A Lesser Evil (41 page)

As it began to get dark, they tore the bun in half and ate it, then just sat on the mattress watching the patch of sky visible in the window grow gradually darker and darker.

‘I was so scared when it got dark yesterday,’ Fifi admitted. ‘I don’t think I could have stood a whole night alone.’

‘The dark will not hurt you,’ Yvette said, taking Fifi’s hand in hers and squeezing it. ‘It is people who hurt you.’

‘But the mice and rats, I can’t bear the thought of them,’ Fifi admitted.

‘They will not come near us,’ Yvette said firmly. ‘We ’ave not left one crumb of food for them. In ze rest of the barn there is bits of wheat, that is all they want. I would rather spend the night with a rat than a man who wishes to do me harm.’

They waited and waited, but Martin and Del didn’t come and both women’s stomachs were growling with hunger. Eventually they gave up hoping for food and lay down on the mattress. They were cold too. Yvette put her coat over the blanket, but it made little difference.

Fifi wondered if killing someone by starvation could be classified as murder, or would it be called ‘misadventure’ or some such thing if their captors claimed they’d been unable to get back? How long would it take? Two weeks, three? Or longer still? But she didn’t voice her anxiety as she felt entirely responsible for their plight.

Fifi had a dream that she was lying on a beach sunbathing. She woke to find it was sunshine on her face, coming from the high window.

Yvette was standing up stretching; she turned and smiled down at Fifi. ‘It does not seem so bad when the sun shines,’ she said. ‘But I weesh for a cup of coffee.’

Fifi looked at her watch and saw it was nearly ten. She was astounded she had managed to sleep so long, and remarked on it.

‘I think ze body knows when there is nothing to get up for,’ Yvette said. ‘When I first came to England I used to sleep from Saturday right to Monday morning. It was cold; I had little money and no friends then. Sleep was good.’

Fifi got up and used the bucket while Yvette tactfully turned away.

‘Why did you come to England?’ Fifi asked after she’d had a couple of mouthfuls of water. ‘Don’t you have any family in France?’

‘My mother died in the war,’ Yvette said. ‘I did not wish to have sad reminders.’

The crisp way she spoke suggested she did not want to talk about it, so Fifi took her comb from her handbag and began combing her hair.

‘You have such pretty hair,’ Yvette said, sitting down on the mattress beside Fifi. ‘I always weesh I was a blonde. When the Germans came to Paris, some mothers bleached their girls’ dark hair.’

‘Why?’ Fifi asked.

‘To try and pass them for gentile,’ Yvette said with a grimace. ‘It did not work too well, many ended up with orange hair.’

Fifi was suddenly taken back to an event in her early childhood when she must have been six or so. She woke to hear her mother crying and went downstairs. Her parents were in the kitchen, and her father was holding her mother in his arms while she sobbed.

‘You shouldn’t have gone to see it,’ her father was saying. ‘I told you it would be too upsetting.’

Fifi had always been a great one for lurking in the hallway or outside rooms while grown-ups were talking. Her parents used to get very cross with her about it. But however much they said things like
eavesdroppers never hear anything good about themselves
, she could never resist it. But that night she ran back to bed, frightened by what she’d seen and heard.

That evening her mother had gone out to the cinema with her sister. They went out nearly every week together, and always before her mother would be laughing when she came in. Sometimes she’d hear her telling Daddy the whole story of the film.

The following morning her mother still had red, swollen eyes from crying and Fifi asked her why.

‘Because I saw the most dreadful, terrible film,’ she said.

A trip to the cinema was a huge treat for Fifi. She’d seen
Snow White
,
Dumbo
and
Bambi
, and she couldn’t imagine how a film could be anything but wonderful.

‘Was it sad like when Bambi’s mummy died?’ she asked.

‘Much, much worse, because that wasn’t real. This was a film about how a bad man killed thousands of mummies, daddies and little children.’ Her mother’s eyes filled up with tears again.

‘Why did he kill them?’

‘Just because they were Jewish.’

Fifi had no idea then what Jewish meant and it was years later before she learned about the Holocaust at school. It was only then that she realized her mother was upset that night years earlier because she’d seen the film which was made at the time the British and American troops liberated the concentration camps.

Fifi became almost morbidly fascinated by the whole subject. She used to go into the library and look for books about it. But whenever she asked about it at home she always got the same response. ‘
That was all over years ago. It should be forgotten about now
.’

It had often baffled her why kind, decent people like her parents could brush aside something as terrible as six million people being exterminated. She had wanted to know why no one seemed to be aware it was going on, how they reacted when they first found out, if they wanted to do something to help, or if they were just too stunned. She wanted to know, too, what happened to the surviving Jews and if they could ever forgive or forget.

She hadn’t thought much about this in the last eight or nine years, but something about the way Yvette had spoken suggested she was Jewish, and that brought back all those questions she’d never had satisfactory answers to.

Turning to face her friend, she had to ask. ‘Are you Jewish, Yvette?’

Yvette sighed deeply. ‘Yes, Fifi, I am.’ The way she said it made it quite clear it wasn’t something she intended to discuss further.

Fifi had to let it go. She finished combing her hair, then offered to do Yvette’s. Fifi had only ever seen her hair scraped back into a tight bun, until yesterday when the pins began to fall out, and it was quite a surprise to see that it was very long and thick, though sprinkled with grey.

Yvette had lost most of the pins, so Fifi suggested plaiting it, as she had a couple of rubber bands in her handbag. Fifi had always liked doing other women’s hair, and Yvette seemed to relax as it was combed and plaited. They talked about how much they’d like to wash, clean their teeth, and have a cup of tea or coffee.

‘You look like a schoolgirl now,’ Fifi laughed when she had finished. She was about to say that Yvette should dye over the grey hair and have it cut into a bob, but she stopped herself just in time, and found her handbag mirror to show the older woman how she looked.

Yvette smiled at her reflection. ‘This is how I wore it as a leetle girl,’ she said. ‘Mama would plait it as I ate my breakfast. Before I left for school she would tie ribbons on the end, but every day I lose one.’

‘Me too,’ Fifi smiled. ‘My mother used to get really cross. She said once it was a waste of time trying to make me look pretty. I always thought that meant I was really ugly.’

Yvette patted her cheek. ‘Mothers do not weesh to say their leetle girls are beautiful in case it make them vain.’

‘Did your mother tell you that you have lovely eyes?’ Fifi asked. ‘They are like liquid dark chocolate, and your figure is so good too. Why didn’t you ever marry?’

Yvette smiled. ‘I never knew anyone ask so many questions! To get married it is not enough just to ’ave lovely eyes or a good figure.’

‘But you are so nice,’ Fifi said. ‘A bit mysterious perhaps. I would think lots of men would fall for you.’

Yvette chuckled. ‘So you theenk I am mysterious.’

Fifi grinned. ‘Yes, but then men are supposed to like that.’

‘I do not care what men like,’ Yvette said a little sharply. ‘I would rather be alone for ever than ’ave to live with a man. Look at ’ow these men treat us! No food, only one blanket. Another woman could not do that.’

The day passed even more slowly than the previous one, and with nothing to do but think how hungry they were, they grew snappy with each other. When Fifi began climbing up the bars for some exercise, Yvette complained. When Yvette rocked herself back and forward as she sat on the mattress, that got on Fifi’s nerves.

‘Stop it,’ Fifi shouted. ‘You look like you’re going mad.’

‘Stop what?’ Yvette asked.

‘Rocking!’

‘I do not know what you mean,’ Yvette retorted.

They ignored each other after that. Yvette lay down, curled up in a foetal position, and Fifi did exercises she remembered from ballet class, pretending to herself that the bars were the barre.

But as it gradually became dark, Fifi gave way to anger. She was hungry, cold and dirty and she felt she couldn’t stand another moment of it.

‘We really are going to die, aren’t we?’ she suddenly screamed out. ‘Stuck here getting thinner and thinner until we’re too weak to even stand. And you won’t even talk to me to take my mind off it.’

‘What do you want me to talk about?’ Yvette said, looking surprised. ‘You are such a child sometimes, Fifi, always ze drama.’

‘It doesn’t bloody well get any more dramatic than this,’ Fifi snarled at her. ‘I can’t take it any more.’

Yvette got up and walked over to Fifi, putting her arms around her and holding her tightly.

‘Hush now,’ she said soothingly. ‘Screaming and shouting won’t make it any better.’

Fifi burst into tears, and Yvette led her back to the mattress, wrapped the blanket around her as though she was a small child and cuddled her close.

‘How can you be this calm?’ Fifi asked after a while when her sobbing had abated. ‘Aren’t you frightened?’

‘Yes, I am frightened,’ Yvette admitted. ‘I am just as hungry as you too. But I ’ave been very hungry and frightened before in my life, and perhaps this is why I seem calm now.’

‘When you first came to England?’

‘No, all I remember of that was the cold, not fright or hunger. But in Paris I was very scared, for every day the Germans come and round up Jewish people to take them away. We did not know then where they were taking them, but we knew it wasn’t good. Sometimes my mama and I ’ad no food at all, for who needs a dressmaker when your country has fallen to the enemy?’

‘Did the Nazis take you then?’ Fifi asked through her sniffles.

‘No, because Mama sent me away. She couldn’t come with me, she had to sell what little we ’ad to pay for me to go. She said she would come for me as soon as the war was over.’

‘Did she come?’

Yvette shook her head. ‘The Nazis took her and she died on the train journey to Poland. They say there were so many people in each carriage that many could not breathe. It was bitterly cold too, and they ’ad no food or drink.’

Because of their plight Fifi could actually feel what it must have been like for Yvette’s mother, whereas before this would have been just another horrible story that she could imagine, but without really grasping its stark reality. Mere words could not convey her horror and disgust that anyone could do such a thing to another human being, or how appalling it must have been for Yvette to discover her mother died in such a way. It was dark now and she couldn’t see the Frenchwoman’s face but she knew she was crying. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t know what else to say. It’s just too terrible.’

‘Maybe it was better that she died there, before she see the camp,’ Yvette said in a choked voice. ‘She was at least with people she knew. I stay after the war is over, waiting for news, then when the Red Cross find her name on a list, I come here.’

Fifi thought of her own mother then. She could see her waiting outside the infant school gates with Patty, Peter and Robin sitting at both ends of the pram. Her mother would open her arms wide for Fifi to run to them, and she’d scoop her up and kiss her. How strange it was that such a lovely image should come into her mind now, when in the past she had chosen to remember only slights, arguments and all the negatives! Just a couple of days ago she was blaming all her misfortune on her family, and she felt ashamed of that now. She thought that if she ever got out of here she would make a determined effort to see all the good in her life, and forget the rest.

She remained silent for some time, holding Yvette in her arms, hoping that the warmth of her body would comfort her. But questions kept bobbing into her head; there was just so much more she needed to know about her friend.

‘But what was it like for you during the war years? You must have been just a young girl?’ she asked eventually.

‘I was eighteen when it ended,’ Yvette said with a catch in her voice. ‘But I was not like a young girl any more. I think it would ’ave been better to die in the train with Mama.’

‘Why? Weren’t the people you were sent to kind to you?’

‘Kind! They see me as just a young Jewish girl who can be sold to anyone with a few francs. You ask why I am not married. Fifi, I would sooner die than ever ’ave a man touch me again.’

Chapter Sixteen

The air in the office of Trueman Enterprises was thick with cigar smoke. Jack Trueman was sitting back in a big leather swivel chair, a glass of whisky in one hand, gesticulating at Del and Martin with his cigar.

‘I want you up in Nottingham pronto,’ he said, his tone one of a man well used to giving an order and having it obeyed immediately. ‘That slag is out of order, and you are to stay there until he knows it.’

Jack Trueman was close on sixty but he kept in shape by working out in a gym and swimming fifty lengths of his swimming pool each morning, so he looked far younger. Over six feet tall, with wide shoulders and a craggy face, he had never been considered a handsome man, but age had given him distinction. His dark hair had turned silver and he wore his handmade Savile Row three-piece grey suit and gold watch with the air of a man born to money. It was only his cockney accent that gave away his true origins, and the lack of warmth in his dark eyes warned people he was a human shark.

Anyone who had seen his mock Tudor mansion in Essex would be surprised he didn’t run his large empire from a prestigious office suite in Mayfair. But the two small cluttered rooms above a bookshop in St Anne’s Court in Soho, where he’d started from some forty years earlier, suited him just fine. He owned the building and ran the Mandrake drinking club in the cellar. Mirabelle’s, a stripclub, the Bastille coffee bar and Freddy’s nightclub, which he owned too, were all within three minutes’ walk. But he also had full and part shares in many other businesses as diverse as garment manufacturers, restaurants, a couple of hotels in Paddington and gambling clubs in all the big cities.