183061

November 2008: Patti took a phone call from the care home at 11.42am on a windy day which blew the remaining leaves from their summer host. By the end of that day, Patti was at one with the leaves - because all she had ever known was blown away too. 

The manager collared her as she walked in, immediately irritated by the intense, stewing heat within the building. She could already feel beads of sweat on her upper lip. 

“I didn’t know your mother could speak German,” he said as an opener. 

“Nor did I,” she replied. She knew she should be more curious, but her mother had always been a closed book and it was no surprise that she had chosen to open a few pages just at the point of death. People did that, didn’t they? Let it all hang out. 

In the room on the first floor, her mother lay delicately scented, the hair immaculate and the lips slicked with cherry red. The television was on a low hum. There was a cold cup of tea on the sideboard. Her mother smiled, although it never reached her eyes. In every mortal respect, she did not look on the cusp of death. Her mother, shrewd at reading minds, said “Don’t worry, dear. I won’t be too long now.” 

Patti cleared a folded hand towel from an armchair and looked at this woman of hers, with her head to one side. “They tell me you’ve been speaking in tongues,” she said. 

“You don’t think Polish Jews can speak German?” the old woman queried. It was here that Patti supposed she could hear the imminent death rattle, the weakening of the voice, the quickening of breath. Beyond the lipstick and the powder, her mother had a pallor. “Turn the thingy off,” she commanded, gesturing towards the television. 

Patti anticipated an unburdening, although she couldn’t think what ballast her mother had to jettison. She was an ice-cold matriarch, but surely beyond all other reproach? A school teacher, an Auschwitz survivor, a well-dressed doyenne of an earlier era where standards were kept. A woman married to another Auschwitz survivor, their tattoos carefully hidden, sleeves tightly cuffed. Their refusal to speak of it was seen as a source of strength and inspiration, but they eschewed that reverse type of admiration, and buried themselves in a market town on the east coast, watching the edge of the world crumble and the seabirds circle. 

“I suppose you’re going to tell me you’ve left all your money to the Seaman’s Mission,” Patti said. She was surprised to hear her mother laugh.

“There is no money left, dear,” she said, waving a veined hand around the room. “If I live any longer I shall have to live in your garden shed.” 

“I’m sorry, mother, but it’s full.” 

The old woman took an intake of breath. “Umm.” She gestured to her bedside cabinet. “In the top drawer you will find a tape in a machine. One of those old Linguaphone thingies —”

“Is that how you learned German?” 

Her mother ignored the question. “Why don’t you take that to a local pub and listen to it over a gin and tonic, or three. I won’t be wanting it back. It really is all for you. You can call it a going away present.” 

*****

Her mother’s allusion to Patti’s drinking was irksome. It referred to a younger life when all emotions were repressed, and finding solace in the burn of alcohol was a cure of sorts. Her father was the better parent, and she missed him dearly, even fifteen years after his death, but neither of them were equipped to deal with children. Her older brother left as soon as he could, and she no longer even knew where he was, or whether he was still alive. It always shamed Patti that she harboured a grudge against her parents. It seemed so selfish, so narcissistic to complain of emotional want when they had been through so much. She could always imagine the contempt they would both feel at her broken teenaged heart or the cellulite on her thighs. It became better to remain aloof and seek solace elsewhere. 

And now she is nearly sixty and her mother is dying in a hot house care home. Her mother’s words planted the idea of a cold G&T in her mind, and once it had settled, there was no removing it. She took a little snug in the back of a familiar pub, empty but for an old gambler on the fruit machine who gave her a whiskery nod and got on with his habit. She plugged the stringy ear pods into the machine and began to listen to her mother’s dry, rasping old voice with its faintly Polish tell.

*****

April 1945

Ravensbrück

It had been a whisper at first, that Hitler was dead, just a susurration amongst the women and men at the camp. The Red Army were coming. The SS-Hauptsturmführer remained, praying to the God of the Valkyries. Most of the female guards, the Aufseherin, had either fled, or awaited their destiny with a martyr’s frame of mind. There could be no future without the heukenkreuz. Many of the detainees who were able were fleeing through the woods, some unclear if the Russians would treat them any better. Best to take their chances, although they were sure to keep their badges which marked them as Romani, or lesbians, or Jews, or communists, or race-defilers. The world was in chaos. 

Two people in the woods had a clearer idea of their redemption, and over a course of a week, they walked slowly south to Berlin, towards the British zone and freedom. 

*****

The tape began with some hesitation, the old woman’s arthritic fingers struggling with STOP and RECORD. Did her mother learn to speak English with Linguaphone? Before Patti pressed PLAY, she spent some time sipping her gin and imagining what she was about to hear. She thought an apology, perhaps, for the emotional coldness - perhaps an in-depth description of her detention and her journey to England. Perhaps a dash of romanticism, about how she met her father en route and how they forged a bond from the ashes of the dead. 

But that isn’t what she heard, and like the leaf, she was blown, although no natural cycle of the seasons could account for it. 

The Tape

RECORD. Dear Patricia, it is quite possible I might be dead before you hear this. If I am not, perhaps you should put the champagne on ice? In readiness. I hope you are somewhere warm and safe, not driving. STOP.

RECORD. You might want to know why I am doing this, and I might just say that it is always best to meet your maker without secrets, but that is not the reason why. I am doing this out of nothing more than spite, because you always loved your father more than me. Such silly things drive us, don’t they? Even at the very end. STOP.

RECORD. You are not Jewish, Patricia. You are not even Polish. You are German. Your father and I are Roman Catholics, raised in the true faith. We went to confession when you were at school, and said our prayers in the closet under the stairs, like 17th century recusants. So whatever you do to exact your petty revenge, do not call for a rabbi. STOP. 

RECORD. Your patronymic, (you see how well I learned English?) is Werner. You are a Werner, not a Wojtowycz. Such a foolish language. Do you remember they used to call you ‘what-a-bitch’ at school? All eastern Europeans are peasants. STOP.

RECORD. Here’s a little story for you. There is a city in Poland called Szczecin which lies on the very border with Germany, with the Oder as the last word between nations. You are on this side and we are on the other. It is a grand, old city. The Germans called it Stettin. You see how easier that is to say? I was born there in 1920. Your father in 1918. You think that a coincidence? I shall disabuse you. At the time we were born, Stettin was part of Germany and remained so until 1946. So you see, you are an ethnic German, despite you banging your British drum at every opportunity, and Oh! How you love the Queen! STOP. 

RECORD. In 1933, almost all of the residents of Stettin voted for the NSDAP. Such exciting times, Patricia! You wouldn’t believe. The sense of belonging, the vibrant imagery, the belief that we were better. We were better. Never forget that. STOPPED by Patti. 

“Are you alright, love?”

It’s the landlord, collecting glasses. “Fancy another?”

Patti nods. She takes the ear buds out and rolls a cigarette: an ageing woman replete with all her youthful bad habits. Her bag will be safe here, but she asks the old guy on the machine to keep an eye on it anyway. 

She has to stand in the doorway to light her roll-up. The wind is whipping up, so much more forceful by the coast. Come tomorrow, another piece of England will have fallen. 

RECORD: I was twenty when war broke out. I wanted to do something useful. Of course I had been a member of the party for years, so I asked what I could do to be helpful, and they told me. STOP. 

Patti can’t take anymore; not in this dimly-lit pub amongst nodding strangers. 

Her youngest son was home, twenty-two, but who can afford to leave these days? He was in his room, scrolling doom. He asked dispassionately how his Grandmother was doing and his mother replied that she was a Nazi. He laughed. “Yep, she’s a twat alright.” 

She lay awake all night listening to the wind howling across the flatness. She had always liked such rude weather, but tonight there was no comfort to be had from it. Some rabid old crow started cawing, probably wondering where his branch had gone, and she pressed PLAY. 

I was sent to Ravensbruck as a female guard. It was a female camp mostly. Later, they took some men in to build the gas chambers. STOP. FAST FORWARD. 

Patti fell asleep and woke up at 10am to a ringing phone. It was the care home. She didn’t answer. Instead, she lay in bed with a cup of the sweetest tea and googled Ravensbrück. 

PLAY. When it was clear that the war was over, your father and I had some decisions to make. That’s correct, Patricia. I had always known your father. STOP. 

PLAY. So we left, saving our own skins. We went to the woods and tattooed our left forearms with Auschwitz numbers, with needles and blue ink, some alcohol as a rub and a consolation. We settled on England because they’re chumps. Totally gullible, and as we walked to Berlin, we had already settled on a coastal town, out of the way. Your father was a doctor, after all. STOP. 

Patti was sick in the sink. 

PLAY. We told them we were Polish refugees from Auschwitz. It was bedlam after the war and no one looked too closely. All the Ravensbruck records were burned when the Red Army advanced, so there was no proof of our employment. But your father was a doctor and I was bi-lingual, and we settled in this little place, with our tattoos and our story, and all has been well. But never has it been home. STOP. 

PLAY. Well, that about wraps it up, dear, as they say in the theatre. I was a camp guard and your father was a camp doctor. He injected disease into bones and sterilised morons. You can read all about that. One man’s experiment is another man’s crime. We met in Stettin and we went to the camp together as employees. That’s your beloved daddy. Just so you know. But what a wonderful GP he became. Do you remember him parading you in front of his patients, playing the Polish refugee? I wouldn’t change a thing. Those were the best years of our lives, Patricia. So, that is your heritage. In time, I want you to be proud of it. Gluck auf. STOP. 

*****

At the care home, the manager approached her with the practised tick-tock of a death watch beetle. “It is nearly time,” he said. He would know. 

In the room on the first floor, she noticed that someone had rolled up her sleeve. No doubt a member of staff, who will Tik Tok the Auschwitz number and wax lyrical. The old woman is too defeated to roll it down now. But in some primordial way, she smells her daughter and opens a blue eye. 

“Umm.” 

The wind was blowing fierce. There was a a knock at the door. It was the beetle. “Shall I call the rabbi?” he asks. 

“Yes.” says Patti. “She’s ready for him now.” 

She called her errant husband, currently balls deep in a younger woman, not that it ever mattered much to her. He always came home in the end, like a wet dog. Paid a few bills. They always got along. 

“Bloody, fucking hell, Patti,” he said.

He called back an hour later. “Two hundred war criminals came here after the war —”

“Two hundred and two,” Patti corrected. “And none of them prosecuted. She said we were gullible. She thought I wouldn’t say anything, for shame.” 

“Have you told the boys?”

“Not yet. I need to find the right words. It’s not their fault, it’s not my fault.”

“A full frontal attack then,” he said. 

She thought about that. Her mother was still alive, just. She stopped the rabbi before he went to her room, realising that it was an act of spite on her part. That it would defile him. She handed him the tape, told him to listen to it. Her mother called for a priest, but Patti wouldn’t give her that absolution. She told the death watch beetle why. He stopped watching. 

The world is not just. Feathered beds and heated rooms. Not just. But to live for eighty-three years and to die in shame? It is not the thick rope of the long drop, but it is justice all the same.