The One I Was (29 page)

        
‘Couldn’t you go?’

        
‘Me?’ Herschel blinked. ‘I’m too old. They want little kids. The papers give Benny’s age, see.’ He showed Rudi Benny’s form, with the birth date.

        
‘You should try to get on the train, anyway, Herschel. There’s a bridge people sometimes use to jump on. By the old cattle market.’ Rudi heard his own words with surprise. Vati had always complained about this breach in railway security. ‘The trains move slowly there because of the points. It’s not too hard to climb down from the roof and get someone to let you into a carriage. Hide in the lavatories at the border, when they check the papers.’ He’d heard Vati talking about criminals who did this.

        
Herschel was gazing at him with curiosity now.

        
‘You’ll bring trouble on us now if you stay here, Benny.’ He spoke more softly than Rudi would ever have imagined. ‘They might say we forced you to help us.’

        
The gentleness faded. He nodded towards the door. ‘Off you go, little Aryan boy. You know what you need to do. Then go home and forget about your Jewish friend.’

Somehow Rudi was sitting on the tram with Benny’s papers. But it was Benny himself that filled his mind. That liquid thread running out of his mouth. The sour smell. And Benny’s stillness. Benny, the agile and fearless football player, motionless under the stained blanket. Rudi wished he could sponge out that last image.

        
They were already passing through the town centre again. Some of the shoppers he’d seen on his way to Benny’s rooms were still out on the street, apparently unchanged and unmoved, even though Benny had died. He closed his eyes for a few minutes until they’d moved past the shops.

        
The orphanage was almost outside the town; fields stretched between the houses. Benny and an elderly man were the only passengers now.

        
Rudi’d come out this way years ago. When Mutti was still alive. A special treat. The three of them had walked through fields. Picnicked at a lake. Vati had swum in the cool green water and Rudi had straddled his back, urging him to go faster.

        
The tram was slowing now. The old man tightened the scarf around his neck. Rudi grabbed his satchel and sprang out of the door.

        
His stomach growled. Lunchtime. He’d forgotten about eating, even though Olga always called him a boy with a healthy appetite and Vati said he was greedy. No signs to the orphanage. The first man he asked didn’t seem to have heard the question, continuing to sweep snow off his garden path. A woman was pushing a pram. She considered him with narrowed eyes when he asked her, nodding up a rutted side-street. On the wall a few meters along was a sign:
JEWISH CHILDREN’S HOME
. Someone had drawn a rough Star of David over it.

        
Rudi walked up a long path bisecting an overgrown garden. The shutters were drawn. He rang the bell. After a long pause the door opened. A woman peered through a small opening. When she saw Rudi her eyes showed relief and surprise simultaneously.

        
‘Yes?’

        
‘These are for the man from the Reichsvertretung.’ He tried to push Benny’s papers towards her. ‘The boy they were given to … died.’ He swallowed. The door opened fully. A man appeared behind her, serious-faced.

        
‘What is it?’

        
She pointed at Rudi. ‘He has papers for tonight’s Kindertransport.’

        
‘How did you get these?’ The man snatched them from Benny’s hand.

        
‘Benny died.’

        
‘What were you doing there with him? How did you know him?’ The man sounded angry.

        
‘We played football together. I …’ He thought of Benny on the pitch, face shining with the fun of it. ‘He was my friend.’

        
The man placed the papers on a table by the front door.

        
‘I thought it would be too late for that boy.’ the woman ran a hand over her eyes. ‘They go downhill so quickly with diphtheria. They have no reserves.’

        
The man looked at his watch. ‘We have no way of doing anything now.’

        
The woman touched his arm. ‘If only we had more time.’

        
‘There must be someone,’ Rudi was starting to feel nobody apart from him had any will to sort this out.

        
The woman shook her head. ‘They need sponsors, medical certificates, guarantees, entry papers. It takes days, weeks.’

        
Rudi thought of the morning he’d had, missing school, tracking down Benny, watching him die, taking the papers out here without a tram ticket.

        
‘You can’t just give up,’ he said, voice cracking. ‘Someone must want to go to England.’

        
The man and woman were silent.

        
‘They burned your shops and the synagogue. They hate you.’

        
‘It’s too late.’ The man spoke quietly. ‘Go away now and forget you ever came here.’ Something white and angry shone in his eyes. Today was a day for angry people. But the anger didn’t seem to be aimed at Rudi, it seemed to flow out of the front door, down the weed-snagged path and towards the town itself.

        
‘Thank you for bringing the papers,’ the woman said gently. ‘Not everyone would have done that for us.’ Rudi saw her eyes glistening.

        
The man nodded briefly. ‘You’ve taken a risk,’ he said, already pushing the door shut. ‘I shouldn’t have shouted at you.’ Rudi made a lunge at the table, grabbed the papers and was away down the path before the man’s shout reached him.

        
‘Sometimes you must rely on yourself alone,’ he remembered Vati saying. ‘It’s the only way of making sure a job gets done.’

        
A tram slowed on the street ahead. He sprinted for it, reluctant to linger here in case the man pursued him. On the tram he examined the papers in his hand. There must be another Jewish boy of Benny’s age wanting to go to England? Perhaps he was out on the streets this afternoon, lurking in an alleyway, trying to avoid the youths in uniform. As they approached the town centre he scrutinized the people in the street. Old men and women. Little girls. Babies in perambulators. Where were the young Jewish boys?
Come on, come on, show yourselves.
But of course, they didn’t like hanging around in public anymore; too risky.

        
He saw a dark-haired boy loitering on a corner. He might be Jewish, they were usually dark. The tram trundled past and Rudi shot round in his seat to look at him. Not a boy at all. A girl, in shorts, hair tied back, probably off to gymnastics training.

        
The tram reached the town centre. People bustled from shop to shop. Rudi saw several of his classmates walking along the streets. Lunchtime; school was finished for the day. Did any of them even remember Benny? If Rudi told them he’d died, they’d probably just shrug. If he asked for help finding a substitute for the Kindertransport they’d think Rudi was insane.

        
The tram was slowing. He needed time to think, to ease the image of Benny’s swollen neck and grey skin from his mind. He needed his bedroom with its familiar objects: his building sets and books, the boots neatly laid out by the wardrobe. Olga would feed him. His father wouldn’t be home yet, wouldn’t know about the broken
vase, about the truanting from school. Like a wild animal seeking refuge, Rudi needed somewhere quiet to gather strength. Then he’d make another attempt to find a Jewish kid for that train to England.

        
He opened the front door with his key.

        
‘Olga?’ he said softly as he removed his boots. No answer. She must have given up waiting for him to come to lunch and gone upstairs to clean. He crept into the dining room. Olga had left the tureen of stew on the table. He sat down, not bothering to wash his hands or remove his jacket, and helped himself. Dumplings as well. And carrots braised in honey and poppy seeds.

        
When he finished he rested his head on his hands on the table and let himself fall into a half-trance. It was warm in here; Olga had lit the stove. She moved between bedrooms upstairs, furniture thumping and groaning as she moved it to sweep floors.

        
The front door opened.

        
Rudi sat up. Bump went the briefcase on the tiles by the door. Vati. Rudi moved silently to hide behind the door. But Vati was going upstairs.

        
‘Did you save me some lunch, Olga?’ he called.

        
Rudi tiptoed into the hall. The well-polished black leather briefcase waited for its owner to descend from the first floor. Rudi eyed it as he would an adversary. Now Vati and Olga were standing in the doorway of one of the bedrooms. Something rattled and clinked. The broken vase in the shoe box.

        
‘I have no idea, Herr Lange,’ Olga was saying.

        
‘You didn’t notice the vase had gone from the windowsill? Really, Olga?’

        
Rudi pictured Olga shrugging, twisting her gnarled hands in the white apron she always wore, trying to think of the correct thing to say.

        
‘It must have been an accident.’

        
‘That boy.’ Rage in Vati’s voice now, blazing through the thickness in his throat. He must have a cold. ‘That wretched son of mine. Lazy. Clumsy. And he didn’t turn up at school this morning. They rang me. In the office.’

        
‘I can mend the vase,’ Olga said.

        
‘It will never be the same.’

        
‘Nobody will be able to tell. He is a good, kind boy. He didn’t mean to break it. And he must have had a good reason for missing school.’

        
‘That’s not the point, Olga. You’d think joining the Youth would make a difference, but oh no, always an excuse for missing meetings.’ The box rattled again. ‘Why can’t he be like other boys?’

        
‘He’s better than most of them.’

        
‘If I hadn’t come home unexpectedly with this damn cold, would I ever have known about this smashed vase?’

        
More silence.

        
‘He needs the strap. There are camps for boys like him. A hard winter camp to give him discipline.’ A pause. Rudi could imagine his father’s brain whirring as he planned this. ‘I’ll be in my study, making calls. You can prepare his clothes. Bring me some stew on a tray. And a tisane.’

        
His father stomped across the landing. The bathroom door closed. Any second now one of them would come down the staircase. Rudi ran to the front door to grab his boots, which his father hadn’t noticed.

        
He made for the kitchen, keeping to the rug, his stockinged feet soundless. As Vati’s footsteps thumped downstairs Benny gently closed the kitchen door, pushing himself against the wall to hide himself from view. The shadowy outline of his father appeared in front of the frosted-glass door. Benny stood still. Vati walked on, towards
his study with its railway maps and timetables. A second outline appeared: smaller, softer. Olga.

        
The kitchen door opened to the garden. Rudi closed it softly behind him. The football sat on the white-covered grass like a single full stop on a sheet of paper. Rudi scooped it up. He tossed satchel and ball over the wall and climbed over, springing down into the lane behind the garden.

        
He walked briskly until he reached the busier streets. People were walking slowly towards the station: shabbily dressed grown-ups holding children’s hands, smiles on their faces as brittle and broken as the smashed vase at home. At the station entrance an official stood with a clipboard. A couple of policeman looked on.

        
Benny’s papers still seared Rudi’s coat pocket. He could feel them through the wool fabric. He scanned the crowd. Where was the boy he could save?

34

I put down the laptop. ‘You were very young,’ I whispered to my patient. ‘Your father was going to punish you severely, send you to some horrific youth camp. But even then, you were trying to find someone else to go in Benny’s place. You were just a child, just eleven.’

He pulled off the mask. ‘Scared. Like you, Rose.’

The effort of speaking was too much. He tried to put the mask back over his face. I took it from him and placed it on him. ‘Don’t say anything else,’ I told him. ‘I know you’re trying to make me feel better about causing Mum’s death. You’re trying to show me I shouldn’t judge myself, shouldn’t blame myself.’

He nodded.

‘Thank you.’ I squeezed his pale, cold hand. ‘I’ll read on.’ I picked up the laptop and resumed my reading.

*

Some of the parents were weeping. Rudi blinked. He couldn’t imagine Vati weeping over him, distraught at an imminent separation. Vati would pat his son’s shoulder, possibly extend the affection to a quick ruffle of his hair if he was feeling particularly emotional.

        
There were other parents who didn’t weep either, who clung speechlessly to their boys and girls, knuckles white, as though they might collapse if they let go.

        
‘Say
Auf Wiedersehen
to your children now.’ The loudspeaker cut across the weeping and the excited shouts from the kids. ‘You will not be permitted to accompany them any further. Hurry along, please.’ Arms locked themselves around smaller bodies. A collective wail rose.

        
Rudi stood alone. The emotion from the parents buffeted him like the sea against an isolated rock. He clutched Benny’s papers in one hand, the football under his other arm, staring at the small family groups, at all this sorrow. Half of him wanted to run back to the street away from them all, to throw the papers into the gutter and escape somewhere quiet. The lake, perhaps, where he’d once gone on that summer picnic. He could walk around its icy perimeter and cool his mind.