Page 23

‘The post’s arrived. God knows where it’s been – there’s half a steppe’s worth of mud in the bag, and the snow’s made most of the names unreadable. But you got lucky, so maybe this’ll cheer you up a bit and give us all a break.’

Pascal caught the envelope flying his way before it landed on the tent’s dirt-packed floor and gathered another layer of grime; he let the insult go.

He knew his men were unhappy with him, which wasn’t an ideal state of affairs, but that wasn’t his fault.

Their behaviour had been… Pascal couldn’t find the right word, although he’d been searching for it since dawn.

Shocking? Cruel? Certainly not a bit of fun , which was how his junior officer had painted the scene.

And if it really was all the old Jew deserved , as the soldiers involved had muttered, what did that say about them?

That they’re doing exactly what Hitler would expect them to do. Treating Jews as if they’re not human. He’d have been proud of them.

The thought had arrived in his head in Noemi’s voice, and it had clung hard when he tried to shake himself free of it.

Not that Pascal would accept it carried any merit.

Yes, his second-in-command had stood in the village and grinned as the troops cut the beard off a terrified old Jewish man.

And yes, the man had laughed when the soldiers had forced their bleeding trophy to clean a pair of dirty boots with his tongue.

But the Führer wouldn’t have been proud or amused, Pascal was certain of that, whatever laws he’d enacted.

Hitler would have been as disgusted by the bullying as any decent German.

He would have delivered the same furious lecture about dishonouring their uniforms as Pascal had done, and disciplined the poorly behaved officer.

It was a one-off, no more, an isolated incident. I’ve a bunch of bad apples under my command I need to straighten out.

He’d hit on that explanation as the morning’s first light crept into his tent and decided it was a far better fit than Noemi’s.

Which was why he hadn’t bit back at cheer you up , and wouldn’t punish all the men involved, although that had been his first inclination.

A calm approach was what was needed, a restating of what it meant to be a good German soldier.

And he’d get started on that as soon as he’d read the letter he’d been waiting too long to receive.

The absence of any word from home since the battalion had arrived in Russia six months earlier had worn them all down.

The official line was that the post couldn’t keep up with the vast distances the Russian campaign had already forced the German troops to cover.

Whatever the reason, the waiting had been drawn-out and dreadful.

The letters were a lifeline for the soldiers, a connection to home; a reminder of who and what they were fighting for.

The letters they wrote in return were a promise to their loved ones that they would survive.

Pascal felt that as deeply as any of his men.

Despite the delays, he’d written to his mother as regularly as he could, although he had no idea if the field service to Germany was any better than the one from it.

His mother – who made almost no demands on him – had insisted on knowing he was safe and well as often as he could put pen to paper. Which was almost all he could tell her.

Russia wasn’t Poland – Pascal had learned that very quickly.

The Poles had been desperate to resist the German onslaught, but they’d lacked the manpower to do it, or the time to prepare a counter-attack, and the invasion there had been sharp and short-lived.

The Russians were unbreakable. Even when they were in retreat, they fought with a ferocity that was terrifying.

He couldn’t tell Carina that. Even if a word of his feelings got through the censors, which was highly unlikely even for an officer, it would frighten her too much.

And – unlike France, where he’d carried out a number of clifftop training missions after Poland – there was nothing interesting he could tell her about Russia.

All he’d seen of the country was endless, exhausting flat plains which turned to yellow dust clouds when the troops marched through them and wore their legs out far faster than a mountain range could have done.

And the weather was no better than the landscape.

Summer’s oppressive heat and thick humid mists had given way to autumn’s torrential rain and oozing mud.

As for the winter… The mountain men were used to snow and ice, but not the depths of the relentless cold which had gripped Russia at the start of December and turned the wind into sheet ice.

In the end, he’d fallen back on the kind of bland anecdotes about his comrades she told him about their neighbours in Unterwald, and hoped the sense of connection the letters brought her made her as happy as the sight of a long-overdue letter had made him.

He opened the envelope carefully – supplies were low and he might have to reuse it – and told himself it didn’t matter that there was only one sheet of paper inside.

That perhaps this letter had been written at a busy time on the farm and there were more to follow.

Or, like his, it was short because there were things she couldn’t or didn’t want to say.

Her letters had gaps in them too. She never mentioned his father beyond, He is well .

She never mentioned Noemi, not that Pascal expected her to. Noemi was a gap everywhere.

He shook his head and focused on the page in front of him, forcing his thoughts away from her. He couldn’t lose himself in the empty space that was Noemi – or at least not today; not when home was finally with him.

Dear Pascal,

I hope this letter finds you well.

He stared at the writing in confusion. It wasn’t his mother’s rounded hand but his father’s spikier style.

And it was short, little more than a paragraph.

Viktor had never written to him before, and there shouldn’t have been a reason for him to start.

Pascal read on, although every instinct told him he didn’t want to.

I’m writing with unfortunate news. Your mother has passed away after a short illness. Please remember her in your prayers.

Your father,

Viktor Lindiger

He stared at the date and forgot all about his men’s questionable behaviour. September the fifteenth 1941. She’d been dead for five months. He’d been writing to a ghost.

He turned the letter over, looking for some personal outpouring that would wipe away the coldness wrapped round unfortunate and the business-like signature.

There was nothing.

His hands began shaking as if the ice had crept in and coated them.

Pascal rarely allowed himself to think badly of his father, but now the slam of he never loved her tore through his head.

How could he have done, if he could despatch her so easily?

He never knew her; none of us did followed so quickly, the ground lurched.

His mother had lived in his father’s shadow for as long as Pascal could remember.

He’d become so used to it, he’d never questioned why she didn’t seem to have a life or dreams of her own.

But she was different on my last leave. She was strong.

The pain took his breath away. Of losing her, of not knowing her. Of not thanking her properly for saving Noemi and putting herself into danger.

Which she did because she loved me and I loved Noemi, and nothing else ever mattered to her but the things that mattered to me.

The pain was a physical weight, pressing on his heart, squeezing his throat.

He closed his eyes and let the tent and the frightened Russian villagers and the battle he was meant to be preparing for disappear.

He wanted his mother, the way she’d been the last time he’d seen her.

Bursting with love and refusing to be afraid.

He wanted the memories, no matter how much they hurt…

‘There was a round-up of the town’s Jews and Noemi’s family were taken. She escaped and she’s hiding in the back barn.’

Of all the ways Pascal had imagined Carina greeting him when he appeared out of the blue on a short leave, that wasn’t it. He dropped his bag, wondering why – given the insanity of what she’d said – she looked so proud of herself.

‘How long has she been there?’

‘Three days.’ Carina poured him a cup of coffee he struggled to hold as he sank into a chair. ‘Which is obviously too long, but I had to wait until your father left for his conference before I could move her. I was planning to do that tonight.’

‘Where to?’

It seemed easier to ask simple questions than to grapple with the bigger picture that his mother was hiding a fugitive from his father. Or that Noemi, and her family, were in danger.

Carina sat down on the opposite side of the table, her face creasing into a frown.

‘That’s a good question. I don’t know, to be honest. I didn’t really think any of this through.

The only thing that mattered was that she needed my help, so I gave it to her.

And I know I’ve broken every command you and your beloved Nazis live by, but don’t you dare tell me I did the wrong thing. ’

Your Nazis.

Pascal didn’t know how to respond to that; he wasn’t sure who he was looking at.

He’d always assumed his mother was as devoted to the Party as he and Viktor were.

She’d never criticised either of them for their beliefs or said anything negative about Hitler’s rise to power.

Yet now here she was, saying your and putting herself firmly on the other side of the fence, a side Pascal thought belonged only to criminals and traitors.

He didn’t know what to make of her. He didn’t recognise her at all.

He sat back, trying to hold on to the mother he knew while all the pieces of her jumbled themselves up.

She didn’t even look like the same person.

Pascal had never thought of his mother as anything except old, although he knew she was younger than his father, which had to put her somewhere in her early forties.

Her grey hair and worn face had added years to her age for as long as he could remember.

But not now. Now there was a fire in her eyes which told him a very different woman had once lived in her body.

It was on the tip of his tongue to ask where that woman had gone.

But that would lead to a conversation about his father he didn’t want to have.

Either about the nature of his marriage to her or the part he might have played in the Drachmanns’ downfall.

Or to a conversation about how his mother really felt about Hitler that he felt honour-bound not to listen to.

So Pascal avoided all the questions he should have asked and shook his head instead.

‘I won’t do that. And I don’t want to know why you did it, but I will help. I’ll take care of it. I’ll get her to the station – there’s always an early goods train. I’ll get her to Munich and then…’

Pascal stopped. He was an officer in the German army about to help a fugitive Jew. They both knew there wasn’t a then .

He sat alone in the kitchen while Carina gathered the clothes and money Noemi would need, and filled a pail with hot water. He was halfway out of the door before she stopped him.

‘Are you going to tell her the truth? If you get this wrong, you might never see her again after tonight. Are you going to tell her that you love her?’

He could barely meet Carina’s eyes as he explained that he already had but that loving Noemi wasn’t enough. He’d never heard her swear before; he didn’t know that she could.

‘Then make it enough, you silly boy. Go with her. Forget the army and your ridiculous loyalty to the Führer. Stop bending yourself to fit hatreds you don’t share and make a life for yourself that’s worth living.’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know what to say. And when he came back hours later and saw the disappointment in her eyes because he hadn’t left with Noemi, there was nothing more to be said.

I broke her heart. I broke my own. I’ve no idea if Noemi even made it to safety, and now I’ve lost my mother too.

Pascal dragged himself back into the present with a shudder and crumpled the letter up. It was too short, too cold, too unworthy. Both the women he’d loved were gone, and that knowledge punched holes through his heart.

And both of them thought I was blind.

He snatched at a breath as his head swam. You and your beloved Nazis. What if his mother was right? What if the scene he’d witnessed in the village wasn’t an isolated event and there was more hatred than he’d admitted? What if he’d pledged his loyalty too freely?

Pascal stared at the gun propped against the tent’s opening.

He stared at the plans littering the table.

What if there’s more than I’ve let myself see?

was too dark an idea to spend time with.

In an hour or two, he’d have to lead his battalion back out into the chaos and persuade them to keep going in another blood-soaked battle too many of them wouldn’t survive.

He had to do that – his honour demanded it.

He couldn’t give way to doubts. He couldn’t let echoes of Noemi or his mother’s fears cloud his judgement.

He was a German soldier; he was an officer.

He believed in his country and the cause they were fighting for, so he’d do what he was charged to do and spur his men on with every ounce of his being.

Pascal left the tent with his head up. He began his rounds, clapping shoulders and promising victory.

He swaggered with the best of them and acted as if a frightened and violated old man meant nothing to him.

And he smiled when his men finally remembered he was a good soldier, not a thorn in their sides, but he’d never felt less like a hero.