Running on Empty (2 page)

‘Do bad things happen to good people?’

‘No honey, not if you’re good. Only good things happen to good people. Now, it’s late, time for sleep’.

He kissed her gently on the forehead.

‘Goodnight Daddy’

‘Goodnight, sleep tight’

So, he’s a family man is he?

Doesn’t want to get involved?

Months of planning, and he wants to go belly up?

Looks like I’ll have to put manners on that oriental fucker.

*****

Shan Ou stands, stripped to the waist, in a field at the rear of her father’s timber built two room shack. After priming, she vigorously works the ancient pump until water begins to sporadically spurt into an enamel basin. Light flurries of snow sweep down from the foothills of the Himalayan Mountains. Slowly she begins to bathe, impervious to the icy water. She then lifts her skirt, and washes her lower body, before removing her boots, stepping into the basin and washing her feet. Finally, after emptying the basin, she goes through the process of priming and filling again, this time to wash her hair. When finished, she returns to the house, where a red mid-length dress, decorated with tiny yellow rose buds, sits neatly laid out on her timber cot. She strips out of her coarse fabric work-clothes, and steps into the dress, enjoying the luxury of soft silk against her naked skin as she draws it up her body. She then pulls her black, wiry hair into a bun, tying it in place with a length of red ribbon.

Shan Ou looks at herself in the faded mirror.

All you can do is your best
, she thinks to herself, satisfied.

She begins the long trek to town still wearing her work boots, carrying a pair of red sandals to change into on her arrival. On locating the two storey office building where the interviews are being held, Shan Ou joins the long queue of young women, and waits. Eventually she’s called into a small dark office, smelling of stale tobacco and cheap aftershave. Dust particles shimmer in a beam of light radiating from an overhead skylight. Behind a desk sits a tall, thin man with slicked black hair and wire frame spectacles, wearing a crumpled dark brown two piece suit. His forty year old face carries the pot marked impression of the effects of severe adolescent acne. For a few moments his eyes explore Shan Ou as she stands before him, studying the shape of her breasts beneath the soft fabric, as his tongue darts in and out a number of times to moisten his thin lips. He clasps his hands together on the desktop, and begins.

‘My name is Mr. Chung. I work for the Shanghai Trade & Export Corporation as chief recruitment officer, and if you’re the person we are seeking, I can change your life. As you can see from the crowd gathered outside, there are many girls hoping to fill this prestigious position, a position of good standing and high financial reward. The winning applicant will be stationed in our illustrious city of Shanghai, a great distance from here. The position also brings with it residence in a fine apartment in this exciting and cosmopolitan city. The successful applicant must first and foremost, be in possession of a strong knowledge of Hetian and the surrounding countryside of western China. Do you have this knowledge?’

‘Yes’

He then proceeds to quiz her thoroughly on the local area.

‘But there are other criteria also’, he continues.

‘You must have the ability and desire to fulfil any and all orders or requests unconditionally and without hesitation or questioning. Can I take it that you are agreeable to these conditions?’

‘Yes’.

He rises from his desk, and walks around the room, coming to a stop behind where she sits.

‘I need to know how much you want this position’.

‘I will do whatever is required’ she answers.

His hand slips past her neck and inside the top of her dress, and begins fondling her breast.
I will do whatever is required
, she repeats silently to herself.

Dresden, Germany. December 1939

Eight year old Ella Stein crouched immobile between assorted crates and boxes in the dark, freezing cellar, her eyes the only movement she dared make as they strained to peer through the metal slats of the street level vent, giving her a fragmented view of the outside world. She could hear voices, many voices, raw and guttural and agitated, barking orders and commands, and occasionally the soft crunching sound of boots compacting virgin snow.

‘Go and hide’ her father had ordered.

‘Run Ella, go and hide in the cellar. Squeeze yourself between the boxes and hide. Don’t move, stay still. Don’t come out until I come for you. Do you understand?’ he ordered, and with shaking hands stuffed a slim wad of Deutchmarks into the inside pocket of her navy woollen overcoat.

‘If I don’t come back for you, you must wait until darkness, until there is no one about, then you must make your way to your Aunt Amelie over on Swartz Strasse. You remember your aunt’s house? You remember we visited her before?’

‘But, I don’t know how to get there, I don’t …know’ she began to answer, tears welling up. ‘Why Papa?’

Her father grabbed her tightly by the shoulders, and stared at her. She could see fear, hurt and sorrow in his eyes, things she had never seen before.

‘Because you must Ella, because it’s all you can do’.

He kissed her quickly on the forehead.

‘Now go Ella’ he said sternly, pushing her towards the cellar steps.

‘Go. And remember, not a sound, yes?’

‘Wait, wait’ pleaded Marie.

She rushed over to Ella, her hands fumbling behind her neck as she ran. She removed a thin gold chain, from which hung a single pearl, placed it around Ella’s neck and fastened it, before pushing it down beneath the navy coat out of sight.

‘But Mama, that’s your precious necklace’ protested Ella. ‘That’s the one Father gave to you the day I was born. I don’t want to take that away from you, it belongs to you. It’s your favourite. Take it back Mama’.

Marie raised a hand to her mouth to stifle a sob, or a scream, a wail or a plea for help. Something. She just knew that hand was the only thing holding her together, and if she removed it, she would collapse to the ground like a rag doll. She pulled Ella to her, hugging her tightly, then turned away quickly as her eyes filled with moisture.

‘Now, go Ella’ her father ordered.

‘But, can I bring Gretchen? Please Papa’ Ella pleaded.

Marie ran to the kitchen, then reappeared a few moments later and handed the blonde haired doll to Ella, who clasped it tightly as she began the decent of the stone steps leading to the dark basement.

That was some time ago. Ella hadn’t fully grasped the concept of time, but it had seemed like a long while, too long. She could feel the cold beginning to eat into her very bones. She longed to stand, to move, but she knew she must do as her father had ordered, and stay still.

Albert Stein had watched them approach from behind the white lace curtains of the drawing room as they slowly, methodically, made their way, door by door, up from both ends of the street, the grey of their uniforms fusing with the leaden sky.

Typical Nazi pincer movement,
he thought to himself bitterly,
nowhere to run.

He knew he should have listened to his brother, but it was too late for that now. His brother, who was safe in his small apartment in Berne, over the border in neutral Switzerland.

Get out Albert, get out now while you can,
his brother had pleaded with him.

Take your family and get out.

But what was he to do?

Surely it was all talk, all panic and fear, all overreacting?

These Nazi couldn’t just take away everything, could they? They needed the Jewish community.

We are the glue that holds
the German economy together. They can’t just cast us to one side?

But they could, and they were. He knew this for sure now, as he watched them approach from behind those starched lace curtains.

What a fool he had been. In hindsight, Albert realised he wasn’t as clever as he had always believed, and he and his family were about to suffer the consequences of his arrogance
.

He turned, startled when his wife placed a hand on his shoulder.

‘Ella?’ she asked pleadingly.

‘She’s in the cellar’ he answered simply. ‘She’s been instructed. She’ll have to, somehow, find her way to your sister if we’re….taken. If she can reach Amelie, she should be safe. Catholics aren’t under observation…yet’.

All Marie could do was let out a slow shuddering sigh, like an animal caught in a trap, resigning itself to its fate.

Ella Stein struggled to make sense of what was happening as she viewed the world through the metal slats of her frozen cocoon. She could see boots, their polished blackness in sharp contrast to the crisp white snow which blanketed the ground. She could also make out….paws?

Otto Matteus stood back from the stone steps which led up to the door, a German shepherd sitting obediently by his side. He watched the situation being played out on those steps, but he did not hear the conversation unfold, for his mind was elsewhere.

What was he doing here? He hadn’t chosen to become a soldier of the Reich, a servant of his country, only to find himself performing such a distasteful chore. He had no love for the Jews, but he didn’t despise them the way so many of his comrades did either.

He came from a rural background, a small village on the edge of the Black Forest in Bavaria. He was a proficient huntsman, having been trained by his father, and he by his father before him. It ran in the blood. He was an excellent rifleman, something which he was sure would be exploited by the army of the Fatherland when he had enlisted. But it was another area of his expertise which the army had sought to nurture, his ability to work with and train dogs.

Yes he had been a hunter. It put food on the table back home in his village. It had a purpose, an end product.

But this? What was he now? A hunter of people? Why was he doing this? Because he was told to, following orders, obeying commands?

It was not right. He knew it. He felt it. But, what was he to do? Disobey orders? He knew the consequence of that. Still, it was wrong. He hated what he was doing. He wished he could just return to his village. He didn’t want to be a part of this mayhem any longer.

A heavy pounding knock echoed in the street as the butt of an infantryman’s rifle made contact with the front door, wood on polished wood. Albert removed a crisp white handkerchief from his breast pocket and dappled his brow lightly, as the index finger of his other hand ran a loop round the inside of his starched shirt collar in a vain attempt to relieve the pressure he was feeling. He opened the door slowly, as his wife Marie stood alongside, to be faced by a smartly dressed German officer, flanked by a number of foot soldiers.

‘This is the Stein household, yes?’ he asked abruptly.

‘That is correct’

‘So, you must be Albert Stein, and you I take it, are Marie?’ he asked, gesturing to his wife.

They both nodded agreement.

‘Marie, not a Jewish name I would have thought’, the officer continued, curious.

‘My wife is French’ offered Albert. ‘She was born a Roman Catholic’.

‘Interesting. So you did not have the misfortune to be born a Jew, yet you opted to marry into this group. A choice which you may come to regret I should think’.

He checked his clipboard, then returned to look at Albert.

‘You have a daughter called Ella, yes?’

‘Yes’ began Albert hesitatingly, ‘but she’s not here. She’s gone to stay with my wife’s sister, in Lyon, France’.

‘Hmm…how very convenient’.

The officer took a long drag on the cigarette he held in his right hand, appearing to become engrossed in a slight altercation a couple of doors away, before turning back to the issue at hand.

‘I would dearly love to take you at your word Herr Stein, but unfortunately circumstances do not permit me to do that. You’ll forgive me if I instruct my troops to search your house?’