The Morning Gift

The stone was in her hand before she knew that she had picked it up. She must have seen it earlier, for it was the right size, heavy enough to make an impact, small enough for her to propel it with force. The act of throwing it was wonderful: a catharsis – and the crash of the splintered glass. It seemed that she waited for seconds, minutes almost, yet it was not so, for by the time Quin came out on to the terrace, followed by an excited, angry group of revellers, she was already running back out of the light, across the grass . . . was down in the lane which would lead her to the road.

‘There she is!’

‘It’s a girl! Come on, let’s get her!’

Then Quin’s voice, quiet, yet a whiplash. ‘No. You will all go back inside. I know the girl, she comes from the village and I will deal with her.’

They obeyed him. He had seen where she went, but there was a danger she would turn from the lane into the copse for shelter, and though he knew she could not escape, for the wood ended in a high fence and a stream, there were sometimes gin traps there, set by poachers. Even so, he schooled himself not to run till he was out of sight of the house.

He caught up with her easily. She had done exactly as he had expected.

‘Wait!’ he shouted. ‘There may be traps! Take care!’ He spoke in German, using all the means to calm her, approaching slowly. ‘Don’t move.’

But she had already stopped. When he came up to her she was leaning against a spruce sapling, her posture, in the fleeting moonlight, that of a young St Sebastian waiting for arrows.

His words, when they came, punctured her martyred pose in an instant.

‘I don’t like bad manners,’ said Quin quietly. ‘These people are my guests.’

Her head went up. ‘Yes. The kind of guests one would expect you to have – a man who owns the sea. Braying, mindless idiots who mock at music. Don’t they know what is going on? Can’t they even read? Have they seen the papers? No, of course they only read the sporting pages; which horse has gone faster than another and the report of who curtseyed to the King in a headdress of dead ostriches.’ She was shaking so much that her words came in bursts between the chattering of her teeth. ‘Today . . . now . . . while they get drunk and scream in their ridiculous clothes, my people are gathered up and put into cattle trucks and sent away. While they pour wine onto the floor and fall over, young boys who believed in the brotherhood of man are beaten senseless in the street.’

Quin made no move to comfort her. He was as angry as she was, but his voice was entirely controlled. ‘I will not point out to you that your people – using the word in a different sense – stood in the Heldenplatz and yelled in their thousands for Hitler. But I will tell you this. In mocking at the people you saw here, you commit more than ill manners; you commit an injustice over which you will burn with shame – and very soon. For it is these braying boys who the moment war comes will flock to fight. It is they who will confront the evil that is Hitler even though they do it for a jape and a lark. The boy who drank too much and fell over has just passed out of Sandhurst. He’s Ann Rothley’s only son and if war breaks out I wouldn’t give him six months. His friend – the one who poured champagne over him – is a lieutenant in the Marines. He’s engaged to that girl in the blue dress and they’ve put their wedding forward because he’s being posted overseas. The Bainbridge twins – the ones who don’t like waltzes – are in the air force. Both of them. I suppose they might last a year because they’re excellent pilots, but I doubt it. You will be able to look into that room this year or next year or the year after and see a roomful of ghosts – of dead men and weeping women. While your Heini, I wouldn’t be surprised, will still be playing his arpeggios.’

‘No!’ Her voice was scarcely audible. She could not turn from the shelter of the tree. ‘I had a phone call this evening. They’ve caught him. Heini is in a camp.’

21

‘I can’t,’ said Heini in a choking voice. ‘I can’t do it.’

The red face of the camp commandant with its

brutal jaw, its small blue eyes, thrust itself into Heini’s.

‘Oh, I think you can. I think you’ll find you can.’

Heini saw the flash of the knife in the commandant’s hand, and realized that he was defeated. There was not even a potato peeler – he was expected to peel three buckets of potatoes under a cold water tap. He had explained that he was a pianist, that his hands were not like other people’s, that they were his livelihood, and no one had listened, no one cared. One slip of the blade and he would not be able to practise, perhaps for weeks.

Beside him, Meierwitz had already started, neatly slicing off the discoloured eyes, dropping the naked potatoes into the water. But Meierwitz was different, he came from a working-class district in the Ruhr; Meierwitz was used to hardship; he whistled as he worked, he pointed out a robin on the fence post, watching them.