Hannah & Emil (47 page)

He dreamed, but he did not only dream. He found himself outside, his cheek against gravel and dust, vest sticking to his skin. I am not in my bed, he told himself, opening his eyes. Bright light from the towers blinded him and he closed them again.
I am out in the night.
He could see the station, where they had come in, beyond the guard towers and the fence. He was panting.
I ran, through woods. I swam
through water.
He bent his knees and brought them under himself, rose slowly to his feet.
I am ill. I must walk carefully.

A man appeared in front of him, a soldier. He knew the uniform. They were kind but they had not always been. There was something else inside them, the men who looked like this. The man took his elbow. ‘Becker, hey? Infirmary for you, I reckon.'

He shuffled along, allowed himself to be led, assisted. He could not fathom whether he was a prisoner or a convalescent. In any case he must preserve himself, he must place one foot in front of the other, until his vision cleared.

Hannah

I felt like a tiny, hapless figure whipped by biblical fury during those weeks in Hay. Dust storms were followed by floods, in which the town and the camp became gelatinous with wet, reddish clay. Shrimps, eggs dormant for years, were animated with the sudden deluge and the river and its tributaries were suddenly filled with the little creatures.

Jill moved the children to Melbourne. My last image of them as I stood on the bright street after they waved goodbye: the three of them turning away, holding hands, bent-headed, their necks pale strips of skin exposed to the sun, disappearing into the shade beneath the upstairs verandah of the hotel. Apart from missing them more than I had thought I would, I had now to walk out to the camp pouring with sweat or drenched by a downpour for the single visit I was permitted per week. I vented my frustration in letters to MPs here and at home and attempted to write calmer letters to Mother, about the flowers and the food. To my brothers I made light of my fate, and my own efforts. Geoffrey was we knew not where, because he was not allowed to say, while Benjamin was preparing fighter pilots to face the appalling odds of aerial warfare, and so I just about found the decorum not to wail endlessly of my misfortune.

Christmas drew near and the strangeness of heat and isolation grew with such events as the Griffith truck's delivery of pine trees to the store along with boxes of decorations. One morning the mail delivery came a little earlier than usual. I was sitting on the stool behind the counter and about fell off when I saw my name on the envelope. Here at last, I imagined, was word from one of my MPs informing me he was to take on our case personally, having been outraged by our treatment. It was in fact from the editor of the
Age
in Melbourne, with the news that he would be printing my impressions of Australia. He enclosed a cheque for a pound and three shillings, appearing to be thrilled by my European experience, and invited me to send more work. I sat on the high stool behind Mrs Stuart's counter in the general store and my body vibrated with the fulfilment of an old longing. I thought immediately of my father, who had wanted us all to be writers. At that moment Mrs Stuart entered the store from the house. ‘Are you all right, dear?'

‘Yes, yes, yes! I have some money for you. I have been paid for a piece. It is to be printed!'

Mrs Stuart was silent for a moment, looking out to the blinding street. ‘I don't expect payment, Miss Jacob. Your bed doesn't cost me anything, and you eat like a bird. Save your money. No doubt you'll need it soon enough.'

I could not look at her. I wished I had the means to refuse her kindness. I am afraid at that moment I could not even open my mouth to say thank you.

I wrote a few more pieces for the
Age
: one on what it was like to live in London amid the Battle of Britain, another on the crossing, and one on the life of Hay, a town which had doubled its population overnight with the arrival of two thousand Germans and Austrians and where the locals had to accustom themselves to the towers and floodlights and parades of refugees on their way through town on working parties and excursions to the river. On Saturday nights the townspeople gathered in the street at the front of the store to gossip and I listened to them from the sleep-out at the back, quite unashamedly quoting them in my story.

Just before Christmas, I walked to the camp, my feet for once reluctant and slow. I had forgotten my hat and the sun glared through the clouds. I would be bright red by the time I arrived, but he had seen me in every state now from sodden to wilting. It would have been crueller to arrive with hair just combed and clothes beautifully pressed, while he sat there in his mismatched clothes, hair greying by the moment.

They brought him out and there seemed a difference in him. He moved easily, gracefully again. He smiled as he sat down. Still I felt that urge to touch him that made me want to scream, that I had to press down in order to speak, to make the most of our few minutes. At least now Jill had gone it was just us and the soldiers. I had learned not to care what they heard, or at least to speak in German when I did. ‘You look well,' I said.

‘Really? Well, I feel not so bad. The food is making me fat. But you look anxious. What's the matter?'

And I was saying it, without having known that it was what I planned. ‘I think that I must after all go to Melbourne. I must find reliable work.' I could not look at him.

He sighed. ‘That's good news. This place does not suit you.'

‘Oh, but I feel dreadful. It seems terrible to think of leaving you. I thought with Mrs Stuart's help I might stay until they released you.'

‘They feed me. I don't need money. I have conversation and chess and a job in the workshop. This could take years. How long does a war last? You cannot wait in this town.'

‘I'll come back, as soon as I can afford it.'

‘Don't, Hannah. Not out here.'

I was close to tears, though I had disciplined myself to save them for my sleep-out and the cover of night. ‘You're giving up, aren't you? That's why you seem different. I'll get an answer soon from my MPs. In Melbourne I'll be able to go and see people, to make our case in person.'

‘You need to work. Life is simple for me when I keep calm and quiet. The days pass so slowly, waiting for your visits. The others, they make quiet lives in here.'

‘You want to forget about me. It's easier for you.'

‘No. No, Hannah.'

The guard behind Emil, whom I had not seen before, was looking at me. They were about to eject me. I knew the signs. He looked away. I put my hand to the mesh, our signal, and felt the paper push against it. ‘I will reclaim our lives—you will see,' I whispered as the doors opened. He shook his head and stood. I left quickly with my guard.

At the gate I had to unclench my fist so that the note did not disintegrate in my hot hand. There was a very tall Aboriginal guard who saw me out. He said nothing but from his pocket he drew forth a beautiful peach and handed it to me wordlessly, holding my eye from a full foot and a half above, giving a little nod. Of all the kindnesses, that one returns so vividly. I smell peach when I think of it, and remember his liquid eyes, narrowed in the bright day. As I began my walk I ate the peach, in lieu of a drink, and it was so perfectly ripe that juice ran down my neck as I ate it.

Clear of the gates I read my note. The writing was tinier even than before, as for once he had information to impart: two items, just a few words, but important ones. One was the name and address of a woman from a refugee organisation in Melbourne, Edith Hart. The other was this:
Home Office liaison officer to arrive: Major Temple.
Staying in Melbourne.

Note in one hand, peach in the other, I felt a little steel return to my spine. I walked quickly home and began to pack.

Emil

TATURA, 1941

It was green in this place to which they had all been moved; vegetables were growing, and he could hear and occasionally saw children in the family camp, when they ventured to the fence. Through a gap, a little boy had given him a green tin plate on which he had painted flowers. He had thought of Hans more than usual, the day the boy had given it to him. Fifteen now. Young enough, still, to be at home with Ava, to be off to school every day with satchel and scuffed shoes.

The food was very good and they were well organised here, as in Hay. There were the theatre groups and the café and the lectures. But Solomon had been moved to a different hut. It made his days a little heavier, longer, though he ran into him from time to time moving about the camp and it had something of the feel of being young and wandering about town, stumbling across a friend, filling an hour with talk. In this camp there were Nazis mixed in with them and it was a constant effort to avoid run-ins. He did not want fights with them here, where it did no good, where any argument was theoretical and could only disturb the equilibrium he had gained. He must avoid large emotions in order to keep himself intact. Hannah, so far as he knew, did not yet know where he was. The minutes went by at a distance from him. He watched the activities in the camp, did his job in the workshop—mending things: bed legs, dental tools, spectacles—ate and slept. He tried to remember passages from books and he kept his eye out for an engine to fix, but he no longer played chess. He helped a young man secretly build a radio on the proviso that he brought him no news of outside, whatever he might pick up on the airwaves. He must shelter himself from time, for now.

One day at the workshop his colleague came in and said, ‘There was a package for you, Becker. I'll look after things here if you want.'

He left without speaking and went to the administration block. The strange milky lake beyond the huts shone faintly. A soldier gave him a packet with her handwriting on it. It was fat and held together with a much-taped sheet of brown paper. He slipped it under his arm and went back to his hut, lay on the bed to open it.

‘What you got there?' called a talkative man from Stuttgart, cutting his toenails at his bunk. ‘Food parcel?'

Emil ignored him. He had made his privacy through reticence.

He took a knife from his soap crate, began to slit open the package. Onto his chest slid a number of folded wads of paper. He began to unfold one, and another: copies of Hannah's correspondence with Temple. He let them lie there, slipping off his body and onto the bed. Do I wish to know? he thought, but already he was beginning to arrange them, in date order, to find out what was happening to him out there, to the status of his name.

They started off politely enough. They told his story in a way he did not entirely recognise, although the facts were true. If the world of one's life were a fat sphere, these fragments she described were the point where the ball touched the ground. But she arranged them well for the purpose. You could hear the stump speech in the way she addressed herself to officialdom.

It seemed Temple would not grant her an interview. Emil had had his own interview with him in Hay. He seemed a decent man, sympathetic, but he could not alter the parameters of their dilemma. Emil must go home alone, if a passage could be found, or stay behind the wire. The Australians had not asked for him and did not want him. Hannah could do as she pleased; she was British, after all. Temple had said to him, softly, echoing Solomon, ‘If you would consider returning alone, she might find her own way later.'

In the first few letters, Hannah had just about held back her temper. There was cajoling and charm, and then, when she did not get satisfaction: ‘My life—or what the British authorities have made of it—means nothing to me. I am familiar with your appearance from the daily press. I am also familiar with the appearance of your car. As a last resort I shall place myself directly in its path.'

His body became rigid. Why have I been sent these now? What has she done? But then his pulse slowed, his body relaxed. The parcel was addressed by her hand, and that clumsy taping was her work too. She was given to the dramatic turn of phrase, he reminded himself. And it was almost funny, what she had threatened. She was the last person in the world to stop fighting and lie down in the road. If Hitler himself were coming down the street she'd be demanding an account of what he thought he was doing.

She bullied Temple with the names of those she knew in England, with friends in the Melbourne press. Temple's brief, polite notes acknowledged her letters, restating the position of the Australian government, retreating into official blankness. Then, finally, a note to Emil from Hannah.

Emil—Harts continue to be kindest souls imaginable. However
did you get on to them? Dear Edith has found me a job on a
university survey. Will leave me less time to haunt Temple and
none for pieces for paper but is solid means of support. Will use
in argument for your release—that I can now support us both. Another piece of goodish news: some talk of releasing men for
skilled war work. Will push this line as hard as possible.

Love and fortitude,

Hannah

He went out and looked over the grey-blue dish of water lining the shallow valley beneath the clouds. The shadow of the guard tower passed across his neck as he walked back to the workshop. At his bench was the toy he was making in his spare time. He had taken the wind-up mechanism of a broken toy discarded from the family camp and fitted it to the legs of a little marionette he had carved. He'd been working on it for weeks. It was difficult to get the little person to stay up, to balance well enough to be able to manage movement. He felt the weight of the doll in his hands, tightened the screws that held it balanced in position, carefully wound the key and watched it walk across the bench, the full length of it, straight and steady, before falling onto the ground. He laughed and picked it up, carved his initials under its foot.

Hannah