Finding Rebecca: A Novel of Love and the Holocaust (13 page)

Christopher stared down into the grey
black filth of the fireplace.

“She doesn’t want you. You won’t need
to come creeping around my back garden anymore. Soon she’ll be married into the
richest family on the island.” Cassin smiled.

“She doesn’t love him. How can she?”

“There you go talking about that crap
again. There’s no love boy, there’s no love. There’s only this,” he said
pounding his chest. “And this,” he held his glass aloft and took another sip.
“There’s no better reason to marry than money, no better reason, to look after
your family, in their old age.” His voice trailed off and he took a deep swig
at the whisky in his glass, exhaling deeply as it went down.

“Are you going to let me go?”

“I haven’t decided yet. That’s up to
you. That depends on you.” He picked up the shotgun, cradled it across his lap.
“Now, tell me, why do you think I don’t let you see my daughter?”

“I don’t know.”

“Oh come on now, are you going to
make me ask every question twice? Are you man enough to answer a few questions
or not? Now why do you think I don’t let you see my daughter?”

“Because of my father, because you
hate Germans.”

“Good, good. That’s a good start.
There’s also the fact that you’re a filthy wretch scrounging around in my back
garden like a little Nazi rat. Why would I let someone like you see my
daughter? Why would I give her to you?”

“She’s not yours to give.”

Cassin laughed and drew on his
cigarette. “What age are you, 20? You are a naïve fool aren’t you? This love
you speak of, I suppose Rebecca tells you that she loves you, that she wants
only you?” The smile spread across his face once more. Christopher was about to
speak but Cassin began again. “Only today she was talking with her mother about
how much she was looking forward to the wedding, and how much she wanted to
take Jonathan Durrell as her husband.”

The words hit Christopher like
bullets but he remained taciturn. Cassin was lying. He had to be. Rising to the
bait would only be letting him win. Yet the words lingered in the back of
Christopher’s mind like scum floating on a pond, choking the life out of it. Christopher
looked down at his shoes, caked in dirt from the back garden and then up at
Cassin again. “What about you, Monsieur Cassin? You have it all worked out then,
do you?”

“I know what exists and what doesn’t”
He drew on his cigarette again and leaned forward. “I left home when I was
about your age to go to Paris to pursue my art. I met Monsieur Monet and
Monsieur Renoir, worked with them both. It was a wonderful time. A time…. of
discovery,” he held up his glass, staring into it as he spoke. “During which I
discovered that I was never going to be good enough to be one of them. I had my
talents though. And my talent, boy? Women were my talent. Women were easy to me
and I soon realized that with my talents it wouldn’t matter that I wasn’t good
enough to be rich myself. There were so many ladies in Paris looking for a
young artist to fulfill themselves with, and I gave them what they wanted. In return
they gave me the freedom to pursue my art. I travelled all over Europe, from
Paris to Rome to Vienna and Berlin. And there were always women, rich women.”

Christopher looked up and around the
room and wondered where all the money had gone. The lamp in the corner
flickered, throwing shadows around Cassin’s face. Christopher looked at the
shotgun and then at Cassin. Cassin was enjoying this. Christopher took another
sip of foulness from the glass and stared back across at him.
 

“I was living with a woman in Paris,
long before you were born, before the war. She was a wonderful woman-rich. My
wife Marjorie, Rebecca’s mother, was her niece.” Cassin sneered. “She was
beautiful back then, but there was more than just that. I saw my opportunity
when I realized that Marjorie was in line to inherit the family fortune. I
began to see Marjorie. Her aunt never knew, of course.” Cassin took another sip
and looked down at the floor between them. “That was a golden age, perhaps the
best time of my life. But Marjorie moved back here-to Jersey, to her family
home.”

A morbid fascination was creeping
across Christopher. It was hard to believe that this man was Rebecca’s father. Christopher
sat in silence.

Cassin paused, pursed his lips and
blinked heavily before continuing. “She… she was gone and I was left in Paris
with her Aunt. But then the war began and I did my duty, served with honor in
Flanders until I caught a bullet in the leg and went home. Let me tell you,
many of my friends were not so lucky, your father and his friends took care of
a great…. took care of many of them.” Christopher stared back, unblinking. “And
now that madman Hitler…. determined to destroy everything he touches. Is there
no end with you people?” He almost spat the words out as they came.

“I don’t concern myself with politics,
Monsieur Cassin.”

“You think by living here you can
change what you are? You are one of them. You really think I would give my
daughter to you? A filthy Boche?”

“I was born German, but I live here.
My mother was from Jersey. I have been living here since I was six years old,”
Christopher said trying to hide the fear that was still almost paralyzing him.

“Oh, what difference does that make?
You will always be one of them, you will never fit in here and you know that.”
Cassin settled back in his chair, laid down his glass and leveled the shotgun
at Christopher. Christopher squirmed backwards in his seat. “You know I could
shoot you now, don’t you, boy? I could shoot you and say that I caught you
breaking into my house. No one would ever know.”

“Please, Monsieur Cassin, I’m sorry…”

“I told you not to say that to me
again!” Cassin roared. “I told you that already. Now are you sorry?”

“What?”

“Are you sorry, you Nazi rat?”

“No, no, I’m not sorry,” Christopher
said, holding up his hands in front of him.

“Okay, at least you admit that much.
At least we’re being honest with each other. Now get yourself together. See
that piece of paper behind you on the dresser.” Christopher turned his head.
“Yes, see there boy. Pick it up and the pen too, we’re going to write a letter
to Rebecca, telling her how you really feel. I think she deserves to know.
Don’t you?”

Christopher reached back and took the
pen and paper in his hand. The shotgun was still pointed directly at him.
“Monsieur Cassin…”

“Shut up. I’ll do the talking from
here. You write. You do know how to write don’t you? Yes, lean on that book. We
don’t want this to look…. rushed.” Cassin laid the shotgun back across his lap
and picked up the whisky glass and began to dictate. “Dear Rebecca. Write it
boy, write!”

“Okay, okay I’m writing it,”
Christopher said as he pushed the nib against the paper. The words appeared.

“Dear Rebecca, I could not see you to
tell you this face to face as I find myself overcome with guilt.” Christopher
looked up at Cassin. His face was stern, unforgiving. “I have spent a lot of
time of late contemplating our courtship. I am sorry to tell you that I can’t
see you anymore. I have found myself wracked with guilt since sleeping with
Sandrine Malard, the barmaid in The Red Lion in St Helier.” Christopher looked
up at Cassin, his mouth wide open. He stood up, forgetting where he was. Cassin
smiled and gestured with the shotgun for him to sit down and Christopher let
himself drop back down into the chair “I take full responsibility for my
actions and cannot blame them on my growing dependence on alcohol. I want you
to be happy and now realize that I am not good enough a man to be with you,
particularly bearing in mind the infection I have contracted since this
occurrence.” Christopher let the pen drop, but Cassin raised the shotgun again.
“You write the letter or I call down to the police to tell them that I have
just shot an intruder in my house. You choose, boy!” Christopher’s muscles
seized and his heart was dead in his chest but he brought the pen back down to
the paper. Cassin began again. “I know that you have been contemplating the
offer of marriage from Jonathan Durrell. This is some comfort to me that you
have found a suitor who is worthy of you. I wish you all the best in your
future with him. Yours, etcetera, etcetera. Don’t try anything funny, boy. Sign
it and if I see anything strange about the letter, any kind of code…”

“There’s no code, see for yourself,
you twisted old bastard!” Christopher snarled through the tears, holding up the
letter.

“Pass it here.” Cassin scanned
through it. “Good, very good. This is going to be an unfortunate shock for
Rebecca, but at least Jonathan will be there to comfort her, along with her
family, of course.”

Christopher sat back, throwing his
head against the back of the chair. The effort of holding back the tears was
overwhelming him now. He stood up. “I’m leaving now.”

“Yes, get out,” Cassin said. Christopher fumbled through the
shadows and towards the front door, Cassin’s words echoing and then fading as
he walked out. “Stay away from my daughter. If I see you around her again, I’ll
kill you, you hear me, you hear me, boy?” Christopher closed the front door
behind him and ran out of the garden and bent over as the tears came.
 

Christopher stumbled back up the
road, back towards the house, the wind churning around him and the sound of the
waves crashing onto the beach ringing in his ears. His vision was dimming and
the taste of whisky swirled around, mixing with the bile in the back of his
throat and he cried out. There was no light now, nothing, not even the moon and
the stars so he led himself by memory up the road towards his father’s house.
He kicked something hard and crumpled onto the road. He pushed himself up and
immediately felt the dull pain in his knee and the limp as he tried to walk.
The pain in his left leg intensified as he tried to stand on it and he hauled
himself forward on his right, dragging the other leg behind him as he went.
There was no stopping now. The house was ahead. He couldn’t see it, but he knew
it was there. The sound of the sea receded as he went, replaced by the sound of
his own breathing and the blood rushing electric through his veins. “I have to
get to her,” he said, perhaps out loud, perhaps in his head.
 
The road leaned to the left and he
followed it around, his eyes now adjusted to the black. The house was there. No
lights on. He saw his bike, still resting against the bush where he had left
it. It was no use to him now.

Christopher took a deep breath, and
reached up to his forehead, dripping with hot, salty sweat. The pain in his leg
ran up through his entire torso, but he ignored it, or tried to ignore it, and
dragged himself towards the front door of the house. The door opened and he
took another breath before limping inside. The house was completely quiet
except for the breath thundering through his lungs. Christopher put both hands
on the wall and edged along towards the kitchen. He was able to move more
easily with the solid structure as support and was sure he wasn’t making any
noise as he moved. He sat down at the kitchen table, his breath finally slowing,
but the thoughts in his head only quickening. He had to get to her, to explain
this. If her father got to her first…he might never see her again, or worse,
see her rolling past in the Durrells’ huge car.

The adrenaline had almost gone and he
realized how drunk he was. But there was no time for that and he looked down at
his left trouser leg, ripped and with dark bloodstains spreading out across the
knee. He took a tablecloth, hanging over the back of his chair, and dabbed the
cut through the tear in his trousers.
 
His knee was stinging, but it didn’t seem to be broken. It was hard to
tell, drunk and in the dark. There was no sound from upstairs and he continued
along the wall and into the study. The car keys were, as they always were, in a
cup on the desk, and Christopher reached in to fish them out. He pulled out the
key to his father’s car, looked at it for a few seconds and then up at the
staircase. The house was absolutely still and Christopher struggled out the
front door.

It was 45 minutes to the Durrells’
house in St. Brelade. Christopher squinted at his watch. It was hard to tell in
the darkness, but it seemed to be around 1 am, or maybe later. Rebecca and her
mother were out very late and the thought of waiting for them came to him, but
where would he wait? He certainly wasn’t going anywhere near that house again. The
best thing was to drive down there. There must have been a party at the house.
They would have made excuses for Cassin himself as he was liable to ruin an
occasion like that. He turned the key in the ignition, the car coughing and
spluttering to a start and he looked up at the light going on in his father’s
room. The bedroom window opened and Christopher stuck his head out.

“I have to borrow the car, Father.
It’s an emergency!” he shouted and accelerated out of the driveway, not waiting
for word of a reply. The certainty of what he had done was with him as he drove
away from the house but so was the certainty that what he was doing was the
right thing and forgiveness from his father or whatever else would have to
wait.