A House Divided: An Easterleigh Hall Novel (16 page)

He felt utter relief, because he'd thought he'd never be forgiven. He was suddenly hungry, which wasn't surprising, since he'd been sent to his room without any dinner, like a child.

It was hinting at spring in Berlin, to judge by the blue of the sky, and the tiny buds on the linden trees. As he walked he looked up but saw no birds, just banners and flags. They lifted his spirits and he was able to forget everything for a moment. He strode out into this vibrant city, so different from those at home, where everyone was struggling to survive. He realised it was the first time he had walked alone in Berlin, because his mother usually swept him off in a taxi to haunts she knew, telling him it was better to do it this way, and warning him that there were still some places it was best not to explore.

He sped past the slower walkers, saw a tram, and jumped on, not knowing where it was going, and not caring. The day was young, and his mother was his ‘loving mother' again. He paid, and after ten minutes jumped off. Again he walked past shops, elegant apartments, a water fountain. He was about to cross the road, when his sleeve was gripped. He swung round. It was an old man, his coat shabby. He stank of poverty. ‘English?' he rasped.

For a moment Tim hesitated. ‘What?' he replied, pulling free.

His arm was gripped again. ‘Help me. I am Jew. Please, beg take daughter. Take to England.'

‘For God's sake.' Tim wrenched free but the man followed, limping. Again Tim's sleeve was grasped. The old man came close; the smell was appalling, he needed a shave. ‘Please, take my daughter. I pay, diamonds. Take all. Nothing more I have. Home,
work, gone. I get no visas. Please. She Jew, but she do anything. Take her, I beg.'

Tim tore free again, running across the road, stepping over the tramlines. ‘What the hell are you people like?' he shouted over his shoulder. Reaching the pavement on the other side, he brushed his sleeve, feeling dirty. Selling his daughter, for heaven's sake. No wonder Germany had needed to be sorted out. Above, the sky was clouding over. He was shaking; how bloody stupid. ‘Pull yourself together,' he said aloud.

He made himself continue walking and he no longer had to weave through people, as he was almost the only one on the street. At last the trembling stopped, and he could no longer smell the man, or see his desperation.

He wondered if he should buy Heine a birthday present. He answered himself – of course he should. He'd fouled up. He needed to make good or Heine would be in a mood. He stopped to look in the window of an antiques shop, interested in an inkwell, but he baulked at the price. He walked on, then turned right down a cobbled side street where there were far fewer shops, and people, thinking that it would probably be cheaper. He peered into a jeweller's, but all the goods looked second-hand, and there was nothing suitable.

He kept walking, and in a deserted street to the right he saw chairs propped up outside a building. He turned into the lane, which looked like the back
street in any pit village, but the houses were tall tenements, and everywhere was the stench of poverty. The chairs were stacked against railings. Stairs wound down to a basement junk shop. He peered down, the door was open, and furniture was stacked in the entrance. There was nothing to interest a man like Heine who had everything.

He passed on. A child ran out of a tenement courtyard, in boots without laces. He ran to the right, then ducked into a doorway. Tim hurried now, anxious to find the main road. He came to the end and met a narrow cobbled alley, running north to south. He hesitated, and then turned north, hearing traffic, thank God, because this wasn't what he'd expected of Berlin. Almost immediately there was a shop window on his left. Again it was almost a junk shop, although he did notice a decent lamp in the window, but no, he had to find something personal. But what? He was feeling more confident now, and giving the lamp a final look, he walked on. Suddenly he heard something – what? A crash, shouts, behind him. He stopped and turned.

Two men ran out of the lane he'd just left, heading towards him, their caps pulled down; one perhaps in his thirties, the other just a boy it seemed. The older one turned and looked over his shoulder at two policemen who were gaining fast. Tim moved to stand flat against the wall, but too late, the man crashed into him, knocking him backwards, and then roaring on. Tim rebounded off the wall, clattering
into the police, bringing them down like skittles, so that they sprawled at his feet, cursing. He tried to keep his balance, but more police came roaring past, and one clipped his shoulder, spinning him. He put out his arm, reaching for support, crashing back into the wall. He was winded, and couldn't think. Whistles blew, and somewhere a van revved.

A policeman ran up, his truncheon out, and caught him a blow on the side of his head. It knocked him down. He clambered to his knees, ‘What are you doing?' he yelled. But the blows continued to fall. He covered his head with his arms. All the while the policeman yelled at him in German. A kick caught him on the thigh and he collapsed and curled up on the cobbles, but the men he had brought down were rising, and they joined in. He tasted the grit of the cobbled road.

All around were shouts, and the frantic sound of whistles, but at last the beating stopped; he hurt all over. He lifted his head; two policemen stood over him. He started to rise. One shouted at him, the other powered a kick into his ribs, panting. He vomited. He knew the men wouldn't stop, because the fire of excitement was in them, as it had been in him, for a split second, when he punched Bridie. At that moment he knew he
could
have stopped that one blow, but he didn't want to.

One had hold of his hair, and lifted his head. He spat out grit and blood, and saliva. ‘English,' he said, but it was a croaking whisper.

A man in plain clothes was there now, and he said something in German, and there was no excitement in his eyes, just the same sort of coldness that was so often in Heine's. He was hauled to his feet, and pushed and shoved the length of the street to a green van, which blocked the far end. This was what had been revving. The doors were opened and he was flung inside, onto the legs of one of the two men in caps. The other was groaning alongside. The doors slammed. The engine revved, the van lurched and juddered over cobbles; they were thrown from side to side. He dragged himself off the prone figure and gagged, his body a mass of pain, his mind churning in a morass of panic and shock. ‘What the hell did you do?' he murmured finally.

The two men were coughing and groaning. Their caps were bloodied and on the floor. Tim realised his own must still be in the alley. The younger man who had knocked into Tim lay prone, but the older one crawled over to their caps, snatched them up, and put them into the pocket of his torn and frayed jacket pocket. The van must have taken a corner fast because all three of them were thrown against the side, then back again. The older one heaved himself into a sitting position, and pulled out a broken tooth.

Tim's head was an agonising mass of pain; his face was raw and bleeding. The man tossed the tooth away and wiped his face with his handkerchief. In English he said, ‘Why should we have done anything? It's enough that we exist. Freemasons
they do not like. Mischlings they do not like. Jews, Reds . . . As I say, my friend, it is not something we have done, it is who we are.'

Tim dragged himself across to sit next to him. The man stuffed his handkerchief back in his pocket with trembling hands. ‘Welcome to our brave new world, my friend.'

Tim asked, ‘Mischling?'

The van took another bend. ‘Half Jew, half Aryan. I had a good job in Hastings. I am a tailor. Not to mention a Freemason and a Mischling. My mother was ill and still in Berlin. I came last year to take her away from this.' He waved his hand.

His friend was stirring, and slowly raised himself to all fours. Tim saw that he was only a boy, perhaps James' age. The lad muttered something, then crawled across to sit next to his friend and said something else, in German. The older man said, ‘In English, for our foreign guest. You see, my friend, Otto worked in London, in a restaurant. He came back some while ago, and though he has the misfortune to be a Freemason, he is not a Jew, so he will perhaps be alright.'

‘I never saw them, Avraham. They must have been waiting for us. Did they get us all?' the young man said, groaning.

‘You are hurt, Otto?'

‘No, not really. I have a belly ache. They kick well, my friend.'

Avraham stroked Otto's hair. ‘It will ease. I am
sorry, my English friend, to have knocked you. Tell them that I crashed into you. It won't help, but then again, it just might.'

Tim swallowed. He felt sick, and hurt so much. ‘Your mother?' he said.

Avraham shrugged. ‘I went to her apartment, but she was gone from it, to be replaced by Aryans. Her job was gone too, because an Aryan tailor took the Jewish business where she worked. It happens to some, but not to everyone yet. I found the tailor. He had just a diamond or two he had hidden but they had taken all else. He also had my mother, in his dark, tiny hole of an apartment. She was sad and dying. I went back to our home, to get the only thing I could save, for it was lodged, as is our way, outside the apartment.'

He drew out a small rectangular case. ‘I saved our mezuzah case from the door frame. Within it is the parchment she inscribed with Hebrew verses from the Torah, as is also our way. It is what most of us make return for, in secret, to remove. Everything we have, otherwise, is for the new “owners”. She died peacefully with it in her hand. I keep it with me. They will take it, and destroy it, but until they do, I will keep it.'

Tim was looking at the rectangular piece in Avraham's hand. He leaned back, his thoughts fragmented, but even so, he recognised the shape. He felt icy cold, and sleepy. Avraham nudged him. ‘Don't sleep. Keep alert, it will help you recover.'

They moved with the van, the three of them together, and almost immediately it seemed they stopped, which was when Tim realised he had slept, and felt worse, much worse.

‘
Raus, raus
,' a policeman shouted, leaping into the van and kicking them out.

Tim stood on the cobbles of a dark, forbidding square, surrounded by high tenements, or perhaps they were offices? He saw other policemen slamming shut huge gates. No, it must be a prison, because there were bars at some of the windows. Tim said, shivering, ‘You should drop the mezuzah case or they will know you are a Jew.'

Avraham shook his head as they were pushed towards a single door. ‘My friend, one gets so tired of hiding who one is, and look at me. They will know. We are in their hands now, and one of their delightful camps awaits us, but perhaps not for you. You must call a friend.'

‘I'll ask for a solicitor.'

Otto and Avraham burst out laughing. The guards jabbed at them with their rifles, but as all three of them were racked with pain, what was a bit more?

They were herded towards a desk behind which a policeman sat. Tim insisted on a solicitor. Avraham repeated it in German. The policeman stared, took their names, then nodded to the guards. Manacles were slapped on their wrists. All three of them were shoved along the passage, then down slimy
steps into a stinking basement. Somewhere someone screamed.

They were shoved into a cell, where manacles were also attached to their ankles. A chain linked their wrists to their ankles. The guard slammed the door shut. The men looked at one another. ‘Best we sit,' Avraham said. There was only the cold floor. They all somehow slid down the wall to the stone floor. God, it was cold. Tim rested his head back. The walls seeped damp. He should ask them to contact Heine Weber. He would tell them he was an SS Untersturmführer.

But he couldn't, because now he knew the real Germany, and he was scared of discovering his real step-father, and his real mother, for he knew that a mezuzah case had been removed from their doorway too. He also remembered how clever Tim had sanded the wood until there was virtually no sign it had ever been there, and how Heine said he would find the owners and castigate them for damaging the property. Tim hadn't known what he meant. Now he did. Perhaps he always had, but had turned away from it. If Heine had indeed found and punished them, then that was his fault.

The manacles rubbed but he barely noticed it amidst all the other throbbing aches and pains, and the terror that had dried his mouth. His teeth chattered, and he thought he'd never stop shaking. All that was in his head were his da's words, from long ago, before he had found his mother, but after the
Nazis had started their march on democracy. ‘A nation that dismantles its legal system is without restraint, and must be fought.'

Otto died in the night, quietly, without fuss. Avraham closed his friend's eyes as Tim looked on in shock and insisted, ‘We must tell the guards.'

Avraham shook his head. ‘My Christian half, and your whole Christian being, must say prayers for his soul, for they will not.'

They clanked themselves upright and said the Lord's Prayer and the twenty-third psalm. As they chanted it, Avraham's voice broke, and Tim found that tears were rolling down his own face. It was the shock, the fear and a sort of grief, but also the hell of it, and the outrage, because Otto was only a lad. When they were finished they called the guard, who flicked back the shutter over the spyhole.

‘Later, it is two in the morning,' Avraham translated. ‘The cart will come, later.' They sat until dawn with Otto.

Dawn passed. Hours passed. They talked a little, of their lives, their mistakes, their hopes, but these were scarce, so they preferred to remain in the past. It was this that Tim grieved for: the safety of the past, the goodness, and the folly of his erroneous beliefs and deeds.

Thirst was driving them mad. They grew quiet. The minutes and hours passed, and they heard men and the occasional woman being dragged along the passage, their chains rattling, their groans and
pleading unceasing. They pressed their hands over their ears, but that did nothing to stop the rising panic and dread. When would it be their turn?