Fireshadow (25 page)

Twenty-nine

Vinnie

Sunset at the prison camp ruins approached with a gentle rapidity that Vinnie found reassuring. Once the sun descended below the trees the whole clearing became dappled and crazed with muted shadows, moving with the faint sea breeze that stretched all this way inland to run up the escarpment and trickle through the forest. The cooling touch of it after the heat of the afternoon soothed both Vinnie's skin and mind.

Lying on his back, looking up, the sky was still blue, a shimmering vault, deepening slightly, and stained pink at the edges with the last vestige of daylight. There was a constancy to it that touched Vinnie and settled his rushing thoughts into something less chaotic.

Was it his fault? Perhaps. Could he have done anything different that night? He didn't know. His father thought so. Did he let his sister burn?

All afternoon the question had plagued him, eventually driving him from his tent and back along the prison camp trail for the second time that day, there to lie again on the foundations of the old hospital, in the growing shade, to seek some kind of peace, some kind of understanding.

When he closed his eyes the fireshadow started leaping again, and he remembered the crackle of the laughing flames and the nauseating despair that drove him down through his pain and into unconsciousness. He remembered the jolting, screaming of the ambulance, the coming to briefly and the cold slide of a needle into his arm. He saw the metal crumpled and burning like wastepaper, and Katia imprisoned and burning somewhere within the brightness.

But was it his fault?

‘I thought you'd be here.'

Helen stood a couple of metres away, beside the thin eucalypt in whose shade he'd been resting. The hesitant manner and uncertain expression were so different from her usual confidence.

‘Are you all right? Grandad told me what you talked about. And what he said.'

Vinnie shrugged. ‘I can't work it out.'

‘If it was your fault?'

‘Yeah.'

She sat beside him, legs hugged up to her chest.

‘You're the only one who can answer that particular question; you know that, don't you?'

‘I guess so.'

‘No, Vinnie.' She took him gently by his chin and turned his face to hers. ‘You're the only one. Not your parents, not me, not anyone but you.'

‘Yeah, I get that. I've had a hundred counsellors telling me the same fucking thing again and again. It's not my fault. I know.'

‘No, you don't. If you knew it, you'd believe it.'

‘Well, that's just great then. If I don't believe it wasn't my fault, then it must have really been my fault. Is that it?'

‘Don't be a dickhead, Vinnie. You know that's not what I mean.'

‘Yeah.' The anger drained from him as quickly as it had flared. ‘Yeah. I'm sorry. It's just, I feel like it's so much bullshit, you know? Having to feel like this. Not being able to work it all out.'

‘I don't know, I can only imagine.'

‘Helen?'

‘Yeah?'

‘When he dies, your grandfather, will you miss him?'

‘Of course I will. I don't really know him all that well, but I'll miss him. He's my grandfather.'

‘That's the thing, you see? With Kat. I miss her – so much. It's like there's this massive hole, this part of me that's gone now, and I can't feel sorry for myself because it's probably my fault in the first place. I mean, what if I'd been a bit faster? Got out of the car when she first told me to? Or pushed myself a bit harder into the heat. I might have got her out.'

‘And you might have got yourself killed too, and left your parents with no one.'

‘At least I'd have tried.'

‘Vinnie . . .' Helen reached over again and ran a finger along the purple welt that marked his face. ‘You tried. Don't ever let anyone – including yourself – tell you that you didn't try. Shit, I don't think there's any way I'd be able to do this to myself. This mark on your face, this is all the proof you need that you tried.'

Her finger ran along the edge of the scar, tracing across the side of his nose, the corner of his mouth, through the faint creasing below his jaw, and slowly down his neck, stopping only where the discolouration ran into the collar of his t-shirt. Vinnie felt her hand on his shoulder.

‘You need to be a bit forgiving of yourself.'

As the gloom deepened across the clearing, Vinnie looked out to the trees a hundred metres distant, beyond the old fence line. The spaces between the trunks were already dark and alive and he found himself listening not to the sounds of the bush but to the breathing of the girl beside him, the regular, even pulse of it against the growing night.

Finally he stood. ‘We oughta get back. I'm gettin' eaten alive by mozzies.'

He offered her a hand, which she took without hesitation, and hoisted her back to her feet.

‘Got plans for the evening?'

‘You asking me out?' She offered a half-smile.

‘Perhaps.'

‘I told you before, Vinnie, you'll have to work a lot harder than that to get a date with me. Besides, as it turns out I do have plans, and so do you.'

‘Yeah?'

‘Yeah. There's a little matter of a parcel my grandfather wants to unwrap.'

‘He hasn't done it yet?'

‘He wanted to wait until you could join us. Actually, he was quite insistent.'

‘We'd better get a move on then.'

She reached out and took his hand as though it was the most natural thing in the world. In the darkness Vinnie smiled.

May 1949

The ship came around the harbour breakwater at three in the afternoon, attended by stubby tugs which churned the murky water as they shoved, nudged and whistled it into position. Standing on the wharf, Erich felt Maria take his hand. It was clammy and nervous.

‘Relax, my darling. It will be fine.'

‘I wish I could be so confident.'

‘Here comes Mathilde.'

His sister pushed her way through the throng of people, looking anxiously around until she spotted the tall frame of her brother. Maria was beside him and they were holding hands, she noticed. That was good. It had been a long time coming. She waved and moved towards them.

‘You nearly missed the boat docking.'

‘I know. I'm sorry. Can you see them yet?'

The promenade decks of the liner, towering above the wharf now, were lined with hundreds of passengers, clutching children and waving to familiar faces ashore.

‘No. I doubt I could recognise them.'

‘I wonder how long they'll be?'

With a final blast of its whistle, the tugboat gave the stern of the ship a massive shove and the great weight eased alongside the creaking timbers of the wharf. At the bow and stern sailors hurled weighted lines to waiting hands, and the heavy moorings were hauled across and made fast.

‘Where will we meet them?'

‘Outside the customs hall.' Erich pulled nervously at the tight collar of his shirt.

‘Relax.' Maria fussed at him, re-straightening his tie.

The wharf was a hubbub of voices, a mixture of German, French and English. Children darted between legs, grabbed at by anxious parents if they ventured too close to the narrowing gap between ship and wharf.

Then it seemed like scant minutes passed before the ship was made fully fast to the dock. Hatches and doors opened, gangways were hoisted into position, and cranes lifted pallets of luggage from the holds, depositing them on the wharf inside the fenced-off customs area.

‘Come on.'

Still holding Erich's hand, Maria led the way inside.

Two guards stood barring entry to the massive customs area. Between them a sign, in French and German, stated:
No Entry: Passengers Only.

‘How long until people start getting off?' Mathilde asked one of the guards.

‘First-class passengers should be through in half an hour or so, second and third class sometime after that.'

The three stood watching as, at first, a trickle of people, then a flood started to pour through the wide double doors. Erich found himself surrounded by a sea of smiling faces, tears, hugs and kisses. All the while he craned his neck, peering through into the densely packed hall, searching for some hint of a familiar face, some feature that he might recognise.

After forty-five minutes the crowd began to thin out a little as departing passengers left the terminal, arm in arm with friends and relatives, hauling steamer cases.

‘Are you certain this was the right ship?' Maria squeezed his hand, vestiges of concern on her face.

‘Yes.' It was Mathilde who answered her. ‘They are probably just held up inside. There are still people coming through. I imagine they travelled third class, didn't they?'

‘I don't know.' Erich spoke without stopping his search for a second. ‘Probably.'

‘Do you think they could have come past without us realising it? Perhaps they have gone to find a hotel.'

‘I would not have thought so. The arrangements in the telegram were quite specific.'

‘We'll wait a little longer.'

For another five minutes they stood, jostled less and less by the now rapidly dissipating crowd.

‘I need to go to the toilet. Wait here for me.' Mathilde started away.

‘I'll come with you.' Maria dropped Erich's hand, delivered a quick, reassuring kiss to his cheek which Erich barely even noticed, and followed.

Erich checked his watch again. Fifty-five minutes. A bead of sweat escaped from his hairline and tickled its way down his face, making him wipe at it irritably.

Then there they were.

Alice's parents were younger than he'd imagined them.

Her father, tall, dark-suited and grey at the temples. And her mother – at a glance Erich realised that he could not have failed to recognise her. The same long dark hair, tied back. The same cheekbones and nose. They hadn't recognised him, of course, as they stood gripping their bags, surrounded by a babble of Germanic and Gallic voices. Between them, clutching their hands, a three-year-old girl with dark curly hair and a serious expression stared wide-eyed at all the activity and the strangeness.

Erich just stood and looked, then Alice's father noticed him staring and caught his eye.

‘Erich?' The man's voice was high with uncertainty, his Australian accent, with its elongated vowels, ringing foreign in the emptying terminal.

Erich stepped forward. ‘Mr Andrews?'

Seconds passed. Finally Erich offered his hand. The other man seemed to hesitate for a second before taking it in an iron grasp.

‘Call me Peter. This is my wife, Lynn.'

‘How do you do?' After so long speaking only German, Erich was surprised at how different and tentative the English words felt in his mouth.

‘Hello.' The woman smiled, and it was Alice's smile.

Erich found himself only vaguely aware of them or his sister and fiancé, who had approached silently from behind and stood waiting. All he was really conscious of were the big blue eyes that watched him, eyes that mirrored the hesitancy and anxiousness in his own.

‘And this is Matilda.' Peter Andrews crouched beside his grand-daughter and put a reassuring arm around her shoulders. ‘Tilly, this is Erich, your daddy, who we've been talking about. Do you remember?'

Erich too crouched down to the same level as the little girl, who continued to regard him from within the protective curve of her grandfather's arm. He was barely breathing, and was only dimly aware of the other man saying again, ‘Tilly? Your daddy. Remember?'

Hesitant, terrified, longing, Erich stretches an arm out across the gap between them, offering a hand which hangs for an eternity, regarded with considered seriousness, until in a moment of sudden decision the little girl reaches towards him and takes a finger, just one, in her own tenuous grip. The contact sends a jolt up Erich's arm.

Then the little girl smiles at him, and her smile is that of her mother, and Erich is back in a dim-lit prison-camp hospital on a rainy afternoon.

And he's smiling back at her.

Thirty

Vinnie

Vinnie, Helen and her grandfather sat on three sides of the table, the parcel, still wrapped in the canvas, between them, the only sound the gentle hiss of gas from the lamp. The old man reached out and picked it up, turning it thoughtfully one more time.

‘It almost seems a shame to open it now.'

‘Why, Grandad?'

‘After all these years it is like opening a grave. I am starting to wonder if perhaps there are things which are best left consigned to history.'

Helen looked at the old man, worried. This was a different man from the one she had come to know over the last few days.

‘I could take it back and replace it for you, if you'd like.'

‘No, Vincent.' The old man smiled. ‘I don't think that will be necessary.'

Placing the bundle back down, Erich Pieters pushed it across to his grand-daughter.

‘You should open this.'

‘I couldn't.'

‘Of course you can. You are my grand-daughter. Whatever is in there will soon belong to you in any case.'

‘Are you sure?'

‘Of course.'

Picking up the pocket knife, Helen began to slice though the twine around the package. Even after so long in the ground, it was tough and it took several seconds of concerted effort to saw through it. Finally, it fell away and she was able to peel back the outer layers of the heavy, waterproofed canvas.

Inside was a tin box, tarnished slightly with age, but overall little the worse for wear after its fifty or so years underground. The canvas wrappings had done their work well.

‘
Mein Gott!
' The old man's voice was barely a whisper. ‘This is something I never thought I would see again.'

There were tears glistening in his old eyes as Erich reached out with shaking hands and pulled the tin towards himself.

‘What is it?' Helen and Vinnie peered at the dull metallic sheen on the surface of the tin as the old man turned it to the light.

‘A relic. A piece of history. Just . . . there.'

In the dim cast of light from the lantern, words shimmered on the lid of the tin, finely engraved letters that swam into the old man's vision as they had once before, many years earlier.

To my darling husband on the occasion of his graduation. With fondest love, Emmaline.

With shaking hands he opened the tin and an envelope fell from it onto the table. Ignoring it, the old doctor pulled from a padded slot one of the scalpels. The surgical knife, with its stainless steel shaft and perfectly balanced mother of pearl handle, seemed untouched by the passage of time. In the light from the gas lamp it gleamed with an internal iridescence that swept the old man back into the past. He smiled.

‘Who would have thought . . .' The old man's voice trailed off and his eyes closed, and for a few seconds the night gave way to a summer day, deep in the forest, with sun slanting down in thick beams between the jarrahs. A young German prisoner stopped his chopping and looked up, between the thick canopy of green, fixing his gaze on the tiny slivers of blue beyond and making a promise to himself, a promise about a girl who was at that moment only a few kilometres away, working with her grandfather in a prison camp hospital. And the young soldier smiled.

‘Grandad? Are you all right?'

Helen touched her grandfather lightly on the shoulder and the old man's eyes opened again, watery with memory. He was smiling.

‘
Ja, Ja
. I am fine.'

He replaced the scalpel in its slot, and pushed the entire box towards his grand-daughter.

‘You should take this.'

‘I couldn't.'

‘Of course you must. It belonged to your great-grandfather.'

‘But . . .'

‘Shh.' The doctor held up a finger. ‘I will hear no argument. They are of little use to me now.'

Helen said nothing more, only gathered the tin to herself, running a finger lightly across the words on the lid.

‘And you, Vincent, must open this.'

The envelope was made of thick white paper and felt heavy and creamy to touch. On the front was written in elegant copperplate handwriting:
Private Erich Pieters. Afrika Korps. Personal.

‘Are you sure?'

‘My eyes are not what they used to be. I am afraid I would have difficulty making out the writing. And besides' – the old man held Vinnie's gaze with his own – ‘this letter was written to a troubled young man. Not to a retired doctor. I imagine it will be far more appropriate that you read it to me.'

Using the knife, Vinnie sliced carefully along the top of the envelope and extracted from it several sheets of the same creamy white paper, folded neatly. The elegant handwriting was easy to read.

Perth, 25 January 1947

Dear Erich,

So, my friend, you have managed to return to Marrinup. I hope you do not mind me causing you the inconvenience of coming all the way back here, but it seemed to me that you might find the trip rewarding. While of course, I have no way to predict when you will finally receive this little gift, I hope it finds you in happy times.

I imagine that the camp site is somewhat changed from how you remember it. By the time I left, some months ago now, they were dismantling the camp around me day by day and already there was a strange desolation about the place, but at the same time an unusual feeling of rebirth, as though things were returning to the way they were meant to be. This is important, I think, and it is why I have asked Günter to bury this gift here for you to find – I believe it will be important for you to see this place in a different light.

I have already written to you in Germany, earlier this week, conveying my feeling about Alice and the situation she has found herself in. I imagine that by the time you read this letter the two of you and your child will be well and truly reunited. I believe this because I am certain that you feel the same way for her as she clearly does for you, and I know you well enough to be confident that you will do the right thing by both her and the baby. I will not pretend that this will not pose a whole new set of challenges for the two of you, for you will be bringing this baby up together in a world vastly different from the one that both I and your parents inhabited. My hope for you both is that you are able to see your way to doing this bravely, honestly, and by facing up directly to the many difficulties with which you will be confronted. I pray that despite all of this you will both be able to see the good in what you have created.

Because it is a good thing – don't forget that. All suffering in life must serve a purpose. The only time that suffering is pointless is if we as people allow it to become so. This is perhaps the one thing that I have learned in my many years as a medical practitioner. If we allow suffering to become meaningless, then it will almost definitely remain so, and this is how faith and compassion die. If we utilise the experience of difficulty, however, we can turn ourselves into the people we are truly destined to become.

Never forget this, Erich, because your experiences through the war have at times been terrible, but the true pity will be if you fail to make anything of them for yourself, if you fail to let yourself be governed in a positive way by the loss of your parents and your compulsory separation from my grand-daughter. Likewise, if she surrenders to the hopelessness she so often feels at the moment, then and only then will her suffering win out over hope. And it is important to me, and to the world, that this baby of yours be born and grow with hope, Erich. I am sure you understand that.

I am also certain that you will recognise the gift that I am leaving for you. My hope is that it will assist you along a career path for which I still believe you demonstrate an amazing aptitude and talent. I would like to think that at some point down the track you will use these scalpels and remember me as your friend, and as someone who admires you deeply. After the trouble that these scalpels caused for you, I feel it is appropriate that you have them – an example, perhaps, of drawing out the positives from our suffering?

Farewell then, my friend. I would be surprised if I am still walking this earth when you read this letter, but you should know that if it is at all possible I will be watching over you, and Alice, and your family.

I wish you peace and happiness.

Your friend,

Doctor Johnathon Alexander

As Vinnie read the final words, and the doctor's name, a deep silence descended across the clearing. Helen sniffed a little and wiped at her eyes, but otherwise the stillness of the night was absolute.

The three people sat, each alone in the bush night, each exploring the words from the past in their own context. Eventually, it was Vinnie who stood and stepped away from the table.

‘I might head back over to my own camp, if that's all right.'

‘Of course. Thank you, Vincent.'

The stars above the clearing seemed closer than before, more bright and intense. There was no moon and the ink-vault of the heavens stretched overhead in perfect harmony. At his camp site Vinnie crawled into his tent and lay on his sleeping bag, but knew immediately that he would be unable to sleep, so he crept out again and put a match to the fire, which was still kindled from that morning.

The words of the long-dead doctor rang in his mind, echoing through the years, speaking to him from somewhere beyond his experience. Vinnie watched the flames and lifted his gaze to the leaping shadows that surrounded him. Their ethereal dance was no longer threatening, no longer gleefully evil. Suddenly the fireshadow was nothing more than light. Harmless, dissipating patches of light and darkness.

Vinnie was barely aware of the light in the campervan flicking off and the crunch of Helen's footsteps towards him through the night.

‘Hey there.'

She eased into the circle of light and down beside him.

‘Hi.'

He felt her weight on his shoulder as she slipped her arm through his, hugging it to herself and leaning into him.

‘Thanks, Vinnie.'

‘No worries.'

They sat like that through the night, not speaking, barely moving, each aware of the other only by their body warmth, by the gentle heave of one another's breathing, the occasional intake of breath and the infrequent throwing of more wood into the fire. Sometime in the small hours a full moon climbed slowly over the northern tree line and bathed the clearing in bright silver, every detail clear in monochrome. Finally, when the eastern horizon was glowing with the first signs of dawn, Vinnie stirred to his feet.

‘You okay?'

‘Yeah.'

‘Can I ask a favour?'

‘Sure.'

‘You wanna help me get the tent down?'

‘You going somewhere?'

‘I thought I might take you up on your offer of a lift home, if it's still open.'

‘Course it is.'

An early morning breeze trembled through the branches of the pine tree above. The forest stood aloof, passively observant, its unseen depths reflecting the passage of many lives past and many yet to come. And later, as the final plumes of dust settled in the wake of the departing campervan and the old burned-down town site relaxed again into uneasy quietude, a single black cockatoo wheeled twice in the warm breeze, high above, before gliding effortlessly away towards its home.