The Silent Children

by Amna K. Boheim

  ‘I think I told you of the things my family salvaged and the things we lost at the hands of the Nazis,’ he went on. ‘And then I saw your mother’s drawings.’ He turned back to the Schiele. ‘It’s just a faded memory, a hunch, but that painting, you see …’

  Oskar turned to look me in the eye. ‘Forgive me, Max. But I think this painting belonged to us.’

  Any hope I’d had of resolving this family mystery transformed into plain disappointment, falling upon me like a leaden cloak. Two factors entwined with one another: the possibility that the painting didn’t belong to me, and the possibility that seeing the Schiele in the flesh was the sole purpose of Oskar’s trip to the house. Given his past efforts to recover lost or stolen art, I shouldn’t have been surprised. That must have been the reason why my mother wanted to find Oskar. The provenance of the Schiele was the missing link she had referred to.

  ‘I’d need proof,’ I said.

  Oskar patted my shoulder. ‘If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same,’ he said. ‘I did try to find some paperwork, references in letters and so on …’

  I attempted to smile, but I think it was more like a compression of my lips. I didn’t want to stand in front of the Schiele any longer. I knew the process to contest Oskar’s claim would be a lengthy one, one that he wouldn’t give up on. But a part of me didn’t want to oppose him. If he were someone else, it would be a different story – I’d be willing to roll up my sleeves and enter the fray. But fighting Oskar … I just couldn’t. Although our interactions had been few and far between, his ties to my mother, his humour and self-deprecation now made me consider him a friend.

  It was Oskar who changed the subject. ‘You mentioned the cellar and the discovery of a room down there,’ he said, turning to leave. ‘It sounds intriguing. I’d like to see it, if I may?’ His casual reference to the hidden room reawakened the ice-cold fear inside me.

  ‘Yes, I was going to take a look. I’ll be a few minutes, that’s all.’ It slipped out before I could think of anything else to say. I hadn’t intended to go downstairs, but the pull was there.

  ‘I’d like to come down too, if you …’

  ‘It’s a mess, and the dust – I wouldn’t want you to injure yourself.’

  ‘Nonsense.’ Oskar was already at the drawing room door. ‘I’ll be quite all right, I promise you.’

  I took one last look at the Schiele and went after him. He was standing in the hallway looking about him. After a moment, he got his bearings and made his way to the cellar door. The whispers in my head grew louder, more urgent.

  Don’t. Don’t. Don’t.

  Much as I didn’t want to go, I couldn’t let an elderly man venture down there alone.

  SCHÖNBRUNN PALACE, HIETZING, VIENNA, 1966

  Annabel packs plates, cutlery, the leftover bread, cheese and Linzer torte back into the picnic hamper Christopher Gissing had brought with him.

  She loves the colonnaded Gloriette, the way it overlooks Schönbrunn and its gardens. It’s as close as she’s taken him to Ober St. Veit. For now at least. That’s not to say she hasn’t opened up. Christopher’s been picking away at the locks to her secrets with a tenacity she can only put down to his so-called profession, and he’s done quite well so far. Certainly she’d tried hard to fend off his questions at first, but it was the way he’d asked them – the gentleness with which he’d guided her down avenues she’d rather not tread – that made her let go of her caution. Yes, she was afraid of what he’d think, that he’d run away from her, but when she got to the final chapter, he just folded her in his arms and told her he loved her.

  ‘No one will hurt you now,’ he said.

  She looks over to where he’s standing with his back to her, gazing at the views across Vienna. He cuts a lean figure, straight-backed, though the crumple of his linen trousers and his rolled-up shirt sleeves soften his edges.

  He turns around and she smiles at him. With the lowering sun, a shadow purdahs half his body and she can’t make out the lopsided grin that she knows has appeared on his face. Annabel goes over to him and he wraps his arm around her shoulders. As she interlaces her fingers with his, she feels something pressed into her palm. It’s hard, cold, sharp. He closes her hand around it.

  Delight flutters through Annabel. With all the wine she’s drunk she feels giddy, weak at the knees, and she sinks down on to the grass. Christopher kneels down next to her. Save for a soft breeze ruffling the leaves on the trees, silence lingers between them.

  Annabel regards the ring, its floral-shaped sapphires catching remnants of light that freckle her skin. She glances up at him, shyness taking hold of her for a moment as if they were meeting for the first time.

  ‘Yes,’ she says. ‘With all my heart, yes.’

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  With every step down into the cellar, the knot tightened in my chest. My hand shook as I flicked on the light in the stairwell, revealing a canopy of dust particles suspended in the freezing air.

  ‘Are you sure about this?’ I asked, a question for myself as much as for Oskar.

  A thin smile was impressed on his face as he nodded. He regarded the puffs of our clouded breath and I assumed he thought it all part of the experience.

  The scene was quite different from my last visit – more chaotic than I had imagined, more like an excavation. Walls had been knocked down, creating a cavernous, anthracitic hole. Loose wires hung down from the ceiling or lay exposed in the walls, and tools and equipment of varying sizes were scattered about on the floor. Oskar knocked over a can of Coke that had been balancing on the edge of a box. It clattered to the floor, the sound reverberating through the quiet of the cellar. I glanced at Oskar to check if he was all right, but he simply waved me on.

  As we walked further, it was impossible to ignore the seeping damp in the atmosphere. It penetrated my clothes right through to my skin, and once or twice I shivered. What was more, a putrid odour lapped the air in gentle waves. I tried to imagine the cellar as it would be once the work was done, to think beyond the here and now, but I couldn’t.

  ‘Are you all right, Oskar?’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ he said, his voice muffled by the handkerchief pressed over his nose.

  From somewhere at the far end, I heard a solitary drip. Given the drop in temperature in the cellar, I thought it strange. Not wanting to show the fear now rising with every thump of my heart, I relented and walked over to its source. A couple of makeshift lights had been strung up overhead and I searched for the switch. After an uncertain flicker, their white light spilled out, highlighting the carcasses of rooms, and at the very back was the door Matthias had referred to, left slightly ajar. Just as he had told me, it was a steel affair, at least ten centimetres thick with knots of rust scattered across its length and breadth. Nothing could have penetrated it.

  Oskar joined me. ‘Is this it?’

  I nodded, trying to muster up a smile in response. I ran my hands across the door. Ice cold to the touch, the metal’s roughness scoured my palms and I couldn’t help but wonder how it had lain hidden for so many years. Oskar turned to me, one eyebrow raised, as if asking what we should do next. There were a couple of torches lying on top of a box beside the door. I handed one to Oskar and took one for myself, fully aware of my curiosity locking horns with my unease. I pushed the door wide open, its hinges letting out a yawning creak as though they had awoken from a deep sleep. Oskar put a hand on my shoulder. It felt like a prompt and a reassurance all in one. We went inside, leaving the stench behind us.

  Flashing my torch around, I took stock. The room was large with exposed concrete walls and floor. A pile of wood and rags lay in one corner, together with what looked like a couple of small cans of fuel. They were relics from another era and when I picked them up I was surprised to discover that both cans were full. What surprised me more was the sight of an electric blue cigarette lighter and a half-full packet of Marlboros lying on a wooden bench in the opposite corner. Contrary to Matthias’s claims, the bui
lders hadn’t exactly left behind a tidy site and I planned to call him to complain about the mess. But when I placed the torch on the bench, I received an altogether different shock. It was clear that the ceiling was much lower than the one running through the rest of the cellar. I stretched up to touch it, feeling the claustrophobia creep through my body, threatening to take me hostage.

  I glanced over at Oskar. Something at the back of the room had caught his eye. I followed his gaze and saw the second door, exactly as Matthias had described. Oskar walked up to it, slowly at first. He tugged the door open, then shone his torch into the blackness of what looked like a tunnel.

  ‘It was here,’ he said.

  Even in the torch’s blanching light I could see that the colour in his face had drained away. Behind his glasses, his eyes – wider, their whites more exposed – betrayed a mix of sorrow and fear. He looked like a fragile deer, trapped by its own terror.

  ‘Oskar, what is it? Are you all right?’

  ‘I suppose I’ve never really forgotten.’ He glanced around the room, then stared into the entrance to the tunnel. ‘It was a game of hide-and-seek. I came down to the kitchens to hide. There was nothing special about that – we always gravitated here. That day, there weren’t so many people around, so I scurried further down the corridor, forgoing my usual hiding places where I knew Annabel would find me.’ He glanced at the doorway leading back to the cellar, where I was now standing. ‘A large wooden cupboard stood in front of that door. It had been moved forward, creating a small gap between it and what I thought was the wall.’

  ‘So you went to hide there?’

  ‘Just like any child would,’ Oskar said. ‘Hearing your mother skipping down the stairs, I quickly crawled behind it. My back caught on the edge of the door. Curiosity and my competitive spirit took over. I inched it open and slipped inside. The room was pitch dark and I sat against the wall, listening out for your mother. I heard her footsteps come closer, but she didn’t venture near this end of the kitchens. I felt the thrill of thwarting her efforts to find me. But then in the silence that followed, I heard something altogether different.’

  Oskar kneaded the furrow in his brow. ‘It sounded like a whine. At first, I thought it was a kitten, and I remember straining my eyes to see in the dark. The sound continued and so I shuffled towards the noise. As I got closer, I realised it didn’t sound much like a kitten at all – it was more like a child’s whimper. I wondered whether someone else was hiding there too, whether someone had joined the game that I didn’t know about.’ Oskar removed his glasses and shook his head. ‘So I whispered in the dark, Who’s there? This is my hiding place! There was no answer, but the whimpering stopped. Who’s there? I asked again. Obstinately, I shuffled forward, wanting to know who it was.’ Oskar pointed his torch to the wall where the pile of wood and rags lay. ‘I think I had crawled over to that side. Before I could say anything else, a freezing cold hand grabbed my arm. I shouted out, and another hand, just as cold, clamped over my mouth.’ Oskar looked straight at me. ‘When she whispered, I recognised her voice at once. It was a girl I knew very well. Her name was Eva. Eva Schwartz.’

  I started. ‘Eva?’

  ‘That’s right,’ he replied. ‘She worked in this house. She used to play with us from time to time. We were quite fond of her.’

  I shook my head. ‘But in my mother’s notebook, she writes of Eva going away – to Salzburg. I assumed she’d got away.’ I leaned against the wall, closing my eyes. ‘What happened to her?’ Part of me was reluctant to know.

  ‘I could hear the sound of clinking chains each time she moved. I remember how tightly she gripped me. Of course, I realise now that I was her means of escape, but back then, as a little boy, her desperation frightened me. I couldn’t understand why she was hiding in that room and why she was restrained. Find Frau Albrecht. Please, Oskar, she said over and over again, until she thought I understood.’

  ‘And did you?’

  ‘I was just a child, Max. How was I …’

  ‘Did you?’

  ‘I think … I think I understood that something was wrong. I understood that I needed to get out of that room. I shrank away from her and edged my way back to the door. But then …’ He nodded towards the tunnel. ‘Then that door opened up. Bright torchlight filled the room. When my eyes had got used to the light, I saw three men. They looked at me, then at Eva. I remember turning to her to see her properly, and when I did’ – he shut his eyes – ‘I don’t know how I’ve managed to shut out that image all these years. She was just skin and bones, with bruises and cuts all over her body.’ He bowed his head.

  ‘Who were the men?’ I knew the answer but I needed to hear it from Oskar.

  ‘One I didn’t recognise. I just remember his black uniform and the Totenkopf badge on his hat. One was the butler who worked for your grandparents.’ Oskar looked at me, his face wrought with anguish. ‘The third one was your grandfather.’

  I pictured that man, my grandfather, seated next to Eva Schwartz. ‘Did you run?’

  ‘I couldn’t move. The butler made a grab for me, but your grandfather held him back and told them to go back up the tunnel. Then Herr Albrecht smiled at me. I was petrified. I hunkered down close to the wall. He crouched down in front of me, lifted up my chin and whispered, You never saw her, did you, Oskar? You never saw us. I remember his warm breath on my face, and the smell of tobacco and cologne about his clothes. I was frozen to the spot, Max. He pulled me to my feet and shoved me towards the door. You’re going to England soon, aren’t you? he asked. All I could do was nod. And then he said, If you say a word about this, you and your parents will be taken away before you even get out of your driveway, and no one will ever see you again. I pushed past him and ran out of the room as fast as I could, bumping the side of my head on the cupboard as I made my getaway.’

  ‘That’s why you didn’t say anything. But to keep quiet, all this time?’

  ‘I just wanted to forget, and somehow I did – and then you came along.’ A tear escaped from the corner of his eye.

  ‘I’m sorry, Oskar.’ Those were the only words I could summon up.

  I thought back to our first conversation on the telephone: I hope she wasn’t seeking to atone for the sins of her forebears. The oddness of the statement, the language he used, had stayed with me. Still, I had been completely blind to the truth in that remark.

  ‘But my mother – I think she knew,’ I said. ‘All she would’ve needed was to hear it from you.’

  Oskar rested his hand on my shoulder. I brought my hand up to his, feeling the bumps of his knuckles, the wrinkles of his skin, loose and cold.

  ‘It’s not for you to apologise,’ Oskar said. He took his hand away. ‘You said you experienced a presence here in this house – that it took the form of a girl – and when you told me about the anagram, I knew she – Eva – was calling me.’

  ‘No Oskar. Please.’ Ever since I had seen her in that photograph with my grandfather, I had wrestled with the suspicion that the presence was Eva Schwartz. But I didn’t want to accept it, clinging to the belief that Eva was the one who got away, just like my mother had thought. Maybe she had discovered the truth too. Fear flowed through me, colder than the air in the room.

  He put his hand on my arm. ‘It’s me she wants. I need … I need to tell her that I’m sorry.’

  ‘Let’s just leave it. Coming here, what you’ve just told me – that’s enough.’ I clasped his hand and tried to draw him away from the room, but he wouldn’t move.

  ‘Let me be, Max,’ he said.

  And then I smelt it. The stench infiltrated the room, clinging to its walls. I pressed my hand against my mouth and nose, trying to stem a wave of nausea. Oskar did the same. But it wasn’t just the smell. The atmosphere in the room changed too, shifting from a calm stillness to a restless creeping silence edging around us. I stole a glance at Oskar; he seemed to feel it too. Just then, our torches and every single light in the cellar went out. Both of us stood t
here, side by side, waiting, my older companion, I was sure, more willing than me to face what was coming. I tried to swallow away the dryness in my throat, to slow the beat of my heart. I tried to move my feet, but they refused to comply. I could hear nothing save for the steady rise and fall of Oskar’s breath.

  The door leading back to the cellar slammed shut. I jumped.

  ‘It’s all right,’ Oskar said calmly.

  Somehow, I knew he wasn’t addressing me. In the darkness, I felt her presence penetrating the silence, filling the room. The torch that I’d set down on the workbench flickered, then emitted a weak shaft of light, casting dark shadows on the opposite wall. One of the shadows moved. Then I realised it wasn’t a shadow – it was her, the girl. It was Eva.

  She had her back to us. She was a slip of a thing, with dark matted hair straggling over her shoulders. A black ragged dress hung on her, skimming her shins, exposing white legs that appeared lacerated, as if she’d been whipped. But those wounds paled in comparison to the others: red, raw bands around each ankle, matching the welts cuffing her wrists. The torchlight grew fainter. It threw only a sliver of yellow into the room, although it was still enough to show the girl turn around, ever so slowly, to reveal her face.

  She was a mere echo of the child captured in sepia in 1937. I couldn’t wrest my eyes away. It was the same face that I’d seen in the cellar before, that had been reflected in the French windows on my first visit: a white translucent mask, pulled tight over her skull, throwing into sharp relief the lines of her cheekbones and jaw. She turned her head from Oskar to me, her vacant eyes, like pools of ink, staring at me as she contorted her lips into a sneer.

  I felt myself pushed back against the concrete wall, its cold bleeding into my body. I glanced over at Oskar: Eva had turned her attention to him. The sneer had gone and in its place was an altogether different expression, like the quiver of a delicate frown, making her look like the vulnerable child she once was. I watched as she held out her hand to Oskar. He took a couple of steps forward and knelt down, taking her hand in his.