Restitution (26 page)

He crossed another road and another. Quiet here. No Soviet patrols. A woman pushing a pram full of scrap metal frowned at him when he asked for more directions. ‘Most of it’s gone.
Keep heading down there.’ She nodded down the road. A group of Russians ambled towards him, shouting at passing women and throwing empty bottles into the gutter. Gregor ducked behind a
burned-out tank.

Gregor felt eyes on him. A rat sat on its hind legs, studying him. Sweat bathed his face. He stood. Times like this he could almost hear Reuben and Jacob mocking him, asking him what it felt
like to be a member of the master race now.

He caught sight of something else. A sign. Woyrchstrasse. If he hadn’t hidden behind the tank he’d have missed it. He racked his memory for the number of the von Matke apartment. An
even number, 16 or 18. Residents had chalked little number plates on tiles outside the heaps which had once been their homes. Some had written notes on scraps of paper and weighed them down with
broken bricks. Gregor stopped outside number 14 and read one of them.

The corners of the paper were curled and the pencilled words had almost faded.

Number 18 still boasted a flowering cherry tree, split down the middle, one half blackened, the other waving blossom-clad branches like a stricken but friendly ghost. Gregor didn’t
remember a cherry tree and moved on to number 16. Two walls, nearly intact, stood at right angles, the space between them already colonized by flowers. He lit another match and found the pencil
stub and scrap of paper he’d brought with him. ‘A., the pianist is home.’

She’d know what it meant. He weighed down the note with two lumps of scorched brick and trudged home again.
Home.
How quickly and easily that word came to his lips now.

He spent the morning helping Dieter’s mother and Coca right the trashed workshop, sorting through jumbled nuts and screws and replacing them in their correct drawers. Ute
reappeared at lunchtime, unrecognizable as the quiet girl he remembered, dressed in a tight purple frock, yawning and saying she needed to catch up on some sleep. She produced a net bag, from which
she pulled out a loaf of black bread and a small pat of margarine wrapped up in what looked like a piece of notepaper. Gregor noticed her chewed nails and blushed when she caught him staring at
them.

The other women cut the bread and spread margarine so finely you could hardly tell it was there. Even as his stomach growled Gregor tried to turn down his slice; it didn’t seem right that
he should benefit from the fruits of Ute’s nocturnal work. Dieter’s mother told him to shut up and eat: last night he’d saved her and Coca from the soldiers. First time in years
he’d managed to do something he could remember without shame.

Perhaps the rare food in his blood was fuelling his memory, which was good and bad. There were episodes he’d rather not recall.

But back in the apartment, he couldn’t stop thinking about it all again: the night with Alix. And about all that had happened before then, the history he hadn’t told her. He’d
missed out most of what had happened at the logging camp at Kotlas in northern Russia, where they’d sent him after his arrest with Cyrek in Poland in 1940. Or possibly early in 1941. Already
dates were blurring. Whenever it was, his hidden story had begun there, when Gregor Fischer had died and Paul Smolinsky had been born.

Gregor

Camp near Kotlas, Archangel, 1941

The camp was 500 miles north-east of Moscow. Gregor could barely find the energy to stand by the time they arrived on the wagon, but Polish women were waiting for the new
arrivals with sweetened black tea and bread and kind, sad eyes. He’d tried to tell them about his mother, about the Gronowskis and the death of Cyrek in the train, but had found himself
incapable of describing these events. Besides, the expressions on their faces told him everyone had experienced similar things.

He’d half hoped to find some of those he’d lost here in the forests, but nobody had heard of Eva Fischer, or Jacob and Reuben Gronowski. A stern voice in his head told him it was
time to forget them all for the duration of this next stage. Gregor concentrated on finding his bearings, on regaining strength. The people in his hut seemed kindly – a Dr Skotnicki, his wife
and daughter and their extended family: assorted teachers and lawyers from towns in eastern Poland. The daughter, Sofia, was about his age but she stared at him with such sharp eyes that he found
himself shy in her presence, as though she were accusing him of some kind of weakness.

‘How on earth does a German boy come to be deported with a bunch of Poles?’ she asked him on their first meeting.

He shrugged. ‘My mother was of Polish origin. We were living in Warsaw when the war started.’

‘In Warsaw?’ She frowned. ‘You didn’t plan that very well, did you?’

‘Leave the lad in peace,’ said Sofia’s mother. ‘He can’t help who he is.’

The camp, one of a cluster belonging to a state-owned lumber company, could have been worse. He’d fallen into the company of Poles who’d arrived with some of their possessions,
jewellery and money intact. ‘We had some warning they’d deport us,’ Sofia told him. ‘My father managed to withdraw money in dollars.’ She looked over her shoulder.
‘My mother sewed jewellery into our clothes and we packed up our bedding and cooking pots.’

She was taking a risk, telling him this. Perhaps she liked him more than it appeared. Gregor himself had nothing to offer except his wits and a certain talent for the mouth organ. Russians were
supposed to love music.

‘You’re strong and healthy, given what you’ve endured.’ Dr Skotnicki removed the stethoscope from Gregor’s chest. ‘Work hard, but don’t exhaust
yourself. Exhaustion’s the killer here. I’ll see if I can persuade them to let you help me in my clinic. If you can stay indoors in the harsh weather you’ll conserve some
strength.’

Skotnicki had been quick to offer his medical services to the camp guards and their families.

‘I don’t even know exactly where I am,’ Gregor confessed. ‘I can’t remember much of the last few days in the wagons.’

Skotnicki found a pencil stub and a scrap of yellowing paper. ‘Here’s the Northern Drina river. Here’s Kotlas.’ He drew the curve of a peninsula. ‘Right up here is
Archangel.’

None of the places meant anything to Gregor.

The doctor gave a wry smile. ‘Moscow is here. Warsaw here.’

Almost off the scrap of paper.

‘We’re at the end of the world.’

Not quite. There are places more remote than this.’ A shadow passed over the doctor’s eyes. ‘Places more terrible. We can survive this camp if we keep on terms with the
guards.’

On long summer days when the sun barely set Gregor experienced odd hours during which he almost enjoyed camp life, the early starts on the wagon to distant parts of the forest,
singing songs and flirting with girls. Working outside all day made his arms and legs ache and the insects seemed to single out his limbs as their preferred restaurant. But at least there were
breaks to lie in the sun and eat bread and even, on occasions, curd cheese. He was a German surrounded by Poles, but for the most part they accepted him. ‘We hate the Russians more than
you.’ Sofia Skotnicka swallowed a mouthful of bread and smiled sweetly at him.

‘You always know how to make me feel good. And you haven’t got a clue what the Germans are doing in western Poland.’

‘Don’t tell me. Let me stay happy and ignorant, imagining it’s all
Lieder
and
Lederhosen.’

‘Sometimes I think that’s all you
do
want to imagine.’

She put down her chunk of bread. ‘You think you’re the only one with a grasp of world affairs, don’t you Fischer?’

He was silent. Sometimes he felt like the only person who’d seen what was really happening in western Poland.

She flapped a hand at a mosquito paying close attention to her arm and examined the bump it had left. ‘That’s the tenth today. Play something on that dreadful instrument of yours to
scare them away.’

The mouth organ was about the only possession Gregor hadn’t lost. He pulled it out.

‘And not that butchering of the Polish national anthem, if you don’t mind.’

He chose an adaptation of a Chopin waltz that worked fairly well if he took it slowly. Sofia leaned back against the wheel of the logging cart and closed her eyes, one hand stretched out in her
lap in preparation for another mosquito attack.

Gregor had only been back in their quarters for half an hour when Sasha, one of the guards, ran in. ‘Doctor?’

Gregor sat up. ‘He’s at the mill,’ he said in his halting Russian. ‘A bad splinter.’

‘My Vera – she says her ear’s on fire.’ He walked to Gregor and pulled his shoulder. ‘You come and treat her!’

‘But I’m not—’

‘You come!’

Gregor followed. Vera, a girl of about four, sat up in bed, her small face contorted. Gregor peered into her ear. He had no torch, no way of knowing what was wrong. ‘Treat it!’ Sasha
roared. Gregor thought quickly.

‘Do you have a pin?’

Sasha scowled at him.

‘Or a needle?’

Sasha bellowed for his wife and a rapid exchange produced a pin. A candle and matches sat ready for lighting at dusk. Gregor motioned at the woman to light the candle. Her eyes widened, probably
scared he was going to use the flame on her daughter. He held the pin over the flame and counted to ten. How long did it take to sterilize objects?

Vera watched him from her bed. She’d stopped screaming now. Perhaps this ear infection would heal by itself . . . It might be better to try and explain this to Sasha, remind him that
Gregor wasn’t yet sixteen years old and—

‘You heal her, yes?’ Sasha scowled at him. Sasha was a big man and Gregor had seen him knock a Pole to the ground for disobeying some minor regulation.

Gregor removed the pin from the flame and approached the child with what he hoped was a reassuring confidence. He pushed back the child’s hair and guided the pin into her ear, the blood in
his veins rushing.

He heard a small pop and a stream of yellow fluid ran out of Vera’s eardrum.

Sasha pulled him into an embrace which threatened to break his ribs. Sasha’s wife brewed tea – the real stuff, not the substitute the Poles drank. Gregor couldn’t help feeling
like a hero.

Just an ordinary camp day: wood splinters, insect bites and the smell of resin. And Sofia tormenting him. Nothing to warn him about what was about to happen when they returned
to the huts. His usual bowl of millet
kasha
sat in his place at the pallet they used for a table, but Sofia’s father, Doctor Skotnicki, couldn’t meet his eye. Gregor ate, wishing
someone’d tell him what was wrong.

The women took the bowls outside to rinse with only a nod to acknowledge his thanks. Dr Skotnicki beckoned him over to sit beside him on his bunk. ‘We need to do something about your name,
Gregor.’ He removed his spectacles and examined the lenses.

‘Why?’

Dr Skotnicki stared at him, his naked eyes looking vulnerable. ‘You don’t know, do you? I suppose the guards in the forest hadn’t heard yet.’

‘Heard what?’

The doctor sighed. ‘Germany invaded Russia a few days ago.’

Gregor sat up, as though an electric charge had passed through him. It only took a second for him to understand. If the guards discovered his real identity . . .

Dr Skotnicki replaced his glasses and pulled something out from under the blanket. ‘What I propose is this. Last week in the next camp, Paul Smolinsky, a Polish lad of seventeen, died from
diphtheria. His parents are prepared to sell his papers. Otherwise . . .’ Dr Skotnicki looked at Gregor.

Otherwise
meant the other kind of camps, designed to work you until you died. This was a holiday in comparison with them. Gregor couldn’t quell a laugh.

‘Sorry,’ he said in response to the doctor’s frown. ‘It’s just I keep twisting and turning like a rat trying to escape terriers.’

The doctor put a hand on Gregor’s shoulder. ‘You’ll let me find out more about those new papers?’

‘I don’t know . . .’ Changing his name, losing his old self: it felt wrong, disloyal. He was
Gregor Fischer.
He’d done nothing wrong.

‘Gregor, I wouldn’t ask you to do this if I didn’t think it was imperative,’ the doctor said softly.

‘What about the guards?’ He was playing for time now.

‘Don’t worry about the guards. Since you sorted out Sasha’s daughter’s ear he regards you as a god.’

Gregor shifted on the bunk. The doctor had turned white when Gregor had reported his treatment of Vera. ‘Dear God, boy, suppose she’d had meningitis?’

‘Then she’d have died anyway.’

The doctor had shaken his head. ‘Don’t ever do anything like that again. You could have all of us shot.’

But yes, the guards would turn a blind eye to Gregor’s change of nationality.

‘I haven’t got any money to pay for the papers,’ he mumbled. All he had was the mouth organ and the photograph of his mother.

‘You can pay me back through working as my assistant whenever they spare you from the logging. I’m getting on, Gregor. I need help.’ And indeed the doctor’s hair had
turned white very rapidly these last months.

Sitting on the logging wagon early the next morning he pulled out the mouth organ. ‘Are we feeling romantic or nostalgic today?’ he asked, in his improving Russian.
‘Do you want “Olga with the Big Tits” or the one about Babushka’s loaves baking in the oven?’

‘Shut your mouth and play the one about the red rose,’ Ivan with the broken nose told him.

I shall go, I am a young one.
Gregor’s Russian wasn’t good enough to catch all the meaning but he’d translated some of the words.
Flowers scarlet, roses red, I must
pluck.

His mother and Marie had been picking roses in the garden the morning of the dinner party in Pomerania. The world had stopped for a moment and he’d felt that even when it moved on again
there’d always be a part of the universe where the women were picking flowers, Marie serene and unhurried in her movements, his own mother moving with more purpose, her fingers darting
between thorns, her eyes bright like a bird’s. And Alix’s father watching the two of them with that unreadable expression on his face.