Touching the Wire (8 page)

Messages could be wrapped
around stones and thrown over the barbed-wire fences that separated the camps.
It wasn’t the safest way, if a guard saw, but sometimes, if orders meant he
couldn’t go where he needed to go to pass a message himself, it was the
quickest. They waited anxiously for two days before the message came back.
Tsepochke svyazan.

Miriam
shrugged. ‘I don’t understand, Chuck.’

‘I
think it’s Russian.’

‘Darja
may know.’

‘She’s
Belarusian…’

‘Afina
seems to understand her. She says Darja was a teacher before she was brought
here. I’ll ask.’

Miriam
returned after an hour. ‘Darja says it means
the chain is linked
.’

Three more anxious days and
the first two packages arrived together, delayed no doubt by their circuitous
route. Miriam handed them to him, still warm from being inside her blouse. He
put them among the small store of medicine bottles and bandages beneath the
table until he could pass them on, hidden in plain view. 

 The door flew open and
he
strode in. ‘Inspection. Now.’

Arturas and Peti… ‘Yes,
Hauptsturm
f
ührer.’
He pushed Miriam behind him.

‘Come.’ The imperious figure
swept out of the surgery and into the ward. ‘This woman… how long has she been
here?’

A selection? His heart
hammered. He’d had no warning, no time to falsify records or blood tests. No
time to warn the boys to hide and stay quiet.

‘I asked how long.’

The woman had been here
three weeks with breathing difficulties, possibly pneumonia, and wouldn’t be
fit for at least a week. He made a show of flicking through the red cards. Out
of the corner of his eye he saw a small foot protruding from beneath a
mattress. He moved to block the camp physician’s view. ‘Only two days,
Hauptsturmführer. She’ll be well enough to work tomorrow.’

‘And this one?’

‘Oedema of the feet.’ She
couldn’t put them to the ground. ‘A day’s rest and she’ll be fit.’

He
squashed a bug. ‘Lice… A louse is death, doctor. I do not
want a resurgence of typhus. Have all these patients disinfected. Today.’

 His shoulders slumped.
‘Yes, Herr Doktor.’

‘I shall inspect them again
when it is done.’ He smiled cordially and tapped his cane against his boot. ‘It
is good. You run a good hospital, my friend.’

Friend? Never… and if this
was good he hoped never to see
bad
. Half these poor
women would die, forced to stand naked and wet after the cold showers, perhaps
all night, while their clothes were subjected to high-temperature baking and
the block was gassed free of lice, as the Hauptsturmführer
knew well.
Truly, lice meant death. Who needed selections with such ruthless efficiency?

‘I’ll inspect the surgery,
now.’ He ran a finger over the table top. ‘Clean this.’

There was nothing to be
gained by pointing out that they had no water. ‘Yes, Hauptsturmführer.’

‘What are these?’ The SS
doctor pointed to the smuggled packages with his cane.

‘Surgical dressings, Herr
Doktor… A pitiful supply. We need more dressings, more medicines. More water.’
He held his breath; if the explosives were discovered they were all dead. One
of his hands, held behind his back, clutched Miriam’s: she was trembling.

He
poked one of the packages and leaned forward to peer
closer.

‘Found it!’

Fear almost stopped his
heart. Charlotte held a bar of chocolate triumphantly in the air. He hadn’t
heard them come in. He sat down hard on the sofa and shook: he couldn’t stop
shaking.       

Walt sat on the edge of Lucy’s bed. Dobbin
stood in the corner, long outgrown. ‘Lie down and don’t interrupt. Charlotte,
into bed, please.’ How many times had he told this story, overlaid now with
embroidered threads? ‘Where was I? Oh, yes, Wselfwulf asked the woodcutter to
choose which daughter to give to him to eat.’

 Charlotte and Lucy
glanced at one other.

‘How could he choose? He
couldn’t, of course. He loved them both.
Take me, instead, the woodcutter pleaded
.
The wolf blinked a long, slow blink.
You are tough and old. I want
tender little girls.
’

Charlotte grinned. ‘You’re
tough and old, aren’t you Grandpa?’

He laughed and blessed Tykhe
for her gift of granddaughters. ‘Cheeky young madam… and I said not to
interrupt. You’re only trying to delay bedtime.

‘I can’t decide, said the
woodcutter. Give me an hour and I’ll tell you. The wolf agreed and sat down
outside the door to wait. The woodcutter thought and thought. What could he do
to save his daughters? We can’t let the wolf eat our children, the woodcutter’s
wife said. We must escape. He packed a bag and threw it over his shoulder.
Putting on his green coat and his hat with the feather, he led them through the
back door and they crept into the forest. Don’t think you can escape me, the
wolf growled, as he appeared from behind a tree. Have you decided?

‘The woodcutter stood in
front of his family. You promised an hour, he said. They hurried home. I have
an idea, he told his wife. You and the girls must stay here, by the window,
where Wselfwulf can see you, while I creep away. I won’t be long, I promise.
Neighbours had a little girl the same age. He must give Wselfwulf the
neighbours’ child.’

‘Why?’

‘Remember the chicken? The
life of the neighbours’ child was less precious to him than that of his
daughters, and he could think of no way to save them but trickery.’

Charlotte wasn’t impressed.
‘Couldn’t he have killed the wolf?’

The grey shape in his mind
raised a paw and tasted the air, his eyes and ears missing nothing. Could he
have? Would it have made a difference? Sometimes no choice was right.

‘So he didn’t eat
his
little girls?’ Lucy pretended they didn’t know, or had forgotten, so he’d tell
the story again. He’d thought, at nine, they’d grown out of Wselfwulf, but they
still loved a story.

‘Wselfwulf was clever. He
could see that the woodcutter would do anything to keep his daughters safe so,
every week, he promised not to eat them if the woodcutter found him a child.
The woodcutter hated what he did, and the wolf knew it. He tried following the
wolf into the forest to trap him and kill him, but Wselfwulf was too clever.
The woodcutter was afraid and ashamed. You see, Lucy, he’d become as bad as the
wolf. Finally he couldn’t bear his guilt and he went to the king. The king also
had two daughters. They lived in a castle on a wide sparkling river, surrounded
by vineyards and forests. The castle had tall towers built of huge blocks of
stone. The towers were round on one side of the building…’

‘And square on the other.’

‘Yes, Charlotte.’

‘And one tower was very
tall.’

‘The castle had round and
square towers where the king and his family lived. It had had rows of narrow
arched windows above two gateways. The gateways had thick oak gates to keep out
the wolves that roamed wild across the land. From the top of the highest tower
they could see for miles and miles across the kingdom.
The king loved his daughters and kept them locked away
in the highest room…’

‘Four storeys high.’

‘…
where
they’d be safe from the wolf.’

‘Are there really wolves,
Grandpa?’

‘Not wild in this country,
Charlotte, but in other places they still roam free.
The woodcutter walked
for many days before he reached the castle.  The king granted him an
audience, and the woodcutter knelt before him and swept off his large green
hat.

 ‘Your majesty, he
said. I beg you, rid the kingdom of the wolf, Wselfwulf. The king offered a
reward to anyone who could slay the wolf. One day a prince rode up to the
castle on a huge chestnut horse and demanded to see the king. He drew his sword
and laid it at the king’s feet. I will kill the wolf if you grant me the hand
of one of your daughters in marriage. The king thought about this. The prince
was rich and handsome and brave. He’d be a worthy husband when his oldest
daughter was of marriageable age, and it would mean the kingdom would be free
of Wselfwulf forever. I agree, said the king. But you must bring me a token of
his death.

‘The prince searched for
Wselfwulf for many days and eventually found him.  The wolf stood as tall
as the prince and bared huge fangs at him. What do you want, man-thing? The
prince was very afraid.
I’ve come to
kill you so you don’t eat the princesses and the other daughters of the kingdom
.’

‘It’s a wonder these two
ever dare go to sleep, Walt.’ Jane placed a cup of tea on the small table
beside Charlotte’s bed.

‘It’s only a story, Granny.’

He paused to sip the tea.
The girls sat patiently while he swallowed. Their eyes saw wolves and kings and
castles, where he saw betrayal and the frozen dead. He put down the cup.

‘What is to be your
reward? Wselfwulf asked, fixing his pale cold eyes on the prince. The hand of a
princess in marriage, answered the prince. The wolf backed into his cave,
revealing a huge treasury of gold and silver paid in ransom over the years for
the safety of the daughters of the realm. I will give you a tooth to take back
to the king as proof you have killed me and, if you bring me the princess, you
can take all the treasure you can carry in return. The prince took the tooth
back to the king, and the prince and princess were betrothed amid huge
celebration because Wselfwulf was dead.’

‘But weasel-wolf wasn’t
dead.’

‘Wselfwulf. No, sweetheart,
he wasn’t.’

‘What happened?’

‘The wolf didn’t eat the
princess?’

‘No. The prince had fallen
in love with the princess and couldn’t bear to lose her, so he begged the wolf
to let her live.

‘Bring me the
woodcutter’s daughters, to avenge my father, and you may take your treasure and
your princess, said the wolf. So the prince went in search of the woodcutter.
That night, when the woodcutter and his wife were asleep, he crept into the
house, carried off both the woodcutter’s daughters and gave them to the wolf in
return for the princess and gold.’

‘We-self-wolf ate them.’

‘Yes, Lucy, he ate them and
then, satisfied that the debt had been paid, he curled up on the spot where his
father had died for a long, long sleep. You see, the woodcutter tried everything
he knew to protect his daughters but he failed, tricked by a greedy man and a
crafty wolf.’

‘It’s a sad story, Grandpa,’
Lucy said.

Charlotte puckered her lips.
‘Serves him right.’

He patted Charlotte’s hand.
He’d failed once to protect those he’d loved. He would die rather than fail
again. ‘I expect you’re right, sweetheart.’

***

Walt unlocked the door to his workshop hoping
for five minutes peace. What did he know about school uniforms? Charlotte and
Lucy insisted skirt hems far above the knees were not only acceptable but
essential. Jane and Jennie had other ideas. He wouldn’t be the judge with the
casting vote.

He unwrapped the diary he kept hidden beneath his workshop
bench. Its fifty pages bore witness to the courage and endurance of thousands
of camp internees. He opened it carefully, his copperplate English a
counterpoint to Miriam’s rounded, backward-leaning Hungarian.
Tegnap Anya kénytelen
volt folytatni
nehéz sziklák, hogy
a domb
tetején.
Meleg volt a
munka.
Néhány elájult és verték.

 
Ma
ő kénytelen volt folytatni a kövek le újra
.
 
The words fell better from Miriam’s tongue. His grasp of
it, picked up from her and a pocket language-primer,
suggested
it read
Yesterday, Mother had to carry many rocks from the bottom of the
hill to the top. It was hot work. Some were beaten because they fainted. Today
she was forced to carry them back again. 

He turned a page to his own
handwriting.
The Greek Sonderkommando refused to gas the Hungarians. They
staged a brave revolt.
Another entry.
August 2
^nd
1944. They
have liquidated the gypsy camp.
Bodies
burn in pits
next to the crematorium
.

More of
Miriam’s words: his finger traced them gently, as if caressing her cheek. Was
he being disloyal to Jane?
Láttuk atya át a kerítésen
.
Mi alig ismert rá. Nem vagyok biztos
benne, hogy tudta, hogy minket.
Miriam had cried when she wrote this.
We saw Father
through the fence. We barely recognised him. I'm not sure that he knew us.
He closed the book and rewrapped it. Miriam had risked her life to trust in
him.

He locked the workshop door
and walked back into the house. He sank into his chair, trying to block out the
horror of that day, and failing.

An hour before dawn and they
were all exhausted; an outbreak of scarlet fever had kept them working most of
the night. His nurses were dead on their feet: patients lay dead on their
bunks. He wrinkled his nose: the night-soil buckets were full to overflowing
but the ‘pot girl’ was not permitted to go to the latrines to empty them until
morning.

‘Chuck, have we any charcoal
left? There are four more diarrhoea cases.’

He tipped the contents of a
bag onto the table. ‘This is all… if only we had something else to treat them…
kaolin… If only we had more water…’ They dreaded rain for the quagmire that
dragged every last ounce of strength from exhausted limbs, yet prayed for it to
fill what bowls they could spare with precious drops.

She wiped a hand across her
brow. He felt her forehead quickly and searched for evidence of a rash. ‘You
are hot. You have a sore throat?’

‘No… It’s warm in here
tonight. I don’t think I have a temperature.’

‘Tongue?’

She stuck it out.

‘It’s not red.’ He let out
the breath he’d been holding. ‘It’s a miracle we avoid infection.’

She managed a tired smile.
‘I worry about the boys, but I think we’re immune to everything, now.’

Those patients who could
swallow were given a few sips of water, the last of the charcoal was dispensed,
and the moans gradually subsided as exhaustion pulled the sick into sleep or
death.

‘Miriam, rest while you can.
If we have more cases, today will be even harder.’ He passed the bunk Arturas
and Peti shared with three women and reached to feel their foreheads. Despite
his best efforts at scrimping extra food they were painfully thin. ‘They shouldn’t
be in here with all this sickness.’

‘Where else can they go? At
least here they are loved and fed.’

The door slammed back on its
hinges. Guards stormed in. He moved to block their path.

‘Alle raus!
Jetzt raus!
 
Schnell…
 
schnell… Suche überall.’
Everyone out.

His heart hammered in his
chest. He motioned to Miriam while blocking the SS officer’s view. ‘What is the
meaning of this? What are you looking for?’

‘Explosives have been found
in the camp. A boy is being interrogated.’

‘A boy?’ A movement caught
his attention: he ignored it. ‘You’ll find no explosives here.’

‘We’ll search every inch.
Stand aside, doctor.’

Patients too ill to move
were dragged from their beds: the sick and dying thrown to the ground. Guards
tore aside blankets, and poked beneath bunks and in the cracks between them.

The officer marched into the
surgery and overturned the table, scattering clean instruments onto the floor,
sweeping aside medicines, and ripping open packets of sterile dressings and bandages
smuggled from Kanada. He was looking for explosives, not contraband medical
equipment or five-year-olds missing from the gypsy records.

The officer called to two
guards. ‘Search everywhere. Search everyone.’ He waved his Luger and stalked
out.

Patients hobbled through the
doors, keeping together in a tight bunch, holding one another upright. He
couldn’t see Peti or Arturas. He leaned closer and whispered. ‘Miriam, where
are the boys?’

‘They’ll get them out. We’ve
practiced for this.’

Maybe in the crush and
half-light they could pass them around, hide them. ‘And the packages?’

She inclined her head in the
direction of the door to the outside, but said nothing. He looked around
wildly. She hadn’t been outside, and the only things near the door were… ‘You
didn’t drop them in the night soil?’