Jan

by Peter Haden

  ‘I’m thinking out loud,’ Jan admitted, ‘but just supposing, do you think it would be possible for me to cross over?’

  ‘You could try for Switzerland,’ Günther responded. ‘That way, there would only be the border guards to consider. If you could get there, I have relatives who would help, but even then, your next choice would be either Italy or France. Il Duce and the Italians are not exactly on the side of the Allies, though, and by the time you reached Switzerland, France might be embroiled in conflict. Also, without a passport, leaving Switzerland might not be so easy.’ He paused for thought. ‘I admire your wish to help your country. It might be dangerous, but if your mind is made up then crossing into France or Belgium whilst there is still a phoney peace might be your best option. Equally, you could just stay here. You’re a skilled worker, contributing to the war effort. You should be all right and we would never do or say anything to put you at risk.’

  ‘You said that I would have to move out of my room and that some sort of military workshop will be established,’ Jan responded. ‘How much can you tell me about what’s likely to happen?’

  Günther gave him the bare outline. A German engineer would be in overall charge. Polish labour would be provided. The SS or the Wehrmacht would supply a few guards. The building would need to be expanded and they would probably throw up a security fence around the facility. ‘I’m not looking forward to it,’ Günther concluded, ‘but I don’t have a choice. I think the engineer is due to arrive the day after tomorrow.’ He did not mention the threats that had been made, although both his wife and daughter were aware of them.

  Again, the room fell silent for a full minute. ‘Sir, I have to think,’ Jan said eventually. ‘Would it be possible for us to talk again in the morning?’

  ‘Of course,’ Günther replied immediately. ‘Don’t eat in your room. I’ll ask Frau Brantis to make you a decent breakfast and you can come through to the study immediately afterwards.’

  Jan turned to Frau Raschdorf and thanked her for the coffee and cake.

  ‘Poor Jan – so much has happened to you, at such a young age, and now this…’ her reply tailed off sympathetically. ‘But you mustn’t feel that you are on your own,’ she went on, trying to sound a little more optimistic. ‘You still have us, and we will help you in any way that we can.’

  ‘Would you mind if I walked with you back to the workshop?’ Renate asked him. ‘After all this, I could do with some fresh air.’ In truth, she did not need a walk, but she was concerned for Jan. Brave as he was, to go into Poland and back, she knew that a dreadful tragedy had fallen onto his young shoulders.

  They set out, side by side, walking slowly and without speaking. Jan could not help thinking about what he had found in Poland. At the vision of his father and then Aniela he couldn’t help himself: embarrassed, he covered his eyes with his right hand as tears coursed down his face. Renate stopped, then turned to face him. He wiped his eyes on his sleeve. She stepped closer and gently brushed away what was left of the dampness, moving her thumbs outwards over his cheeks. Then she put her arms right round him and gave him a huge squeeze of sympathy and support.

  ‘Come on,’ she said quietly, clutching his left arm with both hands and walking again, ‘or you’ll have me at it as well.’

  He felt a little better now and they finished the journey in companionable silence. When they reached the workshop, they stopped at the foot of the staircase. ‘Will you be all right?’ she asked.

  ‘Ja, and thank you for your kindness,’ he told her.

  To his surprise she stood on tip toes and kissed him gently on the cheek. ‘Try to sleep well. See you in the morning,’ she said, and turned to walk back to the house.

  With a heavy heart Jan climbed wearily up the metal steps. But the Raschdorf family had been very decent. His life might just work out, he thought to himself. There was a glimmer of hope – things could only get better – but there was a lot to mull over.

  He was not a drinker. Back in his room, however, he reached into his cupboard for a bottle of schnapps he kept for emergencies, poured a stiff measure and collapsed into his armchair. Outside, the birds were still singing. A couple of hours later he pulled back the covers, fell fully clothed into bed and for the first time in days enjoyed a good night’s sleep.

  Fortunately, he was young and fit enough to have only the semblance of a hangover next morning. Conscious that he had eaten nothing since the slice of apple tart, he dived into the huge plateful of ham, eggs and fried potatoes that Frau Brantis proudly presented. She poured them both a cup of black coffee and sat opposite, watching him eat. She had grown very fond of the young Pole, but had taken some comfort from a conversation with Miss Renate earlier that morning, when she had politely been asked to make Jan’s breakfast. Despite her years, Renate was no longer a girl – definitely an astute young woman.

  ‘Danke, Frau Brantis,’ he told her. ‘That was the best breakfast I have had in a long time.’

  ‘I’m to tell you to go through into the hall. I think the master’s already in the study,’ she replied.

  Jan knocked and opened the door.

  ‘Sir, I spent a long time thinking things over, last evening,’ Jan stated, once they were seated. He didn’t mention the schnapps. ‘You have been so kind to me, my first choice would be to stay here. But realistically I don’t think that it’s an option,’ he concluded.

  ‘Why so?’ queried Günther.

  ‘You said there would be Polish workers,’ Jan replied. ‘They are not going to be volunteers, are they? More likely at best prisoners of war and at worst pressed labour. You also said the guards will be Wehrmacht or SS. I’m Polish, even if I have been working here for a few years. They might leave me free to walk home each evening but I wouldn’t, in their shoes. I think they would probably throw me in with the labour force and I would finish up a prisoner like everyone else.’

  Günther had to concede that Jan had a point. He had also considered the possibility. If it had been raised, he would have objected, but at the end of the day there was always a chance he might be overruled.

  ‘So, what do you propose?’ he asked Jan.

  ‘I want to go west,’ he replied. ‘I know that you crossed from Belgium into Germany after the Great War. I’m hoping that you will share the benefit of your experience. I prefer to take my chances and hopefully fight for my country, rather than risk finishing the war here in a forced labour team.’

  Günther moved to a side table and poured two glasses of Armagnac from a decanter, handing one to Jan. ‘It’s early,’ he told him, ‘but I think we are going to need this. Is your mind really made up?’

  Jan confirmed that it was. ‘Absolutely, Sir,’ he said. ‘I don’t see that I have an alternative.’

  Günther took a small sip to give himself time to order his words. ‘You are in for a few surprises,’ he told Jan eventually, then held up a hand to forestall any questions.

  ‘I’m going to offer you a proposal,’ he went on eventually. ‘I don’t see it as acting against my own country, rather I am doing everything I can to protect my family. I am going to share a lot of information with you because I believe we can trust each other. And believe me, I am going to entrust to you one of the two most treasured loves of my life. First of all, did you know that my wife, Hannah, is Jewish?’

  Jan could only shake his head in amazement.

  ‘I thought not,’ said Günther. ‘Hardly anyone does. Although Helga found out, when she was working here. And she told her husband, who is now an Unterscharführer in the Allgemeine SS – the racial division unfortunately,’ he added. ‘That is why I had to agree to setting up the workshop.’ He did not spare Jan the details of the threats made by Gross.

  ‘When Renate got back last evening,’ he went on, ‘we opened a bottle of wine and the three of us sat talking for hours.’

  ‘I sat for hours too,’ said Jan, �
��although on my own. And mine was schnapps.’

  Despite the seriousness of their situation, Günther had to smile. ‘Anyway,’ he resumed, ‘I tried to persuade Hannah and Renate to move away from here, for their own safety. My wife turned me down flat. She feels it her duty to remain, and that provided I am contributing to the war effort, and also because I am an Aryan German, she should be all right. And if I say so myself, we are a prominent family in this part of the world, which is probably why we have not otherwise been harassed by the authorities. But we both want to protect Renate. If she stays here, the Nazis will always have a terrible hold over us. Eventually, and with considerable difficulty, we have persuaded her that if it is at all possible, she should leave.’

  ‘Sir, does this involve me?’ Jan asked, ‘because if there is anything I can do to help, I will.’

  Günther gave a heartfelt sigh. ‘You don’t know what it means to me, to hear you say that. I’m going to tell you a bit of a story,’ he went on. ‘I won’t bore you with all of it, but in nineteen eighteen, on the way back from Belgium, I needed to shelter from the weather. I arrived at a farmhouse, just inside our German border, and prevented a couple of deserters from violating a young widow living on her own in an isolated farm cottage. I stayed there to rest up and recover for a few days, and well…’ he tailed off. ‘Think of me what you will, and I only told Hannah and Renate of this last night, but our daughter has a half-sister.’

  ‘What did your wife say?’ asked Jan, then immediately regretted his impetuous and probably rather impertinent question.

  ‘She is a generous and warm-hearted person,’ came the reply. ‘It happened before her time, so she simply said that she wished I could have shared it with her years ago. But the point is, although last evening we had not decided how Renate would travel, I managed to put a telephone call through to the lady in question. Her name is Meta. She knows that Renate’s mother is Jewish. And she has agreed to offer Renate sanctuary and a safe home for the duration of the war… no more, she said, than the repayment of a long-standing debt. She will pass off Renate as a distant relative, and in a small country community nobody will have any reason to suspect that she is not an Aryan German. Meta remarried: her husband is a retired bank manager and they have a comfortable home. If you intend to try for the western lines, at some stage you will not be too far from where she lives. You would earn our undying gratitude if you would take Renate with you.’

  ‘Of course I will,’ Jan responded immediately. ‘But how would we travel? What about the risk, because I don’t even have any papers?’

  ‘As for travel, I’ll spare you over a thousand kilometres on horseback,’ Günther said, remembering his own sufferings all those years ago – the wind and the rain, and begging accommodation or sleeping rough. ‘I don’t think trains are the answer, either. They’ll be full of troops, there are bound to be a lot of inspections, and you will be asked why you aren’t in uniform.’

  He paused for another sip of Armagnac. ‘I think you should take my wife’s Opel. It’s not new, but it’s in excellent condition. Renate has her passport, and we ignored last year’s diktat that it should be stamped with a ‘J’. So far, we seem to have got away with it, because we hadn’t been bothered until that bastard Gross turned up the other day.’

  ‘What about me, though,’ said Jan, ‘with no papers? Even if we go by road we are bound to be stopped at some stage or other.’

  Günther walked behind his desk, opened a draw and placed a document next to Jan. It was a German Ausweis. ‘That was Karl’s,’ he said. ‘When he jumped ship to join the Wehrmacht, he obviously packed in a hurry, because he left that in his bedside draw above the stables. Didn’t even bother to say “goodbye”. I kept it in case he came back or wrote and asked for it. He hasn’t, so now we can use it. And he’s a couple of years older than you, which might not be a bad thing.’

  Jan opened it. ‘But the photograph doesn’t look anything like me,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Nor does it,’ Günther agreed. ‘But look at the two stamp marks that are mostly on the Ausweiss. See how they overlap only the corner of the photo - two circles round the edge with writing in between? And you can hardly see any writing on the photo itself.’

  Jan studied the document. Herr Raschdorf was absolutely right.

  ‘There’s a photographer on the way to Stettin - I know him quite well,’ Günther went on. ‘The estate has given him a lot of business in the past, when we were manufacturing the tractors and printing brochures, and we still use him for family portraits. Later today I suggest we drive over. He can take a photograph of you and we’ll wait whilst he develops it. Hannah is pretty artistic. She says she can make a rubber stamp with two concentric circles on it, and the right colour of blue ink we have already – given half an hour with her stamp and a very fine pen, you won’t be able to tell the difference.’

  For the first time Jan began to have a glimmer of hope. This might just be possible. ‘The sooner you leave the better,’ Günther told him. ‘There’s bound to be a certain amount of chaos on the way, now that the war has started, and you want to get there whilst the front is still quiet. Once the fighting starts, crossing the line will be more difficult. Also, it might be a good idea not to be here when this engineer arrives, whoever he is. How would you feel about tomorrow morning?’

  The decision taken, Jan announced that he would be only too pleased to get started. ‘I’ll ask Johann to spend the rest of the day on the Opel,’ said Günther. ‘I want him to go over it with a fine tooth-comb. And will you come and have a meal with us this evening? We need to talk through your plans, and what you will both say if, or when, you are stopped en-route.’

  Once Günther and Jan had departed, Frau Brantis was asked to prepare a chicken casserole dish that could be reheated later. On the pretext that Frau Raschdorf would do this herself, because she had no idea what time her husband would return, Frau Brantis and Gudrun were let off early.

  Dinner was a subdued affair that reminded Jan of the meal he had shared with his family before leaving Poland. It was agreed that if asked, Jan would be passed off as Herr Raschdorf’s chauffeur under orders to escort his daughter to visit relatives on the other side of Cologne. Although in practice they had no intention of trying to drive through the city.

  ‘Sir, how will you explain Renate’s absence?’ Jan asked, thinking of how Helga’s husband had threatened his employer.

  ‘We’ll say she is staying with her grandmother in Berlin,’ Frau Raschdorf replied for her husband. ‘I doubt they will bother to check up, particularly as I shall still be here, which is another reason why I have to stay. If neither of us were still around, the odious Gross might just get suspicious.’

  ‘And if they do check, we’ll just report that she left, and my mother can say that she never arrived,’ Günther concluded. ‘But I doubt it will ever be an issue. If my wife and I are still here, I suspect the Allgemeine SS will have enough to do without worrying about the whereabouts of one young female.’

  Günther poured each of them a glass of white wine, and Renate smiled when Jan lightened the mood by confessing that it was the first time he had tasted it. She admired his honesty – he hadn’t tried to put on sophistication that he just didn’t have. Sad though she would be to leave her home and parents, in a way she was quite excited at the prospect of driving across Germany with Jan. She announced that she would be happy to share the driving.

  Günther pointed his fork at Jan. ‘Watch her,’ he said, ‘and keep the Opel around fifty kilometres an hour. It has to take you a long way.’

  He took a sip of wine. ‘I let her have a go in my Mercedes once,’ he recounted. ‘Before I knew it she had the speedometer over a hundred Ks – and that was still only in the drive, before we even reached the main road!’

  The rest of the evening passed pleasantly. Jan thanked his hostess and announced that he would start packing and then hav
e an early night.

  In truth, he was still not entirely comfortable as a guest in the main house, although they were very kind. He would rather sit by his open window for a while, perhaps finish off his schnapps, and wonder what the morrow would bring.

  Hannah Raschdorf’s Opel was a rather shoe-boxy shaped motor car with a fairly long bonnet. Its brilliant cherry-red paintwork and solid, matching wheels sparkled in the early morning sun. It was also a fine-looking vehicle, with the spare wheel attached to the bodywork at the rear of the contrasting, black clam-shell front wing on the passenger side. Günther had paid two thousand marks for it in nineteen thirty-one. The one thousand, one hundred and ninety-three cubic centimetre four-cylinder side valve engine could push it to over eighty kilometres an hour but, as Johann pointed out, driven gently she would run all day. There was no synchromesh on the three-speed gearbox, but Jan had manoeuvred the vehicle countless times in and out of the workshop, as well as collecting and delivering it from and to the main house. He was a master at double-declutching and well able to drive it on the open road.

  In response to a telephone call from the main house, they walked up the drive. Johann insisted on carrying Jan’s haversack, which he had provided. ‘After all,’ he had pointed out, ‘you can hardly cross the lines carrying a suitcase. And here’s a souvenir,’ he said, handing Jan a Breton fisherman’s cap. ‘It doesn’t have a shiny peak, but if you stick it on your head you will look a bit more like a chauffeur.’

  The roof of the two-door cabriolet had been folded back. On the rear bench seat was a strip of canvas – ‘useful if you have to camp out for the night’ said Günther, as well as a couple of folded blankets. They put Jan’s rucksack and Renate’s case on top. There were two spare cans of fuel on the luggage rack. ‘And I’ve put a bag of tools, a funnel and a siphoning tube behind your seat, plus a few spares that I had in the workshop,’ Johann told him, ‘just in case.’ Frau Brantis came through the front door with a large hamper which she placed on top of Renate’s case before giving her a quick hug. Wishing them good luck she retreated indoors, wiping her eyes as soon as her back was turned. Günther handed Jan a bulky item wrapped in cloth.