by Lewis Orde
Kassler switched to English. ‘For saving lives. I loathe the Nazis as much as any decent man—’
‘Is that why you joined the SS?’
Kassler’s steely eyes froze at the sarcasm. ‘I joined the Schutzstaffel to protect my family and fight against the evil which had enveloped my country.’ He paused to see what reaction his words would provoke. Roland ordered him to continue. ‘Before the war my father owned a factory near Stuttgart. He manufactured components for motor engines. In 1938 he was ordered to switch production to components for tank engines. He refused and was thrown into prison. The factory was taken over, given to others faithful to the state. My father died a year later, in Buchenwald, two weeks before Hitler invaded Poland with tanks containing engine parts manufactured at my father’s factory.’
‘Then what happened?’
‘To protect the rest of my family I had to pretend to be the exact opposite of my father. Naturally, because of the stand he took we were all suspect. I became a party stalwart by joining the Schutzstaffel. When I made my vow of loyalty I took another oath, a silent one that I would keep. I swore to do all in my power to work against the evil of Adolf Hitler and the criminals who supported him. I am heartbroken now as I see the disasters which have befallen my country, but I am also proud that I kept my promise.’
Roland dropped his eyes to the desk, fixed them on the Webley. He became fascinated by the cold impersonality of the weapon as he considered Kassler’s words. What if the German was telling the truth? Such a possibility was out of the question, Roland reasoned. No man, not even a saint, could accomplish good in the midst of all this horror. Or was it possible? Could it be, by some miracle, that Roland had stumbled on one decent German, a man of high principle who had used the system in an attempt to wreck it? Roland didn’t know the answer, but he couldn’t dismiss the question; he had to find out. He slowly lifted his gaze from the desk to the escort. ‘Remove the prisoner. Bring him back when I call you.’ He waited until Kassler had been taken outside, then he turned to Goldstein, anxious to hear his opinion. In the few days since they had arrived Roland had become closer to Goldstein than to anyone he had encountered in his five years in the army. He knew it was the horrors at the camp that had drawn them together. ‘What do you think about all this, sergeant?’
Goldstein nodded toward the Webley. ‘Let me have that for five seconds, sir. I’ll shoot the bastard and save us all the bother of disproving his lies.’
Roland considered Goldstein’s blunt reply . . . Two minutes earlier he had almost impulsively done what Goldstein was suggesting, even with Goldstein and the escort as damning witnesses. Now he was having second thoughts. ‘I’m not certain that acting as judge, jury and executioner is the answer, sergeant, although I can understand perfectly how you feel.’
‘Can you, sir? With all due respect, I don’t think you’ve got the vaguest idea how I feel. I know you’ve done everything you can for the people here, but you’ve just done what any decent human being would do. My feelings go a bloody sight deeper than common decency, sir. Forty years ago, my family came to England from a small village on the German-Polish border. For all I know, some of those skeletons out there could be my cousins.’
‘Sergeant . . .’ Roland took a deep breath and let it out slowly. ‘I understand a lot more than you think I do, because any of those poor bastards out there could be my cousins as well.’ Even as he said it, Roland wondered whether he had made a mistake. Despite the closeness that had grown between them, Goldstein was still virtually a stranger, and Roland was telling him something he had never admitted to anyone before – in fact, it was something he could scarcely acknowledge to himself. ‘My old man was a Jew.’
‘I wasn’t aware of that, sir.’ Goldstein had become very stiff, as if embarrassed by his own display of emotion and Roland’s confession.
‘Neither was I until I came to this place. I never gave a damn for it one way or the other. But after seeing what’s gone on here, I can’t stop thinking about it. Does that make any sense to you, sergeant?’
‘Yes, sir, it does.’ The sergeant watched his young captain carefully, uncertain of what was going through his mind. He seemed to be wavering on a tightrope. On one side was the present, on the other side – yawning like a chasm – a portion of his past he had previously denied. It was as though he was trying to balance himself between the two . . .
Goldstein knew he wouldn’t be able to do it – not for long. Bergen-Belsen had opened up that past and now Roland had not only to recognize . . . he had to learn to live with it.
*
The siren began as a faint chilling whisper, greedily sucking air into its lungs, gathering strength until it finally pierced the sky with its warning.
By the middle of September 1940, the mournful wail was such a familiar sound along the Kent coast that reaction to it was automatic, almost unhurried. Families with houses that had cellars went below ground. Others trooped in orderly fashion as they’d done many times before to communal shelters, waiting until the all-clear sounded. A few diehards stayed put, obstinately daring the Germans to bomb them. In London, where the Luftwaffe was usually headed, there might be panic; but in genteel seaside resort towns like Margate, Ramsgate and Cliftonville the siren was little more than an annoying interruption to the day’s routine.
The Eagles family home in Margate had a cellar. As the siren sounded in the late afternoon, Henry Eagles, his wife Betty, and their three children – Roland, Maureen and Neil – went into their rehearsed routine. Windows were fixed open to lessen the chance of glass breaking from concussion should any bombs be dropped nearby. Roland went out into the garden to fetch the cat. Then the family trooped downstairs to the cellar, which Henry Eagles had fitted up as temporary living quarters with a collapsible table and chairs, cooking facilities from a primus stove, canned food and water, and five bunks attached in tiers to the walls. In one corner of the cellar, hidden by a screen, was a chemical toilet. When the door to the rest of the house was closed, the sound of the siren barely penetrated.
‘Here we go again,’ Roland muttered as the first sound of the approaching bombers vibrated through the ground. With newspaper in hand, he perched himself comfortably on the edge of one of the bunks. It did not escape his father’s attention that the paper was folded open to the racing page.
‘Didn’t you bring any homework down with you?’ Henry Eagles asked.
‘I did it all during the sports period this afternoon.’
‘You managed to avoid getting picked again?’
‘No one ever picks me because I’m a jinx to whichever team I play for.’
Henry laughed. ‘You go out of your way to be a jinx.’ He knew his oldest son hated team competitions. Roland saw no logic in it; it meant nothing to him to be on the winning side in a game of soccer or cricket. Where mental prowess was called for, however, he was an outstanding competitor. He shone at chess, winning the school trophy for the past two years, just as he excelled in his academic studies, attacking each subject with a cold, methodical efficiency while seeming not to work at all. But sports, where he should have done well because of his height – three days short of his sixteenth birthday and already one of the tallest boys in school – raised no enthusiasm whatsoever.
Henry understood his son’s aversion to sports, because they didn’t come as naturally to him as did his mental capacity. And if Roland could not effortlessly shine in any subject of activity he saw no reason to waste his time and energy trying to do so. For Roland it was an all or nothing proposition – mediocrity had no place in his life.
His attitude, particularly toward sports, dismayed his father. Though in his early forties, Henry Eagles was tall and trim, firm-muscled and athletic. He still found time to play cricket in the summer and rugby in the cooler months. It was a healthy break from the humdrum routine of the accountancy firm in Margate where he was a partner, and it was a disappointment that his son wouldn’t join in with him . . .
Th
e noise of the bombers increased, drowning out the wail of the siren. The house shook, causing all five members of the family to stare up at the cellar ceiling. How safe was it down here? What if Margate was the target this time? Would the cellar withstand the explosions? Roland dropped the newspaper and pulled his younger brother and sister onto the bunk with him, arms protectively around their shoulders. Neil tried to act like he thought an adult would, sitting upright, unafraid, but Maureen was visibly shaken by the sound of the aircraft. Roland held her tighter, reassuring her that he wouldn’t let anything happen to her. He glanced at his parents, who were sitting by the table. His mothers’s fists were clenched nervously; her blue eyes fixed on the crucifix on the wall. His father sat holding the cat, absently stroking its fur.
The drumming of the bombers seemed to last forever, as if the entire Luftwaffe was passing overhead. The family was silent until, at last, it began to fade, then finally died away.
‘London again.’ Roland’s mother said. Relieved, she ran a hand through her long blonde hair, stood up and walked across the cellar to touch the crucifix.
‘Poor devils.’ Henry murmured. ‘It must be hell there.’
‘Are you worried about your family?’
Henry looked sharply at his wife. ‘I have no family in London. The only family I have is right here, in this cellar.’
Betty Eagles dropped her eyes, wishing that she hadn’t mentioned her husband’s family. He hated them as much as he hated the German bombers which flew over the house almost every day. Sometimes she wondered if Henry was secretly praying that one of those bombers would someday find his family and drop its load right on their heads. What made it worse was that Betty knew she was the reason for the ill feelings on both sides. If she had never met him, never married him, he never would have fallen foul of his family. There were times when she wondered if he blamed her as well . . .
‘There’s the all-clear.’ Roland said the moment he heard the siren pick up again, the long one-note blast that signified the danger was over. As far as he was concerned, it couldn’t have come at a more timely moment. He hated it when his father spoke of his family like that. Regardless of what had happened, it was still his family . . . His mother should never have mentioned them. He stood up and began climbing the stairs to the ground floor. ‘I’ll close the windows.’
‘Don’t turn lights on until you’ve got the curtains drawn,’ his father called after him.
‘I know the rules.’ Roland walked around the ground floor, closing windows and drawing the heavy drapes, then repeating the chore upstairs. All the while he thought about his parents, the anger in his father’s voice . . . Maureen and Neil were still too young to understand the turmoil caused by their parents’ marriage, Catholic to Jew. Although Roland could intellectually understand what caused the split, he knew he would never understand in his heart how a family could cast out one of its own – especially when the only crime committed was that his father had fallen in love . . .
In his own room he opened a drawer and pulled out an old cigar box that held his personal treasures – a diary he had once kept through an entire year, scout achievement badges, a silver ring he had found on the beach two summers ago. At the bottom of the box was a small, flat, rectangular metal casing with a hole at each end for a nail. His father had given it to him years ago, telling him it was a Jewish good luck charm. Roland couldn’t now remember the strange name by which his father had called it. Opening the back, he extracted a small piece of parchment, unfolded it and stared uncomprehendingly at the minute Hebrew printing. It was supposed to be a prayer but it meant nothing too him. If it rally were a lucky charm, he reasoned, then maybe there was a chance that his father could become friendly with his family again. He slipped the charm into his pants pocket, replaced the box in the drawer and continued closing the windows.
Later that night, when Maureen and Neil were in bed and Betty Eagles sat reading, Roland and his father played chess at the dining room table. The curtains were securely fastened, taped at the sides to prevent light leaks. Not all the neighbors were as conscientious, though, and every so often Roland would hear an air-raid warden shout ‘Get that light out!’ as he patrolled the area seeking blackout offenders.
‘You’ve got your O-levels this year,’ Henry Eagles said as he pondered a move. ‘I think you should spend more time studying than you do.’
‘Why should I pretend to study hard when it comes so easily?’ Roland reached out and grasped his father’s hand as he was about to move a piece. ‘I wouldn’t do that – it’ll be mate in three if you make that move.’
Henry surveyed the board, shook his head with a feigned weariness and changed his mind. ‘I wish you wouldn’t be so bloody patronizing when we play.’
‘I like our games to be competitive.’
‘Even if you have to provide the competition yourself?’ Henry said with a friendly edge to his voice. He hadn’t beaten Roland in over a year. ‘What do you want for your birthday?’
Roland considered both the board and his father’s question carefully. ‘How about a new bicycle?’
‘Too expensive. Lower your sights.’
‘All right.’ Roland moved one of his own men. ‘I was going to buy one for myself, but I thought I’d see if I could con you out of the money instead.’
‘Are you that wealthy these days?’
Roland reached into his back pocket and pulled out a well thumbed post office savings book. ‘Forty-seven pounds, eighteen shillings and threepence.’ He was particularly proud of his post office account – it represented his winnings at the track.
‘You just make sure you don’t get caught betting,’ Henry warned. ‘Either by your schoolmasters or the police.’ Roland had been playing the horses for more than a year, ever since he had sat down to study form sheets with the same single-minded efficiency with which he mastered everything else. His bets were modest, a shilling or two placed with a bookmaker in Margate who didn’t object to doing business with schoolboys . . . And while Henry himself had no interest in placing bets on horses, he knew there was little point in forbidding Roland to gamble; the boy was simply too strong-willed to be thwarted. Besides, Henry was secretly impressed with his son’s winnings, particularly the way he kept an account of everything he won or lost, entering it into a ledger like a man running a company. He thought that the experience might be useful some day . . . in another two years Roland would be finished with school altogether and could join him in the accountancy firm, starting out as an articled clerk. He had the mind for it, a brain which naturally divided figures into profit-and-loss columns. He’d fit in well, Henry thought, as long as he didn’t get dragged off to war. God forbid . . .
‘There are a couple of good horses running tomorrow – make a nice double. Want to come in with me?’ Roland asked cheekily.
‘No thank you. I make my money honestly.’
Roland studied the board for a few seconds, then asked, ‘Why don’t you make up with your family?’
The question was unexpected and Roland’s father was clearly not happy to have the subject broached again.
‘What makes you ask that?’
‘You were worried tonight about the bombers, even if you claimed you weren’t. You worry every night London gets bombed.’
‘Roland, my family stopped speaking to me. I never stopped speaking to them. It was their choice, not mine. I merely accommodated them.’
‘Do you think you’ll ever see them again?’
‘Who knows?’ Henry gazed at the board and tried to focus on the game but found it impossible; his son’s nagging questions had wrecked his concentration. He reflected on how, at times, Roland seemed mature beyond his years, while other times he could be so utterly naive. He refused to accept that a family could be split up, nor could he comprehend the bitterness that resulted in a family of orthodox Jews when a son married a Catholic. Perhaps when he grew older he would understand better how families sometimes work, Henry thought sourly .
. . after he’d accumulated enough cynicism and bitterness in his own life.
‘Will you ever see them again?’ Roland repeated.
Henry glanced at his wife and saw that she was staring at him. ‘Roland, do me a favor and don’t ask so many questions, eh?’ He pushed the board away, toppling the pieces. ‘I give you the game. Now you’d better get to bed, you’ve got school in the morning.’
Roland kissed his parents goodnight and went upstairs. Before going to bed he looked in on his sister and brother, pulled the covers up and kissed them both. He loved his family – nothing could ever separate them – and it grieved him that his father’s family was not as strong, or as forgiving.
*
Roland’s final class before lunchtime the following day was the subject he hated most: religious instruction. He took just enough interest in the lessons to learn the names, dates and places he needed in order to pass the exams. Had the class been taught by anyone other than the school’s headmaster, Mr Spott-Mandray, Roland wouldn’t have bothered at all. But Spott-Mandray, known to generations of students as Old Spotty, still inspired fear.
As the tall, gauntly thin headmaster paced the front of the classroom, black gown billowing out behind him as he recited facts about the children of Israel fleeing from Egypt, Roland checked the racing page spread across his knees. Occasionally he looked up, just to make certain that the headmaster wasn’t taking any undue interest in him.
‘Eagles!’ Spott-Mandray suddenly called out. ‘What was the fifth plague visited by God upon the Egyptians?’
‘Boils, sir,’ Roland fired back, caught momentarily off-guard. Looking at the headmaster’s beaked nose, pale face and prominent widow’s peak he couldn’t help thinking that with the black gown Old Spotty resembled a huge vampire bat.
Spott-Mandray glared across the classroom at Roland. ‘That was the sixth plague. Pestilence was the fifth. Pay attention, boy.’
‘Yes, sir.’ Roland held Spott-Mandray’s gaze for a moment then dropped his eyes to the desk. School rumor had it that Old Spotty was waiting to be called into the army. He had been in the first World War and had retained a reserve commission. The day Old Spotty returned to active service couldn’t come soon enough for Roland; the old martinet would get the shock of his life when he tried to treat grown men as if they were schoolboys.
