Out of the Mountain's Shadow by Rose Alexander

Author:Rose Alexander
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Canelo
Published: 2021-12-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nineteen

Albania, 1943

I casually stroll to the door and put my finger to my lips, gesturing to the Jews that they must be silent. The building is built against the side of the hill and the back opens out into a natural cave in which Rezar stores the drinks – beer, lemonade, cordial – to keep them cool. I can hear loud voices demanding, commanding. Rezar speaks only a few words of German but he’ll know what they want. We all do.

In a split second, I have shoved two barrels to the side, flicked open the latch of the wooden door that leads to the cave and gestured to our guests to go inside. They wear their fear on their ashen faces but they all obediently creep, one by one, into the room. They have become accustomed to hiding, are old hands at the art of concealment, of melting into the background, of existing outside of normal society.

It’s only as I’m shutting the door that I realise who is missing. Hannelore, and David.

My heart thumps and my blood chills in my veins. Where are they?

I force myself to composure. Picking up a tray I saunter outside, affecting a casual nonchalance that is a million miles from the reality of the pounding in my chest, the sweat rising on my palms. I assume that they’ve gone to the toilet. They often accompany each other; Hannelore is terrified of the huge rats that hang around the bathroom areas and David, who isn’t bothered by them, scares them away for her.

The toilet is on the other side of the outdoor seating area. I need to get to them and warn them, before they are noticed. My pulse quickens and my heart is beating at a pace I didn’t realise it could reach as I stroll past Rezar and the Nazis, straining to take in as much as I can about them without looking as if I’m looking, using the collecting of empty coffee cups and water glasses as a pretext to be there.

I see taut, clean-shaven faces under perfectly positioned caps and expressions that exude hostility.

Rezar calls me over. He mutters to me rapidly in our dialect, knowing that, even if the Germans speak Albanian, they won’t know it the way we speak it.

‘They are looking for Jews. They’ve been told there are unregistered people in the area and it is an order of law to hand them over.’

I shrug and shake my head, the universal signal of knowing nothing.

A noise erupts from the second of the Nazi trucks. I snatch a glance towards it and see that it is full of men, hunched on the benches. An argument has broken out amongst them. One of the German soldiers goes to the truck, takes the butt of his rifle and smashes it against the provocateur’s head.

‘Prisoners of war, going to hard labour,’ he says, as he comes back, although no one had asked for an explanation. I assume it is a warning.

I think of Altin, somewhere out on the mountain roads, plotting and planning with the other partisans.

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