Wilhelm stumbles over the fields towards the farm, but he’s not going home. Although he longs to be with his parents he knows that seeing them will weaken his resolve. And he must do what he has to do. It is only right. He’s sorry for the pain he will cause his parents, but it’s better this way. His legs can barely hold up his body; he’s weak from hunger. He’s been walking since early this morning, not caring whether he was seen or not, though in fact he has not met anyone.
It starts to rain, gently at first, then harder. It soaks into his thin clothes, chilling him. He thinks of the fire in his mother’s kitchen, the smell of bread baking in the oven, the tang of wood smoke in the air. How he yearns to be with his family, but he mustn’t give in to this feeling. On and on he staggers, feet sinking into the mud in the fields. Most of the crops have been harvested, leaving the fields bare and empty.
The rain is coming down in torrents now, bouncing off the ground. He can hardly see two metres in front of him, but he carries on with one aim in mind. It can’t be far now.
At last, Jan is on his own with Lena. He rushes into her room and grabs some clothes from a drawer, making sure he has some jumpers and a coat. The sky is overcast, and they have a long way to go. He’s going to make his way back to the border and try to reach Anatole’s house. From there perhaps he’ll be able to find Marek. It’s not too far, he tells himself, and Marek will help them, he knows he will. Once he has bundled her clothes together he searches for food. Bread and ham, that will be good, and there’s cheese too. Lena ignores him as he dashes round the farmhouse. She’s playing with her doll, dressing her up in a blue cotton dress that Gisela made.
Jan has gathered everything together; he’s ready to go and rushes over to pull her up from the floor. “Come on, Lena, we have to go.”
She bursts into tears, frightened by the sudden movement. Jan closes his eyes, wishes for patience. He drops down to her level. “Do you want to play a game?” he says.
Her lip is pouted, and she doesn’t answer.
Jan wants to shake her. Friedrich said he’d be back in an hour, and it’s already fifteen minutes since he left. Every second is vital. Deep breath and a casual “We could hunt for treasure”.
A flicker of interest. “Where?” she says.
“Out in the field, come on, let’s put on your shoes.”
Lena sits passively while he puts on her shoes. When she’s ready, he holds out a hand to her. He mustn’t rush her. “Ready to go?”
She takes his hand, and he wants to cry with relief. “Let’s go,” he says.
It’s much colder outside today than it has been for some time. Jan pulls Lena up the hill. He’s going past the barn towards the woods, where there’s a track that will take them on their way. The main road is in the other direction, and he trusts that when Friedrich discovers they’re missing, he’ll think they’ve gone that way. Jan has dropped the cardigan Lena was wearing earlier, on that path, hoping that this will divert them long enough to give him and Lena a good start. They’ve been walking for five minutes when it starts to rain, very quickly changing from a soft drizzle to a thunderous torrent. He curses. This is disastrous; they’ll have to shelter. Still pretending it’s a game, he runs with Lena to the barn, praying that it will go off soon.
“We’ll sit here for a minute,” he says to Lena.
“Is the treasure here?” she asks, shaking the rain from her hair.
“Not here, no. We’ll wait until the rain stops, then we’ll go on.” Jan catches his breath as someone dashes into the barn. Damn! Is it Friedrich? He pulls back into the shadows, taking Lena with him. But it isn’t Friedrich, it’s someone much younger. The young man scans the barn, and Jan holds his breath; what if he spots him and Lena? But it’s so dark he doesn’t see them, and fortunately Lena doesn’t notice what’s going on. What’s he doing? He’s sweeping the hay aside, and now he’s kneeling on the floor, pulling at something. A trapdoor rises, and the man disappears beneath it, closing it behind him. Jan is baffled, then remembers the conversation that Gisela and Friedrich had. This must be what they were talking about.
Wilhelm climbs down into the hidey-hole. He’d forgotten how small it is. Doesn’t matter, he won’t be here much longer. The blankets, lamp and matches are still there. Good, he wants some light to comfort him. Everything’s worse in the dark, more frightening. Wilhelm lights the lamp and shakes out the blankets. He wraps one round him, settles into the corner and gets out his razor from his jacket pocket.
Jan can’t help himself. He wants to know what’s going on. It’s still raining hard, so he might as well take a look and see what’s happening. Lena’s almost asleep; he’ll leave her for a second to check it out. He creeps across to where the young man vanished and examines the ground. There is a trapdoor, and it has holes in it. Jan’s heart beats faster. There’s light coming through the holes. He kneels down and puts his eye to one of them and squints to see what’s going on. It takes him a second to adjust to the change in light. It’s a deep hole, a hiding place. The man is down there; he takes up most of the space. He’s wrapping a blanket round himself. Jan wishes he had a blanket; it’s so cold today. The man settles down, leans against the wall. It looks cosy in there, Jan thinks. He wonders why the man is hiding and hopes he is not an enemy of Gisela and Friedrich, for although they’re not very nice to him, they dote on his sister, and he wouldn’t want to see any harm to come to them. But it’s not his concern, and he really should be on his way; the rain is tailing off. One last look… Jesus! The man has a razor and is holding it to his wrist. Jan looks down at him in horror.
Gisela runs out of the house, but the rain forces her back inside. As she goes to close the door, she sees Friedrich appear. He’s drenched through. She pulls him inside.
“Some day, eh?”
“Never mind that. Where’s Helena?”
“With the boy.”
“There’s no one here. And look,” she says, thrusting the letter at him, “he’s not who he said he was.” Her voice rises. “Who is he, Friedrich?”
Friedrich scans the letter, a deep frown on his forehead. “I don’t understand.”
“Neither do I, and there’s more. Wilhelm has disappeared from Hans’s house. He walked out earlier today. Hans said he was behaving oddly and was very depressed.” Gisela sinks onto a chair and bursts into tears. “We have to get out there and find them. But where do we start?”
“Wilhelm could be anywhere, but the children can’t have gone far. You go down towards the main road, and I’ll go to the upper fields.”
“No, they can’t have gone down to the main road. I would have passed them on the way back,” says Gisela. “We’ll concentrate on the upper fields.” She puts on her coat. Rain or no rain she’s going out to find them.
Outside the farmhouse, Friedrich spots the red cardigan that Helena was wearing. It is by the side of the path, which leads to the main road. “Are you sure you didn’t miss them?”
“Yes, I told you. There’s no way I could have missed them. I’ll go up to the barn, and you go into the woods. They can’t have got far in this rain.” Gisela starts to run up to the barn closely followed by her husband.
The mud is treacherous, slowing her down. It’s too hard to keep going at speed; she has to stop to catch her breath. I’ll get there, she tells herself. Two minutes, and I’ll be there. The rain is hammering down, sheets of it.
Jan scrambles down the steps to the man and crouches beside him. The man is unconscious, his shirt covered in blood. Jan’s head is swimming; he can’t stand the sight of blood, and there’s so much of it here. He’s never seen so much since the morning his father died, all those men, lying in front of Horak’s barn, drenched in scarlet. Mustn’t think of it, concentrate on what’s happening now, get the razor off the man. He swallows hard to try to control his nausea and reaches across to move the razor away. As he does so the man stirs; his eyes open and lock onto Jan’s. They are pale blue, lifeless. Jan starts to speak, to say something comforting, but the words won’t come. Scenes from the past are crowding in on him. He’s back at Horak’s farm, in the cherry tree, watching men like this one slaughter his father and friends; he’s in a forest in Poland listening to a man plead for his life, begging to see his wife and children once more. He can hear Marek chiding him: They’re the enemy. Do you think they’d show any mercy to you?
Jan hesitates. He can’t save this man, how can he? He’s a German, a Nazi, a murderer, and he deserves to die. He’ll leave him here; it’s what Marek would want. He’ll climb back up, grab Lena and run, get far away from this hellish place.
But Marek wants more than that; his voice is insistent: Come on Jan, don’t let this opportunity slip by you. You could kill him; see how easy it would be. Grab the razor, slit his throat, there’s no fight left in him. Finish him off. Avenge your father’s death; it’s your duty. The voice is so clear he looks up expecting to see Marek, but there’s no one there.
Jan seizes the razor and looks at the man. He tries to read the expression in the man’s eyes. It should be terror, but there’s no fear there. Resignation, that’s what it is. He wants Jan to kill him. Jan drops the razor. He can’t do it. He can’t kill a man in cold blood. He closes his eyes in despair. He can’t even leave him to bleed to death; he’ll have to try to stop it.
“No,” the man yells. His eyes are full of the terror Jan expected to see when he grabbed the razor from him, but he’s looking past him up to the opening of the hiding place. Jan turns round to see a pitchfork coming towards him. Just in time he moves out of the way. It crashes into the hiding place, grazing his thigh. Jan squints up to see who threw it. It’s Gisela, her face red with fury. Behind her is Lena, crying, looking terrified. At first Jan thinks she is weeping for him; his heart leaps that she cares, but no, she is calling another name, Willi, and pointing past him at the man. She doesn’t seem to care that Gisela has just tried to kill him. The thought hurts him more than anything. “Help me,” he cries, “he’s bleeding to death.” He climbs up the ladder, his legs trembling so much he thinks he’ll fall.
Gisela grabs him and shakes him until he can hardly breathe. “What did you do to him, you little bastard?”
Somehow he finds the strength to free himself from her grasp. “I didn’t do anything. He’s cut his wrists with a razor.”
Gisela pushes past him and climbs down the steps to the man. She rips her skirt to make bandages. The man speaks to her. “I did it, Mother. The boy was trying to save me.” A moment later he slides back into unconsciousness. It doesn’t look too good to Jan. Gisela wraps the material round each wrist, and pulls as tight as she can. “Go and find my husband, he’s in the fields,” she shouts up to Jan. “Tell him I’ve found Wilhelm. Tell him to hurry. Please!”
Jan doesn’t know what to do. He wants to grab Lena and run – but if he does, the man could die, and he owes him. If it weren’t for him, Jan would be dead.
Lena is terrified by all the shouting. Before he can stop her she starts to climb down into the hidey-hole. “Willi,” she cries. “Mutti!” Jan pulls her back up, but she resists and keeps trying to get down beside them.
“Come with me,” says Jan, but she screams and pulls away from him. In despair he shakes her. “Please Lena, come with me,” he says. But again she screams out, “No.” He tries speaking to her in Czech, but she ignores him. From the hidey-hole, Gisela is still yelling at him to get help. He wants to run away, but he can’t, he has to help. “Forgive me, Tati,” he whispers as he goes out into the rain to find Friedrich.
Gisela holds her son as if he were a baby. “Hold on, hold on,” she says over and over. “Vatti’s coming.” It kills her to see her son like this. Wilhelm opens his eyes, but she can see he isn’t focusing. Her heart is torn in two. Where is her husband?
“Gisela, you come up here so’s I can get down there and bring him up.” Friedrich’s voice is just above her. “We need to get him back to the farm.” She’s reluctant to leave Wilhelm, but Friedrich should be able to carry him, she certainly can’t. She climbs up and lets Friedrich into the hole, watching as he struggles in the tiny space to hoist Wilhelm over his shoulder.
The rain has stopped, thank God. Friedrich carries Wilhelm back to the farmhouse. Gisela has run on ahead to start heating some water to warm him up. If he doesn’t die from loss of blood she fears he will die from the cold. The two children trot along behind her, Helena’s finding it hard to keep up. Gisela’s yet to find out who the boy is and why he has come to their farm, but already she’s thanking him in her heart for saving her son.
I had no choice, thinks Jan. I couldn’t leave him to die. And Lena knew him; he must have been a friend to her when she arrived here all alone. He saved my life; I couldn’t leave him to die. The arguments sound shallow to him. What would the partisans have done? They would have slit his throat without a second thought or at the very least left him to die – a German man, the age to fight. He was the enemy after all.
But if he is the enemy, why is he hiding in a farm in Germany and not fighting in the army? Jan can’t understand what’s going on. And why did he try to kill himself? It doesn’t make sense.