The Redbreast

27

Linz. 9 June 1944.

The family of five got off the train, and they had the compartment to themselves. When they slowly moved off again, Helena had already taken her seat by the window, although she couldn't see a great deal in the dark, only the contours of buildings adjacent to the train. He sat opposite and studied her with a little smile playing on his lips.

'You Austrians are good at observing the blackout,' he said. 'I can't see a single light.'

She sighed, 'We're good at doing what we're told.'

She looked at her watch. It was almost two o'clock.

'The next town is Salzburg,' she said. 'It's close to the German border. And then…'

'Munich, Zurich, Basle, France and Paris. You've said that three times already'

He leaned forward and squeezed her hand. 'It'll be fine, just you see. Sit over here.'

She moved without letting go of his hand and rested her head gently against his shoulder. He looked so different now he was in uniform.

'So this Brockhard has sent in another medical certificate, valid for a week?'

'Yes, he said he would send it by post yesterday afternoon.’

‘Why such a short extension?'

'Well, so that he had the situation-and me-better under control.

I would have had to give him a good reason to extend your sick leave each time. Do you understand?'

'Yes, I do,' he said and she saw his jaw muscles tensing. 'Let's not talk about Brockhard any more now,' she said. 'Tell me a story.'

She stroked his cheek and he gave a heavy sigh. 'Which one would you like to hear?'

'Whichever you like.'

The stories. That was how he had caught her attention at the Rudolf II Hospital. They were so different from the stories other soldiers told. Uriah's stories were about courage, comradeship and hope. Like the time he had come off duty and discovered a polecat on his best friend's chest ready to rip open his throat as he slept. The distance had been almost ten metres and the bunker with its black earthen walls almost pitch dark. But he had had no choice. He had put his gun to his cheek and kept firing until the magazine was empty. They had eaten the polecat for dinner the next day.

There were several stories like that one. Helena couldn't remember them all, but she remembered that she had started listening. His stories were lively and amusing; she wasn't sure if she could believe some of them. She wanted to, though, because they were an antidote to the other stories, stories about irredeemable fates and senseless deaths.

As the unlit train shook and juddered its way through the night on newly repaired rails, Uriah told about the time he had shot a Russian sniper in no man's land and had ventured out to give the atheistic Bolshevik a Christian burial, with psalms and everything.

'So beautifully did I sing that night,' Uriah said, I could hear them applauding from the Russian side.'

'Really?' she laughed.

'It was more beautiful than any singing you've heard in the Staatsoper'

'Liar.'

Uriah pulled her over to him and sang softly into her ear:

Join the circle of men round the fire, gaze at torches so golden and bright,

Urging soldiers to aim ever higher, pledge their beings to stand up and fight.

In the flickering glistening flashes, see our Norway in years of yore,

See its people emerging from ashes, see your kinsfolk at peace and at war.

See your fathers in action for freedom, suffer losses both woman and man,

See the thousands arise to defeat them, giving all in their fight for our land.

See the men out in snow every hour, proud and glad of the struggle and toil,

Hearts aflame with the will and the power, standing firm on our forefathers' soil.

See the names of the Norsemen appear, live in sagas of glittering words,

Who though centuries dead are still here, still remembered from fells to fjords.

But the man who has hoisted the penant, red and yellow the flag of the great,

We salute you our fiery lieutenant: Quisling, ruler of soldier and state.

Uriah was silent afterwards and stared blindly out of the window. Helena knew that his thoughts were far away, and let him remain with them. She put her arm around his chest.

Ra-ta-ta-tat-ra-ta-ta-tat-ra-ta-ta-tat.

It sounded as if someone was running beneath them, somebody was trying to catch them.

She was frightened. Not so much about the unknown territory that lay before them, but about the unknown man she was snuggling up to. Now that he was so close, everything she had seen and become used to from a distance seemed to disappear.

She listened for his heartbeat, but the rattle of the train on the rails was too loud, so she had to take it on trust that there was a heart in there. She smiled to herself and waves of pleasure washed over her. What a wonderful, wonderful insanity! She knew absolutely nothing about him; he had told her so little about himself, he had told her only these stories.

His uniform smelled of mildew, and for a second it struck her that it was probably the smell a soldier's uniform had when he had been lying dead on the battlefield for a while. Or had been buried. But where did these ideas come from? She had been so tense for so long that only now did she realise how tired she was.

'Sleep,' he said in response to her thoughts.

'Yes,' she said. She vaguely recalled hearing an air-raid siren in the distance as the world around her shrank.

'What?'

She heard her own voice, felt Uriah shaking her and she jumped. The first thing that came into her head when she saw the uniformed man in the doorway was that they had been caught.

'Tickets, please.'

'Oh,' she exclaimed. She tried to pull herself together and felt the ticket conductor's probing eyes on her as she rummaged feverishly in her bag. Finally she found the yellow cardboard tickets she had bought in Vienna and passed them to the conductor. He studied the tickets while rocking on his heels in rhythm with the train. It took longer than was comfortable for Helena.

'You're going to Paris?' he asked. 'Together?'

'Ganz genau', Uriah said.

The conductor was an older man. He looked at them.

'You're not from Austria, I can hear.'

'No. I'm Norwegian.'

'Oh, Norway. I've heard it's beautiful.'

'Yes, thank you. You could say that.'

'So you voluntarily enlisted to fight for Hitler then?'

'I did. I've been on the Eastern Front. In the north.'

'Really? Where in the north?'

'Up by Leningrad.'

'Hm. And now you're going to Paris. Together with your…?'

'Girlfriend.'

'Girlfriend, exactly. On leave?'

'Yes.'

The conductor punched their tickets.

'From Vienna?' he asked Helena, handing them back. She nodded.

I can see you're Catholic,' he said, pointing to the crucifix she wore on a chain over her blouse. 'My wife is too.'

He leaned back and scanned the corridor. And then, turning to Uriah, he asked, 'Has your girlfriend shown you Stephansdom in Vienna?'

'No, I've been laid up in the hospital, so unfortunately I haven't had much of a chance to see the city.'

'Right. A Catholic hospital by any chance?'

'Yes, the Rudo-'

'Yes,' Helena interrupted. 'A Catholic hospital.'

'Hm.'

Why doesn't he go away? Helena wondered. The conductor cleared his throat again. 'Yes?' Uriah said finally.

'It's none of my business, but I hope you've remembered your papers as proof that you're on leave.'

Papers? Helena thought. She had been to France twice before with her father, and it had never even occurred to her they might need anything other than a passport.

'Yes, it's not a problem for you, Fraulein, but for your uniformed friend here it's essential that he carries papers documenting where he's stationed and where he's going.'

'Of course we have papers,' she burst out. 'Surely you don't imagine that we would travel without them.'

'No, no, of course not,' the conductor responded hastily. 'I just wanted to remind you. A couple of days ago…' He shifted his attention to the Norwegian.'… they arrested a young man who clearly had no orders to go where he was going, and he was consequently treated as a deserter. They took him on to the platform and shot him.'

'You don't mean that.'

'I'm afraid I do. I don't mean to frighten you, but war is war. And since you have official papers, you shouldn't have any problems when we get to the border immediately after leaving Salzburg.'

The carriage lurched and the conductor had to grab hold of the door frame. The three people looked at each other in silence.

'So that's the first checkpoint?' Uriah asked finally. After Salzburg?'

The conductor nodded.

'Thank you,' Uriah said.

The conductor cleared his throat: 'I had a son your age. He fell at the front, by Dnerp.’

‘I'm sorry to hear that.'

'Well, sorry to have woken you, Fraulein. Mein Herri He saluted and was gone.

Helena made sure the door was completely closed. Then she hid her face in her hands.

'How could I have been so naive!' she sobbed.

'Don't cry now,' he said, putting his arm around her shoulder. 'I should have thought of the papers. After all, I knew I couldn't just move around freely.'

'But what if you tell them you're on sick leave and say you felt like going to Paris? That's a part of the Third Reich. It's -'

'Then they'll ring the hospital and Brockhard will say that I absconded.'

She leaned against him and sobbed in his lap. He caressed her sleek brown hair.

'Besides, I should have known that this was too good to be true,' he said. I mean-me and Schwester Helena in Paris?' She could hear the smile in his voice.

'No, I'll wake up in my hospital bed soon, thinking that was one hell of a dream. And look forward to you bringing me my breakfast. Anyway, you're on night shift tomorrow. You haven't forgotten that, have you? Then I can tell you about the time Daniel filched twenty rations from the Swedish unit.'

She lifted a tear-stained face to him.

'Kiss me, Uriah.'