The Survivors Read online

  ‘Bonjour, Davide.’

  ‘Hello, Klara. Come in.’

  ‘Busy?’

  ‘I’m always busy.’

  ‘You shouldn’t work so hard. I’ve seen your light on late into the night.’ She frowned at him and he was amused at the way she could smile and frown at the same time.

  ‘You’ll burn yourself out, Davide.’

  He laughed and waved her to the wooden seat in front of his desk. It wasn’t a comfortable seat. He didn’t want people to stay long, though for Klara he made an exception. She claimed to be half Polish, half English – certainly she spoke English, Polish and German fluently – but too many DPs claimed to be someone they weren’t. That’s part of what made his job so hard. Merde! Lies stacked on top of lies everywhere he looked.

  But he was tempted to believe Klara. There was something of the mongrel about her, something out of step and unfettered. She wasn’t one to stick to the rules. Twice she had been in serious trouble for dealing in black-market goods. The usual stuff – cigarettes, butter, sewing needles. She had her paltry wage for working as a teacher in the camp school docked to pay the fine. And they’d stuck her on latrine duty for a month. She’d smelled horrible. He’d found her extra soap.

  Davide closed the manila file in front of him, added it to the ever-growing stack of them on his desk and tossed his fountain pen beside them. He tried for a deep breath but heard his lungs crackle in protest.

  ‘What can I do for you?’

  ‘Can you get me in to see him?’

  ‘Colonel Whitmore is extremely busy. Sorry, Klara, but it won’t be today. He doesn’t have a moment free.’

  ‘Dammit, Davide,’ she always spoke in English to him, ‘when does that man ever have a moment free?’

  She laid a hand flat on his desk, as if to snatch up the telephone that would connect her to the colonel, but he saw her remember her manners and switch on a smile instead.

  ‘Please,’ she said softly. ‘It’s urgent.’

  He could feel the tension in her. Her fingers were rigid on the desktop. The intense blue of her eyes was almost hidden by the dense black of her huge pupils, and her mouth, her lovely full mouth, pulled into a tight line that she was struggling to release. She was not one for showing her emotions, he’d learned that. Not one for showing anything of herself. Most of the time she wore a scarf wound round her cropped corn-coloured hair and a shabby blue cotton dress that came almost to her ankles. A shapeless navy cardigan covered her thin arms. He had once given her a white sleeveless blouse for the summer heat, not new but nice, and he’d never seen her in it. When he spotted another woman wearing it last week he knew she’d sold it. He’d cared more than he was willing to admit.

  ‘What is it, Klara? What has happened?’

  ‘I need to get Alicja away from here. Please, Davide, I have to talk to the colonel again.’

  ‘Klara, how many times have you seen him already?’

  She nodded slowly. ‘I know. But this time it’s . . .’

  ‘It’s what?’

  ‘Different.’

  She was closing down. Though her hand still lay on his desk, he could feel her withdraw, the shutters coming down as she slid away from him.

  ‘Why is it different this time?’ he asked.

  ‘I think Alicja and I are in danger.’

  It was the way she said it that made him believe her. So quiet. So controlled. The words flat. Her fear had stolen the life out of them.

  ‘What kind of danger?’

  She cast a glance at the drab olive platoon of filing cabinets that stood to attention along one wall, as if they might help.

  ‘Someone I used to know,’ she said. ‘He has turned up here in this camp. I saw him just now.’

  ‘Who is he?’

  ‘He . . .’

  She paused, the words unwilling to come, and in the middle of the pause, just when Davide could see something unlock at the back of her eyes, the door at the far end of his office opened. Colonel Jonathan Whitmore strode into the room. He had the look of a man who knew how to make things happen. Tall, brisk, efficient. Immaculate in his officer’s uniform. Intelligent eyes that missed nothing. Yet there was a fullness to his mouth that gave it a soft edge that did not quite match the straight lines of his face.

  Klara leaped to her feet.

  ‘Bouvier,’ Whitmore snapped out. ‘I need the file on—’

  The colonel noticed the silent figure of Klara at the desk. The hard military lines of his shoulders seemed to melt into those of a middle-aged man who worked too hard. Suddenly he looked bone tired.

  ‘Good day, Mrs Janowska.’

  Davide admired that in him. The way he knew their names. The way he could always find a smile for them, a word of encouragement to give them hope. So many of the military staff regarded DPs as nothing more than a major logistical headache and a drain on overstretched resources and finances. In all fairness Davide couldn’t blame them. That’s exactly what DPs were. But Colonel Whitmore saw them as people who needed saving, and he saw it as his duty to save them.

  ‘Colonel Whitmore,’ Klara stepped forward before Davide could stop her. ‘Could I have a minute of your time, please?’

  Whitmore drew his brows together, then held out his wrist ostentatiously in front of them both, displaying his watch. ‘Sixty seconds, Mrs Janowska. I am counting.’

  If Davide thought she would be intimidated by such military precision, he misjudged her. Her words came out neat and brief.

  ‘Have you heard back from England whether they have found my mother’s family yet?’

  ‘No, I have not. If and when there is any information you will be informed. I have told you this before.’

  ‘Sir, please ask again. I am desperate. For my daughter.’

  ‘Do you know how many people say those exact words to me each day? I can’t walk out that door without someone begging for help.’ He drew a deep breath, like a swimmer diving into deep water, and gestured to the grey camp world outside the window. ‘There are so many,’ he said quietly, ‘so many. All wanting to get out of here. All wanting a home and food, a family. All desperate. We are doing everything we can, Mrs Janowska, as fast as we can, as efficiently as we can. But,’ he gave the smallest of very British smiles, ‘there was a war on, you know. It’s over now but the world is in chaos out there. We do not have enough staff. We do not have enough resources. You must be patient.’

  He wiped a hand across his face to remove any trace of pity.

  ‘I can’t be patient any more, Colonel.’

  Her eyes watched the officer’s face intently. Davide’s watched hers. It was not a beautiful face, its features too irregular, but there was beauty in its fine bones and in the still, intelligent eyes.

  Abruptly Colonel Whitmore turned his head away from her. ‘Your time is up.’ He dropped his hand to his side. ‘I am off to a meeting with our Supply Officer.’

  She opened her mouth to speak, but Davide cut her off. ‘I have that file for you, sir. And there is another convoy expected this afternoon.’ He walked from his desk and handed over the file, enabling the colonel to break free from her gossamer-fine web.

  Whitmore nodded stiffly. ‘Thank you, Bouvier.’ But suddenly he turned back to Klara, a twist of anger darkening his expression. ‘Do you know how many Polish and Czechoslovakian refugees are here in the Western Zone, Mrs Janowska?’

  ‘No. Tell me.’

  ‘Six and a half million. And that’s not all. Another four million in the Soviet Zone. And some days it feels as if they are all in this camp. Here in Graufeld our DPs each week devour twenty-five tons of bread, thirty tons of potatoes, eight tons of meat, seven tons of vegetables and it all has to be supplied and transported by an overstretched army that is not in the business of managing hordes of refugees who are starving and frightened and suspicious of . . .’

  His deep voice was filling the office, ricocheting off the wooden walls as if it would tear them down. He halted. The sudden silence
seemed to suck all air from the room. Davide was acutely aware of how important self-control was to this military Englishman, how he wrapped it around his soul and how mortified he must be at losing it.

  Whitmore started towards the door, but Klara’s voice followed him.

  ‘Colonel, my daughter’s life is in danger. Hers and mine. From someone I knew in Warsaw. He is here now. I cannot stand aside and wait for—’

  ‘Not you as well,’ the Colonel mumbled.

  ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘Claiming your life is in danger. I didn’t expect you to stoop to that. It’s what they all do.’ He waved a hand in the direction of the window where an inmate was trundling a wheelbarrow towards the garden area. ‘In the end they’ll say anything and tell any lie to speed up the process of getting out of here.’

  Davide walked rapidly over to the door and opened it with the brisk manner he had learned from the military. ‘Sir, you will be late for your meeting.’

  Without another word, just a curt nod of his head, the colonel marched out of the room.

  What is life worth?

  In this instance the answer turned out to be a bottle of home-made samogon.

  Davide had closed the door after the colonel left, but Klara didn’t move. She remained staring at the spot where Colonel Whitmore had stood, as though still seeing the man’s powerful imprint in the air. A tremor shook her. Her fingers fluttered at her side.

  He wanted to go to her but he knew she’d hate what she’d regard as pity, so he returned to his desk and picked up a sheet of paper with today’s list of admissions to the camp infirmary. Twenty-five yesterday. Mon Dieu, disease was rampant. Didn’t those at the top realise? SHAEF – the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force – might be happy to herd hundreds of thousands of DPs into camps to prevent them clogging up the roads, but you only needed one to be sick with typhus. In the cramped conditions it spread like wildfire. Each person’s breath had already been through a dozen lungs. Each hand carried a million germs.

  Davide kept a bowl under his desk with water and disinfectant in it. He put down the paper, dipped both hands into the bowl and dried them meticulously on a clean towel. When he straightened up, he was coughing and Klara was seated on the hard chair in front of him.

  ‘Why did you do that?’ Her manner was grave but if she was angry it didn’t show. ‘Why hurry the colonel away from me so fast?’

  ‘Because the man can only take so much, Klara. You could see how he was. He doesn’t sleep. He works all hours. Drives himself to the limit to keep this camp functioning. I didn’t want you to damage your cause by pushing him over the edge. You must realize you need his support for your claim.’

  ‘Thank you.’ She smiled one of her rare unguarded smiles that gave him a glimpse of the person she was before the war kicked the hell out of her life. She twisted round and fixed her gaze on the bank of filing cabinets lined up along the wall.

  ‘You can help me, Davide.’

  ‘Klara, I am not allowed to give out private information.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘So don’t ask.’

  With all the panache of a magician she drew a bottle of samogon from one of the deep patch pockets of her shabby dress and placed it at the very centre of his desk. The murky liquid within it swirled and settled. Tempting him. He didn’t touch it. Klara leaned forward, blue eyes bright and demanding. He could feel the heat of them.

  ‘I am looking for a certain man,’ she whispered. ‘A man named Oskar Scholz.’

  Davide flicked through the files under ‘S’, his fingers fast and thorough. When he’d finished he went back to the beginning and searched again more slowly. And again. As a last resort he hunted through the ‘O’ files. Oskar Scholz. While he searched, Klara stood close, looking over his shoulder, her breath warm on his ear.

  ‘He is not in this camp under that name, Klara.’

  ‘So he is using a fake name.’

  ‘You’re sure he is here?’

  ‘I saw him.’

  ‘Could you have been mistaken?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who is he? This Oskar Scholz.’

  ‘A German. I knew him in Warsaw.’

  ‘And you believe he is a threat to your life?’

  ‘I know he is.’

  ‘Why?’

  But it was a step too far. He could see on her pale face the struggle inside her. Whatever had happened with Oskar Scholz, she had buried it deep.

  ‘He stole my daughter.’ Her words came out flat and shapeless. ‘He removed Alicja from me in Warsaw and incarcerated her in a convent for three years.’

  Davide thought of his own daughter, taken when a Mauser machine gun exploded into life. No one should lose a daughter. No one. Not ever. They were still standing beside the filing cabinets and he leaned against one, shaken by sudden rage. He fought to quieten the crackle that started up in his chest as the anger speeded his breathing.

  ‘Why did he have authority to take your daughter from you? Was he in the Wehrmacht? An officer?’

  But instead of answering she turned her face from him to the metal filing cabinets and for a moment stared at them before putting out a hand to touch them. He watched her run her palm over the surface of one, soothing it, the way he’d seen his father run a hand over a skittish horse’s rump.

  ‘Davide,’ she said, her gaze skimming the cabinet drawers, ‘how many Germans are billeted in Hut J?’

  CHAPTER SIX

  Some days I felt a deep rumble running through the camp. A kind of vibration that rose up from the bare ground and rippled through me, so that my bones seemed to grate together. I didn’t know what caused it. Were we perched on the top of old mining works? Or was it the camp machinery droning on – the roar of the smithy and the growl of the generator at work?

  Or was the tremor triggered within myself? Something that had dislodged. I didn’t know.

  I heard it now, the rumble. As I hurried to Hut J. A man was seated on a low stool outside the open doorway, legs outstretched, so I would have to climb over them to enter. He was the keeper. His job was to keep people out. Most of the huts had someone on duty each day on an agreed rota to combat theft or abuse. Some liked the job more than others. This man was one of the likers. Just a little taste of power can make a man lick his lips, hungry for more.

  His gaze flicked over me. He was bored and looking for amusement, and I could tell he thought I might provide it. This was the curse of the camp. Boredom. It had a stranglehold on the inmates, at times quite literally choking them to death. Suicides were not uncommon. He was no more than my age but he had the manner of a weary old man.

  I gave him a lovely big smile. ‘Hello.’

  Instantly he spat out the matchstick he was chewing on. He sat up straighter and returned the smile. ‘You looking for something?’

  ‘You must get to see a lot of things going on around here,’ I said cheerfully.

  He nodded. Eyes on my breasts.

  ‘What’s your name?’ I asked.

  His attention jumped to my face. ‘Adomas.’

  ‘Well, Adomas, a short while ago I saw a man leave this hut. Tall, blond hair and in a dark shirt. Wearing spectacles with a cracked lens. Know him?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do you remember him in the hut?’

  ‘No.’

  His denial sounded genuine. But I wasn’t sure. ‘You weren’t here when I saw him, so—’

  ‘I had to go over to the medic.’ He smiled again. ‘Nothing much wrong. Nothing that a bottle of whisky wouldn’t shift.’

  Was he offering me a deal? Was that it?

  ‘I haven’t got any whisky. But maybe I can lay my hands on some other—’

  He spat. It just missed my foot. ‘None of that home-made shit for me. It wrecks my gut.’

  He spoke fluent German but with the spiky accent that said Lithuanian. Or Latvian. Somewhere on the Baltic. Somewhere that had been trampled by jackboots and stripped for slave labour. His
expression was hopeful rather than expectant. His path hadn’t crossed with Oskar Scholz, I felt sure.

  ‘I’ve come to speak with Fritz Geissler. I was told he is billeted here.’

  Adomas frowned and stood up. Even thinner than I was. ‘He’s German,’ he said in a low voice.

  ‘I realise that. Is he here?’

  He nodded. ‘Inside. Last bed but one at the far end. On the left. A bunch of bastards are down there.’ He spat again. I couldn’t blame him.

  ‘They suffered too, the Germans, you know they did,’ I said. ‘Not all of them were Nazis. They are as desperate as we are now. No homes, no food, no jobs.’

  ‘Let them go and suffer in some other camp. In some other fucking hut. You can tell them that from me.’

  ‘Thank you, Adomas, you’ve been helpful.’

  He found his smile once more and stepped back into the doorway. ‘Fritz,’ he yelled. ‘You got yourself a visitor, lucky bastard.’

  Adomas stood aside to let me pass with a gentlemanly wave of his hand.

  Fritz Geissler was sick. I could smell it on him. Cheeks flushed the colour of plums, eyes glittering too brightly. He said he was in bed because he was a bit tired, yet he barely had the strength to raise his head from the pillow. But his young face burst into a smile when I approached his narrow bed. He was lonely.

  Every pair of eyes had turned on me when I entered the hut. Normally I’d have ignored them, shrugged them off. But here in Graufield Camp nothing was normal. I walked the length of the central aisle of the barrack hut, past the rows of beds. The intimacy was overpowering. Socks and underpants hung drying on the metal bedheads, one man’s pisspot stood waiting to be emptied, the odour of grease and hair oil rose from pillows. But all the blankets were neat and tidy. Whoever was boss of this hut ran it with military precision.

  There were about fifty beds crammed together but most of the occupants were out. Working in the kitchens. Scrubbing the dining tables. Rewiring the new Recreation block. Kicking a ball. Betting on a cockroach race. Anything to fight off the dead weight of boredom. For those still in the hut, well, I was their entertainment today.