The Big Lie (15 page)

More unconscious tics from Fräulein Eberhardt and Dirk.

The inspirational quotation poster that week: LET THAT WHICH MUST DIE SINK AND ROT. WHAT HAS STRENGTH AND LIGHT WILL RISE AND BLAZE.

Unfortunate.

Fisher still had his blue gaze on Ruby.

‘And what if that person didn’t want to do as you said?’ he went on, which – sod it, we couldn’t control ourselves now – brought about unconscious tics from all of us.

Ruby’s mouth fell open. She ummed and erred for a moment, then decided to ask: ‘But why wouldn’t they want to …?’

She trailed off, realising a good few seconds after everyone else that she had wandered into a ‘Zone’ and should shut her trap.

After Fisher had given us a talk about the combustibility of various fabrics (
manmade fibres burn faster than natural fibres, but a combination of the two can be the greater hazard. Your uniforms, for example, are a mixture of polyester and cotton
… ) we took it in turns to go up to the front and pretend to be on fire. GG was my flaming person. Awkward. But also, if I’m honest, a bloody relief – to have a good reason to be close to her. She gave it her all – hysterical screaming, arms flailing, running in dizzy circles. Utterly fabulous. Fräulein Eberhardt stood there tutting. I slipped my arms into the sleeves sewn into the fireproof blanket, waited until GG was in the optimum position and then, with a grunt of effort, I booted her so hard she fell flat onto her face in the grass. (I could still feel the concrete footprint in my own backside from where Angelika Baker had done the same manoeuvre on me, so I didn’t feel bad.) Then I spread my arms and I flung myself on top of her, like a giant fireproof bat.

‘Nice work, Jessica,’ said Fisher, with rather too much enthusiasm.

I pulled myself halfway up, GG yelping then giggling as my elbow dug into her kidneys. Karl Pfizer on the front row was sniggering. I looked up at him just as he was flickering his tongue up and down at us. I froze – a cold grip of terror. Had Fisher seen? I could report on him, yes, but couldn’t he also report on me?

I looked up at our leaders. They had all seen. But it was Dirk who leapt to defend my dignity. Or possibly Fisher’s, for Dirk certainly knew that he had been for dinner at our house. As if Fisher would have resisted a quiet little boast. Dirk stepped forward and struck Karl about the head several times – which was funny to everyone because Dirk is a good thirty centimetres shorter than Karl, making it quite a reach. Then Karl was immediately down on the ground doing push-ups with Dirk’s muddy boot on his neck.

We were all mesmerised by the sight of it – the way Karl was sweating and letting out these small, low moans.

‘Get up, Jessica,’ snapped Fräulein Eberhardt.

And all of a sudden I realised where I was, still on top of GG’s soft outline beneath the blanket. I scrambled to standing. GG did too, dusting herself down. Her white shirt was grass-stained, her navy skirt was up round her haunches.

‘Look at the state of you,’ said Fräulein Eberhardt. The need for us girls to be both queens of combat AND pretty/presentable/alluring at the same time was taking its biggest toll on our female leader. She was growing more and more grumpy as the concert approached. Or maybe it was the further we got into the Great Integration. Because it wasn’t really a Great Integration for her, but a Great Demotion. She used to be in charge but now with Dirk and Fisher around she was only ever third in command.

‘I swear you’ve all gone giddy,’ she muttered, taking the blanket off my arms and folding it for the next person.

‘Yes, Fräulein Eberhardt,’ I said, forgetting to drop the ‘Fräulein’, or maybe not wanting to.

I only left Clementine’s side to go to BDM meetings.

The rest of the time, we hung out in her back garden reading magazines. When it got hot Clementine stripped off, down to this tiny bikini that she said had come from Cornwall, though I’m sure Frau Hart must have run it up on her sewing machine because you couldn’t get anything like that in a shop. I tried not to look too much at the lean neatness of her body, or let myself think about how she was enough. Absolutely enough.

I wore the navy one-piece Mum had bought me three years ago from Spencer’s.

‘Think you need a bigger size, Jess-Jess,’ Clementine had commented. ‘Got a bit of side-boob going on there.’

She prodded the roll of flesh escaping from the fabric underneath my armpit and said it again, delighted with this new expression of hers. ‘Side-boob!’

I wore a light shirt over the top after that.

Clementine waited until we were outside before she took off her top and shorts, until she was standing centimetres in front of the uniformed man stationed at the Harts’ back door (to match the uniformed man at the front door). This uniformed man (well, boy, really) did his best not to look or blink or react in any way, which only provoked Clementine to make a bigger deal out of taking off her clothes the next time. Arching her back. Cocking her hips.

‘Maybe dieser gute deutsche Mann will get me pregnant, what do you think, Jess?’ she’d say. ‘Was sagste, Fritz, sollen wir eins für den Führer machen?’

Whaddya say, Fritz, shall we have one for the Führer?

I don’t know why she said it. She knew I could have – should have – reported it back to Dad. In the circumstances I decided to presume that the boy would say something himself if he felt it necessary. Or maybe I decided that I wasn’t the right person to be telling tales on someone using a boy of rank to get what she wanted.

‘She’s only joking. You know that, don’t you?’ I told the soldier. ‘She’s just being silly.’

One afternoon I suggested we lie in the tall grass at the bottom of the Harts’ messy garden. I wanted us to be out of earshot of the Fritz boy. Clementine hadn’t mentioned her dad once since he’d left. I needed to talk about it, this giant elephant that lumbered across the lawn with us. I waited until she was bored of the magazines and had flipped onto her back to offer her belly to the sun.

‘I’m sorry about your dad,’ I began. I let myself play with the dry ends of Clementine’s almost-white hair.

‘It’s not your fault,’ she replied.

I let go of the tiny plait I’d been working on. ‘I never said that it was my fault.’

‘Then why are you saying sorry?’

This was classic Clementine. I would try to be kind and she would immediately chuck it back in my face.

‘I’m sad for you, Clem, that’s all. That he’s left you. Well, your mum, I mean.’

‘He didn’t leave us.’

‘He’s gone, Clem.’

‘He didn’t want to go.’

Admitting that your parents are wrong is hard – that was the refrain in my head.

‘Maybe,’ I began, very gently. ‘But I think you need to realise that your mum is really not well and that’s why …’

As if on cue, Frau Hart stepped out of the back door in a halter-neck dress and sunglasses, carrying a metal-framed deckchair. I watched her prise open the chair and position it on the patio so that she was facing the sun but also so that she could read her book without the guard looking over her shoulder. The outside of the novel was covered in flowered wallpaper.

‘You know he’s being detained, don’t you?’ Clementine’s voice was low and dangerous. ‘Against his will.’

I stopped watching Frau Hart and looked back at my friend. She was still on her back, one knee bent towards the sun.

‘No.’ I put a hand on the bare skin of her arm, feeling a buzz of strange electricity. ‘No one is holding him, Clem, he’s …’

‘He communicates.’ She pulled up her sunglasses, so I could see her eyes. So I could see that she was telling the truth. ‘He communicates with people in America.’ I pulled my hand away. ‘With people in Canada, in Australia, all over,’ she went on, flicking a wrist through the air to suggest all of the many countries, all of the many people.

The blood rushed from my head towards my feet.

‘What, on the telephone?’

Herr Hart is a telephone engineer in Dad’s office – another well-worn refrain.

‘No, Jess, online.’

I edged back from her and dragged the rug taut beneath us. ‘What line?’

She stared at me. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Is that a real question, Jess? An honest one.’

‘Yes … Well …’ I understood what online meant, that there was this technology. I’d seen it on the People’s Television. But it was only for our top people. Certainly not some lowly telephone engineer, or some girl …

‘Because I really need to know,’ Clementine said sharply.

‘Well, y-yes, then,’ I stammered. ‘I guess it is a real question because I don’t know how …’

‘Has he got you locked up too?’

I shook my head. I didn’t understand.

‘I mean … Metaphorically.’ She flipped onto her side and propped herself onto one elbow.

My mouth dangled open. The words … None came.

‘Let’s stop this,’ she went on, ‘because the damage is already done. Me, my mum and dad, we’re near the end now. Let’s just come out and say it.’

‘I don’t know what you mean.’ A horrible panic was tightening my throat. This was too much. I wanted to pull her close to me, never let her go. But instead I was edging away. She was holding my head over a box full of snakes and she was about to open it and push my nose inside. She closed the gap between us. She cast her eyes quickly to where the guard was sweating in his jacket, to where her mother had hitched up her skirt to show her thighs to the sun. Clementine’s breath was against my neck. ‘I know why you’re here and not off polishing up all those portraits of the Führer. I know that you report back. I know that you always have, right from the start.’

This was awful.

‘It’s not like that, Clementine! I look out for you!’ I think I really did believe that.

I went to sit up, but she pushed me back.

‘Okay, however he sells it. Whatever he calls it. I get it. I’m not cross with you. We all do what we can to survive. You do it with a good heart, I think.’

‘I’m innocent, Clementine,’ I said.

Painful tears were pricking at my eyes. My breath was short.

‘Maybe …’ she said.

‘I am, Clem! I am! I love you. I really love you.’

‘Shhhh.’ She slipped the whole of her arm around my shoulders to stop me from leaping up. We both darted our eyes across to the guard this time. He wasn’t paying us any attention. He was watching passenger jets cross in the very blue sky. From where Frau Hart was sitting it would have looked like we were hugging, or wrestling. Just being playful.

‘It’s fine, Jess, it’s fine,’ Clementine whispered. ‘I love you too.’

But not enough. I knew that I wasn’t enough.

‘We only let you see and hear what we want you to,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we would still be here if it wasn’t for you. If we weren’t friends. We learn things from you too, you know.’

I couldn’t bear this, the truth of it. I tried to shake off her grip but she clamped it tighter.

‘But I need to understand,’ she went on. ‘For myself, I guess. I need you to be honest with me. We can’t be friends any more if you refuse. You know where your information goes, don’t you? You know what happens when it gets there?’

‘I don’t know anything!’ I gasped. I sounded hysterical. I felt hysterical. I couldn’t let myself know it.

‘It’s okay,’ she soothed. ‘It’s okay. It’s okay to admit it.’

‘I don’t know anything!’ I said, quieter this time.

‘So you don’t know where my dad is?’

I stared into her green eyes, her pupils jerking from left to right as she held my gaze. I nodded.

‘Where is he?’

‘He’s staying at the office,’ I whispered.

I hadn’t told her anything she didn’t already know.

‘And what office is that?’ she pressed.

‘My dad’s office, your dad’s office.’

‘And what office is that?’

There was just the sound of our breathing for a moment, hard and faltering. Sweat was building between the bare skin of her arm and my shoulders.

‘What office is that, Jess?’ She drilled the question down into my cheek. ‘What office is that?’

‘Erzähl mir, wo du vorher gewohnt hast,’ I gasped.

Tell me about the place where you used to live, before.

‘Nein.’ She shook her head. ‘Ask me about the place I’m going to instead.’

‘No.’

‘Ask me!’

‘If there is something wrong, Clem, our parents will sort it out. It’s not up to us, we’re children, we don’t need to –’

‘We can’t wait for them, Jess. When you get old, you get scared. I’m not scared. Ask me!’

‘No!’

‘Ask me!’

‘Wohin gehst du?’
Where are you going?

‘An einen Ort, von dem ich nicht zurück kommen kann,’ she replied.

Somewhere I can’t come back from.

‘No, you’re not! Stop it!’ It was a last desperate order. I wrestled free of her grip. She let me sit up. I straightened the straps of my swimsuit. I was properly crying now.

She gathered her legs into her chest, folded her arms across them and pushed her face down into her knees. I took a tissue from my bag and blew my nose. The guard looked our way briefly at the sound of it. I smiled. He looked away. Clementine’s mother, though, couldn’t be torn from the pages of her book.

Clementine lifted her head. ‘All I’m saying is, I know my cause, Jess. I know who I stand for.’

The sun was sparking through the leaves of the willow trees behind her head, creating starbursts, making her seem like a goddess, making her seem immortal. I looked at the smudged red triangle that she had drawn on her upper arm in felt tip pen.

‘But it’s going to get you killed, Clem.’ My voice was just a husk. I couldn’t look at her any more. ‘I don’t want you to get killed.’

She crawled over to me and wrapped her arms around me. She squeezed me very tight.

‘It’s better to live a short honest life,’ she said into my ear, quietly, but very definitely, ‘than a long, long, long one in the dark.’

Her mum was looking over at us now, her gaze level, sure and unblinking.

‘Help me,’ Clementine whispered. ‘Don’t be scared.’

I squeezed her back as tightly as I could.

‘
The time is out of joint
,’ Clementine went on. ‘
O cursèd spite, that ever I was born to set it right …’