The Devil's Playground (29 page)

that behind the films lay Jake’s murderer. That he had

seen this whole thing upside down until now. The films were

the crux and once he had them the rest would follow.

Piet turned towards him and Van Hijn could see that the

man looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m really sorry.’

‘Sorry? What are you talking about?’

‘It was us, detective, who found out about your father.

Years ago, it was our first big scoop.’

Van Hijn stood stunned. The floor had collapsed. He felt

himself spin away from his body. He grabbed on to the door

handle. Felt the world split. Everything twist.

‘I really am sorry.’

‘Did you sell the story?’ He didn’t know it but he was

shouting, his voice trembling on the edge of hysteria. ‘Did

you sell it?’

Piet nodded. ‘Not me personally, of course, but yes, we

did. How do you think we can afford to keep buying these

items, taking them off the market?’ He sounded as reasonable

and rational as a teacher explaining something very simple

to a slow student. Van Hijn turned around. Slammed the

door. Ran down the stairs until the breath pushed against his

chest and his lungs felt heavy and ready to explode.

Outside he stood and watched the rain. There was a

strange smell in the air, an acrid chemical smell but he didn’t

pause to think about it. All he tried to do was breathe. And

that was suddenly the hardest thing to do.

++++++++++++++++++

SUMMER, 1940. GURS TRANSIT CAMP, THE FRENCH

PYRENEES

One stupid syllable, like a sob that gets stuck in the throat.

Gurs.

Today is like any other. The sun shines. But we are not

allowed outside. Not today.

It has been four weeks since they brought us here. Took us

from Nice and put us on unwindowed trains. Nearby are the

mountains, those beautiful impossible peaks, and though they

are not the ones Friedrich saw and painted, I am sure that if I

were to climb their glacial sides, I would come upon a chapel

perhaps, standing like a jewel in the middle of the rock.

Four weeks and I do not like the women I have to share this

room with. There are six of us here and we speak four

different languages and we are all scared and not sure of each

other though our bodies are constantly touching, scraping

against one another for there is no room to move and you

can only stand at one point in the middle of the room where

the roof is kind enough to arch itself.

And it is so hot.

Summer is here and the windows do not exist.

At night I hear the rats running below our feet, sometimes

even feel them as they cross my body, but I do not move lest

waking, I might turn from something to cross into something

altogether different and when I feel the flick of their tails, I

want to cry and scream but I know there is no use.

Today we must clear the mud.

But there is always mud up here in the mountains.

Every night brings with it rain and the earth turns soft and

untrustworthy beneath our sleeping feet. Anna, who sleeps

on my left, fell over today as she was carrying the laundry.

The mud ate her up but no one stopped what they were

doing. Soldiers held her down but we turned away and later

that night there was slightly more room to move.

On my first day here they separated us. Grandpapa went to

the men’s camp and I was sent here. Why do they put me here?

I am not like these women. They are not like me. We speak

different languages. We know different things and yet they

say we are the same. What makes them think we are all alike?

Everyone paints. Whenever there is some time that is not

filled with work, people paint. They use polish off their shoes

and mud and flowers to mix colours and I feel ashamed

because I do not feel like painting.

Today three women were moved into our barracks. There

was very little room but they were so crumpled that they

took the place of only two and, even that, only barely. Like

me, the*y spoke German. That night they told me about a

camp in the East that all the Jews were being sent to. I

listened to what they said and then translated as best I could

for the rest. They told of horrible things, of ovens working

day and night and a camp the size of a small town. The poor

things were so distressed. They had cigarette burns all over

their bodies. They’d escaped, made their way to France and

then, like me, were rounded up and sent here. It cannot be

worse than this place I told them, and they laughed like

madwomen and we knew that their stories weren’t true — that some awful thing had happened to them and that this was a metaphor they used.

I started drawing again. I found a small piece of burnt wood

and I began to draw upon the walls of the barracks room.

Then I traded my day’s food for some paper. I drew the mud

and the women with their backs bent like threshing machines

and I thought about that story of the camp in the East. It

couldn’t possibly be true. I cannot believe the world could

hold such a place. And even if it was true, what could we do?

Is it really better to know these things if it only leaves you

impotent? Are we damned by what we know and can’t

change? I decided not to think about it. I decided to stop

painting. I looked on what I’d done and there was so much

anger in those pieces of paper, so much pain that it scared

me that it had come from my hand. That was not what I

wanted to paint. I didn’t want this ugliness, it has no place

in the frame. I almost burned the drawings but it would have

been another thing gone into smoke and something held me

back, something told me to keep them close, to remind me

of what was outside of my work.

I couldn’t believe it. They woke me today to tell me that I

had been given a pass. That I was to accompany Grandpapa

back to Nice. The other women looked at me as if I had just

hidden the last piece of food. I tried to say something but

there was nothing to say.

Grandpapa hadn’t changed. He was complaining all the

time. We had been freed and all he did was moan. I hated

him then.

There was no way to get back but to walk to the nearest

town. Grandpapa complained.

‘What’s the use?’ I screamed at him. ‘Why tell me? It’s

not my fault. I can’t do anything about it. Just stop it.’

Later we talked about going back. How the world would be.

He didn’t tell me anything about what had happened to him

at the camp and I said nothing of my own experiences. He

never even asked what the pieces of paper I had under my

arm were.

‘Grandpapa,’ I said, as we came to the top of another hill.

‘I’ve come to feel that one must piece the whole world back

together again.’

He slowly turned to me. ‘Oh just do it, kill yourself too,

so this yakking of yours can finally stop.’

We didn’t say anything else to each other. We walked up

and down the hills, the roads, this place so far away from

anything I knew and then it happened. I looked up and saw

the sun bleeding into the horizon, slowly oozing across the

peaks above us, Grandpapa disappeared and the hills suddenly

melted, the world fell away, as if it was nothing but a

wrapper, discarded and useless now, and I said ‘God, my

God, oh is that beautiful’ and I knew then exactly what I

had to do.

He ate breakfast at the Chinese, thinking how nice it would

be to have slipped into that most desired of lives, the uncomplicated courtship, the girl who seemed to vibrate on the

same pulse as you, the effortless roll of an early relationship.

In Suze there was a promise of something better, of

dreams fulfilled and warm evenings spent, dripping dawn

kisses on bathroom floors. All morning his head had been

filled with her movements, with her canyon eyes and long,

desert silences.

But there was something else there. Some terrible sadness

that seemed at times to overwhelm her so deeply, and all he

could do was look helplessly on. And yet that too had its

own seductions, however unwilling he was to articulate them.

He wondered about her fondness for being tied up, for pain,

this thing that had appeared so sudden and strange, and he

thought about Jake, the marks on his body, the things Van

Hijn had said. What was it about this city that drew pain

junkies to its streets and coffee shops? Perhaps it was the

way people minded their own business. The little pockets

of freedom that had opened up here, on the shoulders of

Europe. Or was it something else, something in the nature of

freedom itself, in that long look into the abyss, the seductive

blackness of space?

He finished his noodles and looked at the map again.

Took a sip of tea, trying to ignore the little-girl Chinese pop

music that seemed to be coming from every part of the

restaurant. He’d got the address of the dead girl’s mother

from the phone book. He’d wanted to ask Suze but he

understood that some things were best left unsaid. And there

was something else, something about her these past few days

that disturbed him. The way she seemed to turn away from

questions and mutter to herself, the look on her face when

he mentioned Jake.

He’d re-read what there was about Beatrice in the English

language paper, her academic achievements, her charity

work; the golden girl it seemed, perfect newspaper fodder.

Her life had retrospective tragedy written all over it. Curiously, he felt some connection with the girl’s mother, some

intangible community of murder.

He walked through the quiet residential streets of the

quarter, through the waves of trees and flowers, so absent

everywhere else in the city, and past the tall austere houses,

their width adjusted to the rate of tax, their windowsills like

mouths drooling over the canal. And it was almost like

another city, the postcard one, the perfect one, poking and

breaking its way through the dark slumbering stew of the

District.

The house he stopped in front of was wider than the

others, better looked after, a strict protestant ascension in its

timbers, in the restrained urges of its gables. Yet, like the rest of the neighbourhood, it seemed a remnant from another

time, something so out of place in the early days of the new

century that he almost didn’t go in, afraid that it would suck

him out of the present.

As he climbed the stairs towards the door, he passed by

two stone dogs that stood sentry on either side of him — sad,

cold objects, stoic and useless as they guarded, silent in the

rain. He pressed the buzzer.

The door didn’t open. A frail voice somehow came

through it. ‘Yes?’

‘Mrs De Roedel?’ Jon tried to sound as comforting and

unthreatening as possible. ‘My name is Jon Reed. I would

very much like to talk to you.’

‘Please go away, whoever you are.’ Despite the weakness

of the voice there was a tremor of urgency, a charge vibrating

below the words.

‘Mrs De Roedel, please. I’m a friend of detective Van

Hijn’s.’

‘Are you from the police?’

‘No. I’m from England,’ was the only thing he could

think of and he immediately felt stupid for saying it but it

seemed to have done the trick. The door slowly opened

revealing a tall, elderly woman, dressed in the style of the

fifties, staring at Jon with piercing blue eyes. She looked at

him for the briefest of moments, then said, ‘Come in, please,

Mr Reed.’

He smiled and shook her hand. ‘It’s Jon. Thank you.’

From the outside the house gave the impression of being

small but when he stepped indoors he was surprised at the

sense of space that had been achieved. Decorations and

ornaments filled the place, ancient mementoes from the

empire, Indonesian swords and crisses, tall, elegant spears

sprouting butterflies of iron, flags from countries that no

longer existed. Animal heads, wide-eyed and pinned to

boards, stared down at him as he followed her into a large

room with an ornate carved table in the middle and two

facing sofas. He stared at the paintings, large canvases filled

with busy people drenched in colonial summer and, on one

wall, portraits of family members, proud and elegant in their

heavy wooden frames. He took a deep breath, feeling small

and speck-like, wondering whether anyone had managed to

paint Beatrice in time.

‘You didn’t tell me what you wanted, Mr Reed.’ She sat

down opposite him, her frail figure hardly disturbing the

velvety sofa.

‘I don’t even know what I wanted.’ He hadn’t prepared

a speech or really thought about what he might say to her

and now that he was sitting here, he felt strangely lost for

words, an intruder in this woman’s life. ‘My friend was killed

just over a week ago. The detective thinks that it’s linked

with …’ He stopped and looked down, ‘I’m sorry Mrs De