She had no idea of the time, could be morning, could be evening. Probably evening, she thought. Kate had been in bed with a high fever for the past three days. Matteous nursed her to the best of his ability, fetching glasses of water, laying damp cloths on her forehead, standing guard by the bedroom door. Everything was turned on its head: she in bed, he beside it. Kate talked in her sleep, sounding delirious. Matteous listened to her nocturnal ramblings, and waited. When she was awake she wanted to get out of bed, but could not. She had lost all power over her arms and legs. She had become the child of Matteous, who watched over her and rocked her cradle. Gone was her will and her courage, her body abided by its own rules. There was no way she could go to a minister, or to the Queen.
Churchill’s voice wafted through the room. In Kate’s head everything sounded as if it came from twice as far away, but the meaning was clear. She knew what he was announcing, she had known for the past fortnight. But she had not heard it said in this way, had never grasped the full portent of it as she did now, in the terse, half-mumbled, half-sung speech by the English prime minister. He was saying the same things she had said to Carl: they would all be wiped out, all those mothers and children, and those poor ragged peasants having to fight with their bare hands against a terrible war machine, it was sheer betrayal, it was the slaughter of a people taken completely by surprise.
The German armies were massed along a line stretching from the White Sea to the Black Sea, and their armoured divisions had attacked Russia. Bombs rained down upon the towns and villages, harvests were laid waste. The Nazis were after Russia’s oil.
Churchill’s words hammered in her head. He predicted that after Russia it would be the turn of China and India, where the lives and happiness of a thousand million human beings were now under threat. And then Kate heard him say: “I gave him warnings, I gave clear and precise warnings to Stalin of what was coming.” Kate glanced at Matteous, whose face remained impassive throughout.
I gave him warnings. So Oscar had gone to the English after all. He had listened to her – thank God for that. She smiled faintly and fell asleep again.
She had fallen violently ill from one day to the next, almost as if this was her last chance to make him stay just a little longer. An alibi for Matteous to put his plans on hold until she recovered. And of course he would do that for her, he would stay until further notice. Notice from the heartlands of Africa, from a nameless rubber plantation. A call from nobody in particular, but one that was heard and understood by Matteous.
The folded note he had given her bore his plan, set out in hieroglyphics. The words had come out in an instinctive, erratic scrawl, English and French sounds buried in a script resembling barbed wire, which Kate had difficulty reading. It must have taken him days to write. His farewell letter. The sadness welling up in her became conflated with her soaring temperature. She had already been shivering, her hand already shaking, when he had slipped her the note.
He had said that he would take care of her until she was well again. Then he would leave.
The summer began splendidly on Sunday, 22 June. Emma went into the garden, in answer to her private rollcall. It was eight o’clock, not a sound, only birdsong. Carl was asleep. He had not come home until dawn, having worked all night at the ministry. Emma had listened quietly when he told her of the attack, a sabre thrust deep in the flank of Russia. 3.8 million men had crossed the border, 150 divisions, Germans, Romanians and Finns, 2,000 aircraft, 600,000 motor vehicles, over 600,000 horses, 7,100 artillery guns, 3,350 tanks, over a distance of 2,900 kilometres, and all this at 03.15 hours sharp. He had read it out to her from a slip of paper.
“The gangsters.”
She stood in her garden, thinking of nothing in particular. There were no bombs exploding around her, no shots being fired. No tanks, no artillery. No grenades being tossed. Where was everybody? Just then the church bells began to ring, calling the village to worship as they did every Sunday, rain or shine, war or no war. Emma waited for the noise of a car speeding up the road. Better to be prepared.
But silence prevailed, and the sun shone as never before.
Oscar looked at his watch, as he had done throughout the night, hour after hour, until it was light enough for him to go outside. Not a soul about. Ensingerstrasse was a channel of emptiness, with more emptiness around the corner. At home he had heard the long-dreaded and long-avoided news on the German radio from Goebbels, speaking on behalf of the Idiot: “German people! National Socialists! Weighed down with heavy cares, condemned to months-long silence, the hour has now come when at last I can speak frankly.”
