“Someone’s looking to have a good New Year,” he said bitterly, and Bernie, watching for a moment, clapped him on the back.
“Us too, Ned. Us too,” and together they walked back to Bernie’s house. Ned left the island three days later thinking that he would probably never see her again, that she would marry soon and settle in London or wherever her husband’s profession took her, while her father remained a lonely and broken man. Six months later his dad had died. “Four days. That’s all I need,” he had told his superiors, and on the boat over, a small kit bag on his shoulder, he had directed a pair of unprepared holidaymakers to Bernie’s mother’s guest house. They and he were there still.
Ned put up the envelope in his pocket and picked up another handful.
“Well, now,” he said, speaking out loud. “Let’s see what other malicieus rumours are abroad this bright and lovely day.”
Three
Captain Zepernick balanced the 78 on his head while Molly reached up and placed the bottle in the centre of the record. With his infectious grin and carefree manner no one would have taken him for the head of Guernsey’s Secret Police.
“Shall we dance?” Molly said and held out her arms. Zep put his hands on her tasselled waist and starting to dance, called out, “Der Wein ist stiss, nein?”
When in mixed company, they spoke English for the most part, for the benefit of the girls, unless it was an obscene comment or to do with military matters, a needless precaution in either case, for most of the girls understood a good deal by now. That was to be expected. What surprised these men, still dressed in their once-feared uniforms, was how quickly the women had embraced their way of life, aping their manners, sharing their interests, even imitating the rhythms of their speech. All the girls spoke English as if they were foreigners themselves; out riding, playing tennis, at the card table; even in the abandonment of the bedroom, those declarations of sexual ardour were announced with the breath of the Fatherland on them. But sometimes the men reverted to their own tongue simply to remind themselves who they were and why they were here. It was so easy to forget. Here were no partisans, no sniper’s bullet singing out from behind a wall, no troop trains blown to pieces: at worst just a muttered, sullen acquiescence, and at best the warmth of the Gulf Stream, the round of beaches and the spread of girls on which to exercise one’s limbs.
The Captain advanced carefully across the floor, Molly wriggling slowly in his grasp. She leant back and shook her shoulders. The bottle started to rock.
“Take care,” Bohde called out. “You’ll break it.”
Lentsch waved the warning away. “Never mind the wine,” he urged. “It’s the record you must be careful of. Hold her still, man! Hold her still!”
Molly held out her arms and shimmied in defiance, laughing as the record began to slide forward over the Captain’s head.
“Come on, Zep!” she cried. “Straighten up!”
The bottle crashed to the floor. The record dropped into her outstretched hands. Standing by the door Albert turned and went to fetch a bucket and mop. Molly advanced upon the Major.
“Sorry about that, Gerhard,” she said, holding the record out in front of her. “Blame Zep, not me. His mind must have been on something else.”
“I am sure of that,” Lentsch told her. “You make it so hard for all of us.”
They had met at the Casino earlier that evening. Formerly a hotel on the Esplanade, it was now Guernsey’s most favoured club, where officers were permitted to entertain civilians. A gaming room could be found at the back, as could a small, unpleasant restaurant. The rooms above, each furnished with a bed, a washbasin and a wooden coat hanger, served primarily as rudimentary quarters for when the drinking had taken too heavy a toll, and at other times for perfunctory and indiscreet sex. Many used it for the former, few the latter. It was not done to be seen coming down the club stairs with a local girl following in your tread. The equilibrium of the island demanded, on the surface at least, that its womenfolk be treated with respect.
The focal point of the club was the long room at the front which overlooked the port and the sea beyond. In the summer, when the windows were thrown open, Lentsch and his friends would sit deep in the leather armchairs, their feet on the window sill, drinking Sekt and watching the endless harbour traffic and the determined scurry of civilians, trying to keep their spirits up. But tonight the curtains had been drawn and a fire blazed at the far end. It was comfortable in there. Tankards with their decorated tops hung along the length of the bar, imported beer racked up behind. Pictures of smiling maidens advertising Leica cameras and Junker’s water heaters were propped up behind the bar, while the walls were decorated with photographs of units celebrating the comradeship of war, cooking up a rabbit stew outside a Normandy farmhouse, standing atop a KI 8 outside Dieppe, horseplaying on the boulevards of Paris. Pride of place belonged to gilt-framed reproduction of Padua’s Leda and the Swan, Leda’s shameless nudity stretched high above the fireplace. Those who could drain the club’s two-litre glass boot without drawing breath were hoisted aloft to plant their kisses on whatever part of her body they chose, though out of all who had attempted only Zep and a fighter pilot, long since downed, had achieved that honour.
From the raucous laughter that burst forth as he walked in, Lentsch could tell that everyone was determined to put the events of the past month behind them, everyone that is except Sondefuhrer Bohde, who sat under the portrait, reading some directive or other, his upturned nose twitching in the air. The Captain was there too, standing up at the bar, one foot on the rail, stirring a bowl of ruby-red punch. Watching him, ladle in hand, exhorting a young navy officer to take a cup, it seemed to Lentsch that the Captain grew younger, taller, more handsome and more self-assured by the day. He was what every officer of the new regime aspired to be, a law unto himself, backed by the precedence of naked power and charmed good looks. Last summer he had scandalized Bohde by driving around the island late at night, lights blazing, wearing nothing but a pair of shorts and a cap, Molly and various hangers-on piled in the back, breaking all the curfew, blackout and speeding regulations known to man.
“It’s not right,” Bohde had complained over breakfast. “Here am I, trying to impress upon the population the importance of rules and regulations, and there is the Captain tearing about as if he is on holiday!”
“But he is on holiday,” Lentsch told him. “We’re all on holiday. That’s the trouble. We’ve been here so long it’s metamorphosed into a way of life.”
“Well, I’m not,” Bohde had shouted, “and neither is my blue pencil. I shall write to Headquarters.”
Bohde had thrown down his napkin and, spluttering with impotent rage, stomped off upstairs to sulk. Everyone liked Zep, with his practical jokes and his generosity and his treasonable imitation of Dr Goebbels, who, to Bohde’s fury, he had nicknamed Mahatma Propagandhi. Bohde could rail as much as he liked. He couldn’t get close to Zep and he knew it.
Seeing Lentsch walk in, Bohde pulled himself up from his chair and trotted over, carrying a sheet of newsprint in his arms as if he had come to show off his first-born. Without asking Lentsch if he had enjoyed his leave, he thrust the precious burden under his nose.