Through My Eyes. Again
Copyright© 2019 by Iskander
Chapter 3
Mid December – 22nd December 1962
December rolled on towards Christmas. Frau Schmidt found a job in a dress shop in the High Street. Final term marks were posted on the classroom noticeboard for every subject and I had made top of the class in all but one – French. But then, I was competing with a native French speaker called Leurmet, whose father was a French diplomat of some kind. The following day I had confirmation of what I had already guessed: I was top of my class overall, but I supposed I should have been given what – or rather, who – was in my head.
I didn’t enjoy Christmas shopping, but this year trying to find something for Frau Schmidt and Col had provided the spice I needed. My small weekly pocket money didn’t leave me with much to work with. After school one day, I wandered along the High Street.
In a toy shop, I saw the perfect gift for Col – a Matchbox car model of a British racing green E-type Jaguar coupé. Any idea for Frau Schmidt eluded me, so I meandered along, sampling the various shop windows.
I spied a scarf in swirls of black and crimson that blended into one another around a mannequin’s neck. When I asked, I was told it wasn’t for sale, but a prop used to enhance an outfit. I explained I wanted to buy it as a Christmas present for my friend’s mother as it would go with her dark hair and eyes. The owner of the shop must have been a bit surprised at a schoolboy showing such taste. She let me buy it for five shillings, a huge sum of money to my young self. On my way back up the High Street, I acquired some blue tissue paper for wrapping and then walked to Col’s house. I had to be careful about pulling my homework books out of my satchel when I got there but kept the presents secret. That night in my bedroom I wrapped the scarf and model car, ready to put under their Christmas tree a few days before Christmas.
A couple of days later, Col showed me their new phone sitting on the hall table. I wondered how they had managed it. Usually, it took weeks, if not months, for the GPO to install a new phone line. Whatever, I noted down the number to give to my mother.
The winter term ended a week before Christmas and I knew my school report would arrive by post any day. Because of the bullying at school and beatings at home, schoolwork in my old life had been my lowest priority. I had always been close to the bottom of my class. My terrible school term reports were a cause of some of my father’s most explosive rages – accompanied by thrashings. Nothing I did made any difference and I struggled through school to escape from home into mindless clerical work before discovering I had a brain. At school, I would try to concentrate and might manage for perhaps a week. Then something would cause my father to explode at me and school passed in a blur. The only thing that helped was escaping into a book. Books that took me into another world were my favourites – I dreamed of opening a door and finding my way to Narnia or through Alice’s looking glass. I knew these worlds were not real, but I needed an escape. They were never enough, and I found myself beside the railway track, baring my forearms as a train approached.
This term, this report, it would be different. Topping the class and the glowing reports from my teachers would have to satisfy my father. My anxiety when the report arrived was present but muted.
When he arrived home, my father opened my report and read through it. I watched his face and it did not soften. He flipped back to the beginning.
“I will contact the school to check on this. You were at the bottom of your class last term. This report must be a mistake – or you have somehow forged it. As a result, I forbid you to visit your friend Col. You will stay home and study at my direction.”
My mother sat there, saying nothing, her faced closed.
“No.” I fought to control my anger. “You cannot do this to me. I’ve done well this term and you dismiss my success as nothing.”
My father’s eyes narrowed, a storm brewing behind them, but I held my ground. Taking a deep breath, I stared back at my father. Rage blazed through me, but I contained it. “You cannot keep me from seeing my friend because you cannot keep me in the house – unless you tie me to my bed.”
I sensed my father’s temper rising – and I no longer cared. My anger at his injustice had carried me beyond fear. “You are no better than the bullies at school, but they at least have the excuse of being children.”
I took another deep breath as my father towered over me.
“William,” he growled.
I leant back in the gusting wind of his menace, but somehow held my feet in place. “You no longer control me because I do not fear you.” Our eyes locked together in anger and hatred. “I despise you.” The truth of my feelings about him lay between us.
I knew the slap was coming, but held still. He hit me hard and sent me sprawling across the kitchen floor, my head ringing. I ended up beside the sink. Holding back tears, I pulled myself up. I saw the bone-handled carving knife lying on the drying rack.
My eyes moved from it to my father.
My mother inhaled. She understood the threat I was making.
Without hurrying, I walked to the back door and out of the house. It was freezing outside and I was in a thin jumper and trousers, but I felt nothing. I needed to regain control of my temper. It threatened to surge through me and blank out all rational thought. The siren call of the carving knife disturbed me. I walked along the road and turned on to the cliff-top path away from the town. I knew my father would search for me at Col’s house, so I could not go there for a while. When my fury abated, I started crying. Not the wracking sobs that marked the end of a melt-down, but steady tears of endless sadness at my strange situation, my terrible father and my loveless home. Feeling the cold, I turned back along the clifftop, allowing me to approach Col’s house from the other direction along Sea View Road. The coast was clear: no sign of my father.
I arrived at Col’s door and knocked. The outside light flicked on and Frau Schmidt opened the door to a shivering, weeping boy.
“Willi, what are you doing here at this time of night?” Then she saw the shivers and tears and whisked me inside to sit in the kitchen. Col appeared in the doorway.
“Quick. Get a blanket for your friend.”
Col reappeared with the blanket they tucked around me.
“Your father was here earlier. What is going on, Willi?” Frau Schmidt asked.
I couldn’t speak.
Frau Schmidt picked up a tea towel and dabbed the tears from my face. Her caring eyes changed as the handprint on my face registered, filling with concern, her brows forming a frown.
“Willi, who hit you?” she asked.
Col pulled up a chair beside me and clasped my hands in his, rubbing warmth into them.
Frau Schmidt stemmed my tears. Col filled a glass with water and brought it to me. I took a sip and handed it back, so Col sat and again held my hands in his.
“Can you tell me what happened, Willi?”
I heaved a shivering sigh, finding a wavering voice. “My school report arrived, and my father said I had forged it.”
“But weren’t you top of your class?” Col asked.
I nodded.
“Did your father hit you?” Frau Schmidt asked.
“Yes.” My voiced hardened. “I told him I despised him.”
Frau Schmidt blanched at my vehemence.
“And then he whacked me across the kitchen.”
Col wrapped his arms around me, resting his head on my shoulder. Frau Schmidt’s face held something different, something I had never seen there before: something ... uncompromising.
There was a loud knock at the door.
“I expect that will be my father,” I said, retreating into the blanket.
Frau Schmidt peered at us, speaking German. “Willi, does your father speak German?”
“No.”
“Well, if I need to say something to you, I will speak German.”
Several hard thumps rattled the door.
“Go into the lounge room but leave the door ajar so you can hear – and unlock the veranda door, so you can escape quickly if you have to. Go.”
Frau Schmidt slipped on the safety chain and then opened the front door. It slammed back against the chain, leaving the door open only a few inches.
“I want my son,” my father shouted.
An arm reached through the gap, trying to snag the chain and release it.
“Why? So you can hit him some more?” Frau Schmidt’s voice held an edge, harsh and almost jeering.
“You Nazi bitch – give me my son.”
Frau Schmidt gave a low, contemptuous laugh. “Ach so. Because I am German, you think I am a Nazi?” Her voice slowed, dripping with derision. “You do not know how wrong you are.” She rolled up her left sleeve, baring her forearm.
“See these numbers? I expect even you know what they signify.” She paused. When she continued, her voice was low, but intense. “Amongst other things, it means you cannot scare me. I had Elfriede Muller and the other SS scum at Ravensbrück at me for five years and you think you can scare me? You are a mere bag of wind.” Her voice was dismissive. “Go home.”
“John. John.” My mother arrived behind my father, panting for breath. “Please stop this and come home.” Her voice cracked. “Please John, come home. You’re making a spectacle of yourself. We can deal with this in the morning when things will be clearer.”
Frau Schmidt stood there. “Yes, go home. I will come tomorrow to your house and we will talk. Tonight, Willi stays here.”
“Please, John.”
My father’s arm retreated, and Frau Schmidt stood there staring out into the darkness. Muffled conversation came from beyond the front door and then footsteps faded down the path. After a minute Frau Schmidt closed the door, walked into the kitchen and sat down, taking a deep breath. Col and I came out and sat down with her at the table. Her eyes were closed, and I saw her fingers were trembling.
“They have gone,” Frau Schmidt said, opening her eyes.
Her bare left forearm lay on the table. In blue dye, six blurred numbers were tattooed there. From my seventy-year-old perspective, I knew what they meant, but not Frau Schmidt’s story.
“What does that mean?” I asked, pointing at her forearm.
Frau Schmidt glanced down. In reflex, she brushed her sleeve back to her wrist, covering the tattoo. Her eyes closed as she stared through the walls at a different time. She turned to Col and me.
“Col knows a little of this, but Willi, do you know about the death camps the Nazis set up?”
I shook my head so she would continue. Col’s right hand snuck into my left and he leaned against my shoulder. He knew I was about to learn something terrible.
Frau Schmidt stared over our heads, pinned by her experience, lost far from the present. “They put people they feared, did not want in their society – people they wished to punish or kill – into camps. My parents were communists. They executed my father, but they put my mother and I in other camps and then in Ravensbrück, a camp for women and children. To the guards, we did not have names, only numbers.” She paused, sliding her fingers under her sleeve, tracing the numbers on her forearm.
“The camps were bad from the start with brutal women guards, but as the war turned against the Nazis, the camps got worse.” Mutti Frida swallowed and her voice became distant. “So much worse.” She was no longer in the room with us. She stood inside the wire with hundreds of emaciated women and children shuffling into rows to be counted. Guards shouted and vicious, slavering dogs barked, straining against their leashes.
She rubbed her forehead, her eyes filled with sadness and pity.
“They killed many prisoners and many others died from beatings or sickness. Some ... gave up on life. Hundreds starved to death.” She paused, taking a breath. “My mother was one of them.”
Tears formed in the corners of her eyes.
“We had to work, to earn our food, to earn our life each day, a day at a time. I took out the slops and carried such meagre food as they deemed appropriate to some special prisoners. They kept these separate from the rest of us – English girls sent to France as spies and captured by the Nazis. That is where I started to learn English.” She took a shuddering breath.
“Those girls were so courageous. They had been beaten and tortured and knew they were going to die, but they befriended me and did not show me their fear. The Nazis did not seem to care if I sat on the floor outside their cells, talking with them through the meal hatches. The SS kept some of them alive for months, but the day would come and one or more of the cells were again empty. I would learn from the others the Nazis had executed them and their bodies burned with all the others. Death was everywhere in the camp, every second of every day – a close companion to us all. As the Russians approached, the remaining English girls were all murdered.” Frau Schmidt paused; eyes closed as terrible images assailed her. “And then they started on the rest of us.”
Frau Schmidt stopped – this was a harrowing story to be telling us. Her voice lightened when she carried on. “But then, for some reason, the SS released most of us German prisoners, several thousand women and children, into the spring countryside. Possibly they wanted no witnesses to the final slaughter of the others left in the camp.” She paused, remembering the sudden freedom. “Russian soldiers found me after a day or so hiding in the woods. I learned from their officer they had been told to watch for prisoners wearing the red triangle the Nazis used to label communist prisoners.” She turned to Col. “I turned sixteen that May. I had spent more than half my life in prisons and that camp.”
Frau Schmidt stood up and walked to the sink, pouring herself a glass of water and then turned, leaning back. She sipped her water, watching us over the rim. “Willi, now you know something of the darkness we all have inside of us. Those SS guards were people like us: mothers, sisters, daughters, but they let the darkness inside them take control.” Her eyes came to rest on me. “Perhaps your father is also losing control of his darkness.”
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