The Running Years

by Claire Rayner

  ‘Yes. Marcus would have done that,’ she said, and sheered away from thoughts of Marcus again. ‘Please, Mr Peterson, can you try to find out for me what has happened? I can’t help being afraid. Maybe she’s ill. I just can’t understand the silence. Though if she were in trouble she’d be in touch, surely.’

  ‘Surely,’ Mr Peterson said drily. Quite surely. I will of course do what I can. I will see to it that messages are left at every branch of the British American Bank to be delivered to Mrs Lammeck should she go to them. The perhaps she will make contact.

  ‘Yes.’ She seized on that gratefully. ‘Yes, please. Just ask them to tell her to cable me, or write to me or something. Anything. Just to know she’d all right. She and the baby.’

  ‘Your granddaughter, yes,’ Mr Peterson said, and then coughed a little stiffly and said, 'I - I have not spoken to you since - since Sir Marcus … ’

  ‘Please, Mr Peterson, let’s just take it as said, whatever it is. Please? I … I appreciate your kindness, the kindness you’ve always shown me. Let’s just stop there, shall we?’

  ‘Of course,’ he said, and began to pack his briefcase again. ‘So, that it that. I am always available as you know. Just a telephone call or a letter and will come at once to arrange anything you wish arranged. And as soon as I hear anything about Mrs Rupert Lammeck, I will of course let you know.’

  But he never did, because there was silence still. All he could report as the months and then the years went by was that the income was being drawn regularly, and that was all. Clearly Marie was alive and well enough to go to her banks, wherever she was, and she certainly seemed to travel a lot, for the bank reports came from a bewildering number of places, but she was not, for some reason, prepared to communicate with her family in England. And there was nothing Hannah could do to make her.

  She swallowed that distress too, sitting day after day quietly sewing in her dining room, while Cissie sat beside her singing under her breath, and thinking only of the stitches she was setting, of the length of a seam, the shape of a shoulder. She ate her meals and went occasionally to walk around the square, wearing though it was, for her ankle still gave her a lot of spain. She listened to music on her wireless. Sometimes the family came to visit, brought in Uncle Alex’s car, old Uncle Benjamin and David and Sonia, and whichever Reuben and Minnie’s vast brood was available, and they would drink tea and gossip of family matters and sometimes play solo among much badinage and arguments about who had played what card in the wrong way. it was, on the surface a tranquil life, an oasis of peace in the middle of the conflagration of a terrible war. And no one looking at Hannah would have known the maelstrom that was beneath that quiet surface. Indeed, they told each other, all of them, Hannah was a marvel, a real marvel, taking her loss so well, not moaning like some would, and with both her children gone as well as her husband. Nebbish, are real guteneh shumah thinking only of others and not of herself, so good to Cissie and Florrie and the neighbours. And underneath it all she was in a turmoil.

  A turmoil of guilt. What was it about her, Hannah would ask herself in the long dark nights, what was it about her that destroyed those she most loved? Daniel and Peter and Marcus, Marie and Charles, all gone, vanished into a past that existed only inside her head that filled her with despair. What had she done to have earned so sharp a punishment? She had never been taught to believe in her God as a caring loving personage. Nathan had not been one who could give such a message to his children, consumed as he was with his own rage against the world and the God who had made it. No, God had never figured in her scheme of things, till now.

  And the God she now found was an angry one, a vengeful one, paying her in hard coin for sins she could not know she had committed. So she would tell herself, trying to understand. What did I do? Why me? What did I do that made me so poisonous to those I love? Why do they die? Why do they go away?

  She became more and more enmeshed in her view of herself as uniquely wicked, uniquely punished. The quieter and more serene she was by day with other people, the more bitter and angry and hurt she was at night alone. And somehow, that helped. Whatever it was she had done, surely she was paying for it now? This cruel God could not do worse to her, could he?

  It was a sort of comfort, for a little while. Until late one October evening in 1944.

  66

  It was an evening with a difference because Florrie and Cissie had gone out to the cinema on one of their rare expedition. There had been a time when Florrie and Bet had gone to the pictures every Saturday night, but that had stopped in 1940, when Bet went away. After that it had seemed, Florrie said, unpatriotic to spend money on such rubbish when the was fighting going on. And anyway, not so much fun. But now, as the news of the war improved each day, and the end seemed actually to be a possibility, her doubts about the morality of such simple pleasures were eased, and she was willing to go, even though the flying bombs had started to make nuisances of themselves.

  ‘They didn’t get me the first time round when they was aiming their bombs right at me,’ she had said firmly, putting on her hat and her sensible knitted gloves, for it was a cold evening, ‘so they won’t get me this time, sending them things off from the other side of the Channel like they do, and not knowing who they're going for. Stands to reason - ’

  They had tried to persuade Hannah to come too, but she would not. It was difficult to cope if her ankle caused her pain, as it so often did, when she was sitting in the middle of a crowded row and couldn’t get out, she told them. She would stay home and listen to ’saturday Night Theatre' on the wireless. ‘You tell me all about it tomorrow, Florrie. And I'll have some cocoa ready for you when you get in.’

  So she was alone, sitting in her drawing room, listening to the wireless in the dark. There was a pleasure in not curtaining the windows, in being able to see the faint moon haze out there. It was as though she were somehow defying the blackout.

  The play was dull, and she had almost dozed off in her comfortable armchair when she heard the rattle of the knocker on the front door, and jumped in the darkness. After a moment it was repeated, and she sat there uneasily listening. Who would visit her so late on a Saturday evening? None of the family ever did. She began to be frightened, sitting there alone in the darkness. She got to her feet awkwardly to limp to the window and look out.

  There was a tall figure on the doorstep. She could just see the silhouette as she craned her neck and as though he could see her, he turned and stared up at the window and she drew back, nervously.

  He knocked again, and once more lifted his face to the window. As a rack of cloud moved away from the moon she could see him a little more clearly, a cadaverous face, with a lot of dark hair flopping over the forehead and very dark eyes that looked like blank hollows in that pallid skull. And she felt another lift of fear.

  After a while she saw him put his hand in his pocket, and take out something and as she watched she realized he was writing, his head bent close over his hands so that he could see what he was doing. She heard the letter box rattle as he pushed something through and then he went walking slowly but purposefully down the steps. She watched him go and then slowly drew the curtains and switched on the lamp on the small occasional table before, unwillingly, going to the front door to se what he had pushed through.

  It was the back of a cigarette packet. She stared down at the picture of the sailor with his heavy moustache, locked forever inside his rope entwined lifesaver, and the legend 'Players Please,’ and then turned it over, and read the heavy pencil scribble on the other side.

  ‘I will return later in the hope you are here. I have news of Charles and Henk.’ That was all. She stared blankly at it and then, sick with terror, scrabbled at the front door, dragging it open, limping out onto the steps as she fast as she could, looking for him.

  He had reached the far side of he Square, almost to the corner where the King’s Road was, or someone had, for she could just see a moving figure - and she shouted at the top of her voic
e, ‘Come back. Come back!’ and stood there very still staring so hard that lights began to leap inside her straining eyes.

  Miraculously he heard her, for he stopped and then turned and came back with the same slow walk, not seeming at all surprised to be so summoned, until he was standing at the foot of her steps looking up at her in the dimness.

  ‘Mevrouw Lammeck?’ he said, ‘I beg your pardon, it should be I think, Lady Lammeck.’

  ‘Yes, no, it doesn’t matter. You know Charles? You have news of Charles? Where is he? Is he coming?’

  He was silent for a moment and then said again, ‘I have news of Charles.’

  'Please, come in, come in and tell me. Oh, I am sorry I didn’t answer sooner. I'm alone, you see. I was worried. Please, please come in.’ She was gabbling in her excitement, and she reached forward to seize him, to hurry him in, and almost tripped. He took her wrist in a firm grasp and steadied her, then led her into the house again.

  ‘A drink some cocoa. I have some whiskey somewhere, maybe - ’

  ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘Just some time. I have a message to give you. Then I must go.’

  'Who are you? A friend of Charles? Oh, I can’t tell you what hell it’s been, all the time, so frightened, he’s been gone so long, it’s been over five years, you see. I’ve been so frightened, so - ’

  ‘Your husband?’ the man said , and she looked at him, surprised he didn’t know and then angry with herself for her own stupidity. Why should he know?

  ‘He was killed in an air raid,’ she said stiffly, waiting for the words of commiseration that she so hated. But he only nodded and said, ‘Ah', calmly a though that were were news he had expected.

  ‘Then I need not wait to speak. I can tell you alone.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It would have been better to tell you in company with him, but that is not possible cannot be possible.’ He spoke perfect English but there was a precision about his speech and a purity of tone about his vowel sounds that made it clear he was not English. As though he heard her thoughts he bowed and said, ‘I am Gerhard De Jongh, Mevrouw Lady Lammeck. Of Amsterdam. Your servant, madam.

  ‘I … Hannah,’ she said. ‘Call me Hannah.’

  ‘It would not be proper, he said gravely. ‘I am younger than perhaps I seem. I am twenty-nine. Two years younger than Charles.’

  ‘He’s your friend? You know him well?’

  ‘Friends, yes,’ he said. ‘Perhaps I sit down to speak to you?’

  ‘Of course, I'm sorry, it’s just that I'm … this way, please.’

  She led him into the drawing room and he sat down neatly in a chair beside the lamplit table. She could see him clearly now, a thin man with heavy lines on his cheeks and very deep set eyes. He was right, he did look much older than twenty- nine and she felt suddenly very sad for him, wanting to touch him, and comfort him. He looked cold and hungry and in need of care. But then he leaned back in his chair with an easy movement that made him seem so in command of the situation that she could not offer him food she would have done.

  ‘Mr De Jongh,’ she said carefully, ‘I am glad indeed to see you. Perhaps, now, you will tell me what it is you know of my Charles?’

  He stared at her for a long moment and then said sharply, You seem very comfortable here.’

  ‘I - what? Yes, I suppose so.’ She looked round the room, at the neat richness of it, the handsome well kept furniture, the bowl of late dahlias from the garden Florrie had set on the mantelpiece, and saw it through his eyes for a moment. It looked wealthy and very comfortable and she said again, ‘Yes, I suppose so.’

  ‘You have enough food?’

  She frowned sharply. ‘We have our rations.’

  ‘Ah, yes, rations. English rations. Enough to live on, I believe. The people I see in the streets do not look hungry.’

  ‘Yes, I suppose - Look, what is this? You said you had news of Charles and - ‘ 'Yes, I have. But I am interested to see how little you English suffer. You share the war, yet you have enough food while our people starve, our children starve. Your streets are not filled with soldiers with guns.’

  ‘There are soldiers everywhere,’ she cried, stung, and he laughed.

  ‘Your own soldiers! Those of course, But no Germans.’

  ‘No,’ he said.’ No Germans. You are right, we are fortunate. But please, tell me. What news have you for me?’

  He leaned back in the chair and pulled his raincoat open and she saw he was wearing a heavy sweater underneath it. His hand was bony and rather dirty, and she felt suddenly very old. He seemed to young for all he was so tired and drawn.

  ‘I have so much to tell you I hardly know here to begin,’ he said. So much. I think perhaps I will have that whisky after all.’

  She fetched for him, trying not to think. Everything about his manner was filling her with dread, and when she gave him his drink she thought wildly for a moment as he stared up at her with those deep dark eyes, ‘He doesn’t know Charles at all He’s a thief, a murderer, come to kill me while I'm alone, he doesn’t know Charles at all.’ But he said, ‘Thank you, Mevrouw,’ gravely and she knew she was being foolish.

  ‘Well?’ she said, and he took a deep draught of his drink and then put the glass down beside him.

  ‘I have known Charles Lammeck for many years,’ he said, Indeed, he recruited me.’

  ‘Recruited?’

  ‘To the Party.’

  ‘I see. Politics.’

  ‘Yes. Politics. it is what this war is about, Mevrouw.’ She felt the anger in him and was ashamed at the note of asperity that had crept into her voice.’

  ‘So,’ he recruited you to the Party. And you are friends?’

  ‘Yes. He and Henk and I. For a long time. We talk together, laugh together, chase girls together.’

  Her head lifted suddenly. ‘Girls? He had girl friends? Oh, I'm so glad.’ 'Because of your daughter? Yes, do not look so surprised. I know of that matter. He took it hard, I know. He told me all, and I had sympathy. These spoiled over-rich Jewish girls are all of a type.’

  She reddened. ‘You know nothing of the matter!’

  ‘Don’t I? Well, it is not important. As I say, we are friends. And we work together against the Nazis, in Holland, then in Germany. When the trouble starts, we three get back to Amsterdam just in time. Underground, you undertand.’

  ‘I'm not sure I do.’

  He sighed, irritably. ‘We are Jews and Communists! Both! You think the Germans are for such as we to be walking about easy. Of course not. So we hide. We get a room in a house in the Kaisersgracht and we stay there all day, come put at night, go to meeting, try to organize the people. They will be not organized, many of them, Some, yes. But most are already too frightened. Still, we go on trying and then it begins … ’

  She did not ask him what had begun; she just sat there staring at him in the lamplight, waiting.

  ‘First there were the rules of behaviour for Jews, where they may work, what they may do, the rules, the rules. And then the Dutch, some of them not many but enough, began to buy their own safety by informing. They help the police collect the Jews to deport them. They help flush them out of houses where they hide. The old women, the children, the sick men, all of them. For a couple of guilders, another ration of potatoes.’

  He took up his scotch again and drank thirstily and she took his glass from him and refilled it without a word. He took it with only a nod of thanks.

  ‘We do what we can, Henk and Charles and I. Some we smuggle out. We get them to the little boat and we smuggle them out. Others we try, but we fail and Charles - oh, Charles became so angry. It is the most beautiful thing I have ever seen!’ The deep eyesseemed to be alight. Whisky, she thought dully. I should have given him some food.

  ‘What happened?’ she said after a while, for he had stopped talking, sitting staring into his glass with his eyes very wide open.

  ‘Hum? Oh, yes. What happened.’ He drew one hand across his lips, a worried little
small-boy sort of gesture. ‘He went back to Germany.’

  ‘Back to - but how? How could he do such a - ’

  ‘He said things were happening that that we did not know enough about. That he had to get news. That somehow we had to discover what they were going with all the Jews who were being shifted out of Holland and why the Germans were doing it. It all seemed so … he said it was a puzzle that must be cleared. We had heard of work camps, you see. We knew of those. But Charles said he believed something else was happening, and he wanted to know what it as. So, he went back to find out.’

  ‘And how - I mean, what happened? Is he still there?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Then where is he? For God’s sake man, stop being so - you're playing games with me and I want no more of it! If you have news, give it to me. No more of this. I can’t take more of this.’ She luxuriated in her anger, letting it wash over her, almost encouraging it. ‘I’ve had more than enough of your … your stupid sideways talk! Tell me what has happened to my Charles or go away! I have waited this long for news, I can wait longer. If you won’t tell me, someone will, some time.

  ‘You want news? You want to know what he discovered? You want to hear how he got back to Amsterdam, last summer? How he looked. What he told me? Then, by God, you will. Every word of it. Every last word than I can tell you I will tell you, you comfortable English lady here in London where the Jews can live in their houses like other people and never be hurt. Where there are no German soldiers with guns in the streets!’

  Later, much later she tried to remember the actual words he had used. How he had explained to her in ordinary English in those precise tones of his the facts that Charles had collected, but she could not. All she could remember were the pictures inside her head, the pictures he had painted for her, sitting there in his raincoat in the armchair in her drawing room in Paultons Square.

  She saw Charles now, thinner now, for he had been ill, buying forged papers with money he had begged from one of the Damont family before they all managed to leave Amsterdam to go to America, for the Willem Damonts were rich, very rich. She saw him travelling by roundabout routes to Berlin, posing as a Dutch schoolteacher with Nazi sympathies, looking for a connection of the Willem Damont who had given him the money he needed. His sister, in fact. Leontine von Aachen.