Devastation Road Page 15

  He started pacing over towards the man and Owen made a last desperate grab for his arm.

  ‘Sir!’

  ‘Oh, for the love of God. Do what the hell you like! Turner!’ he yelled. A man with a bandage around his head sprang from his seat. ‘Will you just get them out of my goddamn hair?’

  ‘I missed it,’ the man called Turner said, as he ushered Owen and Irena out, Janek hurrying after them. ‘Where’d he say you guys need to get?’

  ‘MG HQ,’ said Owen, whatever that was.

  ‘Ah hell,’ muttered Turner. ‘Hitchin’s orders, right?’

  ‘Right,’ said Owen.

  The open-topped jeep took them through the suburbs, Turner at the wheel, and his partner, Anderson, struggling to control a map, which flapped in the wind as he tried to navigate them through the blown-out streets and rubble. In the back, Owen, Janek and Irena were scrunched in so tight that every time they hit a hole, Owen felt the boy’s hipbone crunch against his own. Irena tried to protect Little Man from the dust and dirt as it blew up into their faces.

  The east of Leipzig looked relatively intact but for the occasional building blown out and the bullet holes pelted like peepholes into the walls. Here and there people were sweeping rubble from the paths. They drove through clouds of scent that wafted from blossoming gardens. Along the electrical wires, birds chattered in long lines.

  The further in they drove, though, the worse it became. Owen’s stomach sank as he gazed up in bewilderment at the remains of the buildings leering over the jeep. Some had been flattened to no more than mounds of brick and stone. The bombings had happened quite some time before, but even so, every now and then Turner had to swerve to avoid a scattering of bricks. Some of the buildings were burnt-out shells, blackened and charred around the empty windows; others had parts blown away entirely, leaving nothing but random walls and lonely chimney breasts, the bones of a house with a mountainous avalanche of rubble flooding through, taking walls down with it and flinging them like shingle out across the street. From up above, ash and dust drifted down. It covered the road in thick silt, and the tyres kicked it up around them so that it fell on their hands and Owen’s trousers and got caught in Janek’s hair.

  Bulldozers were shovelling up broken brick and debris into huge heaps.

  ‘We’re trying to clear the main through-roads first,’ Turner yelled back to them. ‘I tell you, though, no sooner have you cleared one bit than a block falls down some place else and the goddamn road gets blocked again. I swear, this thing’s gonna take weeks.’

  Their route did appear rather circuitous. Turner seemed an erratic driver and was constantly swerving to miss a blasted hole in the road, or a canister that had blown across it, or a splay of bricks where a wall had come down. Twice they found their route blocked, and Anderson scanned the map for a way around while Turner threw the jeep into reverse and backed speedily up the road or made a sharp three-point turn, reversing over rubble, wood and broken glass.

  The high buildings that were still upright cast cold shadows across the street. Owen looked up at the blown-out windows, the iron balconies, and the white sheets or pillowcases hanging from them in submission. Janek tipped his head back too, his eyes wide with disbelief. Irena kept her own gaze locked on the road, coughing as the smoke billowed into their faces. Occasionally dusty children could be seen scuttling like beetles over the brick slags, covered in the same dirt that blew in scurvy waves across the road. Old men sat in doorways; with their motionless grey pallor they looked like ancient gargoyles guarding the entrance to a troglodyte world.

  The new US Military Government headquarters was on Leibnizstraße, off what once must have been a busy intersection. Most of the line of houses was still intact: tall, narrow windows lined up along each floor in a style that was almost Georgian, and smaller basement windows that peeped warily like half-closed eyes over the top of the pavement.

  Turner pulled up outside. A couple of soldiers with steel helmets were forming a loose guard outside the double doors. From open windows at the top of the adjacent building, the crackly sound of a big band could be heard, and further down the street voices from a wireless.

  ‘Here you go,’ said Anderson. He opened his door and got out, nodding at one of the soldiers standing outside, then helped Irena out with the baby, Owen and Janek following.

  As Turner and Anderson drove off Owen stood on the pavement and looked up at the countless windows.

  The two US privates on the entrance wouldn’t let them in. Owen had to admit, they must have looked like an unlikely troop of vagabonds. He went through the speech he’d rehearsed in his head. No, he didn’t have any papers, but he was a pilot, British government business, and he had not come all this way to be left on the doorstep.

  The two soldiers standing between him and the entrance looked at his clothes.

  ‘Do you honestly believe I would have got halfway across Germany in a British uniform?’ he said.

  They saw his point but still weren’t going to allow Irena and Janek in.

  ‘No refugees, sir,’ one of them said. ‘Strictly military personnel.’

  ‘At least let the girl through.’

  ‘We’re not supposed to let any refugees in,’ the man said.

  ‘Especially her lot,’ added the other.

  ‘And whose lot is that exactly?’ said Owen.

  Before the man had a chance to answer there was a voice across the street.

  ‘These two not playing ball?’

  The woman was in uniform: light brown pocketed jacket with a red felt title badge stitched to one shoulder, a black glove folded over the top of one pocket, a cream blouse, and army green skirt and cap. She had a document case full of papers under her arm. She pulled at the other glove still on her hand as she walked briskly towards them, her heels crunching on the gravel in the road.

  ‘English?’ she said, the accent cheery American.

  ‘Yes,’ said Owen.

  The only American woman he’d taken much notice of before was Loretta Young. He’d been to see her three times in The Unguarded Hour when it had played at the Regal Cinema on Richmond Road. This woman had the same dark curls held in place with a clip.

  ‘Well, that’s great. C’mon, Teddy,’ she said to one of the men. ‘Don’t be such a spoiler and let the good man in.’

  ‘It’s these two that are the problem, miss,’ he said. ‘Rules, ’n’ all.’

  ‘Oh, rules, snooze,’ she said. She took a look at Little Man crying in Irena’s arms. ‘Wowsers, you’ve got some lungs. Yours?’ she asked Irena. Her smile widened and Irena nodded. ‘Sweet.’

  Then her eyes scanned Janek up and down. ‘As for you . . . Let me guess. Čech?’

  Owen had no idea how she had been able to tell. The boy grinned.

  ‘I knew it. Damn.’ She clicked her fingers. ‘This girl’s been here too long. You’re coming in then, Mister Airman?’ She took Owen’s arm and glanced at the others, Irena jigging the baby and Janek shouldering his bag. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said to them, ‘I’ll send him out when we’re done.’

  The smartly dressed American lady deposited him in a reception where there was a desk, a secretary and a row of hard-backed seats that gave it the rather uncomfortable air of a well-to-do doctor’s surgery. At one side of the room was a set of high double doors. Walnut, Owen thought, or oak, with vines and flamboyantly feathered birds carved into the panels. The woman went to introduce him to the receptionist but she was on the telephone and then they were both distracted by a booming voice coming down the stairs.

  ‘Well, my Lord, would you believe it—’

  ‘Oh my God!’ the woman squealed. ‘Charlie!’

  ‘Where in devil’s name have you been hiding?’

  And that was rather the end of it. The pristinely dressed Charlie swept her out of the room, all excitable chatter, and the woman made a vague gesture to Owen to indicate that she was all but a helpless damsel in the company of this man, telling him that the recept
ionist – Owen hadn’t caught her name – would help for sure, and really the colonel was a softy, all bark and no bite. They disappeared, laughing, up the stairs, and Owen took one look at the receptionist, who was giving someone on the telephone an earful, and snuck instead into the toilets to quietly gather himself.

  The room was small and a little shabby, and beside the cubicle and a porcelain sink that needed a scrub there wasn’t much else to it. The window was open and outside he could hear a commotion – Janek’s voice and Little Man’s cries and, further down the street, still the distant strains of swing. He leant over the sink and stared into the mirror, trying to pull his thoughts together and compose his story. It was a stroke of luck that had brought them here, but now, faced with an opportunity, he didn’t quite know how to handle it.

  Each day he seemed to look older and thinner. Once-plump parts of his face were now sinking in, his collarbones like railings, and the skin around his eyes had turned dark. He pressed at his ribs. That bloody ache was still there.

  As he filled his cupped hands with water from the trickling tap and held them for a moment to his face, he heard someone crash in behind him, breathless, before the door banged shut and a bolt was hastily pulled across. He turned around.

  ‘Bloody hell. What are you doing?’

  She leant back against the door, her hand firmly clutching the handle as she tried to catch her breath.

  ‘I had to see you,’ she said.

  She wiped at her face as her eyes darted around the room.

  ‘And where’s the baby?’

  ‘With Janek.’ She went quickly to the window and peered through it, then turned back. ‘You do not understand,’ she said. ‘They were not going to let me in.’

  ‘Well, I know that. What’s the matter?’

  ‘I have to tell you,’ she blurted. ‘Before you see this colonel.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Her eyes widened. ‘You have to help me. You have to make them help me.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Of course. She meant the baby.

  ‘No, you don’t!’ She seemed to leap at him.

  He raised his hands, trying to pacify her. He had never seen Irena like this, her eyes so wild, stepping anxiously about as if she wanted to pace but there wasn’t the room. She pressed her lips together, trying to control herself, and wiped her eyes with the heels of her hand. She took a deep breath.

  ‘The man,’ she said, her eyes filling. ‘The man that raped me. He was American. An American soldier.’

  Owen stared at her.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  She nodded.

  ‘Jesus Christ.’ He tried to think. ‘But . . . My God, Irena, why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ she said. ‘I was scared.’

  All this time he had known that she was keeping something from him. But did she honestly think that an American here in Leipzig might help them track this man down? She looked so small now in that dirty white dress and the ragged pink cardigan.

  ‘Where did it happen?’

  She shook her head. ‘I don’t know,’ she said. And then: ‘In Aachen. It was in Aachen. I tried to stop him. I promise. I didn’t want it. You have to tell them. Please.’ She drew closer to him, her tears gathering wet around her chin, so that instinctively he backed away, unsure of how to handle her. ‘I need them to help me,’ she begged. ‘Not much, just some money or . . . I don’t know, maybe they can give me somewhere to live so I can look after it. I could look after it; I could do that if they helped me. Or, I don’t know, fly us away from here – America, I don’t care, but they have to help me. They raped me. This man. In Aachen. This American. You have to tell them. Please. It was an American soldier.’

  Colonel Hall would not be seen. The smartly uniformed woman at the reception desk, her arms resting on a leather inlay and fingers rolling a blunt pencil in her hand, was quite firm about that. She reeled off a list of reasons, each one digging her heels in deeper, but Owen was only half listening. He could feel the walls folding in on him. Every sharp tick of the pendulum wall clock chipped a bit of him away.

  He had left Irena in the gent’s toilet and she had still not reappeared. If she didn’t slip out soon she would be found and hauled over the coals – and him with her probably.

  ‘I’ll wait,’ he said.

  ‘I’m afraid you won’t,’ said the receptionist. ‘I’m going to have to ask you to leave.’

  ‘But I’m British RAF,’ he complained.

  ‘And your papers?’

  ‘I don’t have any,’ he said.

  ‘Proof of identification?’

  ‘I told you!’ He could hear his voice rising. ‘Isn’t my word good enough?’

  ‘Not these days, no,’ she said.

  ‘Well, it will bloody well have to be.’

  She put the pencil down hard and eyed him over the rim of her glasses with an expression that said: Well, without any papers, what am I to do?

  Just then the double doors opened and two uniformed men came through. The reception filled with voices.

  ‘Miss Meier here’ll sort you out,’ the larger of the two said, motioning at the receptionist.

  That must be the colonel, Owen thought. He had broad enough shoulders, an eagle badge sewn on each.

  ‘It’s a damn mess, though,’ he said. ‘You’d think these people would be begging for jobs, but no. No, I reckon they’re just about used to getting everything done for them.’

  ‘Well, we’re gonna have to teach ’em somethin’ ’bout that, sir,’ said the other. He was young and puppyish, more gung-ho than was necessary.

  The colonel smiled thinly, a hand at the man’s elbow that clearly signalled: Off you go.

  ‘Yes, well . . . I’ll be seeing you, Bill. And, don’t forget, I’ll be needing those cables . . .’

  They shook hands again and said goodbye. As the colonel disappeared back into his office, Owen leapt towards the door.

  ‘Excuse me! Colonel Hall?’

  The receptionist bolted from her seat. ‘Hey! Sir!’

  But Owen had already pushed against the closing door and into the room.

  ‘Sir, I said no!’

  The colonel had barely got midway across his office.

  ‘So sorry, sir,’ Owen and the receptionist both said. She was teetering in the doorway.

  ‘I do apologize,’ said Owen. ‘Flight sergeant. British RAF.’ He saluted.

  ‘I don’t care what the hell you are, barging in here like a couple of bloody musketeers.’

  ‘I did try to stop him, sir.’

  ‘I don’t rightly care,’ snapped the colonel.

  ‘I just need five minutes of your time, sir,’ said Owen.

  ‘I don’t have five minutes,’ said the colonel. ‘And who the hell are you anyway? You got an appointment?’

  ‘No, sir, he certainly does not,’ said the receptionist tartly.

  ‘No,’ admitted Owen, ‘and I wouldn’t ask, only . . .’ Only now he couldn’t think and the colonel was staring. ‘Please,’ he said. ‘You have to see me. I wouldn’t ask if I wasn’t desperate.’

  He could feel his insides melting. He was shaking, everything that was keeping him upright seeming to fall away.

  The colonel stared at him, drawing in his pale lips. ‘Goddamn it, all right. Five minutes. And that’s your lot. Understand?’ He looked Owen up and down and moved back to his chair. ‘You look like some godforsaken farm boy,’ he said, sitting back down heavily. ‘British RAF?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Sorry about making an entrance like that, sir.’

  ‘Yeah, well . . . And don’t think about sitting down,’ he said. He stared at Owen as he stirred a cup of tea on his desk.

  Owen heard the door close. He glanced around the room, at the paintings dotted around the walls, mostly pastoral scenes he noted, and the spot above the colonel’s desk where a single picture had been removed and there was a rectangle of panelling that was slightly darker than the rest.

>   ‘Well?’ said the colonel, tapping the spoon against the rim with finality. ‘Go on then.’

  The room felt unbearably hot, even with the sash window open. Owen drew himself up to his full height. With relief he could hear Irena’s voice in the street outside.

  ‘I’d like to report a missing person, sir,’ he said, trying at last to catch his breath.

  It wasn’t what he had planned to say first but it came out of his mouth anyway.

  The colonel put the spoon down. ‘Oh yeah?’ he said. ‘And who the hell might that be?’

  The telling of the story was not as simple as it should have been. It had no beginning and even the middle was a tangle.

  He had been in a camp, he eventually said, some days’ walk east from Leipzig.

  ‘But what happened before that or how I got there, sir, I don’t know.’

  His memory, he told the colonel – bits of it were gone, broken away, and he was only now starting to reclaim it.

  ‘And then I woke up in a field,’ he said, ‘and I was in Czechoslovakia, and that’s where I met Janek, sir. And Irena, well, she came later. She’s the one with the baby.’

  ‘The baby?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ He wasn’t explaining himself at all well. He’d come back to the baby later. The problem was that it was all so muddled. ‘I wish I could remember what had happened, but I can’t. I don’t even know where I’m going. I just need to get home.’

  ‘And where’s that?’ said the colonel.

  ‘Well, I worked in Kingston, sir. I know that. I was a draughtsman at Hawkers.’

  ‘The planes?’

  ‘That’s right, sir. Designing Hurricanes and whatnot, and then . . . then . . .’ Well, that’s when it started to blur.

  ‘But I thought you said you were a pilot,’ said the colonel.

  ‘Yes. I am, sir.’

  ‘But you don’t remember?’

  ‘No, sir. Not exactly. I get flashes of flying. I can see it in my head. I can see the cockpit, the instrument panel. I know all the systems. I could draw you any sort of gauge you like, sir: engine oil pressure, oil temperature, coolant temperature, fuel tank, you name it. I know how to read them all.’