Hannah & Emil (34 page)

The women were not speaking at dinner. In fact they were sitting at different tables, and it would be possible to miss their antagonism amid the noise of the Germans eating except that the mood had spread. The boy sat at the head of a long table staring into his stew, taking a resentful mouthful every now and then as though his mother were standing at his shoulder, threatening the loss of some privilege if he did not eat the food he had been given. She was at the other table, making a point of speaking in German to the three or four boys around her. She glanced across at Emil every now and then, delivering a blank-faced challenge. Hannah sat beside him, fury evident in each scrape of her spoon against china.

Before dinner, in the kitchen, she had told him: ‘She as good as called me a Jew.'

‘What did she say, truly?' He took the wooden spoon from the pot and licked it. Dinner was ready.

‘She said I was a
traveller
. That I did not understand her because I had no homeland.' She slammed down a pile of plates on the sideboard. ‘I was born in this country. You should have heard the way she said it! Oh, she is a Nazi. Why did you ever marry her?'

‘Because of course she was not a Nazi. She was a nice girl who liked to dance. She is not a Nazi now. You have been to Germany. You have heard the way they talk. It's a disease.'

‘Oh, I know! I know. Why did I even try to speak to her? I have made it all worse.'

‘It makes no difference at all. If you are an angel, she will not listen. This is what I tell you.'

Now Hannah busied herself by studying the boys who were passing down bowls for dessert, laughing and thrusting their spoons into their food. Emil had just finished making it, rhubarb crumble with custard—a recipe learned from Hannah's mother—and the common room was filled with the smell of stewing fruit and cinnamon. He finished in moments, like the boys, and watched their faces. They were grimacing at each other, thinking the adults did not notice. For once the boy did not try to get himself included in their games.

When almost everyone had eaten their dessert but Hannah, who had not touched it, the boys pushed their bowls away, made a show of clutching their stomachs. Then a tall boy, Albert, with high cheekbones but soft, dreamy eyes, stood up, striking his knife on his tin mug. Emil saw that he looked at Hannah. Perhaps they meant to thank their hosts, on their last night. He hoped they would make it brief. It was possible the police would come. They had made agreeable noises when he told them about the maps, but he caught their smirks. He was not expecting much.

Albert continued to regard Hannah, and she summoned up a smile. From the demeanour of the other boys, smiling, waiting, it was clear he was about to sing. Emil had noticed this one enjoyed his own voice. He sang loudly on their hikes, often as they came into the courtyard, so he had an audience beyond his friends. The others stood, ready to join him, and Hannah held the boy's gaze as they began. Their voices together made the hair on the back of his neck rise. The room was filled, every corner, with this unearthly clarity and volume. Then the words became clear, the song known to him. ‘
Yes, when the Jewish blood splashes from the knives, things
will go twice as well.
' Emil saw the gooseflesh on Hannah's arms. She seemed frozen, as he was, for a moment. Then he was standing, his scraping chair cutting across their voices. He addressed himself to the boy, Albert, in English. ‘You will not sing those songs here. Clear the table, please.'

The voices petered out until there was only the sound of the water beneath the floor. The boy was standing stiff and straight. It took a moment for his mouth to close. He had turned to Emil but could not hold his gaze for more than a moment. His chin trembled minutely. The others began to pass their bowls to him in silence.

‘No,' said Emil. ‘He will get them himself.' Albert walked along the table, stacking them. Hans stood to help him. ‘Sit.' Emil pointed at his chair and Hans sat down, staring at him. It took several minutes for Albert to clear the long tables. The boys shifted in their seats and kicked their chair legs. The hall was filled with china clinking, Albert's footsteps creaking, no voices. Ava was staring openly at Hannah, her expression unreadable. Hannah herself kept her eyes fixed on the boy as he walked the length of the room to the kitchen and back, over and over again.

Eventually, Hans, unable to sit still any longer, ran upstairs. The other boys took this as a sign to leave the table, and traipsed silently up after him, delivering little pinches and shoves on the narrow stairwell. Ava followed them with a nod goodnight. Hannah did not wait for Emil to speak, but went out into the evening, closing the door very carefully behind her, as though she would not give them the satisfaction of slamming it.

With this many sleeping in the house, could he really be the only one awake? Hannah had come into their room late, where he sat trying to read, and changed into her nightgown without speaking or looking at him. He put down his book but she turned out the lamp and in the light from the moon he saw her turn away. He listened to her breathing. She fell asleep quickly. He had never known her angered into silence and he sat for a while at the edge of the bed, the bright moon at the window, watching her shape under the sheet. This light was like the light at sea some nights. It felt, sitting here, accompanying her sleeping shape, that all his anchors to the world were drifting quietly over sand. He lay down on top of the counterpane, clothed, waiting for the sounds in the house to settle.

His socks brushed the boards as he crossed the floor, took the three steps to the stairs. One of the boys snored, a bed creaked. As he descended, their sounds were replaced by running water. You could never quite believe as you stepped onto the floor of the common room that it would be dry. He made his way between the tables. No one would hear the creak of his steps above the water, but neither would he hear anyone approach.

In the kitchen, in the dark cupboard, ziggurats of coins were piled behind an empty box of soap flakes. They were not sorted into pounds, shillings and pence, but according to which account Hannah meant them for. This was the only money in the house, except for a little he was allowed for cigarettes and beer that he had already put in his satchel. There would be none to spare until Hannah was paid for her last translation job, and the unions were slow these days. He took a few coins from each heap, thinking, Hannah, I am sorry. He unhooked his satchel from the kitchen door and went down towards the millrace.

Under the house, moving slowly so that the money in his pockets did not chink, he felt very cold. The water hit the mossy walls and sprayed his legs on the stairs. He opened the laundry door and reached towards the bench to his right for the torch, assaulted by the smell of a room that was never completely dry. He shone his light over the lines of white shirts and grey shorts to a row across the corner of the same clothes, slightly miniaturised. He had put them through the mangle this morning but when he took the fabric between his fingers now it was damp. They always needed an hour in the courtyard in the sun but there was no way to manage it that he could see. He folded the clothes carefully, placed them in the satchel, left the flap open to keep them from mildewing, and put the satchel where it would not be seen immediately, on the hook on the back of the door.

Back in bed she shifted, her leg grazing his. ‘You are wet and cold,' she murmured.

He said nothing. Perhaps she was not truly awake.

‘Those boys,' she said. ‘Do you know what makes me so cross? Their dreadful manners. I have made their sandwiches and washed their sheets.'

‘I think it was not meant at you. They believe everyone loves to hear such songs. Their parents would applaud them.'

‘I have never felt like this in Germany. I know what to expect. And my friends are wonderful. So brave. Now I'm surrounded.'

‘Not Hans. Not me.'

‘Oh no.' She found his hand, lying on the covers. ‘Of course not. That is not what I meant at all.'

‘I could kill them all in their beds.'

Her hand was still. ‘I cannot see your face. You are not serious.'

‘No, Hannah.'

‘Your humour is certainly dry.'

He squeezed her hand. ‘They will all die soon enough.'

‘Oh, you must stop. It is not even remotely funny.'

‘I know.' He closed his eyes. He imagined them returning to their homes, their mothers taking them in their arms at the doors of their houses and apartments. Their fathers would come in from work and shake their hands. Not all fathers needed to embrace you, force the air out of your chest. They would return to gentle families. Some favoured soul would catch Hitler right in the eye with a lovely silver bullet. He would like to see that bullet, flat at one end, through the glass of a museum case one day. Then they'd hang the others in a row outside the Reichstag, and the boys sleeping next door would be free to go quietly through life, with women, with their own boys, working, drinking, walking in the fields. Long, insignificant lives in which they harmed no one.

When he woke she was already at her desk in the corner where the roof sloped low. He opened his eyes, knowing instantly what he had to do today.

‘Tell me,' she said, letting her thick dictionary fall on the desk in exasperation. ‘What is the word for the person who makes the moulds into which the hot metal is poured? I don't even know the English. I am getting nowhere with this.'

‘What are you doing?'

‘I have the union conference in three weeks. Metalworkers and miners. Miners I can manage, but the vocabulary is impossible when you barely know the English in the first place. You must go through all this with me when you have the time. If I know what people do I know what the unions are likely to discuss.'

‘Former.'

‘Former?'

‘The word for moulder. The one who makes the mould.' Father was a moulder, that was his trade.

‘Oh, goodness. So simple. Thank you.'

She had not looked up once. Her concentration made her beautiful, the more so because he doubted another would see it, that a seriousness of purpose could make a person lovely. He heard the boys calling to each other in the common room below, clattering the plates, shovelling coal into the stove in the kitchen. ‘The boys were marking maps. I saw them yesterday.'

She did not answer.

‘They were marking the places where you put the bombs. The best places, the most effective.'

She dropped her pencil on the page in front of her. Now she turned in her chair. ‘No!'

‘Yes, I followed them. I saw it.'

‘You must go to the police,' she whispered.

‘I did. But they are—
unschuldig
. What is it?'

‘Innocent. Or stupid, rather. Well, we must get the maps off them before they leave.'

‘You think so? How?'

‘Take them out of their bags. They're going today. We must get on with it.' He regarded her for a moment. ‘Well of course we must,' she insisted. ‘Or else the blood of the people killed by those bombs shall be on our hands. It might even be us. They've been busy packing, ready to go after breakfast. I'll go down and get them all eating. You do it then.'

‘Yes, all right.' He felt light for a moment. He pulled on his clothes as she scribbled something down, stood, smoothed her shorts and made for the door. He took her hand and kissed her on top of the head. ‘You must be normal.'

She laughed. ‘I shall try my best. And you must be quick. Imagine if they caught us!'

‘You are talking about embarrassment? It does not matter.'

‘No, I suppose not. Mustn't be so British about it.' And she was off down the stairs, and greeting Ava and the boys as though no one had called her a traveller or sung those songs in her house.

Food would keep them busy for perhaps fifteen minutes. The door to the dormitory was ajar. He stood on the landing, peering in. The rucksacks were lined up against the wall, their satchels leaning on the bigger bags. Each boy had folded his sheets and blankets and placed them at the foot of the bed. The window was open to air the room. There were twelve sets of bags; he could allow himself no more than a minute for each. Perhaps all the maps were in one bag. He went in, along through the bunks, read the name tags sewn into the lip of the packs, found Albert's, unbuckled the straps, reached down into the bag. He felt clothes, soft, probably unwashed. It did not smell good in there. A glass bottle. Alcohol perhaps. They had masked it well. A soap box, toothbrush, paste. Nothing that felt like a map. He heard one of the boys downstairs, laughing. It might be Albert. It was one of those who liked to draw attention to himself, who laughed too loudly. He refastened the rucksack, felt about in the satchel, did the same for the others. Penknives, compasses. His fingers searched for paper. He went through them all. It was hot up here, under the eaves. He lined the rucksacks neatly against the wall and began to straighten the satchels. He heard footsteps on the stairs, ran his hand over the remaining satchels and rucksacks quickly to set them straight, and slipped into his own room. The door opened as he stood beside the bed, a light sweat over him. It was Hannah.