The Road Between Us (42 page)

He runs a teacloth under the tap and fills it with ice before pressing it to the back of his neck and continuing down another flight of stairs to the cellar where he hopes the air will be cooler. Here he sees a key in the door of a room he had previously found locked. He takes it out, enters, finds the light switch and, when no light comes on, he closes the door behind him, locks it from the inside and pushes the key back under the door. As he lies on the cool marble floor, with the ice pack pressed against his brow, his breathing returns to normal. Saved from temptation by the locked door, he feels his composure returning. The hot night has cooled around him. Within minutes, he feels as if he is afloat on a gentle river, drifting towards the sanctuary of sleep.

When Edward awakes, everything is black and he doesn’t know where he is. There is a distant howling in his ears, one that might have been building for minutes, perhaps hours. At first he cannot even tell whether it is coming from outside or inside and he wonders if it isn’t so much a sound as an insidious pressure on his inner ear. A repetitive clatter becomes discernible within the cacophony – shutters flapping against a wall – and then he hears Hannah’s voice calling him.

‘Dad? Where are you?’

‘In here.’ He hears the door handle move up and down as Hannah tests it.

‘I can’t open it,’ she says.

‘The key is on the floor by your feet.’

There is a pause as she looks for it then he hears a rattle as the key turns. ‘Why did you do that?’ she asks as she opens the door. ‘Come upstairs. You need to see this. It’s like the end of the world.’

By the time they reach the bedroom, the curtains are billowing
in like sails and Edward has to dip his shoulder and plant his feet solidly on the floor to reach the open window. As he peers outside, a bolt of lightning illuminates the garden for a second, revealing a stormy sea of twisted boughs and dark foliage. Tiles are being ripped from the roof and are smashing on the terrace as if hurled there by some vengeful demon.

Without pausing to put on any more clothes, Edward runs downstairs, opens the front door and marches out into the garden. Rain is lashing against his face and chest, making him gasp at its ferocity. But instead of sheltering from it, he opens his arms wide and throws back his head. The hard clay under his feet is churning to mud. Cataracts are appearing all around him, creating an obscene dark foam that covers the lawns. As he runs towards the river, Edward sees the cause of this. It has burst its banks and its surface appears to be boiling. At this moment, a tree comes crashing down in front of him, blocking his path.

Becoming aware of a torch being shone in his face, he shields his eyes.

‘You OK?’ It is Hannah.

There appears to be white ash in the air now, caught in the beam of the torch like eddying snowflakes. Wondering if this storm is something to do with the volcanic eruptions on Jan Mayen island, Edward begins laughing loosely. This is nature in all its untempered violence, and he feels intoxicated by it. He scoops up a handful of mud and rubs it into his chest before running deeper into the garden. Here he finds the ground is like a sponge under his bare feet, with beads of black blood squeezing out. In a thicket of hazel, he grabs at a clump of young fir that is budding with soft paws, wanting to feel them against his skin, saturate himself with their texture, savour their sharp needles. He is bleeding now and, as he lies down, he longs for the blood to mingle with the mud and smuts of ash. The night, the undergrowth, is in his veins.

He looks back to see Hannah catching up with him, her shoulders hunched. Everything around her seems to be in movement, the whipping branches, the spiralling leaves, but she is the still
centre of the storm. Even her hair, clinging in wet snakes to her forehead, is not moving.

‘The gods are angry!’ Edward shouts. Lightning and thunder crackle and, with every bolt on the horizon, he can see the surrounding mountains looming claustrophobically, crowding in on him. He feels a delicious terror at his own scale beside them, a small human figure in a vast landscape – man lost in the immensity of nature, without horizons, without confinement. The rain is black ink now, bouncing as it hits the ground. Hannah was right; it is like the last day on earth.

He runs over to her and takes her by the hands. Blood is beating visibly at her temples. She is trembling.

‘Come back inside,’ she shouts, her tears mixing invisibly with the rain. ‘Please! You’re frightening me.’

‘You can’t fight nature, Han!’ he shouts back.

He is exhausted now. Releasing her from his grip, he lies down in the mud again and allows himself to be flayed by the rain. Its whip is hard and emphatic against his skin, an invading force that cannot be resisted. He feels as if the earth is rising up beneath him, a presence, a living creature that wants to flood his senses. It is prevented only by a fragile membrane of skin.

When Hannah wakes next morning she feels momentarily confused by the silence. The storm has passed. In the dawning light, she treads tentatively down the stairs to survey the damage. The drawing room is all but impassable, blocked by a tree that has come through the window, taking with it a part of the wall. It has brought with it the soily, peppery smell of freshly fallen timber and she has to climb over its muscular limbs to reach the kitchen. Here she picks her way around a broken wine glass with a rust of purple sediment in its bottom. Leather-bound books are scattered around. Paintings, tapestries and antlers have been blown from the walls and the base of the lamp is smashed, leaving the shade intact.

Outside, fragments of terracotta tiles are strewn all over the
terrace, along with broken pots, upturned garden chairs, fragments of a bird table, a ripped canvas parasol and a wheelbarrow.

Her father is on the riverbank, and she wonders if he ever came back in last night. He is standing with his back to her, mist rising off the ground around him. In his hand there is a book. When he hears her he turns, a mild smile touching his colourless lips. ‘I found this,’ he says, holding out the volume. There is Arabic writing on its cover. ‘It’s the Koran. It was wrapped inside a prayer mat. It must have been on top of one of the cupboards knocked over by the tree.’

Seeing the query in her father’s raised eyebrow, Hannah says: ‘Perhaps they belong to the housekeeper.’ But she doesn’t believe it. Martin Cullen had told her that Walser helped freeze al-Qaeda assets. What if his link with the Muslim world went further than that? What if he was implicated in some way in her father’s kidnapping? Her mind is racing now and she is feeling guilty for having brought her father to this disturbing place, putting him in harm’s way again. She wants to leave as soon as possible. Their summer is over.

PART SEVEN

I

Nancy. Late summer, 1944

ONE MONTH AFTER THE ALLIED INVASION OF SOUTHERN FRANCE
begins, the US ‘Blue Ridge’ Division rolls into Nancy, effectively marking its end. The psychological impact of seeing an old-fashioned bayonet charge had proved too much even for the most hardened German veterans, and the white strips of cloth they waved in surrender have now been tied to railings and doors, making it look as if there is a carnival about to start.

The liberators enter through the city gate, bulky twin towers that date back to the fifteenth century. The arch between them displays the Cross of Lorraine, the symbol of Nancy, and as Charles cranes his neck to take this in, he realizes the hour of his own personal liberation may now be close.

Yet the realization makes him uneasy. For five years, barely a day has passed in which he hasn’t thought of ways to reach Anselm. Now that there is a more realistic chance of it happening, he finds his resolve slipping from underneath him like a shelf of sand. He tries to picture his friend. In his memory he always wears a sleeveless sweater and a loosened tie. His hair falls forward over an angular face. Now? God knows. Will they even recognize one another?

‘We will have to be careful here,’ a tired and dusty-looking Lehague says, snapping Charles out of his reverie. ‘The Germans
will have left booby traps. Wire strung taut at neck height across roads. And Bouncing Betties. Do you know what a Bouncing Betty is?’

Charles takes a drink from his canteen. Shakes his head.

‘Castration mine. They explode shrapnel at crotch height.’

On the outskirts of the town, they pass the carcasses of cattle swollen in the heat. Humans too: the legs and buttocks of one German lying face down in the earth have ballooned to such a degree they have stretched his grey breeches to ripping point. In his now skin-tight trousers he looks like a Regency fop in pantaloons.

They pass the charred corpse of the burning German soldier Charles had dispatched with merciful marksmanship. His fingers are tiny stumps. The cloth of his uniform has burned away, exposing his scorched torso. His pubic hair is reduced to a clump of steel wool. When Charles covers his body with a ground cape it makes a crispy sound.

The civilians on the now-open bridge do not acknowledge them. They are mostly elderly women wearing shawls over their heads. Some are pulling handcarts stacked high with bundles, boxes and pans. Their town has been under siege and they have been cut off from the outside world; now they are free to come and go as they please, visit their families, conduct business.

As they enter the town proper, French soldiers receive an enthusiastic welcome from the locals. German prisoners are greeted with cold stares. There is a steady metallic clanking sound as they throw their bayonets on to one pile, their guns on another. As they are marched past the crowds, some are spat at and punched. The German bodies that litter the street are not being given a burial. Instead locals are pulling their boots off – a reminder that the Wehrmacht has been commandeering their leather for years.

A gang of half a dozen men are looting a hardware shop.

One bare-headed German emerges from a cellar after the others have been marched away. His grey field tunic is unbuttoned and torn. Though he waves a white flag this is ignored. He is dragged down a side street and moments later a shot is heard.

Anselm’s entreaties have been answered, but not in the way he had hoped. His release from pain has been to lose consciousness. When he comes round, trying to locate through his blurred vision the shadowy world he has re-entered, it takes him a long time to realize he is in a single bed, not the shelves of bunk beds to which he is accustomed. The pain he feels in his back, his legs and his chest is so sharp he begins panting. At alternate instants he feels feverish and cold.

He tries to sit up but cannot. Instead he turns his head to one side and winces. His ribs feel broken. The side of his face is pulp. His blood-matted hair sticks to the pillow. A pillow? What luxury is this? He must be in the infirmary. There are no other single beds for prisoners in the camp. It is dark outside. Who brought him in here? Has he been left to die?

The door opens and, recognizing the swaying silhouette of the Valkyrie, a whip in one hand, a bottle in the other, Anselm closes his eyes and listens to the sound of her pacing up and down the ward. Every few yards there is a whip crack as she checks that the bodies in the beds are dead. This is followed by the gulping sound of her having a drink.

She is standing at the end of his bed now. Without moving he mentally braces himself, knowing that his only chance of life is to feign death. When the whip lashes against his leg, he does not flinch. ‘
Raus!
’ She screams. ‘
Raus! Raus!
’ Another lash, this time across the fulcrum of his ribcage. Again he does not react. He can hear her laboured breathing and, for half a minute, he waits for another lash. It does not come. Instead he feels her hands tugging down his trousers and lifting up his jacket. He can sense her eyes studying his penis. Still he does not move. A minute later he hears her take another drink and then walk away unsteadily, muttering to herself.

And then, unable to stand the pain any longer, Anselm blacks out.

When he comes round again, it is daytime. The swelling in his
eye has reduced enough for him to see that the beds closest to him are empty, but there are dark shapes in the ones nearest the door. They appear to be covered in black paint. Have they been shot? The putrid, almost unbreathably heavy stench confirms it. As do the flies. Anselm sees movement now. There are rats feasting on the bodies.

Realizing he is hungry, too, he tries to shift his position, but his legs do not respond. One of them feels as if it might be fractured. His eyes roll back and he clenches his teeth.

Why is the camp so quiet? No whistles. No barks. The rattle of his breath scatters the rats for a moment, but they soon return. He realizes now that he is lying in faeces. He must get to the window. Open it. See what is happening outside. As he is sure he cannot put any weight on his leg, he must lower his upper body to the floor first. He rolls over on his belly and gasps at the stabbing sensation in his ribs. With his hands outstretched, he can touch the floor. Now he must bend his arms to lower his head, but the action makes him lose his balance and he screams as his broken leg flops down. There is a bone sticking out. Sweat on his forehead now. He drags himself towards the window, reaching for a broom as he does so. The effort to raise himself up on it leaves him shaking.

He looks out on to a desolate square. Everything is deserted, silent and flattened by the heavy sky. It is raining steadily, oily drops churning the red dust. There are some discarded petrol cans, as well as boots and rags. There are also half a dozen skeletal corpses that have been dragged to the side of the infirmary and piled up. The guard towers are empty. All that remains is the sweetish smell of decomposition, like rotting potato peelings.

He understands now. The camp has been evacuated; all the other tormented souls have gone. All the SS demons have gone, too, apart, perhaps, from the hated Valkyrie with her whip. And he has been abandoned. Left for dead in a world of darkness, excrement and mud.