April 1943
Horst wasn’t the kind of man who had any domestic skills, and even if he had, he would still have expected to be waited on. He could be charming, but only to get his own way, and in some respects he was like a child, bullying one minute and cajoling the next. His presence filled the house. He took the spot nearest the fire, the biggest portion of food, and spent long hours in the washroom shaving and leaving his mess of soap and bristles. Of course, I was to wash without such niceties as soap.
Now we were no longer baking, he left his wet greatcoat hanging on the hook where Fred’s aprons used to hang, and I couldn’t help noticing dark splodges near the hem, stains that could be blood. I daren’t say a thing to him; he was unpredictable, like a predator. And without my glasses, I supposed I must have looked like a peering, mouse-like creature, trying not to jump at her own shadow.
Rachel, of course, was in the hiding place whenever Horst was in, and her presence made me constantly on edge. Every time he went upstairs alone, I held my breath. But so far, months had gone by and he had paid the room where I slept little attention, except for a rap on the door when he expected me to go to him.
One wet April day, Horst was out, and Rachel was stretching her limbs next to the window.
‘Don’t stand so close,’ I said. ‘Someone might see you.’
‘I have to have a little light,’ she said. ‘Have you any idea how much I long to see the sea? To stretch or run, or see the seasons change. I envy you the rain, and the wind. It’s all right for you, you can cycle into town, go for a blow on the top of the hill.’
‘Huh. I spend most of the time queuing. And when I get to the front of the queue there’s just a miserable piece of pork belly – more fat and gristle than meat.’
‘Still, you’re a part of life. I’m just waiting. Waiting to die, or waiting to live.’
I saw her wistful look, and it churned me up inside. When I had to go out for provisions I cycled up the bluff of the hill, out into the lanes. My body was unused to pedalling so hard, and I soon grew out of breath and had to jump off and push. The hedgerows still bore patches of bluebells, rosy-red campion, and, in the scrub, pink thrift. The rain had stopped, and the sun peeked from the scudding clouds. I gathered up a big bunch of dripping flowers and put them in my bicycle basket. If Rachel couldn’t go out to nature, I would have to bring it to her.
I freewheeled down the hill, into the wind, and for once the tension loosened and I felt a kind of freedom, until I saw the humps of the gun turrets where previously there had been only trees.
When I finally got back after the shopping, I filled a striped blue jug with flowers and put them on the table, then took a smaller matching jug upstairs.
Rachel looked up from the bed, where she was reading.
‘For you,’ I said, holding them out with a mock bow.
‘Oh, aren’t they gorgeous!’ She took hold of the jug and held it on her lap. After quite a few minutes she said, ‘You know, I never really appreciated bluebells before. Can I take them into my lair?’
‘Go ahead. Though you won’t see them in the dark.’
‘I have my torch for when you’re both downstairs. And it will make it more like home.’
I nodded, turning away, bitter that a two-foot-six cupboard should have to be someone’s home.
Horst came home and went straight upstairs to put his rifle in his room. By now I knew he kept it behind the door, but his snub-nosed gun was never off his person. He never let me forget there was an armed man in the house. He’d pat that gun, or stroke it, and then watch my eyes flick to it, and smile.
It was a few months before he insisted I share his bed. At first it was a kiss and a grope, but over time it soon progressed to him wanting more.
When I refused, he said, ‘Come on, life will be much pleasanter for us both.’
The way he said it left me in no doubt that it was a threat. After the first night, he took it as his right. He’d thrash on top of me in a desperate sort of way as if he was trying to blot everything out of existence, even me. My body protested. It closed up, tightened, shrank away from him. He knew, and he didn’t like it.
‘Talk to me,’ he said, his hands pinning down my shoulders.
‘I don’t know what to talk about,’ I faltered.
‘Tell me you love it.’
‘I can’t, I—’
The first time he hit me, I was so shocked I cried out.
Later, when he’d gone to work, Rachel saw the bruise on my cheek. ‘Bastard. I heard him.’
‘It’s nothing.’
‘You mustn’t let him. You’ll have to try to keep out of his way.’
‘Easier said than done.’
She paused, sat down at the table opposite me, and pushed her hair back out of her eyes. ‘You look exhausted, Céline.’ A silence. ‘You’re so thin, giving me half your rations. And if I wasn’t here, you could just move away. But you have to be here to feed me, to empty my chamber pot into the privy, to keep him distracted enough not to know there’s a Jew right under his roof.’
‘I wouldn’t have it any other way,’ I said. ‘But sometimes I think I can’t bear it anymore, and I wonder … well, I wonder if we’ll ever be able to stop.’
‘Me too. And I fantasise about the British winning the war and putting a bullet through his head.’