Chapter 11 Like a House on Fire #2
Downstairs, two men in balaclavas stood in the front room.
The taller one held a flashlight, which cut a faint greenish glow through the darkness.
All the dresser drawers had been removed, their contents tipped onto the floor.
Books had been pulled from the shelves, and a china samovar lay in broken pieces.
Larry advanced toward them with his hands up in a submissive gesture. “We’re not wealthy people,” he said. “If you want the radiogram, take it. Be my guest. There’s nothing else of value here.”
The shorter, rounder man nodded at his partner, who pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket and handed it to Larry. The note, written in crude block capitals, said, GIVE US THE CASH.
“Cash, what cash?” said Larry. “The takings from my business go straight into the bank. Please, you’ve made a mistake.”
The short man nodded again, and the tall one swung the end of his flashlight into the side of Larry’s head, making a sickening thud. Larry reeled back, but he remained upright. Naomi leapt forward and shouted, “Are you deaf? My husband told you, you’ve made a mistake. There’s no money here.”
Another sickening thud and a gasp from Larry. He brought his hand to his head. Blood dripped from his temple onto his fingers. A pause, and then the man hit him a third time. Larry, crouching down, his arms over his head, said bitterly, “Tell them, Nay, for God’s sake, tell them.”
Even then, Naomi hesitated before walking over to the window, lifting up the corner of the rug and jimmying loose a piece of floorboard.
The tall man was right behind her, shining his flashlight on her hands as she extracted a Tide washing powder box from the dusty depths.
As he reached out to take the box, Naomi took leave of her senses.
She brought her knee up to his crotch, hard, and pulled the balaclava off his head.
Yelling in pain and rage, he seized her by the throat and banged her head on the floor.
As his hands squeezed, Naomi managed to poke him in the eyes.
It worked, in as much as he released her neck and grabbed her wrists.
She was still struggling to free herself, but she could breathe.
The other man had picked up the money box and was going toward the front door. Over his shoulder he said, speaking for the first time, “Finish her, Jack.”
Mina blinked back tears. “Did Naomi die?”
Saul shook his head. “No. But she suffered a stroke and was in a coma for five days. She never walked again. She died ten years later, of an illness she might have survived otherwise.”
“What about Larry?”
“Poor Larry died the day after the attack. He had a traumatic brain injury.”
“And so Jack was Elizabeth’s brother? Who was the other man?”
“Her husband. Thomas Armstrong. They were both found guilty of murder. You know, by this law of joint enterprise. Armstrong was given the death penalty, but it was later commuted to life in prison. And because Jack Shaughnessy was only fifteen, he was sentenced to life with a recommendation to serve thirty years.”
“But Elizabeth didn’t mean for them to do it. Or did she?”
“No, of course not. Naomi told her about the money, and Elizabeth was indiscreet in telling her husband. She had no idea what he was capable of.”
“But the upshot was, you didn’t leave your country,” said Mina sadly. “Not in time, I mean.”
If only he’d tried harder to get them out, before they were trapped in the Czernowitz ghetto and the deportations started.
He told Gila they ought to run away. He had a journalist friend on the outside, part of a group dedicated to helping Jews escape.
She’d get them the money to bribe a guard, and they’d go to a hiding place, a disused cosmetics factory.
It sounded too risky, thought Gila. Too dangerous with a small child.
They’d be shot if they were seen. And thousands of Jews had already been sent to Transnistria, on the eastern edge of Moldova.
Maybe it would be better to join them, she said.
Anywhere, surely, would be an improvement on the filthy ghetto.
Hoping to bring Gila around to his plan, Saul did a dummy run one night.
With help from a friend giving him a leg up, he climbed over the nine-foot wooden fence and barbed wire.
Then, taking only back streets, he reached the factory without being seen.
The next day, he walked back into the ghetto amid a group of workers returning from the night shift at a metalworks.
But when he reached home, he found his entire street empty of residents, the front doors sealed.
He begged the authorities to put him on the next cattle car to Transnistria.
Instead, he was sent to a forced-labor camp run by the Romanian army.
Mina drank some wine—the taste of it was growing on her—and said, “I still don’t understand. Are you saying Jack is Jimmy? But how does he know Honor?”
Saul looked at her innocent, inquiring face, rosy-cheeked from the wine.
A profound weariness entered his bones. He realized he had little choice but to betray Honor, discarding his steadfast loyalty of all these years.
Not that being her secret-keeper was ever difficult.
Not really. The young people in the house…
well, Honor’s grubby history wasn’t their business.
Until Jimmy came along, that is. Saul felt little responsibility toward Robbie—a grown man, albeit a rather ineffectual one—nor toward George.
That flighty creature could look after herself.
But Mina was a child. Wholly trusting, she would be shocked to learn he’d acted with deceit, told lies by omission.
More than that, she was like a daughter to him.
He realized this with a disturbing rush of sentiment.
And what kind of a father withholds dangerous information from his daughter, all for the sake of protecting a lover’s dignity—a lover whose judgment might be fatally flawed?
But no, this wouldn’t do. The truth was that his knowledge, his agitated conjectures, simply couldn’t be borne alone. He had to share the emotional burden, and there wasn’t anyone else. No need to dress it up as the dictates of a moral conscience.
“The thing is, Mina dear…” He paused, lowered his voice. “Elizabeth is Honor. Or rather, Honor was Elizabeth. She changed her name, you see, during the war. Then she remarried and put all that unpleasantness behind her. Understandable, don’t you think?”
It took a moment for Mina to absorb the meaning of his words.
Then she let out a small squeal of astonishment.
She couldn’t think of what to say. Or rather, too many utterances competed on her tongue.
On the one hand, if anyone could understand the desire for reinvention, for having ideas above your station and putting those ideas into practice, it was Mina.
And yet, what a turn-up for the books. Honor, commoner than her.
From a family of hoodlums. And her brother, a violent murderer, had been sleeping above Mina’s head!
Just across the landing from poor Robbie, who wasn’t exactly what you’d call a hard nut.
Then again, she might have said the same about Jimmy.
Just goes to show, she thought. “Who else knows?” she said finally. “Does George know?”
“No one else knows. Do you think you’ll be able to carry on as normal? Treat Honor the same as always, I mean?”
“Don’t you worry. I’m an excellent actress.” I can try my best, she thought, but the next time Honor comes over all la-di-da, I’ll really have to bite my tongue. “So,” she went on. “Jimmy might be Jack. What’s the evidence in favor?”
Saul smiled at her rolling-up-her-sleeves tone.
“Evidence for, he is lying about why he wasn’t conscripted.
We assume, anyhow. And then Honor was very upset the day he arrived.
I saw that when we were alone. They offered that nonsense about Jimmy’s mother working at Honor’s grandmother’s house.
Why lie?” Even to innocent ears, he thought, nothing about that story would have rung true.
“Exactly, why lie? Did you never see a photograph of Jack Shaughnessy?”
“No. I might have, if the newspapers were allowed to publish one. It’s the law in your country, apparently. The press isn’t allowed to identify underage criminals.”
“That’s bloody marvelous, isn’t it?” She shook her head. “But wait, can’t you ask someone if he’s been released? Someone official, I mean?”
“I’ve tried! No one will tell me anything.”
“Here,” said Mina, her eyes widening, “you don’t reckon he’s escaped, do you? Tunneled his way out or some such?”
The idea hadn’t occurred to Saul. Suddenly, it seemed the likeliest explanation.
Except, surely an escaped convict would want to stay far away from any relations or old associations?
“There must be a way, mustn’t there, that we can find out the truth?
” he said. “Given that we’re living under the same roof as him. ”
“Course! I’ll put my thinking cap on.” She frowned. “Would Honor do such a thing, though? Let him back into her life? I know they say blood’s thicker than water. But if one of my brothers was evil like that, I’d never talk to him again as long as I lived. Wouldn’t sweat over it, neither.”
And that, thought Saul, was the baffling crux of it.
For the next few days, Mina did her best to stay out of Honor’s way.
She feared she’d get the giggles or otherwise act unnaturally around her, and Honor would twig the big secret was out.
Mina couldn’t decide how she felt about it.
A bit conned, if she was honest. Her parents had only let her move into Tregunter Road because Honor, according to Mina’s description, was properly posh.
“I don’t know about this, love,” her father had said. “You say there are men living in the house? It doesn’t seem right.”