Fires in the Dark Read online

  A man beside them had overheard. ‘They’ve pegged it to the mark. Won’t be worth nothing now …’

  They had hurried away, to try and buy as much as possible before the shopkeepers realised, but the shops had all closed. ‘Rabbits,’ his father had muttered as they went from shop to shop, ‘digging their holes already, much good may it do them …’

  I do remember, Emil thought, small flashes, scenes like that. But I can’t remember how I felt. I can’t remember what it was like not to wake up quickly knowing I must have my wits about me, because today might be the day, and there is no time to waste. I can’t remember what it was like not to feel like that, keen and quick, and so exhausted at nights I’m asleep as soon as I’m lying down, not like Father. He stays awake all night and is old and sluggish in the morning. He worries so. His moustache is going grey.

  ‘Your moustache is going grey,’ Emil said.

  ‘Nothing to do with the war,’ sighed Josef. ‘It’s been going grey since the day I married your mother.’ He sat up straight and eased his shoulders back, wincing. ‘That raw dough. It sits in my stomach like a little dog. What kind of world is it, when you can’t have a fire in the dark?’

  *

  Emil awoke with a start. He was lying on the ground and something was poking in his shoulder, a sharp twig. It was pitch black but for a few tiny, pin-prick stars high in the sky. He was sweating and short of breath.

  ‘Emil …’ his father was whispering, his face just above him. ‘It is time to move …’

  Emil sat up in the darkness, recovering his breath. A few feet away, his father was waking the others. He shook his head, disorientated, wondering why the twinkling stars were on the ground to his left rather than above him. After a moment or two, he realised that they were not distant stars but fireflies, very close by. The night was stiflingly hot. His shirt was sticking to his back.

  *

  By dawn, they were in Moravia. They pulled off the forest road again, and slept. Mid-morning, they woke, and Josef decided that they should risk daylight travel. They had avoided the dawn and curfew patrols. If they hid by day and travelled by night it would be obvious to anyone who stopped them that they were engaged in subterfuge.

  *

  A few kilometres out of the forest, as they were descending from the highlands. Josef saw, in the distance, the approach of a single vehicle, shimmering with sinister indistinctness on the long, straight road ahead. They could not take the risk of pulling off the road – they might have been spotted already. The only option was to continue and keep their heads down.

  As the shimmering vehicle came nearer, it resolved itself into a German army jeep, travelling at some speed. Welcome to Moravia, thought Josef. They had their story prepared. The jeep began to slow down, its approach progressively delayed the nearer it came. Then suddenly, with an engine roar, it was upon them. It braked sharply, swerving across the road a few metres ahead. Two soldiers seated in the back stood and raised their rifles. An officer in the front passenger seat jumped down and strode purposefully to where they had halted.

  The officer was short and fat, with a ruddy, cheery face. He did not bother to address them but merely extended his hand palm upwards. Josef had jumped down and stepped forward, moving to one side so that if the soldiers in the jeep shot at him they would not hit the cart.

  He opened his jacket wide, then slowly pushed his other hand into the inside pocket and withdrew their identity cards – his, which included everyone in his family, and Pavliná’s.

  The officer unfolded the cards, flicked through them, frowned. ‘Zigeuner …’ he muttered, glancing up at Josef’s face.

  Josef pulled his cap off his head. He clutched it in his hands. ‘We don’t normally leave our settlement,’ he said in Czech. ‘But my mother is sick.’ He indicated the cart, then leaned forward towards the officer and spoke quietly. ‘She’s dying. Nothing infectious. Just old age. She begged me to bury her alongside my father. We used to live in Třebič. You can see there. It’s on the papers. We only returned to Bohemia a few months ago. We have all the relevant documentation. Our ration cards were reissued. We had work. We’re going back there as soon as possible.’

  The officer stepped up to the cart and peered in. Pavliná Franzová was huddled between Ludmila and Eva. Ludmila was stroking her brow. ‘Pity a dying Gypsy woman, sir …’ said Pavliná, in fluent German. ‘I just want to rest in the earth next to my dear dead husband. He died in Třebič but he was born in Schwarzenberg, do you know it?’

  ‘No,’ replied the officer shortly. ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Back to Třebič, our old quarters. It is where I want to die, sir …’

  ‘Yes, so you said.’

  Josef realised that the officer had not understood his explanation in Czech. He cursed his poor German. He hoped Pavliná would remember the details.

  The officer turned from the cart and handed the identity cards back to Josef. ‘You have not heard, about Registration?’ he said to Pavliná.

  Pavliná gave Josef an anxious glance. ‘We are registered in Bohemia at present,’ she said. ‘Our papers are in order You can see …’

  ‘No, I mean next week. Registration Day.’

  ‘We have been travelling, sir,’ said Emil. He had dismounted the cart to stand next to Josef.

  The officer turned to regard him. Josef felt the cold prickle of sweat on the back of his neck. He had told Emil to remain quiet, whatever happened. If Emil told him they had been on the road for seven weeks they would be arrested on the spot.

  ‘You speak German?’ said the officer.

  ‘Yes, sir, of course,’ said Emil smartly, drawing himself up to his full height.

  The officer seemed pleased not to have to address Pavliná any more. ‘Tell your father and the others that the second of August has been designated Registration Day for all Gypsies throughout the Protectorate. You must report to the nearest authority on that day, the complete family. A new census is to be taken. You’ll be in Třebič by then. It will be an opportunity for you to get your papers in order. If you wish to re-register in Moravia then I daresay you will be allowed to, under the circumstances. But you must all present yourselves. Anyone not legally registered after that date will be arrested and imprisoned. Do you understand?’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ said Emil, all but clicking his heels together.

  ‘Very well,’ said the officer, nodding at Emil politely, before turning back to his jeep.

  They waited by the side of the road until the jeep had pulled off.

  Josef turned to Emil. ‘Well done,’ he said quietly.

  *

  They camped outside Třebič, on the outskirts of a village called Kamenice, making a lean-to with branches and blankets. The weather stayed fine. Josef managed to barter with a local farmer for some old beets. He had to give him the last of the carved serving forks he had fashioned while they were still in Bohemia. There was nothing left to barter now, for the whole of their way across the rest of Moravia – his last object was his gold ring, and that must be saved to help get them across the Slovak border.

  Registration Day was announced by a sign on the village shop, and now they were known to the local gadje, Josef decided they had no option but to go along and re-register. If they could get their Moravian rations cards reinstated, then they would be legal in the district. Maybe he and Emil would be able to get a few days’ work, to give them some resources for the last leg of the journey.

  *

  The Registration was taking place on the outskirts of Třebič, the opposite side of town from their old winter quarters. On their way there, they passed the mansion where Josef had done the copperwork, all those years ago. The main gate was chained shut, but Josef caught a glimpse of the front of the house as they passed. The windows were boarded. There was black painted graffiti on the old stone walls. He thought of the beautiful copper vessels he had restored, once more languishing unused in the Count’s electric-yellow kitchen. And where would the C
ount himself be now, he wondered, the comprehensive Count that he had never met? In prison maybe, impoverished certainly, dead perhaps. Truly, nothing lasted.

  Two kilometres past the big house, they took a turning down a track to a small cluster of sheds surrounded by a high wooden fence. As they approached, Josef saw that there were over a hundred local Roma already in the yard. Most had come on foot, by the look of it. They had few possessions with them. They stared at Josef and his family as the cart wobbled into the yard.

  To the left of the sheds, there was a row of half a dozen large trucks. This must be some kind of depot, Josef thought. A group of gendarmes had placed a large table outside one of the sheds and were trying to form the assembled Roma into a line.

  When they had all dismounted from the cart, Josef told them to take as many of their belongings as they could carry, then threw the canvas over the remaining items and tied it down tightly. He led the horse to a tree next to the trucks and tethered it, still harnessed to the cart. With any luck this wouldn’t take too long. He had only just turned to join the queue, when three Czech gendarmes descended upon the cart and began tugging at the rope that tied the canvas. Josef turned. ‘They are just our things,’ he said. ‘Food and clothing, and some tools of mine. I am a smith.’

  The gendarmes threw back the canvas, ignoring him. One extracted a wooden tray of Anna’s seedlings, removed the lid, and pulled a face. ‘Here, Miroslav,’ he said to another of them who was standing on the other side of the cart. The other one looked up, and the first tossed the tray casually over the cart. A few of the seedlings and a scattering of soil spun out in a wide arc as the tray flew over the cart. The second gendarme caught it clumsily. The third gendarme was holding Josef’s tool bag in one hand and shaking it up and down, feeling its weight and listening to the sound it made.

  Josef stood, unsure about the wisdom of protest. He couldn’t prevent them stealing from the cart. He would have to do an inventory when the cart was returned to them, and then go and complain to the registration authorities if necessary. As he turned away, one of the gendarmes was kicking one of the cart’s wheels, to see how sound it was. He could hear the wood cracking under the force of the man’s boot.

  They stood beneath the hot sun for two hours, while each family presented their papers and had their fingerprints checked to confirm identity. Every now and then a case arose when a member of a family was missing or someone was registered in a different district. Then the offending family would be taken into a hut by one of the gendarmes for interrogation. Ocassionally, raised voices could be heard from inside.

  By the time it came to their turn, the gendarmes were weary. A group of German soldiers were lounging nearby but they seemed in no hurry to help the Czechs with the administrative task. They were drinking from their flasks, laughing.

  Josef began to talk even before the gendarme behind the desk had opened their cards. ‘We used to live round here,’ he said, ‘but we moved to Bohemia. Now we need to come back … This old woman is trying to trace her daughters …’ Sighing, the gendarme rose, and indicated one of the sheds with a sideways toss of the head.

  Inside, the matter proved surprisingly easy to settle. Once the gendarme had established that everyone on the two identity cards was present, he told them that they were entitled to residency in Moravia. He did not meet Josef’s gaze as he said this, stamping their card, then staring at the floor as he handed it back.

  ‘We are free to go?’ asked Josef.

  The gendarme removed his cap, smoothed his damp hair across his head and said, ‘You will all be going as soon as everyone is registered. Wait in the yard with the others, please.’

  As they emerged from the hut, Josef saw that two German soldiers were unharnessing the horse from their cart. ‘Emil!’ he called out in alarm, running over.

  Emil followed in his wake. ‘Tell them,’ Josef called over his shoulder. ‘Tell them we have registered the horse too. It’s on our papers. They can’t take the horse.’ All at once, he had a sick feeling in his stomach, a hollow dread, like black air.

  They ran up as the soldiers were leading the plodding mare out of the yard and round the back of the fence.

  ‘Sirs!’ called Emil in German. ‘Sirs! That is our horse! Everything is in order. We have already beat dealt with!’

  ‘We will deal with the horse, Zigeuner!’ called one of the soldiers. They continued around behind the fence, to where there was a wide, shallow ditch – beyond it, open fields. One of them led the horse down into the ditch. She stumbled and whinnied, then stood there, stepping her hooves, shaking her head restlessly. As the soldier climbed back out of the ditch, he said to the other one, ‘Are you sure we’re not supposed to keep the harness?’

  ‘Did you look at it?’ laughed the other one.

  Josef, standing next to him, was staring down at the horse. It was only out of the corner of his eye, and with utter disbelief, that he saw the soldier extract his pistol from his holster. He had time to shout, ‘No!’

  The mare’s head jerked and her foreleg knees buckled. A neat, perfect stream of bright red blood shot from her forehead and spurted forward in a huge arc. By the time she fell, the blood had already made a huge puddle in the scrubby grass at the bottom of the ditch.

  The soldier was replacing his pistol in his holster. ‘You have to make sure it is right between the eyes with horses,’ he was saying to the other one. ‘Anywhere else, you split the skull open and get brains scattered everywhere. Always make sure they are in a ditch or something, lower down than you are. That way you avoid getting soaked. That one yesterday was borderline, we probably should have kept that, but this …’ he shook his head.

  From the compound, there was screaming, commotion. The soldiers turned and ran back. Josef and Emil followed.

  Inside the yard, the trucks’ engines had all been started. The noise was deafening. Above it, Josef could hear Ludmila and Eva crying and Anna shouting. He looked around for them but the yard was suddenly full of gendarmes and soldiers. Women were running, arms outstretched, crying. Just inside the gate, two soldiers were beating a man to the ground.

  Out of the crowd, Parni hurled herself at Josef’s legs, screaming with fear. Then Anna was upon him shouting, ‘Where is Emil?’

  Emil was right beside him. She clutched at both of them, crying out, her voice high and hollow. ‘We thought it was you! We thought they had shot one of you!’

  The gendarme in charge of the registration was striding around the yard shouting, ‘Calm down! Calm down everybody!’ He spotted the soldiers who had shot the mare and marched up to them, waving his arms in remonstration. ‘We are trying to do this in an organised manner!’ he bellowed. The soldiers lifted their hands.

  ‘They shot the horse …’ Josef said weakly. ‘We won’t get the cart back. They’ve shot the horse.’ How will we reach Slovakia now? he thought despairingly.

  The gendarme in charge was shouting at the soldiers. ‘Do it now. Quickly! Get them all in now!’

  ‘In now! Time to go!’ Another gendarme was bellowing in Czech, above the sound of the trucks’ engines. ‘Come on! Stay together everybody! Families stay together! Up you go!’

  Tekla and the others appeared by Anna’s side. Eva was weeping. Ludmila was saying over and over, ‘Oh, dear God, oh Lord save us, oh God …’ Josef turned and saw that everyone was being loaded into the back of the waiting trucks.

  *

  Emil stood by his father, feeling nothing more distinct than a need to be physically close to him. It was hard to take in the screaming and weeping of the people around him, for he still had an image fixed in his head, the perfect curve of the arc of blood as it had sprayed from the horse’s forehead, the clean beauty of it, the sudden stagger of the animal as she had fallen.

  Then the noise of the engines and the weeping people rushed over him, like a waterfall, and he felt himself awaken. His mother thrust a bundle of clothing into his arms, then picked up Bobo. His father was holding Parni. His aun
ts were standing by clutching bundles. Old Pavliná was twisting her apron between her hands and wailing that she had left her things on the cart.

  They were the last to be loaded up. By then, the yard was thick with the exhaust fumes which puffed and popped from the trucks’ engines in huge, intermittent black clouds. Even the soldiers were coughing and waving their hands. As they approached the back of the truck, Emil smelt diesel oil, the hot, dark chokingness of the haze which surrounded them. He blinked. It hurt the back of his throat. He would always think of that smell as the smell of the gadje. He heard his mother whisper to herself, her voice cracked and broken, ‘Devla, arakh amen. Mule sam.’ God preserve us. We are dead.

  PART 4

  1942

  CHAPTER 10

  There is a town in South Moravia, let us call it Orlavá. It’s a small town, no more than a large village really, but its situation is a relatively happy one. Well … the Jews have gone, German soldiers patrol the streets every night and anyone owning more than six ducks or geese is liable to sudden arrest – but otherwise, Orlavá is surviving the war relatively unmolested. Most of its inhabitants are well used to privation. When the fat ration is decreased they over-feed a goose and slaughter it for lard – and they find a way to hide the odd illegal chicken. They share each other’s pig-kills. They give their relatives firewood. It is the kind of town where if you mention to a neighbour that your eiderdown is getting thin, they will go and unstitch their own to bring you a fistful of feathers!

  At the edge of Orlavá is a hamlet. It is close enough to be part of the town – certainly the residents of the hamlet would say that they live in Orlavá, although the residents of Orlavá would say that the residents of the hamlet live in Romanov – the gypsy village.

  Romanov consists of eight stone cottages in a curved row like teeth, not far from the brown canal owned by the Bat’a shoe factory. Behind the cottages is a small wood, through which runs the River Morava. The hamlet is bracketed by these waterways which are bracketed in their turn by two railway lines; the local one that runs through Orlavá and down into Slovakia, and the fast Northern Railway which runs up through North Moravia to Poland, the country which hosts small, insignificant towns such as Trzebnica and Oświęcim.