‘So, Wils, you think you can do whatever you like. You think we don’t know. But we know enough, matey. You hear me? Every man here knows you reported Jean. Everyone knows you’re a bastard, understand? Let that soak in. Think about it for a few seconds. You’re a bastard, a dirty scab. I couldn’t give a shit whether you think this or that, if you’re for the Brits or the Germans. But you need to be more careful. Because if you ever have the gall to pull a stunt like—’
‘Gus!’ someone shouts.
‘Behind you!’
‘Gus! Over here, now!’
He lets go and I collapse. The chief doesn’t give me a second glance as he shoves the now docile Gus towards his office.
Gus is suspended for two days. Rather than being upbraided for assaulting a fellow policeman, he is censured for breaching a recent provision enacted by the chief superintendent. Talking about politics while on duty is strictly prohibited.
I’m lying on my bed with my trousers and underpants peeled down. Against my better judgement, I’ve nicked Mum’s hand mirror from the bathroom to study my genitals. My scrotum looks terrible: blue and purple and seriously swollen. My penis is flaccid and lifeless, with a bruise shaped like a pig’s head at its base. There’s a knock on the door. I sit up immediately and call out in agony, ‘Occupied!’
My mother’s voice informs me that I have a visitor. Hurriedly I pull up my trousers, slide the mirror under the pillow and scramble back to an upright position. Has Yvette dared to show up here unannounced?
‘I’m coming downstairs!’ I call.
Then I hear Lode’s voice. ‘I’m at the door.’
I try to adopt a relaxed sitting position, albeit without crossing my legs.
My eyes slide around the room. Is there anything to betray me, showing Lode who I really am or revealing him who is called Angelo? The only thing that occurs to me is to quickly tear down a poem from the wall over my bed. It’s called ‘Vigilance’ and I have written it in my own blood. O, my poet’s heart, my grotesque poet’s heart.
‘Come on in, mate,’ I cackle cheerfully.
Lode looks shy.
‘Sorry… but I was thinking of you. I heard what happened.’
I offer him the only chair. He sits down.
There are two dusty glasses in the bedside cabinet. I get them out, wipe them clean with the bedspread and offer him a shot of some kind of liqueur Meanbeard recently gave me.
‘Cheers!’
We clink glasses and sip. It goes straight to my head. I spread my legs a little wider and tell myself the pain in my balls is fading slightly from the alcohol.
‘I feel like I’m to blame, Will. I should have told you they’ve got it in for you at work.’
‘As if I didn’t know…’
‘I hear that Gus kicked you in the balls.’
‘He missed. They don’t call him “Gus Skew” for nothing.’
Lode laughs. I do too, but it takes more effort.
Silence falls. I top us up.
‘To your health.’
‘And yours!’
Lode coughs and looks at the threadbare rug under my bed. ‘You can bet your life there are a few real traitors among us. As long as there’s money in it… And then sometimes people can’t resist picking someone out, someone like you, and loading them with the sins of Israel.’
‘Someone has to be the Jew, you mean?’
‘Come on, Will. You know what I mean.’
Someone like you: it echoes through my mind. Because as much as I see myself as an outsider, I had hoped it wouldn’t be too visible. No, I have to be honest. I didn’t want to stand out at all, I just wanted to belong. It was naive to think it was a problem that could be solved by pulling on a uniform. My blue balls make that obvious now once and for all.
‘There’s one thing I have to ask you, Will…’
‘You want some more of this sticky muck?’ I laugh and reach for the bottle.
‘The White Raven… true or false?’
‘True,’ I say, pouring the liqueur. ‘My old French teacher took me there, the one who helped me get through school.’
‘That guy’s a rat.’
‘Agreed. But sometimes you get to know things by playing dumb.’
Lode whistles quietly. ‘Bloody hell…’
‘You get me, right?’
‘Mate, it’s not a game. One false step.’
‘Look who’s talking.’
Lode starts to laugh. ‘I’m not going to tell you everything. Everyone has their secrets. One last thing and then my lips are sealed. The Germans and their little friends like your teacher are in for a surprise if they try to round up another batch of Jews. No, now you should see your face. Not another word.’
The bottle ends up empty.
Hopefully you, my great-grandson, will one day read this, even if we don’t know each other and you never requested my memoirs. The aunt you never met, my beautiful granddaughter, who ended up doing away with herself with a rope, did ask about my memories of it all. She wanted to know, she wanted to know everything.
‘Keep that old rubbish to yourself,’ my wife snapped under her breath while carrying tea and homemade biscuits into my study. She smiled indulgently at Hilde and said, ‘Child, leave your bompa in peace.’
I looked at her; she was eighteen at the time, with spiky hair and wearing baggy trousers and a ripped vest. Her eyes were made up like a witch’s. She looked a fright, I suppose, but it didn’t bother me. I saw her as a rebel, with something dark about her too. She’d brought her parents to the edge of a nervous breakdown with her sudden crying fits, slashing her arms, calling out that she sometimes saw visions of beauty and heard voices warning her that she and everyone else needed to better their ways.
I looked at her and held my tongue. I did it so as not to disturb your great-grandmother, because she was scared that my stories might make our granddaughter even crazier. I stayed silent and
