Edelweiss

by Madge Swindells

  The party dispersed after lunch, and Ingrid returned to London well pleased with herself. Paddy ceased to nag her so much and she began to enjoy burning the candle at both ends. From the initial batch of invitations she’d received at Gwen’s Ingrid rapidly expanded her network of acquaintances. Each weekend brought a new wave of men home on leave and they all had something in common: they were desperate for love and feminine companionship. They were often in a state of shock despite their bravado. It was just before dawn when they were at their lowest ebb. Invariably they talked, sometimes without any prodding on her part. It was all reported back to Fernando or Paddy.

  For Ingrid, this casual no-promises and no-ties love was ideal. She wanted a warm male body next to hers to while away the lonely, terrifying nights and she preferred not to get to know them.

  Then Gwen brought her an invitation to dinner at her father’s London home one Saturday. ‘Lord Schofield is very keen to be formally introduced to you, but I believe you’ve already met.’

  Ingrid suppressed a smile. She was going to be introduced to the man she had spent the night with. How very British.

  *

  Once properly introduced, the invitations and flowers came daily. Stephen, as he wanted to be called, monopolised her time. His rank ensured that no other men came near her. In London he wined and dined her night after night. At weekends they went riding together or tramped for miles through the countryside.

  Ingrid’s information gathering was hampered by Stephen’s attentions and she never learned anything useful from him. One evening Fernando tackled her in the back of Paddy’s shop. He caught her arm and twisted it viciously. ‘Drop Schofield! You’ve got nothing out of him so far. Concentrate on the officers home on leave or else.’

  ‘Or else what?’ she sneered, pulling her arm free and hastily leaving the room. Paddy was leaning over the counter as she rushed out. ‘Hey, wait a minute, Princess.’ He examined her arm. ‘You’re going to have a bruise,’ he said softly. ‘The man’s a thug.’ He gave her a soft, crafty smile that repelled her. ‘Let’s have a cup of tea, I want to talk to you.’ Paddy lived over the shop. Beside the store room was a kitchenette, with a dirty sink and a kettle on a hob. He made some tea and led her to his back garden where he bred rabbits.

  ‘Let’s sit on the bench,’ he said. ‘It’s a fine evening. I like to sit here and watch the rabbits. D’you know anything about rabbits?’

  She shook her head. Paddy irritated her. He was common and he had dirty fingernails. Her cup was dirty, too, and she was waiting for a chance to tip the tea on the flowers. She longed for a cup of good Viennese coffee.

  ‘Those are Flemish Giants,’ he said, pointing to some big grey rabbits with floppy ears. ‘This little beauty is a White Dutch. She’s my favourite.’ He opened the hutch and took hold of the rabbit gently. She seemed afraid as he put her on his knees and stroked her head.

  ‘We’re all in this war for something. No one does this sort of work for nothing. I’m in it for Eire. Germany has promised us independence. Not that I set much store by German promises, but it’s some sort of a target.

  ‘You’re in it for yourself. You’ve been promised your family’s fortune back, I hear. Well, there’s all sorts of ways girls can get fortunes. They can get them in bed,’ he winked slyly. ‘I expect Lord Schofield will propose. When he does, shoot him a line that will keep him hanging around, but not monopolising you. He’s useful, but not to the exclusivity of your other contacts.’

  There was a long silence while Paddy slurped his tea.

  Then he said: ‘A beautiful girl like you might think there was a way out of the mess you’re in, like marrying Schofield, just as this little rabbit might think she could escape – I call her Ingrid because she’s a real beauty. Just like you.’

  The rabbit was a glossy white doe-eyed creature and she sat deadly still as he took his hands away. For a second she trembled on his knee. Then she jumped.

  Paddy’s hand moved in a swift, powerful chop that broke the rabbit’s back in mid-air. She fell to the ground with a high-pitched screech of anguish. Ingrid was speechless with horror. The rabbit was trying to get away, using its front legs to drag its paralysed hindquarters behind it.

  ‘Of course, one can never escape,’ Paddy said. He smiled at her and turned to watch the rabbit’s efforts. ‘I think I’ll put Ingrid out of her misery.’ He bent over, picked up the rabbit and with a quick snap, twisted its neck. Its head lolled over at an impossible angle.

  He sighed. ‘The fact is, she was only ever supper.’

  Ingrid felt sick. She put down her cup and stood up. ‘You revolt me.’

  He smiled. It was a tender, knowing smile. A lover might smile at one that way, Ingrid thought.

  *

  Ingrid avoided Stephen for a few days and took up with a young Polish airman who told her about his night-bombing training. She took the details to Fernando, trying not to speak to Paddy.

  The following week, a heatwave settled over Europe. On Friday evening, Stephen took Ingrid for a walk along the Embankment. He seemed nervous as they stood side by side, leaning over the railings, watching the boats pass.

  ‘Darling, will you marry me?’ he said, out of the blue. Then, without waiting for her answer, he went on: ‘My dear, I want you to take time off to see my lawyer. He can arrange settlements, that sort of thing. You do have a London lawyer, I assume. If not, I can give you some names. You’ll find that I’m highly eligible . . .’ He laughed, looking embarrassed. ‘Enough to ensure that the pre-war standards you were accustomed to are maintained.’ Eligible. The word struck a deep chord in her memory and she remembered Hugo and his list of eligible men, pilfered from Princess Lobkowitz’s study. Lord Stephen Schofield had been on that list. She almost laughed aloud. She could hear Paddy’s warning echoing in her mind. She had to say ‘no’. Anyway, she consoled herself, just how eligible would Lord Schofield be after Britain was conquered?

  ‘I’m not free,’ she said. ‘There’s someone waiting for me in Austria. Someone in a camp,’ she ad-libbed. ‘Until such time as he dies or is released, I cannot be free. Perhaps . . . one day . . . Who knows . . .?’

  Stephen looked shocked and bewildered, then terribly hurt.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said. ‘Just don’t cut me out of your life.’

  Chapter Forty-Six

  In the camp workshop, where Marietta had been sewing army uniforms for the past six months, the summer heatwave made life unbearable. It was midday and their brief lunchbreak had not yet been called. The soup was late and Marietta was weak from hunger. Her sewing machine began to waver in and out of focus. In front of her, Greta was nodding forward and Marietta looked around to see if the supervisor, known as Pig-eyes, was watching.

  ‘Greta, wake up,’ she whispered. Greta lurched forward and the needle zipped right across the trouser leg she was making.

  Greta was grabbed by her collar and hauled into the aisle. As the supervisor laid into her with her schlag, Marietta leapt forward and touched the woman’s arm. ‘Leave her alone,’ she pleaded. ‘She’s tired. Our food’s late and she’s not well.’

  Pig-eyes swivelled towards her new victim. Greta was forgotten as Marietta was marched out into the parade ground.

  She was beaten with the schlag until she fell, but the supervisor kicked her until she got back on her feet. Painfully she stumbled back to work and tried her best to complete a seam every thirty seconds as the garments landed on her bench. She could hardly see for black spots dancing in front of her eyes and every movement hurt. The supervisor had another punishment for her, she was to miss her soup and bread.

  Marietta bent over her machine, not by word or expression would she show this sadist how devastated she was by this casual decree. She tried to make sense of what had happened to her, but there was little energy for thinking in Lichtenberg.

  Acutely aware of her bruised back and shoulders, Marietta dragged herself through the rest of the day. At 10 p.m. she threw herself
on to her bunk with a sigh of relief, but she had difficulty finding a position to lie in that didn’t hurt too much. She was shifting restlessly when she heard Greta groaning. Her friend sat bolt upright, stared around as if in a trance, and fell unconscious on to the floor.

  Marietta scrambled out of her bunk and bent over Greta. She had fallen badly and her cheek was bruised and grazed. She tried to lift her, but didn’t have the strength. Soon several Polish women gathered round and together they managed to get Greta to her bunk. After that, Marietta sat for an hour beside her, bathing her face with cool water, but Greta remained unconscious, twitching with delirium.

  She wouldn’t last the night without medical attention, Marietta thought, but access to the medical block was only in daylight hours, accompanied by their supervisor.

  Greta mustn’t die, Marietta thought fiercely, she was the only one of them who had a good chance of being released. She had to live to be free. ‘I have to get her to the doctor,’ she said aloud, and went to the door.

  The guard stationed outside their bunkhouse was young and impressionable. He saw Marietta’s frightened eyes peering through the ventilation slats and he felt sorry for her.

  ‘Stay inside,’ he said urgently. ‘Be careful. You’ll be beaten if you come out.’

  ‘I don’t care. Shoot me! Do what you like. My friend is dying.’ Somehow she was going to get Greta to the hospital block. She had never felt so determined in her life.

  ‘No one comes out after lights out. Go to sleep and stop making a disturbance.’

  She looked over his shoulder and in the lingering summer dusk saw a wheelbarrow parked by a pile of bricks.

  ‘You’re Austrian, aren’t you?’ she said.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can tell from your accent. So am I. I used to be a person of some consequence before I came here. Nowadays, I’m known as number 798484. My crime was to help some unfortunate people flee the country. I’m coming out to get that wheelbarrow. I’m sorry, I have no choice.’

  ‘Stay inside,’ the guard begged her. ‘I’m not the only guard here.

  Ignoring his threats, she stepped over the threshold.

  ‘I’ll shoot,’ the guard whispered desperately.

  ‘Then shoot. I’m nearly dead and my friend certainly will be dead by morning unless I get her to a doctor.’

  Unnerved by her determination, the guard let her pass. It seemed to take a very long time to walk across the darkening yard and wheel the barrow back.

  The women helped her to lift Greta into the barrow. She gave a strange moan, but didn’t wake.

  Shaking with the effort of balancing the deadweight of her cargo, Marietta set out across the yard, the eyes of the guard and the barrel of his rifle seeming to bore into her back like hot pokers.

  She searched for courage. What was it Father had taught her? ‘The greatest man is he who chooses right with invincible determination . . .’ Now who had said that . . .? One of the ancient Greeks . . .

  The hospital block was three hundred yards away and it took her five minutes to get there. Greta remained unconscious and Marietta was worried that her friend might be dead. The doctor, a German Catholic, was appalled to see them. ‘What’s the point of this heroism?’ he railed at her. ‘Do you know what will happen to you? And for what? She has tuberculosis. She’s going to die anyway.’

  ‘Save her,’ Marietta said. ‘She’s not a political prisoner. In three years she’ll be free. She must live for all of us.’

  Early next morning, Pig-eyes meted out Marietta’s punishment. ‘You are being sent to solitary confinement,’ she said triumphantly.

  ‘For how long?’

  ‘Maybe forever.’ She replied, smiling to herself, enjoying Marietta’s fear. ‘Most prisoners die there,’ she added viciously.

  Marietta followed Pig-eyes to the cells. A barred gate before some stone steps led to an underground passage. She shuddered as a wardress, with mean eyes and a pale, pimply skin, snatched at her hand to read the number on her wrist.

  ‘She’s in solitary . . . until further orders,’ Pig-eyes said. The wardress laboriously made an entry into a heavy ledger, then Marietta followed the woman down another flight of stairs. She couldn’t stop shivering as she walked behind the woman, along an underground passage dimly lit with electric light. It smelled damp and stale. The wardress unlocked a thick door and motioned Marietta to enter. She slid her foot forward into total blackness, fearing that she would fall into a bottomless pit. A sharp push sent her sprawling into the dark unknown.

  She screamed with terror as she fell on to coarse concrete, hardly registering as the door clanged shut behind her. It seemed that the darkness was suffocating her. She curled foetus-like, sobbing and beating the ground with her fists. Soon she was too exhausted to cry, and lapsed into silent despair.

  Later she realised that she had missed several meals. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed, but she felt dizzy and light-headed. Were they going to deprive her of food as well as light? She tried to stand up, but lost her balance and fell. She would crawl, she decided. She fumbled her way around the floor. Her cell was constructed of rough cement and brick, it was dusty with a faint odour of vomit and human sweat all around. She crept forward, feeling her way like a blind creature.

  After what felt like hours on her knees she’d worked out that her room was small, about nine feet by twelve. There was a toilet, a tap and a bucket, a bed, a coir mattress and one blanket. After a while she relocated the prickly mattress and lay on it, aware of her bruises and smarting from the knowledge that they were self-inflicted. She strained to hear sounds from outside, but no noise penetrated; she suspected her cell was soundproofed. She tried to count to check the passage of time, but the silence was so numbing, her brain seemed incapable of working.

  ‘I must survive!’ She spoke aloud to try to shatter the stifling atmosphere, but burst into tears again. ‘Dear God, help me to survive,’ she chanted to herself. ‘Give me courage. Surely I can cope. Others have. One day these evil people will be brought to justice, and I will be there to see it happen.’ She tried to believe her own words, but felt completely defeated.

  Chapter Forty-Seven

  The wardress saved Marietta’s life.

  She had lain in a daze for hours or days or weeks, she had no way of knowing how long it was since she had been there when a sudden blaze of light pierced her stygian depths. She hid her face in her mattress and put her hands over her head.

  ‘She’ll be dead soon. They go quickly once they give up,’ a female voice said. ‘I’ve seen it happen so often. She hasn’t eaten for days . . . there’s no point in bringing her food. Some of them are fighters, but she isn’t. I prefer the ones that go quickly. They’re less trouble.’

  They left, and Marietta lay shivering with horror. Was she going to do them a favour and die? White hot hatred shot through her, warming her.

  She sat up cautiously. Waves of dizziness made her long to give in and lie back on her bed to wait for death. But that’s what they want.

  She tried again. I must be strong. How else can I defeat them. Strong . . . strong . . . She dragged herself around her cell and found the meagre food left for her. She gagged on the stale bread, but forced down every crumb. She prayed and she meditated. She imagined herself free, walking out through the camp gates, plotting her destruction of Hugo and all his kind. ‘Yes,’ she muttered. ‘I will survive.’

  Her anger gave her strength. She began to keep track of the days by scratching on the wall with her spoon. Never again would she give up, she vowed.

  ‘I will accept this period of my life as your will . . . a time to grow strong. I will gain control of my mind. I will tackle this task by concentrating on the present. In this way I shall only face one small step at a time. God, give me strength,’ she prayed.

  She counted the days by the arrival of her food. She created a pattern out of nothingness, ringing bells in her mind for the end of one period and the start of the
next, making sure that she walked a mile a day by pacing her small cell, meditating three times a day. She set herself mental exercises, reciting poetry, alphabetical lists of rivers, geographical features, artists – anything to stop her remembering happy times. She forced herself not to think of what might be happening to her family and friends, especially Bill.

  She had to keep her mind busy, for all the time she was fighting off the beast that came out of the darkness to prey on her. It would snuffle at her side and she would fend it off with deep breathing, or exercises, or putting her mind to work making a poem . . . anything! The beast was called despair and she knew that it could kill her. ‘Go away,’ she would say aloud. ‘I will survive, for Father, for Bill, for myself, but most of all, for damn Hugo.’

  Dark day followed dark night. She was like a mole, confined to the bowels of the earth. Moles survived, didn’t they? So would she.

  *

  After three months in solitary confinement in pitch darkness, Marietta was unexpectedly released at 3 o’clock one afternoon. Disorientated and blinded by daylight, she was marched back to her bunkhouse.

  The women’s warm welcome touched her. They welcomed her with hugs and sang a carol in her honour. They wanted to show their appreciation of her courage. Many of them tried to press some small gift in her hands: a half slice of bread, some rags stolen from the laundry.

  Marietta searched for Greta and found her asleep on her bunk. She sat quietly beside the bed waiting for her to wake. When she opened her eyes she smiled.

  ‘Dearest Marie, it’s you,’ she muttered, her husky voice pitched even lower. ‘You’re alive. Thank God. I’ve been praying for you. Now I shall die happy.’ Her expressive blue eyes looked even larger against the pallor of her skin. There were two burning red spots on either cheek, her lips were red and she was dreadfully emaciated.