The Sugar Men

by Ray Kingfisher

  Then she looked straight towards Dennis, but looked through him. ‘And the bad thoughts – the nightmares I used to get when I was younger – I feel them threatening me, and there’s nobody there to protect me from them.’

  Dennis drew back and folded his arms at this. ‘Nightmares?’ he said, his frown squeezing his eyes almost completely shut. ‘What sort of nightmares?’

  ‘Really, Mr Cooper, I think I understand how your father feels. I can assure you there’s no way I’d want to upset him in any way.’

  Dennis took a moment to think, then unfolded his arms. ‘Look,’ he said eventually. ‘Call me Dennis. And I’m sorry about your husband.’

  ‘That’s quite all right, son.’

  ‘But . . . well, I’m not saying you’d deliberately upset him, it’s just . . .’ He rolled around on his seat for a few seconds to buy some time to think. ‘It’s just . . . it’s difficult to talk about it.’

  Susannah waited, then said quietly, ‘Go on, please try.’

  ‘You see, after Mum died he spent a couple of years on his own, and obviously hated it, so he moved in with us – me and the wife and our two girls. And I don’t know whether it only started when Mum died, or whether he’s been hiding it all these years – he won’t say – but he’s been . . . well . . .’

  There Dennis stopped and filled his lungs, his chest getting even bigger, then exhaled slowly.

  ‘Is it nightmares?’ Susannah said.

  He nodded.

  ‘And flashbacks?’

  And then his face showed some creases that hadn’t been there a few moments before. Susannah read his face perfectly; it was as if he had You know, don’t you? stamped on his forehead.

  And then Dennis’s motor kicked into action, and the words didn’t stop for some time.

  ‘I don’t understand. It all happened so long ago. He’s been getting headaches, not sleeping much, and talking in his sleep whenever he does – almost shouting. Getting all agitated – really frightened – at the slightest things. Doctors say it’s post-traumatic stress, but it . . . it all happened over sixty years ago. I just don’t get it. I thought he’d be over all that by now. I mean . . . why now? He even went back to the place a couple of years ago – to Bergen-Belsen – and did a little talk on his experiences. He thought it might help.’

  ‘And did it?’

  ‘Tell you the truth, I don’t think it made him better or worse. And that worried me. I mean, it would have been good if bringing the memories back had helped, or even if it had made him worse. Then at least I’d know how to help. Trouble is, nothing seems to make any difference. He still has these . . . sort of . . . episodes. And I can’t do anything to help him.’

  ‘Oh, Dennis.’ Susannah shook her head. ‘Don’t upset yourself. Just be there for him.’

  Dennis had a furtive glance around the bar before wiping a tear from his cheek and sniffling. ‘Why’s this all happening to him now, though?’

  ‘Because what happened there – what your father witnessed – was so unimaginably horrible.’

  ‘I know all that. I read up on it.’

  Susannah tutted a laugh and shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, Dennis. That’s simply not the same as being there.’

  Dennis nodded and took a few deep breaths. ‘No. I’m sure.’

  ‘Oh, poor Teddy,’ Susannah said. Then she felt her chest convulse, her neck tighten, and she squeezed her face right up tight to try to hold back her emotions.

  Dennis got up out of his seat and stepped over to her. Then a member of staff even came over and asked if everything was all right. Dennis said it was, thank you, and sat down beside her.

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ he said. ‘I didn’t mean to . . .’

  Susannah nodded and tried to gulp her sadness back inside. ‘No, I’ll . . . I’ll be fine, really.’

  Dennis placed a hand over hers, and for a few minutes all they did was sit in silence.

  ‘You’ve got a lot in common with my old man,’ Dennis said eventually. ‘I can see that now. But . . . I’m still not sure about meeting up, about what it’ll do to him. It could, like, stir things up, make him worse.’

  ‘That’s all right,’ Susannah said. ‘I can understand. Really, I can.’

  ‘So can you understand now why I didn’t want you to meet him?’

  ‘And perhaps you can understand why I do want to.’

  He stared her out for a moment, then nodded. ‘I’ll give you that.’

  ‘Dennis. I said I’d be blunt with you, and the truth is that I just don’t know how it might affect him – for better or worse.’ Her eyes glazed as she looked over Dennis’s shoulder and into the distance. ‘Perhaps I’m just being selfish.’

  ‘“For better”, you say?’ Dennis said. ‘You think it could even . . . help him?’

  ‘I’m just being honest with you, that’s all,’ Susannah said. Then she turned and looked out of the window, at the sun streaming down onto the street. ‘The thing is, this is the last summer I’ll see.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I have a terminal illness. Didn’t the man at the war office tell you?’

  Dennis’s face dropped. ‘Oh, blimey . . . I’m sorry. He just said you didn’t have long left. I thought he meant you were about to leave London. If I’d known . . .’

  ‘Don’t, please,’ Susannah said, waving a hand towards him. ‘Just forget that. Let’s cut to the chase. And the chase is that I really, really want to meet up with Teddy again. It’s for myself, not for him, but if you really don’t want me to, I’ll get on a plane and you’ll never see me or hear from me again.’

  Dennis pursed his lips in thought, then took a sip of his drink. ‘Just one thing,’ he said. ‘Your accent.’

  ‘Is it that bad?’

  ‘You’re German, aren’t you?’

  Susannah gave a sombre nod. ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘But you’re a . . .’

  ‘I’m a Jew, you can say it.’

  ‘So what happened between the two of you in the war?’

  ‘You know something, Dennis? I really have difficulty talking about it. All I can say is that I owe your father a big favour. I want to thank him for that and perhaps I can talk to him about things I can’t talk to anyone else about.’ Then she leaned in close to him and whispered, ‘And you never know, perhaps he could do the same.’

  Dennis took a few deep breaths, then nodded. ‘Okay. It might help him. I’ll try anything.’

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  That evening Susannah sat down in the hotel restaurant and picked up a menu. She was hungry, and the food was of the highest quality, but somehow the process of eating unsettled her, and she felt a little queasy – with that nagging pain in her abdomen again. So she retired to her room and took a painkiller.

  She sat in her armchair and wondered whether she was doing the right thing. Would this be upsetting for Teddy? Would it be upsetting for her? Would Teddy thank her for bringing back the memories? And might that, in turn, upset Dennis, who was clearly such a good son?

  She shook the thought of so many questions – questions impossible to answer – from her head and switched on the TV.

  And as the TV flickered into life, she was no longer in a hotel room, but back at the memorial.

  It was just before she’d left the place, while she was in one of those cosy seats in that new-fangled multimedia room, alone apart from that young couple who had just entered the room and had triggered the screen to blink back into life.

  And within a few seconds some old guy started talking on the screen.

  But, no, it wasn’t just any old guy; it was that sweet dewy-eyed fool again, this time starting his talk rather than finishing it. But there was more; she was sure there was something familiar about the voice she was hearing.

  And then a caption came up, which read: TEDDY COOPER, BRITISH ROYAL ARTILLERY 63RD ANTI-TANK REGIMENT, SPEAKING IN 2007.

  Then there was a second caption: ONE OF THE FIRST SOLDIERS TO EN
TER BERGEN-BELSEN AFTER LIBERATION.

  Susannah started to take more notice.

  There were subtitles in German but his words were spoken in English, so Susannah just sat there, barely breathing or blinking, all her attentions focused on watching his blotchy old face and listening to his gravelly old voice:

  I got my call-up papers in 1943 when I was eighteen. Like all my pals I was really looking forward to serving my country, seeing a bit of the world and all that. My father fought in the First World War and told me about the horrors of the Somme – I think he was trying to warn me what war was really like – but I was young and geed-up and . . . stupid, I suppose, so I didn’t take much notice. As it turned out he was wasting his breath anyway; nothing he had to say could have prepared me for what I witnessed.

  First of all I served in France. I didn’t see too much fighting, so I was thrilled when I found out I was going to the front. The Allied forces had got the upper hand by then, capturing miles more territory every day, and the idea of being part of that victory excited me. But going to Bergen-Belsen that day brought me down to earth. It didn’t seem real – worse than a nightmare. I’d shot a few enemy soldiers and seen dead bodies, but that – what we found at that place – it just wasn’t like anything on earth.

  But we all did what we had to do, and after the war I got a job back in London and soon got a steady girlfriend. I was fine for a few years. I was just relieved the war was over – of course, we all were.

  It was only when I got married and we had children that the flashbacks started to happen. I tried to ignore them, but it got so bad I could hardly bear to look at my own children. I know that sounds callous, but it’s the truth. I couldn’t control myself, I was in tears every time I saw them, wondering when those images would force their way back into my mind. At first I couldn’t talk to my wife, but she knew something was wrong. She was very understanding, I think because her father had served in the First World War, and she understood war could do strange things to you. So we just got on with life, putting the children first, and I’ve always been a cheerful bloke generally – apart from the bad thoughts.

  I never told my wife exactly what happened to me at Bergen-Belsen. She said it was up to me how much I told her, but I thought it might make things worse. The doctor told me just to forget all about my flashbacks, but I told him I couldn’t control them, that it wasn’t like that. Then he offered me sleeping pills, which I didn’t want because I had images coming back to me during the day too. So all I could do was think of my family. I had to be a man and put it all to one side.

  It’s only now my wife has passed on and our children are grown up and safe that I feel I can talk about it. And also because, well, people don’t like me saying this, but also because I haven’t got long left myself. Anyway, I think I should. People need to know what it was really like.

  You want me to tell you what happened?

  Right, well, once we’d advanced to the place, we were just told it was a prison camp – one we’d more or less captured. So we stationed ourselves down the road from it – just for a few days while our bigwigs talked to theirs, negotiating a surrender, like. We weren’t exactly cheering and celebrating, but we were victorious, I suppose, talking about our plans for after the war, because it looked like the whole thing would be over in a matter of weeks or months. Anyway, we were all in a good mood.

  All that changed the day we went into the camp.

  The first sign came as we got close to the fence and saw the prisoners. None of us soldiers were what you’d call overweight, but these people were nothing more than living skeletons. There was nothing to them, just standing there, shivering underneath filthy blankets. One of the lads tossed over a small bar of chocolate, and what I saw next made me scared of going in. They were like a pack of wild dogs, all scrabbling about over a small bit of chocolate, like they were prepared to kill for it. But it was like all this was happening in slow motion, as though they didn’t have the energy to move quickly.

  After we’d watched that all the bravado stopped, which was just as well because it got even worse when we went inside.

  The place looked more like an abattoir. There must have been thousands of dead bodies lying in the mud like they’d been dropped there – every last one of them no more than skin and bone, and lots ripped apart, diseased or just rotting. And the stench was unbearable. It turned out there were thousands of people alive too, and – God’s honest truth – there wasn’t much difference; the living were only skin and bone too, like skeletons but moving – just about. Some of the ones that were moving were lying down in the mud and didn’t want to move. We realized why after a while. The SS guards had turned off the communal water pipes; they were drinking the muddy rainwater from the puddles because it was all they had.

  I was in shock. I mean, in shock like I couldn’t look but I couldn’t close my eyes either. A woman came up to me, she had a baby huddled in her arms. I don’t know what language she spoke, but she kept jabbering and pointing to her mouth and the baby’s mouth. I could make out her jawbone and the outline of her teeth through her skin clear as daylight. Her eyes looked like they were bulging out, but only because the sockets hardly had any flesh around them. I think I could have coped with that, but what really upset me was that the baby she was clutching to her chest was dead. It was obviously dead – you could tell by the colour of the poor little thing’s flesh – and it must have been dead for days.

  We all had water, sugar and blankets in our rucksacks. I gave her some sugar and she shared it with her baby. I wanted to say something because she was wasting it – but I just couldn’t. I helped her to the makeshift medical quarters we’d set up at the camp, and explained it to the nurses there. I don’t know what happened to her after that. It would be nice to know.

  Then I left with a few others to search the cabins the prisoners lived in. Most of us were inoculated against typhus but we still tried not to touch any dead bodies we found. We were told to be careful because the typhus was rampant and could easily kill us. What they didn’t realize, of course, was that we had to touch bodies to find out if they were dead or alive.

  I’ll never forget the first cabin I went into. It was a lot worse than outdoors – at least you had fresh air outside. Inside the cabin it really smelt like death itself. It was mildew, it was rotting flesh, it was blood, it was human waste. I had to step outside, and I don’t know how I stopped myself from being sick – no, actually I do – we were told not to eat for a few hours before we entered the camp – didn’t realize why at the time, of course. Anyway, I knew I had a job to do – I had to go back inside the cabin.

  There were bodies everywhere. The problem was telling the dead from the living. I picked my way through, touching bodies here and there – all dead – until I got to the far end, where I saw this figure. I didn’t know at the time whether it was male or female, and I nearly turned and left, thinking it was a dead body.

  Then I saw some movement. An arm – such a skinny arm – moved very slightly. I stepped over the mess to get there – over a couple of stinking chamber pots and a pile of filthy clothes – and knelt down there. It was a young girl, a living skeleton like the rest. I touched her shoulder and her eyes opened. I can’t forget her eyes; they didn’t seem human. It was like a wooden doll – one of those marionettes – a very thin one – moving its arm about in front of me. The arm didn’t move much.

  Then I turned away and stepped over to the corner, where the other soldiers couldn’t see me, and I had a little cry. Then I felt bad because I was thinking more about myself than her.

  I took out my fresh water and sugar and offered her some. She didn’t have the strength to hold anything, so I dabbed some of each onto her lips – they felt so dry. She started moving about more, like some creature coming alive. I helped her to sit up because she didn’t have the energy to do it herself, and gave her some more sugar and water. She wound her fingers around the bag of sugar and started pulling gently – I suppose
it must have been all the strength she had. I let her have it and she finished the lot, then started licking the inside of the paper like a dog clearing out its food bowl.

  I asked her what her name was, and she tried to talk but she couldn’t; only a groan came out. I didn’t know whether she could understand English so I pointed to myself and said, ‘Teddy,’ then pointed to her and raised my eyebrows. Again I think she was trying to speak but she was too weak. I asked her whether she wanted anything else, and she must have understood some English because she nodded to me, then folded her arms and shivered. I took a blanket from my rucksack and wrapped it around her shoulders. She opened her mouth again and tried to speak – I think she just wanted to thank me but couldn’t talk. She curled up and I noticed her feet were bare, although covered in dirt and cuts. I felt them and they were like ice.

  Well, this was April and it was starting to get warmer, so I took off my boots and then my socks, the usual green woollen jobs – I could do without them for one day. I put the socks on her feet and pulled them up towards her knees but . . . but it really upset me because they wouldn’t stay up. There was no calf; the girl didn’t have any calf muscle left to speak of. I almost cried again but had to stop myself because I knew there must have been hundreds – if not thousands – like her, and I had to get on with the job. Shedding tears wasn’t going to help nobody.

  I asked her again what her name was but she just swallowed, so I shook my head and told her it didn’t matter. I picked her up – light as a feather, she was – I wasn’t a big man but I’ll bargain I could have carried ten of her. I took her outside and headed for the medical tent.

  We passed one of the SS guards being marched off out of the gates. When he saw us he pointed to the girl I was carrying and shouted out two words – what I assumed was her name. The first word was Dee; I don’t know whether it was her name or the initial ‘D’, but I know it was one or the other because he shouted it out three times. I can’t remember the surname after all these years – I wasn’t really sure back then.