Sufferance, page 18
* * *
The rest of it went according to plan, but I could not help worrying about whether it had achieved its purpose and convinced the concierge and her son that the girl had left or whether it had actually had the opposite effect and aroused their suspicions.
The boor must have taken my daughter for the girl, or he would not have said he wanted to see her identity-card. And his mother would surely conclude that even if I had smuggled the girl out of the building because she had no valid identity-card, it was now too late to do anything about it.
One thing worried me. Was it possible that when the lout stared in through the window of the taxi he had caught a glimpse of my daughter and realised it was she and not the girl? In the confusion, had she been careful to keep her face hidden or had she looked out to watch the row? In that case he and his mother would guess that the girl was still in our apartment.
* * *
From now on it was essential that nobody other than the five of us have the slightest inkling that there was anyone but four family members in the apartment. That meant the girl had to stop playing the piano because she performed pieces that required so much more skill than my daughters possessed that it would have betrayed her presence. When I first told her that at lunch a couple of days before we put the deception into effect, she said tartly that she would try to play her pieces as badly as my daughters, and that did not go down at all well.
Unable to make music, she became more bored than ever—especially when she was alone in the apartment since at those times she could not listen to the wireless if there was supposed to be nobody there.
* * *
The next day I decided on a whim to pass the eastern entrance to the Old City again. I found it was sealed up completely. I walked all the way round to the western entrance and saw that, although it was still open, nobody was being allowed out. Its inhabitants were no longer permitted to work outside.
* * *
Dividing the rations for three adults and one child among four people was difficult. Both our daughters were going out every day, whereas the girl was staying at home. I was going to work, but I stinted myself. I ate hardly more than the girl even though I was almost twice her weight. My wife consumed the same as, or less than, the girl.
The tightening of rationing and the rise in prices led my wife to make a decision that must have been hard. The authorities had set up a system for dealing with orphaned and refugee children whose parents had been killed or otherwise incapacitated by the War. They advertised for unpaid helpers, and my wife volunteered to work three afternoons a week in return for her lunch and a snack in the afternoon ‘off the ration-book’.
She started that work a day or two later, and some days that was all she ate so that the girl and I should share her rations.
* * *
There was something else that was worrying me, and this was a matter I was keeping from my wife. Two days after we had pretended she was escorting the girl back to her parents, the concierge accosted me as I was coming home from work and said: How is the little girl—your wife’s niece or whatever she is?
As always I said: You mean my cousin’s daughter? She smiled unnervingly. Then I explained: She was fine when my wife left her yesterday. You remember, perhaps, that my wife took her back to her parents two days ago?
The woman said: Now isn’t that interesting.
It seemed an odd thing to say. She didn’t explain her meaning. I just nodded and walked on up the stairs.
Then a couple of days later she stopped me and started a rambling conversation about the occupants of the apartment on the top floor of the neighbouring building. Eventually I began to see her drift. Her theme was that since their apartment, like mine, was twice as large as the others, those other tenants believed it was ‘only right and proper’ to give their concierge twice the tip that every other tenant gave her on the quarter-days when such gratuities were donated. Such a day was imminent.
I made some non-committal remark in response. I now had to decide whether to accept the hint. If she had guessed some of the truth, to give her a larger than usual tip would surely be to confirm her suspicions. On the other hand, to fail to give her what she wanted risked her making more trouble.
Eventually I decided I had to confide in my wife. When I did so that night, she horrified me by saying that the woman had been dropping the same sort of hints to her: mentioning the girl and then, as if the topic were related, bringing up the issue of her quarterly ‘present’.
I was in favour of giving her not twice as much but a larger than usual tip on the grounds that if she were blackmailing us, she would not denounce us because then our donations would stop.
My wife loathed the idea of conceding that we were frightened of her and said that if we started on that course the demands would get larger and larger. Even assuming she was unaware of the identity of the girl’s father and his significance to the authorities, the reward for betraying us for hiding any member of the girl’s community was so large that the concierge would certainly denounce us if she was sure we were hiding an alien, and therefore it was better to call her bluff at this stage. She could have no real evidence and would surely be scared to summon the police to harass her most respectable tenants.
But did she have any evidence? I asked my wife if she thought the woman’s son could have glimpsed our daughter’s face either as she was hurrying past the hatch or when she was in the back of the taxi. She said she was absolutely certain that had not happened.
I suggested a compromise. Just as we were not sure if she was really extorting money from us because of her suspicions, we should give her an amount that would leave her unclear whether or not we were allowing ourselves to be blackmailed. I would give her an extra fifty per cent on top of the usual gratuity and tell her it was because her argument about the size of our apartment was a fair one.
My wife was still reluctant and pointed out how little we could afford to do that now—but she eventually consented.
So a short time later, on quarter-day, I handed the concierge the sum settled upon and explained that I had thought about what she had said and decided such an increase was just.
She took the money without any trace of pleasure or gratitude and just said: It’s up to you, sir.
Now what did she mean by that? Was it merely that she was a little disappointed I had not doubled the amount? Or was it a menacing threat that if I chose not to satisfy her, I must take the consequences?
* * *
A few days later, the municipal administration published a manifest running to several pages which listed members of the ‘protected community’ whose whereabouts they were anxious to learn. Each was given a brief description. The name of the girl’s father was not on it, but to my horror the girl herself was there. She was described in these terms: Age 14. Slight build. Green eyes. Reddish-blonde hair worn short. Beside each name was the size of the reward being offered. Most of them were the same amount, but to my surprise the bounty for the girl was among the largest. I realised the authorities must have thought she could lead them to her father’s assets. But what did he own apart from the store or a share of it? I wondered if there was something else they were searching for: title-deeds or sight-drafts or account-numbers. If so, it was probably in the safe. Presumably they had no idea of its existence.
It struck me as strange that the authorities were so keen to find the girl when her father would have the information they wanted and he was in what was now part of the territory of the Enemy.
They must know that was where he was since his name did not appear on the index. With their mixture of microscopic thoroughness and overall lack of vision, had they lost track of him?
There was something else to worry about: the index was held in all public offices as well as post offices and libraries, and I feared the reward would encourage anyone who knew of the girl’s tenuous links to my younger daughter and myself to investigate further.
* * *
My wife and I were now giving up a substantial portion of our rations to the girl, and our daughters resented the fact that we were going without so the girl could eat, and they were angered by her lack of gratitude. Everything about her now annoyed them: her idleness as she loafed about the apartment all day while they were out working or studying, her insolence towards her three elders, and her lack of interest in anything that did not directly affect her well-being. Now that she was alone three afternoons a week, she was getting more and more bored and restless.
* * *
The issue that was most preoccupying me, however, was not related to the girl but to my elder daughter. She was now going out drinking three or even four nights of the week with the concierge’s son and his cronies in the auxiliary police. She often came home very late after spending time in his mother’s apartment when the curfew closed the bars, and several times she returned more or less intoxicated. I always waited up for her and told her how disappointed by her conduct I was and that we would have to discuss it the next day. When we did, she was unrepentant and even surly. She said she now had more in common with those barely educated young men than with ‘people like you and Mother’. When I asked her how she could afford to spend so much on drink or how the concierge’s son could when he was unemployed, she said his friends had plenty of cash. I asked if she wasn’t ashamed to be bought drinks by men who were collaborating with the occupying power, and she groaned and told me the world had changed and I had to realise you couldn’t live in the past. There was nothing wrong with collaboration if it meant working together to make our country a better place, and there was a great deal our Enemy could teach us.
I could not help worrying about what my daughter might let slip when her tongue was loosened by alcohol. One hint to those licensed thugs, and we would all be in serious trouble. I did not discuss this with my wife, but eventually I realised she shared my concerns. She was as dismayed as I by our daughter’s support for the people who were making money and advancing themselves through our nation’s humiliation, but she had more insight than I into her motives. It was understandable, she said, that seeing her hopes of a career dashed by the War, she would attach herself to the faction that seemed to offer the prospect of advance and progress. Young people don’t want to dwell on defeat and constraint but focus their energies and ambitions on something positive.
* * *
The evening after that conversation there was another announcement on the nine o’clock news. So far only members of the girl’s community living in the metropolis and the administrative district surrounding it had been required to move into the ‘protected area’ of the Old City. To my astonishment, the wireless now announced that the rule was being extended to the whole province. It said: The unhygienic and unsightly rural villages in which these people have generously been permitted to live, will be decontaminated and restored for the use of decent citizens of our nation. Their present occupants will be required to move into the ‘protected area’ of the Old City and live amongst their own people while they wait to be relocated. This regulation comes into effect at midnight tonight and all those affected by it must have complied within one week. Any who fail to obey will be dealt with in the harshest terms. It made no sense. The numbers involved were enormous. There would not be space for them within the confines of the Old City. Moreover, the logistics of such an operation were formidable. This was yet another example of a massive bureaucratic blunder. I said nothing to any of my family but resolved to go the next afternoon and see what was happening.
* * *
It was only an hour later that there was another shock.
It had happened several times in the last few days that as I was going past her hatch, the concierge called out to me and said something that was either menacing or was an implied request for money. Once she said: Would you like my lad to come up and do any small repairs for you, sir? He could use the money. I declined the offer. Another time she beckoned me closer and in a loud whisper told me that if I ever had a guest whose identity-card I didn’t want her to see, she could probably manage to be busy with something at the crucial moment. Then she added meaningfully: Coming or going, sir. And man, woman, or child. With a sly look she said: I could be busy counting up my quarterly tips, though that wouldn’t take me very long.
I replied: Thank you, but I don’t think that will be required.
Now, at about ten o’clock, there was a loud knock at the door. When the girl was out of sight in her room, I opened it and found the concierge’s son looming up with a stupid grin on his face. He asked if there were any little jobs I would like him to do. I pretended to consider and then told him I could think of nothing.
I said: Please don’t ever come this late again. The children are usually in bed by now.
The children? he repeated.
I realised my mistake. I said: Both my daughters are my children.
He gave me a half-witted smile and turned away.
It seemed ominous, and yet even after that, I could not be sure the concierge and her son knew anything for certain. I actually found myself longing for one of them to make an explicit threat. It would have made my course of action so much clearer.
* * *
The next afternoon I went to the western gate of the Old City and saw a scene of utter chaos. The square and the streets approaching it were crowded with people and carts and motor-vehicles. I could not get near the gate. I went into a café and asked if I could look out from their top floor. From up there I could just make out the gate with its checkpoint and I saw that, as I had expected, the policemen and soldiers on duty had abandoned any attempt to check the papers of those pressing to get in.
I hurried home and when my wife returned from her stint at the orphanage, I asked her to come into our bedroom. I told her what I had seen and said that this was a once-only opportunity to discharge ourselves of our responsibility for the girl without incurring any ill consequences. She would be able to walk into the Old City without her papers even being looked at and therefore nobody would notice that they were invalid and trace her back to us.
My wife leaped at this chance, and we talked about how it could be done. I would escort the girl, and we would have to risk breaking the curfew. I would take her out in the early hours of the next morning when the concierge was asleep. In order to avoid the patrols enforcing the curfew, we would take quiet back-streets to a shadowy place nearby. (I would have to reconnoitre to find one in the short time left before the curfew.) We would hide there for the rest of the night until the curfew ended at six and then make our way to the gate of the Old City which reopened at seven. We would have to watch it for perhaps another hour or so until it was again besieged by the press of people entering. Then the girl would join the throng crowding unchecked through the gate, and we would be rid of her at last.
Then my wife asked: But will she agree?
I said: Why would she not choose to enter the protected area? And she will be among her own people again.
I stressed that we had to act immediately. There was no certainty that the pressure of people would be maintained at this level, and once it slackened, the normal checks would resume.
My wife fetched the girl from the living room where the three young people were waiting for her to serve supper.
The girl sat on the bed and I told her that there was now a wonderful opportunity for her to join her own community in the Old City without any problem about her papers being checked. I explained the situation and described what I had seen.
To my dismay she refused to consider it. She said: You want to get rid of me because you’re trying to protect yourselves.
I found that very hurtful after all we had done for her.
She said that she would have a terrible time in the Old City where she knew nobody. She said: I’d be very lonely there. Here at least I’ve got you.
I said she was sure to make friends very quickly. She looked unconvinced.
And then she demanded: How would I manage without a ration-card?
I had not thought about that. I said quickly that a different system was in force inside the protected area since numerous members of her community had entered it before rationing was introduced. (I had no idea if it was true.)
She just pursed her lips and shook her head in that maddening way she had. My wife lost control and grabbed her by the upper arms and said: You have to go. For your sake as well as for ours. You’re in danger here and you’re putting us in danger.
The girl said: I won’t go. And you can’t make me. If you tie me up and carry me out, I’ll kick and scream. And if you did get me as far as the Old City, I’d tell the police straightaway that you’ve been hiding me.
My wife slapped her and screamed that she was a selfish wicked little vixen.
I pulled her off her and told the girl to go straight to bed and that there would be no supper for her.
Discussing it that night, we agreed the girl would get nothing to eat until she gave in.
* * *
My wife stayed in all the next day and made sure that rule was enforced. On the way home I explored some back-lanes and found a dark corner nearby in which the girl and I could wait for the end of the curfew. When I got home I joined my wife in her attempts to persuade the girl that it was to her advantage to accept the plan. By the end of the evening, however, she had not relented.
We agreed we would have to continue with that approach the next day. Still, she would not give way. And so we had to carry on with the harsh sanction for a third day.
