Displaced Page 26
She felt herself slump, as if in defeat. Because at that moment she was defeated.
‘And so all this is your revenge upon people who have done you no harm.’
‘If the culprit is dead, then his family must pay …’
‘And Shazia? She’s a young girl, and contrary to what you say or believe, she had nothing to do with Naz’s death …’
‘Says you.’
‘Says one who knows!’ She shook her head. ‘You are evil bastards! I take back my sympathy for Rizwan-ji. Rot in your bed of piss for all I care! Rot in hell!’
Oh God, she’d lost her nerve and her temper and this was doing no good because they were laughing at her.
‘And so,’ Wahid Sheikh said, when he’d finally finished laughing, ‘as well as debt, we give you also the gift of guilt.’
They’d picked up bits of English, but they’d never really learnt it. Also sitting on the ground around a fire, it seemed more natural to speak Hungarian.
Szuszanna began. ‘Will we go to prison?’ she asked.
‘I neither know nor care. But I might,’ Eva said.
Her father stroked her hand. ‘You won’t. You were a child, an unhappy child.’
‘Bela, I will keep my nails. I have decided.’
Tamas had been dementing for some years. Szuszanna too, probably.
‘You do as you will,’ the old man said. ‘I have done what I can for each one of you. For right or wrong. I am finished.’
‘You should have told me what I did …’
He looked at his daughter and shook his head.
‘Maybe I would have settled, moved away from this life,’ Eva said. ‘Maybe if I had, Amber would still be alive …’
Szuszanna smiled. ‘Amber …’
Eva wanted to slap the old freak, but she didn’t. Only verbally.
‘You all but killed her, you Nazi bitch.’
‘It was an accident,’ Bela said. ‘You heard the policemen. No sign of foul play.’
‘Doesn’t stop those two being Nazis.’
‘They’ve had their punishment,’ Bela said. He closed his eyes. ‘I made their lives a misery.’
‘You let them live,’ Eva said. ‘Which is more than my poor Amber can do.’
‘And I am sorry for that,’ her father said. ‘But you know, she so wanted to be like me …’
‘And so it was your arrogance …’
‘It was always my arrogance,’ Bela said. ‘When I flew, when I took the blonde-haired Adeline and made her image in Amber, when I rescued my brother and my sister and saved you, Eva, from whatever they would have done to a child who kills, it was always and for ever about me.’
‘Well then, you are evil,’ Eva said. ‘I always knew it. Although if you are to be believed, you killed no one. I still—’
‘Sssh!’ Tamas put a long, twisted fingernail up to his lips.
‘Don’t sssh me!’ Eva said.
And then Szuszanna smiled and said, ‘Don’t speak too loudly. You will wake the dead.’
Which was when Eva saw that her father had stopped breathing.
TWENTY-NINE
Berlin, One Month Later
‘And so the fair moved on, as they do, leaving the old man lying in the same grave as his deceased wife.’
‘This Eva, this sister you have, too?’ Gunther Beltz asked.
Winter had deepened in Berlin and the two men sat around a much bigger fire than Irving Levy had experienced when he’d first visited this house.
‘She wants nothing to do with me,’ he said. ‘Miriam.’ He smiled. ‘I am glad that I found her, even if she has deserted me. By the time the fair comes round again I may be dead.’
‘Oh no …’
‘It’s possible. But no matter. At least I have a cousin on my mother’s side.’
‘I want nothing from you, Irving,’ Gunther Beltz said. ‘You know Frau Metzler, at the Jewish Centre, she is worried that I am only speaking to you because I want your money. I tell her, I have money of my own …’
‘I will go and see her,’ he said. ‘There must be no more hatred, suspicion, revenge. We are all people, who do what we do to survive.’
‘I fear Adeline did more than was necessary …’
‘Maybe. But we weren’t there and so we don’t know,’ Irving said. ‘Life is complicated and messy. Which is why I prefer diamonds.’
They didn’t speak for a while. Gunther Beltz sipped from a small glass of schnapps while Irving nursed what he considered to be only an ‘adequate’ cup of tea. Eventually, he said, ‘For your information, Gunther, I have left my house and its contents to my Levy cousins.’
‘It’s not my concern.’
‘No, but you are my cousin and I think you should know,’ Irving said.
The German shrugged. ‘This country is in a mess,’ he said. ‘I need to be here to help.’
Irving felt a small, cold breeze.
‘But my business,’ he said, ‘is another matter. Including a considerable number of stones I have become fond of and kept, well that I have bequeathed outside my family.’
‘To whom?’
And then Irving saw them outside the window, back from their shopping trip to Alexanderplatz. As he watched, he saw Lee bend down and kiss Mumtaz on the cheek. She pulled away, but she smiled. He had insisted they come with him on his trip back to see his cousin Gunther and it seemed they had become, at least in part, reconciled.
‘To them,’ he said. ‘Because without them I would not be here today. And because I know they are in love.’ Then he took something out of a bag he had brought with him and gave Gunther Beltz a small teddy bear.
‘But this is for you,’ he said. ‘My sister Eva found it in the caravan that belonged to the Siamese twins. They had kept it hidden since 1962. It was your Aunt Adeline’s, and now it is yours.’
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This book would not have been possible without help from Nicole Pope, who so expertly guided me around Berlin, as well as my mother, whose memory I raid on a regular basis.
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About the Author
BARBARA NADEL was born and brought up in the East End of London. She has a degree in psychology and, prior to becoming a full-time author, she worked in psychiatric institutions and in the community with people experiencing mental health problems. She is also the author of the award-winning Inspector Ikmen series. She lives in Essex.
@BarbaraNadel
By Barbara Nadel
Bright Shiny Things
Displaced
Copyright
Allison & Busby Limited
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First published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
This ebook edition published in Great Britain by Allison & Busby in 2018.
Copyright © 2018 by BARBARA NADEL
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted
in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All characters and events in this publication other than those clearly in the public domain are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of bi
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978–0–7490–2247–1