The Sugar Men

by Ray Kingfisher

  In a way, queuing up and having to queue all over again was a bit like moving to a new city, getting used to it, making the effort to get to know people and places and make it a true home, only to find you then had to move someplace else and do the same all over again.

  Susannah couldn’t recollect the name of the isolated farm that the six Zuckermans had moved to under cover of darkness in 1942. No, the reality was she couldn’t have remembered because she didn’t know it even at the time. What she did remember was the pattern in the sky on that night: a murky moon that lent an unreal appearance to a sky streaked with pipes of dirty grey cloud. The land around the farm was flat and featureless apart from a seemingly endless patchwork blanket of fields and a cluster of trees that appeared to be huddling together for warmth and security.

  They’d been crammed together for hours in a car, during which Susannah fell asleep a couple of times. So she didn’t know whether the driver spoke at all during the journey, only that she never heard him utter one word, and that as soon as they had all stepped out into the muddy farmyard Father thanked him and he replied with nothing more than a nod before speeding off.

  There were four buildings around them. The biggest was a long stone cottage with shuttered windows and a chimney at the far end, its black plume rigidly stuck to the vertical above it and getting hazier the higher Susannah looked. And then there were three outbuildings, made of rough stone blocks and having only gaps in the walls by way of doors.

  The door of the cottage opened with no noise whatsoever, and an elderly couple walked out and greeted them all. They were dressed in boots and dirty grey overalls, and seemed to be asking lots of questions of Uncle Paul.

  Susannah wasn’t sure what was being said because she was more interested in the views of farmland – a murky green in the moonlight; and breathing in the air – clean and fresh with a distinctly salty element to it. And as she looked to the distance she noticed small shapeless forms – lots of them – drifting around the fields that surrounded them like ghostly shadows.

  Just as she locked her eyes onto one of the shapes, the talking stopped. She looked to the elderly couple, who had taken a step back from Uncle Paul and were whispering to each other. Eventually they nodded, first to each other and then to Paul. The woman pointed to one of the rustic outbuildings, the one that had a lone tree standing in front of it, almost as if it were making a pathetic attempt to camouflage the building.

  They all started walking across the muddy yard to the outbuilding, and Susannah and Jacob were told they should call the couple who lived in the cottage Maria and Erik.

  Within days, Susannah learned that these were not their real names, as she heard them using different names when they talked to each other.

  But that was far from the most important secret here.

  The couple said that the three rustic outbuildings were milking sheds, which explained the drifting dark shapes Susannah had seen in the fields all around them. They went on to explain that the one they were now approaching – the one guarded by the lone tree – was not all it seemed.

  From the outside it looked to be a perfectly ordinary milking shed. It was only by looking up from within that anyone could see that the ceiling somehow didn’t match with the roofline as viewed from outside. Inside there was a distinct – but not overpowering – smell of cow dung. Somehow that smell seemed natural to Susannah, almost pleasant even. At one end of the interior, behind the wooden fence that held the cows still for milking, bales of straw were neatly stacked right up to the ceiling. The adults had to squeeze to get behind the bales, although the children could almost saunter through, and there they found a steep and narrow wooden staircase – actually little more than a ladder – wedged in place. Susannah and Jacob giggled to each other as they clambered up the stairs; it was as if the subterfuge was liberating.

  The stairs led up to a hatch door, above which was a single long room. The room was split into two by a large blanket hung over a length of rope tied between the two longer walls. Those two rooms were to be home for the six of them – for how long Susannah had no idea. The rooms were not very high, but that was only a problem for Paul, who was almost six feet tall and could stand up straight only along the centre. The shed had a water supply – just a single cold tap – and easy access to the nearby slurry pond for emptying chamber pots.

  Yes, Susannah thought, it was going to be exciting living here. It seemed such a fascinating place to make your home – and such a contrast to the noise and grime in Berlin or Amsterdam.

  But it only took one night for the lustre of excitement to tarnish. It wasn’t because Susannah didn’t sleep well – she did, in spite of being cold and being able to smell that bucolic air that wafted up from below. But in the morning she and Jacob were told that they were never to leave the two rooms. It was also explained to them that it would get even colder when winter came, and that the sole source of heat would be bricks heated by Maria and Erik in the main farmhouse and carefully carried up to them in a leather bag.

  Not having to go to school seemed a side effect to be celebrated – and for a few days it was. After that, spending all their time indoors became more of a penance, as if they were prisoners. They’d brought some books and packets of playing cards with them, but there were only so many times Susannah could read the same books and get excited, and only so many times she could play cards without getting bored. She complained to Mother, who answered that she understood, that at her age she should have been making friends, developing her mind with education, even learning a little about boys. But Mother looked weary and haggard whenever she spoke like this, as if there was a great weight on her shoulders, so Susannah decided she would have to try to keep her frustrations to herself.

  However, Mother must have talked to Maria and Erik, because things improved a week later; they started bringing up a modest but regular supply of new books and newspapers – and Susannah tried to read every single word of every single one of them.

  Susannah and Jacob and their parents slept on a blanket, which lay on a large bed of musty hay strewn over the wooden floorboards, while Uncle Paul and Aunt Helena slept on a slightly smaller version in the other ‘room’ on the other side of the dividing blanket.

  The food was fresh and good in quality if not in variety. It was usually bread and vegetables, occasionally meat and cheese. Throughout the icy winter months the highlight of the week was the Sunday hot meal. Fresh milk, so creamy it almost had to be chewed, was always plentiful, and served hot every day in winter. But whatever food was delivered, Susannah’s parents told her and Jacob never to complain or be ungrateful, and that they should feel lucky to have such good friends as Maria and Erik. Rules about keeping to kosher food and observing Jewish celebrations were relaxed out of necessity but – as Uncle Paul kept reminding them all – not forgotten.

  Susannah and Jacob played and fought and argued as much as they always had, but it was always forgotten within the hour and they started playing again. Likewise the seasons visited and left just as they always had. Cold winters that felt even colder in a draughty stone shed seemed to pass more quickly than the bright spring and summer months. At least whenever Susannah left the building in winter the flatland breeze told her to seek shelter, but when she stepped outside in the warmer months it took every ounce of her willpower to resist the temptation to chase butterflies through the hazy fields, or bury her feet in the mess of leaves blowing from the nearby cluster of trees, or simply bask in the sunshine.

  That would also have been a way to escape from the arguments.

  By the time the farmhouse had been Susannah’s home for almost two years she was approaching her fifteenth birthday, and her emotions were maturing along with her body. She was becoming less interested in playing with her brother and more interested in the relationships between the four adults she was living with. Sometimes, instead of reading, she pretended to sleep and listened closely to what was happening between them, and started understanding the nu
ances of their behaviour. Apart from Father’s and Paul’s political disagreements she’d never really witnessed an argument between any of them, but now there always seemed to be two people out of Mother, Father, Paul and Helena who snapped at each other, or who didn’t talk to each other at all – sometimes for days on end. It never seemed to be about anything important, and was always started by someone complaining about who had eaten the last slice of bread, or who had woken who up in the middle of the night, or who was taking too long reading the newspaper. And the worst thing was that the arguments never seemed to get resolved.

  Whenever she asked Mother or Father about this – why they were always arguing – she was told that things were difficult, that this was bound to happen while they all lived together.

  Once Father told her that when rats were trapped in a cage they would fight with one another, but then he told her to forget he’d said that.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  It was early in 1944 that one of those rats at the isolated farmhouse started to bite.

  There was another argument. Just like the rest, the seed of the disagreement seemed to be petty. Maria had brought some home-baked shortbread biscuits for a treat – perhaps, Susannah thought, she was trying to defuse any tension. Paul doled them out as if they were keys to heaven and he was an archangel. Everybody had two each and returned to their beds, but half an hour later Mother pulled the dividing blanket to the side and started looking at the boxes and clothes that were scattered around Paul and Helena.

  ‘What is it?’ Paul said, his eyes following hers.

  ‘Biscuits.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Where are the rest of the biscuits?’

  Paul sighed and shook his head slowly. ‘They’re for tomorrow.’

  ‘But where did you put them?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘But I want to check them,’ Mother said, her face starting to redden.

  ‘You want to . . . ?’ Paul let out a forced laugh. ‘You think we’ve had more without telling you?’

  ‘I didn’t say that.’

  And then Father appeared behind her, standing up as straight as he could in the eaves of the building, and put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Let’s calm down,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t speak to me like that,’ she replied, her voice now trembling. ‘You’re supposed to be on my side.’

  Then a voice said, ‘There are no sides here.’ It was Helena, who sat up on the makeshift mattress next to her husband.

  ‘I wasn’t talking to you,’ Mother said. ‘Have you had any more biscuits?’

  ‘Paul,’ Father said. ‘Can’t you just show her the biscuits so she can see you haven’t had any?’

  Paul’s face creased up. ‘You don’t believe your own brother?’

  ‘It’s not that.’

  And so it went on. Within minutes the argument came to a head when Mother knelt down and started rifling through Paul’s and Helena’s few personal possessions. Father held her arms back, pulling her to her feet, but she wrenched them away. She shouted at him and struck out, hitting his chest and making him take a step back.

  ‘Don’t touch me!’ she hissed. ‘I’m sick of this.’

  ‘And you think you’re the only one?’ Paul said.

  Mother looked around for support but none came, which just seemed to increase her anger, which she now directed at her husband. ‘How long do you expect us to live like this?’ she said. ‘Another year? Three? The rest of our lives? We’re living like animals.’ The last word was shouted, and on the other side of the room Jacob started to cry. Susannah could feel her heartbeat pulsing faster; she’d never seen Mother speak to Father like this before. She put an arm around Jacob and held him close.

  ‘Listen,’ Father said quietly. ‘We have to—’

  That was all he could say before Mother interrupted, her face now a deep red and her hair shaking as it was tossed from left to right. ‘We have to do this, we have to do that, we can’t do this, we can’t do that. You never give anyone the choice to disagree. I read the papers too. There are camps set up for people like us – with proper beds instead of straw, with meals every day instead of once a week, even things to do and—’

  ‘No!’ Father said, silencing her. ‘You must not believe it. Can’t you see? It’s all propaganda. It’s lies. I’m telling you we’re better off here; it’s not pleasant, but at least we’re free.’

  ‘Ha! Free?’ Mother picked a cup up from the floor and threw it at Father. He turned a shoulder but it missed him anyway and smashed against the stone wall behind him.

  Jacob let out a shriek and Susannah rocked him, for her own benefit as well as his.

  Father looked to Paul and Helena for support, then turned back to Mother, now speaking in more gentle – even pleading – tones. ‘Listen to me. Whatever else we do, we must stick together on this. And as long as three out of four think we should stay hidden . . .’

  And as he paused for breath a lone voice, calm and reserved, said, ‘I think she’s right.’

  It was Helena.

  ‘What?’ Paul said to her, almost roaring out the single word.

  ‘It’s not working out,’ she replied. ‘I’ve had enough too. She’s right; this is no life for an animal, let alone a human.’ She bolted for the trapdoor in the corner of the room.

  ‘Are you mad?’ Paul said.

  ‘Yes,’ Helena replied. ‘Mad is exactly what I am. We’re all mad, but some more so than others – too mad to see it. I can’t go on like this.’

  She lifted the door and disappeared down the staircase, the wooden rungs thumping with her desperate footsteps. Paul went to follow but Mother stepped in front of him and said, ‘Let her go.’

  Paul went to speak, but no more than a grunt came through his clenched teeth. He turned away and slapped the stone wall.

  After watching and listening to all of this Susannah’s mouth was arid dry, and she dared not speak even if she could think of anything to say, so she just watched the three remaining adults pace and sit, then stand up and pace some more.

  When Helena came back half an hour later the atmosphere had calmed down a little; there were no raised voices but the air was still hot and stuffy with tension.

  ‘So?’ Paul said, standing directly in front of her.

  She pushed him to the side and lay down on the straw bedding. ‘So what?’

  ‘Where did you go? And did anyone see you?’

  ‘I just wanted some fresh air,’ she answered. ‘I walked to the woods.’

  ‘But did anybody see you?’ Father asked, both men now crowding around her.

  She turned onto her side and closed her eyes before answering. ‘Of course not. There’s nobody about. I don’t know why we have to stay inside.’

  It was stalemate: two adults against two adults. All four of them talked and eventually Paul and Father accepted that, in spite of the dangers of being seen outside, it might be worth the risk if it stopped them tearing each other apart. They got Erik to take them around the farm grounds on the tractor to check for other buildings or roads. There were none with a direct view of the milking shed, so they all agreed that instead of spending twenty-four hours a day inside they could now leave the building at dawn and dusk only, as long as they walked no more than a hundred paces away. Father told Susannah that she was now nearly an adult, and that he was trusting her to obey the rules and make sure Jacob did too whenever they went out together.

  For Susannah and Jacob, after being cooped up for so long, those first days of freedom in the spring of 1944 felt like paradise. They were careful at first, venturing out only after taking a good look around the buildings and along the farm track, savouring the cooling breeze, the brushing of long grasses against their legs, and the songs of the birds that flitted in and out of the nearby wood.

  But as Susannah was maturing, so she was starting to have her own mind on what she should do. For weeks there was not even a hint of another person, and so the one hundred paces rul
e became stretched to two hundred. What the adults didn’t know wouldn’t trouble them, Susannah reckoned, and before long she and Jacob were venturing even further. Then dawn became early morning, dusk late afternoon. They walked through fields of tall grasses, always ready to duck down and hide if they heard anything that resembled a voice or a vehicle. But there was nothing, and they always got back to the shed within an hour. Then one day they followed the birds into the shade of the wood. That was a shelter in itself, and no more than a few hundred paces from the shed, so they often went there to play hide-and-seek, climb trees or paddle in the slow-moving stream that lay at the far end.

  It was during those months that Susannah noticed the change in Jacob; just as she was growing up, so was he. Although he was younger and smaller than her, he could now run as fast – and climb trees faster. There was also a swagger of sorts in his walk, and occasionally a deep croak to his voice. She wondered whether he, too, had the urge to do something more than play games in the woods – even to meet people. Still, anything was better than being stuck in the milking shed.

  As the hot days of summer came, the stream became their favourite place to play – racing twigs along its length, or splashing each other and running off, or simply lying down in the shallow, clear waters that were as cool and refreshing as an iced dessert.

  It was on one of those sultry afternoons, when Susannah and Jacob were busy splashing each other, that Jacob suddenly stopped responding to her playful flicks of water. He was frozen, the only movement or sound coming from the swirls of water around his bare feet. And he was staring at her – no, he was gazing straight through her. She turned. In the distance was a boy, perhaps Susannah’s age, perhaps a little older. Like them, he was standing in the cooling stream, and for a wishful split second she thought it could be some sort of distorted reflection of Jacob.

  But no.

  Mother and Father had told them to avoid contact with people – no, more than that, to stay out of sight of anyone other than Maria and Erik. They had broken the rules by visiting the wood and the stream – but being seen was another level of rule-breaking entirely.