The Escape Page 27

  ‘I am Detta Bruncel from Lossen.’

  Chapter 43

  May 1945, Exeter

  Detta

  She heard distant bells chime the half-hour. They walked arm-in-arm under the colonnades. To her left was a row of shuttered shops; to her right a small road, bounded on the other side by a parapet, and beyond that a vast expanse of grass, big as a meadow, in the centre of which was the cathedral. She had the sudden urge to break loose, slipped her arm from his and dashed across the empty road, through a gap in the wall and onto the grass. For so many months she’d been trapped: in the train from Krakow to Odessa, in the boat from Odessa to Liverpool, then in the repatriation centre in London. When was the last time she’d been able to run like this?

  She flung her arms wide and span in a circle, till the stars rushed sideways and her heart pounded. She stumbled, laughing, and he was there, holding her, breaking her fall. She swayed giddily into his embrace, happy to be caught.

  ‘My runaway bride,’ he said.

  ‘It’s just so good to be free.’

  ‘Christ, yes.’ They embraced. Hugging hard, clinging tight, both lost in their own unspoken memories. At last they pulled apart. A warm spring breeze whipped a strand of hair across her face, and he pushed it away. ‘You look done-in, darling. Shall we just go straight to bed when we get to the hotel?’

  She answered with a question: ‘Must I sign in as Mrs Jenkins, even though we won’t be married until tomorrow?’

  ‘I think that would be best,’ he said. ‘Save awkward questions.’

  ‘Isn’t it bad luck to see your bride on the eve of her wedding?’ She faltered a little, and he sensed her meaning.

  ‘There is a sofa in the honeymoon suite,’ he said. ‘I’m sure one of us can manage a night on that, if that’s what’s bothering you?’

  She would never have the kind of wedding she’d dreamt of. She’d never be married by Father Richter, in the Lossen church, with her mother to watch and the Moll girls as bridesmaids. All of that was gone, that other Detta, that other life. But to be a true wife, to withhold herself until after marriage, that was one convention she could keep. ‘You’re sure you don’t mind? I know it seems silly. It’s just one night, I know. But I was brought up to think that a girl should wait, and I—’

  ‘I don’t mind at all.’ He kissed her cheek. ‘One more night won’t kill me, Mrs-almost-Jenkins.’ The pale facade of the hotel looked down on them as they walked back across the road. There were columns and curlicues of wrought ironwork at the entrance. ‘I say, it’s a bit posher than some of the places we’ve stayed in,’ he said, pushing open the double doors.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. And she knew that he, too, was recalling some of the awful billets during the freezing walk to Krakow: the itch of lice, the stench of unwashed bodies, and the constant gnaw of hunger. She reached for his hand and he squeezed it tight as they walked inside together.

  The concierge looked up from the reception desk as they walked into the lobby. ‘Good evening, sir, madam,’ he said, nodding at them in turn, his smooth white hair shining like a pearl in the glow from the standard lamp by the desk. From a door to her right, Detta could hear voices, the chink of glasses and muted chatter. ‘Lounge Bar’ said a brass plaque on the door. She thought for a moment of the public bar in the Deutches Haus, before the war: the radio on, the half-cut banter of the locals, her mother smiling and refilling steins of beer. So long ago. A loud cheer broke her reverie – someone’s birthday, perhaps? The man lifted his eyebrows and continued: ‘Do you have a room booked with us tonight?’

  ‘Yes,’ Tom said. ‘The honeymoon suite.’

  The concierge smiled. ‘Warrant Officer and Mrs Jenkins?’ Tom nodded. The sounds were getting louder from the bar, as if a party were in full swing. Odd, for a Monday night, Detta thought. There were scuffle-thumps in between the cheering, as if furniture were being cleared aside. ‘If you’d both like to sign here, please?’ The concierge held out a pen, and gestured to a large ledger on the desk in front of him. Just then the telephone rang. ‘If you’ll excuse me for one moment.’ Tom signed his name as the concierge took the call. He held out the pen for Detta. She hesitated. Mrs Jenkins – but she wasn’t Mrs Jenkins, not yet. ‘It’s for you, sir,’ the concierge said. He held out the black telephone receiver towards Tom, then walked a few discreet paces away, to give him some privacy.

  Tom took the call. ‘Hello?’ Detta watched Tom’s face, as he spoke. His expression changed, as he listened. He passed the receiver to the other ear, motioned for her to pass the pen so he could scribble something down on the blotter as the person on the other end carried on at length. ‘I see,’ he said, nodding. ‘Yes I can quite see that. Of course I understand.’ The pen slipped from his hand, landing with a soft thump, spilling black ink over the notes he’d just written. He turned slowly back to face her, still holding the receiver in his other hand. ‘Darling,’ he said, and something in his tone made her stiffen with tension. ‘I’m afraid we can’t get married tomorrow.’

  She looked at Tom, telephone receiver dangling, issuing a faint tinnitus buzz – whoever was at the other end had already hung up. It’s because I’m German, she thought. Someone in the RAF, or the clergy, or maybe even a close family member has just told him it’s impossible, irresponsible and morally wrong. You can’t marry her, she’s the enemy, Detta imagined a disembodied voice hissing down the line. Tom wouldn’t marry her, and she’d be sent back.

  ‘We can’t get married?’ she said.

  Tom

  He saw her face crumple in panic. ‘Don’t look like that, Detta.’ He hung the receiver back in the cradle. ‘It’s a dreadful shame we shan’t get married tomorrow, but it solves the dilemma as to who sleeps on the sofa.’ He smiled at her but her expression didn’t change. The volume of cheering and laughter had increased in the bar. Someone had turned off the radio and started thumping out tunes on a piano. ‘We’ll have to get married this evening, darling. That was the vicar on the phone. He’s busy all day tomorrow, because—’

  But he didn’t finish the sentence because at that moment the door of the lounge bar burst open, and a line of revellers spilled out, hooting and whooping, kicking their legs out in a conga line, stumbling and shouting as they snaked round the lobby. The concierge appeared, frowning, from behind the desk. ‘Gentlemen, ladies, please,’ he began.

  ‘Don’t be like that, you silly sod!’ yelled a puce-faced man waving a cigar. ‘Haven’t you heard the news?’

  ‘The news, sir?’

  ‘The war is over!’

  The concierge looked as if he’d just been slapped: ‘The war is over?’

  ‘Just came through on the BBC!’ The conga line passed between them: roaring, exultant faces, and the concierge was grabbed in with happy hands, disappearing with them back through the door, into the bar.

  The lobby was empty. ‘Took the words right out of my mouth,’ Tom said, stepping forward and crushing her so tight in his arms that a gasp of breath escaped. ‘The war is over. It’s VE Day tomorrow and our vicar has special thanksgiving services to do all day, but he says if we meet him in St Stephen’s Church in five minutes, he’ll marry us tonight. You don’t mind, do you, rushing it like this?’ He released her then, looking into her eyes.

  She shook her head, laughing now. ‘Of course I don’t mind!’

  They ran out of the hotel, hand in hand, and he led her down a side alley and up a deserted street, their feet tapping on the empty pavements, to where a brick church stood, on the right-hand side. They stopped, breathless, leaning against the heavy wooden door. A skinny sickle moon was rising above the blitz-broken horizon, picking out the edges of rooftops and rubble in the darkness. As they waited, sounds of music and laughter drifted towards them through the night. Amber lights began to appear in city buildings, like doll’s eyes blinking open, as people ripped blackouts and threw open windows, waking up to peacetime.

  You’re going to be safe now, he told her. You’ll be my wife
. You’ll be British. I want you to forget Germany, think about the future we’ll have together here instead. There will be no more Fräulein Bruncel, you’ll be Mrs Jenkins from now on. Do you think you can do that?

  She held his hand tight, and promised to leave her past behind, for both their sakes.

  The vicar arrived, a friend of his father’s: a man so tall and thin he looked as if he would topple over in a sudden gust of wind. With him was a dumpy woman in a green turban and camel coat and a short, thin hunchbacked woman dressed entirely in black, who he introduced as his housekeeper and her mother – their only witnesses. Unfortunately there was still no electricity in the church, he said, unlocking the door. He lit the huge candles on the altar, and asked if they minded him not changing into his vestments. Tom apologized to them both for getting them out at this hour, but they both said ‘not at all’, and that wasn’t it such wonderful news about the war being over. The housekeeper produced a brass curtain ring from her coat pocket and said to Tom that she guessed he’d need it, and he laughed, agreed, and apologized to Detta for not having had a chance to get her a real one.

  Detta said nothing except ‘I do’ as the metal ring was slid onto her finger: a dim gleam in the guttering candlelight. Tom looked down at her face – his wife’s face. Her eyes were melting pools, looking back at him.

  And for a moment he was back there again, on the path between the church and the Schloss, in the bitter cold, catching the dark-eyed gaze of the girl in the blue scarf. Catching it and keeping it, forever.

  Detta

  The windowpane quivered as a formation of aircraft swooped overhead. The hotel windows were very old, the glass uneven – it was like looking underwater at a shoal of passing fish. They flew quite low, but Detta could barely hear them above the sounds of celebration drifting up from the cathedral green: gramophone records played through loudspeakers, and the happy shouts of the crowds. She glanced round the room: wooden floors, woollen tufted rugs, giltframed pictures of hunting scenes. In the corner there was a china basin where taps occasionally belched drips. The air smelled of lavender floor polish, cool where it touched her bare shoulders and chest, rising out from the rumpled bedsheets.

  Tomorrow, when the shops would re-open, they were going to a jewellers to buy a gold wedding ring. Tom had been very definite about it. I am not taking you to the Rectory without a proper ring on your finger. You have no idea how small-minded some of father’s parishioners can be, he said. If anyone gets wind of the fact all you’ve got on your finger is a bit of brass, it’ll be round the village in no time. Detta thought back to her home in Silesia. She had every idea how small-minded villagers could be. At least here in England the gossip would be just that: gossip. Not a prelude to a visit by uniformed men and a one-way trip in the back of a black truck. She blinked away the memories. She shouldn’t think such things. If only Tom would wake up. She could forget when he was awake, talking to her, kissing her. She thought again of last night. Ah, that was a better memory to dwell on.

  She looked down at him. Her husband. His tousled hair was a sandy smudge on the white pillow. One arm shielded his face: smooth skin and a bulge of muscle. As she watched, she saw him convulse. He made a gagging sound and sat up, eyes wide and unseeing, fingers scrabbling at something invisible against his naked chest – a ripcord that wasn’t there. G-God! His stuttered cry.

  She leant over and wrapped herself round him. She drew his head onto her shoulder, held him close until his panicked trembling stilled. He was warm and soft and smelled of musky smoke. She stroked his hair. ‘It’s okay. You’re awake.’ She kissed the top of his head, held him closer. A starling landed on the window ledge for a moment, and she saw the glistening sheen of the bird’s feathers as it took off into the morning sunshine. ‘It’s okay,’ she repeated. ‘We’re home.’

  Chapter 44

  October 1990, Germany

  Miranda

  ‘Have you seen this?’ Keith says, waving a newspaper in front of my face.

  ‘Not here, Keith!’ Mum’s hand swats it away, but not before I’ve seen the headline: Sunday paper’s drug bust, it says. ‘Sorry, love. This isn’t really the place. We can show her when we meet up tomorrow,’ Mum says. Keith folds the paper and puts it in his pocket, but I glimpse the grainy grey photograph poking out of the mustard corduroy: Quill’s swarthy features snapped through the back of a police car. I blink and take a breath.

  ‘So, did you enjoy the preview?’ I say, gesturing at the vast white room, walls studded with spot-lit photographs in matching brushed-steel frames. The gallery is filled with a cocktail of suited city-types and tangle-haired artists. Mum wears an orange dress, and looks happier than I’ve seen her in years. Keith has on a smarter version of his usual leather-elbowed jacket.

  ‘Wonderful!’ Mum says. ‘I’m so proud – I just wish your father and grandmother were well enough to have been here to see it too.’ Over her shoulder I see Keith rubbing his nose and looking uncomfortable. I smile at him and mouth ‘thank you’ – I know he’s had to bankroll their trip to Berlin to see this – and he flushes beneath his ginger beard.

  Mum releases me. We laugh awkwardly to cover up our emotion, and she asks me more questions about the exhibition. ‘Through the eyes of others’ is curated to show the history of foreign photographers’ impressions of divided Germany, from the end of Second World War to the end of the Cold War. There are only two of my photographs: the ones I took at Jakobstrasse last November, of the boys playing football by the ‘Go West’ poster, and the young men starting to knock down the Wall – urchins and oiks turned black-and-white heroes through the Rolleiflex lens. Only two, but my first professional show – a beginning, at least. I tell Mum and Keith about my plans to document other borderlands, places where there are literal or metaphorical walls: divided cities from Johannesburg to Jerusalem. Mum nods, tilting her head to one side, asking questions, and actually listening to the answers.

  The gallery begins to empty behind us: waitresses clearing lipstick-smeared wine glasses and ashtrays. Gwen joins us, looking like she’s just walked out of one of the photographs herself, with her black trousers and white twinset. She takes my hands, tells me how proud my grandfather would be, especially as I used his camera to take the shots.

  I am getting used to it, this idea of family. For so long it felt like Gran was the only one. But now Mum and I are speaking again, Keith’s been good for her, Dad is out of hospital, and there’s Great-Aunt Gwen, too. A kind of invisible safety net, that I didn’t realize I had.

  Keith looks at his watch and says they should really get going. We arrange to meet for lunch at the Paris Bar the following day. Mum insists I make a note of it in my diary. I grab my rucksack from one of the hooks by the door, and pull out my Filofax. When I open it, a photo falls out: a black and white shot of the off-duty pilot on the snowy path, arms outstretched, like an angel. ‘That’s a nice one,’ Gwen says, picking it up. Her blue eyes dance as she passes it back to me. I write down details of our lunch date, we hug our goodbyes, and then they’re gone. I turn to look out of the uncurtained windows. Stars speckle the clear night skies.

  There’s a tap on my shoulder. I turn. The gallery is empty now. The owner, in a black silk dress and leather choker, asks me what my plans are. ‘I’m meeting Dieter and some other friends down near the Reichstag, if you’d like to join us?’ she says, a smile splitting her glacé cherry lips.

  I hesitate. ‘It’s a kind offer, Petra, but—’

  ‘Or you can watch from here, if you want?’ I nod and she hands me the gallery keys. ‘Lock up afterwards and post them through my letterbox on your way home.’

  ‘Thank you. I will. Enjoy the rest of the night.’

  ‘Oh, I intend to,’ she says, laughing as she plucks her blue fur coat from the hook. ‘I’ve waited a lifetime for it.’ The door bangs shut as she leaves, and I’m alone.

  I pick up my denim jacket and the sky-coloured wool scarf, put them on, and head in the opposite directi
on. There is a fire door at the far end of the gallery. I glance at the frames as I pass, rewinding German history until I’m back in 1945 with the first photograph: the Berlin streets a mess of rubble, Russian tanks in front of the Brandenburg Gate, onlookers with hard, dark-eyed stares.

  I push the cool metal of the fire door and then I’m out into the night. The fire escape ricochets down the grey brickwork to the dark alley below, but from up here there’s a good view between the rooftops to the Reichstag building. The fire door comes to a soft close behind me. I reach out to grip the handrail, feeling the rough, rusted metal beneath the shiny paint.

  It is almost midnight.

  I taste the tang of city air, hearing the honk and growl of cars and buses below, and the distant murmur of the vast, massing crowd. The Reichstag is floodlit, the stonework looking pink-yellow in the bright lights, like cliffs above the rising tide of people. I hear the sound of a door opening and closing, somewhere at street level. I catch my breath. With my free hand I touch the soft wool of the scarf round my neck.

  I look across to the Reichstag, and see the wind whip the German flag, tiny as a page of discarded newsprint, from this distance. A bell begins to chime, and the crowd roars as the flag is hoisted up the flagpole: black, yellow and red streaming out above the people – one flag, one nation, one people. It is midnight and Germany is reunited, at last. The cheering continues, and the tolling of the bell, drowning out the voices of politicians and their speeches. Then the national anthem begins: Deutschland Uber Alles.