that moment I might well be poverty-stricken now. So, risk or not, your father is one of the best men I know, and I could not live with myself if I didn’t help when he asked.’

  ‘And my father wouldn’t ask unless he was desperate,’ I added.

  Tomas nodded to let me know he was only too aware of that.

  ‘Did you make the first run with my parents?’

  ‘No, my manager did, in his van with a pile of deliveries. Your mother was in front, travelling as his sick mother. Your father and sister were hiding in the back.’

  I felt nervous enough that I was sure I was trembling like the leaves in our autumn wind and, like them, clinging precariously to their parent … in my case, parents. ‘But they’re safe?’ I needed his reassurance.

  ‘Sitting around the fire at the villa, I promise you, and probably more worried about us getting through.’

  The bright morning had given way to grey overcast with moments of a murky blue overhead like a freshly gathered puddle. Marshmallow clouds that threatened rain but without much ferocity hung like tall floating palaces that drifted, slow and deliberate. It was as though they needed the time to admire their reflection in the river that was equally languid that day so that barely a ripple shivered across its surface to create a near-perfect mirror. Trees had thickened around us to become woodland that I knew would soon become forest, and all of this familiarity closing around me was building fragile – but oh such welcome – security. Autumn always struck me emotionally as a time for healing, curiously enough. I am a creature of winter; I am someone who likes the cooler months and the threat of snow and freeze to force me indoors, to go within myself. I was born in February amidst a frozen winter and my spirit likes to believe various natural outside forces played their role in who I might become. My father tutted but I did like the idea that the stars, the tides, the seasons show up in me somewhere. And autumn – because it is cold but still relatively mild by the standards of a Czech winter – I feel it’s a contented time of withdrawal, for the mind and body to find some peace from the industry of spring, the busyness of summer.

  I think I smiled out of the window at my fanciful thoughts at that moment; the beloved countryside had wrapped its reassuring colours and landscape around to cocoon me in a thin but welcome peace. I looked up to my right, knowing I would see the famous spa that my mother used to favour.

  Tomas noted the direction of my gaze. ‘It’s entirely overrun by soldiers now. The Germans love it.’

  ‘It’s awfully close to the villa,’ I murmured.

  He gave a dismissive sound. ‘Katerina, the villa is yet forty miles from here. You must stop fretting.’

  I trusted the adult’s perspective. I couldn’t let go of the fear but I let go of the immediate worry. Once we began to climb into the hills, a tentative sense of wellbeing began to layer a new shield, and within ten minutes of leaving the main road and the forest closing around what had now become a track, I started to convince myself the Kassowiczs who had survived in the protectorate these last couple of years might, by winter 1941, become invisible.

  ‘Will you stay overnight?’

  ‘No, my dear. I might head back straight away because I don’t want the checkpoint soldiers to change shift. I need the same men to see me return.’

  ‘But what if they notice we aren’t in the car?’

  ‘They won’t recall you were in it, Katerina. They don’t remember so much detail. They’re young men with little more than an evening drinking fine Czech beer concerning them. They’ll simply recall Mr Vavroch of Prague passed through with some family and yes, he returned to the city within hours.’

  I thought of the young soldier who had winked at me, and feared that he would remember.

  Katerina stopped talking and Daniel was lifted rudely from the languor he’d found comfort in. The combination of her smoky voice, watching her body move, how her lips formed their words or her head shook hair that fired golden when the dancing flames caught its natural shades had put him into a state of inertia. He wondered what it might feel like to watch her toss her hair free … it would surely reach her shoulders, but just like Katerina was tightly wound within, her hair whenever he’d seen her was kept slick and neat in a bun or a ponytail.

  She waited, and he cleared his throat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ he asked, feeling lame for being repetitive. His voice sounded gritty from not being used while hers sounded parched. ‘Another drink, perhaps?’

  ‘Some water, please.’

  He fetched it and returned, concerned. ‘I’m sensing we’re at the most difficult part of your story,’ he offered, tiptoeing with care around her emotions.

  ‘Not the most difficult so much as the most terrifying. When you confront evil in its purest form, it’s actually only the sense of horror that makes you realise you are breathing. If not for the atrocity you face, you might float away, swoon, die of fright, disappear into madness … It’s the abomination that sadly makes you alive, makes you cling to life, survive at all costs.’

  He suspected that she realised she was becoming agitated, her voice heightened by the emotion, and he watched her reel it back in. The anxiety gave her a helpless quality that only made her more attractive, in his opinion. Her vulnerability in this moment touched his heart and he decided he would live to hate himself if he forced her to confront the monster now.

  ‘Why don’t you rest?’

  ‘Rest? No, I must go.’

  ‘You can’t! I —’ As she snapped him a fierce look of enquiry, he diluted his order, turning it into an appeal. ‘I really must hear the end of your story. And maybe … well, perhaps it will feel like a relief to release it, share the load?’ He didn’t want her to see him holding his breath so he stood, moved to close the curtains, worry the fire, give her the space she needed to make a decision.

  ‘It is not your burden to bear, Daniel. You are a stranger.’

  ‘Stranger? We’ve broken bread together. I would like to hear what happened next. I would like to hear your whole story of how you survived the war and made it out of Czechoslovakia to live in Paris, work in London, and drink soup with a friend who watches you walk through the Luxembourg Gardens most mornings.’

  ‘… and afternoons,’ she added in a voice that had a slight arch of admonishment within it.

  He put his hand across his heart. ‘Guilty.’

  ‘And what will Madame Bouchard think if I linger much longer?’

  ‘I’d love her to think it!’ he responded.

  Katerina sighed and checked her wristwatch. ‘It’s nearing six.’

  ‘The night is thus young.’ He waited, tense for her answer but effecting a soft shrug that gave the opposite impressio
n, he hoped.

  Her gaze narrowed. ‘You know, Daniel, my father always saw the good in people. I now realise that was his downfall. And this special quality of his gave me my flaw.’

  ‘Flaw?’

  ‘You see, I trust no one. I am suspicious of every person I meet. I figure they either want something or they’re lying. I’m not proud of this trait but it has helped me to survive.’

  ‘And you think I’m not being honest … that I want something from you?’

  ‘I suspect we’ll find out,’ she said, diplomatically evasive but hardly putting him at ease. ‘But not tonight. Now I must go home.’

  ‘The tart?’

  She sighed. ‘Tomorrow. If it’s not raining, we can picnic.’

  ‘And if it is raining?’

  ‘We’ll decide then.’

  ‘When?’

  Katerina took in an audible breath as she considered her options. ‘Do you mean your day is free?’

  ‘It is. I was having a few days to myself, which is why I was able to read the newspaper on a garden bench mid-morning.’

  ‘All right, then. I shall be calling into the museum tomorrow mid-morning to meet with my colleagues. I need to let them know I’m fine, and … well, anyway, how about you meet me at the Tuileries?’

  ‘The pond?’

  ‘Perfect. Shall we say noon?’

  ‘We shall. Let me fetch your things and we can hail a taxi.’ He returned with her coat and held it for her.

  ‘Thank you.’ As she put on her hat and wrapped her scarf with practised ease, he watched her carefully pull on her slim leather gloves. ‘It’s been lovely to meet you, Daniel. You’ve been most generous.’

  ‘Will you be all right?’ At her look of enquiry, he shrugged. ‘I feel I’ve helped you to open a long-hidden wound.’

  She nodded. ‘You could say that. But it’s the inevitable lancing of a wound that hasn’t healed. I had to face this conversation after what occurred in London.’

  He frowned.

  ‘You’ll have to wait until tomorrow to learn about that.’

  ‘I shan’t be able to sleep!’

  ‘Take a pill. It’s what I intend to do, because now the thoughts are free to roam, I need sleep of the entirely unconscious type. Don’t come down – I’ll get a taxi at the end of this street easily enough and I can avoid your neighbour if I tiptoe down alone. Will you explain to her?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Goodnight, Daniel.’ She leaned in and kissed him on each cheek, turning swiftly on her heel, and was gone. She never saw him reach to touch his skin where her lips had pecked gently, nor did she look back to where he watched her glide down the darkening street away from him.

  9

  HAMPSTEAD, LONDON

  He glanced out of the window into the late afternoon, hopes rising; this was his favourite time of year. Spring had arrived and the days, though still chilled, brought him the happier mood that came with the season of new life. Buds were bursting into colour, the sun was no longer thin and gave genuine warmth to the day, while the birds and animals of the surrounding heath were busy at their parenting. But most of all Hersh Adler – as he would prefer to be known – loved this moment because he knew it was only perhaps only a fortnight away before the swimmers, anglers and picnic parties began to return in numbers to enjoy the famous Hampstead Ponds of his neighbourhood. By May, he would be back into the swing of his role as a pool attendant and working long into the delicious English twilight.

  It wasn’t a slight to his parents; he had done his best to explain this longing to his mother. Yes, he led a good life, knew that he was loved, was fully aware that as their only child he had a secure future to take over the grocery store when his father retired. He was grateful that in the meantime he earned a generous wage working alongside his parents in the shop. He had repeatedly reassured his mother that his need to volunteer at the swimming ponds was not him turning away from the family he loved but simply an attempt to learn about his past, from where he came and to whom he originally belonged.

  ‘You belong here, Henry.’ His mother had never felt comfortable calling him by his real name. ‘Why do you need to be Jewish when you’ve been raised in an Anglican family? You’ve never known any other life but this one.’ It was an old argument that had been debated since he’d turned sixteen. This was simply last night’s version.

  ‘Because, Mum, I am Jewish. Somewhere in Czechoslovakia is a Jewish family that once had a son called Hersh Adler.’ He remembered how he’d held up his hand to stop her inevitable rush of words. ‘I understand they are likely dead. But what if one of them survived? What if I have a brother or sister?’

  His mother didn’t answer. He wondered if she cared about his lost family, whether she wanted to mutter ‘So what?’ to his question. He couldn’t blame her for feeling threatened and she’d been the most loving and dedicated of mothers, so he had no doubt that from her perspective this was a treachery … and it hurt.

  ‘Son,’ his father had said quietly from his armchair in the corner – he liked to read his newspaper from this spot while gently puffing on his pipe when the shop closed early – ‘what your mother is trying to do is save you pain. We’ve never hidden from you the truth that your family sent you to safety in England and we were chosen as the lucky recipients of a bonny ten-month-old from Prague and that you are Jewish. But over two decades have gone by and the world knows you as Henry Evans, son of Helen and John – is that so bad?’ Hersh had hung his head, hearing the unsaid accusation. ‘We only want the best for you. We want to give you everything we can for a good life ahead.’

  ‘I know, Dad. I’m not ungrateful. But both of you obviously think that my looking out for information on the Adler family is somehow a threat to what I feel for you. And it isn’t. I don’t know anyone else as my mother and father – so how I feel about you both is never going to change.’

  ‘Good,’ his mother said, pursing her lips to stop them wobbling.

  He took a breath, not wishing to hurt the people he loved most. ‘But what else is never going to change is that England might refer to me as Henry Evans, but I was born Hersh Adler in Prague, I am Jewish and I have Czech in my soul. If there’s any chance of at least knowing the people or even people who knew the family I came from, that would set me at ease.’ He nearly felt out of breath but he didn’t want to be interrupted. He inhaled now. ‘I’m not looking to do anything with the information other than to understand myself. I feel —’ He stopped, shaking his head.

  ‘What, son?’

  He gave his father a smile. ‘I suppose, Dad, that I feel incomplete … restless to know my past, who I really am. And what I’m doing by volunteering at the Ponds – apart from keeping people safe – is keeping up with the latest news. Someone might know someone … don’t you see?’

  ‘Of course we do!’ his mother said. ‘But what good will it do you, Henry, to learn your whole family was killed in one of those terrible camps? How will that help?’

  His gaze softened as her eyes became glassy with the tears she’d been fighting. ‘Then I’ll know they’re dead, and …’ He shook his head. ‘It would be like closing a book. The wondering will end.’

  Older, wiser, different words, different moods, different seasons, but it was essentially the same conversation with the same outcome of an upset mother and a disappointed father.

  ‘I won’t be long,’ Henry said a little later after sharing a more convivial conversation over a pot of tea with his parents.

  ‘No one will be swimming now, surely?’ his mother quizzed.

  ‘I’m just going for a walk – stretch my legs and get some air. Tomorrow’s a big day. Dad and I are putting through the monthly order.’

  She touched his cheek as he kissed her.

  ‘See you a bit later, Dad.’

  His father glanced at the clock on the mantelpiece. ‘Are you going to listen to the next instalment of The Archers with us?’

  Hersh looked at his wristwatch. �
�Thirty-one minutes? I’ll be back in half an hour.’ He grinned. ‘Promise.’

  He left their terraced home in Pilgrim’s Lane at a trot and headed towards Willow Road and the sprawling woodland and gardens of the Heath, towards the swimming ponds. He’d read about its history at the local library. Fed by the River Fleet, they were originally dug into impervious clay as reservoirs in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Today the three ponds closest to his home served as outdoor men’s, women’s and mixed-bathing pools. Many of London’s Jewish community lived in and around the Hampstead region and so it was natural that they would gather in the warmer months to picnic, for walks, to push their children in prams, to play and to swim in this place. That latter pastime required supervision, and as a powerful swimmer who’d chosen not to take his prowess further than his regular exercise, he was warmly welcomed into the group of volunteer attendants.

  It was here, though, where so many of the Jewish community gathered, that he could share news of ‘home’. He’d found a small cohort of Czech Jews, refugees, all mothers who gathered for a gossip, usually after the children had been dropped at school. Now, after years of seeing him around the pools, they were no longer wary of him stopping to chat.

  They called him Hersh, which was pleasing but somehow – he couldn’t entirely explain why – the name had never sat easily on him. This was why being referred to as Henry by his family, their friends, his friends at the neighbourhood school and now at work, felt easy. His mother had even begun muttering about changing his name officially to Evans … and perhaps one day soon he would agree to that. Hersh still clung to the hope that he might find his way back to his family, which had been the intention of the parents of Kindertransport children, though that had been impossible for most since the atrocities of the war on Jewish folk had been revealed. In the meantime, he probed for any information that could lead him to the Adlers of Prague who gave up their infant son to the safety of strangers in a faraway country rather than risk him to the Nazi occupiers.