In the Fall They Leave, page 14
“I have come to look for my brother. Is anyone else here?”
“Non.”
The answer causes her stomach to plummet. “You are certain?”
“Oui.”
“How long have you been here?”
He shrugs. “Three weeks?”
“Is there food?”
“Not anymore.”
“Were you here when…” She gestures.
“Non. I found the window open. And some cheese downstairs.”
“You are Belgian?”
He doesn’t answer, so she knows. “I am Belgian,” she finally says. “You may stay here as long as you wish, but it’s not safe, especially if you go out from time to time. And people may come for the rest of the wood.”
One shoulder rises and falls. He’s studying the floor joist. Then he coughs several times, deeply.
“You are ill.”
Again, the shoulder rises and falls.
“Are you a soldier?”
No response.
“My brother is not here?”
“No one but me.”
She thinks for a minute. “You must come to a clinic where they will help you get well. Tomorrow you will find a parcel in the urn to the left of the doorway as you step outside. Open the door tomorrow afternoon, just a fragment, and get it. There’ll be women’s clothing, a razor and soap. A mirror if I can find one. Also, money for trams. And some food. Go to the clinic on the rue de la Culture in Ixelles. You may have to be kept in isolation, but you will be warm, and fed. Let me stress: They will help you. Do you think you can do that?” His head is lowered.
“Sir, my name is Celia. What is yours?”
“Alfons.”
“Alfons, now we are acquaintances. Tomorrow, the parcel. Then leave here at about five in the afternoon. The trams will be crowded. You won’t be conspicuous. If you must ask questions, try to make your voice higher. I will leave you now. I’m sorry I have no food to give you. There will be some in the parcel. At the clinic they will be expecting you. Au revoir, mon ami.”
He nods and moves along without looking at her but offers a soft-spoken merci.
She waits until it is quiet, then steps onto the same joist but turns in the opposite direction. Bracing herself, she slides along on the joist as fast as possible, every so often glancing back. The hallway remains empty and silent. Reaching the front door, she looks back again at the emptiness.
In her rented room overlooking the rue de Venise, she organizes her textbooks on the desk, hangs her few articles of clothing in a small wardrobe, and then plans her twenty-one days of exile. On a sheet of paper, she writes: Study. Eat. Two accomplishments have already given her a modest sense of control. She has told the gardener about the man Alfons and about acquiring this room in a pleasant maison de chambres. The proprietress of the rooming house, Madame Lalonde, needed to hear her story before allowing a room to be rented, so Marie-Thérèse explained that she hopes to transfer into a school of nursing in the area and must prepare for an entrance examination. She is from Ghent. She opened her box, there on the front stoop, and displayed her books. “Cieux!” the woman exclaimed. “How can one’s head hold so much?” and ushered her up to her room and explained about meals.
But it’s lonely, and there’s too much time for thought to slip in during her walks, and before sleep. Images of her home come to haunt. Also, thoughts of the girls. The matron. The doctor. Jacques. Her family. Even Madame Lalonde, who may decide to check on Marie-Thérèse’s story. Scenarios form and dissolve. Meals are difficult, the four other boarders—two men and two older women who are sisters—mainly silent at the table. The sound of brittle toast being crunched is awkward. But the days pass.
While walking back to the maison de chambres on the Sunday afternoon of her third week, she’s shocked to see the gardener, Janine, and Elli approaching on the rue de Venise. When quite near, he releases their hands, and she stoops and opens her arms. “Oh, my dears, what a surprise! What a wonderful surprise! How did you know that I’ve missed you both so much?”
“We’ve missed you, too, Mademoiselle Marie-Thérèse,” Elli says. “We begged Grand-père to bring us. We have something for you!”
Marie-Thérèse straightens, but Janine wants to be held, so she lifts her up while Elli goes to the gardener, and he pulls two folded sheets of paper from a pocket.
Drawings of pigeons. Elli’s is quite detailed and realistic. Janine’s is mostly wayward lines with prominent ones for feet.
“These are beautiful! Thank you so much, my dears. I will treasure them.” She kisses both girls. “I am just so happy to see you and have these lovely gifts! Do you know, there’s a park nearby? Let’s go there and we can sit. I want to hear everything that you’ve been doing.”
The day is neither too cold nor windy and suddenly feels like a holiday. And the talk is happy until Elli says, “Did you know that the doctor is ill, mademoiselle?”
“Ill? I didn’t know. Is he now a patient?”
“Not yet. But he should be. You could make him well again.”
Elli describes how Sister Gauthier had a tray of instruments knocked from her hands by the doctor, who was angry.
“I was passing ward C, on the way back to our ward, and saw it happen. Sister Gauthier tried to apologize in German, but it made him angrier. “And then he stumbled. I thought he was going to fall down on top of everything and cut himself and be even angrier. I ran back to our ward.”
“He stumbled? How strange.” Marie-Thérèse looks at the gardener, who says something in Polish.
“When I turned just before going into the ward, I saw him drink from a small brown bottle and then put it in his pocket. I think it is medicine. I think he must be ill.”
“Yes, he may well be ill. Does he… Do you see him drink from this bottle of medicine often?”
“That time and one other time. Papa says he has a dybbuk in him, and I don’t like dybbuks.”
“Do you know what a dybbuk is?”
“A little devil, Papa told us, and that we should stay away from him.”
The gardener has taken out his pipe and is filling it with tobacco.
“I think dybbuks are in stories and—”
“They are! Papa told us a story about a dybbuk.”
“Ah.”
“A dybbuk is making him do bad things, so we don’t like him.”
“I see. Well. That is certainly one explanation, isn’t it?”
They walk a bit, the girls skipping ahead, which gives her a chance to speak privately with the gardener. Deciphering his abbreviated replies, Marie-Thérèse learns that Alfons has been taken across the border. But more men are arriving all the time. As for the doctor, he’s un ivrogne. A drunkard.
“Oh, Papa. I had no idea. That’s how observant I am! And all the while you knew.”
And then, finally, the last day of her exile. That night she packs her things and prepares to face the dybbuk.
He doesn’t invite her to be seated, so she stands facing the desk. When he finishes writing something, he looks up.
“Has it been three weeks already?”
“Yes, Herr Doktor Kuhn.”
She looks for the signs she wrongly interpreted before. They are there: the glazed eyes and flushed skin, the perspiration though it isn’t overly warm in the room, the trembling fingers. She isn’t close enough to smell his breath but assumes the pungency of “spirits” would be there. Stunning, she thinks, that she failed to interpret these signs correctly. And failed to make the connection to his assignment here. All those credentials! Yet he was still useful, his superiors must have decided, if unreliable. Too unreliable for a large hospital.
He seems to have forgotten her presence. “I am prepared to work hard, Herr Doktor,” she says.
He drags his hands over the blotter and hides them beneath the desktop. “But you will tell me nothing.”
“I will tell you what I see, though it probably will just be ordinary things.”
“You will lie.”
“No, I will not make up stories anymore. I have already confessed to lying and have resolved not to lie anymore. We have to do this, you see, after confession. Resolve not to sin anymore. Therefore I will not.”
He grimaces. “You are not lying now, Student-nurse Hulbert?”
“No, sir.”
She feels somewhat bad for him, the dybbuk in command, and the man in danger of losing not just his position at the clinic but also his reputation and his life’s work.
“You will have to take my word for it, Herr Doktor. I promise you that I will work hard and conscientiously in the wards. I will do my utmost to perfectly carry out your orders. You can rely on me. If you and Matron wish me to work longer hours, I will do so willingly and not stint on any effort. This I can promise you.”
“You are so young. So pitifully young. Go. Resume your duties. But if you see anything suspicious you must let me know.”
“At a review, Herr Doktor?”
“Haven’t you heard? I am through with those. They took too much of my time. I am an honored man of medicine, of science! It was absurd.”
“I agree. You are too important. I believe you made the correct decision.”
“Danke! How I value your learned opinion.”
One hand appears and he brushes the air. At the door she resists an impulse to turn and thank him.
“Close the door. Don’t leave it ajar. Close it!”
It shuts with a soft click. And then, heart striking joyful blows, she rushes upstairs to find the children. Not expelled. Maybe he forgot what he’d said before. Maybe he no longer cares. The reason doesn’t matter. Only that she is home.
Chocolate
October’s honeyed light gives way to sullen skies and squalls that darken buildings, squares, and boulevards. The city’s leafless trees, Marie-Thérèse observes, are black etchings. Lawns in parks and median strips offer the only brilliance—areas that will become vegetable gardens the following spring, she thinks, should the shortages continue. Already coal is being rationed as well as electricity, sugar, lentils, flour, and even potatoes. She’s read that because of the blockade, the occupiers have been emptying Belgian stores, homes, and farmyards. One day the gardener stood for hours amid a crowd waiting for a promised Atlantic herring apiece from a fish warehouse. When he returned with it to the clinic’s kitchen, he was unusually loquacious, saying, “No miracle of the loaves and fishes today.” The usually talkative German cook took the herring without a word. The gardener’s witticism has become a near-daily joke in the dining hall, and she laughs along with everyone else, disguising apprehension at the thought of the coming winter.
Their Wednesday and Friday sessions creating Christmas gifts for the children of the neighborhood offer a welcome respite. Marie-Thérèse regrets never having learned to knit, but Febe, a second-year, taught her an easy crochet stitch that will do as well, she promised. This year, Marie-Thérèse’s efforts result in an aquamarine wool shawl to which she attaches tassels using three evenly cut strands of wool drawn through openings and then folded over and tied. After she attaches the final tassel, she raises up the finished shawl for those present to see. They laugh at her amazement.
If only I could show you this, Maman. But it would only be more wounding, wouldn’t it?
While crocheting, her thoughts sometimes ramble in a hopeful vein. Jacques will be found. The doctor lied about him. In fact, the doctor knows nothing at all about him or the clinic. Her “confession” worked. But often she can’t escape a wrenching certainty that he does know a great deal, and someone in fact is betraying all of them. This thought draws other dark musings along with it. What happened to her family? Why hasn’t she heard from them again? Or were the letters lost or stolen. German officers are in charge of postal offices now, but that hardly ensures that letters won’t be stolen or destroyed. Her father, though, probably wouldn’t have used a postal office. So, what happened? To counter these dark meanderings, she reminds herself of those she helped escape. Fourteen Allies so far. Fourteen lives saved. Possibly.
One Friday evening, glancing up from her careful loops, Marie-Thérèse notices Liese’s small knitting needles flashing at some fantastic speed as she goes about creating multicolored wool stockings. Sister Gauthier tells her—in French, since the German doctor is nowhere near—that it’s too bad her bandaging skills aren’t half as good. Liese laughs and agrees. Their tiny coal fire gives off a bit of warmth, and despite her worries, Marie-Thérèse can sometimes convince herself that there isn’t a traitor at the clinic and that all will be well.
The folded shawls, stockings, mittens and caps, the patched shirts, pants, and dresses grow into several stacks on top of the piano that she sometimes plays for them while they knit. At ten o’clock the ceiling light and table lamps flicker before going out, and nurses leave for their rooms or ward duty carrying oil lamps, which always reminds Marie-Thérèse of how, during another war, Florence Nightingale had carried hers.
By December 4 the Ixelles ponds are marble plates dusted with snow. This they hadn’t been able to count on and so regard it as a gift. At one of the ponds, several sisters and student-nurses, along with Charlotte, stand near a bonfire along a path the matron is known to take while walking Jackie and Donnie. And that day she does, to their relief. Seeing them, she stops abruptly, her face tightening before releasing a smile. She’s forty-eight years old that day and looks like an aristocrat, in her light-blue suit and gray fur stole, walking her dogs on a chilly but windless afternoon.
“Happy birthday, Matron!” they call out in English.
“Mon Dieu. Who is left at the clinic?”
They relay—it’s more like boasting—all they had done in order to create this surprise, even finding and bringing her ice skates as well as a pair for Elli. It’s then that Marie-Thérèse realizes the flaw in their plan. They assumed she would walk in this park, as she usually did, but there are others where she occasionally takes the dogs. The gardener must have hinted that she needed to be here today. And she must have deduced the reason. Nonetheless, she pretends surprise.
The gardener brought a few pieces of wood in a cart—Elli and Janine seated on top of the wood—and now frugally feeds their small bonfire. Jackie and Donnie sit tethered to a bench while all of them but the gardener put on skates and go out on the perfect ice. Marie-Thérèse helps Elli with hers and watches while the girl, holding her sister’s mittened hand, skates tentatively back and forth along the edge of the pond. When the girls return to the bonfire and the gardener, Marie-Thérèse sets off. It seems odd and not right, at first, to be out skating, with the country at war. But the disorientation soon gives way to happy memories. Skating her with her family on Sunday afternoons. Then returning home and sitting by the fire, contentment settling over them like warm quilts. Now her ankles wobble until muscles somehow remember what to do, and then she’s gliding along with everyone else in a counterclockwise rotation. It’s such a familiar and beloved sensation that thought falls away, and soon she breaks from the circle, finds open space, and executing a swift turn, races around backward, skate blades carving linked slashes in the smooth ice. Then she executes an arabesque that all but knocks over two German soldiers.
“Brava, Fräulein!” one calls as he glides out of the way.
Awful. She begs their pardon and skates back toward the revolving group. But one of the soldiers catches up with her, and then they are skating side by side. She’s about to apologize again when he speaks first. “I am sorry if we frightened you off, Fräulein. You’re a very good skater. It was a pleasure to watch.”
“Danke, sir. But it was rude to be so careless.” She glances at him long enough to observe that he resembles Private Schalk; possibly it’s the irises’ pale blue shading to gray and the prominent facial bones. But he’s older than Private Schalk by several years. The military greatcoat paired with ice skates and a reindeer-patterned wool cap gives the moment a sense of absurdity.
“Nein, nein,” he says. “It was excellent.”
She thanks him again.
“Is that your group, Fräulein, near the bonfire?”
“Yes. A little birthday party.”
“Yours, may I ask? You looked so exuberant.”
“Oh no. Not mine.”
“A friend’s then, of course. Or…one of the children’s?”
She’s being too evasive. “The gathering is in honor of the woman who heads our nursing school.”
“Ah. So, you are a student? Or a nurse?”
“Merely a student nurse.”
“Now I must apologize. Here I am, asking questions without having introduced myself. I am Leutnant Rudolf Fischer. From Coblentz. My acquaintances call me Rudi.”
A second lieutenant. She introduces herself and tells him she is from Brussels. The day seems ruined.
After some light talk about the weather, the ice, and her nursing studies, he asks if he might request her father’s permission to call on her.
She explains in rushed words: her family no longer living in Brussels; her father needing to practice his profession elsewhere.
For a while there is just the sound of skate blades against ice.
“May I ask your matron’s permission, then? It would be a great honor, Fräulein.”
Marie-Thérèse points her out—she’s talking to the gardener—then watches as he skates to the edge of the pond, hops onto the grass and strides, in his skates, right up to them. To Marie-Thérèse’s dismay, the gardener doesn’t salute or remove his cap. Janine is burrowed into Elli’s coat.
Soon the lieutenant is back, again skating alongside her. “She gave her permission!”
Had she any choice?
They make another revolution of the pond, each of them silent.
“I must go now,” she says, finally. “I promised the girls a turn on the ice.”
