After the Mourning

by Barbara Nadel

  ‘And the Lee family?’ I asked. ‘How do you know them?’

  ‘I escaped to Britain,’ Stojka said. ‘I went to Whitechapel, London. Then I hear, the Jews say, that the British are looking for me. All Germans are to be interned in prison camps. I am a German with German papers. Everyone is looking for me, I think! I run, I don’t know where. I want to find Roma people.’

  ‘How did you end up in the forest?’ I asked.

  ‘I heard of a fair there. I thought, If my people are anywhere they will be at the fair. I meet Zinaida – Betty Lee. She speaks the same Roma language as me. She knows who I am, what I am, what I have. All her group are excited and afraid. She takes me to Lily and the husband of her sister, another Roma from Europe. They were performing this illusion with the Head.’

  ‘So you took over from Edward.’

  ‘Not quickly, no,’ he said. ‘I just hide. Only when the Military Police come looking for me do I do the Head. To hide where all the world can see. It is Lily’s idea. She was a good magician.’

  When he’d spoken about the nails of Christ to me and the Duchess back in Lily’s tent, he’d taken what I felt had to have been a stupid risk. I told him this and then I said, ‘That was a bit reckless of you, wasn’t it?’

  He smiled. ‘Undertakers and priests do not talk,’ he said. ‘Only to the dead.’

  I wanted to ask him whether, in the case of priests, he included God and the saints in ‘the dead’. But this nail he claimed to have was of God so he couldn’t not believe in God’s existence, or so I felt.

  ‘You know they only want to intern you,’ I said. ‘Put you in a camp for a bit. It isn’t pleasant, but you do get fed and attended to if you’re ill.’

  From behind I heard Hannah sniff in disgust. Using the word ‘only’ with ‘internment’ is like swearing to her, and she does have a point. But it isn’t as if internment means death.

  ‘They want to kill me,’ Stojka said. ‘Whether here or back in Germany, they want my blood. Hitler, he wants to take the Nail and use its power. Because I run away he will kill me. He has people here to kill me. You have to believe it!’

  ‘Who do you mean? The MPs?’ I knew the word ‘spy’ had been mentioned by Sergeant Hill in reference to Stojka, but as far as I was concerned, the Gypsy was being sought with a view to his being interned, not executed. And, anyway, even if I were to believe every word that Stojka said, I couldn’t think it possible that people over here would kill him.

  I peered into the darkness ahead. It seemed as if I’d been driving for a lot longer than it had taken me to get from that track Horatio had called a road to wherever it was we’d ended up taking Martin Stojka on board.

  ‘The captain of the Military Police killed Lily because she would not tell him where I was,’ Stojka said.

  ‘No. Sergeant Williams—’

  ‘I saw it happen.’

  So it was from Stojka – or, rather, from him via Mr Lee – that Charlie had got that story. I turned to Stojka, whose face was blank now.

  ‘And you didn’t help her?’ I said. ‘She helped you.’

  ‘I saw only the end. I heard some voices. I ran over towards them. He stabbed her, she was dead, there was nothing I could do. I ran away.’

  ‘Nothing you could do?’ Hannah, who has strong views about violence to women, sounded more than displeased. ‘Too busy protecting that bleedin’ nail was you?’

  I looked all around me and realised I didn’t recognise anything.

  Suddenly Martin Stojka exploded with rage. ‘These policemen will take me to people who will either kill me themselves or send me back to Germany! They will not intern me! They will take the Nail! Hitler will use it, something that is ours, to give himself more power!’ He turned to me again and said, ‘You do not believe this, do you? You are going to give me to the police!’

  Tired, confused and still suffering, if I’m honest, from the recent death of Alfie Rosen, I put the brake on, turned the engine off and spoke to a nervous-looking Horatio: ‘I don’t know where I am and I don’t think you do either,’ I said. And then I said to Stojka, ‘As for you, I don’t know what to believe. You and your lot say one thing, the police and the MPs say another—’

  ‘They are not telling you the truth!’

  ‘So you say,’ I said. ‘Show us this nail and—’

  ‘The Nail is not something people can just ask to see. You must do so with prayer, with pure things in your heart.’

  I wasn’t believing this bloke any more. It was all beginning to sound like so much tosh. But suddenly – it was Hannah who spotted the light behind us first – we were all in a much more dangerous situation than I had ever imagined.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Captain Mansard had only three of his blokes with him, but they were all armed so the Lee family, who with Edward and the three young boys numbered six all told, were very much at their mercy. Betty Lee and the younger of Charlie’s two older brothers cried and shook with fear as Mansard and his men drove the family roughly in front of them.

  ‘Ah, Mr Stojka,’ Mansard said, as he put his head into the car with a brief smile in my direction. ‘Want to ask your passengers to get out, Hancock?’

  I didn’t know whether I was relieved to see him or not, but I did as he said and Stojka, Horatio and Hannah got out and stood with me to the side of the vehicle.

  ‘Well, I don’t know what you’re doing all the way out here in a hearse in the middle of the night, Hancock,’ Mansard said, ‘but if you were, as I believe, trying to assist Mr Stojka’s escape, I should tell you I take a dim view.’

  I said nothing.

  ‘Assisting a Nazi spy is a treasonable offence,’ he said to me. ‘You could hang for it.’

  ‘The Gentleman is not no Nazi!’ Betty Lee screamed. ‘You know what he is!’

  Mansard tipped his head at one of his men, who smacked poor Betty’s face with the butt of his rifle. It was to me an over-use of force and something that would have outraged even the most hardened soldiers.

  ‘Steady on!’ I said, while Hannah shouted, ‘Oi!’

  Mansard turned his full and violent attention on my girl and said, ‘Shut your filthy mouth before I shut it for you!’

  There was something almost personal in his outburst and I said, ‘You’ll do no such thing!’ as I attempted to put myself between him and Hannah. ‘My ladyfriend hasn’t done anything except come along with me. She knows nothing about any of this!’

  ‘This being?’ he snapped nastily.

  ‘Well, this situation, with Mr—’

  ‘Assisting a Nazi—’

  ‘Mr Stojka is only a German citizen, as far as I know,’ I said. ‘You can say I assisted someone in avoiding internment, if you like, but him being a Nazi is not something I know anything about.’

  Mansard shrugged, then leaned up against a tree and lit a cigarette. ‘If you’re telling the truth, maybe that could change things,’ he said. ‘I don’t know what stories he has told you but I imagine that, true to his . . . inclinations, he was quite persuasive.’

  Whether he meant Stojka’s inclinations as a Gypsy or as a Nazi, I didn’t know. I looked across at Hannah who didn’t see me, her still furious eyes firmly fixed on Captain Mansard’s face.

  ‘Well, whatever Mr Stojka may or may not be, I think you should let Horatio and the Lee family alone,’ I said. ‘They did what they did because they thought it was right.’

  ‘Came out with some poppycock about being a poor refugee, did he?’

  I didn’t answer. I didn’t know exactly what Stojka had said to the Lees and I didn’t want to talk about my own recent conversation with him. I’d had enough chats about strange and impossible things over the previous few weeks to last me a lifetime.

  ‘I saw you kill Lily Lee,’ Stojka said to Mansard. ‘You and this other man.’ He looked over at the captain’s sergeant.

  ‘What utter tosh!’ Mansard laughed. ‘Although it pains me I have to accept Dr Craig’s opinion that Williams
did it. I didn’t want to accept it, but—’

  ‘But you know that is not true.’

  Under cover of his three men’s pistols, Mansard moved in on Stojka. ‘Williams was besotted with the girl, I don’t know why. He had a lovely girl in the WRNS. But, anyway, he raped this Lily. Williams’s fingers were curled around the knife that was used to kill her afterwards.’

  ‘Because you put it there,’ Stojka said, ‘after you and your man murder him. I saw you.’

  I felt my heart jump in my chest. Mansard had killed Williams? Why?

  Mansard crossed his arms over his chest. He didn’t seem in the least upset by any of this. ‘And why did I do that, Mr Stojka?’ he said, echoing precisely my own thoughts. ‘I liked Williams. He was one of my chaps, totally loyal. And anyway, if you saw me commit all these crimes why didn’t you try to stop me?’

  ‘Sergeant Williams did not just like Lily Lee, he understood her heart,’ Stojka said. ‘For a time he knew she knows something about me, but she would not tell. She told him she could not answer his questions and he respected her because he loved her. But he believed your lies about me. He believed you almost up until the time you killed her.’

  ‘Oh, when the scales fell from his eyes?’

  ‘He did not know you were a bad man at first but then he did find out and he dies for that.’

  But Lily Lee, I remembered Dr Craig saying, had not been assaulted. It had just looked as though she had. The Lees as a group began to get restless. Charlie, afraid but wanting to get closer to Stojka, moved towards him.

  ‘Get back, you little bastard!’ One of Mansard’s blokes poked Charlie’s chest with the butt of his pistol. The other two watched the rest of the family nervously.

  ‘Leave him alone!’ Hannah cried.

  ‘I’ve told you before!’ Mansard screamed. ‘Shut up!’

  ‘He killed my daughter, Mr Undertaker!’ Mr Lee pointed at Mansard. ‘He wants to know where our German Gentleman is so that he can take the Nail away from him! He’s working for Hitler! Prob’ly going to give the Nail to some bloke high up to take it to Germany. These Nazis, they all work together! The Nail has so much power—’

  ‘Christ Almighty, not this again!’ Mansard said. And then, turning to me, he continued, ‘Did any of them tell you their silly story, Hancock?’

  I gazed at him as blankly as I could.

  ‘About their sacred nail? The one the ancestors of this rabble supposedly stole from the site of the crucifixion? God, what a load of tosh! Only Gyppos would boast about stealing anything. Not shown it to you, I suppose, has he?’ Again I didn’t respond. ‘No. Well, something that doesn’t exist can’t be seen, can it? Everything about this man is a lie! If he saw me kill both the girl and Williams, why didn’t he do anything about that, eh? With his miracle-working nail why am I still alive?’

  ‘The Nail is powerful. My first duty is to protect it always! You know nothing of it. I cannot show it—’

  ‘Oh, Mr Stojka – or Django the Head, as we now know you were – you and Lily Lee made quite a pair, didn’t you? She saw the Virgin Mary and you live with the nail that bleeds for Jesus Christ! God Almighty, if you hadn’t made such a fool of me with your tatty little fairground illusion I might have let you avoid internment. You are pathetic! Like Williams, like all of these pitiful Gypsies here. Or, rather, you would be if you were not working for the Third Reich, Mr Stojka.’ He paused, then looked directly at me. ‘You have to ask yourself what a German national is doing in this country, don’t you? Hiding out, disguising himself . . . Our friend here may well end up being interned but he will be questioned about his activities first – at some length.’

  The Gypsy looked at the ground and I thought I caught guilt on his face. I had started to believe him but . . . but this made me unsure yet again.

  ‘Mr Stojka?’ I asked.

  He looked up at me with violent eyes. ‘Believe what you like,’ he said, ‘I do not care!’

  ‘If there were more of us I’d offer to escort you back in your vehicle, Hancock,’ Mansard said, as he took Stojka’s arm. ‘But as it is . . .’

  ‘I thought you’d want to do us for aiding someone you believe to be a Nazi,’ I said. ‘You said yourself I could hang for such a thing.’

  ‘I’m feeling generous and you’re not a bad chap. It’s easy to be taken in by these exotic types.’

  And I was, I admit, ready to take his kind ‘offer’. There I was, in the middle of the night with my ladyfriend in Epping Forest and a suspected Nazi sympathiser – it didn’t look healthy. But suddenly I was being given a way out. There is a coward in me as well as a man who just wants to protect his lady.

  And thank God for that lady, who pointed at Mansard and said, ‘Now I fucking know where I’ve seen you before!’

  ‘You pushed me into the road, you bastard!’ she said. ‘You and all your Fascist mates!’ Even through the night-time gloom I could see that Hannah’s face was distorted with rage.

  For once, Mansard did not respond to Hannah’s outburst by shouting. ‘I don’t know what you mean,’ he said quietly, as he passed Stojka to one of his other chaps and attempted to take Hannah to one side. She shoved him away from her.

  ‘Brick Lane,’ she said. ‘Nineteen thirty-four. You and your pals pushed me in the road, nearly under a car! I’ve never forgotten it. You pushed your face right into mine and then you called me a Yiddish pig!’

  ‘I think you’re mistaken—’

  ‘I thought I knew you and now I know I do! Them days are burned into my brain.’

  There was a moment of silence.

  ‘Hannah,’ I said, ‘what’s going on?’

  She turned to me, but Mansard pulled her face around to his once again. ‘You’re—’

  She spat at him, full in the face. ‘He’s a Fascist, H,’ she yelled. ‘Him and his mates all in black shirts, following that bastard Mosley!’

  He slapped her hard across the mouth. Mr Lee and I sprang forwards in her defence. The sound of guns being turned against us brought us both to a standstill.

  ‘They used to come down to our manor terrifying poor Jews, right up until we kicked them out in ’thirty-six when the whole East End stood up to Mosley in Cable Street,’ Hannah said, as she wiped blood away from her mouth. ‘I’d gone back to see if my mum and dad were still alive, if someone like him hadn’t thrown them through a shop window!’

  ‘Shut up!’

  Hannah had reckoned she’d recognised Mansard some time before. But I’d given it little thought – apart, of course, from wondering whether he’d been a customer of hers. I was relieved he hadn’t, but I was frightened too. Mr Lee had given his opinion that Mansard was working for someone higher up who wanted to get hold of Stojka and his nail. And now, if Mansard was or had been one of Mosley’s Blackshirts, there was a possibility that he and the three lads he had with him were doing that job directly for Adolf Hitler. There was something else to take into account too, something about Hannah.

  ‘Hancock?’ Mansard raised a questioning eyebrow. He began to appeal, I felt, to my good sense. ‘Are you going to take this “lady” out of the forest? I suggest that’s for the best. What do you think?’

  ‘The problem I have, Captain Mansard,’ I said, ‘is that Hannah doesn’t lie. She doesn’t get on with her mum and dad, and if she went back to Spitalfields it must have been for a serious reason. I remember all that trouble back in the thirties, and nineteen thirty-four was the height of it, Blackshirts everywhere. Hannah said you were a Blackshirt then.’

  ‘If I had been a Blackshirt, how the hell would I have got into the MPs? God! Do use your intelligence!’

  ‘I don’t know how Mr Stojka got here from Germany,’ I said. ‘Seems like a bit of a miracle to me, but he did it.’

  ‘He’s here because he’s one of their fucking agents, as I told you!’ Mansard yelled.

  I looked at Martin Stojka, the Head, the keeper of the Nail of Christ or whatever it was. He was dirty, cowed and breathing
heavily through fear. His story was ridiculous and he could easily have been a Nazi spy. But just as I knew that Hannah was telling the truth about Mansard, I knew that Stojka, whatever he might be, was no Nazi spy. After all Sergeant Williams had had no reason to kill Lily Lee, and I couldn’t accept that the spirit of the girl’s dead sister had done it.

  ‘Hitler wants to kill all of our people,’ Martin Stojka said softly, to me. ‘He wants our secrets and then our deaths.’

  Mansard turned his gun on him.

  The other three men positioned themselves, two in front and one behind the rest of the Gypsies. The travellers outnumbered the MPs, but sometimes those shot for desertion in the trenches were executed in groups. More than once, those we killed outnumbered those of us who had been ordered to do the shooting. I still see those things in waking nightmares. I had a feeling so bad it was almost as if my bones were melting.

  ‘Captain Mansard,’ I said, ‘I believe you are an enemy of this country, and I also believe that you have to be stopped.’

  ‘And you’re going to stop me, are you?’

  ‘No,’ I said truthfully. ‘I don’t have anything to stop you with. But if you want to stop me telling people about what you’ve been doing here in the forest with these people you’d better kill me.’

  ‘H!’

  ‘I’m sorry, love,’ I said to Hannah, ‘but I can’t just let him execute these people.’ I looked at Mansard. ‘Because you will, won’t you? I don’t know why you want Martin Stojka so much—’

  ‘I told you!’ I heard Stojka say. Then I watched, with everyone else in that clearing, as he put his hand into his jacket pocket and brought something very bright out into the darkness.

  I heard Mansard click off his safety catch.

  ‘He wants this,’ Stojka said, as he held what looked like a dart of light up before him.

  There was a gasp and then all of the Gypsies got down on the ground and hid their faces in their hands. The light from the thing, which was white and bright, made their deep black hair seem to shine.

  ‘The Fourth Nail,’ I heard Mr Lee say. ‘The Nail of Christ!’