The Darkest Hour

by Roberta Kagan

  Of course, to Jersey people they were always the enemy, but to me I couldn’t help but think of them as Fred’s countrymen, and it made me uneasy to be both patriotic and a traitor to my country at the same time.

  The taking over of every aspect of our lives was so gradual that we bore it as best we could. Rachel still came by the shop on her way to work.

  ‘I try to act normal,’ she confided, ‘but I can’t. I still can’t get used to their swagger, as if they own the place, and us with it.’

  ‘They’ve confiscated my wireless,’ I said.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘I made a bit of a scene. The soldier actually threatened me.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘It was my fault. I didn’t want to let it go, and I kept saying I needed it to get news of my husband in France. I even said Fred was German, but he must’ve thought I was making it up because it made no earthly difference. He had to physically prise it from my grasp, then he got out his pistol and pointed it at me. I was still holding the flex, you see. He would have shot me for my wireless. I couldn’t take it in. I just watched him walk away with that Bakelite box under his arm, the wire with its two-pin plug trailing on the road, and felt as if I’d lost more than just the radio.’

  ‘It’s happening all over. They’ve banned them.’

  ‘But how the heck will we know what’s going on in the outside world?’

  ‘That’s just it. They don’t want us to know, do they?’

  Chapter 8

  September 1942

  Two years creaked by, with more rationing and stricter enforcement by the Bailiff in his determination for a peaceful occupation with no trouble. Arrests were made of anyone chalking ‘V’ for Victory signs on walls, or promoting anti-German propaganda. Meetings of the Women’s Institute or any sort of groups that could be used for resistance were banned. Rachel and I grew closer as life grew tighter and meaner.

  Initially, the Germans seemed content with our details from the Bailiff, but suddenly they became more stringent about knowing exactly who, and where, everyone was. On the autumn day the Germans came to register me, I knew they were coming because they’d been to Flanders Farm earlier, and I’d seen the list of occupants nailed up inside Mrs Flanders’ front door. She had several older men staying at the farm, and some young school-leavers who helped with the hard labour of ploughing and digging up the beets, potatoes and turnips, which were now our staple diet. It made me shiver to see the piece of paper with names, ages and nationalities scrawled there. Everyone was listed, and if you weren’t, there would soon be nowhere to hide. Immediately I feared for Rachel. What would she do?

  The men who came to the bakery were polite in the distant way of all officials. Up until that time I had never had to reveal to any German my married name. Now, two of them were in my sitting room, one with a ledger in front of him and the other with a box camera.

  ‘Name?’ Oberstleutnant Fischer paused with his ledger open on his knee. He was a thin, tough-looking man, who squinted at me as if I were a specimen in a museum.

  ‘Céline Huber.’

  ‘Huber? A German name. Are you of German descent?’

  ‘No. I was born here. My husband is German.’

  ‘Really?’ He glanced sceptically to his younger friend with the camera, who looked embarrassed and tried to shrink further into the chair. ‘And where is this German husband now?’

  ‘Somewhere in France. He was conscripted into the German army.’

  ‘He is fighting for the Reich?’ Fischer’s eyebrows shot up.

  ‘Yes. We met in Vienna before the war.’ Just the talk of Fred made a lump form in my throat. I struggled to maintain my composure. ‘But I haven’t heard from him for more than three months. Perhaps the mail isn’t getting through.’

  ‘Excuse us, Frau Huber.’ Fischer beckoned to his comrade and they had a whispered conversation in German in the shop.

  When they returned, Fischer bowed and said, ‘We are sorry to distress you. We will tell the Feldkommandant and make him aware of your husband’s service for our country. It is a difficult situation, no?’

  ‘Have you a photograph of him?’ Müller, the younger man with the camera asked. I could hardly refuse, so I fetched our album and turned the pages, although my stomach was churning. Me, on the beach at St Helier, sun-hat in hand, smiling. Fred standing in front of the Donnerbrunnen fountain in Kärntner Strasse, posing like Neptune. It made my chest hurt and my eyes prickle. Such good times we’d had.

  ‘Your husband – he is very handsome man,’ Müller said in broken English.

  ‘Yes, yes he is,’ I said, feeling my eyes tear up again. I thudded the book shut.

  Oberstleutnant Fischer supplied me with a handkerchief. It was large and starched, and smelt of tobacco.

  When they’d taken my photograph, they went.

  ‘I am sorry,’ whispered Müller as he left. ‘Sorry to intrude.’

  I just shook my head. Keeping the white handkerchief bothered me, so I burned it on the oven flame until it charred to ash. Afterwards I felt guilty. Fred would have called me stupid.

  A week later we were issued with identity booklets, which we had to carry with us at all times. Somehow, these small bits of cardboard made us feel more like an oppressed people. When opened up, the left side showed my photograph, which was deeply unflattering. It had seemed traitorous to try to make myself attractive in front of those Germans, so I was immortalised as a woman in a threadbare summer blouse with untidy wisps of hair and wild eyes.

  On the right of the card were my ‘Particulars – Nähere Angaben’. These included colour of hair: brown; colour of eyes: blue; and a section for ‘Besondere Merkmale’, or special physical features. I was glad this section said ‘None’.

  We were told we could be arrested if we couldn’t immediately produce these cards, and of course many forgot to carry them and the newspaper was suddenly full of people who’d been caught out and imprisoned. Complaints to Mr Coutanche, the Bailiff of Jersey, fell on deaf ears.

  One breezy autumn day I was helping with the milking when Mrs Flanders brought the paper and waved it in front of me.

  ‘It’s not right,’ she said, giving me no time to read it. ‘There’s thousands of English people here. Deporting them, that’s what they’re doing.’

  My heart gave a flip. I grabbed the paper. ‘Who?’

  ‘Anyone of English descent. Not just soldiers, but women and children. And people with a criminal record, and anyone Jewish,’ she said. ‘But I don’t mind getting rid of them. Look.’ She pointed out the passage to me. Undesirables on Jersey were to be deported to Germany, according to the notice, which was signed by Feldkommandant Knackfuss.

  Thank God. It wasn’t me. I was a Jerseywoman through and through. But Rachel wasn’t. If they deported her to Germany, who knew what might happen to her after that?

  ‘They’ve got twenty-four hours. Look.’ Mrs Flanders leaned over my shoulder to stab an arthritic finger down on the small print commentary below.

  Twenty-four hours? It was impossible. A welter of emotions flooded through me. Fear, for Rachel, and guilt, that it was somehow Fred’s fault, and, by extension, mine. ‘Mrs Flanders, excuse me, but I have to go.’

  ‘What? You’re not English, are you?’

  ‘No. But I’ve a friend I want to see … to ask if I can help.’ I’d already thrust away the milking stool and was rushing to the house for my coat, with Mrs Flanders hurrying after me, still in her milking overall.

  ‘Céline! You can’t do this,’ she shouted. ‘You can’t just run off and leave me with all the milking to do!’

  ‘Sorry, Mrs Flanders,’ I called as I shrugged my way into my gabardine and leapt onto my bike.

  The streets of St Helier were full of hurrying anxious-looking women. I passed what used to be a high-class man’s tailors and saw a notice taped to the window: ‘Juedisches Geschaeft – Jewish Business’. The window was smashed and no stock remained, just a tailor’s
dummy, nakedly leaning. My feet grew leaden. So it was happening here after all.

  At the bank there were queues stretching out of the door. What is it with war that it seems to produce such queues? In front of me a well-dressed man clutched a cardboard box obviously full of the family silver. Two candlesticks poked out, and what looked like a gold clock.

  I peered over the line of people. There was only one cashier, and it wasn’t Rachel.

  I dashed out of the door and down the road to where I’d chained my battered Raleigh to the railings. When I got to Rachel’s I propped it inside the gatepost and hooked the chain around it. Her house still had boards at the windows to keep out the rain; there were so few tradesmen left to do any repairs. The downstairs door, its blue paint peeling, stood open, so I took the stairs two at a time.

  Voices. As I looked up to the landing outside Rachel’s apartment, I saw two men, in grey-green German uniform, forcing the door.

  I froze. They hadn’t heard me. As I held my breath I saw one of them give a great kick with his boot, and Rachel’s door sprang open. I knew I should run, but I wanted to know what they would do, so I stayed where I was. A scrape of drawers being opened, of cupboards opened and shut. The rattle of china, followed by heavy thuds.

  ‘Nichts. Sie ist weg.’ She’s gone.

  The boots came out of the door, and I fled down the remaining stairs. ‘Fräulein! Stehen bleiben!’ The voice called after me, but I didn’t wait. I unhooked the bike and was on it in three seconds, pedalling for all I was worth towards the town centre, along York Street and Union Street, wiggling past the parked cars outside Ahier’s the newsagent. Only when I was past the library on Beresford Street did I dare to look behind me.

  A pair of German soldiers were strolling there, in the middle of the road, as if they owned it. As I whizzed past them one whistled and called out something, and both men laughed, but I pretended not to hear. Once out of their sight, I jumped off the bike and began to push it down towards the beachfront at Havre des Pas.

  All the time I was walking I passed men and women with suitcases and hatboxes. Everyone seemed in a great hurry, but no one smiled. Instead, the air around them bristled with tension.

  When I got to the outdoor bathing pool, it was closed and barricaded with barbed wire. I found a green-painted bench nearby and stared out to sea, where, instead of white-sailed yachts, German military vessels blotted the horizon. Seagulls wheeled and dived, squalling with hoarse cries over the water. Was Fred calling out or wolf-whistling at the French women where he was? I had received only a few letters from Fred in the years he had been gone, and they were all heavily censored; it seemed he was allowed to tell me nothing of what he did, and instead his letters consisted of lists of his meals, the successes of the German army, and the heat of the French sun. The thought of it made me angry. Was my husband putting the fear of God into the French the way the Germans put the fear of God into me? Now post from outside the island was forbidden, unless it was for the Germans. How I hated that word ‘verboten’. So much was verboten now.

  I stared at the glistening blue water and thought of other Julys, when Rachel and I had picnicked on this beach. Wherever Rachel was now, she wasn’t at home, and life for her looked precarious. Had she volunteered for the boats? It didn’t seem likely. Why would she, when we knew how it was for Jews in Germany? But I knew she wouldn’t have been given the choice, and my heart grieved.

  Chapter 9

  The next day I was explaining to old Mrs Hedges, over her stout leather handbag that rested on the counter, that she’d already had her four pounds and ten ounces of bread ration for the week, and she couldn’t have more. It was becoming rather heated when the shop door swung open and the tiled floor filled rapidly with German soldiers. Mrs Hedges let out a little cry, as the sheer bulk of so many men with rifles seemed to suck the air from the shop.

  Oberstleutnant Fischer emerged from their midst and placed one palm on the counter as if to stake ownership. ‘I am very sorry, Frau Huber, to interrupt your business.’ His manner was placatory, a thin veneer of pleasantry, as he pulled an identity card from his pocket and handed it to me. ‘We are searching for a young woman, Rachel Cohen.’

  My mind raced. I stared down at Rachel’s face, hoping my eyes didn’t betray my connection to her. I read her details, all in neat, sloping handwriting. Hair: black; eye colour: brown; distinguishing marks: none. Her card, unlike mine, was stamped with a red ‘J’. Where had they got this? Why wasn’t Rachel carrying it in her bag anymore? A thousand questions skittered through my head. I took a breath. ‘I haven’t seen her,’ I said. It was the truth.

  ‘But you know her?’

  ‘She buys her bread here; she’s a customer. Is something wrong?’ I pinned a pleasant smile to my face.

  He passed the card to Mrs Hedges, who scrutinised it carefully. ‘It’s that young woman who works in the bank,’ she said. ‘Nice young woman, always got a smile.’

  ‘Not anymore,’ Fischer said. ‘She’s …’ He stopped abruptly, stretched his jaw and pulled his collar away from his neck as if it was too tight. ‘You won’t mind if we search?’

  ‘No, of course not. Go ahead.’ Mrs Hedges and I exchanged glances. There was something they weren’t telling us.

  The men headed for my sitting room door. Far more men than would be needed for my small house, it seemed to me.

  ‘Achtung!’ Fischer called. ‘Macht es vorsichtig. Ihr Mann ist Deutscher.’ Be careful, her husband is German.

  ‘Danke,’ I said.

  He ducked under the lintel and followed his men.

  For the first time I felt the invasion viscerally, that I must stand by and do nothing. Even if they were careful, the thought of these men in jackboots tramping over my rag rugs, of them opening up my drawers and looking into my personal things, made me angry. I found myself tearing one of the paper bags on the counter into shreds.

  ‘You never told me you spoke German.’ Mrs Hedges fixed me with an accusing eye.

  ‘Only a little,’ I lied. ‘You have to try to get on, don’t you?’

  ‘Your husband’s German,’ she said. ‘That’s what that man said, isn’t it? I understand them, but I don’t speak to them. Not if I can help it. I learnt it through music. Bach. Beethoven. I used to love opera, especially Wagner.’ She braced her shoulders and frowned. ‘Can’t stand them now, of course.’ She didn’t give me time to answer. ‘That poor girl. She’s a Jew, isn’t she? It’s on her card. I’ve heard what they’ve done to them in France. If she’s not dead by now, she soon will be.’

  ‘I’m sure—’

  ‘Some of us have principles,’ Mrs Hedges said, raising her voice and pushing out her chest. ‘I won’t be buying my bread from you again. Good day.’ And she plucked her bag from the counter and went.

  I leant on the counter and pressed my forehead into my hands. I felt her words as a sharp twist in my guts.

  I pulled myself upright as Fischer returned, followed by his men, who were grinning broadly as if searching houses was their favourite hobby.

  ‘If this young woman comes to you again, you will tell us, Ja?’

  ‘Of course. Whatever I can do to help.’ I wiped my hands on my overall, aware of the patter of my heart under it, and my shallow breath. These men weren’t the enemy, I reminded myself. My husband’s kin. Just men like him.

  Fischer swiped Rachel’s identity card from the counter, squinted at it once more, and pushed it into his breast pocket. When he left, I went through to the house. Everything was as it should be. There was no disorder. Yet still, I couldn’t get out of my head the fact that only a few moments earlier uninvited guests had been trawling through here in their helmets, examining everything, prying and peeking into my business. The drawer on the sideboard was open, exposing its innards of old telephone directories, wires and plugs, scissors, string, and old birthday cards.

  They’d had their hands in there. There was nothing of any importance, just bits and bobs that might com
e in useful. Their searching left an atmosphere behind, one I couldn’t at first find a label for, but later I had it. The room smelt of suspicion.

  My bicycle was an effort to ride now because we couldn’t get inner tubes for the tyres, and so I’d improvised, like everyone else, with lengths of hosepipe filled with sand. It made for a lumpy ride that evening, as I forced it through the blustery autumn wind. Halfway up the lane to the farm I saw the glint of helmets. Instinctively, I pulled off to the side and slid off the saddle.

  The ‘crump, crump’ of German boots was interspersed with another sound. The first cohort of soldiers got closer, marching in formation, boots gleaming as they splashed through the puddles and leaves on the lane, their rifles poking upwards from their shoulders. I dragged the bike further into the field gateway. They were right beside me now, their polished leather holsters stuffed with guns. So many guns. Lugers, I think they’re called. Guns on Jersey streets would have once seemed unthinkable. But behind them …

  I stared, unable to believe my eyes. About thirty men, all stick thin, unshaven, bruised and filthy, dressed in an assortment of rags. The worst of it was, they had no shoes. Just mud-encrusted cloths tied around their feet, and they were marching on this stony dirt track. One of them glanced my way but his eyes flicked only briefly to mine before they returned to the heels of the man in front. Something about the beaten quality of those men made me rigid. It came to me in a sudden rush of heat. The Germans were using these people as slaves.

  One of the last men to pass had a shirt that was torn at the back, and through its flapping vent, weals showed, stripes darkly encrusted with blood. I pressed myself back against the gate. The man had been whipped. Actually whipped. Yet this was no gladiator in a film of ancient Rome, it was happening now, in twentieth century Jersey.