Prose

You say "I love
you, boy"
I know you lie
I trust you all the same
I don't know why

'Cos when my back is turned
My bruises shine
Our broken fairytale
So hard to hide
“Dinah! Dinah! DINAH!!” The whispered yells echoed through
the croft. I shivered from my hiding place behind the pump as hobnailed boots
tramped across the dewed wheat beside the house. I held my breath and curled
tighter behind the rotting planks. “We know you’re here.” The thick German
accents, so different from my English one, pierced the gloom like a torch beam.
“We will find you, Dinah. We have your brother. We have your parents. And we’ll
have you too.” I could hear as they turned on their heels and marched out of
the croft, trampling the crops as they went. I peered over the top of the pump.
The swastikas caught the moonlight as the patrol left the house. Black spiders
crawling over a white circle on a red band. It was enough to drive fear for my
life into my heart. Fear for my brother. My parents. What on Earth had
happened?
I emerged silently from my hiding place, only to feel a hand
clap onto my shoulder. I turned slowly, my eyes closed. I heard a gasped breath
and my eyes flew open. A soldier stood before me, a strong hand clasping my
thin shoulder through my nightgown. If you could call it a nightgown.
Threadbare. Ripped, patched and bramble-shredded. His eyes roved over me. It
was all I could do to stay still under his gaze, under the feelings he was
causing to stir in the pit of my belly. Warmth curled there as his eyes moved
over my breasts, the pinch of my waist and the flare of my hips to my core. I
shuddered as he moved his free hand. His fingertips brushed over the
barely-covered curls of my most private place, and a pulse began in my centre.
A Nazi. I was standing half-naked in front of a Nazi. Me. An
English Jew. And a Nazi was sending thrills through me. This couldn’t end well.
His grasp slackened from where he was grasping me shoulder. His hand trailed
down my arm and he took my hand. I stared at him, a deer in the headlights of
his lust. I was just another statistic. Everyone knew the Nazi soldiers raped
girls before arresting them. He saw the fear in my eyes and stroked the side of
my face. He led me back into my own house and sat me on the surviving kitchen
chair. He knelt in front of me.
“Dinah...” he sighed my name. I sat as still as I could. “I
don’t want to hurt you, to scare you.” He was whispering to me in accented but
fluent English. “You must leave this place. They will come back, the patrols.
The patrols will come back and come back and come back until they take you. And
they won’t be careful of you. You will be hurt; they always hurt the pretty
Jewish girls. But I won’t let them get you. Have you clothes?” I gazed at him,
dumbfounded. A Nazi was protecting me? I nodded as his face began to crease
with concern. “Go, gather a bag. I will be here.”
I ran from him, from his large, warm hands and from my
desires to my room. There was a small suitcase under my bed, and I filled it.
Undergarments, two dresses, three blouses and a skirt, a pair of sandals, my
best silk stockings and best patent leather shoes were followed by my dearest
possessions: my diary, and three novels. My father’s Torah I hid carefully
under a loose floorboard. I slipped on a pair of sturdy boots and a coat over
my nightgown and fled back to the warmth of my soldier, scarf and cap in hand.
His eyes worshipped me. I felt the blood rise to my face and ducked my head as
he grasped my suitcase in one hand and my own small hand in the other.
“Come, Dinah. We must leave. The General was sending two
patrols tonight.” I still hadn’t said I word, I realised as he led me from the
house. We ran down the lane and into the field opposite. I had no idea where he
was taking me, but I put my life in his hands as I ran beside him. If he handed
me over...but I wouldn’t think about that. I trusted him. Never trust a Nazi, Di, my mother had always told me, they will always turn against you when the
pressure is on. I’d always taken my parents’ opinions as truth, but now I
wasn’t so sure.
The sun was beginning to tint the sky pink, and we had long
since slowed to a walk, when we arrived at our destination. A small terrace of
houses on the outskirts of Munich. He went straight to the middle house and
knocked three times sharply on the door. He held me in front of him, his body
shielding mine from any onlookers, his arms wrapped across my body, his hands
claiming mine. The door eased open, and he pushed me through the smallest gap
possible, following me closely, before closing it silently behind him. He
nodded to the shadowy figure standing in a doorway off the hall, and took my
hand to lead me up the staircase. When we hit the upstairs landing, he reached
for the ceiling and moved a false section. Pulling down a ladder from the attic
space, he smiled reassuringly at me over his shoulder. I grasped the handle of
my suitcase in both hands and tried not to cry. I was exhausted, confused and
wanted to know what was happening to me.