by Dennis Bock
ONE NIGHT, A FEW weeks later, Thomas told me he thought our mother was right in wanting to take advantage of the amnesty. He’d go too if he had the chance, he said. I was lying in bed staring up at our model airplanes as they cut across our imaginary sky. He was sitting on his desk, feet on the chair, playing with a rubber band.
“They just treat us like garbage here, anyway,” he said. It was no mystery to him why she’d want to go back.
“She won’t go back there, not for anything,” I said, though I was unsure of these words as I spoke them.
He flicked the rubber band at the model Spitfire that followed in pursuit of the Heinkel bomber, suspended just inches behind its tail. It was like we were up there competing for the same thing—me in the Spitfire and him in the German bomber. He was going to bring chaos and shame to our family unless I stopped him.
A FEW DAYS LATER I rode down to Mercy House and waited for that strange figure to appear in the second-floor window. I wanted some distraction. That thought about shooting down my brother was bothering me. I’d never imagined him as an enemy before, but I wasn’t able to shake the idea from my mind. The matted grass under the fruit trees on the estate grounds was still wet with dew that morning. I saw this from where I stood, perched on the fieldstone wall. Bird chatter filled the air. The sun was barely up, and the scene before me might have been beautiful if an ugly truth hadn’t been secreted away under that peaceful veneer.
It was shame, of course—not courage—that steeled me. As I started up the lane, a cluster of overgrown crabapple and pear trees to my left, I felt I’d discovered a calling, a purpose, and a release from the troubled thoughts that had ruled my summer.
The doorway was huge, tall enough to ride a horse through, like a medieval castle’s. The brass knocker was shaped like a fist. I lifted it and let it fall with a crisp, hollow clap. I stepped back and waited. My fingertips tingled, my heart raced. I wondered if the wild schoolyard stories we’d heard about the place were true—that by simply coming through that gate I’d exposed myself to the radiation that was said to linger there. But wasn’t this part of the sacrifice that was required? Hardship, sickness, misery. If I’d learned anything about Mercy House it was that those who worked there might receive the absolution I was after—not the public sort promised and denied my mother, but a personal cleansing that would set my heart at ease.
From the doorstep I saw footpaths cutting through stands of maple and willow trees on the north lawn, and three outbuildings, which I later came to know to be a doctor’s consulting room, a gardening shed, and a stone chapel, beside which lay a lonely cemetery of headstones.
I didn’t have to knock a second time. The door was opened and before me stood someone who, I later learned, was called Sister Catherine. She stepped back as if surprised when she saw me, a boy instead of, what—a delivery man, or the groundskeeper, wheelbarrow and shovel in tow? She was older than my mother, in her forties, I guessed. Her eyes were almost friendly, though not quite welcoming, either, which offered an unexpected contrast to the dour black of her habit and coif and to the image of the place my mother had instilled in me.
“Good morning,” Sister Catherine said. “And who are you?”
I told her I’d come to be of some help if help was needed. She regarded me with a puzzled look.
“And what sort of help would that be?”
I told her I would do anything that was required, though I’d not thought this through to a point where I was able to suggest any specific chore.
“Anything you need. I could pick those pears, maybe,” I said, referring to the small cluster of trees I’d passed walking up the lane. It was a clumsy offer.
“They won’t be ready for another month yet,” she said.
I didn’t know how to answer this. It was as if the Ontario harvesting season had revealed me for the fraud I was. She must have seen me struggling.
“Well then, young man, do you know what we do here?”
“Yes.”
“And what is that?”
“This is a home for the blind,” I said.
“Indeed, it is. And what sort of the blind do we have here?”
“The people who were there on that wicked day,” I said, hoping the description might clearly identify my allegiance. The word failed to carry the meaning I’d intended, though. The expression on her face registered what appeared to be a note of suspicion.
“What interest would a boy like you have in coming here if he knew such a thing?”
“To help.”
“Nobody wants to help here. Least of all a lad like you.”
I didn’t know what she’d meant by that—if lad like you was more accusation than anything else. Maybe she knew who I was. I couldn’t admit the truth, of course. She would close the door in my face if I told her that a German boy wanted to prove that he wasn’t like other Germans, for that would require some degree of sympathy or understanding, and despite the smile that had greeted me when the door first opened, I began to feel like the fraud I really was, and that I was testing her patience. Yet I deepened the lie I’d initiated. I told her my grandfather was a Londoner and, as I’d never met him, I felt it was my duty to understand something about the war and to do what I could, trifling as this gesture was.
“Is that so?” Sister Catherine said.
I nodded, already half drowning in the story.
“What’s your name, boy?” she said.
“Graham Williams,” I mumbled, unable to stop myself.
There was a boy named Graham in my math class, and another in my geography class named William. They were likely enough names.
“Speak up, please.”
I repeated the invented name.
“In all the years we’ve been here I can say you’re the first one to come with so much as a hello, let alone a helping hand. I’m not sure if we should feel suspicious or grateful.”
I wondered if the mounting weight of these lies began playing over my face. My only saving grace would be if she mistook this guilt and gathering embarrassment for a natural apprehension and expression of the awe you’d feel to stand at the threshold of such a house. I was prepared, I remember, to run off if she attempted to grab me by the shoulder.
“Well then, Mr. Williams, be that as it may. We’re not so frightening as to cause you to shake in your boots, are we? Come in, come in. We won’t bite.”
My fingertips were tingling with nervous energy. My head was spinning. I still had time to declare myself, beg forgiveness, and retreat. She didn’t have my real name. She would never see me again. But instead of turning and running, I followed Sister Catherine through a long foyer into a front parlour that might have been bigger than my whole house.
From there I saw a grand staircase rising against the back wall of the parlour and, to left and right, dark-panelled walls covered in paintings. The basket-weave wood flooring was exposed but for the large throw rugs that served as colourful islands on which floated elaborate groupings of furniture—gilt Italianate sofas and chesterfields, antler-rack side tables, leather and brass armchairs, lamps, and footstools. Variations of this pattern were repeated throughout the room. The paintings showed scenes of hunting parties and landscapes and portraits of men dressed in clothing from decades past. There was a fireplace almost as tall as me set into one wall. A collection of oversized pine cones, ceramic bowls, two candelabra, and a large clock were set out on the mantle. Over this was a painting of a white-haired and bearded Saint Joseph cradling an infant. Sister Catherine turned to me and said, “The husband of Mary, our Saint Joseph, and patron of the sick.” She crossed herself as she walked. “We’ll see what errands we’ll find for you. Come now, Mr. Williams, you’re dawdling.”
At the foot of the staircase sat two folded wheelchairs and a tall blue-and-white vase, in which, in a normal house, you might set your umbrella. It was filled with the sort of canes used by the blind. I’d seen these many times at Chisolm Square on the sixth of August, red and white wi
th a bulb at the bottom like a radish. There were seven canes in all, but so far we’d crossed paths with not a single person here. It was oddly quiet for such a big house, and made to feel larger and gloomier still for the fact that it seemed we two were the only ones in it.
On the second floor Sister Catherine ushered me down a long, narrow hallway to a room overlooking the lake. We were on the west side of the house now. From the window I saw the road from which Thomas and I did our creeping and spying. It looked reassuringly familiar—I was not entirely lost in enemy territory—and I wanted to be down there now going about my usual make-believe, and not here trying to prove something to myself.
This room wasn’t nearly as large as the one downstairs. Against one wall were a sofa and another small table. The room felt old and slightly shabby, past its time. Two of the walls were lined with books, these ones mostly of a religious nature, if a first glance could be trusted. On a third wall were hung more paintings, smaller than the ones downstairs, three of which depicted schooners tossed on rough seas; the fourth wall was mostly window, its green muntins and rails chipped and flaking.
Out on the lake a number of frigates and cruisers and the HMS Harrowsmith sat at anchor. I saw no sign of refugees, and I wondered for a moment if Thomas and I had inflated this fantasy beyond all proportion. Such a thing was impossible for me to imagine now, this small town of ours drawing to it hundreds or even thousands of people seeking safe haven. It must be that our plan was nothing but a foolish game, I remember thinking, and that I should feel ashamed for hoping to win some approval in the rescue of those less fortunate than ourselves.
When I turned to tell Sister Catherine that I should probably be on my way but that I could come back another time (though I certainly would not), I saw that she’d left the room, and in her place stood a man wearing a white lab coat over a grey suit.
“And you must be our Good Samaritan,” he said.
He introduced himself as Dr. Ridley, chief administrator and medical officer at Mercy House.
“Sister Catherine tells me you’re interested in lending a helping hand.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Fine. You’re not an ophthalmologist, I take it.”
“No, sir,” I said.
“Optometrist?”
“No, sir,” I said, confused at first. I didn’t see that he was having a bit of fun.
“Splendid. Then you’re an optician.”
“None of those things, sir,” I said.
He was not interested in finding someone to help with yardwork or general maintenance. They already had a man for that, he said. Nor was he interested in securing a helper for the nursing sisters who tended to the residents and ran the home’s general operations. Nothing like that, he said. But he did have something in mind that I might possibly be suited for.
He ushered me from the room and led me along a corridor lined with more portraits of serious-looking men, long-dead lords of the great house or founders of townships and counties, I imagined, Durham and Haliburton, their names and dates inscribed on the plaques set at the bottom of each frame.
The boards underfoot creaked with each step as I followed the doctor. The house was not altogether gloomy, I began to see, or as starkly forlorn as I’d imagined a home like this must be. But I felt the stillness all around, deepened by the creaking of the floorboards.
This need of mine to prove to myself I would not be defined by my heritage was a foolish impulse I regretted more with each step. It would only get me into trouble here. A viper is nonetheless a viper no matter where the egg is hatched. I’d heard and read this so many times that it was hard not to believe it was true. No amount of quiet respect or number of good deeds would make any difference.
“Here we are,” the doctor said, pushing open a door.
A girl was standing at the window looking out at the lake, and when she turned I saw she was the one who’d been watching us that spring and early summer all the while we’d been spying on Mercy House. She tilted her head with what looked like surprise or shock when she saw me.
“You’re the younger one,” she said.
1945
There were no Dutch speakers among the staff or residents at Mercy House and so the lie that they were a couple from Antwerp was not difficult to maintain. As a couple expecting a child, they were assigned one of the few private rooms—many residents were bunked six to a room, if they weren’t bedridden in the hospital ward, once the grand dining hall in the east wing. Their room was hardly bigger than a closet. The weather seeped through the small window and the nearest toilet was one floor down. But a room and a bed were wild luxuries after the cold stone floor at the Parish Church.
Within days they learned the layout of the house and the rules and routines and the names of the resident physicians and the sisters who ran the hospice. Perhaps most important was the rule regarding the help at Mercy House. Silent as ghosts, these young women, whom the sisters referred to as atonement girls, were not to be spoken to or acknowledged in any way. They would spend most of their time in the basement, it was explained, far from the regular comings and goings of the house. On occasion they would be found upstairs, too, though, one of the sisters explained, and in such case they would not engage the patients at all. If for any reason one of them should speak even a single word to any resident, the infraction was to be reported immediately. Those people needed to learn their place, the sister said.
Rosa held her tongue until the end of the day. “Innocent people,” she said. “And if they find out about us?”
Elser was seated on their bed, slowly taking off his shoes. He was as disturbed as she had been to learn of the young women who served there, condemned for nothing more than the fact that they were German.
He continued his undressing, and then slipped into bed and placed his hand on her abdomen, as he’d done that night months earlier after she’d told him about the baby. She was big now, almost eight months gone. He felt it move, but the sense of joy that usually overcame him when this happened did not come.
“They won’t,” he said. “They won’t find out.”
ON THE STAIRWELL UP to the second floor three days later he stopped dead in his tracks when he suddenly felt someone beside him. He knew it wasn’t one of the other residents, whose approach was always signalled by the tapping of one of the long canes he himself used to get around the house. And the nursing sisters and doctors made it a habit to acknowledge the patients they passed in a hallway or on the stairwell. She was just inches away, this young German woman, stopped a step or two up from where he stood, frozen on her way down, he imagined, when she saw him coming up the stairs.
He heard her breathing and the creaking of the stair when she shifted her footing.
Who knew what they’d been told about the hatred these survivors held in their hearts for the Germans, for any German, and the terror she’d feel that he would report her for this encounter. He wanted to speak to her in their shared language, and tell her that he was trapped here too, just as she was, and that one day the world would come to its senses. I’m sorry, he wanted to say, but said nothing at all.
He waited another moment, acknowledged her with a slight nod, and then continued up the stairs.
ON THE FIRST WARM day of spring one of the sisters accompanied Elser and Rosa over the grounds and told them in her slow and patient English that the shipyard on the far side of the river was the source of the steam whistle blast they’d come to expect every afternoon at five. The town, just a few blocks north of where they stood, was much like any Canadian town, she said, still burdened by shortages and dependent on the Soviet aid that came up through the lifeline that was the Saint Lawrence Seaway. “The Americans have not yet begun the blockade that is expected,” she said, “but we’ll get by when they do, God help us.”
HE BROUGHT ROSA BREAKFAST in bed now on most days as she moved towards her delivery date. At first the sisters had tolerated no exception to the mealtime schedules, but the three flight
s of stairs were dangerous for a pregnant blind woman, and so they allowed the privilege during these last weeks before the baby came.
In the cafeteria on the ground floor he prepared her breakfast tray of tea and toast and cereal and sometimes a cup of the Food Club tinned peaches in syrup she’d loved so much when they first arrived here. Putting this breakfast together by touch and smell was a slow and meticulous process, and delivering it up three flights of stairs, long cane in one hand, tray in the other, tested his balance and wits. Yet he made it up to their room every time without spilling a drop and set the tray with great care on the stand that still fit over her abdomen as she sat propped up in bed.
While she ate he sat with her and said what he could to convince her that they were safe in this walled sanctuary. The worst was behind them. They had a bed. They had food. They had medical care. That was everything in a world like this. Together they would love and protect their child.
Yes, she said.
It would have a chance at a normal life.
Yes, she said. It would.
He’d lay his hand on her thigh beneath the breakfast tray and think for a moment that she was not placating him, that finally she’d chased away the fear that she’d carried in her heart since London. It was her faith in prayer, he thought. Her strength of will. When she knelt at the foot of their bed and prayed every night, it did not occur to him that she’d pray for anything other than the safe delivery of their child. Careful not to disturb her, he’d undress quietly as she performed her devotions, listening for the sound her arms made against the bedclothes. “A normal life,” he said once after she’d crossed herself.
There was a pause.
“Vipers. That’s what we are to them,” she said. “Every last one of us.”
SOMETIMES WHILE ROSA NAPPED in the afternoons he walked by the lake and listened to the waves washing up at the bottom of the property. It was a calming rhythm that helped take his mind away from his worries for a time. He found he was able to manage better if he did this, and if he kept moving. He needed to fill his hours with purpose. Most days, after taking breakfast up to Rosa, he practised English with one of the sisters for an hour as she led him around the house, saying the names of things she touched his hand to—a door, a window, a table—and later he volunteered in the hospital ward in the east wing, emptying bedpans and turning the bed-bound their quarter-turns. He was limited by his blindness but determined, the sisters agreed, and able to make himself useful in a way that impressed them. When the day was fine he lifted the bedridden into wheelchairs and rolled them out to the stone terrace overlooking the lake, then brought Rosa down the three flights of stairs and walked with her over the grounds, all of this a sign of industry and hope, he thought, that she would finally take to heart.
