Paul shook his head. ‘Can’t do anything now. They might start firing again at any moment.’ Squeeze.
‘They’ve left the farmhouse. It’s completely dead there.’
‘Might be a trap. Let’s wait until the morning.’
‘Can’t you hear him screaming?’
‘How could I not?’ Paul got to his feet and rubbed his face. ‘I’ve been listening to him all bloody night. Jesus.’
Grace decided to go out and find their section leader. Some of their own might be wounded, too. Just then, the mortar fire returned. It boomed overhead and all around. She sat on the floor next to Paul and took his hand.
Between the shots, they could hear the German in the tank. She had been in the ambulance service for four years, and she had never heard anything so pitiful. The voice was high and frightened, a mere child’s voice. And that ceaseless calling: ‘Hilfe . . .’
It was as if dawn would never come, as if they would be shut for ever in this darkness with the battle noise and that lonely boy’s despair. Like Max: like Max calling for her in the dark.
Four knuckles pressed into her forehead. She must not think of Max. Yet she could think of nothing but Max. She heard him in the voice of every single refugee begging for bread. She saw him in the face of every freed prisoner, of every torn-up man in a ditch.
Now she heard him in the cries of that boy soldier. Max calling for her. She would give her own eyes to make it stop. Better to be dead than . . . but he must be alive. She would be turning a corner any day now and there he would be, in a camp with an open gate, in a cell with an unlocked door. He was there now, waiting for her, calling for her.
The gunfire stopped again. A pause, first, then a hopeful silence beyond a pause. Paul pulled his hand from her grip.
‘I’m going out there,’ he whispered. ‘You stay here. Keep your eyes on that farmhouse.’
From the shattered window she saw him creep towards the road. No sound from the farmhouse. He straightened up and quickly glanced around. Then he climbed up the first destroyed tank and looked inside. His hand briefly covered his face and he climbed back down. She lost him for a moment, then spotted him coming up from behind the second tank. He paused. The screaming turned into a low moan, then rose again: ‘Hilfe . . .’
She listened out for any movements on the farm. Nothing. Nothing from their own side, either. No sound at all, except for that moan, muffled but persistent. When she looked back at the tank, Paul was half-way through the hole with only his head sticking out; and then he was completely gone.
She checked her watch. Half an hour until dawn. They should have asked their section leader. What were they thinking, climbing into German tanks like that, acting without an order?
Perhaps she should creep over and urge Paul to come back. But she could not leave her position by the window. She checked her watch again. Ten minutes already. How would he even get the chap out of the tank?
And then, all of a sudden, the wailing stopped.
Paul’s head appeared above the hole.
Then his shoulders.
Finally his legs.
He ran back towards her without even looking around, desperately wiping his hands on his uniform as he ran.
When he came in, she put her hand on his shoulder but he shook it off.
‘Water.’
She handed him her drinking bottle. He poured the water over his hands and wiped them on his uniform again. In the milky light of the new day, his face was cold and pale, his eyes locked into a numb stare.
He blinked, turned towards her and put down the water bottle. Several times he opened his mouth to say something, but in the end he simply looked at his bloody hands.
Three Ships
They would all be freed. They would all be shot on the spot. Dragged out to sea. Left to starve.
‘Handed over to the Swedes,’ whispered Max’s friend, Pivnik, a Silesian cobbler.
‘Handed over to the fishes,’ replied Max before a guard ordered him to shut up.
Max resisted rumours, even though the last one was tempting. When the guards had taken them to the bay, he had seen several Red Cross workers handing out parcels. Some of the younger men still gained great hope from the sight of that red cross. Max and Pivnik, however, did not expect anything from the nurses. Certainly not rescue, certainly not liberation.
They would all be freed, shot on the spot, shipped off to Sweden. Each rumour was as credible and ludicrous as the next. The war was almost over, that he could see from the frantic nervousness of the guards. But what this meant for him, he could not tell.
Max had learned not to speculate. In order to survive until the war was over, he needed to survive this night. In order to survive this night, he needed to survive this afternoon. In order to survive this afternoon, he needed to survive this minute. At this minute he was being herded onto a freighter. Surviving this minute meant not resisting orders.
The deck was piled high with goods under a tarpaulin. Below, two holds with floors made of metal plates were only slowly filling with cargo. The lower hold was fully loaded by the time Max and Pivnik were taken to the upper hold, where there were a few hundred, perhaps a thousand men.
They found a space near the metal steps that led to the deck. The floor was so cold that Max thought he could hear his shivering bones rattle against the metal plates.
‘Good night, my friend,’ said Pivnik, and closed his eyes.
‘Good night.’ Max folded his hands. The rabbis on the Isle of Man had taught him to pray in a group of standing men. But now he prayed the way he used to pray as a child at bedtime, lying on his back, alone in the dark, his hands folded over his chest. Oh Lord, you freed me of the yellow triangle. You found me a place in Pivnik’s workshop in the camp where I survived the years. You led me onto this ship. Do not abandon me now.
During the night, the ship echoed with sighs and groans. Typhus spread with every sigh.
By dawn, the space between Max and the metal steps was stacked high with corpses. The metal floor had chilled further overnight. With clattering teeth, Max crawled on top of two corpses next to him.
They were still a little warm. Warm enough to shield Max and Pivnik from the icy metal. Not warm enough to fool the lice. Slow and heavy with blood, the lice abandoned the corpses and moved onto the live flesh that breathed on top of them.
Max and Pivnik stirred in their sleep. They brushed the drowsy lice from their stomachs by the handful.
*
Pivnik the Silesian cobbler died on the third morning.
Farewell, my friend, Max thought. Farewell, my dear friend.
Oh Lord, you have . . . do not abandon . . .
His mouth was very dry.
Oh Lord, you took Pivnik.
And already he saw Pivnik’s lice crawl out from below his collar, along his scrawny neck and infected ear, and towards himself.
Oh Lord, you took my friend Pivnik.
There was a crust of bread in Pivnik’s trouser pocket. Max touched it. Withdrew his hand. Touched it again. Soon the eyes around him would also spot it. He snatched the crust of bread and stuffed it into his own pocket.
He licked his salty lips.
A light appeared at the top of the metal steps. More prisoners were pushed down into the hold. Two young boys huddled behind the steps next to Max and Pivnik’s body. They were withered like little old men, everything shrunk except their huge hungry eyes. Too small and withered to steal his bread. He took the crust from his pocket and furtively began to chew one corner. His mistrustful eyes flickered over to the boys. Their hungry stares were fixed on his jaw, and he chewed more quickly, swallowing the second half in great wolfish bites that rasped down his throat.
The younger boy began to cry. The older boy put his arms around him and said something in Polish.
The boat rolled slowly from side to side, and Max fell asleep again.
He woke because someone trod on his f
eet. People were running up the metal steps. Someone shouted that the ships in the bay were on fire. The guards had left – the ships were on fire – the guards had left, and they were free.
The boys – brothers, probably – were still there, sleeping. He woke them up and pointed up at the open square of sky.
The steps stopped just below the deck. From the top rung he had to reach up, grip an iron railing and hoist himself through the hole. He felt too weak, but one last push brought him over the edge.
When he looked back, he saw the boys. The younger boy kept slumping over while his brother tried to push him up the steps. Max reached down and hooked his hands under the boy’s shoulders. Two other hands reached down beside him and grabbed the boy’s arms, and the older brother pushed from below. They lifted the young boy through the opening and carried him across the deck.
Their own ship did not appear to be on fire. But there on the horizon was a large ship, a cruise liner engulfed in flames. Heads bobbed above the water wherever he looked. People in boats circled the cruise liner, pulled some men out of the water, fired at others with machine guns.
The guards had disappeared from his ship. The large tarpaulin had been pulled back to reveal sacks and barrels bursting with food. Sugar and dried beans lay scattered across the deck. Two men were leaning over an open barrel and stuffing themselves with pickles. Another had collapsed on the deck, convulsed by stomach cramps.
He had stolen Pivnik’s crust of bread, and two metres above him, all these riches. The older boy thrust his arm deep into one of the barrels until the brine reached his armpits. Max pulled him away and pointed at the chap with the stomach cramps.
They skidded over pools of pickle brine and rolling dried peas, climbed down the side of the boat and jumped into the icy water. After a short stretch, Max’s feet found a sandy ledge. Shots rang through the air. There, on the promising shore, stood SS officers who fired at the crowd on the beach and the swimmers in the water.
Someone shouted orders: they must stand up and start marching. Max dragged the boys with him. They reached a grassy patch above the beach. The younger boy collapsed again, and Max was no longer strong enough to help him up. The SS officer next to them lowered his gun. He was short and stocky with a tired face, a kind face really.
Lord . . . do not abandon me now.
Praise praise praise praise the Lord.
Gam zu letovah.
Amen.
The SS officer nodded at the younger brother, then told Max to prop him up against a tree. The older brother helped and they managed to sit him upright against the trunk.
The officer nodded, pointed his gun and shot him.
Maurice
‘Lastly . . .’
A Theory of Diamond-Cutting
1
By the end of the war Esther Morningstar had once again fallen from favour. Not dramatically this time, not with the violence of a hammer threatening to come down on a diamond, but slowly and quietly.
She had reached her high point in 1944 with ‘A method for computing the weight of incendiary attack required against Japanese cities.’
Then the stranger’s house where her own daughter slept was hit by a German bomb, and instead of a hunger for revenge, Mrs Morningstar felt only a definite and essential desire never to send any bombs to any country ever again, directly or indirectly.
She resigned from the lab the day her parents’ home in Hatton Garden was struck. Her parents were unharmed, but her father must have been more shaken than he admitted. He lost his appetite and no longer took pleasure in passing his loupe around the dinner table. During his final weeks they spoon-fed him like a child and he submitted to them with docile tenderness.
It was then that Esther attempted to tell her mother about those patterns she had watched her cut out in Hatton Garden decades ago, and how she felt they had influenced her own love of geometry. Her mother laughed awkwardly and wiped the spoon on her apron.
*
The continuing assault on German and Japanese cities seemed unnecessary, vindictive and cruel to her. She made this clear to the Wizard when she resigned.
He pointed at her wedding ring, which she now wore in the lab. ‘That ring, that’s not the gold from poor Mr von der Weide’s medal, is it?’ And he chuckled.
It was this chuckle that the younger men now imitated behind his back. For the Wizard’s hard and feared rule had ended long ago; only Mrs Morningstar had never realized. She had been so obsessed with the lab’s glorious past she had never thought to wonder about its present. The lab had been on the brink of bankruptcy before the war; only the bombing research had injected it with new life. The Wizard’s best men had left his lab long ago and worked on developing radar systems during the war. The ones who remained with him were mid-calibre scientists, trusty workhorses who could estimate a load of explosives but would not be expected to generate brilliant new ideas. This was why he had invited her to return to the institute despite the awkward memories. There were simply not that many decent mathematicians, let alone crystallographers, who were eager to work with him. Other labs had enough Nobel medals to line a shelf.
It did not hurt Mrs Morningstar much that she was among the mid-calibre talents. She had achieved something; in her own small way she had counted. She would go back to Bentham College and teach first-year students, and watch the class with sharp eyes in case she spotted a young woman with the potential to be a fifty-seven-facet brilliant.
‘Oh, I never destroyed that medal,’ she said with delicious nonchalance. ‘At least, not in the way you assume.’
*
The diamond cutter died, leaving most of his stock to Esther’s mother. The remaining stock was divided among Esther’s four sisters.
To Esther he left a few raw diamonds and the workshop in the attic.
She could not fathom his intention. Was this an insult, a terrible judgement from the grave? A reminder of the three sons he had lost, and for whom she could be no substitute? A reminder that no matter how high she had risen, no matter how free and educated she thought she was, she must never forget that this was her home; she had been raised in a dark attic and must never think she could escape it?
‘Perhaps it was meant as a kind gesture, as a fond nod to the family’s only crystallographer,’ said her husband. They were sitting by the Hampstead ponds, as they often did these days, and he was folding paper boats.
She did not believe him. He showed her how to fold a paper boat, and she said: ‘I’m no good, and he prefers yours anyway. I’m no good with practical things like that.’
She put her boat on the water and watched it grow soggy until it sank.
‘Will you show me the workshop?’ Her husband stood up. ‘I’ve only visited it once before, you know.’
*
The steep steps were difficult for him. He had to bend one knee and put that foot on the next step, then drag the bad leg after him. Twice she suggested he abandon the climb, but he insisted on continuing. She paused before the door. The key, the lock, the empty workshop. Any moment Nathan would pipe up behind her: ‘Come on, lambchops, we haven’t got all day.’
When she opened the door a breeze blew into the attic and stirred a pile of folded envelopes on the worktop. They fluttered to the floor and she stopped and picked them up one by one, thinking of her father folding them with his old stiff hands. The scaifes were covered with grey cloth. She took the raw diamonds out of the safe. Glassy pebbles. Her husband rolled them around in his palm, entranced.
‘All these years I’ve been married to a diamond cutter’s daughter, and I’ve never once touched a diamond.’
‘I suppose we’ll sell them as they are.’
‘Can you?’
‘Well, someone will take them. Of course we’ll lose a packet. The best thing would be to cut them and then sell them, but . . .’ She gestured at the covered scaifes.
‘Someone in the family could cut them here, in this workshop.’
‘There are no more cutters in the family.’ She gathered up the empty envelopes, dropped them in a dustbin by the door and repeated: ‘There are no more cutters in my family. Father, Nathan, Simon and Solly. They’re all gone.’
She patted some dust off her dress. ‘They’re all gone. We’ll sell the place as it is, someone will snap up the raw stones, and that’ll be that.’
The expression on her husband’s face unsettled her. He looked straight into her eyes as if wanting to draw out something.
She laughed sadly and shook her head. ‘He never taught us girls. Whoever heard of a diamond cutter in a skirt?’
‘I have.’ He uncovered one of the scaifes.
‘I told you, we didn’t learn any of that.’
He swiped his finger over the scaife, picked up diamond dust, dabbed it on her forehead.
‘I’ve seen you.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I’ve seen you do it.’
She tensed, then pushed him away.
‘That’s not possible.’ After a long pause, she said: ‘It’s not possible. Even if I did at some point learn to cut diamonds, which I didn’t, I certainly wouldn’t have continued with it after we were married.’
‘Not during the day. At night.’
‘I don’t want to hear it. We’re leaving. I cannot bear this – I cannot bear being here. You don’t understand what it is like for me to be here.’ She tugged at her collar for air. ‘It’s suffocating, it’s—’
‘At first I was a bit worried, you know.’
‘I told you, don’t speak to me of that. It has nothing to do with my family. It’s a medical condition, you’ve said so yourself, it’ll get better once this awful war is over.’
She was using the terse, strict tone that always silenced him. But this time he held her gaze and continued in a calm and friendly voice, as if she had not spoken.
‘You see, there I was, freshly married to this girl who seemed perfectly normal all day long, until she went to bed. She would fall asleep and about an hour or two after midnight, she would begin to toss and turn and then would sit up and begin the strangest ritual I’d ever seen.’
Of Love and Other Wars Page 24
