Capital Union, A by Victoria Hendry

kitchen, sat down at the table and chewed each mouthful slowly. I pretended to clean: wiping the surfaces with a soapy cloth, too shy to sit with him. He looked amused, but I was wondering if all Professor Schramml’s kitchen knives were still in their drawer. When he had finished eating, he beckoned me to follow him through to the front room. I was afraid he might lock me in, so I stood by the door. There was a German dictionary in a glass-fronted bookcase and he pulled it out and carried it over to the table, opening it as if it were a book of spells. He poured over the pages, leafing backwards and forwards , and writing the words he found in a list. ‘From Vienna,’ he said. ‘Austrian. Farmer. Go home. Not fight.’ He pulled a photo of a child out of his pocket. ‘Liesl.
Hast Du Kinder?
’ She was wearing a dress with wee, white puffed sleeves, a black bodice and an apron over the top, just like a picture of Snow White. ‘Children?’ he asked.
    I shook my head.
    ‘
Vielleicht gibt’s noch Zeit dafür, wenn alles vorbei ist?
’ he said, and smiled, but I didn’t understand.
    ‘Perhaps, one day.
Wo ist Dein Mann?
’ He pointed to his ring finger and then to me.
    ‘My man?’ I asked.
    He nodded.
    ‘At the university.’
    ‘
Universität von
Edinburgh? Professor?’
    ‘Lecturer.’ I must have looked sad thinking of Jeff. The telegram was folded in my pocket.
    ‘
Er will Soldat werden?
’ He mimed holding a gun across his chest and waved a hand at the window.
    ‘Not a soldier, no.’
    He leafed through the dictionary.
    ‘You love your man?’
    His eyes were warm. I nodded.
    ‘
Krieg macht Angst
. War – anxiety.’
    I didn’t like all these German words and stood up to go. He could have stopped me but didn’t move.
    ‘
Komm bald wieder
,’ he said.
    ‘I’ll come back soon.’
    He stood as I left the table, bowed from his shoulders and clicked his heels together. It was so military that I wanted to run downstairs and phone the police, but by the time I opened the door, I realised that it might make things worse for Jeff. Mr Ford would have been cock-a-hoop to kill two birds with one stone.

17
    The day of the tribunal came too soon and the train to Glasgow was full of servicemen and sailors, who had docked at Leith and were travelling home. They were bearded and hollow-eyed , gazing out at the hills and the ruin of Linlithgow Palace as if they were seeing them for the first time. The carriage was full of smoke and Jeff pursed his lips, brushed at the creases in his best suit and looked through his papers balanced on his briefcase, as if he was doing something so important he couldn’t look up for a moment. I brought him a cup of tea from the buffet, but he let it grow cold on the little table below the window.
    ‘I’ll drink that if you don’t want it, pal,’ said the soldier opposite, and Jeff nodded. ‘Going far, doll?’ the man asked me, as Jeff looked down again.
    ‘Glasgow,’ I said.
    ‘A meeting,’ Jeff added, with a look at me under his brows.
    ‘Home Front?’
    ‘You could say that,’ Jeff answered.
    ‘Glad you boys are holding the fort. I was never much good at paperwork.’
    I excused myself. My stomach was churning and I only just made it to the toilet before I threw up my tea. I sat there until someone knocked on the door, and then I stood at anopen window at the end of the carriage until we were almost at Queen Street.
    ‘Where have you been?’ Jeff asked, as I slid open the door to the compartment.
    ‘You want to keep an eye on that one, pal,’ said the soldier. ‘A regular film star.’
    Jeff sniffed as he leant towards me. ‘I’ve been sick,’ I said. He put his arms around me. ‘I’m not going to jail, Pip,’ he whispered . The soldiers pressed past us, down the narrow corridor.
    We walked out from under the huge glass canopy of Queen Street station and through George Square to Ingram Street. The Sheriff Court was in a sandstone building with six columns