‘Hey,’ was his feeble greeting.
She came forward, maternal in the way she shuffled the children inside so she could shut the door, this while he was subjected to a stream of questions asking where he had been, and as children do, the boys were telling him about what had happened to them in between now and the last time he had seen them, gabbling away in near incoherence.
She was clever, Lette, the way she shooed the children away so she herself could give him a kissed greeting, in truth the chance to whisper in his ear that he should say nothing incriminating, that the boys, particularly, could not be trusted.
‘Say you have been at sea.’ Then she turned and began to take off her apron. ‘You take care of Uncle Cal, while I go and see if Old Ma Pieffer can look after you.’
Moans and groans ensued, the selfish cries of the boys contrasted with the self-possession of Inge as he was dragged to the table, covered in an oilskin cloth that had seen better times, to tell stories of South America, Spain, of creatures too fabulous to be real and to indulge in that visitor pastime, giving the children money.
‘Are you coming back to stay, Uncle Cal?’
When he looked at Inge then, it nearly broke his heart; he knew she saw him like a parent and had done so from the very first day they had met. They had bonded as if it were predestined, she trusting him, he good with her, and if leaving Lette had been hard, leaving Inge, whom he thought of as a daughter, was worse.
‘Boys, you have your bank still?’ The yeses were larded with anticipation – he had always been generous, and Cal obliged by emptying his pockets of pfennigs and the odd mark, passing them over. Then they dashed into the only bedroom where, no doubt, they would boast one was richer than the other.
‘Are you here to stay?’
He could not answer, but then he did not have to; his silence was sufficient. Looking at her, bonny but not yet fully formed, he wanted to take her in his arms and hold her as he had once done, maybe tell her the stories he had loved inventing. Somehow she was beyond that. It was a relief that Lette returned with the news that Old Ma Pieffer was on her way down.
‘I can’t, little one.’
Inge nodded and he knew that when he was gone she would cry. Lette had her coat on and was keen to get out of the door and there was just a flash of jealousy in Inge’s eyes that her mother spotted and smothered with a kiss; if Cal was close to Inge, her mother was closer still. Then they were out on the landing, his nose twitching at the odour of the neighbour’s noisy evacuation, down the stone stairs and into the street.
‘What do you mean “We can’t talk”?’
The laugh was hollow. ‘What do you think will happen when Christian and Günter go to school tomorrow? Once they have sung a hymn to the damned Führer they will be asked if anything strange has happened and they will say Uncle Cal came back. Their good National Socialist teacher will ask who Uncle Cal is.’
‘For the sake of Christ.’
‘You do not know what they will say, what they will be asked, or the consequences, and that, my lost love, is life in the Third Reich; I cannot even talk in front of my own children, because if I do they will be encouraged to denounce me. So, do you think we could have talked in there about why you had to leave and the phone call I made to give you a chance to flee?’
‘Is there somewhere we can go?’
‘Cal, this is St Pauli, there are a hundred places we can go.’
‘Am I allowed to say, Lette,’ Cal said, leaning over her and looking down into her eyes, ‘you look tired?’
‘Two years nearly I don’t see you and that is what you want to tell me? I have three children, a job I hate, surrounded by foul-mouthed bigots who should be taken out to sea and thrown overboard, and no one to tell.’
‘Inge?’
‘I cannot burden her.’
‘I miss telling her stories.’
‘She misses you more than she misses the stories.’
‘What happened to the money I left for you?’
‘It is still in the account you opened, I haven’t touched it, and do I have to tell you why?’
‘Questions would be asked if you were suddenly flush. But the idea was you could get a better apartment, one where Inge can have some privacy. She’s of an age when she needs it.’
‘I think we might have to use that money one day for something more serious than another bedroom.’
‘I thought you might have found another man.’
‘If I can find one I can trust, and who knows how to treat me right, then maybe I will, but all I meet are beery shits.’
The one thing never discussed, the reason she was trusted to work in the local Nazi party office, was her late husband, a rabid National Socialist who had been killed in street fighting prior to the 1932 elections. To the men she mixed with every day, Brownshirt thugs, he was a hero; to her a bully and wife beater she was glad was dead.
He had met Lette when out running – she was an ex-hundred-metre sprinter, and with no knowledge of her background they had begun to stop and chat while catching breath. She found release in talking to him, a man who hated the Nazis as much as she did, and said so, as well as being active in getting Jews out of Germany. Lette had become his lover; only later did he discover where she worked and how many times she had used her position to save those under threat herself.
It was no wonder she was tired, never mind the children and the job; she was living a double life, cursing Jews as diseased rats one minute, trying to warn them of the danger they were in without getting caught the next. He had suggested she get out before; Lette had refused while there was good to be done. When it came to being brave, Cal thought her ten times the person he was.
‘Anyway, you have not told me why you came back.’
‘It might have been for you.’
She punched him in the balls then, which given he was naked, had him out of the bed and hopping. ‘Why did you do that?’
‘You are a liar.’
Still rubbing hard, he acknowledged the truth. ‘I know, and not a good one with you.’
It had been a strange relationship: he was fond of her without being in love, she, determined never to have another man rule her life. If there was sex between them, and there had just been that, and very enjoyable too, then it was based on deep friendship rather than passion, and if she knew that she was being used, it was a situation that troubled her not at all.
‘Two years without a man in my life,’ she said, her voice deep as she tugged him back into the bed. ‘I hope you have not been too wounded – by that punch.’
She was asleep when he left, and when she awoke she found a thick wad of high-denomination Reichsmarks on the table and a one-line note, which read, ‘For Inge’s new clothes. Invent a rich relative XXX.’
He was down at the docks before the line of railway trucks arrived, having used the papers he had to get through the main gate into the free port area and make sure the SS Barhill was at its berth, then getting back to the main gate to await the arrival. The way they took him was so professional that he did not see it coming at alclass="underline" the van drew alongside, men in working gear appeared from nowhere, he was hit just hard enough to be stunned and then bundled into the back, thrown onto the metal floor with a knee digging into his back.
The command to stay still was backed up by a slap to the head and he knew his hands were being tied. He was thinking this did not make sense, unless Göring had had a change of mind; but why would he do that, because MCG in Athens would not get paid? Had there been a leak, with so many – far too many – people in on what was planned? There was nothing he could do but lie still and speculate.