Through different Eyes

Chapter 1

Late April 1964

Willi stood up in the swaying bus as it slowed for his stop. “Bis später.” (See you later.)

Today’s language was German – tomorrow would be Polish.

Lili smiled, giving him a wave. “Bis heute Nachmittag.” (See you this afternoon.)

Willi and I exchanged a secret smile; we were careful not to attract attention to our relationship. He hopped off the bus as it came to a stop, waving to us when the bus went past him as he walked towards his private school. The summer term was underway and we were slipping back into our familiar term-time ways. Lili and I continued chatting in German for the few stops before the bus station in Canterbury. The regular travellers were used to us now and there were none of the stares that had accompanied our mixture of languages back in January when we started travelling together to our different schools.

At the bus station, we joined a stream of students heading to the grammar school to start the day. We headed for our lockers and sorted out our books for the morning with the usual school hubbub surrounding us. For Lili and me, it was French then Maths before break. I was looking forward to French but beyond it lurked Maths, which was a continuing problem for me. Willi spent hours helping me but I always felt I was missing something … critical. I could manipulate a formula and plug numbers into it – but it was mechanical, lacking the intuitive understanding I had with languages.

After French, my mood slipped rapidly as Lili and I walked to into Miss Paul’s Maths classroom and checked our seats from her seating plan. Lili Wiśniewski was in the back row and I, Col Schmidt, was one row in front but two seats sideways.

“Open your books to page 75, class. As you can see, we are carrying on with interest rates.” Miss Paul’s voice cut through the shuffle of books and whispered conversations and we were off. After she went through the theory and a worked example, there were problems for us to solve.

I glanced across at Lili who pointed at the text and dropped her eyes to the problems. I gave a mental sigh and started trying to corral the monster that was compound interest.

“Smith.”

I looked up from the problem I had been struggling with. I stifled a sigh. “Yes, Miss Paul?” She never called me Schmidt, another individual still fighting the second world war. I saw she had a note in her hand, with a senior student standing beside her.

“Please go to the headmaster’s office.”

My stomach flipped: such a call always preceded trouble. I glanced at Lili who raised an eyebrow in query. I gave her a minimal shrug and weaved my way through the desks and out into the corridor. I could feel everyone’s eyes on me as they wondered what I had done and, with some Schadenfreude, what would be my punishment.

At the office, the secretary directed me to a chair and I sat, trying to work out what was going on. I felt bloated from my period and that was combining with the unease of sitting in the school office to make me uncomfortable.

I looked over at the principal’s secretary. “Please Miss, may I go to the toilet?”

I received what seemed like a lingering, disapproving look.

“Please, Miss.” My voice reflected the increasing urgency I was feeling.

She pursed her lips, glancing at the headmaster’s closed office door and finally nodded.

There was no-one at the urinals and I slipped into a cubicle, muttering a curse at the continuing need to masquerade as a boy. I wanted to change my tampon, but they were hidden in the bottom of my bag back in class, so I did my business and folded some sheets of loo paper inside my panties as insurance against leaks, washed my hands and returned to the office.

The headmaster was talking to his secretary but turned when he saw me.

“Come with me please Schmidt,” and he led me into his office, seating me in front of his desk. “I’ve had a message from your mother’s place of employment that your mother has been taken to hospital.”

I leant forward, anxiety adding to my physical discomfort. “What’s happened?”

“I’m afraid I don’t know – but there’s a taxi coming to pick you up.” His voice held a soothing tone, but it was not working.

“Why has she been taken to the hospital?” I could feel my anxiety rising towards panic.

He shook his head. “I’m sorry Schmidt, that’s all I know.” He stood, guiding me out of his office. “Come along, the taxi will be here soon.” He clearly wanted this interruption to his day out of the way as soon as possible.

Mutti…what’s happened to you? Are you hurt? Is this about my father?

These terrible thoughts battered around inside my skull, each wave reflecting and reinforcing as I followed Mr White out into the main office.

“Miss Price, please take Schmidt to the front entrance and see him safely into the taxi when it arrives.”

“Yes, sir.” Miss Price stood up. “I’ve got your bag here.” Her voice was gentle, surprising me.

I blinked at her – she must have sent for my bag. “Thank you.”

She gave me an encouraging look. “Come along, I’ll see you safely into the taxi.” My expectations of disapproval must have coloured the look she gave me earlier, for she was showing sympathy for me now.

We waited at the front entrance for the taxi to arrive. Miss Price helped in along with my bag. “Thank you.”

She smiled and gave me a wave.

I sat in the back seat, lost in a world of worry. Mutti had been fine this morning when I left home. What had happened? Had there been an accident? I was roused from my worries as the taxi turned off the road to Herne Bay.

I looked around, bemused. “Where are we going?”

“I have to drop you off just up here.”

e’d all had the warnings about getting into stranger’s cars and there was the constant worry about my father finding us…but this was a taxi. Outside, it was all farm and orchard. Why would he be dropping me off here?

The car swung into a grassy area where a large car was parked. The doors of the car opened and two people got out.

Mutti.

I gasped with combined confusion and relief and swung my door open, racing into Mutti’s arms. “Mutti. Mutti. Are you okay?”

“Shh, Col. Yes, I am perfectly fine, thank you.” I could see she was anxious about something. “Please get in the car and I will explain everything to you.”

I looked at her and she shooed me towards the car, so I scrambled into the back seat and Mutti went round to the far side.

“Don’t forget this.” The taxi driver dropped my abandoned school bag on my lap and closed my door.

The car doors slammed as the front seat passenger got in beside the driver and the car raced off. Whoever the driver was, he pushed the car hard on what were just narrow country lanes. In the back, Mutti and I grabbed the armrests to steady ourselves against the swings and bounces.

“What’s going on, Mutti?”

She looked at me. “Your father is close on our tracks. Something or someone has betrayed us.”

I felt my stomach lurch. Willi had met him just ten days or so ago.

Not Willi? Surely, not Willi…

The constant acceleration, braking and swaying of the car made conversation difficult as we hurtled through the backroads of rural Kent. All that motion combined with the anxiety and my period was making me nauseous. After an uncomfortable ten minutes or so, we turned on to a main road at a village called Dunkirk. As we accelerated away, there were signs for London. We were headed away from Herne Bay. At least the swaying had stopped and my stomach started to settle.

I turned to Mutti. “What’s happened?”

Mutti shook her head. “All I know is Mr Watling left a message at the shop to meet this car off the High Street at ten o’clock. We drove to where we met you and … well, that’s all I know.” She looked out of the window and then back at me. “I presume your father found out where we are and we need to move. We’ll just have to wait to meet with Mr Watling.”

I could see the worry lines on her face and slid across to hug her. We needed mutual comfort, staying cuddled together until I sensed something different in the road. I looked up to see the motorway signs for the road leading to London. But after a while we branched off that to the north and entered a tunnel under the Thames.

Mutti leant forward, holding the back of the passenger seat. “Where are we going?”

The man half turned. “Somewhere safe. It’s best you don’t know.”

We kept on driving as the afternoon passed and I dozed off. When I woke up, I was feeling both hungry and uncomfortable, though the nausea had passed. Outside, the afternoon shadows were lengthening.

“Mutti, I need to go to the loo.”

“Mm – so do I.” She leant forward. “How long before we get to wherever we are going?”

The man in the passenger seat looked across at the driver, who replied, “About two hours.”

“Well, we need to find a toilet and also get something to eat.”

There was no reply.

Mutti’s voice rose. “We need a toilet. Now, please.”

The driver glanced at the passenger, who shrugged.

“OK – at a petrol station.”

About five minutes later we stopped. I scrabbled a tampon out of my school bag and headed for the toilet. I came out feeling physically better but, as I sat there, the reality had become clear. Our life in Herne Bay was over – and with that realisation came the crashing need to get a message to Willi. How he would take our unexplained disappearance and what he might do as a result terrified me; it might be enough to tip him over the edge. Mutti and the front seat passenger were waiting for me as I came out of the Gents.

“We must get a message to Willi that we are OK. He will be frantic at our disappearance and might do something...”

The passenger interrupted me. “In the car. Now.”

I tried to hush him, talking to Mutti about Willi was important.

“Now.” He grabbed my hand and firmly moved me towards the car. “We’re not safe here. Get in the car.” His voice was low, but the tension he was feeling was clear. He opened the door and half-gestured, half-pushed me in. I saw Mutti opening her door to join me. As soon as the passenger closed his door, the car started off, not spinning its wheels as that would just draw attention, but swiftly.

Once we were back on the road, the passenger passed back paper bags containing cheese and tomato sandwiches and some packets of potato crisps.

Mutti took them, passing one to me.

“Thank you...we don’t know your names...”

The passenger grunted, without turning round. “No names.”

Mutti shrugged and pursed her lips.

“Mutti...” I started, but she shook her head and started eating her sandwich. After a while, she turned to me and asked me, in Polish, what I thought of the sandwiches.

I blinked at her. Why would she decide to continue our language lessons at this particular moment? I gave her a puzzled look.

She frowned at me, repeating herself. “Smakuje Ci kanapkę?” (Is your sandwich tasty?)

Her eyes flicked towards the front of the car and then she cocked an eyebrow questioningly.

Oh – of the languages we shared, Polish was the least likely to be understood by our driver and passenger. They might speak German as they’d been sent to pick up two Germans and I supposed they might speak Russian – and Mutti knew my Russian was currently the least of my languages from lack of practice.

We talked about the sandwiches and crisps, our descriptions becoming increasingly bizarre as we tested the understanding of the people in the front seats … there was no reaction. Mutti looked at me and smiled a wicked smile and in the same conversational tone, called the driver and passenger rude names: there was no reaction to this either.

She continued in Polish. “Perhaps they do not understand us. But we must still be careful not to place our friends in difficult situations with the security services” She gave me a serious look. “Now, what did you want to say about...your friend?” she asked, the pause deliberate.

Ah – no names, no mention of my father. “We need to get a message to him that we are OK, that my … he … has not found us. Remember how he was when he told us about meeting … him?”

Mutti nodded.

“I’m worried that if he thinks ... he ... has kidnapped us, he will blame himself.”

“At the petrol station, you said that he might do ... something.” Mutti looked at me questioningly. “What did you mean?”

I took a deep breath. At what point did keeping secret Willi’s suicide attempts become dangerous to him? Should I break my promise to him about this?

Mutti watched me as these issues ran through my head. “He has always had an undercurrent of instability, which is understandable given the abuse he suffered.” There was a long pause during which I stayed silent. I felt her stroking my hair. “Has he tried to ... harm himself?”

I swallowed, my mouth suddenly dry. Mutti’s eyes held mine ... and I nodded.

Mutti drew in a deep breath and gave my hand a gentle squeeze. “Then we must certainly get a message to him that we have not been kidnapped by … him.” She paused again, thinking. “You will need to think how you might phrase it, so he knows it is truly from you and not forced from you under duress by ... someone.”

I hadn’t thought of that complication – and I need to get that message to Willi – and Lili – without delay. I started to think what I might say as the car drove on.

The back seat of the car was quite large. Mutti told me to stretch out and I went to sleep, my head in her lap. At some point we stopped again and I roused slightly, drifting back into an uneasy sleep once the car started moving again.

I woke in confusion as I hit the back of the seat in front of me and ended on the floor with Mutti on top of me. As we struggled to sort ourselves out, there were loud pairs of bangs – gunshots? – and Mutti stopped struggling to get up, pressing me down as low as possible. “Unten bleiben, Col.” (Stay down, Col.)

We lay there for what felt like a minute but was probably just seconds. I could hear moaning from the front seat and muffled voices outside. Then the rear doors both opened and in the glare from the headlights of a vehicle behind us I saw a man pointing a pistol at us.

“They’re here,” a voice called out in English.