He Iets his throat free, he hiccups, once, twice, and out of his mouth comes a great steaming ball of grease and spit, spinning and hissing on the ground like a lump of phosphor, and he takes the boy and shakes the boy, pointing backwards to the stamping echo that grows louder by the second, stamping the spit silent and speaking for the last time in his life.
“They are coming for you,” he says. “Hide. Hide now,” and though the boy does not understand it all, he hears the urgent footsteps and sees the paternal fear and recognizing both and the pointing of van Dielen’s trembling arm knows that his time in this tunnel has passed. He must leave it or die.
Running back to the abandoned shaft they slip behind the air filter into the secret room and crouch there as the feet march up, the Dutchman and he, kneeling face to face in the black space. He can feel the other man’s breath on his face, smell the sour stink of it, hear it too. He reaches out and puts a gentle finger on the man’s lips. The Dutchman understands well enough. As they listen to the approaching footsteps the boy imagines that they are not after him at all but this strange silent creature who follows him around like a dog, but then he hears them talk of a young one, the one with the red trousers and the woman’s jacket, and he knows the trouble he is in. Then the workers are counted out while they search. He can hear them banging in the wagons, chasing through every earth-shored room, shinning up the escape shafts with their hollow cries, kicking at piles of rubble, scurrying up and down, all the Todt trustees, shouting and cursing under the wet flap of tarpaulin.
The tunnel grows silent, nothing but the drip of water and the hum of the generator at the back, and down far away, the collective murmur of the next shift waiting outside. He is tempted to try his luck now, but caution prevails. They must wait until they can move under cover of noise. One last sweep and then the doors are swung back and he can hear the men shufïling in, gathering their pickaxes, the dragged shovels ringing out on the concrete floor. Now, as the waves of men ripple through, he eases back the metal sheet and crawls out, the Dutchman following. Together they run down to the connecting tunnel and the escape shaft, thirty foot high and locked from the inside by a long iron bar. They climb it easily and though the bar is stiffwith the grip of a burgeoning rust he pulls it back with one sharp jerk and hoists himself out. They are in a field surrounded by other fields, two hundred yards away from the entrance with a high cover of trees in between.
He starts to move off, beckoning the Dutchman to follow him, but the man stands his ground with a shake of his head, urging him to flee, not to bother with him. He beckons again, and again the man refuses, waving him away, as if he is driving back cattle. The boy turns and starts to run and when he looks back the Dutchman has not moved still. But this time he does not shoo the boy away. He raises his hand, simply, as if holding aloft a silent thought, waves once, now blows him a kiss and then ducks swiftly out of sight.
It is a long journey, longer than he has imagined, across the heart of the island, through steep hidden valleys and slippery moss-infested brooks, running nervously along all too quiet lanes, ducking under the stretch of spider-web bombs that sing in the light breeze, the promise of a westerly wind, blowing contentedly in his face. Then he breaks out into the flat of Cobo, and twenty minutes later he is at the back of the darkened house. She is sitting at the table with her head in her hands, the oil lamp flickering with her sobs. He wonders whether that man has made her do it with him again, and it makes him angry. He bangs on the window. She looks up, frightened. Then she sees his face pressed up against the glass and she jumps up, throwing the door open, taking him in his arms, swinging him round and round as if he were a baby. He cannot understand the ferocity of her reaction, the tears that roll down her face, her damp insistent kisses, the way she turns him this way and that, hugging him at every opportunity. “Police,” he warns her, not police but the German word polizei, and she holds his head against her and murmurs, “Ja, ja, ja, ja,” in such a soft understanding way it was as if she knows, knows and doesn’t care. “Friend,” she says and taps her own chest. “You stay here now. No more digging. No more tunnel.” Then she drags the tin bath out again and while the pans warm on the stove sits him on a chair and pulls out a pair of scissors from the drawer under the table and cuts his hair, cuts it short, like it used to be. Then she stands him up and pulls off his clothes, the stench rising as each garment hits the floor, and she holds her nose again and they laugh together just like the last time, opening the little grate and chucking them in, all except the jacket which she pulled from his shoulders the moment he was through the door. And when the bath is full, she coaxes him in, first one foot then the other, stabs of pain shooting up his leg as she splashes it gently over him, on his back and arms, his chest and belly, reaching up for his neck and guiding him down so that he is kneeling, his lips touching the surface before she grabs his head and she pushes him under. He comes up gasping, frightened and she takes hold of his head and kisses the top of it, the front of her dress all wet where his face presses up against her, like some other time, long lost, by some other fire. He doesn’t mind when she ducks him under again, his scalp tingling and his ears singing, and when she is done he sits with his feet sticking out over the sides, while she holds each one in turn, working her thin curved scissors underneath his black toenails. Then he is up and out, naked before her while she dries them, dusting the gaps between his toes, kissing their blistered arches. He is not white any more but a pale olive colour and there is a length to his muscle and a masculine confidence in his stature that had not been there before. He is not a boy but a young man with his hands held over himself. So she straightens up and hands him the faded pair of pyjamas and turns her head while he dresses. And when he is decent she cooks him a plate of mashed potatoes and swede and afterwards leads him upstairs and shows him the narrow bed which wobbles and smells of her, with feathers in the pillow and a quilted cover laid on top. She peels it down and pats it open and he climbs in and draws the quilt over his ears and looking at her and the enormous room falls asleep.