“But you had the possibility of leaving where you’d come from, Peter. It’s not the same for someone like me. I don’t have any money of my own, and my parents would never allow me to go. They would disown me, and I would have nothing. I used to think I’d have no choice but to marry a local boy and to spend the rest of my life having babies and working the land. It’s the only kind of future a girl’s allowed to imagine in a place like this.”
“And now?” He stopped and stared at her.
“Now you have shown me that more is possible.” She paused and looked down at the ground. “As long as you’re in my world, my life has no limits.”
“Margaret, I do not know what to say.” He wanted nothing more than to take her away from this town, to give her the life she could imagine, but his own future was uncertain. It was impossible to forget that they were in the midst of a war. “I want to be able to give you the world, but what if I cannot come back for you right away? And when I do, what if I’m poor? What if it takes me a long while to give you the life you’re dreaming of?”
“But it won’t,” she said softly. “Because it doesn’t matter how much money we have or where we will live. What will matter is that I’m with you. What I’m trying to say, Peter, is that you’re my world. As long as we’re together, I can dream. And as long as I can dream, anything is possible. Don’t you see? You’ve given me wings, and one day, I will use them to fly with you.”
“I pray that we can be together again soon,” he murmured. “I await the day when we meet again, my dear Margaret.”
But he hadn’t told her everything. He hadn’t told her how frightened he’d been in combat, or how it had felt to find himself covered in the blood of his lifeless best friend. He hadn’t told her what it was like to level your gun at another man on the battlefield for a cause you didn’t believe in, or to wonder if your soul had been destroyed forever by war. She loved the Peter who arrived with stories and laughter and tidbits to lighten the day, the Peter who told her about the world beyond this country’s borders. Would she love him still if she knew the heaviness in his heart?
And so, on the second day of May, just after he’d heard about the cowardly suicide of the führer, he told her everything. The guards had been up late drinking the night before, celebrating the impending end of the war, and so they’d been lax in their duties the next morning. Instead of accompanying the prisoners out into the hot sun, they had stayed in the shade of their vehicle.
The sugarcane harvest was nearly done for the year, and the prisoners were down to their final cluster of fields. That day, they were working two hundred yards from Margaret’s property, and so Peter hurried along, slashing through more than his portion in record time, promising Maus his week’s wages at the canteen if only Maus would carry his cane to the tractor for him. He watched until Margaret came up the path at the back of her farm, trailed by Jeremiah. Keeping low to the ground so that the guards wouldn’t see him from their vantage point on the road, he hurried over to her.
It was Jeremiah who saw him first, waved, and then nudged Margaret. When she turned, her whole face lit up like a sunrise as she smiled at him. “Won’t you get in trouble?” she asked.
“The guards are asleep in their truck,” he told her as he took her hands in his. They were so warm, so smooth, and he never wanted to let go. “I need to tell you some things, while there is still time. I will be sent back to Germany soon, and I want to have an honest conversation with you before I go.”
“Of course.” She glanced back at Jeremiah, who nodded knowingly and turned toward the house. They both watched for a minute as the boy walked away. “Follow me, Peter.”
She held tightly to his right hand as she led him into a cane field that hadn’t been touched yet. The stalks were shorter than in the fields where Peter worked, and he knew enough by now to realize this crop wouldn’t be harvested this season; it was still maturing and would be one of the first to be farmed in the fall. He looked back over his shoulder to make sure no one was watching. “I only have a few minutes, Margaret,” he said with regret. “I must get back before the guards notice I’m missing.”
“I know,” she whispered, so close to his ear that he could feel her breath on his cheek. It caught him off guard, made him feel like someone had set him on fire. Every nerve ending tingled.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
Peter was surprised a moment later when they emerged into a small clearing in the center of the field. The space wasn’t visible from the outside, but someone had sliced down several of the stalks and leveled their roots to the ground to create a spot that felt a bit like a secret cave. The clearing was in the shape of a circle, eight or nine feet across, but the way the surrounding stalks arced gently over it, shielding it from the sun, made it feel smaller than that.
“What is this place?” Peter asked.
“I cleared it out,” Margaret said proudly. “For Jeremiah. No one will notice the hole in the field until the next harvest season, and by then, he’ll be gone from here. But for now, he knows that if anyone ever comes after him again, he can hide here. I will find him, and he will be okay. It is our secret.”
Peter put a hand on her cheek. Her skin was soft, smooth, and warm. “You did this to protect him?”
“I couldn’t stand by and do nothing. The law is against him. The culture is against him. But if I could do anything to give him a fighting chance, I had to. I know it’s just a place, just a spot in the middle of a field, but—”
Peter cut her off with a kiss. He couldn’t stop himself. It was only the second time he’d tasted her lips, but he hadn’t been able to stop thinking about their first kiss, the one on the day of Jeremiah’s attack. Her mouth was soft and supple, and she tasted like sugarcane and innocence. He drank her in, pulled her to him, held her against him like the world depended on it. When she finally pulled away, her lips pink and her eyes wide, he felt breathless.
“I shouldn’t have been so forward,” he said. “But Margaret, you are extraordinary.”
She looked at the ground for a moment, and when she looked up again, there were tears in her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he said, horrified to have saddened her. “Margaret, did I hurt you in some way? Are you all right?”
“Peter, it’s just that this is perfect. When I’m in your arms, I can forget the rest of the world. I can forget that you’ll be leaving soon. But reality has to crash back in, does it not?”
Peter bowed his head. “I would kiss you forever if I could.”
Margaret touched his chin and tilted his face toward hers. “I would kiss you forever too.” She leaned into him, pressing her lips to his again. When she pulled away, she put a hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes. “You said you wanted to tell me something.”
Peter took a deep breath. “I’m not a perfect man, Margaret. I have seen things I cannot unsee and have done things I cannot undo.”
“We all have,” she said gently.
“But, Margaret, you haven’t been to war.” He took a deep breath. “In the desert, I wanted to run. I wanted to die. Can you imagine the shame in that? I do not know if I killed another man, but I might have. I might have killed many. There were times we had to fire at the enemy, and there was nothing I could do but follow orders. I fear that you see me as the man I want to be, not as the man I truly am.”
He was crying now, and he knew he should feel ashamed to be showing such emotion in front of Margaret, but her face held only compassion, not judgment.
“Worse, I let my dearest friend die,” Peter continued, looking away. “It was my fault, Margaret. I was only trying to show him the stars. There was a meteor shower. It looked like heaven itself was rejoicing, and I wanted him to see it. But if I had not woken him . . .” He trailed off and drew a shuddering breath. “He was shot by the enemy standing there in the middle of our camp. His blood is on my hands to this day. It should have been me who died that night.”
&
nbsp; “Peter,” she said gently, “I’m so sorry about your friend. But it’s not your fault he’s dead. How could you have known that someone was waiting there to shoot him?”
“I should have known,” Peter whispered.
“You couldn’t have.” She reached for him and cupped his chin in her hands. “You couldn’t have,” she repeated firmly once he was looking at her.
“But it is my fault he was there in the first place.” It was the first time he’d spoken the words aloud, and his heart ached for his lost friend as he said them. “Before the war, Otto wanted to leave Germany. We were still boys, a few months away from our compulsory military service. He had a friend whose cousin was spiriting people out of Germany for a price. He wanted to go, but I was the one who convinced him to stay, Margaret. I did not believe in what Germany was fighting for, but in those days, I believed that running away was cowardice. I told him that a real man would stay. A real man would fight, if that is what was asked of him. He listened to me, and he stayed. I was the one who persuaded him, and now he is dead.”
“Peter,” she said after a long moment. “I have read what the Germans do to deserters. You really think he would have survived by running?”
“Maybe.” Peter choked on the word. “Maybe, Margaret. He would have had a chance, anyhow.”
“There’s nothing you could have done. Not in war, Peter. You were only trying to do what was right.”
“Yes. But it was a mistake. All of it.”
“Did you know that at the time you made those decisions?”
“No,” he whispered.
She was silent for a moment, “Peter, ‘Life is a succession of lessons which must be lived to be understood.’ ”
He raised his head. “More Emerson.”
She smiled. “Yes, from The Conduct of Life.”
“I know it well.”
“Then you know how true the words are. Life is about learning, Peter. We’re not meant to be perfect. We’re only meant to strive for betterment. If each day you are a better person than you were the day before, you are one step closer to understanding life, don’t you think?”
He nodded. “But how can you love a man like me, Margaret? A German? A man who has made mistakes that can never be taken back?”
This time, she put a hand on both of his cheeks and pulled him to her with force. She kissed him fiercely, and when she stepped away again, her eyes were blazing. “I do love you, Peter. From the depths of my heart. I understand all that you’ve told me, and I love you still. But now, you must work hard to forgive yourself. You are carrying around a weight that isn’t yours to bear. It’s time you laid it down.”
* * *
Five days later, on the seventh of May, in a redbrick schoolhouse in the nearly destroyed town of Reims in the Champagne region of France, American General Walter Bedell Smith and Soviet General Ivan Susloparov accepted the unconditional surrender of the German armed forces. The war was over, and the next day, as the world celebrated, the final papers solidifying Germany’s defeat were signed in Berlin.
In Camp Belle Creek, beautiful chaos reigned. The prisoners were given the day off, and the guards drank beer and celebrated with one another and with the local girls all day long. By nightfall, there wasn’t a sober one among them, and they weren’t enforcing the rules of the camp. The prisoners were unsettled and divided. Some were jubilant that their long imprisonment was drawing to an end. Others, the ones who still believed in Hitler’s ideals, were stunned and devastated by Germany’s defeat. And then there were men who saw the coming future with clear eyes, realizing that although the war was ended, their immediate journey home wasn’t guaranteed. They didn’t know where they’d end up after leaving Belle Creek, and the thought of returning to a Europe who hated them chilled them to the bone.
But for Peter, all those thoughts, all those fears, were very far away. All he could think of was Margaret and the way she had looked at him with eyes on fire, the way she had seen straight into the depths of his soul, the way she somehow loved him despite everything.
He hadn’t seen her in six days, not since the day in the field when she had shown him the magical hiding spot among the soaring sugarcane stalks. And as twilight fell on Victory in Europe Day, Peter began to form an idea.
“It’s too dangerous,” Maus told him after Peter explained what he was thinking. “What if you’re caught? What if they think you’re trying to escape now that we’ve lost the war?”
“Look at the guards, Maus,” Peter said. “They’re not paying attention tonight. And perhaps now that the war has ended, we are no longer the enemy anyhow.”
They both looked toward the guards’ barracks. The lights were on, and strains of “We’ll Meet Again”—the popular Benny Goodman Orchestra version featuring Peggy Lee—wafted across the yard.
The lyrics—about two lovers meeting again someday—weren’t lost on Peter, and he decided that perhaps the song was a sign. Tonight, with the guards distracted, he would go to Margaret. It might be the only chance he’d have to hold her in his arms before he was sent back across the Atlantic. God only knew how long it would take him to make it back to her.
“I’m going,” he said to Maus as a burst of rough male laughter erupted from the guards’ barracks, followed by the tinkling sound of several female giggles.
Maus’s brow knit together. “You are sure it is worth the risk, Peter?”
“I am sure.”
“And you are certain she loves you?” Maus didn’t meet Peter’s gaze as he asked the question.
There was something about Maus’s reaction that made Peter think his friend was jealous, but he didn’t have time to consider that now. “Yes, Maus, I am,” Peter said.
Maus turned away. “Then Godspeed.”
Peter waited until full dark, and then, his heart in his throat, he made his way to the edge of the camp. He knew that the fence was weak in places; he himself had repaired a section of it last week, and there was a strip along the north side that was scheduled for repair on Friday. In truth, there was no real hurry to complete the fence’s restoration. A prisoner would have to be crazy to try to escape during the night. They were on the edge of the Everglades, teeming with alligators. Running into the swamps would be akin to signing one’s own death warrant. Fleeing in the opposite direction would send a man straight into town, where he’d surely be discovered at first light.
And so Peter found the fence as he knew he would: unguarded and torn along a fence post by a storm-downed tree. He peeled the chain link back as far as he could manage and squeezed out, ripping the back of his shirt on one of the barbs.
It took him forty minutes at a slow run to reach her house. He had followed the road that the prisoner transport normally took, hugging the shadows for fear of being seen. By the time he made it across the cane fields to her backyard, he was damp with sweat. He wiped his brow and took a deep breath. There were two lights on in the house: one in the main room, and one in the room he believed to be Margaret’s. He’d seen the inside of the house only once, the day Jeremiah was attacked, but he had memorized its layout.
Slowly, he crept from the shadows along the edge of the bean field, then in silence, he crossed the neat rows of crops until he was alongside the house. He found four pebbles on the ground, moved behind the old oak tree that shadowed the side yard, and aimed.
His first pebble missed its mark, but the second one he threw pinged off Margaret’s window. He held his breath, but there was no reaction. He threw again, and this time, he could see a shadow moving inside the room, but still, no one came. He wound up once more, and he threw his last pebble. It clinked off the pane, and for a second, nothing happened. Then, to Peter’s relief, the curtains rustled and Margaret appeared. She slid the window up and looked out.
“Who’s there?” she said softly into the darkness.
Peter stepped from behind the tree without saying anything. The moon was barely a sliver, but the sky was clear and full of stars, so there was a
wash of pearl light softening the darkness. He knew she would see him as her eyes adjusted, and a moment later, she did.
Peter watched as her eyes widened and her beautiful rose mouth parted in a smile. But just as quickly, concern fell over her features. “What are you doing here?” she whispered. “You’ll get in trouble.”
He took a few steps closer, being careful not to make any noise for fear of triggering the attention of her parents or sister. “I had to see you,” he whispered. “Can you come out?”
She hesitated and looked over her shoulder. “Not until my parents and sister have gone to sleep. Can you wait?”
“I would wait forever to be with you,” he responded solemnly.
She smiled again, and Peter’s heart swelled. He was hers, and she was his, and that was all he needed.
“Meet me in the clearing,” he said, “the one you made for Jeremiah.”
She nodded and closed the window quietly, pulling the curtains closed against the night.
It was nearly two hours later when she finally appeared in the sugarcane field. Peter had taken one of the sheets from the clothesline stretched across the edge of Margaret’s backyard, and though it was still slightly damp, it made for the perfect ground cover. He’d picked wildflowers from along the edge of the road on his way here and used sugarcane blades to twist them into a beautiful bouquet of reds, oranges, and pinks, the colors of a Florida sunset.
He heard her footfall before she arrived, and though he knew in his heart that it was Margaret, he crouched, ready to run, just in case someone else happened upon their spot. But then she broke into the clearing, wearing her familiar faded red dress, her brown hair falling in loose waves over her tan, slender shoulders.
“Peter,” she whispered, and that was all it took to undo him.
He stood slowly and pulled her into his arms. Her body was warm, soft, strong. “You’re my home,” he murmured and buried his face in her neck. Her hair smelled like strawberries.
They kissed, gently, slowly for a long time, for tonight, there was no hurry. Peter could tell from the moon that it wasn’t quite midnight, and he knew the guards wouldn’t stir until after dawn. He couldn’t quite believe that he had hours with her, with Margaret, the woman he loved more than anything in the world. She was his hope, his salvation, his future.
When We Meet Again Page 12
