Maggie Bright

by Tracy Groot

  Clare picked up the picture.

  It was a child with Down syndrome. He was laughing, his head thrown back, slanted eyes crinkled in delight, palms of his hands touching. She looked at the picture of the Grafeneck Castle. It was an aerial view of a very large building shaped like a squared-off horseshoe, at least four stories tall. According to Grafeneck records, this child had been sterilized as part of Hitler’s purifying eugenics program.

  Sterilized.

  Eight years old.

  Two months later he was killed by an injection of phenol.

  Tears filmed, made the photo blurry. “What was his name?”

  Percy glanced at her. After a moment, he muttered, “Erich von Wechsler.”

  “Erich,” she whispered.

  The parents were told he had died of pneumonia. Four families from the same province received notices the same week—that their children, patients at Grafeneck, an institution for those with mental or physical disabilities, had died of pneumonia. An unknown staff member at Grafeneck had risked his or her life to make photographs of other photographs, and of institutional documents, and get them into the hands of an American journalist stationed in Berlin. The journalist got them to an old friend from England. The old friend was Arthur Vance.

  “What was the name again, of the overall program?” Clare said, digging into her purse for a tissue. “Charity something.”

  “The Charitable Foundation for Curative and Institutional Care,” said Percy. “A title to whitewash hell. Doctors and midwives are now required to report all births with severe disabilities or malformations of any kind.” He leaned forward. “Did you catch that? Required to report them. Parents could lose custody of their children if they do not comply with sending them to these institutions.”

  Clare froze, digging through her purse. “Mr. Percy, I cannot take that in yet. I’m not past the eight-year-old.” She glared at him. “Forgive me, but I can only absorb one monstrous thing at a time.”

  “Why, you haven’t even heard the worst,” he said acidly.

  “William,” Butterfield warned.

  Her heart raced, her lips trembled. She seized the locket once more. “How is anything worse than a sterilized and murdered child?”

  “Because some are experimented on first,” he spat.

  And that was it. He’d opened her up and all wilted. Her hand dropped from the locket. Tears spilled.

  She wanted to run from William Percy as much as she wanted to reach for him as the only place of sanity in this room, for what could provoke such hatred on his face except for what she now saw so clearly within him: rage-filled helplessness.

  And then . . .

  There came again that capricious, reassuring wash that she had come full circle, she’d circumnavigated the world to a place where one man’s rage at such evil was a good thing, a safe thing, a strong thing.

  A subtle change came as he looked into her eyes, an infinitesimal easing of his pain. Had he wondered at the easing of hers?

  “What is it?” she demanded. To detract from this somewhat disturbing admission of that wordless communication, she picked up the photograph and pretended to study it. “I need to know something good.”

  “Well, would it do you good to know that Arthur Vance was spiriting them away?” His tone had softened. “One day I will visit a tattoo parlor and have the number five burned on my arm.”

  The child wore a little short-sleeved shirt with whimsically striped suspenders. A woman’s arm was about his shoulders. Only the lower part of her face was in the picture, a laughing smile turned toward the child. She had light shoulder-length hair, curled into fashionable rolls. Was she his mother? Someone at the institution?

  Did this laughing child die trustingly, curious about the needle and syringe? Did he ask for the woman in the photograph? Did he die alone?

  Was he “experimented on” first, this little boy?

  She wiped her nose. “Spiriting them away . . .”

  “Vance and the American journalist made arrangements,” Percy said. “Someone would slip children across the waters from Emden, Germany, to Holland. There, Vance collected them and made four trips last fall, sailing five children scheduled for euthanization from Holland to Dover. Five lives, saved. The children were kept safe in a cottage not far from Dover Castle—”

  “Ashton Cottage,” Butterfield broke in, pleased. “Two grand old maids live there. Great fun to talk to. Though it’s hard not to stare at Mrs. Barden. She has a high forehead.”

  “There they stayed until the bishop came to—” He broke off, and looked at Butterfield. “What’s her forehead got to do with anything?”

  He shrugged. “It’s just very high. Goes all the way back. Thought she was bald, at first.”

  Percy turned to Clare and made to continue, when he looked again at Butterfield. “All I see in my mind are high foreheads. It’s disturbing. Thanks for that.” He looked at Clare and shook his head incredulously; but she did not miss a new expression—it wasn’t a smile, but it was an easing of lines. She felt a welcomed lessening of tension, and did not miss the subtle satisfaction on Butterfield’s face as he wet his finger and dabbed at crumbs on his plate. It was a look Percy did not catch, and one Butterfield did not mean him to.

  Percy continued. “The bishop collected the five and got them to safe places. Meanwhile, Vance asked his journalist friend to gather as much evidence as possible from his contact at Grafeneck. Once Arthur had it all in order, your Father Fitzpatrick was to come retrieve it for the States, in hopes to alert the American press and politicians.”

  “Why weren’t the press and politicians alerted here?” Clare asked.

  “That’s a little difficult to answer,” Butterfield said carefully.

  “It isn’t difficult at all,” Percy snapped. “When Vance first came to us last September, I didn’t like him. He was smug, arrogant, flamboyant—the sort who flits around with movie stars on the Riviera. He gave us these pictures and told us an incredible story about Grafeneck Castle, and that a German spy was after him. Sounded like a movie script. Asked for protection, and then told us to back him in the press when he went public with his story. We refused. Told him the whole thing was ridiculous.”

  “That’s not the word you used,” Butterfield put in.

  “We told him he had no proof. Said if we were to take him seriously, we needed names. We needed copies of documents and ledgers and institutional records. Not a movie script. He took it as a Yard-sanctioned directive. Acted as if he were part of a task force, came in week after week to boast of his progress. Said it was coming together piece by piece, and that he was collecting it into a packet. His visits were regular and annoying and the truth is, I thought he was a delusional nutter with a middle-age crisis on hand. And then—” He paused. “And then at one of his last visits—”

  “I actually looked forward to those visits,” Butterfield broke in, with a fond smile. “He was quite entertaining. Knew The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by heart. Told us lots of stories, places he’d been, famous people he’d met. Was enormously proud of his son. Told us all about the summer they sailed the Mediterranean. Arthur Vance certainly led a singular life.” He squinted, and tapped his chin reflectively. “Yet for all of that . . . I think he was lonely.”

  “That’s beautiful. Can we keep on track? At one of Vance’s last visits, he . . . completely changed. It wasn’t paranoia. It was something far different.”

  “He wasn’t arrogant anymore,” said Butterfield gloomily.

  “He stayed for a very short time, said very little, and left. We didn’t see him for nearly a month. Then one day he showed up with the packet. Showed us photographs of ledgers, patient records, had it all right on my desk. And for the first time, I truly believed him.” He paused. “For the first time, he became someone I wanted to know. But suddenly he didn’t trust us. Before we could ask what had happened, he repacked it all, tucked it under his arm and informed us that we were too late.”

 
“He what?”

  Percy gave that tight, unflattering smile. “Decided to take it to America because England, he said, was doomed. Said he hoped Klein didn’t get to him, said not to take it too badly if he did, bid us good day, and . . .”

  “And Klein got to him,” Butterfield finished.

  The three sat in silence for a time.

  “Do you know?” Butterfield said wistfully. “I miss him.”

  Another silence.

  “Oh, Murray,” Clare murmured, a hand to her cheek.

  “Yes, I do hope he gets back on the bike, with Rocket Kid.” Butterfield smiled sadly. “World needs a good laugh.”

  “Because everyone can laugh in times like these,” Percy said. He’d taken to his teacup, tracing his finger on the rim. He closed his hand over it.

  “We need to laugh in times like these,” said Butterfield.

  “Helpless children are killed. Experimented on. I’ll never laugh again. And oh, by the by, Hitler’s monstrous army overtakes ours as I speak, and with the fall of France, there goes our only chance to defeat him. America won’t hear from us for months, and then find us dead and colonized by Nazis. Oh, it’s just a laugh riot, Fred.”

  The teacup burst in his hand.

  He cursed, and after recovering from the brief shock, Clare seized his hand. She examined it, and began to pick out teacup pieces from his bleeding palm. He jerked at the touch of one particular piece, but she gathered his hand back and tried more gently.

  The feel of his hand in hers, and now she caught his scent as she bent to her work—it was distracting. Her cheeks warmed.

  “There.” She placed the last bloody piece on the saucer. “You should have it checked, you may need stitches. Especially that one. Do you have a handkerchief?” she asked Butterfield.

  “I don’t want it,” Percy said emphatically.

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “I know this man, I’ve heard him blow his nose, I will not have his handkerchief on my hand. It will catch pneumonia.”

  “Where’s yours?”

  He hesitated. “I have a cold.”

  “Oh, honestly.” She wiped her fingertips on her forearm, and reached across the table to rummage about in his front coat pocket. She didn’t miss the flaming color on his very cross face, and suppressed a smile. “Where do you keep it? I will not look for it in your trousers, you can bloody your pocket first.” But she found it in the other front coat pocket. She shook out the folded square of white cloth and neatly bound his bleeding hand, tying it off tightly.

  “Everything all right, guv?” said a waitress brightly.

  Percy put his hand under the table, and Butterfield, collecting broken pieces from the tabletop, said, “Awfully sorry about that. Please put it on our tab.”

  “I saw you do it,” the woman said to Percy with a sly little smile. “I’ve got a problem with anger, too. Try smoking Luckies. Don’t know what it is, but they work wonders. Better than Player’s.”

  “Luckies, eh?” said Percy.

  “Work like a charm.” She winked, and left.

  He watched her go. “I better get some Luckies.”

  Clare picked up the photograph of Erich von Wechsler. She wanted to wake up on Maggie Bright in a lonely place far away where nothing like this existed. But there was no going back to the usual world, and usual included daydreams.

  “It was surreal, what the vicar was saying,” she said, “as if a black snake had suddenly poured from his mouth. And now to see his words in these photographs . . . I feel perfectly foolish, running out on him like that. How very alone he must feel.” What a child she was. Yet how could anything have prepared her for such a thing? She suddenly said, “I detest this using of him as bait. It’s like you’re lying to him.”

  “We are lying to him,” said Percy.

  “That seems to make you happy. It doesn’t bother you, if he’s the hero you say he is? Do you know his wife just had a baby?”

  Percy took the photograph of Waldemar Klein, studied it for a moment, then tucked it in the envelope. He pocketed the notepad and pencil. “That’s not my concern. My job is to get Klein. If it means lying to a priest, if it means detaining him ’til the world’s end, which apparently is coming sooner than we think—a song in my heart, Miss Childs.” He looked at Butterfield. “Laughter in my soul.”

  “I’m not sure you have a soul, to keep him locked up,” Clare snapped. “It’s monstrous. He should be home.”

  “Home?” Percy said bitterly. He plucked the picture of Erich from her hand. “Home is invaded.”

  He rose from the table, and took his hat. “I have to . . . have a talk with that desk sergeant.”

  “William,” said Butterfield, looking up. “We can always hope that—”

  “Fred, I don’t have any hope! Not anymore, not for us. But if I can find Klein and find that packet—if I can go down like Arthur Vance, warning others—well, that’s something, isn’t it? We’re done for. But maybe America will listen. And if they don’t, I gave them a chance.” He started off, looked at his bandaged hand, started to say something to Clare, then turned to Butterfield, and said in that private tone, “Don’t tell her all, Fred. Not that.” He put on his hat and left.

  They watched him walk out of the restaurant, and then watched out the window as he crossed the street to the police station.

  “Don’t tell me what?”

  “He’s had a low time of late,” Butterfield murmured unhappily.

  I don’t have any hope.

  She picked up the photograph of Grafeneck Castle.

  Hitler was no longer some caricature in political cartoons. No longer a mere bully. No longer over there.

  He was here.

  “May I?” said Butterfield, holding out his hand.

  Clare gave him the photograph. He slipped it inside his jacket.

  “I wish I was the same person as when I woke up this morning,” Clare said thinly.

  “We never will be again. Needless to say, my dear, keep it all quite close. And take heart—our good vicar should be on his way home soon. I think Klein is long gone, and hope Percy may soon come to that conclusion. Nevertheless, there is a possibility Klein may come back if he can’t find the packet elsewhere. Which is, of course, a polite way of saying that your boat could be in danger, Miss Childs. Which is, of course, a polite way of saying that you may be in danger.”

  “Not with the Shrew about,” Clare said vaguely. “She shrieks. Can you tell me anything about the retreat? There’s a soldier, son of a friend of mine. I don’t know what section he’s with—division, whatever you call it. His name is Jamie Elliott. I believe he’s a private.”

  Butterfield shook his head. “There’s half a million men over there, hightailing it from a lightning rout. Your friend won’t learn anything for days. Weeks, perhaps.” Then the amiable face seemed to sag. “I will say this—I wouldn’t hold out hope. Things have gone very badly. The unfortunate thing is that I am one of those dreadful optimists, and if I should admit there is not much hope, quite depressingly you can take that to the bank. Only a miracle will save them now, and my heart is too low to believe for one.”

  “What exactly is going on?”

  Butterfield glanced about, and leaned in. He said very quietly, “Look, I’d be hanged for saying this, and I mean that quite literally, so you didn’t hear it from me and don’t ask how I know: Admiral Ramsay is working like a lunatic to pull together the entire Royal Navy and send them over to rescue the lads. Dover is in an uproar. But it’s a complete logistical nightmare. Soldiers are converging from all over France upon a coastal town called Dunkirk, a little holiday place straight across the Channel from Dover; but here’s the tricky part: there, the shore is very shallow, for a mile or so out. Destroyers won’t be able to maneuver in for a mass embarkation. They’re sure to have a deuce of a time, sending out cutters to collect our men one spoonful at a time from an enormous kettle. Promises a painfully slow evacuation.” He paused, and said heavi
ly, “Which is to say, Hitler will beat us to them. Our lads are sitting ducks.”

  Clare covered her mouth with both hands.

  Poor Captain John! Surely the state she had left him in meant he knew what was going on with the BEF—he was an old navy veteran; he had friends in the navy.

  “German panzers and artillery and infantry on their heels, to say nothing of the Luftwaffe, already mounting a bombing campaign. Our boys will arrive at Dunkirk with no idea what they’re in for, surely thinking they’re going to be rescued when the truth is, Dunkirk is their last stand. The situation is unbelievably grim, Miss Childs. I hesitate to say ‘catastrophic,’ it’s like whistling for the devil, but I find no other word. Ramsay hopes to save forty-five thousand men . . . out of nearly half a million.”

  A deep shadow passed over his good-natured face, and for a moment he seemed to have forgotten Clare.

  “And now we have no allies. We tried to come to the rescue of others, and find there is no one to come to ours. We stand alone, and small, before the great oppressor of our time, who brings something hideous to our island, something that will never be compatible with who we are. I have never felt such despair, never dreamed to see a day like this. The thought of losing the entire army is unbearable itself, but if our boys are not here to protect hearth and home, Britain is finished, and all that is lovely and good.”

  She took in the words as she looked around the café. Two women chatted at a table nearby. An elderly couple shared a dish of pudding. A young mother spooned pablum into her baby’s mouth, cooing as she did.

  “Look at them,” Clare said, voice hollow. “They don’t know everything’s changed.”

  “Let them be innocent awhile longer.”

  For a time, neither spoke.

  Butterfield glanced down. His stomach touched the table edge. “Gracious. I am getting tubby.”

  Clare looked out the window to the police station.

  “No matter. Rationing will soon take care of that.” He contemplated the last biscuit on the plate, and as if guarding against future hunger, took and bit it. “Who knows—perhaps even I, at my age, will take up arms for king and country.” He chewed meditatively. “Do you know, I’ve never felt this before, this underlying unity—I feel connected to the man on the street like I never have. Even to thugs, for whom I now feel a great beneficence. Perhaps because at last, there are no more politics and principles. There’s not rich or poor, high or low, clean or dirty. We’ve been beaten. We’re alone. But we’re together.” He gave a bitter but somehow quite lovely smile. “The end of all things has a rather clarifying edge, don’t you think?”