Читать книгу Mr. Emmanuel - Louis Golding - Страница 13

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Perhaps Mr. Emmanuel should not have discharged all at once all the bolts from his locker. If he had spread them out over the next few days, games in the morning or after lunch, jokes and tricks in the evening, they might have scored a more signal success. Or perhaps the mind of the German boy is not attuned to that sort of frivolity. The fact remains that his Pandora’s box fell flat. Mr. Emmanuel, assisted by their hostess and the housemaid, laid the various objects down on the lawn after breakfast next morning, and the youths, on being summoned, came up respectfully enough.

When Mrs. Cooper explained that Mr. Emmanuel had brought them for their special delectation, they expressed their gratitude. They examined the exhibits with a seriousness more appropriate to geological specimens than to aids to more joyful living. They threw the rope quoits and struck at the anchored tennis-ball seriously, and with immediate efficiency. They mastered the tricks within a minute or two, and were entirely unamused by the jokes. In less than an hour Hugo Baum was back at his saint’s life again, at the further end of the lawn; little Heinrich had torn the synthetic fly from its lump of sugar and removed the cork from the base of the glass of beer-coloured water; Klaus Bieber was on his stomach again, with his eye on the focusing-lens of his camera; Siegfried Jacobson was expounding the glories of his Leader and the Third Reich to young Mary Cooper, and Bruno Rosenheim was away in the wood somewhere, making music on the mouth-organ. Sweet and sad the melody filtered down between the trunks of the oak-trees:

Es war einmal ein treuer Husar

Der liebt sein Mädchen ein ganzes Jahr,

Ein ganzes Jahr und noch viel mehr,

Die Liebe nimmt kein Ende mehr.

“I do not think they like my little playthings,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel to Rose. They were sitting side by side in wicker chairs on the southward-facing veranda that ran along the sitting-room windows. His eyes were smarting a little. He felt unhappy, and a little humiliated.

“Poor boys,” she breathed. “They’re neither in Germany nor England. They’re floundering in the North Sea! Hello!” she exclaimed suddenly. “Here’s Bert!” She jumped out of her chair, ran over to the edge of the veranda, and picked up a spade that was lying as if left there for some definite purpose. She then walked several yards further into the grassy edge of the woodland, and turned up the soil for the space of several inches. Then she sat down again.

“Bert!” exclaimed Mr. Emmanuel, very puzzled, almost alarmed. “I see no Bert!” Really, living in the country had the most extraordinary effect on people, even sensible town-bred people like Rose.

“That’s Bert!” Rose explained. She pointed to a leggy cock thrush that was reconnoitring the ground ten or twenty yards away. “Just be quiet one moment, will you? He doesn’t know you yet.” Mr. Emmanuel remained dumb. After a minute or two the thrush came over to the place where the soil had been turned up. He bent his head and a second or two later raised it again, with a fat worm wriggling in his beak. “There you are, see!” cried Rose triumphantly.

“Yes, I see,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel.

“What were you saying?”

“I wasn’t saying anything, was I?”

“You were going to say something.”

Mr. Emmanuel thought. “You’re quite right. I was, Rose!”

“Yes?”

“You said something last night. About that blond boy with the big nose.”

“Siegfried Jacobson. Yes?”

“And the other one, the very Jewish-looking one, Heinrich. You said they treat Bruno badly. You said that’s why you keep him with you as much as you can.”

“That’s perfectly true.”

“I saw Heinrich saying something to Bruno last night while they were playing draughts. It made Bruno a big pain. What was he saying?”

“I’ll tell you. It’s all very sad.”

“I want to know, please.”

“They’re both tragic boys, Heinrich and Siegfried, just as much as Bruno. That’s why it’s so difficult. One has to be equally kind to them all. First the little one, Heinrich. His father was a rich man in Hamburg, but it seems he paid out a lot of money to the friends of one of the wrong parties. They called for him one night and dragged him out of bed. They beat him up and sent him back more dead than alive. But they hadn’t finished with him. Six months later they got at him again. He was carried off to a concentration camp and was shot while trying to escape. That’s what they called it. Are you listening?”

Mr. Emmanuel’s hand covered his eyes. His head had fallen forward. It seemed almost as if he had fallen asleep.

“I am listening,” he said, in a voice that seemed to come from a long way off.

“They sent back his ashes in an urn with a bill for expenses. That happened last year.”

“And the boy?”

“The boy knew all about it. It’s made a devil of him. He may have been a bit of a devil to begin with.”

“But what”—Mr. Emmanuel had not removed his hand from his eyes—“what has he got against Bruno?”

“That’s how he gets his own back. He’s suffered. He wants someone else to suffer.”

“What does he do?”

“He talks to him about his mother. He says she’s alive. Oh, yes, he’s sure she’s alive. The same sort of thing happened to his father as is now happening to Bruno’s mother. They didn’t hear from him, either, for months. They were beating him up, too, with rubber truncheons and pieces of lead piping. That’s why he couldn’t write. You see?”

“I see. Poor little fellow! Both of them poor little fellows. Heinrich! Bruno! It is like a knife in my heart here! How do you know all this, Rose? Does Bruno tell you?”

“No. Bruno has said nothing. I got a few details from the people in London, but I hear about it from Klaus chiefly. There have been several fights between Klaus and Siegfried, I gather. All this is a bit of a responsibility, you know.”

“What’s wrong with that one? His father is also in a concentration camp?”

“No. I think his people are fairly all right. It’s something else with him. He’s a Nazi. He’d have given his right arm if they’d have let him join the Hitler Youth Movement. I think for a long time he genuinely knew nothing about the Jewish grandfather. It had been kept a deadly secret. All his family were fierce anti-Semites. But his nose and his name prevented him from getting anywhere. And now that he knows about it, the drop of Jewish blood in his veins is like a poison.”

“So he also gets his own back from Bruno. In the same way like the other boy?”

“In the same way. I don’t know what to do. Klaus has been very helpful, you know. He’s a nice lad, even if he’s a bit pompous and Prussian. So’s Hugo, whenever he comes down to earth. I’ve sometimes thought I ought to ask the people in London to take Siegfried and Heinrich back. Or if not them, Bruno. But where would they go to? Some drab boarding house in West Hampstead or Brondesbury. They’re happy enough here, I think, as happy as they can be.”

“Do not send them back,” murmured Mr. Emmanuel.

“I wouldn’t dream of it when it came to the point,” said Rose.

“I will see they are not together. I will be with Bruno. I think it will not hurt him in the heart so much when he talks about his mother and his home, and this thing, and that thing. I will go now for a walk in the trees. Perhaps by accident I will meet him.”