The Other Me (4 page)

But there I was, with the other new recruits, none of us knowing a damn thing, crammed into open flat rail cars, hunkered down between armoured vehicles and rattling weapons –
Paks
and
Panzerfausts
– men and machinery on their way to the Eastern Front. As the train made its way through summer heat, the red-brown dust of Poland stuck to our faces; found its way into ears and mouths; thickened our eyelashes with stubborn grit.

I saw pine forests, farms and villages in the distance. The sun and the rumbling of the train made me sleepy. At Krakow station the train stopped, and a small band of dirty children gathered, begging with open hands, until a couple of military police chased them away.

We believed that the war was nearly over. The rest of Europe would fall as easily as Poland and France. The Bolsheviks were on the run. As I tried to get comfortable against the angles of a canvas-covered machine gun, listening to the clank of wheels against tracks and the murmur of men’s voices, I thought of what I would do in a couple of months’ time when it was over, and I would be free to escape the farm and go abroad. America was my plan. I never wanted to see Germany again.

Otto was far away, wearing a different uniform. The Wehrmacht wasn’t good enough for him. Scholz had pulled some strings for his golden boy – got him something important. We hadn’t been separated before. My little brother, who was a head taller than me by the age of twelve, had never needed me to look out for him. Since I can remember he’d been pushing me away, anxious to prove he was better.

From my bed I can see across the tops of the trees in Central Park. The air is bright today, sharp enough to snap. I can hardly hear the traffic jammed along West 82nd Street. Gazing at my hands resting on the covers, I suddenly see them as other people must. As things that are deformed. I’m missing the tops of two fingers on one hand. One on the other. Taken by frostbite. These are old wounds. Like my blind eye. It’s my arms that are punctured with fresh marks, coloured with bruises.

I’m weary of this last battle. But I have the strength for one more journey. They won’t believe me, of course. Maria will resist. I can see her now, barring the door with her body if necessary, black eyes snapping above the glare of her uniform: ‘Now Mister Meyer,’ she will say in her nasal way, the corners of her mouth pulling down. ‘You know that is not a sensible idea.’

But she didn’t see us in Russia, tramping through endless snow, starving and exhausted. Our feet rotten stumps wrapped in rags. She doesn’t know what I’m capable of. I have stretched limits before, bracing myself against the hard wire of impossibility. And I can do it again.

We were swift as a greyhound, tough as leather and hard as Krupp steel. But what good did it do us?

I find myself humming the words to those old marching songs. The ones we learnt in the Hitler Youth and sang again and again in the Wehrmacht, dug into foxholes, marching in line across never-ending plains, across broken, rutted wastelands in rain and hail, past rows of rough wooden crosses, with helmets hanging on them. A German boy doesn’t cry.

Heute wollen wir marschier’n einen neuen Marsch, probier’n in dem schönen Westerwald. Ja da pfeift der Wind so kalt.
I’m moving my lips, and the words crack as one language slides into another.
Dancing is a joy and the heart in love laughs.

I would like to dance with her one more time.

But the wind is so cold.
 

Winter nights on the farm, when the frost made patterns on the inside of the window, Otto and I would creep out of our beds, wrapped in blankets, and climb down the ladder to the stable. Lotte and Berta sometimes slept lying down, and if one of them was stretched out on her side in the straw, we’d curl up against her warm flank, putting our cheeks against her muscled neck, fingers tangling in her thick greasy mane. Through the dark, I could almost taste the smell of piss and dung and the hot breath of the animal. Even in sleep, a part of us was conscious, ready to move if she stirred, to roll out of the way of her hooves.

There were other songs we learnt and repeated in the club house and at camp, hurling words into the air, our young lungs heaving, mouths opened wide. ‘Kill them. Kill them all. Line the fat cats up against the wall
.
’ Perhaps we didn’t understand what we sang. I don’t know how much we really knew or when it was that the knowledge became something real, lodged inside like shrapnel.

KLAUDIA

1986, London

I’ve been to Amber’s house three times, twice on my own, and once with Lesley. I liked it better on my own. Her mum made us cucumber sandwiches with the crusts cut off. We watched
The Sound of Music
on their huge colour TV, while their hairy Lassie dog pressed up against me, resting his damp nose on my knee as if he loved me. She has a guinea pig called Honey. She let me pick it up. The creature felt strangely bony under her thick golden fur. Her claws scrabbled at my hand, and one got hooked through my cardigan. I bent close to unhook it and she nipped my chin with sharp teeth. I put her down quickly, before Amber noticed.

Amber wants to come to my house. ‘It’s your turn,’ she explains. ‘It’s only fair.’

‘Of course,’ I say quickly, in case she thinks I don’t know how to do this. ‘I’ll ask my mum.’

I choose a Saturday afternoon when I know that Dad will be out at a chapel meeting. I’m nervous. I worry that she’ll think our furniture is wrong and the wooden disciples weird. But Mum doesn’t let me down. She’s made fairy cakes with icing and sugar flowers; she sits at the table with us, smiling and asking the right questions. I see Mum through Amber’s eyes and realise how pretty she is. Even though she’s old.

In my room, Amber finds my pink dance slippers.

‘I didn’t know you did ballet too?’ She claps the slippers together. ‘I go to Miss Hockey. Grade Three on Tuesday evenings.’

I shake my head. ‘I don’t have lessons. Not yet.’

Amber looks disappointed. She plays with the ribbons on the shoes, twisting them around her fingers.

‘We could do some dancing now, if you like,’ I say, keeping my voice casual. ‘You could be the teacher. Show me some moves.’

‘Positions,’ she corrects, standing taller.

We get a chair and arrange it in the middle of the floor. I place my hand on it and hold my other arm out to the side; Amber kneels at my feet, pulling my heels together and pushing my toes apart. It hurts. She makes tut-tut noises when I complain, standing to demonstrate how I should be doing it.

‘Come along,’ she says in a strict voice. ‘Stomach in. Chin up.’

She teaches me five different positions. She prods my tummy and smacks my arm with my ruler if I drop my hand.

‘Dance teachers are always mean,’ she explains. ‘Otherwise you never learn anything.’

She yawns as I fail to master an arabesque, her mouth opening so wide I hear her jaw crack. I wobble lopsidedly. She fidgets, tapping her fingers on her folded arms while I struggle to stand on one leg with the other pointing out behind me. My ankle trembles as I flail my arms like a dying crow, flapping to stay upright.

Amber sighs, collapsing onto the bed. ‘Have you got any music?’ She pushes her hair behind her ears. ‘I want to do some dancing too.’

I’m not allowed to touch my father’s opera records, or the record player. But he’s not here and Mum is shut in the kitchen with the radio on, busy with supper. Smells of fish and frying butter waft through the house. I look at Amber’s expectant face, and nod.

In the living room I squat on my haunches to flick through the records with nervous fingers. There’s one at the back that has ‘Duke Ellington’ written on it in big red letters. I think it’s one of the records that Uncle Ernst used to put on. It won’t have been used for years. I slide it out of its paper cover; Dad won’t mind me playing it.

I lower the needle carefully. The melody pulses into the room with a wink and an explosion of trumpets. Amber frowns. ‘That’s not proper ballet music.’ She puts her hands on her hips.

‘It’s fun, though,’ I suggest, ‘don’t you think? We could dance together.’

I grab her, feeling brave, and begin to step backwards and forwards like I’ve seen jive dancers do in films. She gasps, stumbles and squeezes my fingers. Then she’s stepping in time with me, and we’re moving to the rhythm. She laughs and suddenly we’re dancing. She turns me under her arm and I spin round and round on the carpet. Amber’s face flashes past. The living room blurs. My skirt flies up.

‘Klaudia!’

My father is in the doorway. He strides past and grabs the needle, stopping the music with an abrupt screech. He turns to me.

‘What do you think you’re doing?’ His face is mottled, his eyeballs press forwards, round and hard as marbles.

‘Sorry.’ I hang my head.

Next to me, I sense Amber tighten, as if glue stiffens her spine.

‘It’s immoral music. Foolish rubbish.’ He stands over us. ‘Making a spectacle of yourself.’ He swings up his arm and I flinch. He’s pointing to the door. ‘Go to your room.’

Amber is staring at my father, the caretaker, the Nazi; her mouth slackens, and her eyebrows move across her forehead in horrified wonder. The space between us seals itself shut. When she does look at me, I see a kind of pity behind her righteous, shocked anger. She holds herself apart, dignified and wounded.
Liar
, her silent mouth whispers. I didn’t lie, I want to protest. Not really. Neither of us speaks. She stands with her face averted.

My father leaves the room. He holds the jazz record by the very edge, pinching with sharp fingers. His anger hangs over us, a suffocating blanket.

‘I have to go home now,’ she says in a distant voice. Her eyes are bright with my secret. She walks through the house as if the floor is seething with snakes, as if the furniture crouches to spring at her.

Everyone will know on Monday.

Mum puts my plate in front of me and sits down at the other side of the table. It’s just the two of us, so she bows her head. ‘For what we are about to receive,’ she says, ‘may God help us to be truly thankful. Amen.’

She opens her eyes and leans towards me, resting on her elbows so that her breasts, buttoned up inside a blue cardigan, balloon over the surface. ‘Well?’ Her eyebrows shoot upwards. ‘Did you have a lovely time with your friend? I thought she was staying for tea?’ She picks up her cup and takes a careful sip, lips puckered, keeping her eyes fixed on me.

I glance down at a pile of chips shiny with grease, and a row of stubby fish fingers. I slice into one and notice bits of brown inside the white flakes. I let my shoulders rise and fall.

I feel Mum frown. ‘There’s nothing the matter, is there?’

My chest is so tight that my words can’t come out. I shake my head. My hair falls over my face. ‘Dad got angry.’

‘Cariad… what about?’ She reaches out her hand, small as my own. Her fingers are warm.

I want to cry, to push my head into the curve of her shoulder, close my eyes against the comfort of her chest, blue wool rubbing my skin. But I feel angry. Together, she and Dad, they’ve ruined my life. I pull my hand away, stab a couple of chips and ram them into my mouth.

I chew, tasting salt. The difficulty of swallowing releases my chest. ‘I played a record. Amber wanted to dance.’

Her forehead crumples. ‘I’m sorry, my love. You know how he is about that machine. I’ll have a word with him.’

I shake my head. ‘It’s too late.’

She begins to protest, ‘Oh, I’m sure it isn’t…’

I look at her. For the first time in my life I’m aware that she doesn’t understand me. The moment tenses, uncoils.

‘What did Dad do… in the war?’

I’ve never asked before. The question hangs in the air like an ugly scrawl of graffiti. I hear the big clock ticking on the wall above the calendar. A fly has got in through the open window. It buzzes over the pot plants on the sill behind the sink, and settles on a spiky leaf to clean its legs.

My mother looks at her hands linked on the table in front of her. She’s fiddling with her wedding ring, pushing it into the give of flesh. I shift in my chair. Maybe she didn’t hear? She swallows and I hear the hard gulp as saliva goes down her throat.

‘Where has this come from?’ she asks quietly. ‘Did Amber say anything?’

‘No.’ My voice is husky.

‘I don’t know what to tell you.’ She holds her clasped hands up, as if in prayer. ‘He was… Well. He did… he just did his duty, love.’ She doesn’t sound very certain.

‘But he was on the wrong side,’ I remind her.

There’s another pause and I look down, noticing a mark on my skirt. I try to brush it off, but it’s an oily stain. Mum is still silent. ‘He must have… done… bad things,’ I say in a small voice.

‘No.’ She catches her breath. ‘It was the war that was bad, not the men in it. Not most of them.’ She’s speaking quickly. ‘Millions of people died in the war. It was terrible. Hitler was an evil person, Klaudia. That doesn’t make all Germans evil.’

‘Dad was a Nazi… wasn’t he?’ I put my fork down. I can’t eat.

‘Klaudia!’ She looks shocked. ‘I don’t know what’s started you off on all these questions all of a sudden.’ Her face closes. ‘Of course your father wasn’t a Nazi. It was a long time ago. Years before you were born. Another life. Da doesn’t like to talk about it. It was very hard for him.’ She leans forward again. ‘Look at me, cariad. Don’t worry about the war or what your father did in it. It’s not for little girls to worry about. He’s a good man.’ She blinks and I notice a tiny twitch on her left eyelid making the skin pucker and tremble.

I open my mouth. And close it again. I want to believe her.

She smiles, pushing herself up from the table. ‘Now, eat up bach. I’ve got Angel Delight for pudding. Caramel. Your favourite. You can invite your friend another time, can’t you?’

Amber moved to another desk. She and Lesley ignore me at break, turning their backs, murmuring behind their hands. People stop talking when I approach, beginning again when I’m out of earshot. I’ve tried explaining that my father didn’t gas anybody, but nobody takes any notice. They seem to like the idea of a Nazi caretaker. Anyway, I am a liar. Amber said she’d never trust me again. There’s something wrong with me. I must be funny in the head to have thought that I could get away with it.