The Darkest Hour

by Roberta Kagan

  He pulled out the thermometer and squinted at it. Then shook it again in frustration. ‘You are feeling a little better, yes? Are you hot?’

  ‘Yes,’ I lied. ‘And my chest is very tight.’

  He then examined my throat and took a stethoscope to my back, asking me to breathe in and out.

  He put his things away in his bag without a word. Something in his manner told me he was angry.

  ‘It seems just a common cold. There is nothing the matter with you that rest cannot mend,’ he said.

  ‘But I need something for the fever. And for the cough.’

  ‘I have not heard you cough, Frau Huber. Everywhere there is war, men losing limbs, men destroyed by bomb, men with beatings and shot dead, and you complain of a cough.’ His face had turned red and his hand shook as he fastened his bag. ‘Shall I tell you what I think, Frau Huber? You are a liar. You think you can use Hauptmann Huber to get something you can sell. I have heard it before from you Jersey women.’

  Heat rushed to my face. ‘I’m really ill,’ I protested. ‘You have to give me the medicine. If you do not, I will tell Hauptmann Huber you are a useless doctor, and you insulted me.’

  His mouth tightened and his lips turned pale and bloodless. ‘Foolish woman. You try to threaten me? If I was a different man, you would pay for that, and for wasting my time.’ He avoided my eyes and headed for the door. As he opened it, a noise hit my ears.

  Banging and shouting.

  Rachel.

  There was no hope he’d ignore it – such a racket. I followed him as he strode around the back. The van shuddered with blows from the inside. My eyes raked round the street, praying that Mrs Galen hadn’t seen us.

  ‘Is this your van?’ Leutnant Müller asked.

  I nodded, knowing that it was too late to save the situation.

  ‘Who is inside? Open it.’

  I hesitated, but then his hand went to his gun.

  ‘All right, all right.’ I ran for the keys and unlocked the shiny black doors, but stood before them. ‘Please,’ I said, desperately, ‘don’t hurt her. She’s ill. She doesn’t know what she’s doing.’

  I threw the doors open, and at the sight of the German with his gun, Rachel backed away into the corner, but a bout of coughing left her wheezing and she collapsed to the floor of the van.

  ‘Was ist los? Who is this? Why you lock her up?’

  ‘She’s the one who needs the medicine, but—’

  He was no longer listening. He’d put away the gun and was climbing inside the van, where he made soothing noises, encouraging Rachel to move a little until he could carry her inside.

  When she caught sight of me she slumped. ‘I didn’t know where I was,’ she rasped. Then her mouth quivered. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  I threw her a sad look and shook my head. This was it; we were finished.

  ‘Quick,’ Müller said, hoisting her up, ‘open the door.’

  I let him carry her inside.

  A quick examination was all it took. ‘She needs to go to hospital,’ he said. ‘Lungenentzündung.’

  The word meant nothing to me.

  ‘An infection of the lungs. It is serious, you understand?’

  ‘Like pneumonia?’ Rachel asked weakly.

  ‘I don’t know this word. Frau Huber, bring me a cloth with cold water, and ring your hospital.’

  I hurried to wring out a cloth and passed it to him. ‘She can’t go to hospital. She’d be deported straight away.’

  He ignored me, loosening the neck of Rachel’s nightgown and smoothing over her hot face with the cool cloth. Rachel let him do it, too drained to move, and finally, after some minutes, she seemed to quieten and drift to sleep.

  ‘Please,’ I whispered, ‘just give me the medicine and pretend you haven’t seen her.’

  He sighed and passed me the cloth, before slumping down on the sofa and resting his head in his hands. When he looked up, he spoke quietly. ‘She’s Jewish, isn’t she? I remember taking her photograph. We had a friendly conversation, you know? We … liked each other. Later, I heard she was supposed to have …’ He shook his head. ‘I remember thinking, so this is what we have come to, that women will walk in the sea rather than give themselves up to us. It made me feel … ashamed.’

  ‘She just turned up one night. We’re friends. Was I to turn her away?’

  ‘So, you risk your life for your friend. I apologise, Frau Huber. I thought you were … well, I thought you were a woman greedy for medicine for the black market trade. But now I have a problem. If I ignore you and let her die, then you will be deported to a work camp, Ravensbrück or worse, and you will become filth, an animal. Nobody survives it. They work you there until you die. Can you believe I am telling you this? Here, too, it happens, with the men digging stone.’

  ‘I saw some slave workers. I didn’t believe men could be so inhumane.’

  ‘So you see, I would not want that for any person. On the other hand, If I treat your friend and let her live, then I will be a traitor to my own country, and I will be hanged by my own countrymen. Yes, they are not above this. Small cruelties have swelled like a monster. Where does it come from, this evil? Is it born of war? My medical skills are too small against such suffering. I just wanted to do good. To cure and do good. But now there is no “good” for any German.’ He sank his head into his hands again.

  I was silent a moment. ‘Please, don’t tell Hauptmann Huber. I think he would have to deport me to save face, and Rachel is too ill to move. But if you leave now, you can just forget the whole thing. We’ll manage somehow. Nobody needs to know. Just tell my brother-in-law I’m feeling better and put us out of your mind.’

  ‘She must have something for the infection, then she will have a better chance. She needs sulfa, this is good for lung disease. I can get it from the German medical store, if I’m careful. But it would need to be soon.’

  ‘Would you?’ I held my breath.

  ‘It is selfish. I don’t want to kill anyone. It’s against the oath I took as a student doctor and a Christian. I will help you by bringing the medicine. She may still die. But we will have tried. And in the meantime, give her this.’ He took a bottle of aspirin and a packet of Elliot’s Medical Cigarettes from his bag, and after further instructions about dosages and how to keep her cool, he left the things on the sideboard. Something about the way he did this was so ordinary, so like before the war, that it brought tears to my eyes.

  I blinked. ‘I don’t know what to say.’

  ‘Nothing. In these days, always best to say nothing.’

  ‘Tell Hauptmann Huber I am feeling better and that he has no need to visit.’

  He stared at me. ‘You are a brave woman. You have heart. You are nothing like Hauptmann Huber.’

  ‘He is part of Organisation Todt, isn’t he?’

  ‘Yes, he is in charge. We supervise the incoming men at the camp at St Brelade. Before they go to Five Mile Road or to St John’s Quarry. I have to …’ His mouth twisted. ‘Never mind what I do. It is not for women’s ears.’

  Then he went, leaving me alone with the rattle of Rachel’s chest.

  I watched over Rachel, who must have exhausted herself with all that banging on the van doors. I bathed her regularly to keep her cool and fed her the aspirin in mint tea.

  At four o’clock the knock at the door came again. After a peek through the glass to check it wasn’t Horst or Mrs Flanders, I let the German in.

  ‘I’m Céline,’ I said. ‘I don’t know your name.’

  ‘Wolfgang.’ His shy smile suddenly made him seem like the young man he was.

  ‘Rachel’s sleeping,’ I said, ‘but her breathing is terrible. It sounds like her lungs are full of water.’

  He went over to look at her and took her pulse. ‘She is weak, but we must give her the sulfa now. It will help.’

  ‘Leut— Wolfgang, would you help me move her back upstairs?’ I said. ‘I’m frightened someone will come and find her here. And she will be more
comfortable in a proper bed too.’

  He picked her up, like he was carrying a fragile parcel, and took her upstairs. She woke when she was being moved and he was able to persuade her to take the sulfa on a spoon. ‘Make her drink plenty of water,’ he said. ‘I have left the bottle by the bed. Every day in the morning, one spoon. Now, I must go. Hauptmann Huber sends his best wishes for your recovery.’

  ‘Tell him I’m already much better.’

  He laughed. For a slim man like him, it was a surprising sound, full and deep.

  I saw him to the door. Across the road, Mrs Galen was sweeping her doorstep, ogling at the German car parked at my front door. After it had driven away, she yelled at me, ‘Jerrybag! Do you wonder why you’ve no customers anymore? Dirty Boche.’

  There was nothing I could say. It pinched me, deep inside. I missed Mrs Flanders and the farm, and I fretted about the three-day deadline. I’d have to start baking again soon. I couldn’t risk the Germans taking over the bakery.

  Over the next few days I gave Rachel the medicine and it seemed to do the trick, for after a few days her breathing had eased, and she was able to sit up in bed.

  She thought she had dreamt Wolfgang, that she had been delirious and conjured him up.

  ‘You mean, he really won’t tell?’

  ‘I don’t think so. Nobody’s come knocking at our door yet.’

  ‘And he brought me that ghastly stuff I’ve to take every day?’

  ‘Risked his neck too.’

  ‘I’m not sure, Céline. The more people know I’m here, the more likely it is I’ll get found. Are you sure you can trust him?’

  ‘Can you trust anyone these days? We’d no choice.’

  Our conversation was interrupted by the telephone. It was the German Supplies Unit. ‘You will bake tomorrow. If you do not, we will send another baker to use your ovens.’

  ‘There will be bread tomorrow,’ I promised.

  Later that evening I dragged the flour from the store, though there was barely any left. No new delivery had come from the mill, and all imports were frozen. The autumn harvest had given way to the chill fingers of winter. I’d relied on Mrs Flanders for eggs and milk and potatoes, and now there would be none. Mrs Galen, whose brother kept an illegal pig, had given me the occasional rasher of bacon or pigs trotter, but now? Well, I just didn’t know.

  Recently, the Germans had taken the whole bread ration to feed their troops. Having my neighbours freeze me out might mean I would starve.

  When I saw the German uniform I was expecting Wolfgang, but when I opened the door, Horst was there, filling the doorway. In his hands was a large bunch of dark red chrysanthemums. He held them out to me with a big smile. He was immaculately attired – everything shiny, even his cheeks, which glowed as though scrubbed.

  He stepped forward, so I had no choice but to move out of his way and let him in. My blood seemed to skitter in my veins.

  ‘Are those for me?’ Numbly, I took the flowers. ‘How thoughtful.’

  Food would have been a more useful gift, but probably not so appropriate for his vision of himself as handsome man-about-town.

  ‘You look much better,’ he said. ‘My man Müller, did he give you the medicine?’

  Obviously, Wolfgang had said nothing about Rachel. ‘Yes, thank you. He was very good. Very professional.’ My ears strained for the slightest sound from above. Please, Rachel, don’t cough.

  Horst beamed, and he sat himself down on the settee as I fussed at the sink with a jug for the flowers.

  ‘These are lovely, Horst!’ I said in a loud, bright voice, so that Rachel would hear me. Her cough was still a danger now, and she was still weak and apt to fall into a doze.

  ‘You will be well enough to come out for dinner?’

  ‘I can’t come out this evening, Horst. I must bake.’ The relief of an excuse! ‘The Kommandant says that, unless I produce bread by tomorrow, he will send someone to turn me out of my house.’

  Horst’s jaw worked a little, and his gaze shifted away. ‘Well, do not blame him. He has a job to do. The troops are hungry. There are more than ten thousand of us now, all hungry men. But perhaps I can be of help.’

  I frowned, wondering what he meant. Surely, he wouldn’t take to baking?

  ‘Céline, it is this way. I find it not to my liking at the hotel. It is too many men. I am with men all day and I miss my home, the pleasure, or – how you say? – the comfort of family, of home-cooked food. I will move in here with you. That will be best. Then they will not take your home. I make sure of it. A good solution, yes?’

  I swayed on my feet. ‘But Horst, there is only a small box room. It’s not suitable; it is cold and damp, and it would be far too cramped.’

  ‘Let me see this room.’

  ‘Now? But it is a mess. Let me clean it up. If you come again tomorrow it will be tidy and—’

  But he was already climbing the stairs. I coughed frantically, hoping to send a signal to Rachel to hide. My mouth was dry. Where could she hide? This was it. I steeled myself, already imagining shouts, soldiers in jackboots running in with guns.

  Horst turned left and threw open the door of my room. I envisaged what he must be seeing; a double bed, with an iron and brass bedstead, its candlewick counterpane pulled tight and neat over the burgundy quilted eiderdown. He strolled over and patted it, then sat down, bouncing a little on the mattress.

  ‘You are comfortable here?’

  ‘Fred used to like the view,’ I said, conjuring my husband into the room. Speaking his name might make me less afraid.

  ‘Did he? Well, he will have a different view now.’

  He strode over to the window. The blackout blind was open, and down below the port looked calm, the blue of the sea melting into the haze of a grey sky.

  ‘Yes, very good view,’ he said.

  He put a hand on my shoulder as he passed. ‘Now, no need to fear. You have a man in the house.’ His words sent a convulsion through my stomach. He pushed open the other door and peered in before I could prevent him. Over his shoulder I saw that the bedside table still had a bottle of tablets on it, and Rachel’s scuffed brown shoes were side by side under the narrow single bed.

  ‘The maid is gone, yes? So you can clear this room.’

  From my position behind him I could see through the crack in the door, and Rachel’s fingers, gripping the flowery fabric of Tilly’s nightdress, right behind it. Rachel’s closeness made me faint; my blood pounded in my ears.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ I flustered. ‘I’ll clear it straight away. Sorry for the mess. I wasn’t expecting anyone to visit, and I’ve been so busy with the shop.’ I spoke loudly to get his attention as I reached for the door handle, and I pulled it sharply towards me until it clicked shut.

  He smiled at me. ‘I understand. Not easy to keep house with no maid. But things will be easier when I am here. You are right. Thank you. I will take the bigger room. It is good of you to offer.’

  In that one sentence, I saw how things were. The veneer of politeness that hid the determination to have his own way. And there was nothing on earth I could do about it.

  I followed him shakily down the stairs. His next leave day was in five days’ time, he said, and then one of his men would bring his luggage into my house. I pretended to be pleased, though inside I was crumbling. Before he left, he came towards me as if to embrace me. But his hand suddenly reached up and took off my glasses. He folded them into his hand.

  ‘You don’t need these,’ he said. ‘You are very pretty without them.’ And he took hold of me by the shoulders and pressed his mouth to mine. His tongue snaked between my lips.

  I was so shocked I couldn’t move.

  From above there was a choke of a cough, hastily suppressed.

  He released me. ‘What is that?’

  ‘Just seagulls on the roof,’ I said, pulling him hurriedly towards me. ‘We are by the sea, remember?’

  He kissed me again, in a long wet, revolting kiss, and I endured it, wi
lling Rachel to stay quiet.

  On the doorstep, he turned to me. ‘We understand each other,’ Horst said.

  I nodded and held out my hand. ‘My glasses,’ I said.

  ‘You don’t need them.’ He dropped them onto the cinder path and ground them under his boot. ‘Nobody wears them in Germany. Get changed,’ he said. ‘Something nice. I have some duties to do, but I will come back for you at seven thirty.’

  After he’d gone, my legs began to shake. I felt for my glasses, and then I had to kneel with my nose close to the path to find the bits. One lens was completely crushed, the other cracked, and the frames twisted into shrapnel. The world, which had been sharp-edged, was blurred. My image of my brother-in-law had fractured into something I could no longer recognise.

  Chapter 13

  I stripped down to my underwear and, shivering, held open the wardrobe door.

  ‘You’re actually going to change to go out for dinner with that Nazi?’ Rachel said, as if these were normal circumstances.

  ‘What do you think?’ I shouted at her. ‘Do I have a choice?’

  ‘Can’t you make up an excuse?’

  ‘What excuse? He’s going to be bloody living here in a few days.’ I dragged a skirt and blouse from their hangers and fought my way into them.

  My fingers wouldn’t work, and I couldn’t see properly.

  ‘Here, let me help,’ Rachel said. ‘You’ve got it buttoned all the wrong way.’

  ‘He broke my glasses.’

  ‘Where are they? Let me look. I’ll see if I can fix them.’

  ‘You can’t fix them!’ I said with venom. ‘They’re smashed to pieces … everything’s smashed to pieces.’ I was consumed with anger and shame. ‘Just leave me alone.’

  The soft purr of the car engine outside. As I peered out through the net, I saw Mrs Galen’s face appear at the window opposite. We stared at each other, before her curtain twitched shut.

  I heard the soft click of Rachel’s door as she disappeared, like a cat, into hiding.

  When I came out of the house, Horst frowned at my red eyes and my homely skirt. ‘Why you not wear my stockings?’ he asked.