Welcome to BOOK OF THE DAY
Today we are pleased to feature Rebecca Bryn’s remarkable book, Touching the Wire
Touching the Wire
by
Rebecca Bryn
WHAT’S THE BOOK ABOUT?
Touching the Wire is set partly in Auschwitz in the spring of 1944 to liberation in January 1945. It’s based on real events and the testimonies of survivors and is told through Walt’s memories. Miriam, a Jewish nurse, steps down from a cattle wagon into the heart of Chuck (Miriam’s name for the old man we know as Walt), then a young doctor. Together, they fight to save the lives of women in their infirmary and keep them from the gas. As their relationship blossoms, they join the camp resistance and smuggle explosives later used to blow up the crematoria. A secret diary records day to day life and they make a solemn promise to make the truth of the atrocities known, should either survive.
At liberation, Chuck and Miriam are separated, Chuck being forced onto the March of Death west across Poland, leaving Miriam behind desperately ill with scarlet fever. Can the young doctor get back in time to save his love?
In 1980s England, Walt agonises about failing to keep his promise to Miriam in order to protect his family and releases his pent-up emotions into strange carvings. It’s down to his granddaughter, Charlotte, who finds one of the carvings and is keen to understand what caused her grandfather’s nightmares, to unravel his past and keep his promise while exorcising her own demons.
HOW DOES THE BOOK START?
Walt slid his chisel into its slot at the back of his bench and sipped the tea he’d let go cold. He eased a sepia photograph from his wallet. For thirty-four years he’d carried Miriam’s likeness, faded and tattered around the edges: she’d left footprints in his heart, trodden deep and clear. Her voice echoed and his heartbeat quickened. The tramp of feet, marching from the spring of 1944, jarred the brick floor beneath him into hard-packed grey earth. Left, right, left, right…
He marched with them: dust scoured his eyes and throat, and gritted the sweat on his back. The kommando of haeftling, striped berets and coats creating an army of Colorado beetles, kept time with the SS guards. Despair choreographed their movements: their strings jerked by an evil puppeteer, they stared straight ahead, their stick-like arms hanging limp, their wasted faces blank. Behind them, ambulances rattled to a stop.
The sound of boots and clogs faded beneath the hiss of steam and the clatter of couplings as the rumble of iron on iron ground to a halt. The line of cattle wagons, each bearing the insignia of their country of origin, and some with a roughly-painted yellow star, snaked into Stygian distance.
Smoke and steam mingled with the sickly-sweet pall that hung over the camp day and night. Flakes of ash from the chimneys danced with smuts of smoke, and floated to the ground with the grace of angels. Already the day was hot. Inside the wagons it would be suffocating.
‘Öffnen die Wagen!’
Wagon doors rolled back with squeals and grinding crashes, drowning the swing tune belted out by the camp orchestra. Eyes stark with bewilderment blinked against the light.
‘Aussteigen.’ An SS officer waved his pistol. ‘Schnell! Schnell!’
Men tumbled onto the ramp. Women clutched babies to their breasts and gathered children to their skirts, their eyes searching the faces around them.
A woman cupped her hands in supplication. ‘Vis.’ A yellow star emblazoned her coat. Hungarian. Jewish. They’d been arriving by the wagon-load. ‘Viz… kérem.’
The words for water, bread and help were burned into his memory in every European language. The woman begged for water. He could offer no drop of water, no morsel of bread or shred of hope.
‘Viz. Wasser… Bitte.’ A stooped, grey-bearded figure held up four fingers. The journey from Hungary had taken four days: four days without food or water.
The crowd swelled across the ramp as the wagons vomited more souls than they could possibly contain, bringing with them the stench of excrement. A guard hustled the men and older boys from the women and children, forming them into two ragged lines along the tracks.
A detachment of haeftling quick-stepped forward and heaved bodies from the wagons, laying them in rows upon the aching ground. The old, the little children: their bodies weren’t heavy even for those barely fleshed themselves.
A young woman bent to retrieve her possessions. An SS officer strode past. ‘Leave. Luggage afterwards.’
She stood, wide-eyed like a startled deer, one arm cradling a baby. Beside her an elderly woman clutched a battered suitcase. The girl’s eyes darted from soldier to painted signboard and back. ‘What are we doing here, Grandmother? Why have they brought us here?’ The wind teased at her cheerful red shawl, revealing and lifting long black hair. She straightened and attempted a smile. ‘It’ll be all right, Grandmother. God has protected us on our journey.’
‘Where’s your Father?’ The old lady adjusted her shawl, covering shock-white hair. ‘Miriam, I can’t see my Jani.’
‘Father will be helping Efah and Mother with the children.’
‘And where are our precious things…’
‘They’re here, Grandmother.’
Voices rasped, whips cracked, dogs barked. The men and boys were marched away, craning necks for a glimpse of wives, mothers, sisters and children. At a signal, the remaining haeftling broke ranks and began searching wagons, and carrying bundles and suitcases to waiting lorries. Miriam’s grandmother’s case fell open: a beetle snapped it shut and scurried it away. Something had fallen out: in the bustle no-one saw him pick up the small wallet and tuck it inside his shirt.
More orders followed: more cracking whips and snarling dogs. The line of women and children stumbled forward across the railway sleepers, leaving behind tumbled heaps of abandoned lives.
The march through the camp took forever, yet it was over too soon. At the junction, guards ordered the women to halt. Smoke from the chimneys obliterated the sky: a wind from the west blew the stench of it across their path.
‘Zwillinge, heraus!’ He, the hated Hauptsturmführer, stood before them dark hair smoothed back, his Iron Cross worn with casual pride. His eyes pierced the crowd; his gloved hand held a cane with which he pointed bewildered women to the left or the right.
He shuddered, knowing what the man sought.
An SS officer pushed towards a woman of about fifty. ‘How old?’ She didn’t respond so the officer shouted the question.
He edged closer. As a doctor he held a privileged position, but he’d also discovered a gift for languages. He translated the German to stilted Hungarian, adding quietly, ‘Say you’re under forty-five. Say you are well. Stand here with the younger women.’ He moved from woman to woman, intercepting those he could. ‘Say you are well. Tell them your daughter’s sixteen. Say she’s well. Say you can work or have a skill. Tell them you’re not pregnant.’
The Hauptsturmführer waved his cane. ‘You, to the right. No, the children to the left.’
A woman clutched her children’s hands. ‘I can’t leave my babies.’
He froze, fearing for them all. The thunder of another train grew closer and the SS officer gestured her to the left with her children. He breathed again, ashamed at feeling relief, and hurried to intercept the next group.
The girl with the red shawl was there, in front of him: the old lady had called her Miriam. He touched her arm. ‘Say you’re well, Miriam. Say you can work. Give the baby to your grandmother. She must stand to the left with the children. You must stand to the right.’
‘My grandmother isn’t well. I’m a nurse. I can look after her and Mary.’
A guard strode past. ‘Together afterwards.’
He nodded, compounding the conspiracy of silence. ‘Together afterwards.’
The old lady held out her arms for the baby. ‘Go, Miriam. God be with you.’
Miriam’s eyes glistened. ‘May He rescue us from the hand of every foe.’ She touched her grandmother’s cheek, a gentle, lingering movement, and placed a tender kiss on her baby’s forehead.
She moved where he pointed to stand with a group of about thirty young women: only thirty? Her eyes followed her grandmother and daughter as they were swallowed into the thousands that straggled towards the anonymous buildings beneath the smoke. Ambulances passed, carrying those who couldn’t walk; a truck bearing a red cross followed behind. She watched until they disappeared from sight and then searched the faces of the women that remained.
Miriam’s eyes met his. He had no way to tell her he had given her life: no right to tell her to abandon hope. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death.
MEET SOME OF THE CAST
Walt/Chuck: We first meet Walt in his seventies, a retired cabinet maker, slightly portly, thinning grey hair slicked back, and a little stiff in the joints after a day digging in his allotment. He’s a loving father and grandfather, a provider and protector – a man of few words, prone to long silences, who suffers nightmares. He’s never spoken about his wartime experiences but instead tells allegorical stories to his granddaughters, using his hands to describe wolves and woodcutters, castles and princesses. He’s the rock upon which his family depends.
Miriam: Is only twenty when we meet her, some twelve years younger than Chuck. She’s a Hungarian Jew, a nurse, caring and compassionate, and arrives at Auschwitz on a transport in the spring of 1944. At that time little was known outside about what happened to the unfortunates who were sent there. She’s a woman of great faith and strength of character.
Miriam held the woman’s hand, encouraging her with smiles and cheerful words. ‘A baby. A new life. Even in this hell God blesses us.’
Charlotte: She’s a twin to her sister Lucy. She has blonde hair, slim, but probably not as slim as she’d like, and is married, not too happily to Robin, who’s a control-freak. Her biological clock is ticking and children aren’t forthcoming: this causes friction between them. She buries herself in her career and has a string of bad relationships behind her, being attracted to men who have emotional baggage. She probably should have been a psychiatrist as she needs to fix people, hence her desire to discover what it was she was unable to fix in her grandfather.
Adam: Adam’s one of her emotional baggage-handlers. Hopefully the last. He’s everything Robin isn’t but he’s vulnerable having just come out of a long-term relationship. He’s an academic, a modern historian, who hides away in the Imperial War Museums dusty depths to avoid people. He can’t avoid Charlotte however.
Rabbi Schaeler: He’s the glue that sticks the Jewish community in Auschwitz together as liaises between Chuck and Miriam when they are separated in the camp. He’s a tall, thin man, allowed to keep his long grey beard as a reminder to the inmates that even rabbis can be humiliated. His faith is unshakeable, his humility admirable.
The Rabbi took the packet and hid it behind a faucet. ‘She sent a message. It’s in a crack, at the end of the medical-block wall, about a foot from the ground. She told me what you do. God has brought us together for a purpose. I will take her your medicines, and bring those packages from Miriam… I know what they are.’
‘Then you realise we’ll all hang if we’re discovered.’
Rabbi Schaeler smiled. ‘Any day doing God’s work is a good day to die, doctor.’
WHO SAYS WHAT?
Walt: ‘Why did I have to play God? She could have had precious hours with her daughter before they were both killed. I took even those from her.’
Miriam: Her eyes were soft with tears. ‘You did what you thought best, Chuck. How could she have taken her new-born to the ovens? Watched her burn alive… suffered the same fate. You saved her that horror.’
Charlotte: Shoah… calamity… her skin prickled, hot with apprehension and guilt. In sickness and in health, forsaking all others… ‘I swear before God that I shall seek the truth and I shall not stay silent.’ This was a vow she would not, could not break.
Adam: ‘How’s a man supposed to perform if he’s only rated a seven.’ He grinned wickedly. ‘It’s not good for the ego.’
Rabbi Schaeler: ‘Because you no longer believe. I see it in your eyes. For people who find themselves in a place like this, it is not important that God exists. If faith sustains us, aids us, then faith alone is worth having, is it not? You think that an odd thing for a rabbi to say.’
WHERE DOES THE STORY TAKE PLACE?
It’s set partly in Kettering, England 1980s – A back-street terrace in the Northamptonshire shoe town.
Jane arrived with drinks and biscuits, and drove both wolf and God from the twins’ minds with an ease he envied.
‘I’ll take my tea in the workshop, love… do a bit more to Dobbin. Come and see what you think.’ He opened the door, making dust motes dance in the beam of sunlight. The rocking horse stood on the brick floor waiting for a coat of primer: it was a present for the twins fifth birthday. Arturas and Peti had been five.
Jane put the mug on the bench among shapes hidden beneath dustsheets. ‘The twins will love him.’ Dimples chased the wrinkles from the corners of her mouth. ‘Don’t let your tea go cold again.’
His gaze lingered on his wife’s plump form as she retreated down the path towards the kitchen, measuring the too-rapid drip of time they had left together. He breathed in the scents of roses, lavender and leather before locking the door and removing the shroud from his other, secret, more pressing task.
Also partly set in Auschwitz 1944/5: The women’s infirmary.
Darkness came early and with it a bitter wind. He stayed with Miriam and Ilse, cooling their fever with cloths wrapped around snow, and helping them take sips of such water as they had. He comforted those he could, carried out those for whom liberation came too late, and redistributed now spare blankets.
Bright stars paled in a velvet sky when he left the infirmary, the secret box still hidden beneath his coat, and walked through fresh crisp snow. Some of the lights on the guard towers weren’t lit. Pools of shadow swallowed the burning pits. Virgin snow covered the mounded horror with a mantle of pristine beauty: only a hand, like that of a drowning man’s, stuck above it, while the sickly-sweet stench of death hung in the air. His breath wreathed in front of his face. It was cold, so desperately cold.
The pharmacy door stood wide open. Packages lay scattered across the floor: spoiled or empty. He should have come sooner. He read labels searching for sulfa. All these medicines could have been used to save lives.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Rebecca lives on a small-holding in West Wales with her husband, rescue dog, and a flock of sheep.
She began writing thrillers about ten years ago, and is also a self-taught artist.
She paints the glorious Pembrokeshire coast in watercolour and has work in private collections worldwide.
She loves writing stories within stories, about the things that matter: justice, love, loss, forgivness.
WHAT DO READERS THINK?
Again, some of her characters are far from admirable, even downright evil, but she carefully explores human behaviour under absolutely intolerable circumstances and delivers a compellingly believable yarn that is clearly thoroughly researched on every front and challenges the reader to review their preconceived convictions. A masterpiece!
What an astonishing book… From the word go, one is assured that the writer knows exactly what she is doing as she takes us on a journey which reeks with authenticity and which skilfully engages all human emotion… I cannot recommend it highly enough! This is one hot writer and I eagerly await her next offering.
It is a deeply touching, deeply moving story that is difficult to read at times, but gripping, mercilessly engaging, and you simply cannot put it down.
The setting and the historical background could be a double-edged sword in this case, since there have been so may works set in the time of World War II, but Bryn managed to create a masterpiece based on the eternal struggles of the human soul, the decisions, the burdens, and the memories that are forever in charge.
It seems strange to say ‘I really loved this’ about a book that is at times so harrowing a read – but I did. It is beautifully written, as well as being a carefully constructed narrative that keeps the reader completely engaged through both the first and the second part of the book… I’d like to focus on the effect of the book, and the masterly way in which the author evokes pity, horror, disgust, apprehension, and ultimately a form of compassionate redemption.
A marvellous yet disturbing read. There are shocking elements to it, unsurprisingly considering the subject matter. But through it all shines an indefatigable humanity.
Touching the Wire is available from Amazon
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