Touching the Wire (33 page)

The old man hesitated. ‘He
was a doctor. Medical staff had better rations and conditions. He survived at the
expense of others. Even though he saved lives, his guilt haunted him, as did
mine.’

She gripped Adam’s hand and
waited for Schmitt to regain his composure.

‘When liberation was
evident… Walt was forced to go on the March of Death… I… It’s as I told you,
Walt escaped on the march to Germany.’

‘Few did.’

Schmitt nodded at Adam and
shivered. ‘It was so cold. I disguised myself as a POW and fled north hoping to
get passage to England. I met Walt south of Gdansk. Albert had died on the
journey north. I knew the terrain, and spoke Polish fluently enough to get us
across Poland… Walt was English. We needed each other. It was Walt and I who
reached Newcastle. We did bring the evidence, and deposit it under Carr’s name,
and Walt did go to Kettering to see Carr’s wife… but I stole Albert’s
identity.’

‘But if you knew Walt had
evidence against you…’ Adam looked puzzled.

‘I abhorred what Mengele
did. I wanted him to stand trial. I thought I didn’t care about my own life
but, when it came to it…’ He looked imploringly at them. ‘I’d have been hung.’

She held his eyes and he
looked away.

‘You still haven’t told us
about Miriam,’ Lucy reminded him.

‘Miriam was a Hungarian
Jew.’ He shook his head. ‘Walt tried to protect her.’ The old man clutched his
chest, his breath coming in gasps. ‘I’ve lived with the guilt of who I am for
too long, and I could tell no-one.’

She brushed away angry
tears. ‘You’ve lived far too long.’ She brought out the photographs of Miriam
and her family and thrust them in his face. ‘These were real people who loved
one another, a family with hopes and dreams.’

Presented with the images of
Nazi victims, Schmitt’s face froze.

She felt in the envelope in
her pocket for the wedding ring and held it in her open palm. ‘Do you even
remember the
number
of the woman this belonged to?’

His face lost what little
colour it had left.

She continued relentlessly.
‘I’ve been to Auschwitz, remember. Nothing excuses what you did, Schmitt. What
did you threaten Grandpa with to force his silence? Do you know how he suffered
with nightmares?’ Adam put a hand on her arm but she shook it off. ‘You will
stand trial for your crimes if it is the last thing I do. I wish you’d died
instead of Grandpa.’ A movement beside her made her half-turn but she kept her
eyes firmly on Schmitt.

Schmitt, his eyes still on
the wedding ring, looked as though he’d been stabbed through the heart. ‘I
tried, Charlotte.
It’s
fitting twins should hear my
confession though I hoped it wouldn’t be you. I tried to kill myself… the
guilt, the nightmares. When I woke one night, and found myself standing over
Lucy’s bed with a knife in my hand...’

Her heart paused, mid-beat,
and then thundered in her ears. She was eleven again, in the shared bedroom of
a backstreet terrace, the night before Grandpa disappeared. It was the last
time she’d… ‘
Grandpa
?’

Lucy looked up in
bewilderment.

Adam stared at her and Lucy,
and then Schmitt. ‘
You
are Walter Blundell?’

Walt’s heart thumped and his chest clamped
tight around it. The Keres stood before him, gathered for the last time. Beside
them the shape of Wselfwulf ghosted, waiting.

The wolf spoke. ‘So this is
your precious Grandpa, Charlotte. A lying cheat like his grand-daughter.’

‘Robin?’ Charlotte didn’t
look happy to see the newcomer.

The wolf couldn’t hurt him
now: for him it was over. Miriam’s story would be told, the documents and the
diary would be made public; his promise to his sepia girl had been kept. He’d
paid the ultimate price. He’d confessed and lost the love of those he most
cherished. They deserved answers. His reward would be death.

Pain tingled down his left
arm. Not yet, not yet. He’d let go of the wolf and here he was, in the shape of
this man, his eyes full of vindictive hatred. He’d failed his second family as
surely as he had Miriam: he couldn’t protect them any longer. ‘I... I am...’ He
took a breath and tried again. ‘I am William Walter Blundell.’

‘But…’ Charlotte sank on a
chair by his side, shaking her head. ‘You can’t be.’

Adam moved closer in a
gesture of concerned protection.

Robin leaned against a
chair. ‘Not so perfect, now, is he, Charlotte?’

Charlotte glared at the tall
stranger. ‘Get lost, Robin.’

Robin reminded him of
Mengele, the Angel of Death, the Wolf of Günsburg: dark, smartly-dressed,
aloof,
intelligent
. The voice was confident,
sarcastic. ‘What, leave when it’s getting interesting?’

Charlotte’s face was pale,
angry. ‘What are you doing here, anyway?’

‘Saturday’s visiting
day…  Thought I’d find out about these valuable documents Adam’s been so
protective of. It seems you’ve saved me the job. They’re the ones making the
headlines in all the nationals, aren’t they? Wait until the press know the
whole truth.’

His heartbeat thundered; he
fumbled with buttons, his fingers stiff with arthritis, and bared his chest. He
pointed to his tattoo, almost in his armpit. ‘Prisoners were tattooed on their
forearms. This is my blood group, O. The SS had their blood group tattooed
here. Mengele didn’t.’ He looked up at Robin. It was too late for lies, now;
his years of secrecy had been for nothing. ‘Vanity, which was how he escaped
the American army. They didn’t realise he was SS… they released him.’

Lucy looked incredulous.
‘The Americans had
him
and let him go?’

He pointed to his left
forearm where faint scarring remained: his arm felt heavy. ‘Before I was forced
onto the March of Death, I tattooed a number there to disguise my identity.’

‘You removed it?’

‘I hadn’t earned the right
to wear it. After I changed my name I put my arms in fire. I needed to suffer.
Whatever you think of me, I think worse of myself.’

Charlotte’s eyes pleaded.
‘You’ve lied to us all our lives. Please say you’re lying now.’

‘Veritas odium parfat.’

Adam frowned. ‘Truth begets
hate?’

‘
But truth is great and
will prevail
…’ The tightness in his chest receded. He spoke slowly. ‘The
truth… it’s hard to know what the truth is, anymore.’

Lucy leaned forward. ‘How
did you fake your death?’

‘I was rescued by a fishing
boat working out of Lowestoft. I told them my name was Carr, and my sailing
dinghy had capsized. They had no reason not to believe me. I resumed Albert’s
identity. Walt remained missing, presumed dead.’

‘And where have you been all
these years?’ Charlotte’s voice was stony.

She believed him now, and
the longed-for love in her eyes was absent: the price Nemesis demanded. ‘Here
and there. I watched you grow. Saw you from a distance. I longed to come home
but you were safer with me dead.’

Lucy frowned. ‘But… you
don’t sound German. You’re English.’

Adam dragged a chair closer
and sat by Charlotte. ‘You were SS, Hans?’

Robin’s sardonic smile made
him squirm. Adam’s questioning voice spiralled him back to the person he’d
been, and the love he was about to destroy forever. ‘I was torn between two nations,
Lucy. Mother was English… she met Father in 1911 and moved to Dresden. War
broke out… her family disowned her for marrying a German, so after Father’s
death at The Somme she stayed in Germany… she had friends there. Her brother
was killed fighting for the Allies at Passchendaele… 1917… and the family rift
widened.’

Charlotte frowned. ‘How
could you fight against your mother’s country?’

‘Choose my father’s side
over my mother’s? They rejected her. She and my sister died when the allies
bombed Dresden. My grandmother lost both her children.’

‘But you were loyal to
Hitler,’ Adam pressed.

‘I was sucked into his mad
schemes. When Hitler and Eichmann unveiled the Endlösung der Judenfrage, the
final solution, I was sent to Auchwitz and ran one of the camp infirmaries.’

‘Under Mengele.’

‘That was when I realised
the inhumanity of Hitler’s vision. I did what I could to help my patients. Then
I fell in love with Miriam.’ His left fist failed to clench. Will-power alone
kept panic from his voice; he must try to explain. ‘I tried to keep her safe. I
was assured she would be safe if I was a good Nazi.’

Adam nodded. ‘And you were a
good Nazi?’

‘You were also a doctor.’
Charlotte spoke the words like an accusation.

‘I met Josef at the
University of Frankfurt in ’38. We were research assistants at the Institute
for Heredity, Biology and Racial Purity. I hoped to find cures for hereditary
diseases, not what Hitler dreamed of, what Mengele did… never that. At
Auschwitz, he forced me to assist him in his evil experiments. It seemed to
amuse him. What was I to do, Charlotte? Lucy?’ Barbed-wire enclosed him,
imprisoning him in a hell of his own making, a hell he longed to escape.

He reached out to touch the
wire: instead, his hand touched Lucy’s. His was thin and bony, an evil claw
against her soft innocence but she didn’t pull away. Charlotte’s expression…
he’d destroyed her memories. ‘Miriam lost her whole family in the camp.’ Her
gaunt face and skeletal body haunted him; she’d existed knowing every day could
be her last. He rocked backwards and forwards, the band across his heart more
than grief. The daughters of Night grew impatient.

Lucy closed her fingers
around his hand. ‘What happened to her, Grandpa?’

He closed his eyes and the
room receded, the voices around him faded, the temperature dropped to -25c and
his body shook, weak with fear, exhaustion and cold…

‘Is she alive, Chuck?’

He lifted Miriam’s
featherweight in his arms. ‘Albert, bring as many blankets as you can find and
see if there’s anything that will burn.’ He carried her outside into the clean
air and held her while Albert piled stiff blankets onto the snow. He laid her
down and wrapped more blankets around her.  ‘Miriam… Miriam,
it’s
Chuck. Can you hear me?’ He chafed her frozen hands
with his. ‘Hold on, please hold on.’

Albert returned with
splintered boards, ripped from one of the barrack doors, and straw from a
mattress. He cleared an area of snow. ‘Let’s get this fire going.’

While Albert struggled with
the fire he heaped clean snow into a metal bowl. A spark caught and splinters
of wood, teased free with Albert’s knife, smoked thinly. Small flames guttered
in the breeze and Albert fed them with more wood.

He placed the metal bowl in
the flames. Slowly, the snow gave up a mouthful of warm water. He gripped the
bowl with a wad of blanket and let it cool on the ground. ‘Miriam…’ He lifted
her, and held the bowl to her lips before the water chilled. ‘Miriam, drink
this. Albert, we need more fuel. See if there are any others still alive… and
bowls. We’ll need more bowls… dehydration, hypothermia.’ Albert hurried away
and he urged Miriam to drink. Water dribbled down her chin. ‘Swallow, Miriam,
please. Good… more…’

Albert dropped splintered
planks by his side: somehow he’d found the strength to rip them free. He fed
wood on the fire and then went to collect clean snow.

Miriam swallowed another
mouthful.

‘There are women still alive
in there.’ Albert handed him bowls and warmed his hands by the flames.

While the snow melted in the
bowls, he and Albert helped the women to the warmth of the fire, wrapped in
blankets taken from the frozen dead.

Albert coughed a harsh,
rasping cough. ‘There must be something to eat in this God-forsaken hole. I’ll
see what I can find.’

He nodded and mixed sulfa
with water, willing it to dissolve. ‘Miriam… the sulfa will make you better.
Drink.’ She opened her eyes. Her wrists and fingers were skeletal, her hollow
cheeks made her face triangular, the thin skin parchment taut across her cheek
bones; her eyes were sunken, her tongue swollen, her lips a mass of sores…
there was hardly anything left of her. He kissed her forehead, and she smiled.

Her lips moved: she made no
sound but he knew the shape of the word.
Szeretlek
.
I love you.

‘I
love you too, Miriam. Szeretlek... szeretlek.’ She was too weak to grip the
bowl, so he held it while she drank again. She moistened cracked lips with her
tongue.

‘Diary...’

‘Don’t
try to speak. Drink some more, please.’

‘Diary.’

‘Is
it in its hiding place?’

She
shook her head.

‘It
was found?’

‘No.’

‘You
moved it?’

She
nodded.

‘Do
you have it on you, now?’

She
lifted a hand enough to point.

‘It’s
in the infirmary…’ No response. ‘The surgery…’ Her expression didn’t change.
‘In the nurses’ room? In your bunk?’

She
nodded and sank back exhausted.

‘I’ll
find it. Now, drink, please.’ He could tell by her eyes that she thought he’d
come too late. ‘Albert will find something to make into soup. We’ll cook it on
the fire and drink it, looking at the hills.’ He glanced at the hills she
loved: the freedom for which she’d longed. Her pulse was weak, erratic. He had
to keep her conscious. ‘You like the hills, Miriam. When you’re stronger we’ll
head north with Albert. Mother said England was the most beautiful country in
the world. We’ll make a home there with roses… remember the roses… We’ll raise
a family.’

Her
eyes opened. ‘Arturas… Peti?’

She’d
forgotten. ‘We’ll take them with us. They’ll have brothers. We’ll call them
Jani and Benedek and Aaron. If we have girls we’ll call them Czigany… and Efah,
and Ilse, and we’ll tell them stories about their grandparents and
great-grandparents.’

Her
eyes were closed now, her breathing ragged and slow.

‘Miriam…
Miriam?’

Her
breathing stopped with a sigh and her mouth went slack.

‘Miriam….
No…. 
No-o-o-o.
’

He
rocked her in his arms, his tears soaking her hair. He closed his eyes to shut
out the huddled, starved figures around the fire, and the desolation of the
camp. Flames danced before his eyelids; the heat of the fire burned his face,
while the wind chilled his back as cold as death.

‘Chuck?’

He
looked up wordlessly.

Albert
held out a squashed tin of meat. ‘I found it on the road. Must have been run
over by a truck. And outside the gates there’s a clamp of potatoes. I filled my
pockets. I’ll take something to carry more. We have food, Chuck, food.’

‘She’s
dead, Albert. Miriam’s dead.’

Albert
squatted beside him and stared into the flames. After a long moment he sighed.
‘She died in your arms, Chuck, knowing you came back for her. No-one here could
ask for more.’

He
held her, his face buried in her hair, while Albert fed the fire and made thin
broth in a metal wash-bowl to feed the survivors. The ground was too hard to
bury her and he couldn’t bear for her to lie with the half-rotted cadavers
heaped by the infirmary wall. He borrowed Albert’s knife and gently cut a curl
from her hair, then slipped her wedding ring from her finger: looters would not
have it. He lifted her into his arms and walked towards the birch woods beyond
the wire. He laid her among the trees, free at last, for the wolves and
woodland creatures to take back to nature, as the earth reclaimed the ashes of
her family. Her bones would be her testimony now. 

The birch woods faded into
the past and the faces before him came back into bleary focus.
‘She smiled for me… I laid Ilse by her side, as she’d
been in life. Miriam looked like an old woman… She was only twenty.’