After the Cabaret

by Hilary Bailey

  ‘He said something to one of his helpers, who stood up. “We’ll take you,” Eugene said. “Sally?”

  ‘“Cora told me about the letter. Will you come and see me – afterwards?”

  ‘He nodded. Then she and Eugene, with Benoît and Charles, followed the tall, thin man, conducting them back into the smell of death.

  ‘“What are you doing here?” she asked.

  ‘“My regiment’s been put to guard the camp,” he said. “The captain won’t come in and a lot of the other guys can’t take it.”

  ‘A truck meandered towards them over the mud, followed by a crowd of prisoners, some barely able to walk.

  ‘A gas-masked soldier looked out of the truck’s window. “Hey, buddy, where do you want the load dumped?”

  ‘“Over there,” said Eugene, pointing to a heavily guarded shed.

  ‘“What is this place?” the soldier asked.

  ‘“You have come to Dachau,” he said.

  ‘“I’ve come to hell,” said the driver, and he started up the truck again.

  ‘“How can we find her?” Sally said, looking about. A crowd of skeletal people were approaching them, languidly, and she felt as if her senses were leaving her.

  ‘“She’s lying down, in a sheet, we know that,” Benoît said. His voice caught in his throat.

  ‘And they found her, alone, for no one wanted to go near. She was almost unrecognisable to Sally, but as she looked from face to dying face, one skin-covered skull opened its eyes and whispered, “Sally.”

  ‘Charles carried Claudia in her sheet across the compound to the gates. Half-way across, Sally, tears running silently down her face, said to Eugene, “I loved you. Really, Eugene, I did.” Then they parted.

  ‘At the gates, Sally said, “We have papers for this woman. She is an important scientist required by the British Government. The papers are signed by General de Gaulle himself. These-officers are the escort he has provided.”

  ‘And they were allowed to pass.

  ‘They stretched Claudia out on the back seat of the car. She was unconscious now. The twins and Sally squeezed together in the front seat. Sally took the wheel.

  ‘Claudia became conscious again and asked, “Gisela?”

  ‘“Gisela’s alive and well.”

  ‘“And Simon?”

  ‘“I don’t know. We can only hope.”

  ‘They had to stop every half-hour, because of the dysentery. The car was full of that smell and with it the smell of the camp. They stopped by a river, washed Claudia a little, for that thin, fevered body was too frail to endure much. They dressed her in a cotton frock. She became unconscious again. They carried her back to the car and continued the dreadful journey.

  ‘“Where are we going?”

  ‘“Paris.”

  ‘“I won’t get there.”

  ‘“You will,” Sally asserted, but she did not believe it. She thought of Gisela, running about in the big house in England.

  ‘“We must – must – find Simon,” Claudia said, as if the miracle of her own discovery could be achieved again.

  ‘“The news is coming through, slowly, in Paris. Trains are coming back. There are lists of those returning every day in the papers,” Benoît said. “There’s a bureau – crowds go there every day for news. We’ll investigate. There is hope.”

  ‘The faint voice came from the back of the car. “I think I’m beyond hope.” There was a pause. Claudia said, “Not the Germans. Not people. Governments. The governments create all this.”’

  Chapter 54

  When they reached Paris, exhausted, they carried Claudia upstairs to the handsome flat and laid her on a bed in an empty room. Benoît fetched boiled water and as Sally moistened Claudia’s cracked lips she heard the sounds of argument outside the room. The voices began to repeat again and again. ‘What has she got? Typhus! And what else? She must go to the hospital.’

  ‘Hospital – typhus – this is unbearable! She must go! Hospital – typhus. We must have the flat fumigated. Intolerable. Unbearable.’

  Then orders were shouted, feet thundered to and fro, there were thuds and bangs.

  Five minutes later there was silence. Benoît came in with a carafe of water and a glass half full of milk. They propped Claudia up. She drank the milk greedily and said, ‘More.’

  ‘The doctor’s coming,’ he said. ‘No more till then.’ Claudia closed her eyes and moaned. Then she seemed to sleep again.

  Benoît muttered to Sally, ‘Mother and Father didn’t like it. When we refused to move Claudia they took the line of least resistance and left for the farm with Célestine.’

  ‘That’s all right, then,’ Sally said.

  The doctor paused in the doorway, looking at the form on the bed. He didn’t understand. Then he realised that Claudia was not yet dead.

  Her temperature was 105 degrees. The doctor shook his head. Shortly after he left the phone rang.

  ‘It was Adrian Pym,’ Charles said, putting his head round the door. ‘How did he get the number?’

  ‘He can do anything,’ Sally said.

  ‘What does he want with—?’ Charles asked, looking at the woman they all thought would die.

  In the panic of finding Claudia, Sally had not considered Pym’s motives in wanting her saved. Now she paused briefly, to ask herself the question. For a long time Pym had been feeding her with stories of the German treatment of European Jewry, from sources public and secret. Now this. She looked down at the skeletal figure, lips blackened with fever.

  ‘What?’ Charles asked again.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Then she looked at Claudia, thought she was dead, put her hand on her brow. She was hot, so hot.

  ‘Shall I get the doctor back?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes – yes.’

  The doctor came once, twice, sometimes three times a day, for a week, during which it seemed impossible that Claudia could survive.

  And then the fever broke. She began to recover.

  Sally thought of Eugene, who must still be in Dachau. She wrote to him.

  She began to visit the Gare d’Orsay, the station at which the deportees arrived back in France. They were mostly prisoners-of-war, and men who had been taken off to forced labour. Among them were some concentration-camp survivors, although so far only a fifth had been released. With the others she joined in the chorus of names of the missing, ‘Simon! Simon Stein!’ as the long lines of returning men came through the station, walking, supporting each other. The name was never recognised.

  ‘There’s still hope, Claudia.’

  But Claudia said nothing, as if she did not wish to hope, or was certain that her husband was dead.

  Eventually Claudia was fit enough to travel in a plane. Adrian Pym arranged the flight and met them in a car at the airfield in Kent. As they drove to London it became plain that he had assumed they would take Claudia to Pontifex Street. But Sally, now suspicious, refused to do so. There was a row as they neared London, in which Claudia took no part. She still weighed less than five stone and was confused much of the time. She was dazed, often afraid, always hungry. Sometimes she thought of her daughter, or of Simon, and wept silently, tears rolling down her wasted, papery cheeks. For long periods of the day she was motionless, inert, yet at night she could sleep only after taking heavy sleeping pills.

  As the argument in the car went on Sally began bitterly to regret having taken up Pym’s offer of a flight back to Britain. It was true that they could not have stayed on much longer in the du Tours’ Paris apartment for the parents were still angry about what had happened and always on the telephone asking how soon Sally and Claudia would be leaving. Nevertheless they could have gone somewhere in the countryside, where Claudia would have gained strength before any further journey. And now Sally asked herself again about Pym’s motives in organising the rescue. She had believed he had done it to help her which, she now thought, had been pretty naive of her, considering what Pym was like.

  ‘Claudia’s coming to
my house,’ Sally shouted. ‘And then, when she wants to, up to my parents’ to see her daughter. I don’t know why you’re doing this, Loomie, why you pushed so hard for us to come back. What do you want? She can’t even climb the stairs at Pontifex Street. Everything’s ready at my house. She’ll be by the door – she can come and go when she wants, when she’s strong enough.’

  ‘Your house is dilapidated,’ Pym said. ‘It’s not fit for someone in Claudia’s condition.’

  ‘I don’t understand this,’ said Sally.

  ‘There are people who want to see Claudia.’

  ‘Who? What’s going on?’

  Something alerted Claudia now. ‘I’ll go to Sally’s,’ she said.

  ‘Good,’ said Sally.

  ‘It’s unsuitable. I’m not taking her there,’ Pym said.

  Sally said nothing. They were going through Croydon. When they reached the centre of London, she said, ‘Stop the car.’

  ‘Don’t be absurd,’ he said, driving on.

  ‘Stop by this cab rank,’ said Sally, who had spotted the war-time miracle, a stationary cab, at a rank. ‘I’ll get a policeman,’ she threatened. ‘I’ll accuse you of kidnap.’

  Pym, sulking, complied.

  Sally helped Claudia out. No one was in the cab so, with Claudia leaning on her, Sally went into a nearby cafe and shouted, ‘Is the cab driver here?’

  ‘I’m eating my dinner,’ said a man at one of the tables. Doubtful eyes were now taking in the sight of Sally, in a rage, and Claudia’s death’s-head face.

  ‘Please,’ said Sally, ‘can you drive us? This woman’s just come out of a German camp.’

  The man stood up and walked over to them. ‘Is she all right?’ he asked Sally.

  ‘I’m all right,’ Claudia said. ‘Please take us.’

  Chapter 55

  Bruno Lowenthal stopped the tape recorder. He had scarcely rested since he had opened his shop yesterday. It was now two thirty on Christmas morning. The streets were silent. The noise downstairs had ceased around midnight.

  Tomorrow he would face the annual ordeal of Christmas dinner with that madwoman in the basement and her family.

  But he had, he considered, almost finished his story. He would complete it the next morning and get the tapes to Greg Phillips. Now he must sleep.

  Rising tiredly from his chair he went to his warm bedroom, undressed and got into bed. He felt a long way from the world he had been describing. Wars, armies, cities in flames, death – fifty years was a long time. It was strange that the arrival of that young man, Greg, which had at first seemed such a nuisance – indeed, potentially so threatening – had turned out to be … what did one call it? A blessing in disguise.

  He drifted into sleep with muddled images of himself and Briggs, young and loving, in Berlin, before his eyes. He saw Sally at the cabaret, faces in torchlight, swastikas flying. He heard the sound of breaking glass. He slept.

  Chapter 56

  At Chapel Manor Farm Greg, alone upstairs, heard, in his sleep, what he thought were phones ringing. Each time when he half awoke at the sound he found the house silent – but Katherine was still not in bed.

  Next morning dawned clear, bright and cold. The bed was still empty.

  Mad thoughts went through his brain. Katherine had left the house that night – both she and Simon had packed up and left as he slept – she was in bed with her old crippled uncle – they had locked him in his room.

  His blood racing, he showered, dressed and went downstairs. At the breakfast table sat Simon, composed and clad in a blue cashmere sweater and well-pressed jeans. Katherine was beautiful, but pale and withdrawn, wearing a soft red woollen dress, her hair piled up and secured with a gold comb.

  ‘Happy Christmas, Greg,’ she greeted him.

  ‘Happy Christmas to you – and to you, too, Simon,’ he responded, and sat down.

  Katherine got up quickly. ‘What would you like, Greg?’ she asked. ‘Sausage, bacon and eggs? Boiled egg? Mushrooms?’

  ‘Just coffee and toast, thank you,’ he said.

  He looked at Simon, whose face was taut and eyes a little worried, and thought, Greg, you’ve spent the night in an empty bed, you’ve come downstairs and found your girlfriend and another man eating breakfast. They both look a little embarrassed. They’re bright and friendly but they can’t meet your eye. Haven’t you been here before, sucker? OK, it’s not very likely Katherine’s sleeping with a crippled man twice her age who also happens to be her uncle, but that’s not the point. Something’s going on. This is a relationship – Katherine and Simon. Forget Katherine and Greg.

  Simon said encouragingly, ‘Have a proper breakfast, Greg. It’s Christmas Day, after all.’

  He himself had abandoned a boiled egg half eaten. Katherine’s plate contained only toast crumbs.

  Katherine sat down again. Greg had the idea she would have felt more comfortable if she could have run into the kitchen to produce a large British breakfast, but he didn’t feel inclined to let her off the hook, Christmas or no Christmas. He said, ‘I kept having the idea, all night, that the phone was ringing.’

  ‘It must have been jingle bells,’ Katherine said. ‘Which reminds me, we thought we’d open our presents before lunch. We’ve got a last-minute invitation to pre-lunch drinks with some friends of Simon’s near Dorchester. It’s a bit of a drive – we’d have to leave about eleven thirty. Will that be all right?’

  ‘Excellent,’ said Greg. He drank his coffee and stood up. ‘I’ll take a walk,’ he said, and left the room, sensing the relief behind him. He put on his jacket and took the path by the tor down to the river.

  It was quiet. The sun shone and he heard church bells ringing in the distance. A little edgy after a night spent in and out of sleep, he looked across the small, slow-moving river and thought, They say you can never step in the same river twice, but he had tried, with Katherine. And it hadn’t worked. That pretty, clever, loving young woman of six years before had toughened up. Perhaps she’d had to. Times had been hard in Britain. There wasn’t a lot to go round and to get what little there was, he imagined, it probably paid to be in with the right people, the great and the good. Those people had connections in the Oxbridge world to which she belonged, that world which still had its roots deep in the heart of the Establishment, whatever they said. Perhaps Katherine wasn’t just venal; perhaps that was where her loyalties really lay. With her uncle and her uncle’s old lover, Briggs; with Sir Peveril and his kind.

  So whatever they said, Katherine had, in his parents’ terminology, sold out. Sold him out. Because he might start a scandal for them. Now they were really scared because here was Pym coming back with secret files. More scandal.

  Well, Greg thought, this certainly was a beautiful spot and he certainly felt lonely in it.

  He walked along, then turned towards Merricombe. When he came to the village pub, he stopped outside it, as he had planned. From the call-box there, he telephoned Bruno Lowenthal.

  When the old man answered, Greg said, ‘I hope I’m not too early for you. Merry Christmas anyway.’

  ‘Greg?’ came the harsh voice. ‘So good to hear from you. Merry Christmas – at least, I hope it’s being a merry one.’

  ‘It isn’t,’ Greg told him.

  ‘I’m not surprised. Listen – I’m finishing the story on tape! What a surprise for you, eh? Will that be your best Christmas present? I think so.’

  ‘God, Bruno, that’s good of you.’

  ‘We’ve no time to waste so I have purchased this little machine, just like yours, and you will be surprised to learn it obeys me completely.’

  Greg said, ‘I would always believe you could do anything you wanted to do, Bruno. But I have a problem. I’ve discovered I’m staying in the house Briggs gave to his lover Simon Ledbetter, who happens to be my girlfriend’s uncle.’

  ‘It’s a nice house, eh?’

  ‘Very nice. And he has some nice paintings – and several drawings by Eugene Hamilton he didn’t mention to
me.’

  ‘I heard of the house, dear boy, many years ago. And I have to tell you, Greg, I got a call from someone in Sir Peveril Jones’s employ. They told me where you were. They want to meet me – to shut me up, I suppose.’

  Greg was shocked. ‘Bruno, I’m sorry. Do you think I’m responsible for all this – stirring things up?’

  ‘Don’t worry. I’ve suspected for many years that one day there’d be a problem. The bomb and the fuse have been in place for many years. All you did was strike the match.’

  ‘They’ve been up all night here on the phone.’

  ‘Romantic for you.’

  ‘You can say that again.’

  ‘It doesn’t go well?’

  ‘It goes horribly. They’re worried about the book, I think. And Pym’s return.’

  ‘And your girlfriend has turned against you?’

  ‘I’m beginning to wonder if she was ever for me. She must have known for some time about her uncle’s connection with all this but she never said a word.’

  ‘Do you think Ledbetter was working for Briggs – also for the Soviets?’

  ‘Oh, Christ!’ said Greg. ‘I don’t know. I don’t think so. He said his career had been in medical research at Cambridge.’

  ‘It depends what kind of medical research it was,’ Bruno said. ‘But in a world of secrets one suspects everything. Never mind. Tell me, when are you coming back?’

  ‘Tomorrow. The atmosphere’s terrible here. I’d leave now but to walk out on Christmas Day would be too much. There’s no transport and I’ve got the car. I’d be stranding Katherine.’

  ‘Come back as soon as you can,’ said Bruno. ‘You’ll like what I have for you. I’m sure of it. Merry Christmas again.’

  ‘Merry Christmas to you too,’ Greg said glumly.

  He put down the phone and walked resolutely back to the house. At least he had Bruno’s new material to look forward to – if he nourished that thought he could get through Christmas Day without disgrace. Mercifully, by the time he got back to the house it would be time to set out for the drinks party with Simon’s friends. Then there’d be Christmas dinner with other people and all that socialising would cut down the amount of time the three of them would be obliged to spend together. With luck, Greg thought, he could keep Christmas Day civilised and get away early next morning.