The Darkest Hour

by Roberta Kagan

  As I watched, a leaf blew from the sycamore tree near the gate and landed on the man’s shoulder. He paused to pick it off, holding its fragile yellowing bowl in his upturned hand. A smile almost broke at the corners of his mouth. Immediately, one of the guards poked him in the back to make him move quicker. The man winced and stumbled, crushing the leaf in his fingers, but righted himself quickly and lurched forward, and I pressed my fist to my mouth. The fragments of leaf careened away in the breeze.

  The second group of soldiers tramped past, after the workers, their faces fixed and impassive. As soon as they rounded the corner, shaken, I mounted my bike and pedalled furiously up the hill.

  ‘Did you know they were using slave labour?’ I asked Mrs Flanders.

  She sucked her lips. ‘Aye. Well, they’re only foreigners. Russians and Poles mostly. There’s a camp for them. Something called OT. Organisation Todt. They work at the quarry near L’Étacq.’

  ‘I just saw them. They looked barely alive.’

  ‘It’s them or us, though, isn’t it? With rations so low, we have to feed ourselves and the Germans first. They will keep bringing in more workers, and it stands to reason we can’t feed them all. It’s not up to us.’

  ‘But those people were starving. Legs thin as twigs. It can’t be right.’

  ‘Well, you’d do best not to complain. Or they’ll say it’s anti-German and deport you. And then who knows where you’ll end up?’

  Fear twined around my throat. And that horrible feeling that I’d once had in the playground, when I’d watched the school bully kick a boy repeatedly on the shins but I was too scared of the bully to report him.

  I milked the cows in silence, hearing the squirt of milk sing into the pan, but my mind lingered on those men. Seeing the state of them made me realise that we were also expendable; that they could deport us, just like the Jews, or choose to use us as slaves. We were all equally at their mercy. Yet there must be something we could do. Something. The reality of living under enemy occupation had begun to bite, but within me a stubborn resistance was growing.

  Mrs Flanders led the cow she was milking out of the milking parlour, and I heard the latch of the gate and her hearty slap on its rump as she let it into the field. When she came back, she said, ‘I was sorry to hear about your friend. It is her, isn’t it? What a terrible thing.’ She waited expectantly.

  I stood up and stretched my back. ‘Which friend? I don’t know who you’re talking about.’

  ‘That girl from the bank. Rachel, is it?’ Mrs Flanders took her pail to the churn and poured in a long stream of milk.

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘They came looking for her at the bakery. Have they been up here to you too?’

  ‘Looking for her?’ Her eyes widened as she plonked her empty bucket down with a clatter.

  ‘Wanted to know if I’d seen her.’

  ‘But why?’

  ‘I don’t know why,’ I said. ‘Why do they do anything?’

  ‘But I’d heard …’ She was biting her lip now, and her hand crept up to cover her mouth.

  ‘What? What’s the matter?’

  ‘I don’t know how to tell you. Oh Lordy. I thought you knew. I went in the bank on the way back from the morning deliveries and they said … well, they told me she’d passed away.’

  ‘Rachel? That’s ridiculous. She can’t have—’

  ‘Just walked into the sea and drowned herself. Can you imagine?’ Mrs Flanders’ eyes lit up with beady glee. ‘She didn’t turn up for work and she’s not been seen since. Of course, they knew she was a Jew at the bank but had let it slip by. Now Mr Scott, the bank manager, has been arrested. His own fault, of course. Employing Jews is forbidden.’

  That word again. ‘But how do they know Rachel’s dead?’

  ‘An off-duty soldier found a note. She’d left it on the beach with all her clothes. Said she’d rather die in the sea than in a camp.’

  ‘But Rachel would never do that. She just wouldn’t.’

  ‘She might. If you were a Jew and knew that if they found you you’d be deported to a German prison camp, what would you do?’

  I shook my head. ‘I don’t believe it. And why are they still looking for her in the town if she’s drowned? Surely they should be searching the beaches?’

  But I knew the answer. They were suspicious, just like I was. I took the cow back to pasture and sent her on through the gate, before turning back to deal with the milk. Where was Rachel? Was she really dead? I couldn’t believe it, not a strong swimmer like Rachel. But if she wasn’t, then where was she?

  A yell from the yard. ‘Céline, you idiot! You left the gate open! There’s cows all over the yard.’

  Oh heavens. I’d forget my head if it wasn’t screwed on.

  Chapter 10

  The paperboy brought the paper as I was having breakfast. Oats with milk, and a pot of weak tea with recycled tea leaves – the only reasonably sustaining meal of the day. I opened the Jersey Evening Post to see an announcement about Rachel on page two. I leant closer, my tea forgotten. It showed her identity card photograph and offered a reward for information leading to her whereabouts. The article said she was ‘deliberately evading the German authorities’ and that anyone withholding information about her would be punished.

  As I pored over the small column on the kitchen table, I wondered where she could possibly go. Perhaps Mrs Flanders was right, and she’d drowned herself. But then I dismissed that thought; Rachel wasn’t a person to give up; she was far too stubborn. No, she was out there somewhere.

  Troubled, I folded the paper and pushed through the door to the shop, glancing at the clock over the empty shelves. After nine, and no customers yet. It was quieter these days as we had so little to sell. The days of buttery fingers, sugar icing and Viennese pastries were gone. Now it was grey bread that wouldn’t rise, because all the flour was adulterated with sawdust or straw to bulk it out. Our good bread had to go to the Germans in the hotels first, and what was left was tough and almost inedible. We were all thinner, all tired, and all of us carried tension like a wire in the pit of our stomachs.

  I heard men’s voices outside the door, and through the glass I could see helmets. What now? Were they still looking for Rachel? I tensed as the door opened.

  ‘Céline! So I have found you at last!’ The man in the German officer’s uniform grinned broadly at me and held out his arms as he came around the counter. For a moment, I thought it was Fred and hurried to meet him, but then I took a step back, confused. He was too tall for Fred.

  The man folded me in a bear hug and then noisily kissed the air either side of my cheeks.

  ‘Horst?’

  Fred’s brother grinned, showing even white teeth. ‘What luck I have, to be posted here. Can you believe it? I asked of course, but I didn’t expect it.’

  He was taller and broader than I remembered, with the same nose and the same fair flyaway hair as Fred. But his features were flatter, as if squashed to the edges of his face, and he was ramrod straight, unlike Fred’s soft roundness. His eyes were roaming around the room, unable to be still. I couldn’t work out what it meant, him being here. Was it good, or bad?

  The two men behind Horst stood respectfully at the door. Horst must be their superior, I realised.

  ‘But what are you doing here?’ I asked.

  ‘I am posted here. Lucky, nicht wahr?’

  ‘Since when? When did you arrive?’

  ‘Just yesterday,’ he replied. ‘I came straight here this morning. I can’t stay long today, because I have been selected for the Organisation Todt.’ He waited, eyebrows raised, as if I should be impressed. ‘I was posted here because my English and French are so good.’ It made me smile, because he pronounced ‘have’ as ‘haf’ and his English accent certainly left a lot to be desired. ‘Why you are smiling?’

  ‘Nothing, Horst. You must excuse me; I am still getting used to … to the situation.’

  ‘I understand. It is big change for you. But do not worry. Thing
s will be better for you now I am here.’

  ‘Where will you be working?’

  ‘One of the camps in the north of the island,’ he went on. ‘Where they quarry for stone. I am to be Kommandant there; the other man, well he could not keep control.’

  I suppressed a shudder. Fred would never believe it, that his brother could work there, where people were treated so badly.

  ‘Have you heard from Fred? No letters are getting to us here.’

  Horst smiled. ‘No. But I get reports. I ask where he is. If you know the right people you can find out. Last I heard he was still in the Besetztes Gebiet in northern France – how you say, the occupied zone?’

  ‘Was he all right, though?’

  ‘You know Siegfried. He will not make a fight – too lazy. He will stay there until they build the New Order Hitler makes.’

  My face froze in its smile.

  Horst was still talking, oblivious to the fact he’d insulted me. ‘France will be a new place. They will move out the undesirables and they will be cleaning the place up.’ He strode past me to the door to the sitting room and peered through, wrinkling his nose. ‘It is not what I imagined, this bake shop. I thought it would be bigger. I thought to stay here, keep lookout for my brother’s little wife. How many bedrooms you have?’

  No. He couldn’t stay here. ‘Just one,’ I said. ‘Mine and Fred’s. And a maid’s room. Oh, but it’s very tiny. Our housemaid Tilly used to have it, but she’s … she’s left now.’

  ‘A maid’s room?’ He stuck out his chin. ‘That will not be suitable. I stay at the hotel for now.’

  I made an effort to relax. ‘Which hotel are you staying at, Horst?’

  ‘They put me in the Pomme d’Or, but only for two nights. It is reserved for the navy, not army men like me, and I need to be nearer my work. Do you know anywhere, Céline? A nice big room with pleasant people? With a view of the sea?’

  ‘Sorry, I can’t think of anyone immediately. But I’ll ask around.’ Didn’t he realise that nobody would want a German living with them if they could avoid it? And a sea view. I almost laughed.

  Horst turned to his two colleagues at the door. ‘My brother’s wife,’ he said. ‘Pretty, Ja?’

  I cringed and blushed, but the two men at the door nodded enthusiastically and Horst looked pleased.

  ‘We will dine together. At the weekend,’ he said, tapping a fingernail on the counter. ‘I will arrange it and send car to fetch you. Then we can talk. Will be nice, no?’

  ‘Very nice,’ I said. Then, as he was still staring expectantly, ‘Thank you, Horst. It’s a good idea. You can fill me in on what you know about Fred.’

  He saluted me then with a neat Heil Hitler, and I wasn’t sure what on earth to do in return, so I just raised a hand in an uncertain wave. Moments later, there was the roar of car and motorcycle engines outside the door, and all returned to silence. When they’d gone I exhaled and turned the closed sign on the door. I needed to think.

  Work at the farm that day passed in a haze. We had to work quickly as the nights were drawing in, and I had to help Mrs Flanders with her main potato crop before it got dark, as well as the milking. Now there was less baking to do, I spent more time at the farm. All the time, as I yanked the cold and filthy lumps from the freezing ground, I worried about what to do about Horst. Eventually I realised there was nothing I could do. Horst was a fact; and that was that.

  But after Mrs Flanders delivered me home in the van that night, I locked the door firmly against intruders and, to be honest, against Horst. What if he should come back? I ran my hands under the tap and scrubbed the dirt from under my nails. It would be awkward, being seen with a German officer. So far I had managed to keep Fred’s whereabouts a secret. But Mrs Hedges had already realised I was married to a German, and no doubt the word would spread like the proverbial wildfire.

  And what would happen if I was seen dining out with one of them? Perhaps I should just tell Horst to keep his distance; explain to him how awkward it was. But Horst wasn’t a listener; he never had been; he was too full of his own self-importance. He’d be in his element here, I realised – bossing everyone about the way he used to boss Fred.

  Three days later I was still worrying about Horst as I got the Aga ready for baking. It would be too wasteful to use the big oven, and Mrs Flanders had given me a bag of corn kernels she’d saved from gleaning in the fields so I could make my own proper bread. ‘Don’t use the German flour they issue,’ she’d said. ‘It’s poison.’ As I wound the handle on my coffee grinder to make the precious flour, I realised I’d need yeast from the outside storeroom. It was after the nine o’clock curfew by now, but I could risk it; claim I was baking for the Germans.

  I fiddled with the padlock in the dark and finally got it open. The yeast was kept on a shelf behind the door. I felt for it with my hand.

  ‘Céline?’

  I gasped and nearly shot through the ceiling.

  In the darkness I could just make out a human shape, a dark silhouette against the half-empty sacks of flour. I’d no time to think before Rachel emerged towards me, shivering in a thin cotton dress and shoes with no socks or stockings.

  ‘You idiot! What the hell do you think you’re doing? How did you get in here?’ My heart was still thudding like crazy.

  ‘How d’you think? I pushed the water butt up to the wall and climbed through the window.’ Her face was pale but defiant.

  ‘You nearly gave me a heart attack! Do you know they’re searching for you?’

  ‘Of course I do. I’ve been hiding for days. I don’t know where to go. It’s getting too cold now for the woods, and yesterday German soldiers were in there, looking for firewood.’

  ‘You’re supposed to be dead.’

  ‘I know. It wasn’t very clever, but it was all I could think of. There was no time for a better plan.’

  ‘Sorry, Rache, but you can’t stay here. Fred’s brother is in Jersey.’

  ‘Horst? The Nazi?’

  ‘I don’t know about Nazi, but he’s a German officer and he thinks he should keep an eye on me. It wouldn’t be safe for you to be here. And what would you have done if I hadn’t come, stuck in a locked storeroom? How would you have got out?’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to know. I climbed through, but then I fell in, and I couldn’t get out of the blasted window again. That’s what comes of being short. I thought this place would be full of sacks of flour and provisions, like it used to be, and I’d be able to eat something and then climb out. But now there’s only these two half-empty sacks and I can’t reach the window.’

  ‘But what will you do?’

  ‘If you could just let me have something to eat, and leave the door open, I’ll get a few hours’ sleep and be gone before morning. If they catch us, it will be deportation for me and arrest for you. But that way, if anything happens, you can say you just forgot to lock the door and you know nothing, right? You haven’t seen me.’

  ‘But where will you go after that?’

  ‘I’ll be fine; I’ll find somewhere.’ Her words were brave, but we both knew the whole island was swarming with soldiers. She looked at me as if daring me to contradict her, arms crossed as if to hug herself, and her fists clenched into the thin material of her dress.

  ‘I was going to make bread. That’s why I came for the yeast. So I can feed you at least.’

  ‘Go now. I’m scared someone will hear us. But leave the door open.’

  I hurried inside clutching the packet of dried yeast, with my heart hammering. I still hadn’t got over the shock of seeing Rachel there, like a wild animal, forced to forage and live in ditches and outhouses. Yet harbouring her would be dangerous. All Jews were supposed to have left the island. Those who helped them would be punished.

  I took out my worry on the grinding and made bread. It was a tiny loaf, hardly big enough for the loaf tin, but as soon as it was in the oven, the smell made my mouth water. All the time I thought of Rachel, huddling in the dark in my s
toreroom, hungry and frightened, in that thin cotton frock, whilst I was inside in the warm. What on earth would she do in the winter? I thought of her parents, their wedding photo, and wondered if they were still alive, or in a concentration camp somewhere. And I thought of Fred, and how Horst said he was too lazy to fight. It all ran round in my head, like rats in a maze, until I could bear it no longer. I threw open the back door and ran to the store.

  As I burst in through the door, Rachel cowered back against the sacks, hands up to protect herself.

  ‘It’s me, you fool,’ I said. ‘Come inside. You can’t stay out here. Not while I’ve a spare bed.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘It wouldn’t be fair.’

  ‘Just get inside.’ I grabbed her by the arm and pulled her to her feet. ‘Quick, before someone sees.’

  We ducked and scarpered around the corner, and as soon as we were in the shop I slid the bolts home on the door.

  Rachel went straight to the range and stretched out her palms to the heat. She turned then, eyes unexpectedly full of tears. ‘You don’t have to do this. I don’t want your charity.’

  ‘It’s not charity; it’s common sense. And you’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know. It could end badly.’ It was a bald statement of fact.

  I stared at her, at her lank, unwashed hair, the dark shadows under her eyes, at her arms prickled with gooseflesh.

  ‘Wait there.’ I bounded upstairs and came back with one of my thick wool pullovers. ‘It’ll be huge on you, but warm,’ I said, thrusting it towards her. ‘We can heat water on the range for a bath later.’

  ‘Chanel, darling, how luxurious!’

  ‘Fool!’ But it broke the tension to hear her jest the way she used to.

  She struggled into the pullover and already looked better with the scarlet wool next to her face, but I noticed her hands shake as she edged closer to the range.

  I leaned over her to open the oven door, but the bread was so small a loaf it was already cooked, and I left the door open to bring more heat into the room.