I wonder if this is how it will be if we ever reach England. Will he go out to work, to football, to play his music, and will I be at home, cleaning and cooking, no more free than my mother? Perhaps if I get to England, I should continue to pretend to be Cousins in the day—and be allowed to do all the things boys can do.
While Bill is out, Ralph is true to his word and starts to teach me Pitman shorthand. When he presents me with the small notebook of squared paper and a short pencil, I feel as if I’ve been given gifts of huge value, and I keep them carefully. I’m desperate to have something to occupy my mind, and I find I like the discipline of the learning and repetition, but also the cleverness of a system that can be used in any language.
During our lesson, Max heaves himself from his bed and announces he’s going to the camp library.
“D’you want me to come with you?” asks Ralph eagerly, laying down his pencil, but Max shakes his head and leaves without even replying. I think he’s rather rude. Ralph covers a look of disappointment and turns back to me and Pitman, though his mind clearly isn’t on our lesson anymore.
Looking about him, at the relative emptiness of the hut, Ralph starts to whisper to me about Max, in staccato, anxious phrases. “You know you’ve saved him, don’t you?”
I don’t know what he’s talking about.
“Max. Your coming has saved his life. That’s why I can never do enough for you.”
I wait and listen, and Ralph continues, as though my silence is a magnet, drawing the words out of him. “Before you came, about six days before, he had a letter. The letter every man here dreads getting. Fears more than the Nazis really. A letter from his fiancée, Rachel—selfish bitch—telling him she’d got married. And not just that, but she’d married his brother. Can you imagine that? Max’s own brother, stealing his fiancée while he’s a prisoner of war. It’s the lowest of the low. And he just took to his bed. I’ve seen it before—young men, young fit men, just turn their faces to the wall and wait for death. I thought I’d lost him.”
Ralph struggles to control his emotion, deepening the furrow between his brows. He looks up at me.
“You don’t know, you can’t imagine how different he was before. He’s one of those people you love and hate together because they do everything well. Not just that he knows so much, but he’s funny, really funny, and always calm and positive, rallying everyone when they want to give up. So many people owe their lives to him. And sporty too—not like me. Before the war they wanted him to try out for a professional footballer, but he told them he wanted to be a writer.” He shakes his head in amazement. “He writes such incredible stuff. Poems, stories, anything. I thought he was sort of invincible, like a god, the one who’d always be there and know what to do. And then, when the letter came, he just kind of collapsed in on himself. Wouldn’t read or write or eat or leave his bed.” He pauses, remembering.
“And then you came, and d’you see, it gave him something to live for. He’s even gone back to the library, and he’s writing again. So I owe you everything, because if anything…”
I nod and fleetingly touch the back of his hand. I know. And I’m pleased he’s told me, because now Max’s erratic behavior seems completely explicable. What would I do if Bill had married someone else? I wouldn’t want to live either. I decide I’ll try to think of little things I could do for Max.
When Max returns from the library, I pass him a note. It says, What are you reading?
He looks surprised, and the jiggling in his leg stops for a moment, but he turns and shows me the two books. “Tolstoy,” he says, “though I’m surprised they let us read the Russians, if they think they’re subhuman. And H. G. Wells’ History of the World.”
He hands me the history book, which is surprisingly short. I turn it over and over. It seems I could learn everything from a university in this one book. I almost want to steal it from him. I write, Can I read after? and the constant jiggling in his leg slows.
“Are you interested in politics and history?”
I am now. I nod and he smiles. It may be the first time I’ve seen him smile, and it makes him look less skull-like. His teeth are very white and even.
“OK. I’ll read a chapter and then tell you about it. And when I’ve finished the book, you can have it. Deal?”
I think what Cousins might do and hold out my hand to shake his. So my political education, and my mission to save Max, begins.
• • •
Every day that it’s not in use, Bill goes to play the piano, and sometimes I trail along behind him. On Friday, it’s raining, and many men are drawn in by the music. The tall guard follows and stays, out of the rain. Then Bill starts to play tunes they know, and everyone joins in song after song through all the long, wet afternoon.
Bill plays the nightingale song, and the one about dancing cheek to cheek, and I know these are for me. The tall guard is watching me not joining in, and I try to mouth the words I can remember, swiveling in my chair so he can’t see my face. His eyes bore into the back of my head.
By evening the parcels have arrived, and we have an American one with cigarettes. Bill corners Tucker and does a hasty deal. This week it’s to be the fags, not the food. But I don’t trust Tucker to keep to any deal.
One of the ways our hut tries to forget its hunger and boredom for an hour in the evening is for Ralph to have a “film night” in which he tells us the story of a movie—every detail, like he’s seeing and hearing it in his head. One of these is called The Lady Vanishes, and I think, That’s me.
Another way to pass the time is to hold debates. One is on the question of socialism after the war. The two sides are drawn up, with eloquent speakers for each. Max is the main speaker for socialism, and he’s ardent for a new order.
“Remember the Battle of Cable Street,” he says to all the men who’ve drawn up to listen. “How we defeated Mosley’s Blackshirts. If the war hadn’t come, we could have had a Nazi Party in England. But the people of the East End rose up and prevented them marching.”
I glance at Bill as Max speaks, wondering if he was part of this glorious battle against the fascists, but he’s looking down at his shoes, and I can’t read the expression on his face.
Max is in full flood. “When this is over, there’ll be no more lords and ladies while the workingmen starve. Public schools must be abolished, and everyone will have equal education. No more governments full of Eton men. No more doctors for the rich while the poor die of preventable diseases. The Great War changed nothing for the workingman. This war must change life for everyone, or what’s it been for?”
Bill looks up now and nods his agreement. There’s thunderous applause when Max finishes. The man speaking against socialism has a difficult task, and his speech is answered by boos and catcalls as he tries to describe the worst excesses of Russian socialism. The men are not in a mood to hear this.
“The Russians are our allies,” someone shouts, “dying in droves,” and begins to stamp his feet. Others join in the rhythmic stamping, and Ralph, who’s chairing the debate, has to hold up his hand for silence. When the hut quiets again the man speaking against socialism finishes lamely, “Of course, we all want a better world, with the wealth shared out more fairly, but we have to guard against socialist totalitarianism as much as fascism.”