Nocturne

by Diane Armstrong

  During these bombing raids, he always kept his mind focused on the impersonal concept of ‘the target’, but this time his mind kept straying to the statistics.

  They’d been told that, within two minutes, 529 Lancs would drop 1800 tonnes of incendiary bombs onto a city crowded with refugees fleeing from the east, a city with few anti-aircraft defences.

  He knew what these incendiary bombs would do. The roaring rush of overheated air would create a tornado of flames that sucked people in and reduced them to cinders. In London, Judith spent her days healing maimed and burnt patients, while he was on a mission that would maim and burn others. The more he tried to stifle that thought, the more powerfully it gripped his mind. In their desperate struggle to win the war, were they losing the moral values for which they’d been fighting?

  He knew that each member of the crew had his own demons and none of them were as nonchalant as they appeared. Negative feelings were best kept to oneself. But one question kept running through his mind.

  ‘Do you ever think about what we’re actually doing?’ he asked Stewart.

  His navigator looked surprised. ‘Too right I do,’ he said. ‘We’re giving them a dose of their own medicine. We’re repaying them for starting all this, for the Blitz, for Coventry, for Warsaw, and for their death camps. If we let up now, they could still win this fucking war. Just think what sort of world we’d be living in then.’

  Adam fell silent.

  It was a textbook flight. The cloud that had obscured the city the day before had lifted, and there was less flak than on previous raids. The Pathfinders had flown ahead, marking the target with flares to guide the flotilla of bombers.

  Suddenly Adam called out, ‘Look at that!’ Twenty thousand feet below, they could see Dresden lit up by the red glow of fires. The rear gunner whistled through his teeth. ‘What a target!’

  The bomb-run began and they felt that familiar rush of adrenalin as the navigator called ‘Steady, steady, left, left’ while they ran the gauntlet of the flak and searchlights. The bomb doors opened and the Lanc lurched each time a bomb was released and hurtled through the waiting air.

  No one spoke as the plane turned and headed for home above a solid sheet of fire that resembled Vulcan’s workshop. As the plane rose, it flew through banks of clouds whose unearthly colour startled them. Even a hundred miles from Dresden, the clouds were tinted red.

  Adam glanced at his fingers that protruded from the ends of his cut-off gloves, as though he expected to see blood on them. They were all staring, struggling with conflicting thoughts and emotions. Tomasz’s voice was hoarse. ‘Those poor buggers down there.’

  At the wireless controls, Romek pushed his hair back from his forehead. ‘Don’t ask me to shed tears for Germans, for Christ’s sake. Do you think they’re crying for the millions of Poles they’ve murdered?’

  Adam didn’t speak. No one emerged from war with clean hands.

  All around them, the returning Lancs looked like black darts flying through the air. There were flak shells slicing through the sky now, and below them black smoke trailed from one of their planes. The starboard wing was on fire.

  A moment later, Stewart said, ‘He’s gone.’ Adam looked down and was startled by the horrifying beauty of the plummeting plane, which resembled a huge flower bursting into flames.

  Suddenly he heard a loud crumping sound. The plane was being buffeted about. Adam tried to keep it steady but his right shoulder hurt so much he couldn’t move his arm. When he touched his shoulder, there was blood on his left glove. He’d been hit. He gritted his teeth to avoid making a sound and alarming the others.

  A moment later they started losing height. He smelled smoke. The plane was engulfed in flames and spinning out of control.

  ‘Hit the silk and bail out!’ he shouted.

  With trembling fingers, they fastened their parachutes and, one by one, jumped out. But when Adam tried to pull on his parachute, he froze. It had disintegrated in the fire. There was no time to panic, no time to think. Either he stayed in the burning plane and became incinerated, or he jumped out without a parachute. He felt for the cigarette case in his breast pocket, closed his eyes and launched himself into space, hoping for a swift death as he hurtled towards earth like a broken missile.

  Fifty-Six

  Light was starting to break through the charcoal sky when Elzunia hurried to the kitchen, rehearsing what she was about to say. Her stomach was grinding as she wondered how the chef would react. His moods could change so rapidly from bonhomie to hostility, and there had been times when he’d brandished one of his sharp knives and threatened to kill her, yelling that the filthy Slavs were the scum of the earth and should be exterminated. She could always tell what the day would be like by looking at his hands. If they shook, it meant he’d already started on the schnapps and would soon be stumbling around the kitchen, bellowing. But somehow he always managed to finish cooking before collapsing in an alcoholic stupor. The following morning, he had no recollection of his drunken outbursts and reverted to his gruff manner, which, as Elzunia had discovered, concealed a good heart. While grumbling about useless Polish kitchen maids, he often slipped her and the children some of the leftovers. For the first time since they arrived, they weren’t starving, and the dark hollows disappeared from their faces.

  As soon as she saw him, she glanced nervously at his hands and was relieved to see that they were steady as he bustled at the stove preparing eggs, Weisswurst and Späetzle potatoes for the staff. After breakfast, she scrubbed the kitchen more meticulously than ever and made sure that the frying pans sparkled and the floor shone before saying, ‘Herr Schnabel, can I speak to you for a moment?’

  He waved an impatient hand. ‘Go on, get on with it; we have to start preparing lunch.’

  She swallowed. ‘I thought you should know that one of the women in my hut intends to come and see you to tell you something about me,’ she began.

  His neck seemed to swell and his face turned a forbidding shade of red. ‘What the hell are you gabbling about? What woman? What business has she got with me?’

  ‘She’s going to tell you that I’m Jewish.’ Hearing herself say the word, her legs almost gave way. She watched him anxiously. Would he denounce her? Her decision to forestall the Polish woman’s accusation was a dangerous gamble and could go either way.

  He stared hard at her. ‘Why are you bothering me with this rubbish?’

  ‘Well, because if she tells you, then you’ll wonder … you might think that … and then …’ she stammered.

  ‘I’m not interested in women’s idiotic gossip. And, as for you,’ he poked a warning finger at her, ‘stop wasting my time and get on with your work. Peel those potatoes and don’t stop till they’re done. Rumours indeed,’ he muttered as he waddled off to the pantry.

  As she reached for the potatoes, it struck her that he hadn’t even asked whether it was true.

  A few days later, when she arrived in the kitchen at five-thirty as usual, ready to light the stove, she was dismayed to see him lurching around and hiccuping.

  ‘Herr Schnabel,’ she said, ‘the people from the Arbeitsamt office are coming for lunch today. What would you like me to prepare?’ She wanted to jog his memory without arousing his fury.

  He reached for the bottle, took a long swig and swore loudly. ‘Scheisse! A bunch of nobodies throwing their weight around, that’s all they are.’

  She looked around to make sure no one heard him. With her help, he managed to get breakfast ready for the staff but as soon as it was over he staggered to a chair, flung himself into it and drained the rest of the bottle.

  She was alarmed. He was making dangerous comments and in this state he wouldn’t even be capable of preparing the soup, let alone the three-course meal the officials would expect. The factory manager would be furious and the chef would get the sack. And if he was fired, what would happen to her?

  The chef was already snoring, his mouth wide open, his legs sprawled out. She couldn�
��t risk the manager or one of the foremen coming into the kitchen and finding him in this condition.

  With Gittel and Zbyszek’s help, she dragged the chair with him in it into the storeroom adjoining the kitchen and closed the door. If someone came in, she could say he’d stepped into the storeroom. On the back of the door he’d pinned the menu for that day’s lunch: pea-and-ham soup, wiener schnitzel, fried potatoes, sauerkraut and Apfelstrudl. She knew how to make schnitzel and fried potatoes, and the sauerkraut came from a huge barrel in the cellar, but Apfelstrudl was another matter.

  The richness and profusion of the food in the larder made her dizzy with longing, the hams glistening with fat, the pork neck tinged delicately pink, the smooth, brown-shelled eggs lined up in rows. The pantry smelled of vanilla, apples and lemon rind but she forced herself to focus on her task. If she failed, the chef wouldn’t be the only one in trouble.

  Boiling potatoes and crumbing the veal was no problem but when she tried to roll out and stretch the strudl dough, just as she’d seen the chef doing, it kept tearing and breaking, and in frustration she tossed it into the rubbish bin. Time was marching on and her hands shook so much that she could hardly hold a spoon. Lunch was always served on the dot of one. What if she wasn’t ready on time? Searching desperately in the pantry, she found some Eierküchen in a metal tin. If she crumbled these sponge cakes, beat up some eggs and stirred plum jam through the mixture, perhaps she could pass it off as Kaiserschmarren.

  Delighted at having the freedom to move around the kitchen, Gittel and Zbyszek ran around, eager to help. The preparations were progressing well when Elzunia suddenly stopped and swore aloud. She’d forgotten about the soup. While the children ran to and from the pantry, bringing peas and carrots, she threw the vegetables into the huge vat with the ham hocks and surveyed the bubbling broth with satisfaction. She’d made enough for the factory workers as well. For once they would eat a nourishing soup.

  Just before one, she peered into the storeroom. The chef was still asleep but he was stirring. If he woke up and found the door closed, he might start shouting.

  Leaving the door ajar, she put on her white cap and apron, poured the soup into the porcelain tureen and carried it into the staff dining-room as usual, praying that her culinary efforts wouldn’t arouse suspicion.

  She was arranging the schnitzels on the Rosenthal platter while Gittel was decorating the edges with sprigs of dill when a booming voice almost made her drop the plate.

  ‘What the bloody hell is going on?’ he roared.

  Her heart was banging against her ribs. ‘You weren’t well, so I thought I’d better let you rest,’ she said, motioning for the children to return to their usual place in the recess beside the stove.

  He stared at the schnitzels and examined the fried potatoes.

  ‘Where’s the soup?’ he shouted.

  ‘They’re having it now.’

  ‘And what’s this supposed to be?’

  ‘Kaiserschmarren.’

  He snorted with derision. With a sheepish look in her direction, he threw the empty schnapps bottle into the rubbish bin. ‘Go on, don’t hang around,’ he said gruffly. ‘Clear the soup plates and serve the main course.’

  ‘Your chef has excelled himself today,’ she heard one of the officials telling the manager as she cleared the table after the dessert. ‘If you ever get tired of his cooking, send him to me.’

  While she was cleaning the kitchen and putting away the dishes, she caught the chef watching her speculatively.

  ‘When the war is over, I suppose you’ll go home and tell everyone how terrible we Germans were.’

  Elzunia didn’t answer. She waited for him to say it was the fault of the Versailles Treaty, or the Allies, or war in general, but he took several slow puffs of his cigarette and shrugged. ‘We all believed the ravings of a lunatic.’

  Elzunia was silent. People were willing to believe any lie, as long as it confirmed their prejudices and blamed others for their troubles.

  From snippets of conversations she overheard at the table, it seemed the Germans realised that the end wasn’t far off, and they knew they had lost. If only she could cling to this safe little corner until the end came.

  ‘You’re a clever little thing for a Pole,’ the chef grunted. ‘I’m going to promote you to assistant chef, and we’ll get another girl in to do the washing up. But your Kaiserschmarren stinks.’

  Fifty-Seven

  Adam’s eyelids fluttered open and quickly closed, speared by the light. A few moments later he opened his eyes again, more carefully this time. He heard himself groan. As a schoolboy, he had been fascinated by an illustration in his physics textbook in which two horses strained in opposite directions in a futile effort to pull apart massive metal domes that had formed a vacuum. As he floated in and out of consciousness, it seemed to him that in some incomprehensible way he had become a vacuum and his body was being pulled apart.

  Something was restraining him, preventing him from turning his head, but by swivelling his eyes sideways he could see a window criss-crossed by leadlights, its diamond-shaped panes glistening with a tracery of ice.

  So he was still alive. He must have been captured by the Germans, yet this room didn’t look like a prisoner-of-war camp. Perhaps it was a fortress like Colditz, where they’d imprisoned the AK leaders after the Uprising, although he couldn’t imagine they had been accommodated in individual rooms. He tried to raise his head but his neck was restricted by a brace, while his right leg was attached to a pulley.

  He closed his eyes. When he opened them again, someone was standing by the bed, holding a glass of water.

  ‘Ah, you are awake at last. Take this.’

  The woman holding out two large white tablets had wiry grey hair cut very short, and a brisk manner to match. Her apron had a bib over her chest, and her laced-up black shoes made no sound as she walked towards the window.

  ‘Where am I?’ he asked.

  ‘Schaffenburg Castle.’ She walked over to the window and ran a cloth over the misted panes.

  ‘I’d like to see the person in charge,’ he said.

  ‘You’re seeing her now.’ The woman’s mouth twitched in amusement. ‘I’m Baroness Maria von Schaffenburg. The castle has been in my family for generations. But you will rest now, ja?’ She walked out of the room, leaving him tormented by a hundred unanswered questions.

  His mind became a whirlpool that threatened to suck him in as he tried to remember what had happened. There was the crumping sound of the flak and the sudden searing pain in his shoulder. But where were the others? Had there really been flames inside the fuselage or had he dreamed it? He’d ordered them to bail out. He must have bailed out too. But he didn’t have a parachute. Then he remembered his stomach crashing into his throat, suffocating him, as he’d catapulted from the plane, turning helpless somersaults and screaming as the earth rushed towards him. How come he’d survived? It wasn’t possible. He closed his eyes and slept. In his dream, Judith was standing beside him, holding his hand.

  Bathed in perspiration despite the cold, he woke, mumbling and confused. Which was reality and which was fantasy? His tongue stuck to his mouth. He was at the mercy of a stranger who could have a sinister motive for keeping him there. What a fool he had been to swallow the tablets. When he looked down, he saw he was wearing pyjamas instead of his air-force uniform. Had they taken away his clothes so he couldn’t escape? And where was his cigarette case?

  He didn’t hear the baroness enter.

  ‘You are looking a little better now,’ she said, holding a glass of water to his lips. ‘You didn’t look so good after you fell out of the sky.’

  She had seen the enemy plane turn into a ball of fire, plummet down, and crash somewhere to the east of the castle. Several days later, while walking around her estate with her dogs, she heard them barking and whining under a giant spruce.

  ‘You were stuck upside down in that tree, wedged in the top branches, almost frozen stiff. The caretaker
had to use a ladder to get you down.’

  ‘Why did you bring me here?’ he asked incredulously.

  ‘You were injured,’ she said. ‘You needed a doctor.’

  He rephrased the question. ‘How come you didn’t send for the Gestapo?’

  ‘Ah. That’s another story.’ She rose. ‘Rest now. The doctor will come soon.’ And she disappeared once more.

  Dr Hermann checked Adam’s pulse, listened to his heartbeat, and told him to cough while he tapped his back.

  Then he looked up. ‘The human body is as resilient as the mind is weak,’ he said.

  His pink scalp showed through the thin strands of greying hair, and the bony face was covered in brown splotches but the bright eyes behind the shiny glasses showed no sign of age.

  ‘With your fractures and internal injuries, I wouldn’t have given you much of a chance,’ the doctor said. ‘Someone has been watching over you.’

  Adam thought about the missing cigarette case and wondered whether his luck would now run out.

  ‘So when —’ he began and stopped. There was no point hurrying to get away. He was probably safer there than outside. British airmen wouldn’t be very popular in Germany.

  The doctor answered his unspoken question. ‘Be patient. In two weeks we’ll remove the dressings, then we’ll see about your collarbone and leg, and work out a regime of exercise to strengthen your muscles.’

  As they were leaving the room, Adam heard the baroness urging the doctor to slip out through the back door, and realised the risk they were taking, looking after an enemy airman.

  The light was fading when Maria von Schaffenburg returned with some clear broth in a Dresden porcelain bowl. She pulled up a straight-backed wooden chair beside the bed, and, while he ate, she answered his questions in a quiet, unemotional voice.