It was dark when they left and the guard held a torch whose slit of light barely picked out the path shovelled through the snow and Heine looked at him and wondered how far he would get if he pushed him to the ground and ran. But he didn’t because it would be pointless. He would not be able to go home, for that is where they would look for him.
At the station the guard bought him tea and the steam rose into his face, blurring his eyes, warming his skin. He pushed his gloves into his pockets and held his hands more tightly round the cup. He sipped, knowing that Helen was not far away, that his son was there too. Knowing that his appeal would be rejected because he must not betray his father. They left to board the train but it was late into the station and the guard looked around. He was young and looked kind and Heine had told him about Germany, about Munich, about Helen.
‘There’s a phone over there, mate,’ the soldier said. ‘Give your wife a ring. I won’t listen.’ He handed money to Heine and walked behind him to the booth.
Heine lifted the receiver, dropped in the money, pushed the button and heard her voice and for seconds he could not speak. Then he said, ‘Helen, it’s me. I’m just about to get on the train. I’ve had my appeal hearing. I’m going back but it’s breaking my heart, my darling.’ He didn’t know where the sobs were coming from in a grown man.
‘Heine, I’ll come. I can come. They’ve told me I can come and see you. Don’t cry, darling. Don’t cry. It will be all right.’
But on the train with its meshed windows, its black out blinds, the dim lights, he knew that it would not be all right because he had set himself up in opposition and now he was not going to escape the Nazis. Would he ever get home again?
CHAPTER 7
Helen sat on the wooden seat. The brass plaque which had been screwed into the wood was dull. What would Sir Reginald Potter think of that, she wondered, as she watched Chris swing high into the air, lifting her face to the spring sunshine of 1940, and who was he anyway to warrant a park bench as a memorial? It was Sunday, her day off, and there were other children here after a winter bare of young voices. The children were trickling back from the countryside because no bombs had fallen. Nothing seemed to be happening and people were kinder to her now that Heine had gone and no invasion had occurred.
Chris laughed at the boy on the swing next to him. He had grown since Christmas, he was tall for seven and mature and he smiled more now that the schools had opened in the mornings and the boys no longer had time to lie in wait for him en route to Dr Schultz. He was happy there, secure, and Dr Schultz had said that it would not be a good idea to move him back to the old school where hate might still lash out at him in snarls and punches.
Helen fingered the letter which had arrived from Heine yesterday telling her that visits could be made twice a week for two hours. He knew she could not come so frequently but if she obtained permission it would lighten his days and his nights.
She looked up at the sky again, where white clouds drifted against the blue, where no aeroplanes had yet roared, bucking and firing; bombing. Yes, she had obtained permission and would go soon to see him and the thought filled her with joy.
Shading her eyes, she watched the barrage balloon which was anchored by wires in a corner of the park. The airmen who were always there now, guarding, winding, checking, sat outside their metal hut smoking, occasionally talking, sometimes laughing with the children who hovered near. Perhaps they were reminded of their own families, thought Helen. Did Heine ever speak to children?
The balloon’s elastic sides heaved in the slight breeze; its floppy ears trembled. It was never still, always fighting to escape, to climb higher still. In February one had broken loose, its wires snapping as the wind had torn and snatched at the air-filled hulk above. It had floated off, its wires breaking tiles and chimney pots but it had not escaped. It had been shot, sinking airless and powerless to the ground, covering the road and the gardens. You should know you can’t escape the war, Helen had said, and knew that she had spoken aloud because a man who was walking his dog paused and laughed.
Would these lumbering balloons really force aeroplanes up into the sky so that accurate bombing was impossible, so that strafing of civilians would be impracticable? ‘We shall see,’ Helen murmured, beckoning now to Chris because she felt sure the bombers would come. But when?
‘Time for lunch.’ She smiled as he shook his head. ‘Come along, no arguments.’
He came then and they walked home past the Wardens’ post where they too sat outside in the sun, their overalls unbuttoned at the neck, ARW embroidered in yellow. Mr Simkins from the flat next door was there, his tin helmet resting on one of the sandbags which lined the walls. There were more bags on the roof and a post with the number ‘51’ stuck out from them. Mrs Simkins, who looked after Chris until Helen returned from work, said that a bit of power had turned her old man into a right little ’itler.
Helen nodded and waved and Ed Simkins smiled, flicking the ash from his cigarette on to the ground before throwing her a half salute. They had always been kind and helpful, and other neighbours were too now that Heine had gone. Helen lay awake at night and felt guilty at the relief his absence brought. She lay awake too because of the pain that absence also brought and could make no sense of anything any more.
Chris did not hold her hand now as they walked. He was too big, he had said, and Helen had been pleased at his confidence. They passed posters stuck on the wall showing them how to remove distributor heads and leads, how to empty petrol tanks or remove carburettors in the event of an invasion. They were torn now and discoloured, one hung by a corner only and folded over on itself. Chris swung his gas mask at the sandbags which were heaped at the foot of the lamppost outside their house.
‘Careful, Chris. You might need that.’
He just grinned. ‘It’s good for putting my lead cowboys in, Mum. They fit in beside the mask. There hasn’t been any gas, has there? No bombs either. Nothing’s happening, is it?’
Helen turned the key in the lock. No, nothing was happening.
They sat quietly in the evening, either side of the small fire because, though the days were warm and blossom hung from the trees in the park, the heat vanished with the sun. Helen could smell the smoke which hung above the coal which she had wrapped individually in damp newspaper to make it last longer. Smoke drifted out into the room but she could not open the window wider because the blackout would be broken.
She knitted, her hands sore from digging up the lawn for vegetables as everyone else was doing. More things would be rationed soon and she would grow potatoes and cabbages.
Chris was making a balsa wood aeroplane and the sharp, clean smell of glue cut through the bitterness of the smoke. His lips were set together, a frown dug down between his eyebrows. He was eating well, though meals were dull and repetitive with only half the usual food being imported. At least now everyone had two ounces of butter, and in the grocer’s yesterday afternoon one woman had said that she had never tasted it before in her life and that if this was what war did to you, it was a bloody good thing. She had laughed then, showing blackened teeth and gaps where there were none and Helen had smiled but felt angry that so many people who lived in this part of London were tasting butter for the first time and that it took a war to distribute food fairly.
She watched now as Chris took out the Oxo tin which he kept in the cupboard under the wireless. There was a concert playing quietly and he should really go to bed but it was good to have someone else in the room.
He took a cotton reel from the tin and cut notches in its high rims.
‘What on earth are you doing?’ she said, setting down her knitting, pushing back her hair. ‘Be careful.’
Chris did not look up but said, ‘I’m making a tank.’
Helen did not want him to be taken over by the war. ‘What about your cowboys and Indians, the lead ones? A head came off, didn’t it? Have you repaired it?’
‘Of course, Mum, like you showed me. I stuck that
match you gave me into its head and pushed it down into the body.’ Helen poked at the fire and flame flickered up, clearing the smoke, giving off heat. She looked at her son kneeling on the floor, his socks down by his ankles, his shoes off and under the table. She wished she had her camera but they had all been confiscated.
‘But why a tank?’
‘Because the other boys are making them, that’s why.’
He was poking a hole in a stub of candle now, then making a slight groove along the top side. He pushed an elastic band through the hole and tried to keep it in place with a matchstick which lay in the groove. It would not stay and so Helen came and settled on to her knees too, holding it for him, hearing his breath as he concentrated. He threaded the band down through the reel, keeping the candle stub on the top, and pinned it fast to the bottom with a drawing pin.
She watched as he wound up the elastic band and laid the reel on its edge with the matchstick touching the small table. The frown was still there and so was the heavy breathing but slowly the tank began to move, unevenly but inexorably, and now he looked up at her and smiled. ‘That’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Very good,’ she replied. ‘Daddy would be proud of you.’
He just smiled and wound it up again.
The next week the warehouse behind the bank was filled with papier mâché coffins and the man who usually worked next to her was absent, arrested for filtering the red pool petrol through his gas mask filter and selling it on the black market for 6/6 a gallon.
On 9 April, the war which the Americans called phoney became real. German troops entered Denmark and moved into Norway, taking Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim and Narvik. The British newspapers claimed that the collapse of Norway was due largely to betrayal from within and Helen felt the tension knot in her back.
In May one Borough Council dismissed in the interests of public safety seventeen enemy aliens who had been engaged in Air Raid Protection work for the previous five months. A stone was thrown at Helen’s window but did not break it because of the gummed tape. She began to walk Christoph to school early, before work, because the boys were going later to school and waiting in the alleys again and her son grew drawn and tense and took a safety candle to bed each night, carrying the saucer it stood in, sheltering the flame with his hand as he walked, smiling to his mother, but the smile did not reach his eyes.
On 10 May Germany invaded Holland and Belgium and Chamberlain’s government fell during a debate on the Norwegian campaign. Winston Churchill became Prime Minister. On 12 May, it was declared that in the interests of safety male Germans and Austrians over sixteen and under sixty who lived near the coast were to be interned. The newspapers called for more action against the fifth-columnists who were probably signalling to aircraft, who were making plans behind their blackout curtains to betray the British nation to Hitler.
Each day there were more calls against the aliens and Mrs Simkins looked worried, though she still looked after Christoph because Heine was already interned, wasn’t he, dear, she had said, and could do no mischief. Helen had wanted to snatch her son from her but she needed her job and anyway would not be allowed to resign as it was necessary work.
Other aliens, from non-coastal areas, had to report daily to the police station in person and not use any motor vehicle, except public transport. They had to observe a curfew between eight in the evening and six in the morning. On 15 May, Helen had to appear before a tribunal because she was married to a German but was exonerated and that night she thought her head would burst with the pulsing pain and wondered who had written to the authorities. Who was trying to ruin her life?
Mrs Simkins heard in the greengrocer’s that one of the mothers in the park had reported her for taking too much notice of the barrage balloons and Helen just nodded but did nothing, for what could she do?
Helen washed the curtains that night, and the carpet, the paintwork, wanting it clean and fresh and new, wanting an end to it all but it had not even begun. She knew that, as the rest of Britain knew, because the bombers were waiting, somewhere they were waiting, and so were those in her area who hated the aliens. Despair was close.
She worked later now because there was so much to do and came home aching with tiredness, but Chris was crying in the night again and she told him that soon they would be able to go and see Daddy but he would not go. He didn’t want to because it was his daddy who made him different, who made people throw stones, and shout and spit at him, he sobbed. Each night he cried and each night Helen held him, angry that her son was frightened and confused. Angry at these people – angry at Heine. And then, when Chris slept, her anger faded because she loved her husband and wanted him, but still the anger was there, and the pain, and the tiredness. And still there were no bombers.
She travelled to the internment camp on 25 May after receiving permission to enter a coastal area. At each change of train police stopped her and everyone else, checking their identity cards, their driving licences, before allowing them to proceed. She bought weak tea on the platform, sipping it, watching people waiting on platforms for trains. They were normal, fighting a war, an enemy they could see clearly, and she was envious because she remembered Heine’s parents and friends and wished she did not know so many good Germans for then it would be so much easier.
Her tea was nearly finished and now she could hear the train. She talked to other passengers as they lurched and rattled away from the station. She did not tell them why she was travelling but talked instead of her son and an old woman asked, ‘Will you evacuate him?’
‘Perhaps.’
As the wheels rattled she looked out of the window but could see little through the mesh. Perhaps, she thought to herself, because evacuation had been in and out of her mind since 9 April, not because of the planes which still had not come, but because of the boys who shouted and attacked. But Chris could not go where he was known, he could not go where the other children had gone, so where? Joan who worked beside her at the bank had an aunt in Norfolk who was kind and tolerant and had said she would have him, but how could she let him go? He was only seven and she loved him, needed him. How could she let him go?
From the station she walked through the town, asking in a shop where the internment camp was, and ignored the stares and the hostility because she was used to it. She walked past the houses, the barbed wire which seemed to be everywhere, coiled in long rolls along the beach. Past the empty ice-cream stands, the rows of boarding houses, some shuttered, forlorn. Past the gardens which still held flowers. She heard the gulls which Heine had written of, smelt the sea breeze, saw the hawthorn in full leaf as she walked down the lane, heard the birds, full-throated, melodic.
There was a high wire fence at the bottom of the lane, and gates guarded by sentries. More barbed wire was rolled on top of the squat huts. It was like nothing that she had seen before and Heine was here, barricaded like a criminal. Helen showed her pass and was escorted to a hut by a soldier with a bayonet that glinted in the sun. It was two-thirty p.m. Behind that door would be her husband but she must not tell him of Chris crying, or of the boys, because he must think that they were safe.
He was there, sitting at a table, but then she saw that it was not one table, but two pushed together. He looked older, thinner and she went to him but was waved back by a guard.
‘Sit there,’ he ordered, pointing to a chair at the other side of the two tables. ‘And you must not touch your husband.’
Helen walked towards the chair, looking at Heine, not at the two tables that had been pushed together so that she could not reach him, could not touch his thin hands, his tanned skin. Could not smell his skin or kiss him. She sat, clasping her hands together and they said nothing yet, just looked, and then he smiled.
‘Hello, my darling.’ His voice was the same.
They talked then and another prisoner brought coffee in a tin mug and she told him of the bank manager who dealt with all the munitions and war factory accounts and how she worked until late because records m
ust be kept, details must be logged, or production would falter. She told him of the balloon in the recreation ground and how it had torn free. She told him of Mrs Simkins’s kindness. All this he already knew from her letters but it did not matter because they were speaking words which reached over the distance between them.
She did not tell him of Chris.
Heine told her of the English he taught Willi. Of the hairdresser who had opened up in one of the huts. He told her of the concerts which were held every Tuesday. He did not tell her of the barbed wire which had pierced their roof, letting in the water when it rained. He did not tell her of the Nazi sailors who were picking flowers to make victory wreaths. He did not tell her that they sang in the evening of Jewish blood dripping from Nazi steel, shouting also that Hitler was very close. He did not tell her that he had been beaten again for taking the scissors from the hairdresser because he would not cut Jewish hair. Neither did he tell her that she was too thin and her eyes were sad.
‘You are so beautiful, Helen. You are so very lovely.’
‘And so are you, my darling. You will be careful. You will think of us, remember that you must come home to us.’ Helen could see the bruise on his neck which he had not spoken of. But she would say no more because they both had their war to fight and when she left she didn’t cry or look back until she was far along the lane and all the time she wondered if she could bear to come again, only to leave him so thin, so hurt.
On 28 May Belgium surrendered and the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk began. Small boats, big boats, ships; anything that could float took men from the beach and the sea and filled up the stations, the trains, the camps, the hospitals in Britain. Helen saw them in lorries being driven from Waterloo, dazed and defeated, and wondered what would happen now, and she was frightened, as everyone she met was frightened. Invasion could be only weeks away, the press said, and so did the girls she worked with and the passengers in the tram queue as they craned to see the illuminated number which had been moved from the front top to the side to avoid attracting enemy aircraft and Helen wanted to run home, snatch up Chris and hide. But where?
Somewhere Over England Page 12
