It was dark now. Not pitch-black, for a small sliver of moonlight painted the
sky and added a touch of romance to the scene around them. Between that
and the far-off sound of surf as it pounded the shoreline of the cove, it was a
night of mystical possibilities. At least for Maddie, who remembered the
rugged, handsome smuggler she’d conjured up in her mind. He would be
pulling his rowing boat into shore on such a night. Off-loading his
contraband.
She stared across at Rudi Fischer, slumped on the floor, his back
propped up against the wall of the barn. He seemed exhausted. Vulnerable.
Not obvious hero material. He wasn’t swarthy, not like her make-believe
Cornish smuggler. His hair wasn’t black, but blond, the kind of blond that
was almost white. And his eyes. They were neither green nor hazel, but
memorable all the same. Mesmerising. An incredible piercing blue. And
although he was the enemy, Maddie was beginning to think him a hero as
well. He could have run, thought only of himself, his own escape. But
instead, he had gone to rescue a small, frightened boy from a minefield.
And that’s when her bubble of romance burst. The noise was incredible
and shook the ancient timbers of the barn around them. They both looked
skywards at the same time as though it were possible to see through the
sagging timbers of the roof: she – pulling herself back to reality; he
opening half-closed eyes in recognition of the familiar sound.
The din went on for a long time and seemed endless. A wave of sound
that made speech impossible. Maddie watched his eyes widen, not with
fear, but with something else – an old memory, perhaps. He went outside
into the chill night, and she followed him.
They both stared up in awe as wave after wave of aircraft passed
overhead, heading inland. Black shapes, lit by the moon, silhouetted against
the night sky, its shimmering canvas of black satin pierced by occasional
stars that glistened like sequins.
It was a breath-taking sight. Something beautiful and poetic about its
symmetry, thought Maddie. Majestic. But at the same time there was a dark
malevolence in such power that could take lives so randomly. She
shuddered at the thought. She’d been wrong to think the sight beautiful.
People who were alive now would be dead by morning.
‘Heavy bombers,’ she said. ‘Headed inland.’ She sighed. ‘God bless
whoever’s underneath that lot.’
‘Pride of the Luftwaffe,’ said Rudi.
She looked at him in surprise. He sounded cynical.
‘Heinkel He 111s,’ said Rudi. ‘I recognise the sound.’
Maddie thought she heard sadness in his voice, or maybe even regret for
what he no longer had.
‘Is that what you flew?’ she asked.
Rudi nodded his head. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said. And then something like
guilt crossed his face, reached his eyes.
‘What for?’
‘For what I did. For what they will do tonight.’
‘You dropped bombs?’ she asked. ‘Is that what you’re saying? Were you
in a bomber?’
‘A gunner, in the waist,’ he said. ‘But it doesn’t matter, does it?’
‘What?’
‘Whether I drop the bombs, or fire the gun,’ Rudi said, with remorse.
‘It’s all the same. People die. I’ve killed them. We Germans have killed
them. I, Rudi Fischer, have killed.’ He said it with passion, his voice getting
louder.
‘You’ve killed. We’ve killed. It’s war and I hate it,’ she said, angrily.
‘But we’ve got to win. Britain has to win. You see that, don’t you? We can’t
let that maniac Hitler get away with it – he has to pay.’
Maddie watched him look up once more as the last of the bombers flew
overhead. He turned around and headed back to the old barn and as he did
so, he seemed to shrink in size, his shoulders drooping as if in defeat. She
noticed he had a limp. Maybe the man was tired. He’d had a long, stressful
day – they both had. She was tired as well. And hungry. Suddenly, she was
very hungry.
She remembered the food in the car and smiled. Harry hadn’t scoffed all
of it; there must be a couple of sandwiches left. And the tea, although it was
asking a lot of the flask that Lizzie had provided for the tea to be anything
but lukewarm after all this time. And the local beer, of course. She couldn’t
remember what Lizzie had called that, but it would be a treat, whatever it
was.
That’s what made her mind up. The hunger and tiredness that had
suddenly crept up on her. What will you do? he’d asked her. And until then
she hadn’t decided. Drive through the night in the blackout, back to the
POW camp? Make her report? That was one option. Or drive into Helston.
Notify the police that there was a German prisoner on the loose. But the
struggle with potholes in the road and the narrow country lanes had been
hard enough in daylight. No headlights allowed in the blackout. No point in
breaking an axle in the dark. And even if she left right now, this man
wouldn’t stay here, waiting to be captured. And she could hardly overpower
him and take him with her. She’d report him tomorrow.
Maddie got the basket from the car and the torch from the glove box
and made her way back into the barn. The old building might be creaking,
but it seemed to be waterproof and would be warmer than spending a night
in the vehicle.
He was asleep when she got back. He looked young, the lines around
his eyes smoothed out, the thin, sallow face relaxed. She tried to guess his
age. Younger than me, she thought. Not that she was old: twenty-three was
hardly old, was it? Yes, definitely younger, although he acted older, seemed
to have a weary sort of experience about him. But then the war did that to
people. Twenty, maybe. Perhaps even younger. Maybe still in his teens. The
idea shocked her. But why should it? She couldn’t find a reason. Just that
whatever he’d had to do in this war seemed to make him sad.
Maddie unpacked the basket and laid the contents carefully on the barn
floor. A sort of picnic. She’d leave a sandwich for him and a bottle of beer.
It seemed only right: a small reward after what he’d done for the lad. She
poured tea from the flask into its miniature cup and took a sip. She was
right; it wasn’t hot, just tepid. But still, the trickle of liquid that made its
way down her throat was comforting. Like an old friend, rediscovered,
remembered.
The unexpected scream startled her, and Maddie knocked the flask over,
the precious liquid seeping onto the rough concrete floor.
The German cried out again in his sleep and she ran over to his side.
‘Vater!’ he shouted. He opened his eyes in confusion and looked up at
Maddie.
‘Water?’ she said. ‘Is that what you want? I don’t understand. I don’t
speak German.’
He shouted again, a pleading in his eyes this time, and in his voice:
‘Mein Vater. Wo ist mein Vater?’ He grabbed her hand urgently.
‘Look, I’m sorry,’ said Maddie, ‘but I don’t understand. You had a
nightmare…’
‘A nightmare?’
‘Yes, you were sleeping. You screamed…’
‘Oh. I frightened you,’ said Rudi.
‘What is meinvater?’ she asked.
‘My Vater… mein Papa,’ he explained, when she looked confused.
‘Papa…’
‘Father – your father?’
‘Ja. Yes,’ he said, and he held his head stiffly, his body taut with trapped
emotion.
Maddie rested her hand lightly on his shoulder, felt the small tremor run
from him into her fingers. Like electricity looking for an outlet.
And that’s when she noticed the first tear. It seeped from the corner of
his eye in a slow-motion ballet, as though the man had no control over its
beginning or its end. She stopped its progress with a single finger. An
intimate gesture, but it didn’t feel out of place: it felt right. Other tears
followed and she wiped them away.
Like a small, frightened boy, she thought. A boy looking for an answer,
searching for a way out of the darkness of his nightmare. She sank down
beside him, wrapping her arms around him until his tremors became a part
of her, his sadness hers. She listened as his rapid breaths subsided. Their
breathing slowly joined together, synchronised, like one body. A magical
synthesis – a union of bodies and minds. Hers and his.
And that’s when he put his lips on hers. And kissed her. Gently at first,
and then with an intensity that spoke of something other than a random
impulse. Something deeper. His face was grave and serious as if the weight
of his action should not be misunderstood.
Maddie Brady looked into the startling blue eyes of her enemy – and
kissed him back.
How can your life change in an instant? Is the pattern of normal life so
fleeting, so ephemeral, that it takes only one moment of time to jolt it out of
the mundane and into the magical? Into a whole new orbit?
These were questions Maddie asked herself frequently, but not then.
Afterwards, and for years to come, yes, but right then, sitting on a blanket
in the middle of an ancient barn, eating sandwiches and drinking beer, she
could think of nothing but the man beside her.
She’d kissed him.
It wasn’t as if she went around kissing every random stranger that she
met. But this man. The first time she had seen him at the camp there had
been an undeniable interaction between them, the déjà vu of meeting
someone you’d already seen in a dream. Some magical force had drawn her
towards this stranger as if it were outside her control. It was whimsical
rather than rational. And Maddie Brady tried to be rational, to stay in
contact with reality.
Her romantic encounters in her life so far had been sparse. And that’s
exactly how she liked it. Her life was her own, and she enjoyed the freedom
to do and say what she pleased. Not to relinquish control, hand it over to the
whim and unpredictability of some man. She’d never met a man she would
trust with that power, one who might treat her as an equal.
She was sure of one thing, however: his face would be imprinted on her
memory. It was not a truly handsome face, it was too pale and thin for that.
But, all the same, it was aesthetically pleasing to her eye.
Her head reeled when she held his gaze. Or maybe that was the Cornish
bitter she’d been drinking. She remembered Lizzie’s words: Enough to put
all but the strongest man on his back. He seemed to be okay with it, though.
But then she’d heard that the Germans were big beer drinkers.
She smiled at him again. ‘You’re a good man, I believe. You could have
run away.’
‘I did run away,’ said Rudi, and shrugged his shoulders, confused.
‘Not from the camp,’ said Maddie. ‘When we got here, you didn’t
vanish. You raced to the sand dunes.’
‘The boy,’ said Rudi, ‘he was in trouble. Mein Vater, he taught us—’
‘—to care for people,’ she said. ‘He must be a very kind man.’
‘Kind? Yes. He is. Was! I don’t know…’
‘You don’t know what?’ asked Maddie.
‘I don’t know if mein Vater still lives.’ Rudi Fischer swallowed hard.
‘They took him away. The Nazis took him away to a camp somewhere.’
‘God, no. But why?’
‘Zersetzung der Wehrkraft,’ he whispered, almost to himself. ‘That’s
what they accused him of.’ Rudi’s body shuddered with the memory. ‘It’s a
criminal offence.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘They called him a criminal, because he didn’t believe in war, in
fighting. Mein Vater – he was a peaceful man.’
‘A pacifist, yes?’
‘Just so,’ he said. ‘And in this new Germany, you cannot criticise the
army or the leaders or be an objector to war. It’s called Zersetzung der
Wehrkraft.’ She watched him struggle for the English words. ‘To try and
weaken military force, it means. To undermine it. And that is treason. Mein
Vater was charged with treason.’
She felt him pull away from her, as if somehow his father’s plight was
her fault.
‘I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked. I don’t want to make you sad,’ she
said.
‘Sad? You don’t make me sad, you make me happy. I’m sad for my
country. I love my country. You can still love your country and hate what
these people do to it – the Nazis.’
‘Tell me about your home,’ she said.
‘Heimat,’ he said. And there was a strange kind of reverence embedded
in the word.
‘Heimat.’ She repeated it slowly. Could see that it was important to him.
‘What does it mean?’
‘It’s something sacred. Especially to a real German. Not Hitler, of
course, or any of his bullies,’ he said, angrily. ‘They don’t understand what
a real German patriot is, or how beautiful an idea Heimat is. It means
“homeland”.’
Suddenly there was a wistfulness in his voice that made Maddie want to
cry.
‘So, your homeland…?’
‘My village. You’d like it, I think. It’s beautiful. In a valley, the
mountains soaring high above it. A stream running through it beside the
road. We only have one road in Ramsau. A tiny place.’ He found a smile
again, remembering.
‘Sounds pretty.’
‘Yes. And the church. Saint Sebastian – it’s very old. Lots of people
travel to Bavaria to see it.’
‘I’d like to go there,’ said Maddie. ‘Do you have snow?’
‘Lots and lots of snow,’ said Rudi. ‘Obersalzberg is nearby, where you
can ski. And Hintersee.’
‘Hintersee?’
‘A lake with icy, crystal waters so deep and clear, and mountains rising
up from it to touch the sky. Before the war, people walked all the way
around its shore. Artists came. Many artists came to paint it.’
‘Must be wonderful,’ she said. ‘I can imagine you there, on a boat. And
swimming.’
Rudi Fischer looked away, embarrassed. ‘I’ve spoken too much,’ he
said. ‘I bore you with my story. It is not good manners,’ he added,
apologetically. ‘But of course, I miss my home, my village. Heimat!’ he
said once again, longing in his voice.
He shook his head, apparently drawing a line under the sadness. ‘Now
it’s your turn. I wish to know of your home, your family.’
Maddie patted his hand. ‘Another time. It’s late, we should sleep.’
Her cold, passionless family seemed bland and emotionally vacant after
Rudi Fischer’s; and Hampstead a pale and uninteresting place, not at all like
some magical Alpine village bathed in snow-light, nestling at the foot of the
mountains.
They cleared the blanket of their picnic and lay down together, huddled
close for warmth, for companionship. Finding each other’s arms during the
long night.
But all they did was sleep
