Island Madness (37 page)

He starts to move off, beckoning the Dutchman to follow him, but the man stands his ground with a shake of his head, urging him to flee, not to bother with him. He beckons again, and again the man refuses, waving him away, as if he is driving back cattle. The boy turns and starts to run and when he looks back the Dutchman has not moved still. But this time he does not shoo the boy away. He raises his hand, simply, as if holding aloft a silent thought, waves once, now blows him a kiss and then ducks swiftly out of sight.

It is a long journey, longer than he has imagined, across the heart of the island, through steep hidden valleys and slippery moss-infested brooks, running nervously along all too quiet lanes, duck-ing under the stretch of spider-web bombs that sing in the light breeze, the promise of a westerly wind, blowing contentedly in his face. Then he breaks out into the flat of Cobo, and twenty minutes later he is at the back of the darkened house. She is sitting at the table with her head in her hands, the oil lamp flickering with her sobs. He wonders whether that man has made her do it with him again, and it makes him angry. He bangs on the window. She looks up, frightened. Then she sees his face pressed up against the glass and she jumps up, throwing the door open, taking him in his arms, swinging him round and round as if he were a baby. He cannot understand the ferocity of her reaction, the tears that roll down her face, her damp insistent kisses, the way she turns him this way and that, hugging him at every opportunity. “Police,” he warns her, not
police
but the German word
polizei
, and she holds his head against her and murmurs, “
Ja, ja, ja, ja
,” in such a soft understanding way it was as if she knows, knows and doesn’t care. “Friend,” she says and taps her own chest. “You stay here now. No more digging. No more tunnel.” Then she drags the tin bath out again and while the pans warm on the stove sits him on a chair and pulls out a pair of scissors from the drawer under the table and cuts his hair, cuts it short, like it used to be. Then she stands him up and pulls off his clothes, the stench rising as each garment hits the floor, and she holds her nose again and they laugh together just like the last time, opening the little grate and chucking them in, all except the jacket which she pulled from his shoulders the moment he was through the door. And when the bath is full, she coaxes him in, first one foot then the other, stabs of pain shooting up his leg as she splashes it gently over him, on his back and arms, his chest and belly, reaching up for his neck and guiding him down so that he is kneeling, his lips touching the surface before she grabs his head and she pushes him under. He comes up gasping, frightened and she takes hold of his head and kisses the top of it, the front of her dress all wet where his face presses up against her, like some other time, long lost, by some other fire. He doesn’t mind when she ducks him under again, his scalp tingling and his ears singing, and when she is done he sits with his feet sticking out over the sides, while she holds each one in turn, working her thin curved scissors underneath his black toenails. Then he is up and out, naked before her while she dries them, dusting the gaps between his toes, kissing their blistered arches. He is not white any more but a pale olive colour and there is a length to his muscle and a masculine confidence in his stature that had not been there before. He is not a boy but a young man with his hands held over himself. So she straightens up and hands him the faded pair of pyjamas and turns her head while he dresses. And when he is decent she cooks him a plate of mashed potatoes and swede and afterwards leads him upstairs and shows him the narrow bed which wobbles and smells of her, with feathers in the pillow and a quilted cover laid on top. She peels it down and pats it open and he climbs in and draws the quilt over his ears and looking at her and the enormous room falls asleep.

She sits, watching over him. He is just like any other boy. That is what he has become and that is what he must remain. Any other boy. He will not go back. She will not let him.

She walks down the stairs and out into the back field. She brushes her hair with the back of her hand and straightens her dress. She only hopes his mother has gone to bed.

Thirteen

I
t had been raining off and on most of the night but with the dawn came an unfettered sun and the air was full with the throated chorus of birds. The telephone call had come through late afternoon. The Major was to report to the headquarters in the morning. A boat would be at the harbour to take him to Jersey at ten. Out in the garden the foliage glistened and the path down to the cove was slippery underfoot. The spring tide had pulled the water a long way back and the dark bubbling cratered sand was alive with sandpipers and terns. As he walked out to the water the bare rocks that he passed were dark and sombre, and the seaweed, not usually exposed, a greenless black-brown, the colour of a ruined world. The ribs of a long-sunk ship poked out from the greasy mud: lumps of rusted iron lay in dark green puddles. It had the look of a scorched, smouldering landscape, as if an army had fought over it with tanks and mines and flame-throwers and, having burnt and bombed it into submission, had moved on. It reminded him of the land he had never seen, but whose contours were branded on his soul: the blistered map of Stalingrad.

He swam out a good distance, a quarter of a mile maybe. The water was cold and the high swell lifted him up and down in long regular beats. Though he knew it would bring him pain he could not help but look up to the Villa. The tide had yet to turn and though he could feel his body being pulled out ever further, it did not worry him; indeed, he encouraged this movement with the hidden paddie of his feet, for by doing so, the natural world became larger, omnipotent, and he a mere cork on its restless surface.

After smashing the pictures he had lain out on the lawn, drinking from a bottle of wine. After a while the Captain had come and stood over him.

“Do you know what you have done?” he shouted.

Lentsch had lurched to his feet, throwing his arms back at the house. “Smashed a bloody picture, Rheinhardt! Smashed three bloody pictures!” He wheeled around and raised the half-empty bottle into the air. “Bloody awful pictures too.”

Captain Zepernick grabbed his arm.

“You’re a fooi, Gerhard, an inconsiderate fooi.” He pointed back to the Villa. “Major Ernst is already on the phone. I am to place you under house arrest immediately. Tomorrow you will be escorted from the island to Jersey and then to the mainland. God knows what will happen to you there. It is not good, Gerhard, what you have done. Another time I might have been able to help you. But now!”

“Do they shoot you for breaking pictures now?”

The Captain had marched him to the far end of the garden, and stood shouting huge, incomprehensible words into his ear. He could not believe what the Captain was telling him. It did not seem within the realm of the real world, that such a thing could happen here. There was, the Captain had told him, a strict blackout on the news. On the island only he, Captain Zepernick and Major Ernst knew. That’s why Ernst had looked so pleased with himselfl They were His fortifications He would be coming to inspect. No wonder Ernst was beginning to treat this place as his own fiefdom.

“How long have you known?” he asked.

Captain Zepernick shrugged his shoulders. “A month? I was not allowed to tell you,” he explained.

“Come here?” Lentsch repeated. “But what will the islanders think?”

“The islanders?” Zepernick’s mocking echo rang round the small bay. “What have the islanders got to do with anything? Think rather of the propaganda. Here on British soil with British police-men saluting. British children waving flags.”

“They wouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, they would. Enough at least.”

“For how long?”

“Long enough for the cameras.”

Lentsch shook his head. “I meant the visit.”

Zepernick shrugged his shoulders again. “Two hours. Three?” He rubbed his hands together. “There will be a lunch, I believe.”

Lentsch looked up to the house, as if he was going to be personally responsible.

“A lunch! And who will cook this lunch? Albert? He knows enough about vegetarian cooking, I suppose, thanks to the food shortage.”

“Gerhard, Gerhard.” Zepernick spoke softly. “Galm down. Do not put your life at any greater risk. This afternoon I will have to write my report. I cannot deny what you have done, but I will tell them of the great strain you have been under, how much this girl’s death has affected you. I will not tell them you wished to marry her. That would not help. I will stress that she was the daughter of our leading construction engineer, and with his presumed suicide you were worried that the defence projects might have been placed in jeopardy. That will sound good. Ernst might want to disagree but now that you are out of the way he will not bother much. He has won his battle. Bohde is a different story. He will remember every indiscreet word you have ever uttered. So now you behave correctly, understand? Do nothing more to hurt your cause. You will stay here tonight. In the morning a boat will come. You understand?”

“I understand, Rheinhardt.”

“No more little excursions to your tame Inspector’s house.”

“You know of that?”

“I am Head of Security. Of course I know.” He looked at his watch. “I must go. I am late.” He held out his hand. “Goodbye, Gerhard. Good luck.”

Lentsch felt himself nodding stupidly.

He lay in bed that night unable to sleep. He could hear Bohde and the Captain talking into the early hours of the morning, Ernst too. Perhaps they were keeping watch on him. He was coming here! It would be a triu
mph
, no doubt, for Him to step on British soil, a trophy to take back to the defeated battlefields of the other Europe. Medals would be struck. Those who escorted Him, served Him His meal of vegetables and rice, shook His hand, would be marked for ever. It was a rare event now, those hallowed meetings of master and men. Gone were the field lunches, the open-air car tours, the platform behind His train. Gone were the walks along mountain paths, the incidental meetings, the clasp of man and country. Gone too those hesitant, shape-searching speeches that had thrilled them all. He shivered now, not at the cold current puiling him out, but at the memory of that first one he had heard, to the Hitler Youth, the bare-kneed boys, thousands of them, washed and scrubbed, standing up on tiptoe or on one another’s shoulders, jostling and jumping to see Him coming. He’d been given a ticket from his fiancée’s father and had stood high up at the back. He could remember every word, every gesture. “We want no class divisions,” He had intoned. “You must not let this grow up amongst you.” His voice had faltered with that admonition, broken on the wheel of that profound longing, the crowd hanging in silence on the trembling space between His words. Lentsch had felt a gnawing pang of envy stir within him. What adult did not want to be a youth then, to grow up under such tutelage? How the boys roared when He stepped back. Is that what He had promised? Eternal youth, eternal pubescent strength, harnessed to an elementary world of work and play with no other reward except the nation’s brimming health. Was that what had driven them into His embrace, the blind belief that the world could be that simple? He remem-bered that time, the only time he had come close to Him. It had been early on, in ‘33, or ‘34. He was on leave, back home, drinking as it happened on a Sunday afternoon with some fellows at the inn. He had joined the army only recently, his father’s regiment, and though happy with his choice it had not been an easy decision. There were other things that life had called for him. It was hard to say, but he had thought to study ornithology, and had spent years learning natural history, first at home and then in Edinburgh, where to the amusement of his landlady and fellow students he had learnt to dance the reel. He had made friends there, some whose fathers owned estates such as his own, who shot and rode as he did, felt the call of heritage and duty as he did, and others who felt another calling, a life of work rather than duty, and though he was susceptible to that too, the call of his country had come winging back. Yes, it had been a long time coming that call, like the slow flap of the geese rising out of the damp swamp, but when it came it was as if the sun had risen and cleared the mist and all one could see was a country of great beauty and power, worked by a great people. In those days, journeying to Munich or Berlin, the new leader would try and cross the country unseen, his chauffeur, his aide, his photographer and a small following staff car his sole companions, but though He might fooi the first town or village, word of His coming spread ahead like a forest fire. Lentsch was sitting outside when the news had come through, phoned to the burgher by his opposite number twenty kilometres up the road. There was no time to prepare, just a handful of hasty flowers plucked from front gardens, flags unfurled and pushed out of top windows. By the time the car turned the bend the whole village was out, men with the smudge of work on their hands, smelling of oil and horse liniment, children in straightened socks and brushed breeches clutching their school slates, wives in short-sleeved dresses, their elder daughters blushing in newly ribbed plaits, Dr Hascha and the Pastor fussing at the front, Paul Koenig tightening the threadbare stretch of his policeman’s uniform. And yes He did stop, first standing up in his dark-blue open seven-litre Mercedes, then stepping out, smaller than they had imagined, hat in hand, His brown suit a size too large and somewhat crumpled, his hair dry and unhealthy. But as He looked out over them, His gaze never faltering, it all became clear. Everything He saw belonged to Him! When He looked up at the gables, He saw His flags fluttering from His houses; when He held out His hands He placed them on the heads of His children, and when He bent low to receive their gifts they were His flowers He took, grown in His garden. He knew them all, the schoolmaster, the blacksmith, the midwife, knew them all, in this village and the village after this and the village after that. He was their master, wanting nothing for himself, only to make them safe and their land secure. Frau Tobelman standing on the steps of the inn had stepped forward bearing the tray of cakes they all knew to be His one weakness; strudels with sugar and nuts, the chocolate éclairs, the marzipan fillings. He should not, they knew. To indulge would display a weakness, and weakness was to be shunned. And what about the next port of call and the one after that? Would He insult them by taking a cake here and refusing those? But then He caught her beseeching eye and, nodding as if He recognized the fatality of this lost cause, held a hovering hand over the display. He would sacrifice himself on the altar of her matronly art. This was the land of cakes and cake eaters, and was not He their representative on earth and in the mystical vaults of beyond? Reaching out He selected the biggest and took a bite, turned it in His mouth as they bit with Him, holding their breath as He savoured the balance of cream and pastry and the still German air. Handing the remainder to His aide He pronounced it the finest cake in the world! If He could choose another life for Himself, He would put His feet up on one of the tables in the inn here and spend the rest of His days eating plateful after plateful! How they had roared with merriment at the charm and absurdity of the idea. Then He had grown solemn and shaken Frau Tobel-man’s hand and murmured something soft, intimate, kissing the back of her hand. (The innkeeper’s wife had spoken to Him! He had kissed her! For months afterwards she had been like a goddess or one of those figures out of Greek mythology, a bearer of great powers and great wisdom, transformed, not simply in her eyes but in the rest of the village’s. Even his own mother, sophisticated, educated, had held her in awe after that.) Then He had turned, coming face to face with Lentsch. There was a wisp of cream on His moustache, a flake of pastry on his lapel. He looked at Lentsch as if He could hear the very fluttering of his past, as if He had lain by his side as a young boy, waiting for the geese to flap above, the soft grey of their bellies filled with warm and sacred blood. For a moment, terrible in its intensity, Lentsch had imagined that it was his destiny too, to be singled out that afternoon, that He would recognize in him an officer out of uniform, there to serve his country, and he had drawn himself up and stood to unmistakably military attention. But He did not seek him out. He did not draw him close. He looked. He saw. He turned away, plunging in the opposite direction with smiles and greetings, as if the sight of Lentsch had spoilt this uncomplicated treat. At the time Lentsch did not understand, but now came the tales of His great consuming hatred of His army and the secret admiration He held for Stalin, His Slavic enemy who had eliminated his troublesome officer class at one stroke. “Would that I had done the same,” He had been heard to cry. Lentsch found it unimaginable that the nation’s leader should utter such a thing. And now He was coming here if the war allowed, His own birthday present to Himself. The thought of Him strutting amongst these lanes filled him with revulsion. It was all very well at home. They deserved Him. These islanders did not, none of them. It was not their fault, any of it. Not Isobel’s death, not the smuggling, not the broken families, the cheap love affairs, the bitter recriminations. None of it. This wretched traffic in misery was all their fault. His and Lentsch’s and all the rest of them. They were devouring the island piece by piece, as though it were a house made of sweetmeats and they some monstrous army of Hansels and Gretels. And it came to him suddenly, a spoken voice that touched his heart. He must not come! He must not! Must not!