War Bonds: A Novel of World War Two, page 12
. . .
William slept fitfully that night and the next and the next, naked between soft, sweet-smelling sheets, well hidden in the farmhouse attic, no vermin nipping at him for the first time since Calais. In his dreams, he heard gunshots. He felt the warm ooze of the other man’s blood, moving silently, relentlessly toward him, except this time it overwhelmed him, moving over his face and covering his mouth, cutting off his air. He heard the German soldier say, “You are next,” in English clear and distinct, which startled him awake, his heart pounding, moments passing before he realized he’d been spared. That he lived astonished him. What recompense could he even begin to offer this farmer who insisted on protecting him at such great cost?
Albert directed Wills to stay in the house during the day so he could retreat quickly to the attic should a neighbor stop by. The signing of the Treaty at Compiègne and the establishment of the government at Vichy after Paris fell introduced distrust and suspicion among formerly friendly neighbors. As the occupiers began to post directives in the villages of Northern France, requiring residents to turn over weapons, radios, and other contraband, everyone wanted to know what everyone else intended to do—abide the new rules or ignore them? Were the Germans likely to take action if they did not comply? The imposition of rationing caused a second fury, with families turning to neighbors ostensibly to barter the items they lacked, but more often to share indignation over these new limits. They had grown this wheat and now it was being seized and shipped to Germany? Their anger swelled, but what could they do, really? Despite their earlier promises, vows, declarations of loyalty to France, Albert knew people didn’t truly know how they would behave until the time came. Some French soldiers had fought to the death or to the moment of capture in the opening days of the war while others simply laid down their arms, removed their uniforms, hid, and attempted to return home. Civilians would be no different. Some would show selfless courage that endangered their lives. Others would bow to their fear and protect themselves and those they loved, keeping their heads down as best they could, trying only to stay out of the Nazis’ way. Still others—those for whom Albert reserved his deepest contempt—would trade on any information they collected to improve their own lot. And now with this Treaty, it appeared there were plenty of those willing to collaborate and do the Germans’ bidding. Albert said he would need some time to discern who among those he knew might be willing to help them and who would happily turn in an English soldier to earn special consideration from the Gestapo.
They had burned Wills’ uniform and since Gilles’ pants proved too narrow for him, Ginette loosened them by inserting some fabric at the waist culled from old grain sacks. With this, his transformation into a French peasant was accomplished. Through the summer months, members of the family drilled him to improve his French, doctoring it with a bit of Dutch that might help him pass as Belgian were he discovered, chiding him when, in frustration, he would blurt out a phrase in English. His anxiety dissipated in the kitchen when he cooked alongside Ginette, the two of them trading techniques, Wills’ repertoire expanding thanks to the herb garden out back of the kitchen and the wild greens culled from their fields. Sucre the dog learned a thing or two that summer, too, Gilles patiently training her to alert the family when a visitor approached, to stay completely quiet when ordered, and to bare her teeth on command.
Living as they did on acres of open land, two kilometers from the next farm, the mechanics of returning Wills to England would entail resources they had not yet accumulated and help from others not yet identified. Every day required a resolute courage that was tested with each bit of news visitors brought to their door: a villager shot when her neighbor heard the faint static of her radio one still evening and dutifully reported this to the occupying authorities. Another, executed for his vociferous objection to the removal of his Jewish wife from their home. She and their children had then been placed on a train heading east. A third, shot by a firing squad and the body hanged in the village square for hiding a downed British pilot, his activity accidentally exposed by a onetime friend who had spotted the parachute and was overheard whispering the story in the village café.
And yet, here was Wills—safe for now—a hearty bowl of garbure before him, dressed in clean clothes that were not stiff with muck, the family around him risking their very lives for him while those with whom he’d been captured were headed to a certain hell. He thought of Ivy, who was surely suffering with worry in Elsworth—what had she been told? Fletcher, whom he’d marched next to and commiserated with over those many weeks, knew he had not been in the contingent that departed Lille. Did he assume Wills was the soldier shot dead in the loft? He hoped that word would get to Ivy that he had been seen after Calais, healthy and well. And while he desperately wished to return home to Ivy and Hugo, his months on this farm had placed a new mission before him, one he could not in good conscience avoid, one he would undertake as soon as the pieces fell in place.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Whose bread I eat, his song I sing.
–German proverb
Inside the Reich, 1944
One morning, Gordon awoke with an unfamiliar pain in his gut. Like his fellow POWs, he suffered a variety of ailments that never really resolved—scabs that failed to heal, odd rashes that came and went, and bowel irregularities—always that. Underlying all of it, persistent fatigue. But this was something new, a cement block parked in his stomach. He felt it when he moved, so he worked to position himself to make the feeling recede. It remained ever-present and rock hard. And the heat—when had it become so very hot this late into September? But was it September? He drifted back to sleep, looking to retreat from the pain that seized his middle.
“Let’s go, mate. Up and at ’em.” It was Fletcher. What was he doing? Gordon wondered. Why so loud?
Then there were two of them—Fletcher and McGruder at his side, in his ear, yelling that Gordon needed to get up and out to the yard for Appell.
“Sleeping in, are we, sir? There’s none a that here,” said one.
“It’s late, Lieutenant Clarke,” pleaded the other. “Come on now, or we’ll get in trouble too.”
Gordon attempted to rise from his bunk, surprised to find the world had become gauzy, vague, its edges blurred and indistinct. There was something glimmering, twinkling at the edge of his vision. It was rather pleasant. He wanted to go there, to enter this indeterminate world that had emerged as he had slept. As he moved upright, he was hit first with lightheadedness, then a weakness that brought him to his knees. He was half-walked, half-carried to the yard, where his bunk mates held him upright at Appell, inviting wry looks from others who assumed he’d overindulged on Kriegie hooch. Lieutenant Colonel Leonard demanded Gordon be seen by the camp physician when next he came. That would be several days off, as the doctor only visited once a week.
By the time Dr. Hildebrand did his examination, the typhus had fully set in. A vivid rash crossed Gordon’s chest and torso and was making its way down his limbs. He had not eaten in three days, able only to tolerate the smallest sips of water. He was admitted to the medical building not because there was belief he could be saved, but to minimize the contagion. As he lay in the ward, marginally cleaner than his barracks, on an actual mattress, nurses noting his vital signs and his obvious decline, offering him sips of water (although he perceived none of this), he dreamt.
He dreamt of Colin when he was small, when they used to visit the park and the library. There was no film of misty rain; it was hot, arid, as they walked walking through sun-flecked gardens and city blocks. There was his boy, forever seeking detailed answers to questions about the world around him—like why did the cabbie pushing a pedal on the floor of the taxi make the thing go? What was the connection? And what was right above them at this moment as they rode the Tube? And how did the Tube-builders know how strong to make the tunnels so they didn’t cave in? How many pounds did the walls hold up? And flying. He was fascinated by flying and the apparent impossibility of it all, prevailing on Gordon to read him all he could find on the Wright Brothers and how they’d figured it all out, then wanting to discuss it with his dad, step by incremental step. He would be an engineer, Gordon thought—or perhaps an aeroplane designer. A technological career, so unlike his own artistic appetites. Who would have imagined? And Beryl. Beryl who had pushed him to know his son—to handle him when he was tiny and squalling and to converse with him when his words came—when the habit was to order children about and make them mind, or let the women handle the child-rearing entirely. He could see them now—walking—he didn’t know exactly where they were headed, but it struck him that it looked more like what he remembered of his current locale than England, Beryl in a sundress and sweater, dark hair framing her face. He was surprised; she looked the same as he remembered her in 1939. Not the first gray hair. But with Colin, he could not formulate a picture. He saw his boy from the back, a bit taller, broader, walking away from him. Gordon wanted to call out but he could not locate his voice, activate the series of muscles and tendons needed to accomplish this. He had the urgent need to say goodbye, but more importantly, to thank this child for all he had taught him. For forcing him to be a little less selfish. More careful with his time so he could reserve all he could for his family. More honest with himself. More fair. This is what children teach you, thought Gordon, because it’s easier to change your awful stubborn habits when you realize that to not do so will disappoint this little person to whom you are the moon and the stars and the firmament. And so you must be. Had he been that to his boy? He wished he could ask him, but Colin seemed not to be listening to him. He just kept walking farther off, so instead Gordon said a prayer to God to thank Him for His beneficent gift.
Would Beryl survive this—becoming a widow so young? He knew she would for their son. She would find a way to return joy to Colin’s life. She would fight to give him everything he needed to heal from this terrible loss, even finding a new father, perhaps. He could trust her to do that. She was capable and resourceful. She would hate being described like this—sturdy and dependable, like a car or a motorbike. He could not let her think that was all he loved about her, so he began making a list, his roaring fever convincing him he could communicate this directly to her, reassure her of the limitless things he loved about her. First: her brain. She was smarter than most of the men in his firm had been, practically seeing around corners as she discerned complex patterns whether in her chemistry class or as she observed Hitler’s rise. She could have been a doctor, had she wanted. But she had wanted Gordon and Colin too. Her body, the perfect way his arm fit across her shoulders when they walked, hers looped around his waist. Her narrow waist, the flat stomach over the curve of her hips, he could see even now. He had a sudden remembrance of their arms and legs intertwined, of the easy way they fit together and how making love silently after the baby came introduced an intimate, compressed vigor to their bed. He saw her face, the beautiful green eyes revealing both passion and contentment, an eagerness for what awaited them. He felt her encouragement, her absolute belief in him. But then she withdrew, giving him a smile and a quick, apologetic wave before turning to join her son. His wife and child were walking into their future without him, he realized, and this is what they had to do. He understood and wished he could release them from feeling sad about it. As they moved farther away, another figure approached, emerging from a lush garden in full flower. He detected the scent. He knew this scent. The commandant’s wife. She was speaking loudly angrily, insisting on her way. She was in charge. In his mind’s eye, he saw her wearing a uniform—a man’s uniform like her husband’s but one that fit her beautifully, impressively, tight across her breasts, unbuttoned to mid-chest, but only Gordon could see. It was for him. Gordon was seized with guilt: he wanted to apologize to her for his inability to finish the arbor over her Terrasse—such a shame, really because he had wasted so much time dragging everything out so he could surveil the commandant’s residence and report back and reap the many benefits from working there for as long as possible. But now he felt remorse for all that because he had not been honest; he could have finished within two weeks. And now she didn’t have her arbor. It would not be ready for her party. This must be why she is so angry. He attempted to speak to her and then he recalled that there was a good reason he could not tell her the truth. He did not know what this was.
And then someone turned off the furnace. At last, Gordon thought. It had been blasting nonstop since he had arrived here. Where was here, exactly? No matter. He was glad the proprietor had finally turned it off. His parched lips stuck to his gums but thankfully, someone was pouring water over them. The wetness found its way past his lips, slid down his neck and puddled at his head. He attempted to swallow, giving a little cough as he did, feeling like his throat contained muscles that had not been worked in some time. After one sip, two sips, three sips, he fell back, exhausted from the depleting sadness of his dream and from the overwhelming dehydration the nurses were attempting to address. But something had changed. He felt a movement of air, which brought a little chill. Perhaps the innkeeper would bring him a quilt now to warm him up. When did he arrive here at this inn? He wanted to summon someone to ask, but where was his voice? He could not locate the parts of himself that could make him speak aloud. A nap then. I will solve this after a rest, he thought. He slept, the aroma of ambergris still in the air.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
He is most powerful who has power over himself.
–Seneca the Younger
London, early 1944
His kiss proved a torment to her, evidence of the very flawed and false person Beryl had long suspected she might be. What kind of wife and mother does this, whirled the dialog in her head—your husband a prisoner, your country under siege? She’d always seen herself—and this was vitally important to her—as a woman of sound judgement, of demonstrated loyalty and certitude, qualities that signaled maturity and selflessness, that helped her cope as the war had subtracted, one by one, the people and things she loved. She looked for this in others, but the strain of the war had hardened her, contracting the leeway that she had once instinctively, happily, given those around her. Her first impulse now was to judge, as she did with one young nurse who laid out of work pleading a sudden onset of sniffles—best not to bring the infection to the ward—who’d been spotted heading out on a date after her shift, a date that clearly spilled into the next morning. Beryl did not pass judgements directly, publicly, as she had watched her mother do, and never called the young woman to account. Instead, she railed silently inside her head and withdrew from those she believed were not living up to her expectations. She had grown harsh, the smug corollary to each judgement being that she, Beryl, would never do things so base, so improper. Now that she felt she had, she reserved the harshest judgement for herself.
Her embarrassment and anger had built in the days since Jack had driven her home, costing her sleep and erasing her appetite. Her heart ached because she had kissed the American hungrily, greedily, and had he not kept a few feet’s distance as he took her to the door and bid her goodnight, she might have pulled him across the threshold for much more than a kiss. What was he—eight years younger than she? She played and replayed what had happened on an endless loop as she walked to the hospital and tended to patients in the ward, and most of all, during her off hours, when she lay alone and ashamed. She remembered each detail of the trip home to London, his reaching for her hand and her using it to dry her tears. “Bloody awful,” she breathed to herself, “why on earth?” her muttering prompting Dr. Lowell, the attending on her shift, to inquire if she was speaking to him.
“No… sorry. I’m just working through a bit of a problem,” she replied, pulling herself back to the current moment, eyes fixed on the clipboard in front of her.
“Nurse Clarke, if I haven’t said it, let me say it now,” he began and here she waited for the doctor to blast her for her distraction and carelessness. “I don’t know how we’d have managed so well without you. You’re one of the few who never complains and I know we ask a lot of you. It has not gone unnoticed. You’ve been heroic, really. And if you’re a bit tired by this point, believe me, we understand. We’re all bloody knackered.”
Having never seen a breach in her professional demeanor, Dr. Lowell’s eyes grew wide in surprise to see tears glimmering in Beryl’s eyes, to hear the break in her usually strong and confident voice.
“And you, doctor,” she responded, gratefully, embarrassing him just a little, “are a prince to say so out loud.”
. . .
The unrelenting demands of her work, the privation of the war, the absence of Gordon and Colin, the loss of the Densmores—meant there were no voices in Beryl’s life that regularly encouraged her, reminded her that she was only human. That she was still worthy. Living alone for years now, she received precious little feedback from other human beings—the kind of thoughtful input that refutes errant conclusions and redirects unhelpful trains of thought.
As Beryl got some distance and stopped agonizing over her physical contact with Jack, she was able to consider the value inherent in his words and the echo of them she heard from Dr. Lowell. How both their assertions had been so unexpected and felt undeserved, but had enveloped her like a blessing and opened a portal to tears she had needed to cry months and years earlier, tears that began to wash away the notion that she was either one thing or its opposite. If they were right about her, then she was not beyond redemption. She recalled the outlook she possessed before the war had demanded so much of her, when she was less reactive with herself and others, when her instincts inclined her more often to give the benefit of the doubt. Living apart from Gordon and Colin, she’d had no one close enough to her to remind her of this, to evince tenderness in favor of judgement. Jack had pushed between the scaffolds she’d erected to keep her life intact and people at arm’s length and suggested she forgive herself for not managing the impossible perfectly. He confirmed that what she was doing was brutally hard, and in saying so, kindled gratitude, relief, and a tiny ray of hope within her that she might survive this, however it turned out, that she might someday be able to relinquish the judge’s seat and return to a beneficence with herself and others. She did not have to stay the closed-off woman that recent circumstances demanded. As she took small steps in this direction, the roiling in her stomach calmed and sleep came more easily.
