Punishments, page 12
‘Yes, weird.’ I was now dreamily recalling the nearness of Jürgen’s body to mine and that hard cock pressing, pressing, pressing against me.
Suddenly Thwaites said: I’ll show you something. Got a moment?’
‘Well, I ought to …’ The memory of the dance had given an even greater urgency to my desire to be with Jürgen.
‘Won’t take a moment. Interesting. Something interesting for you.’
He swung the car off the highway, down a cul-de-sac at the end of which there was a long, low Nissen hut oddly painted with alternate stripes of green and white. He parked so close to its entrance – I was sure that no German would have dared to park like that – that anyone who wished to go in or out would have difficulty in edging past. He pushed at the door and then, holding it open, said with a smile: ‘Après vous, Alphonse!’ I went in.
It took me some time to become accustomed to the gloom of the hut, its only light slanting through windows in urgent need of a clean. Then I became aware of the notice-boards not merely along the walls on either side but in parallel lines down the centre. Before these notice-boards people were crowded, for the most part in silence, often on tiptoe, heads uptilted, in order to read them better. They might have been examining manuscripts on display in a museum.
‘What is it? What are they looking at?’
Thwaites grasped my arm. ‘Missing persons. I sometimes think that half of the people in this benighted country are missing. Everyone is looking for someone else. Names are posted here, thousands and thousands of them, in alphabetical order, and day after day people crowd in, searching, searching, searching.’
All at once he looked oppressed, even haggard, at the thought of all those people in constant quest of each other after the cataclysmic upheaval that had scattered them in all directions, as an earthquake scatters pebbles.
A bent, elderly women, her head bound round and round with a scarf, called out excitedly to an old man examining the board next to hers: ‘ Gottfried, Gottfried!’ The old man hurried over to join her, all but slipping on a crack in the linoleum covering the floor, and peered where she was pointing with a hand crooked with arthritis. He raised a forefinger and ran it under the lines. His lips moved silently in his absorbed face as he read. Then, disappointed, shoulders sagging, he turned away, muttering something to her. She, too, shrugged, a hand to the scarf-turban on her head.
Thwaites, still holding my arm, just above the elbow, shepherded me the length of the hut – from time to time he banged into people or caused me to do so – to a door, which he then opened without knocking. A plump, white-haired woman, in a grey coat-and-skirt with a single rope of pearls, looked up from her desk. ‘Colonel Thwaites,’ she said with a faint French accent. She did not sound welcoming.
‘This is Madame Crécy.’ Still grasping my arm, he propelled me forward. ‘Madame Crécy, this is Michael – Michael Gregg.’ He turned to me. ‘Have I got the surname right?’ I nodded. ‘A young Englishman – attending our conference at the university. I told you about our conference. In fact, I’d half hoped you’d come to our opening ceremony.’
The woman rose, carefully screwed the top on to the slim gold fountain-pen with which she’d been writing, and placed it neatly in a tray on the desk. Then she took my hand in hers, giving me a rueful, understanding smile which seemed to be saying: He’s all right, but he can be a nuisance, can’t he?
‘Madame Crécy is Swiss. She’s with the Red Cross.’
‘You have explained our work here?’
For some unfathomable reason Thwaites answered her in German: ‘Natürlich.’
Madame Crécy turned to me. ‘ So many people come here, many, many. Not easy.’ She shook her head, with its stiffly waved grey hair, and put a plump, carefully manicured hand to the crisp cotton of the collar of her blouse. Then she sighed: ‘Sad.’
There seemed to be nothing more for any of us to say. But Thwaites remained there, his head tilted to one side as he blatantly peered down at a file open on the desk. Madame Crecy picked up her fountain pen and unscrewed its top again. Then she drew the file towards her, away from his gaze, with a small smile.
‘Sorry. A habit.’
Madame Crecy gave the same small smile, as at the peccadillo of the child of a friend. ‘A bad habit.’ The playfulness of her tone did not wholly conceal an underlying disapproval.
Thwaites sighed. ‘Yes, I know, chère madame. I have so many bad habits.’
A tentative knock at the door – it might have been merely someone accidentally colliding with it in passing – came as an obvious relief to Madame Crécy. ‘Kommen Sie!’ she trilled.
The door opened and around it appeared the head, wrapped in its scarf, of the old woman who had for a few moments been so excited by what she had discovered on one of the notice-boards and had then been so disappointed. With repeated bows, she edged into the room, followed by the old man, presumably her husband, dressed in a shiny black suit, with a frayed black tie pinched into a tight knot at the stiff collar of a shirt which, I suddenly realised to my amazement, was made of thick flannel. The old woman spoke with nervous rapidity in German. As she did so, the old man kept nodding his head.
Madame Crécy turned to Thwaites. ‘You must excuse me. I must deal with this lady. She has an urgent problem.’
‘Yes, yes, of course.’ But it was clear that he was reluctant to take his leave. Pointedly Madame Crécy went to the door and held it open. Only then did he move.
Outside he turned to me. ‘Are you as inquisitive as I am? Oh, I’d love to know why those two wanted to talk to her.’
‘Presumably because they couldn’t be sure about that notice.’
‘Yes, of course, of course. But are they looking for a missing son? A brother? Nephew? Friend?’ He sighed. ‘Ah, well, I suppose we’ll never know.’ He walked ahead of me down the central gangway between the high notice-boards. As I followed, I glanced from time to time at the mostly ragged, famished-looking people crowded before them. I felt the unreasoning guilt – after all, as Thwaites had once remarked to me, the Germans had ‘bought it’ – that was so often to afflict me during that visit.
Switching on the ignition, he turned to me to say: ‘Of course most of them will never come back. But they don’t believe that, those poor sods in there. The Crecy woman knows that, and her helpers know that, and we know it. But those poor sods don’t. They’ll be coming here for years, as they’ve already been coming here for years, in a constant state of hope.’
‘Well, I suppose a constant state of hope is better than a constant state of despair.’
He looked gloomy, as he sat hunched over the steering-wheel. ‘I’m not so sure about that,’ He stared into, space. Then he asked: ‘Where now, sir?’
I looked at my watch and, as I did so, he leaned over to look at it too. Before I could answer his question, he exclaimed: ‘Gosh! Omega!’
‘Yes, my father gave it to me as a celebration present when I got a place at Balliol.’
‘Your old dad must be rich.’
‘Not really.’
‘Then he must be very fond of you,’ Was he fond of me? I’d never been sure. I’m not sure even now.
‘I think I’d better go straight to the university. We’ve a meeting at half-past six. It’s not far off that now.’
‘Your wish is my command.’
‘But there’s no need to take you out of your way. Just drop me off somewhere convenient for you.’
‘I said – your wish is my command.’ He leaned forward and pulled up his trouser-leg, head on one side to peer out of the windscreen as he drove with one hand. ‘Something’s bitten me,’ he pronounced, beginning to scratch at the silvery white flesh of a shin. ‘ I shouldn’t be surprised if I’ve picked up a flea from one of those people in there.’
‘Oh, surely not! I thought the Germans were so clean.’
‘It’s not so easy to be clean if the only way to have a hot bath is to go to the public wash-house, and if soap is so scarce as to be a luxury.’ He stopped scratching, to examine his middle finger-nail, which was now smeared with blood. ‘I’ve made myself bleed.’ Mournfully, he wiped the finger on the side of his jacket. ‘So what are you going to discuss this evening?’
‘Oh, the ever-interesting topic, I suppose. German guilt.’
‘I can see it no longer interests you, however much it interests the others.’
I shrugged. ‘ The odd thing is that it seems to interest the German side even more than it interests ours.’
‘Side? Interesting you should use the word, when the war’s over and everyone’s now talking about reconciliation, feel it’s a question of opposing sides? Is that how you still see it?’
‘I think that’s how most of the Germans still see it.’
Chapter Thirteen
I was early for the meeting. There was only one person in the hall, a tall, handsome girl, with an engaging look of being prepared to welcome any fun that came her way.
‘Michael!’ She jumped up from the desk at which she had been slumped, head resting on it.
I couldn’t remember her name. ‘Hello.’
‘D’you think anyone else is coming?’
‘We’re early.’
‘I’m always early. I wish I could break myself of that habit. Really I suppose it’s because I’m afraid I may miss something.’
‘I’d willingly miss this.’
At that moment a group of students, German and English, burst in. One of the German boys was brandishing an envelope above his head, which one of the English girls was attempting to snatch from him. ‘ Oh, give it back, give it back! It’s private! Don’t open it! Don’t read it!’ The girl was like a terrier bouncing up and down to retrieve a ball held high out of reach.
‘Oh, give it to her, Werner,’ one of the other German boys said in English.
‘Yes, give it to her, Werner, before she has hysterics,’ a laughing English girl seconded.
‘Very well. If you say “Please Werner, may I have my letter?” then I will give it to you. Yes?’
Once again the girl jumped up in the air in a futile attempt to retrieve the letter. ‘ I’ll do nothing of the kind!’ she cried out. Then she put out a hand and grabbed her tormentor by the genitals. He let out a squeal and several of the girls did likewise. ‘Kathleen!’ the girl who had been talking to me cried out, more delighted than shocked. Werner had dropped the letter.
Now more and more students were flooding in, the majority of them toting bathing costumes wrapped in damp towels. The skins of many of the English, once waxen and pallid, had now become a raw scarlet from their hours in the sun. People began to flop down at the desks. An English girl, having taken a comb out of her bag and pulled it through her damp hair, then handed it to the German boy with her.
Edna scampered in alone, saw me, waved and hurried over. ‘Duffy told me he’d had a lovely afternoon with you.’
‘I’d have hardly called it lovely. Rather depressing, in fact.’
‘Well, I suppose it was lovely for the poor old thing. I think he’s lonely. Inge can’t be much fun.’ She looked around her. ‘Where are the others?’
‘I imagined you were with them.’
‘No. I decided I must get my hair done. Inge recommended this man opposite the Post Office. Like it?’
‘Yes, I was thinking how terrific it looked.’
‘It cost absolutely nothing. A real screamer – one wonders how he survived the Nazis – but he certainly knows how to cut and set.’ Was she again trying to get at me? I couldn’t be sure.
Jutta, Jürgen, Sally and Mervyn were almost the last to turn up. Jürgen and Mervyn were so engrossed in talking to each other – they appeared to be having some kind of argument – that they totally ignored Edna and me. Jutta sat down at the desk next to mine and took a nail-file out of her bag. Sally, seeming deliberately to avoid me – or was I again being hypersensitive? – walked to the other end of the hall, a paperback detective-story, as so often, in her hand. Once there, she began to read.
The lean, pale German youth, a history student, who was to chair the meeting, crossed awkwardly over to the dais, mounted it, slipped behind the desk, and then cleared his throat loudly as a signal for quiet. ‘I think that you know the programme for this evening. Eric Friend will first speak to us about his ideas, and then we shall discuss. Yes?’ He looked round at us, one or two people nodded, and Jessica called out ‘Super!’ Jutta went on filing her nails, Sally went on reading, and Mervyn and Jürgen, seated directly behind me, went on talking to each other, in voices so low that, however much I strained, I could hear only a word or a phrase – Goethe, elective affinities, romanticism – here and there.
Eric Friend, Wykehamist son of an ambassador, had the reputation of being the most brilliant of all of us. He’d won his scholarship to New College when barely seventeen, and it was said that he’d already been offered a fellowship, which he was dubious about accepting. He hurried over to the dais at a trot – he always seemed to be in a hurry, whatever he was doing – leaped up on to it, and then perched on the edge of the desk. In his over-precise, reedy voice, he began: ‘Ladies and gentlemen – or should I say girls and boys?’ There were a few half-hearted titters. ‘Or friends?’ Now everyone was silent, as he looked around him. ‘I thought that today I might set the ball rolling by saying one or two things about German history. I don’t mean immediate German history, because we’ve been talking continually about that ever since we first got together.’ With an impatient flick of the wrist he brushed away a lock of hair that had slipped across his high, shiny forehead. ‘ What I had in mind was a retrospect. Yes, that’s what I want to – er – share with you, my ideas about Germany’s democratic past.’ Sally was still reading, Mervyn and Jürgen were still whispering to each other. Jutta replaced the nail-file in her bag, and then clicked the bag shut, causing Jessica to frown disapprovingly at the noise. ‘My main thesis will be this. In countries like, well, Italy or Greece, when there has been an interruption of democracy, when there has been a period of dictatorship, a totalitarian rule’ – again the wrist flicked at the obtrusive lock of hair – ‘it is the period of dictatorship, the totalitarian rule, that has been the anomaly. Despite Mussolini and despite Metaxas, Italy and Greece are essentially democratic countries.’ He paused, chin lowered and eyes gazing at the floor, as though in consideration of his own proposition. Then he went on, with renewed conviction: ‘Yes, essentially, Italy and Greece are democratic countries. But of Germany the same cannot be said. In Germany, it is democracy that has always been the anomaly, the aberration. Let us look – let us look for a moment – at the history of the Weimar Republic. The Weimar Republic may in two senses be called an anomaly, an aberration. Yes, in two senses …’
My attention began to wander. Jutta, her head resting on arms crossed on the desk before her and her eyes shut, looked as though, always so easily exhausted, she had fallen asleep. Behind me, Jürgen and Mervyn had at last stopped muttering. Sally, her book tilted to the light from the window beside her, read on. Edna was scratching with a long, pointed finger-nail at the surface of her desk, as though she were attempting to score her name there. Jeremy was doodling, head on one side, on the cover of the notebook that he always brought with him to meetings, even if he rarely wrote in it or, indeed, opened it. How the Germans were reacting to this lesson in their own history, delivered with so much glib assurance, by an arrogant young man from a country that had so recently been an enemy, there was no way of telling since their faces were as impenetrable as the curtained windows of the Hildingen houses when we walked home after nightfall. Was their common reaction one of hostility? I thought so, but could not be certain. After all, it was possible that I was merely ascribing to them emotions that I myself would have been feeling in their situation.
When, at long last, Eric Friend had finished, his usually pale face flushed and his shirt sweat-soaked as though from an exertion far more strenuous than delivering a paper, he gave a little bow to the chairman seated behind him and then another to the audience, even though at these meetings there was never any applause for a speaker. The chairman rose awkwardly, twisting his head from side to side – he might have been attempting to ease some muscular pain in his neck – and all but knocking over his chair, which he rescued with a lunge. ‘Do you have any questions? Yes?’
There was a silence. All the Germans, as if by agreement, were staring down at their desks.
‘Yes?’
Jeremy shuffled to his feet, cleared his throat and opened the exercise book on the cover of which he had previously been doodling, as though to look in it for what he wanted to say. But all I could see were more doodles of pin-men, heavily bewhiskered cats, and triangles and circles, one within the other. ‘Something occurred to me.’ Again he peered at the exercise book, before he went on: ‘This whole conception of democracy. May it not be – how shall I put this? – that the trouble is that there is no agreement between countries or even between individuals as to what precisely democracy is?’ Again he stopped, this time to look not at the exercise book but at the people around him. The Germans looked back at him gravely. Many of us English – having long since decided that dear old Jeremy was really rather an ass – smirked at each other or, in a few cases, even at him. ‘Do you see what I’m getting at?’ Suddenly he sounded insecure and nervous.
‘Perfectly,’ Mervyn replied from behind me. ‘Crystal clear. You have a remarkable gift for making the most difficult things intelligible.’
There were titters, in which even some of the Germans now joined.
Tremulously, Jeremy continued: ‘You see, what we English mean by democracy – with our centuries-old tradition of parliamentary government – may be something totally different from what the Russians mean by it or what – well – the French mean by it, or the Americans, or – or, indeed, you Germans.’
‘Sit down,’ Mervyn muttered.
