Tamar (35 page)

When I turned back to the river, a corpse had drifted into the shadowed water towards the far bank. It could have been a pale slender tree trunk, but then I saw that the branches were arms, faintly greenish in the water, and that the splintered stump was drowned hair. I stared at it for the space of a couple of missing heartbeats, and then the corpse lifted its drenched unruly head and whooped.

I yelled at him. “Yoyo! You sod! I nearly wet myself!”

“Hah! Excellent!” He arched and dived and disappeared and bobbed up again; then he turned and swam against the current, pacing himself so that he stayed in the same place.

“Come on,” he called, “get in. It’s great, really.”

“No way! You must be mad.”

“Why, can’t you swim?”

I could, but only just. Two lengths of a heated swimming pool was about my limit.

“Of course I can. But I’m not getting in there. Isn’t it freezing?”

“No, it’s perfect.”

“Well, be careful,” I said. “I don’t care if you drown, but I can’t drive the car.”

He laughed and swam towards me and got unsteadily to his feet in the shallows. The water came up to the frayed legs of his shorts. The confetti flowers wafted around his thighs. He shook his head like a dog, scattering brilliant droplets.

“Tamar, really, you should get in. Do you realize you have not put even a hand or foot into this river you are named after? You haven’t touched it. It’s a shame, I think.”

It was a fair point. So I slid my sandals off and stepped cautiously into ankle-deep water and squealed like a kid. “You bloody liar! It
is
freezing!”

“Of course not,” he said. “It is only the, what-you-call-it, contrast. In one minute you’ll get used to it.”

Which was true; then it was lovely.

“Come a bit nearer,” I said, “and I’ll come as far as you. But no farther. And no messing about, okay? I mean it. If you pull me in or anything, I’ll kill you.”

I was almost out to him when my foot slipped and I had to grab at his arm. It was hard and cold. He held my hand and we steadied ourselves, facing into the current. He was shivering slightly despite the heat; I could feel the vibration running down into my hand. The swirls of water against my legs were delicious. I seemed to be moving forward effortlessly. Through gaps in the trees, thick beams of brilliant light tilted onto the river. Where they burned on the water, the glitter was so intense that I closed my eyes. I shouldn’t have done.

I suppose it was the sensation of being blind in such light that made me feel as though I was losing my balance. That, and the heat, and the hypnotic liquid murmuring of the river, and the movement of water against me. I was filled with a thrilling sickness, like vertigo, like the fear of falling from some high place and wanting to fall at the same time. I think I must have stumbled, because Yoyo said my name and turned and held me by the shoulders, supporting me. I leaned against him and he had to brace his legs to steady himself. He put his arms around me. I could feel the water from his hair dripping onto mine and the water on his body soaking into my T-shirt.

After a while I said, “I’m okay now. You can let go of me.”

But I didn’t mean it, and he took no notice.

Things happened so fast and so close together that they seemed like one thing. The shock of it made Bibi Grotius draw in her breath so sharply that she almost choked on her own saliva; she had been remembering the taste of apple cake with apricot syrup. She saw two boys dash across the square from left to right. The one carrying the football called out to Trixie Greydanus. Trixie moved fast to the corner and looked down Market Street. She turned back immediately, leaned against the wall, and took off her left shoe. When she looked up at Bibi’s window, her mouth was open. The few people already in the square moved quickly and aimlessly like a startled shoal of fish. Three hundred metres down Prince William Street, a German heavy machine-gun carrier appeared from nowhere, howling and clouded in black exhaust, and accelerated towards the square. Someone screamed. It was just before noon on Sunday 11th March.

Bibi’s cry was so hoarse that at first Dart didn’t recognize it as his warning. But when he turned and saw her ashen face on the stairs, he knew. His head felt suddenly full of cold blood. His body did things by itself: his legs lifted him from the yellow chair; his left hand stammered on the Morse key, sending QUG, the code for emergency shutdown; his right hand scrabbled to gather the silks, the pencil, the pad. Then his eyes fastened on the revolver and he froze, immobilized by indecision.

The four SS troopers who barged through the shop door floundered in the near darkness, colliding with delicate obstacles and each other. What light there was in the shop came from the workshop door, which Pieter had left uncurtained. So the Germans headed for that, using their rifles like scythes to smash a path through the tables, the clockwork toys, the frozen ballerinas. The surviving puppets rattled their little wooden feet against the soldiers’ grey steel helmets.

Dart had reached the foot of the attic stairs when he heard the door crash open and the frantic jangling of the bell. He shrank back against the landing wall, holding the medical bag in his left hand and the revolver in his right, pressed against his leg. When the first explosion of breaking glass came, it seemed to go off inside his head. He looked down the staircase towards the workshop door. The legs and jackboots of one SS man, and then another. An order, harsh and urgent. The voice of Pieter Grotius, saying something he could not make out above the sounds of destruction. He heard someone sobbing faintly, then realized the sound was coming from his own throat.

A hand seized his arm.

Bibi dragged him into the parlour and closed the door. Stupidly he went to the window. Before Bibi pulled him away he saw, just below him, the head and shoulders of a German machine gunner protruding from an armoured car, his weapon trained on the opposite side of the square. A number of people — was that Trixie? — were crowded together, some with their hands in the air, others huddling into shop doorways. SS troops seemed to be raiding several buildings. A young man kneeled on the cobbles with a German holding his hair. Somewhere a woman was wailing. Inside the room, Bibi was hissing at him.

“Ernst! Ernst, for God’s sake! Open the bag. My leg, do my leg. Hurry!”

It was so hopeless he thought he might cry. Or laugh. He dropped the bag onto the floor and realized he still held the revolver in his other hand. Bibi saw it and swore. She grabbed it, stuffed it under the cushion on her chair and sat down. She propped her bandaged leg on the footstool and tore the safety pin from the bandage.

A loud voice from below, boots on the stairs. Dart kneeled beside Bibi, wrenched the bag open, pulled stuff, any stuff, out. Bibi leaned forward, took Dart’s face in her hands, and kissed him on the forehead. She fell back in the chair with tears in her eyes. Dart took hold of her ankle with his left hand and the loose end of the bandage in his right.

The door flew open.

One grey monster entered, then a second, and a third. Two with rifles; the other, the corporal, with a machine pistol. They filled the room.

“Stand up. Stand up!”

Dart looked at them over his shoulder and raised his right arm from the elbow. A shaky salute, perhaps, or a sign meaning wait. He didn’t know which, just that he had done it before somewhere and it had worked. But not this time.

“Stand up! Raise your hands!”

He stayed on his knees but half turned towards them, using his hands to explain that he was in the middle of a medical procedure. The corporal stepped forward and clubbed Dart on the right-hand side of his face with a gloved fist. The crunch that Dart felt was mixed up with the sound of the other two Germans working the bolts of their rifles and Bibi’s scream.

Dart collapsed sideways and somehow stopped himself from plunging headfirst into the glass cabinet of hollow eggshells painted with clowns’ faces. The cabinet shook and the egg heads wobbled on their little wooden stands. His own head was full of fizzy noise like a receding wave sucking shingle from a beach. When the darkness drew back, he got himself up onto his elbows. The first thing he noticed was that his lower lip was connected to the floor by a sticky thread of blood and dribble. The second thing was a pair of highly polished boots and, above them, way, way above them, a colourless face beneath the peak of a cap with a death’s head insignia.

“Ah. Dr. Ludders, is it not? We have met before.”

Dart wiped the mess from his mouth with his sleeve and mumbled, “Lubbers, Major. Not Ludders. Lubbers.”

“Of course. Ernst Lubbers, if I remember correctly.”

His face was, impossibly, more bleached out than before. Its only colour was in the rim of red below each eye and the pink scar that ran down the ragged lobe of his ear. He said, still looking down at Dart, “Who struck this man?”

After some shuffling of jackboots the SS corporal said, “Sir, he failed to obey —”

The major turned abruptly. “Corporal, we are looking for terrorists. This man is a bloody doctor. Don’t you know the difference?”

“Sir.” The corporal’s face was a blank.

“Have you checked the rear of this building?”

“Not yet, sir.”

“Do it now.”

When the troopers had gone, the pale major made a leisurely inspection of the cluttered room, surveying the posters, stooping to examine a framed photograph of Pieter and Bibi Grotius posing with the infamous Jew Charlie Chaplin. He made no comment. He lifted a Russian doll from a shelf; it rattled slightly. He twisted the body and separated the two halves and took out a smaller doll, and then found another inside that one. The fifth doll, no bigger than a clothes peg, was the last and did not open. The major seemed disappointed. He went to the window and gazed out, arms folded.

“An excellent view from here,” he said. “An ideal command post.”

Dart’s consciousness was coming and going. He wondered if it might be okay to go to sleep. Instead, he got to his feet, supporting himself on the back of Bibi’s chair. She stared up at him, her eyes wet, her face almost as white as the German’s.

The major turned to face them at last. “What is this woman’s name, Dr. Lubbers?”

“Bib . . . Mrs. Barbara Grotius.” The name came out indistinctly; his jaw somehow got in the way of his tongue. His mouth tasted of salt and something metallic.

“Grotius?”

“Yes, Major.”

The German considered the name, and Dart realized that he was wondering if it sounded Jewish.

“Her husband is the dwarfish man downstairs?”

“Yes.”

The major looked directly at Bibi for the first time. “And what is her problem? What are you treating her for?”

“Mrs. Grotius has a leg ulcer.”

“Ulcer?” The major did not seem to know the word.

“An open sore that refuses to heal,” Dart said, then thought, Dear God, is he weird enough to want to see it? He tried to think. It was like scaling a cliff when all you want is to let go and fall. A voice in his head said,
Ask about the ear.

“How is your ear, Major? The scar tissue seems healthy, from what I can see.”

“It is satisfactory. It is taking a long time to heal; my wounds always do. But there was no infection.”

“Good.” Dart attempted a smile, which hurt. “We got to it in time, then.”

The pale stare hardened.

Oh, shit. I’ve gone too far.

The crunch of boots on broken glass, and then the corporal’s voice came up the stairs. The major turned away from Dart and went to the door. Then he looked back. “I would clean myself up a bit, if I were you, Doctor. You’ll frighten your patients if you turn up looking like that.” Something like a smile made a brief appearance on his face. “You will have some bruising, I think.”

“It’s nothing, really.”

“I regret your injury. The corporal overreacted, perhaps. My men are operating under unusual pressures at the present time.”

Dart had no idea how to respond. He found himself nodding sympathetically, one hard-pressed professional to another. The German left the room.

Bibi’s hand flew to Dart’s and gripped it fiercely. Then she released it as if it were red hot. The major was speaking again.

“Dr. Lubbers, would you come out here, please?”

Dart went out onto the landing. The white face seemed to hover in the gloom. Behind it, the masks watched balefully from the wall. The major gestured with his head towards the attic stairs.

“Do you know what is up there?”

“No.” The word came out high-pitched and false, and Dart hurriedly made a fuss of coughing and dabbing at his mouth. “Excuse me. No. I’m sorry, I have no idea. I’ve never been up there.”

The German peered up into the darkness. He flicked the light switch at the foot of the stairs on and off, unsurprised when nothing happened.

Dart felt light-headed, close to hysteria. He somehow managed to force his voice into a confidential murmur. “If it’s anything like the rest of the place, it’ll be full of crap.”

The fleeting humourless smile crossed the German’s face again. He looked up into the shadows once more, hesitating. Then he turned his back on Dart and went down the stairs to the shop. “Take care of yourself, Doctor,” he called.