The Devil's Playground (46 page)

the next day, enough to feed them sufficiently so that they

can perform. Nothing much else but the constant erasure of

dreams, the whittling down of hopes to something more

realistic, more banal, and the eventual fracture of all promises.

He thought about the men sitting in Mr Nagatha’s waiting

for their pleasures and he felt sick. He looked at the street

sweepers, beautiful African faces reduced to this, and the

great sadness that he’d felt all night suddenly came crashing

down on him.

Suze had heard him leave. When he was gone, she got out

of bed, went to the window and watched his fading form

recede into the dark streets beyond. She didn’t know if he

would come back.

She made herself a drink, aware that sleep was a luxury

she would have to forgo tonight. There was no way she

could relax, not with Jon being out of reach, perhaps for

good. All she’d wanted was for him to realize the horror of

it all, to show him how underneath all this pleasure lay only

pain and suffering. Oh Jesus, she whispered, as it hit her how

much she didn’t want to lose him. She dropped her camomile

tea, burning her foot. Please come back, she thought, please

be gone only for some cigarettes.

She wiped up the mess, listening to United Kingdom, soaking

up the sparse terror of Eitzel’s songs, the feelings of dislocation and bitterness that permeated them like a disease.

She remembered what she’d told Dominic, about how

much she cared for Jon, but this was different. Now that

they had broken apart and come together again she

understood how selfish she’d been, how her whole life had

been unconsciously formed by her desires and the kind of

men they attracted. No, this time it was different. This felt

like someone had scooped out her insides. This was total

and utter terror. The fear that he wouldn’t come back. That

she’d fucked it up again. That their coming together that

night was only an arbitrary sharing of space and not a promise

of things to come. What a surprise, she thought, me and my

stupid games, screwing up again. Why did I have to be so

open about it with Jon, why couldn’t I have pretended to be

normal, at least for the first few weeks? But she knew that

would have been worse. There were enough secrets she’d

kept from him. She let the cigarette’s heat burn her fingers,

thinking, this is the story of my fucking life, already written

out to the last chapter.

Did I scare him away with my violence, the violence that

I wanted done to me? She hoped he would come back so

that she could ask him. She wanted to tell him that she was

through with it if that was what would save their relationship.

Some things were more important than fleeting pleasures.

Some things had a chance to last. And perhaps she wouldn’t

miss it when she was with Jon. Isn’t that how fairy-tales go?

How they’re supposed to go?

She turned up the volume on the CD. Eitzel was singing

about a woman with a golden voice and how there was no

heaven for him but the heaven of her hands. It was Suze’s

favourite song. She’d always thought it was one of the saddest

songs ever sung, but she now saw it as the opposite. How

could she have always thought that? If you can find heaven

in someone’s hands then that is, surely, more heaven than

most people will ever know.

++++++++++++++++++ SUMMER 1942, NICE

‘I do not think you should go, Charlotte.’ Madame Pecher

looked at me with those full French eyes.

‘But I must,’ I replied.

‘Why, Charlotte? Why?’

‘Because there is a law and, since I’m Jewish, I thought it

would be correct to present myself.’

I saw something cloud over in the landlady’s face. Had

she not known I was a Jew? She nodded, turned and went

back into the kitchen, leaving me alone here in the untempered

sun.

I have almost finished my paintings. I have run out of

many materials but Madame Pecher has been kind enough

to procure me things that I can no longer get for myself. The

atmosphere down here has changed. Soldiers march up and

down the promenade as if the sea too belonged to their

German hearts. I no longer go out much. I have heard

whispers, rumours of round-ups like the ones back home and

though I do not believe that things could be that bad, still

it is perhaps safer to stay at home. Someone told me about

the exhibit that is touring the Cote. At present it resides in

the main square, here. I am told that this exhibit of anti-Jew

propaganda has made its tours of Europe. That it has been

very successful. I remember the exhibit of degenerate art

that made the rounds of Berlin before I left. I had to sneak

in to see those great works. Beckmann. Ernst. Grosz. Hoch.

I don’t think an art exhibition has ever been that popular.

Perhaps there is still hope.

The streets seem very different to me. Despite Pecher’s warning,

I do believe that I should go and register like the authorities

said. I saw the posters and declaration that said all

foreign Jews must be registered. Perhaps once I have done

that they will leave me alone. So that I can finish the work.

That is all that matters to me now.

There is a crowd at the station. Buses pull out constantly,

smearing black exhaust tails in the air. German soldiers and

French gendarmes are pointing, shouting, trying to herd the

mass of people who’ve turned up. I wonder if Grandpapa is

here or if he was allowed to register in Villefranche.

I wait in line. There is not much else to do. No one wants

to talk. They are all wrapped up in themselves, looking down

at the ground, as if perhaps we had got it wrong all along

and that was where God resided, not in the infinite expanse

of sky but in the very earth we tread.

The sun is hot. Midday. I have been standing for hours.

Slowly the lines are being cleared. I thought this was just

registration but I can see that the people in the line in front

of me are all loaded on to buses. I wonder where they are

being sent. Perhaps the registration centre is somewhere else.

Two young men a few rows behind tried to turn back an

hour ago. I didn’t look but I heard the rifle’s report and

the sound of their bodies slumping to the ground. What is

happening here?

It is almost evening. Thank God the sun is gone. They made

us stand here all day. At one point a Nazi officer made a

statement that all those who were having a problem with the

sun, who wanted to sit down, get some rest, eat, recuperate he

said that’s fine, you can go and join a special line and we

will make sure you don’t have to stand all day. I saw many

old people, children, women move towards where the officer,

this small dark hunchback called Brunner, who looked more

of a Jew than I do, they all moved to where he pointed and

were loaded into small trucks. I was tired. I wanted to sit

down but there were others who needed it more than me.

Finally my turn comes and the officer looks startled when

I speak German to him. He notes down my name in the

file he is holding. His eyes refuse to meet mine. He points

towards the nearest bus, already crammed with more people

than it can hold. He shouts ‘SchnellV and I have no choice

but to follow his orders. I do not want to get on this bus. I

want to go home and paint. There is no room on the bus

for me. Where are they taking us? What will happen to

Grandpapa?

They push me on to the bus. I want to tell them that there

is no room. That I am happy to wait for the next one but

they don’t listen. A soldier presses his gun into my back and

I know that I have made a terrible mistake.

‘Where are we going?’ a man shouts from inside the car.

The soldier laughs. ‘East,’ he says. ‘Resettlement.’

I don’t want to go East. What will become of my work,

lying scattered on the floor of Madame Pecher’s hotel?

I hear more shots. Bullets cracking the night. I can smell

the fear of the hundred people that I am crammed against

in this small bus. There is no room to move, very little to

breathe. I hear the driver starting the engine. Berlin lies in

the East. Is that what they mean? Or do they mean further

East? And I remember the story that I heard back in Gurs

and I start to choke, I can no longer breathe. Everything

goes black.

The officer who noted my name down is moving towards the

bus. It is fully dark now. He calls to me. Motions with his

hand to come over. I look around but none of my fellow

passengers have noticed. His signalling becomes more frantic.

I manage to peel myself away and step down from the

bus. I wait for the bullet to hit. The piece of wood to the

back of the head.

The officer looks tired and angry. I walk up to him, watching

his fingers twitching around his gun. He looks down at

me. I realize that he is almost my age. That in another life

we could have been lovers.

‘Leave right away,’ he commands me in German, pointing

to the darkness-swallowed area to our left. ‘Leave fast and

don’t come back; stay at home.’ He is shouting but there is

something else in his voice and before I can say anything he

grabs my arm and pushes me towards the darkness.

I begin to walk. I don’t understand what is happening but

I walk and slowly the bus with its people squashed and

twisted like characters from a Picasso fades into the darkness.

The soldiers disappear. Suddenly everything is quiet and I

keep walking, fast, though I know that if they want to find

me, they will, and there is no speed that will outrun their

hatred. But I keep walking through the darkness. I do not

know this part of town. I do not know where I am heading.

In the distance, I hear women crying, screaming, pleading.

I see strange lights over the hill, in the town. I have no choice

but to walk towards them. Behind me there is only death.

It is something quite unlike anything I have ever seen before

in my life. Or heard. There are people screaming, crying,

praying, singing — every human utterance you can imagine

is here, a caterwaul of devotion, a desperate show of solidarity

in a country that is no longer theirs.

The city flickers. Candles are placed in every hand and I

too am given one, nod merci and join the crowd as I try to

make my way across and towards the hotel in St Jean. The

light is incredible. Twisting and turning on the wind it looks

like something from one of Lang’s films. The shadows continually

change and quiver. The city seems unreal, like a

projection of its true self. People walk by silent, awed, their

hands carefully cupped against the candles they are holding

lest the sea wind should snuff them out and leave the city to

drown in its own darkness.

In the crowd I am nobody. I am everyone. No one looks

at my face. No one wonders if I am a Jew. They are here to

celebrate what has been lost. For an hour or two they don’t

care about anything else.

Last year the Fete de Jeanne d’Arc was a wildly celebratory

affair. This year things are different. This year everyone

wants something from that dead heroine.

I enter the main square and I can no longer move. People

press against each other and I am reminded of the bus. Where

was it headed? Where is it now, trudging silently through

the black hills?

A great statue of Joan of Arc stands at the centre of the

square. Someone is talking through a loudspeaker. I can

make out most of the words. They talk about Joan. They

call her the most complete symbol of our race. My skin

prickles. I wonder whose race they are talking about. Suddenly

all the women and children drop to their knees and

begin wailing. I too fall. There is safety in it. I watch as they

roll their heads and bow and praise this dead piece of stone

they call Joan of Arc. I wonder how ironic she would have

found this. The whole population is mesmerized. It is almost

like a church, yet we all know, there is no longer any God.

I walked all the way back to the hotel. It took me all night

but I knew that to stop would be death. I walked up to the

office. Madame Pecher came out of her room, looked at me

as if I were a ghost, then a huge smile broke across her face

and she opened her arms and we stood there for ten or so

minutes, crying in each other’s embrace.

‘Oh, Charlotte, I’m so glad you didn’t go in the end,’ she

said and I didn’t tell her any different.

I went up to my room. This small room that now seems

like the last place on earth. All around me were the paintings.

I knew that it was time to put them in order. To finish. I

knew that time was running out. I have to complete it,

no matter what the cost. What do I care about police or

Grandpapa. I have to get back to —

There is no more time for images. There is no more time for