Deadlight-Hall(102)

Signed, Maria Porringer.





TWENTY-FIVE


‘So,’ said Nell at last, ‘that’s what happened. It’s a remarkable story.’

‘Yes.’ Michael was looking at Leo.

Leo’s eyes were still in shadow, but at Michael’s words, he seemed to recollect his surroundings.

He said, ‘I think this is the time when I tell you my own part in Deadlight Hall’s history.’

‘If you felt you could do that, it wouldn’t go any further,’ said Nell, and he smiled at her.

‘I know that.’ A small frown of concentration touched his brow, as if he was assembling his thoughts, then he said, ‘It’s a long story, though, so I shall have to begin right at the beginning.’ He smiled at Nell. ‘And follow Beth’s maxim to go on until I reach the end.’

‘Good enough.’

‘It began when I came to England, when I was six,’ said Leo. ‘When I and a group of other children were smuggled out of Poland by a man we knew as Sch?nbrunn.’

Nell, listening to him, watching the play of expressions and emotions on his face as he spoke, heard – and knew Michael would be hearing – the deep sadness behind his words. He spoke concisely and well – she supposed this was to be expected – but she still found herself fascinated by his voice.

When Leo talked of Sophie and Susannah Reiss, and described what he had seen them do in Deadlight Hall’s furnace room, his voice faltered for the first time.

‘I believed that what I saw that night was my dear twins wreaking a revenge on a woman they thought posed a threat,’ he said. ‘But now—’

‘Now?’

‘Now I am not so sure. But that night I made a vow to myself – and to the twins – that I would never speak of what I saw,’ he said. ‘It was a child’s vow, but it was deeply and genuinely meant. Today is the first time I’ve ever spoken about it,’ he said.

‘A vow made out of loyalty?’ Michael’s tone was hesitant, but Rosendale looked at him eagerly, as if grateful for this comprehension.

‘I can’t be sure,’ he said, ‘because it was a very long time ago, and I was very young, as well as being quite seriously ill. But I think it was mostly loyalty. We – the three of us – had all been through so much, and I believed that nursing sister had been immensely cruel to the twins. I didn’t understand then about the tests they had to do for meningitis.’

‘Lumbar puncture,’ said Nell, nodding. ‘I believe it’s very unpleasant and painful.’

‘Yes. Probably they tried to explain it to us, but none of us had much English. And to have grasped medical terms—’ He leaned forward, his thin graceful hands clasped together so tightly the knuckles showed white. ‘I knew – at least, I thought then – that part of the twins’ motive was to punish that woman,’ he said. ‘But I also thought there was more to it than that.’ He looked from one to the other of his listeners, as if to be sure they wanted him to continue. Michael said, ‘Please go on,’ and Nell nodded.

‘When we were smuggled out to this country,’ said Leo, ‘we were surrounded by an atmosphere of what I can only describe as extreme fear. We had spent the previous two years – perhaps longer than that – in the midst of terror and secrecy. Most of us hadn’t really known any other world. And the one thing we all knew about was what the adults called the ovens. We had heard – half heard – our parents whispering – and we knew fragments of the stories. We knew people had vanished into the ovens – almost every family we knew had a tragedy, a loss.’ His eyes narrowed in memory. ‘It’s difficult to convey to you now the absolute menace those words – the Ovens – held,’ he said. ‘For the children it was tangled up with the grisly old fairy tales. Hansel and Gretel, and the gingerbread house with the oven. Ogres who would grind men’s bones to make bread. It wasn’t until many years later that I understood what our parents had really feared.’

‘Not ovens at all,’ said Michael, softly, almost as if he was afraid to say the words too loudly. ‘The gas chambers.’

‘Yes. They sent us away to save us,’ said Leo. ‘It wasn’t until much later that I understood that. But in those years – 1941, 1942 – the Nazis were combing the towns and the villages for our people. The German High Command had given orders for what they called the “resettling of Jews in the East”. That was a euphemism, of course. What they were doing was interning hundreds of thousands of Jews in labour camps, and then exterminating most of them. So when we saw the old furnace in Deadlight Hall …’ He made a brief, expressive gesture with one hand. ‘We equated it with the nightmares from our home,’ he said.