Orphans of War

by Leah Fleming

  The Russians were in Dresden now, and it was not easy for Dieter to return to the East to see what remained of his family. Vera was fishing for him to be included in some of the summer activities. ‘We want him to meet lots of young folk while he is here.’

  There was already talk of exchange visits between English churches and German youth groups.

  Pleasance looked him up and down, knowing there were rules about non-fraternisation, but said nothing. Dieter endured this scrutiny, sitting, observing the drawing room, the furniture, the pictures, putting a brave face on his circumstances.

  Somehow they were equals now, thought Maddy, having suffered the same injustices, woundings and sadnesses, both survivors and victims. When she heard his story she felt no animosity or anger, just sadness that his family, like hers, had been devastated by war.

  She met him again in St Peter’s the following Sunday, where he endured yet more sideways glances. Dieter was not film-star handsome but there was something about him that took her eye. She sensed he was serious about his studies and a gentle giant. They were used to prisoners of war in their ugly uniforms, digging roads, hay timing in the fields, marching or lounging on the backs of lorries. They were defeated men but cheerful. Some were crude and common, like any rough soldiers, but Dieter was different, his body taut from farm work, his long limbs tanned in borrowed shorts. She’d never really studied a man’s body before and it made her go all hot.

  When he entered a room her heart did a secret dance.

  She took extra care to pin up her hair into soft curls, stopped putting it in bunches with ribbons. She scrubbed herself down, splashed on eau-de-Cologne and tried on her new lipstick. Going to church was now an appearance, not a chore. There was the annual harvest homecoming soon and Maddy prayed Dieter would still be around to enjoy the fun.

  Gloria was too wrapped up in her new job as mother’s help to Dr Gunn and his raucous family to notice this change of mood. They’d sent a letter to Greg but Maddy made no mention of the new visitor. Greg might think them silly to be entertaining the enemy in the Brooklyn. She couldn’t share the feelings that bubbled inside her like fizzy pop with anyone.

  Sometimes she sat in the window box of the study with a copy of John Donne’s poems. He was her favourite of the moment and so romantic.

  I wonder by my troth, what thou, and I

  Did, till we lov’d? were we not wean’d till then,

  Shakespeare, in the Sonnets, and Emily Brontë knew what she was feeling. All that boring school stuff was coming alive.

  Any excuse and she found herself calling in at The Vicarage to catch a glimpse of him, and once on the way back from riding Monty they met by chance–or was it?

  They both halted, smiling, blushing and trying to act normal; as if nothing stupendous was happening to both of them.

  Maddy dismounted and they sat on the stone wall looking over the fields.

  ‘It is so beautiful here, very peaceful, no smoke, no bomb-bings. You had no war here, I think?’ he sighed.

  Maddy shook her head. It was important he didn’t think it was all easy. ‘My family was bombed,’ she attempted to explain in her schoolgirl German. ‘Grandmother and uncle killed. My mother and father drowned in a ship. I have no family. The war brought me here to safety.’

  Dieter turned to her. ‘It is terrible. Why did it happen for us?’

  She shook her head. What was there to say? ‘It happened, but it mustn’t happen again, Mr Schulte.’

  ‘You are very kind to me, Madeleine. Please, call me Dieter.’ She loved the way he pronounced her name. It sounded so exotic.

  ‘Call me Maddy. You would have done the same for me.’

  ‘I’m not sure. Things are bad when you lose a war–no hope, no food, no money. People are angry and do not understand why it comes this way for us again.’

  ‘You got too big for your boots,’ she replied, and he looked at her puzzled for a second and then laughed.

  ‘Ah, yes, I understand. We wanted everyone else’s boots but they wouldn’t let us have them so we tried to grab them and now they push us away and take our boots and now there are no boots for anyone.’

  That wasn’t quite what she’d meant. ‘Let’s not think about that. It’s over. It will get better.’

  ‘Memories are long, Maddy. It will take many years for our people to be friends again, many years,’ he said, taking off his glasses and polishing the lenses with care. ‘Are you going to the dance tonight? I have nothing to wear for a ball.’

  ‘Oh, it’s not that sort of dancing,’ she smiled. ‘It’s a barn dance–country dances in circles and groups. You have to walk around and follow the caller,’ she explained.

  ‘The caller?’ Dieter pushed up his glasses. ‘How do I call?’

  ‘No, he calls out what to do and you do it to music. I’ll show you how. Take your partners and bow.’ She mimicked doing a gentleman’s bow. ‘Take my hand…’ She marched him up and down the grass but he had two left feet.

  ‘Ah, follow my leader! I don’t think I am good at that,’ he said.

  ‘Wait and see. It’s fun, and you can dance with all the girls, one by one.’

  ‘There is only one girl I am dancing with,’ he whispered.

  ‘Who’s that?’ She crinkled her face, knowing full well who he meant. Her heart was pounding as they drew closer and then drew back. ‘You must see how the natives play. All the girls will want to dance with you.’

  ‘Not your friend. She does not like when I talk to you,’ he said.

  ‘Who? Gloria? Take no notice of her. She can be very pig-headed.’

  ‘Why pig’s head?’

  ‘Stupid, no brains…like a pig.’

  ‘But pigs are very intelligent animals. I like pigs,’ he argued.

  ‘Dieter, you are too serious. It’s a joke, just a saying…Gloria and I are always calling each other funny names. I’ll see you tomorrow then?’

  ‘If you think I will be welcome, yes, tomorrow. I shall be looking forward to dancing with you.’ He helped her onto the horse and stood watching her, waving as she trotted down the lane.

  Maddy rode upright, flushed with his words and hoping she looked good from the back on a horse. Tomorrow she had a date with Dieter and she didn’t care who was watching.

  It was the usual Sowerthwaite harvest hop: bare wooden floors, tables stacked with paste sandwiches, scones and fancy buns. The fiddler, pianist and drummer were at one end of the hall, and the caller, Fred Potts–in his checked shirtsleeves with fag in his mouth–was gathering sets together for the first dance. They had put straw bales for benches and strung paper lanterns across the beams, flowers on the windowsills softening the smoky fug in the church hall.

  There were the usual suspects standing outside smoking, eyeing the girls as they went inside: lads in flannels and open shirts. The girls were in ankle socks and best dirndl skirts with faded lines in the creases where the hems had been let down.

  The vicar and his wife put in an appearance for form’s sake, and Aunt Plum. Gloria was swanking in a pretty cotton gingham dress made from curtain material, lent to her by Mrs Gunn.

  Maddy had agonised what to wear. She’d got so used to wearing slacks, but there was a pleated skirt and fresh blouse that would have to do since she had no coupons for anything frivolous. She put a petticoat under her skirt so that her modesty was intact when they swirled about on the dancefloor. She wanted to look her best.

  She’d arrived too early and helped Plum set out the room, watching the door in case Dieter came, but as the dancing began to hot up there was no sign of him and she felt first dismay and then anger at being let down. She sat with Gloria and the girls, feeling fed up, knowing the evening was going to be a flop.

  She was trying not to feel bothered. He was only a German student, a stranger. What future was there in that? He had made the decision for them and copped out of this appearance. Perhaps it was for the best. Better to stick to her own kind, the sort of public schoolboys wh
o were sons of Plum’s friends, who came and went each holiday–but none of them had ever made her tremble like Dieter did when he smiled at her.

  There was something in his sadness and quiet presence that touched her. He was strong yet gentle. He had picked her out. Why had he said she was the only one he’d dance with if he’d not intended to come? Why had he stayed away? She felt sick with disappointment. Was she too tall? Was her eye turning again?

  Gloria was rattling on by her side but she didn’t listen, her eyes glued to the door just in case…

  At suppertime, Maddy could stand it no longer and sidled up to Vera Murray as calmly as she could.

  ‘I thought your student would want to see us English at our playtime,’ she offered.

  Vera turned from the tea urn with concern. ‘Oh, I should have said earlier, our student has had bad news in a letter from home. His sister, Mechtilde, is sick and now he wants to go home but his aunt says he must stay in the West. He didn’t feel like dancing or mixing tonight.’

  ‘I’m sorry. Would it help if I go and visit him?’ Maddy offered, ashamed that relief was her first thought, relief that it was nothing to do with her.

  ‘Would you? We had to come over tonight but Archie will keep him company later. His sister has never been strong. She lives near Dresden. Things are not easy there. I think he feels guilty that he was singled out for this visit.’

  ‘I’ll go at once, Mrs Murray.’ Maddy plonked her supper down and made for the door.

  It was Gloria who came after her. ‘Where are you off to now? You’ve not had a dance all night.’

  ‘Won’t be long, gone to see a man about a dog,’ she blurted, and darted out of the door on her errand of mercy.

  She felt nervous but grown up as she walked up to The Vicarage drive on this mission of mercy. It was an old farmhouse with a stone porch and the drive was lined with purple asters and Michaelmas daisies bobbing in the breeze. They had escaped the first frosts of autumn. There was a nip to the night air–which the locals called ‘backendish’–but it was still light enough to go for a walk It had been a rotten summer for weather and the lambing had gone badly but the thought that this summer was coming to an end startled her. Dieter would soon be gone and they hardly knew each other yet.

  He was sitting at the piano, fingering notes and looked up with a half-smile when she tapped on the window.

  ‘Mrs Murray told me you’d had a letter…Would you like some company? We could go for a walk and you can tell me if you like,’ she said. He nodded, grabbed his pullover and made for the door.

  Dieter was very quiet at first. She walked him up the Avenue of Fallen Soldiers, explaining about Uncle Julian and her father and the men of the town lost in battle. They crossed the footpath across the field and took the track to the old beech tree. Dieter seemed lost in his own world.

  ‘Come and meet my tree…our Victory Tree, but not over you. Over Napoleon, I’m told. Look, the ladder’s still there. This is where I come to think, to chew the cud,’ she said, pointing to the platform on the branches of the tree.

  Dieter turned round at this expression, puzzled, so she mooed and pretended to be a cow munching its grass. His eyebrow raised and he laughed.

  ‘Let’s climb up out of sight.’ She knew it would be dark and the lights of the hostel were off as everyone was at the hop.

  Dieter sat with his knees bent. ‘I am so worried now. Tilde is my youngest sister, her chest is bad and now there are few hospitals and medicine. My uncle is not a wealthy man. They took us in after my father was taken. I should be looking after her but I am stuck here.’

  ‘When does college start?’ she asked, not knowing what else to say.

  ‘October…I must go home. I must do work for medicine. I should not have come but I was curious. It was selfish but I wanted to see real British people. We saw soldiers, of course–some good and bad, some angry and some merciful. War makes animals of us all, I am thinking. There are no real heroes but here I find only kindness and friendship.’

  ‘She’ll get better, you’ll see. In the next letter you will have good news,’ Maddy offered, more in hope than certainty. Through the gap over the wall she saw the lights of town twinkling. ‘You know, it’s strange to see lights on. We got so used to pitch-darkness and just the stars. I used to sit here dangling my legs, waiting for Mummy and Daddy to return but it never happened. Tilde will get better. I just know it.’

  ‘I have met no girl like you, so kind and pretty. Why do you not have a boyfriend?’

  ‘I have lots of boyfriends. Gloria and me, we write to Greg, who’s in the army, and his friend Charlie sometimes.’

  ‘No special one, no sweetheart,’ he whispered.

  Maddy laughed. ‘When you have a bad squint and stand six inches over a boy, no one wants you to be their sweetheart. Now my eye is straight I don’t care for any of them,’ she replied.

  ‘But you are beautiful and you are growing a kind heart,’ he replied. ‘My father used to say that a loving spirit is the greatest beauty of all.’

  Maddy could hardly breathe. ‘He must have been a good man.’

  ‘Yes, he was. But now I must ask your permission to kiss you, but perhaps I go too far?’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ she whispered.

  ‘You don’t? I’ve never kissed a girl before.’

  ‘And I’ve never kissed a boy except when they were babies.’

  They kissed with lips shut, chaste, firmly but dry. He tasted warm and salty, with a hint of tobacco and fresh soap. She sat in his arms, looking up at the stars. My first kiss, she sighed, and from a German boy. Who’d’ve thowt it, as Beryl would say.

  Then caution hit her, splashing over her like cold water. What would the Murrays think of her, taking advantage of him? Plum would be furious. No one would understand this magnetic pull towards him.

  ‘We have to keep this secret,’ she said, sitting up straight. ‘I don’t think anyone will understand how it is for us.’

  ‘Like Romeo and Juliet?’ he smiled.

  ‘Oh, don’t say that!’ She pulled away. ‘That’s a sad play. We’re not sworn enemies, are we? I shall tell no one yet. We can write to each other when you go home and perhaps I come and visit you one day.’ Her mind was racing ahead already. Her first proper boyfriend, her first kiss all in one evening. How wonderful to be loved and needed.

  ‘When can we walk again?’ Dieter grasped her hand tightly.

  ‘Tomorrow, down the bridle way. I’ll walk the dogs and I know a quiet path down to the foss, the waterfall. I’m free until I go to college. Tomorrow I’m going shopping with Aunt Plum. She’s promised to buy me something new with her own coupons.’

  ‘You are lucky. My sister wears only rags, I fear, but I must write to Tilde and go on a ride with Mr Murray. We are looking at places for students to visit when they come to Yorkshire. We have been to Bolton Abbey and tomorrow it is Ingleton Falls and some special caves, I think. But I think it will be a long time before they come. Not everyone likes us here.’

  ‘How can anyone not like you? I like you very much, and you can take some of my clothes to Tilde if you like.’ She couldn’t bear to think of anyone having so little when she had so much.

  This time they kissed longer and deeper and stronger, until Maddy’s legs went weak and her tummy melted with a fluttery sensation. ‘We’d better get down before we fall out of the tree,’ she laughed, breaking the tension between them. Time to walk back to The Vicarage and for her to make the last few dances of the evening. Her feet were floating two feet off the air so that might be difficult.

  ‘Where on earth have you been? The dance is over,’ Gloria snapped, her lips pouting with disapproval. No one seemed impressed with her new dress and the local boys weren’t worth staring at.

  ‘It’s not my sort of dance,’ Maddy replied.

  ‘Too common for Lady Muck, are we?’ Gloria laughed.

  ‘No, of course not, silly. I just popped back to the Brooklyn. Uncle Gerry’s due
back soon and I wondered if there was any news.’ Maddy’s cheeks were pink as if she’d been running and her grey eyes flashed like polished steel.

  A likely story, thought Gloria. Something was different about Maddy. It was hard to detect if you didn’t know her but it was something to do with that German lad at The Vicarage. He’d put a smile on her face, for some unearthly reason. He was tall and OK-looking, not her type at all in those spooky specs and funny clothes. She’d noticed the way he eyed up Maddy at the rounders match. She couldn’t possibly be falling for a Jerry, could she? How stupid was that? He’d be gone in a couple of weeks and he was too stiff even to come to a friendly hop.

  He was one of those bookish parson types. She couldn’t imagine anyone marrying a vicar. A doctor or a farmer maybe, but a po-faced parson like old man Murray, never!

  She must write to Greg and tell him all about it.

  Why had Maddy found a fella so easily? She hardly wore any make-up, didn’t bother to keep her hair up to fashion. She never wore a bra and looked like a lad in shorts, but she had made an effort this evening. Maddy was such a beanpole–no high heels for her, only pumps if she wanted a partner.

  The two girls were like peg and prop together, and it suited Gloria to be the glamour puss. Her new employer, Mrs Gunn, was pretty and lively, and if she played her cards right there’d be more cast-offs to make her own. She’d already been through her wardrobe while the couple were out one evening, playing dressing-up with six-year-old Sarah: fur coats, suits, a ball gown, they’d tried on everything and they fitted her perfectly as Denise was short like herself, and her dressmaker shortened all her clothes beautifully. It was an Aladdin’s cave of gorgeous clothes in Mrs Gunn’s dressing room.

  She liked it at the Gunns’, minding Sarah and Jeremy, and there was a new one on the way. They lived in a fine old house just outside Sowerthwaite that she biked to each day.

  The doctor owned a big car for emergencies and his wife had a roadster for her shopping. Sometimes they all squashed into it and took the high road to Harrogate when they had petrol coupons to spare, or outings into the Dales for picnics. How different from life with Mam and Mikey. Mam was furious when she upped and left without so much as a by-your-leave. It was tit for tat. Served her right for what she’d done to them all those years ago.