Dominion (25 page)

He leaned forward, those blazing eyes on the screen seeming to fix on each of them individually. ‘That is why, with the agreement of our German allies, we are recruiting a hundred thousand
soldiers to strengthen our presence there. Firm and quiet rule will soon descend on India once more. We shall not withdraw, or compromise, ever. A nation that showed such weakness would be heaping
up its own funeral pyre. So be reassured, British rule and British authority in India will be established ever more firmly.’

The old men at the bar cheered and clapped.

‘We knew something like that was coming,’ Geoff muttered.

Natalia said, ‘India. Churchill was determined to hold on to it too, wasn’t he, before the war?’

‘He knows he’s lost that one,’ Geoff said.

A waitress came with shepherd’s pie, stodgy but filling. Afterwards Natalia said she would like to stretch her legs, just for ten minutes, as there was still a long way to go. Geoff said
it was too cold for him and he would wait in the car. There was nowhere to walk except round the edge of the almost-empty car park behind the roadhouse so David and Natalia began to circle it,
going slowly, smoking. She kept one hand in her pocket. David thought,
perhaps her gun is in there
. Jackson had called her a crack shot.
Who had she shot?
he wondered. Across the
fields he saw a village. Like others they had passed recently it was built of red brick; they were well into the Midlands now.

Natalia said to him, ‘Soon you will see your friend Frank. He sounds like a man with many difficulties.’ Her expression was sympathetic.

‘I wonder how Frank made it through, sometimes.’

She said, ‘My brother had difficulties as well. All his life. Though that did not stop our government sending him to fight in Russia.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t know.’

She gave a sad smile and looked away, to where a farmer was working a field, two big carthorses pulling an ancient plough. She turned back to him. ‘There seem to be certain people who have
some quirk in them, something they cannot surmount.’

‘I think a lot of things went wrong in Frank’s early life.’

She stopped, watched the carthorses. ‘With my brother something inside him was different from the start. But he had a right to live.’ She looked at David with sudden fierceness.
‘A right to live, like everybody.’

David hesitated, then said, ‘You told me your government helped load the Jews onto trains.’

‘Yes, they did.’

The fate of the Jews was a subject David avoided. But Natalia knew, something at least, of what had happened to them in Europe. He asked, ‘Do you know where they went?’

‘Nobody knows for sure. But I think somewhere bad.’

‘We don’t really know anything about it over here. We’ve been told about comfortable labour camps.’

She began walking again. ‘We had many Jews in Bratislava before the war. I had several Jewish friends.’ David nodded and smiled, encouraging her to continue. ‘It happened in
steps; restricting where the Jews could work, then taking away their businesses, turning the screw, bit by bit.’

‘As is happening here.’

‘In 1941 they were all expelled from Bratislava.’ Her voice was flat and unemotional again, and David began to realize what it cost her to keep it so. ‘There was a family in
our street, the man was a baker. One morning I was woken by the sound of breaking glass. I looked out of the window and saw men from the Hlinka Guard – our Fascist paramilitaries –
pulling them out of the house, kicking and hitting them. They threw them in a van and drove them away. Some of the Hlinka men stayed behind, and I heard them in the house, breaking things and
coming out with armfuls of clothes and ornaments. Later we learned the same thing was happening all over town. One of the Hlinka people and his family moved into the bakery and started it going
again, as though it had always been theirs. That is what most of these Fascists are, thieves waiting for loot.’

David shivered. ‘Did nobody protest?’

She gave him a sudden fierce look. ‘What should I have done that day, gone and told the Hlinka Guard to stop? What you think they would have done to me?’

‘No, of course you couldn’t have done anything.’

‘And it was all done so quickly. Some people did protest after it started, even some priests, which embarrassed Tiso. They stopped the deportations for a while. Though I heard they resumed
later.’ She sighed. ‘I wish I could have done something.’

‘You couldn’t. I’m sorry; I know you couldn’t.’

She smiled, looking suddenly vulnerable. ‘No. People should know though. It is good you are interested.’

‘And they were put on trains?’

‘That was a year later. We’d been told the Jews were in work camps somewhere in the remote countryside, we didn’t know where. People were starting to forget them. Then one day,
it was a beautiful summer day, my fiancé and I went for a long drive. He had a car, not many do in Slovakia. We drove a long way. A long way.’ She looked into the middle distance.
‘We had a picnic on a hillside, I remember some deer came out of the woods nearby and drank at a stream. We sat watching them. Afterwards we went for a hike. We went over fields and meadows,
saw the mountains in the distance.’ So she had a fiancé, David thought. What had happened to him?

‘We crossed a big hill. On the other side was the railway line that goes over the mountains into Poland. We hadn’t realized we had come so far.’ Her voice had slowed.
‘And there was a train standing there, in the middle of nowhere, there must have been an obstruction on the line somewhere. A huge goods train, wagon after wagon, just standing there in the
sunshine. We wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but we heard noises.’ She shook her head slightly, closing her eyes. ‘All the wagons had small ventilation windows and barbed
wire across them. We heard voices, calling to us in Yiddish. We didn’t understand what we were seeing, Gustav and I, so we walked down a little, towards the train, and then we caught this
terrible smell – I don’t know how long those people had been travelling but it must have been a long time in the heat.’

‘How many were on the train?’

‘I don’t know. Hundreds. One woman was calling to us over and over, begging for water. Then two men in the black Hlinka uniform, with rifles, came round the end of the train –
they must have been patrolling the other side – and waved and shouted at us to go away. So we walked back. I was frightened we might get a bullet in the back for what we had seen. But I think
they would not have hurt us, because of Gustav’s uniform.’

‘Was he a soldier?’

She answered, quiet defiance in her voice, ‘Yes. He was German.’

David glanced at her in surprise. She said, suddenly defensive, ‘He was with German Army Intelligence, the Abwehr. He hadn’t known what was going on, he was very junior, it shook
him. We both knew that if people were transported in that state, by the time they reached their destination many would be dead.’ She turned and stared at him. ‘The British, like the
French, say they are proud of protecting their own Jews, only deporting foreign ones. But that is what happened to those they did deport.’

‘My God, it’s terrible.’

‘I know.’ She smiled wryly. ‘I have not told many people this story.’

‘It must be hard to tell.’

‘It is.’

‘What happened to your fiancé?’

‘I married him. And now he is dead.’ Her tone changed, that flat finality again. She turned away, stubbing her cigarette on the tarmac. ‘And now we should get back on the road.
Focus on your friend Frank.’

F
RANK SAT IN HIS USUAL ARMCHAIR
, staring out at the grounds. There was a slight mist this morning. It was Sunday and some of the patients had gone to
the church service, so it was quiet on the ward.

David was coming today. After Frank had telephoned him yesterday he had felt agitated; talking to his friend had got all his feelings jangled up, about how he had ended up in here and about what
he knew. He was frightened that somehow he might let his secret slip. Sitting in his chair he found his mind wandering back to school. Maybe because he had only just had his Largactil dose, for
once he found himself thinking of his time there in a detached way, almost as though it had all happened to someone else.

By Frank’s second and third year at Strangmans things had settled into a strange routine. Everyone pretty much shunned him, although the boys still shouted
‘Monkey’ after him in the corridors, ‘Give us yer grin, chimp’, and other things, too; names like Spastic and Weed and, occasionally, ‘English Cunt’. There were
several other boys from England at the school but it was another stick to beat Frank with – metaphorically, for the school believed firmly that though sticks and stones could break your
bones, names could never hurt you. In the bug-hut sometimes the sheets would be stolen from his bed, or someone would piss in his bedside glass of water, but he had his books and most of the time
he lived, or existed, in a world of his own. Yet the knowledge that the other boys and most of the masters despised him left him with a deep, heartbroken sorrow.

At the beginning of his fourth year, when he was fourteen, things got worse again. Edgar had just gone to university and the boys in his year were changing. It was not just their bodies, which
were getting larger and sprouting hair, as Frank’s was. Their personalities were changing too, some becoming withdrawn while others seemed to fizz with angry energy. Frank would overhear
them, in class before the teacher came, talking about girls and sex, sticking their cocks up women. Frank had his own sexual imaginings but they were different, oddly romantic and untroubling.
During the school holidays in Esher he often went to the cinema on his own. It was 1931, the talkies had come in. The romantic elements in the films Frank saw there, usually pure and chaste,
stirred him; it was a strange window into a world of happiness.

Lumsden, the boy who had caused Frank trouble in his first year, now came back into his life. He was big now, nearly six foot, his fat turning to heavy muscle. He was loud and swaggering and he
led, as always, a little bunch of cronies. One day, as Frank passed his group in the corridor, Lumsden leaned forward and, without a word, punched him hard in the stomach, as he had that day long
ago when Frank let fly at him. Frank doubled up, gasping desperately for breath. Lumsden and his friends laughed and walked away.

Lumsden wouldn’t let him alone after that. He and his friends would come up to Frank and swing their arms low, do the monkey routine. Then one day Lumsden placed himself in front of Frank
in the corridor, and asked why he was such a fuckin’ useless grinning spastic chimp, why didn’t he bloody say something for himself? He wanted a response; he wouldn’t be satisfied
with Frank’s usual silence. Frank looked up into the bully’s eyes; they were large and bright blue behind his glasses, they seemed to spark and flash with rage.

‘Please,’ Frank said. ‘I haven’t
done
anything!’ He heard the plaintive anger rising in his voice.

‘Why the fuck should we leave you alone?’ The big boy frowned, genuinely angry. ‘Ye silly, grinning wee idjit, ye’re a disgrace to the school, crawling round the place
like a daft monkey. Are ye not?’

‘No! Just leave me alone.’ And then, losing control, Frank shouted out, ‘You’re evil!’

Lumsden grabbed Frank’s arm with a damp, meaty hand, swivelled him round and twisted the arm behind his back. ‘Ye’re a fuckin’ grinning wee chimp! Aren’t ye?’
He twisted harder, making Frank cry out with pain. ‘Go on, say it!’

Frank looked desperately round at Lumsden’s friends; they were smiling, eyes bright as their leader’s. He said, gasping out the words, ‘I’m – a grinning – wee
chimp!’ There was laughter. One of Lumsden’s friends said eagerly, ‘The wee spastic’s going t’cry!’

One of the other boys whispered, ‘Teacher!’ A black-gowned figure could be seen, approaching from the other end of the corridor. Lumsden let Frank go. As he staggered away he spat a
threat. ‘Evil, eh? We’ll show you fuckin’ evil, Monkey, don’t you worry about that.’

He came to himself with a jump; the door to the main ward was half closed and from outside he heard the crash of glass, then cries and running feet and a scuffle. Frank was
scared.

Moments later the door opened and Ben came in. He had been frowning but when he saw Frank his face relaxed into a smile. ‘Och,’ he said. ‘You’re in here again.’

Frank shrank into his chair. ‘What’s happening in the ward?’

‘Nothing to worry about. The new patient, Copthorne, put his fist through the glass. Tried to slash his wrist.’ Ben spoke casually; suicide attempts often happened in the asylum
despite all the precautions against them.

‘Why?’ Frank asked.

Ben shrugged. ‘No’ sure. He’d been to the church service; maybe something in the sermon upset him. Anyway, listen, your pal will be here in a few hours. You can see him in here
if you like, I’ll keep other folk out.’

‘Thanks.’

Ben looked at him closely. ‘You seem a bit woozy. Not quite with us.’

‘I’m okay.’

Frank was conscious that the room was cold, the central heating radiator in the corner giving out only its usual low heat. His bad hand ached. He rubbed it.

Voices sounded from outside. Frank thought he heard Dr Wilson’s. ‘I’ll have tae go,’ Ben said. ‘The big brass will want to know all about Copthorne. You’ll be
going round the airing courts after lunch, try and get your head clear for your friend coming, eh?’ Frank looked up into Ben’s sharp brown eyes and thought again,
why are you doing
this?

During that terrible autumn term at Strangmans Frank felt in danger all the time. If Lumsden’s group passed him in the corridor or sat anywhere nearby in the dining room,
they would give him deadly looks. Once, from a couple of tables away, Lumsden drew a finger menacingly across his throat. Frank felt safer when the day boys had left and he was in the bug-hut. They
had a quiet study room there, usually with a master on duty, and it was the safest place to spend the evenings. It was in the afternoons, when many of the day boys stayed behind to play rugby or
train with the school cadet force, that Frank was most afraid of running into danger.