by Jason Hewitt
“You are making my life very difficult,” he said, catching his breath. “And I can still kill you. It doesn’t take much. If you make me angry or nervous, anything but perfectly happy, the bullet will shoot into your stomach”—he gestured with the gun barrel—“or your face or your skull. You understand?” She stared at him, and he kicked the leg of the table. She flinched. “Do you understand?”
She nodded. Hot tears were running down her face.
He sat down opposite her then, nostrils flaring, face black with anger. His hands were dirty, nails black. His eyes were dark in the dim light and his hair hung damp over his lashes.
“I can’t let you out,” he said. “It’s too dangerous. If you step outside this house, I will have no choice but to kill you. Do you understand that?”
She nodded.
“I don’t trust you out there,” he said. “And, you will get yourself killed.”
She stared at the corner of the table where the varnish was worn away and tried to stifle her sobs, then raised her eyes to him. She could hear his breath slowly calming; she could smell his skin, his sweat.
“Where is everyone?” she said.
He held her firmly in his stare, the gun still pointing across the table.
“What have you done with them?”
He sat back in his chair.
“You’re not English,” she said. He sounded almost English—but something about his accent wasn’t right, the care with which he worked his way around certain words. She wiped at her eyes. “Did Mr. Hitler send you?”
He laughed.
“You’re coming, aren’t you—the Germans? Everyone is saying it.”
“Yes,” he said. “England is shut, but, as you see, we are already here.”
“I need to find my mother.”
“You can’t,” he said. “I told you…if you try to leave the house, I will shoot you. And if I don’t, someone else will.” He laughed again. “I’m rather surprised you are not dead already.”
She could taste tears in her mouth, breaths coming huge and ragged. “But…”
His eyes widened, questioning her.
“You don’t understand,” she said. “I don’t know where she is.”
“You will not leave this house,” he said. “You will stay right here. You will not be seen by anyone. These are the rules. Do not stand at the windows. The shutters stay closed. If you disobey me in anything at all, if you try to leave, if you do anything to anger me, I will shoot you. Is that understood?”
He waited for her to respond.
“I said, is that understood?”
She slowly nodded again. She could hear it in his voice now. That slight accent, like the faint lingering of a smell, not noticeable unless you already suspected or knew it to be there.
His face showed a slight twist in his mouth, as if perhaps he was in pain. His hands kept the gun on her. Had he already shot her mother? Mr. Morton? Joyce? Bea? Had he shot the Local Defence boys from their bikes?
He poked the gun at her. “So,” he said. “We have an agreement. These are the rules. Yes?”
She nodded.
“Good.” He placed the gun down on the table and slowly leaned back. “So,” he said, with a faint smile. “Here we both are…”
In the sitting room he pulled the sheet off the piano and opened the lid. He ran his fingers lightly along the chords, making the strings strum faintly. There was nothing hidden inside. He opened up the gramophone and emptied all the shellac discs, abandoning them on the floor, then went to the dining room and broke open locked drawers and cupboards with such force that the silverware fell out, clattering over the floorboards.
The drawers of the writing desk in the study were sticky and jammed, and he loosened them with his knife as he maneuvered each one free. Inside, he found letters, postcards, bank receipts, and mundane correspondence about village fetes and cookery recipes and an evacuee with an Eastern European name that he could barely read let alone pronounce. Between the edge of the drawer and a tin of ribbons and pins was a small leather address book, probably forgotten in the rush to leave. He slipped it into his pocket.
Back in the sitting room he tidied up the shellac discs, carefully inserting them into their respective sleeves. When he tried to slip them back into the cabinet beneath the gramophone, something was in the way. He got down on his hands and knees and shone his torch in. At the back, tipped on its side, was a small brass metronome. He took it out and stood it on the window ledge. He wound it up and turned the dial, setting the arm in motion so that it ticked steadily back and forth. The arm of the metronome swung this way and that. Tick, tick, tick.
If he shut his eyes he could hear it, the concerto swelling to fill the template of the metronome’s beat, the auditorium reverberating to its ornate rafters in that glorious wash of sound. He could feel the cello vibrating as if it were alive, trembling through his arms, his chest, his knees, the sound of the strings rising up high into the empty space above.
In the block-booked party seats at the front, rows of uniformed men sat, their caps resting in their laps or hanging from the arms of the seats, one or two of them actually enjoying it, patting their knee with their hand or gently nodding their head. Further back in the stalls were families, a further scattering of uniforms, husbands with wives, fathers with sons, the buttons of their jackets sparkling beneath the chandeliers. The concert house had an opulence so fitting of Bach—the plush red of the seats, the golden columns and carved ceiling.
As her bow pulled across the strings of her violin, her eyes caught his beyond the swing of the conductor’s baton, just as they had the first time he’d noticed her, two—maybe three—years ago now. She smiled at him, then tipped her head back a little as the adagio swept her up; her blonde hair pulled into a bun and tied with a black ribbon, her neck angled and taut so he could see the tendons as tense as strings, her black dress with its ribbed bodice tight around her breast and ribs, opening up into swathes of silken material that fanned out around her feet. Eva.
Her arm furiously worked the bow. His own arm ached, the tip of his elbow writing out the notes, his fingers pressing and squeezing the strings. And then the final note and the explosion of silence that followed, hanging delicately in the air for a moment like a held breath—before it was swept away by the applause and he could feel his arm relax.
The tram back to his apartment had rumbled through the dark streets of Berlin, the rain typing on the roof. Eva rested her head against his, keeping her hand warm under his coat. They passed lines of barricaded apartments, most of them empty and abandoned.
They made love that night. And when they were finished they slept soundly, waking to the sun streaming through the garret window. He got up. He dressed in his uniform. He left her in bed. But he took her scent with him, between his legs, on his breath, and just there, where he could still smell it now, in the warm curl of his hands.
Alfie was obsessed with German spies. He said that those who weren’t already hiding in our communities would land by parachute under the shroud of night so that you would hardly be able to tell them from the darkness; and those who landed by day would be disguised as policemen, or nurses, or bus conductors, or teachers, complete with satchels and truncheons and ticket boxes, so that as they hit the ground and disposed of their parachutes they could walk out into the street and no one would think anything different of them. Before long, they would be everywhere, he said, and then, when the time was right, they would open up their satchels and truncheons and ticket boxes and inside would be guns.
That was why the Spielmans had left. She remembered cycling past their house and seeing it boarded up. That was almost a year ago now. Before that there had been firecrackers through their door, smashed-up plant pots in their front garden, kicked-in fences. Someone even painted the word Traitor across the side wall. Her mother and father wouldn’t talk about it—you didn’t always know what went on behind closed doors—and, a week or so later, the Spielmans were gone a
nyway.
Taken, Mr. Morton told her. Best thing for ’em.
Taken where? she’d asked.
The Isle of Man. That’s where they take ’em. To the prison.
He said they were traitors. Fifth columnists. And they had pigeons. You know what pigeons mean?
She didn’t.
Communication, he said, nodding knowingly. Sending messages, I shouldn’t wonder. You can’t trust anyone.
She huddled in the dark of the wardrobe, holding the torch she’d taken from beneath her bed close between her knees so she could read the pamphlet. She stumbled over some of the longer words, but she understood most of it. She’d read the leaflets with an exhilarating mix of fear and excitement maybe three or four times before, but that had been when she’d wanted the invader to come and had thought of it as a game; now that it had really happened, she couldn’t stop her hands from shaking.
DO NOT BELIEVE RUMORS AND DO NOT SPREAD THEM. WHEN YOU RECEIVE AN ORDER, MAKE QUITE SURE IT IS A TRUE ORDER AND NOT A FAKED ORDER. MOST OF YOU KNOW YOUR POLICEMEN AND YOUR ARP WARDEN BY SIGHT; YOU CAN TRUST THEM. IF YOU KEEP YOUR HEADS, YOU CAN ALSO TELL WHETHER A MILITARY OFFICER IS REALLY BRITISH OR ONLY PRETENDING TO BE SO. IF IN DOUBT, ASK THE POLICEMAN OR THE ARP WARDEN.
She read on, reviewing some of the sentences several times until the words sank in and she was sure they would stay in her head when it came time to burn the leaflets, or bury them.
SEE THAT THE ENEMY GETS NO PETROL. REMEMBER THAT TRANSPORT AND PETROL WILL BE THE INVADER’S MAIN DIFFICULTIES. MAKE SURE THAT NO INVADER WILL BE ABLE TO GET HOLD OF YOUR CARS, PETROL, MAPS, OR BICYCLES.
The pamphlet seemed to assume that if invaders came there would be some time to prepare, and perhaps there had been. Perhaps her mother had already put some of the advice into practice, although the Crossley was still in the garage and her mother had made no attempt to hide any food. If anything, there were more tins and packets stockpiled in the larder than before, despite all the government warnings against panic buying.
She remembered reading to her mother from the first pamphlet that had arrived, following her about the house as she had done chores: up the stairs and along the corridor, a pile of sheets in her mother’s arms, then into her parents’ room, where her mother had set to changing the bed.
It says, Do not give a German anything, she told her mother. Do not tell him anything. Hide your food and your bicycles. Hide your maps.
Yes, all right, all right, her mother said. Now, come on, you’re getting under my feet. I’ve a WVS meeting at eleven, and at this rate I shall never make it.
You can’t take the car, she told her mother. You have to dis…able all vehicles, she read, stumbling over the word.
That’s only if the Germans come, Lydia. And they’re not going to, are they, not this morning anyway; I’m only popping out for a couple of hours.
And then Bea had arrived, always in her tweeds and hat, the front door opening, her voice yodeling up the stairs—Yoo-hoo! Annie!—sending her mother into a flap.
Oh Lord! Is that the time? Look at me—hair in a mess and still in my petticoat. She turned to Lydia. Darling, be a poppet and hang the washing out, will you? And where is that boy hiding himself? She stood and looked about her, as if expecting Button to suddenly materialize from beneath the floorboards.
And then she was gone, clattering down the stairs, Bea saying things like, Annie, darling! Am I early? And Lydia’s mother saying, No, I’m late as usual. Heavens, what a morning! It’s all hands to the pump here. Any news from the boys?
Lydia had walked over to the wardrobe and flung open the doors. There was Button, just as she knew he would be, staring up at her from between the racks of clothes with his big, watery eyes.
With her father and brother gone, and her and Button evacuated, she had huddled under the covers in Wales worrying about her mother alone in the house. And what now? What had happened here? Were the fields and marshes and woods and villages awash with German soldiers?
She flicked the torch off and sat in the darkness, listening to her own breathing. She pressed down on her heart to try to quiet it, but it only seemed to bump harder against the inside of the wardrobe, the sound reverberating through the floorboards and down the walls and along the floor and, no doubt, up through the soles of his boots, so he would know exactly where she was. She sat with her back to the side of the wardrobe and her legs outstretched so that, if she pointed her toes, she could touch the other side. After a while she brought her knees back up and squeezed herself into the corner. She had pins and needles, her throat was parched, and she was frightfully hungry. She had no idea how long she had been hiding in there. The wardrobe smelled of damp wood and dusty clothes, even though it had nothing in it anymore. She pretended that Button was huddled at the other end. After a while she heard his breathing in the pitch black, but when she reached out her hand to him there was nothing there.
No one knew why Button always hid in the wardrobe.
Perhaps that’s how they live over there, Joyce from The Cricketers had said. Perhaps he always hides in boxes. You know what these boys are like.
Lydia’s mother worried about his parents. You heard such terrible things.
Yes, and you wouldn’t want to be stuck with him, said Bea. I mean, it’s all very well doing the right thing for a few weeks while this nonsense blows over, but you wouldn’t want to be stuck with him.
No, her mother agreed. I suppose not.
The truth was that no one had quite known what to make of Button. He didn’t speak a word of English, barely a word of any language, it seemed.
In Wales Mrs. Duggan took an instant dislike to him: his pale face, his scrawny limbs, that dark hair of his, and the slightly pointed eyebrows that gave him a look of constant surprise.
Looks a bit too primitive for my liking, she said to Lydia. How come you’ve been lumbered with him?
But Lydia didn’t know. Button had just come, having been billeted with the McGowans at first, but that didn’t go down well, not with them being Catholics and him being a Jew. You have to look after him, her mother had said. He’s a long way from home.
The boy was definitely odd. A week into his time with them, he found Lamb and, from that point on, took to dragging him around the house. Lamb was a life-sized stuffed toy mounted on a narrow red trolley with wheels and a handle. She and Alfie had both used Lamb as toddlers, waddling behind him as they’d learned to walk. As she got older, she had attached a strip of cloth to him as if it were a dog lead, and it was with this that Button dragged the lamb about, his gas mask fixed over the animal’s moth-eaten head.
Sometimes in the night, when she couldn’t sleep, she thought she could hear him pulling the lamb with its mask along the hallway, the wheels of the trolley quietly squeaking and rattling over the floorboards. She imagined the silhouette of them in the corridor: Button’s face and the lamb’s rubber snout.
The wardrobe was stifling. She switched the torch on, changed her mind, and turned it off again. Better not waste the battery. If she strained very hard she could hear the wireless in the kitchen. There had been a soft hammering earlier but it had stopped now, replaced by the sound of swing music swelling up through the floorboards. Her mother couldn’t bear silence so the wireless was always on, providing a constant bubbling of chatter and songs. She could hear her mother’s voice now just behind the music, half singing, half humming.
Taking the torch and the pamphlets with her, she opened the wardrobe door and stepped out into the semidarkness of the room, placing her feet softly on the floorboards so as not to make a sound. It was only when she had shut the wardrobe behind her that she realized there was no singing, no sound of swing from the wireless at all. She held still and listened and, for a moment, thought that perhaps the man had gone.
On any other day like this, the doors and windows would have all been open, music playing from the wireless or from her mother’s quick fingers as she sat at the piano. Her father would be in a deck
chair with his newspaper, reading bits aloud to anyone he caught wandering past. Or listening to the news as he polished his brogues or filed down a bit of wood for some project or another: reports of German submarines and E-boats in the North Sea, or Luftwaffe planes flying inland. Or perhaps he would’ve just been catnapping. For months their nights had been restless, and everyone was tired and irritable; it was an unspoken rule that you slept whenever and wherever you could.
Once, before the war, a giant zeppelin floated over Bawdsey, down at the end of Hollesley Bay, like an involuntary thought. And for some time her mother had thought there were funny things going on at Bawdsey Manor. Rumors spread that it had been bought by the military, and they’d seen metal towers above the trees, lines of steel posts, and extra fencing. All very suspicious, her mother had said.
Her father turned the page of his newspaper and drew on his cigarette.
If something secret was going on at the manor, it was secret for a reason, her father felt. I wouldn’t ask too many questions, Annie, if I were you.
Her mother thought they should be told. But George, what if it’s dangerous?
I’m sure it’s not, darling. I’m sure it’s perfectly safe.
It was bringing too much attention to the area, her mother said. We’ve enough eyes and ears about the place as it is.
She sat on her parents’ four-poster bed—a remnant of the times when her mother’s family had been wealthy and they’d owned a paper mill at Bramford, now long gone. The man had been quiet for some time but now she could hear him prowling again. She heard kitchen cupboards being opened and shut. His footsteps were the slightest squeak of wood and nothing more, as if he was already getting to know the house, its loose boards and creaking giveaways.
