The Pearl Thief

by Fiona McIntosh

Soon enough coffee began bubbling on the small stove behind the bar and the smell of roasted beans gave up their parched smokiness into a fruited, spicy aroma that wafted across to envelop them. Katerina had swallowed two more mouthfuls from her salad and then pushed her plate forward. She began to speak as the plates were removed and fresh black coffee arrived before them.

  12

  ‘Oh, my darling, don’t stop on my account,’ Ruda Mayek said, but Liszt was lost to me.

  I stood, shocked to see him. He glowed with health, as though some sort of new light that empowered him burnt within. He’d reached his late thirties and I could see his hair had darkened beneath but still had that overall whitish quality. It had receded at either side of his forehead but somehow that hadn’t detracted from his strong Germanic looks. If anything, it added maturity.

  ‘We have to call our old friend Mayor now,’ my father told me, sounding amused. ‘He did it.’

  Rudy hadn’t taken his gaze from me. I felt as though he was undressing me from afar.

  ‘Congratulations,’ I pushed out, smoothing my skirt, fingers suddenly clammy.

  ‘Well, it’s been a while, hasn’t it?’ he said and I glimpsed the small teeth. ‘Must be half a dozen years, maybe longer, since we’ve all been together.’ I nodded. ‘And look at you, Katka, so grown-up, every bit as beautiful as we all knew you would be. You’ll be breaking hearts by the time you turn sixteen.’

  My father shrugged as if he had nothing to do with how I’d turned out, and when he reached for the door handle, his back to us, Rudy licked his lips, making sure I saw the gesture.

  Memories I’d buried resurfaced and I felt like a frightened child again.

  ‘Come on,’ my father said. ‘Let’s be seated for our evening meal. Your mother has made her delicious kyselo.’

  It was a rowdily happy supper, with the youngsters being more talkative than I could recall. Their cheeks were still pinched pink from their walk and the warmth of the house made the tops of their ears look dusted with rouge. For just a moment or two, I had a brief sense of security that the villa had closed its familiar and welcoming walls around us to keep us safe. But then I glanced at our guest and wished he were not present to spoil this interlude. My mother, sadly, did not emerge from the kitchen. I tried to persuade her to join us and share the food, but she’d withdrawn into herself again and preferred to eat quietly in the parlour.

  Our guest barely noticed her absence and lacked the grace to enquire after her, which was odd in itself and should have told us that this wasn’t the social visit he was making a pretence at. When my father mentioned that his wife had not been the same since the loss of our brother, Rudy gave a careless nod. ‘I don’t think I’ll ever understand women,’ he replied. I could see my father was cut by the lack of consideration in the remark, but he was too generous to show it.

  ‘Well, it’s best we let her be. Her soup speaks her love for all of us.’

  I was required to serve and did my utmost not to tremble as I ladled the soup into Rudy’s bowl.

  ‘Why isn’t this being served in a cob?’ Lotte enquired. Perhaps she’d already forgotten rationing and who could blame her? Life at the villa felt almost normal.

  ‘We couldn’t get so much bread,’ I cut in quickly.

  ‘I can get as many loaves as you need, Katka. You just have to ask me nicely.’ His tone was oily, his words slippery to match. The thought of owing Rudy anything terrified me suddenly.

  ‘Do you have a uniform as mayor?’ one of the twins enquired.

  ‘Yes, I have rather a grand outfit I must wear on formal occasions,’ he said. ‘It’s like dressing up for a pantomime.’

  The girls giggled and Rudy spent the next few minutes entertaining them as we drank our soup and shared the single loaf we did have. I realised they were now around the age I had been when he violated me and I hated to watch him oozing his charm over two more innocents. Fortunately for me, I suppose, he had been away and hadn’t had the opportunity to see me again. That would explain his surprise, for I had changed from child to teen – a mature one at that – in the intervening six years. I’d listened quietly to his conversation with my father about spending some time across the border in Germany, where much of his extended family lived. He’d worked alongside his uncle and cousins in manufacturing, and learned a lot about business, it seemed, and about being opportunistic.

  ‘We helped equip the army,’ he bragged. ‘Our engineering firm became a munitions factory … I hope it’s our weapons bombing London.’ He laughed but no one else did.

  His presence chilled me and the feeling was not just born from the early broken trust but the uneasiness that his discussion prompted. My father, I noted, was not speaking, just nodding – not agreeing but paying attention. I knew my father all too well, and I suspected he was listening more closely to what Ruda Mayek was not saying.

  ‘Do you consider yourself German now?’ It was a careful question but a pointed one from my father.

  I don’t think I wanted to hear his answer. ‘Girls, help me clear the table,’ I said, standing abruptly. ‘I’ll bring some coffee.’

  My father frowned at my urgency but caught my mood. ‘I’m sorry our offering is so humble tonight, Rudy. Next time, if we know you’re coming, we will put on a spread more befitting a mayor,’ he said, smiling generously.

  Rudy put his palms in the air. ‘I eat modestly, Samuel. To answer your question, our family always was Volksdeutsche.’

  I winced at the Nazi term.

  ‘We were ethnic Germans living outside of Germany. That said, I haven’t forgotten where I was born; I was raised as a Czech and I love this land even though the German officials are courting favour.’

  The mention of the enemy was contrived; he’d planned to make the point that he was on more than just friendly terms with our overlords. The remark, as I’m sure he’d intended, seemed to take the temperature down in our warm, wood-panelled dining room. Suddenly I was aware that the winter was creeping across the hillsides. Actually, I would have welcomed being frozen out. I’d rather eat nuts and make do with porridge than be accessible to the Germans if they were moving around the village.

  My father shared a similar thought, I’m sure, because he nodded at me and I knew it really was time to remove the children. They gave the usual complaints but I bustled them out with instructions to Lotte to take the girls upstairs and ready them for bed.

  ‘Why can’t you?’ my sister bleated.

  ‘I have to help Papa. Our mother is not going to be serving anyone coffee, as you well know.’

  ‘I thought she was returning to us.’

  ‘Well, she’s not!’ I snapped and then I felt immediately guilty and hugged Lotte. ‘I’m sorry, Lotte, I am so, so sorry. You must know I am sad too but we’re safe here and if our mama can have bright days like today, who is to say they won’t happen more regularly? We just have to keep being patient. I may be able to find some cake … you can take it upstairs and enjoy it, but remember to brush your teeth after.’

  Lotte grimaced. ‘You sound like the mayor now.’

  I flashed her my astonishment. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘When you were out of the room, fetching the bread knife, he started talking about children brushing teeth before bedtime and not ignoring its importance.’

  A fresh chill shuddered through me. I remembered a similar conversation with him when I was younger. It was darkly humorous that I thought of myself an adult when I was still essentially a child.

  ‘I don’t really like the mayor,’ she continued. ‘I know he’s supposed to be our friend —’

  ‘You don’t have to explain, Lotte. I don’t care much for him either these days.’ I was surprised I sounded so composed. If only Lotte knew my real fear. ‘Now, lock the door behind you, will you?’

  ‘Why?’ I wasn’t surprised by her shock. We had a family policy of doors open.

  ‘Just do it. I’ll be up soon.’

  I busied myself making
up the coffee tray, reluctantly putting a couple of slices of our precious cake onto a plate. I didn’t think Rudy went without, whereas for us this cake was the most special of treats. I kept one ear cocked for footsteps up the stairs, but there was no telltale creak on the fifth step and I returned to the dining room to see our mayor touching a flame to a cigarette using a gold lighter. The cigarettes were not a brand I recognised in their orange packet and I could see the packaging had German wording. The lighter was ostentatious, used deliberately to impress. He was making a point that wasn’t lost on us. Rudy was a man on the ascent with strong connections to where true power sat.

  My father was in earnest conversation but Rudy wore a smirk, one I recognised from the evening in my bedroom. He was a cat toying with a mouse. My father didn’t know it or chose to look past it, but I felt miserably sickened for him.

  ‘… anything you can do for them would mean everything to me and my wife,’ my father finished. He had surely been speaking of us.

  I watched Rudy blow out the smoke he’d held in his lungs, angling the bluish cloud to billow above my father’s head. It was another arrogant message of power. He shook his head extravagantly as though deeply pondering the dilemma but it was obvious that he was ready with his answer. ‘I don’t know what I can do, Samuel. You and Olga have always been kind to our family so I would like to help where I can, but the news is grim for the Jews of Czechoslovakia.’

  They both turned to regard me, realising I was in the room.

  ‘It’s no good trying to protect me from this, Papa. I’m here, I’m in it … and I’m Jewish. None of this can be helped. Our mother is not well enough to support you or look after the girls. It’s down to me, so you might as well accept that I have to hear what is going on.’

  Rudy didn’t wait for my father to respond and took longer than he should have to remove his lascivious gaze from me. ‘You’ve heard of Theresienstadt, or Terezín, as we Czechs call it?’ he asked my father.

  He nodded morosely while I was feeling freshly nauseous at its mention. Originally a fortress from one hundred and fifty years ago that Emperor Joseph II had named after his mother, its town was located near the German border about forty miles north of Prague. We all knew the Germans were gradually taking some Jews there, forcibly, to create a ghetto.

  ‘I heard yesterday that it is now the destination for all the Jews of Prague.’ Rudy’s emphasis did not fall on deaf ears. He inhaled, letting the smoke escape slowly through the side of his neat mouth. ‘“Every last one” was the phrase I overheard. Of course, I’m sure that’s exaggerated …’ He trailed off and in that pause was a deliberate bait.

  Not so long ago my father had expressed a certain amount of relief that such a place existed within the protectorate because other news spoke of transports into Poland to frozen camps that worked their inhabitants to death on behalf of the German war effort. It was the lesser of both evils, in his opinion.

  I couldn’t say which was worse; I was young, I didn’t want to be incarcerated anywhere, and stupidly I believed that my father’s status, his importance as a manufacturer, even our former wealth, would give us some sort of defence against being forced to move there.

  Listening to Rudy, though, I felt we had been deluding ourselves and it had only been a matter of time. Rich or poor, everyone’s turn would come and we’d just had the benefit of the buffer of wealth to hold off the scrutiny a little longer. He wasn’t coming out-right and saying we would be imprisoned, but there was a clear undercurrent to his conversation that I think my father was trying to distance himself from. Perhaps that was for my benefit.

  To help I excused myself briefly to check on my sisters so the men would know I’d left the room. The girls were fine, not ready to sleep, and I didn’t force them to turn the lights out. I told them I’d return in fifteen minutes but really I wanted to tiptoe back into the dining room to hear the rest of the dreaded conversation.

  Drawing on all my skills to sit in the shadows, I slipped back into the room, hardly noticed by either, and remained soundlessly on its fringe to listen with rapidly growing unease at how quickly their discussion had disintegrated and the power in the room had ruthlessly shifted.

  My father now had only pleading in his voice. ‘At least the girls could be spared this, surely? Rudy, they’re family to you.’

  Rudy didn’t acknowledge that fact … and I was now convinced he’d never held such a sentiment. Sitting here in the lowest light of the room, I think I found fresh clarity. He’d never considered us family; I don’t think he even regarded us as friends. I’d now go so far as to believe that Ruda Mayek loathed us and was enjoying the balance of power changing. My father was no longer the rich businessman, us no longer his spoiled, indulged children who’d never known anything but full bellies, warm beds, fine education – a life of plenty. Rudy, however, had endured a tougher, rougher upbringing; his father, I gathered from mine, was not an affectionate man, and without a mother in his life he had been raised in that sombre masculine environment where a box around the ears was likely the closest he got to being touched. Papa had always said our mama had mothered Rudy as best she could but she was regularly admonished by Mayek the elder for indulging his son, who needed to accept his lot and get on with making the best of his life.

  So this was Rudy’s best: throwing in his lot with the Nazis, not standing up for his true friends, not even attempting to help, and worse, not even trying to console my father. He seemed to be taking pleasure in the escalating discomfort and fear he was cleverly creating through his slow baiting.

  ‘I’m not sure how I can help the children, Samuel.’ I remembered a time not so long ago when he addressed my father as “sir”. Now he was shaking his head with what I took to be feigned melancholy. ‘They are registered. They wear the yellow star.’ Rudy spoke to my father as if he were discussing the winter weather rather than the future of our family.

  ‘Then use your influence, Rudy. You owe me this much.’ And there it was: my father’s first show of emotion, the first time his even tone had faltered.

  Rudy leaned forward and I sensed it was with relish. ‘Do I? Why is that, Samuel?’

  I watched my father swallow. ‘Ruda Mayek, what is happening here? We’ve been family to you since you were a child. Your father was a cruel man to you at times but my wife treated you as her own and I always made you welcome, regarded you as a son who shared in everything we had to share. And now you come to our house as a guest, you eat our food, break our meagre bread, you jest with my children, drink the last of our coffee and yet I hear only threat.’

  I wanted to cheer for my papa but deep down I knew his accusation was pointless, for Rudy was playing with him.

  ‘I’m mayor now, Samuel. As someone who must get on with our German protectors, I cannot show favour.’

  ‘Cannot or will not? This is a conscious choice, Rudy. You have sway now … surely we can work out how to get the girls to safety?’

  ‘To where exactly? Into Poland? Russia? The German steam-roller is crushing all Jews to the east, and the west is no friend to your kind. You should have sent them on the rescue trains to poor old Britain when you had your chance. You might have got the three youngest away.’ He glanced my way. ‘The beautiful Katka – I wish she didn’t have to wear the yellow star.’

  So he’d known I was there all along.

  ‘Then help Katerina at least! She speaks fluent German, and you well know she could pass as one. Get her some forged papers!’

  ‘Papa! Stop!’ I gasped, risking overstepping a line. ‘I would never leave you, never walk away from the girls or our mother. I’m proud to be Jewish.’

  ‘You shouldn’t be, Katka,’ Rudy lazily oozed, unmoved by the rising emotion.

  My father’s features slackened with shock at Rudy’s words but he rallied as he cut his desperate gaze my way. ‘This is about survival,’ Papa growled at me. I’d never seen my father’s emotions stirred to anger. He turned back to our hateful guest. ‘If
one of my daughters could —’

  ‘Please stop. It is a redundant conversation, my dear Samuel.’ The condescension quietened us both. ‘Katerina, as charming and beautiful as she is – and as Aryan as she may seem – is still Jewish; she’s registered. There are rules … law. I am charged to enforce that —’

  ‘I want you to leave!’ My father suddenly said, standing.

  I was appalled. Not about how rude it was – to hell with Ruda Mayek and any manners being shown to him – but I feared the repercussions of this moment of rage.

  ‘I mean it, Mayor,’ my father said, his voice filled with naked fury. ‘Get out of my villa, and you should know that you are never welcome back as its guest.’

  ‘Samuel, you really don’t want to take that attitude with —’

  ‘Get out!’ He was yelling now and I rushed to his side.

  Rudy put his hands up in mock defence and stood suddenly. His full height and breadth were dismayingly powerful as he loomed over both of us. With deliberation he picked up his German cigarettes and his flashy lighter and slipped both into his pocket. ‘I believe I came with a coat?’ He made it a question in a conversational tone.

  ‘I’ll fetch it,’ I offered, glancing at my father.

  ‘No, he can fetch it himself on the way out. I don’t believe I want to share the same air with you, Mayor, for a moment longer.’

  I glared at my father; this was only going to turn bad for us.

  ‘You have your head in the sand, Kassowicz. There is no way out. I came here tonight to offer help of a different nature – perhaps not what you had in mind, but it would save you much, er, heartache.’

  ‘Mayor, please,’ I offered, gesturing towards the door.

  He didn’t say anything more but stared at my father for what I thought was longer than necessary and I could only imagine how Papa was able to hold that terrible gaze as firmly as he did. It was Rudy who looked away first, although my father’s shoulders slumped as the mayor turned and walked through the door before I did.