by Lydia Syson
She didn’t know why she’d said that. It wasn’t helpful, and she realized now the war had barely begun. The thing that was getting to her was the waiting: this helpless waiting, humming around her, all the time. It had turned into something you wanted to reach out and grab hold of, to shake and throttle till it screamed. You felt you’d do anything to bring it to an end.
RULE SIX: ALL MANAGERS AND WORKMEN SHOULD ORGANIZE SOME SYSTEM NOW BY WHICH A SUDDEN ATTACK CAN BE RESISTED.
51
The wind was up. You could hear it in the eaves. It made the church feel more like a boat than ever, miles out at sea. The light kept changing too, clouds scudding past the sun, pure white on top, dark gray underbellies, making Henryk feel as if he were moving himself, fairly speeding along.
One moment he was reminded how much he used to enjoy the challenge of flying in those gusty conditions. The next he felt trapped. It was like waiting at dispersal, sprawled on the grass in front of the readiness hut, listening out for the ringing, the order to scramble, eyes on the same page of his Teach-Yourself-English book, reading the same words over and over again. And all the time starting at the noise, the telephone’s shrill tinkle, just to realize it was sounding only inside his head.
He hadn’t spoken out loud in two days. He really would go crazy if they didn’t come soon.
Then Peggy and Ernest burst into the church, talking over each other, faster and faster.
“Thank God you’re still here. Did we frighten you?”
Peggy had seen how he sprang to his feet.
“The wind …” he said, carefully arranging himself on the seat, back to the harmonium. “I didn’t hear the door.”
“We thought we’d never get away,” said Ernest.
“They’ve hardly let us leave the house for days. It’s been awful.”
“Take your sister,” Ernest mimicked.
“Take your brother,” said Peggy.
“Where are you going?”
“When will you be back?”
“Don’t be long.”
“Don’t go out of sight.”
“Stop!” said Henryk, picking up only the panic. “Slow down … what has happened now?”
“Nothing more. Yet. That’s the trouble.”
They told him about the search parties, the rumors, Fred’s shaking head, Myra’s hysterics. They produced food for him, which he ate while they watched, because he was too hungry by then not to. More eggs, hardboiled, which Ernest helped him peel. A prickly-skinned cucumber and cold tea, without milk, how he liked it.
When there was nothing left, and every scrap of shell had been tidied away, Ernest looked at him expectantly.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
The boy nodded at the instrument.
“Can you play that thing? You’re always sitting there as though you’re just about to.”
Since that first, alarming note, Henryk had not dared press another key of the old harmonium. He shrugged. Ernest seemed on the brink of hysteria already; he didn’t want to make the child worse.
“I used to play the piano,” he admitted. “I don’t know about this.”
Peggy’s face lit up.
“Really? Oh do try! Nobody will hear today, not over this wind.”
“Go on,” said Ernest. “Play. Play anything! We want music!”
Music would be a good distraction, thought Henryk. And it might make them stay a little longer.
“Please,” said Peggy, and that decided him. Henryk turned and slowly spread out his huge hands. He began to pump with his feet. Then down came his fingers in a thunderous chord that shimmered off the painted wood and brickwork. Peggy, who was in overalls today, plucked at the loose trousers as if they were a skirt, and acted out a deep curtsey to her brother. Eventually he took the hint and bowed back, low and formal, and a little wobbly. Time he learned to click his heels, thought Henryk.
Then they were off, spinning up and down the narrow aisle, manic and uneven, and more over-excited than ever. Henryk only knew one piece by heart: a waltz which Klara had taught him long ago so that she could practice dancing with little Anna when Gizela was off with her own friends. Ooom pah pah, ooom pah pah. Fairground music, it sounded, on this unsubtle instrument: each note was as loud as the last, and you barely had the run of three octaves. Well, he wouldn’t have known what to do with more. He was no musician. Not like his sisters. But he made more mistakes than he might, for he couldn’t take his eyes off Peggy as she danced.
How would it be if she were dancing with him? One hand on the small of her back, guiding her, supporting her. He could show her how to waltz properly. If there was one thing you learned as a cadet at Dęblin—apart from how to fly, of course—it was how to dance. All those evenings whirling in the ballroom under glittering chandeliers. Silver and glass, ices and flowers, and a ceiling encrusted with stucco fruit and foliage too. Never a shortage of partners. Devil-may-care days, when evenings ended in duels and dares and shattered crystal. Everything at stake yet nothing mattered, nothing but the next flight: all this just an interlude before you could get back in the cockpit.
Peggy was leading, after a fashion, steering Ernest round as they danced. They both clowned around, deliberately exaggerating their clumsiness, elbows out and limbs loose, stepping higher than they needed to. Coltish. But all the while she kept looking across at Henryk, over her brother’s head.
Up they went towards the altar, where there was a little more room, Peggy craning towards him as she turned, whipping her head round for the next chance for their eyes to meet. Henryk played a little faster, willing her back towards him, towards the font, where she might brush against him.
As they came back, their dancing got wilder. A slight step, and they tripped, and then all at once they were both falling, the stool screeching on the floor as Henryk pushed it back. Ernest crashed down against Peggy, something fluttered, and they all saw what it was. Lined yellow paper. In the silence left by the music’s absence, everything changed. Peggy put up a hand to defend the bib of her overalls, and Ernest reached in, his face furious.
“You’ve got one too.”
“Leave it,” said Peggy, her voice a serrated knife.
“No, let me see.”
“It’s not for you.”
Ernest was sitting on her now, holding down her hands, determined to get the paper out. Except Peggy was too strong for him, and soon she had his wrists instead. Intense and vicious, they wrestled while Henryk hovered, darting down just to rescue Ernest’s spectacles. Then Peggy’s head flopped back in resignation, and her flushed cheek fell against the stone floor.
Ernest pulled out the paper and scowled at it.
“It’s not for you either. This is for Mum.”
“I know.” No expression in her voice.
“Will you give it to her?”
“No.”
“Why not?” said Ernest.
“I can’t tell you.”
“I want to read it.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“You won’t like it.”
Henryk had never seen Peggy’s face so locked and hard. He felt invisible. This isn’t my business, he thought, but there was no retreat.
Ernest put out his hand for his spectacles. His lips moved while he read.
Just a piece of paper. Just a piece of paper.
Peggy lay on the floor, with her head turned away from her brother, eyes glistening.
“I don’t understand,” said Ernest. “What does it mean, ‘behind bars?’”
Peggy lips broke apart, and then she swallowed and sat up, but still she didn’t answer. They both stared at Henryk, who felt almost cornered before he realized they weren’t looking at him, but at his clothes, his collarless shirt, very worn, open at the neck. Their father’s shirt. This was about their father.
“He’s a prisoner-of-war?” said Ernest urgently, somewhere between a question and a statement. His fingertips were white and stiff as they gripped t
he paper. His wrist quivered. “That’s why he doesn’t write. That’s why Mum never talks about him. He’s been captured. Already.” He looked from Peggy to Henryk and back again. “Where is he, then? Tell me where he is.”
Peggy pushed him off her, and sat up.
52
“He’s not a prisoner-of-war. Just a prisoner.”
“What?” Ernest said. “Why? He hasn’t done anything. Has he?”
Another gust of wind, and the church darkened, then brightened.
“What’s he done? Tell me. Come on. Tell me.”
Henryk heard the collision of doubt and panic in Ernest’s voice.
“He’s been arrested.”
“But I thought … I thought he’d gone to …” Ernest couldn’t quite say the word “fight.” Or maybe he didn’t want to say it in front of Henryk.
“Mum let you think that. She didn’t want you to know. Other people went to fight. But Dad hadn’t had his papers yet. He wasn’t quite young enough.”
She held out her hand for the note, but Ernest shook his head, and held it to his chest.
“He must have.”
“No. He went in the night. Remember?”
Of course he remembered. At least he remembered the next morning. Henryk watched him remembering: the silence at breakfast, perhaps, and the unasked, unanswered questions.
“Did you ever see him in a uniform?” Peggy asked sharply.
“I saw …” He looked down at the yellow paper again.
“Other boys’ fathers. Younger boys’ fathers. And fathers who’d volunteered—the ones who went early, as soon as they could. That’s who you saw.”
“I thought …” The shock of betrayal had taken the blood from Ernest’s face.
“Exactly. You just assumed. We let everyone assume.”
“But why? Why did he go without telling me? Why did nobody tell me?”
Peggy’s eyes darted about the church, as if the answer could be found lurking in a pew, or on one of the painted wooden ovals hung in the roofbeams … let, I beseech thee, thine eyes be open.
“They had an argument. A huge one. Worse than all the others.”
Ernest did not seem surprised.
“It woke you up?”
“Yes.”
“He said goodbye to you then?”
“Sort of. You were asleep.”
“He could have woken me up.”
“Yes. But then you would have asked.”
Ernest didn’t deny it.
“And he didn’t want to lie to you. You know what Dad’s like.”
“But …”
“And he’d promised Mum.”
“But you lied to me too,” said Ernest.
“I know. I’m sorry.”
“And Mum did.”
“I think she thought she couldn’t do anything else.”
“Oh, couldn’t she? And this? What about this?” He scrunched up the paper and hurled it across the floor. “Who wrote it? Why? How come they seem to know where he is and what he’s doing?”
“I don’t know how they know. I don’t know who it is. I wish I did.”
Henryk wanted to hug her, and bring an end to this interrogation.
“How can we stop them?” asked Ernest.
“I don’t know if we can. All we can do is keep hiding the notes and hope they stop in the end.”
“How many has Mum seen?”
“I don’t know that either. I can’t ask. Not many, I hope. Maybe even none. I’ve been looking out for them.”
“And Aunt Myra?”
“Oh.” Peggy realized what he meant at exactly the same time as Henryk. She shook her head firmly. “No. I don’t think it’s her. Even she wouldn’t …”
“No,” agreed Ernest, and Henryk had the feeling that if he ever set eyes on this Aunt Myra, he would know her right away. He hoped they were both right.
“So who do you think it could it be?” Henryk asked, and they both looked at him vaguely, as if they’d forgotten he could speak. “Do you have an idea?”
“I suppose it could be anyone. There are lots of ways to find things out.”
Tentatively, Henryk picked up the ball of yellow and crouched down beside them.
“I can read it?” he asked. Eyes burning with hatred, they both just stared at the paper and eventually Peggy nodded. Henryk waited a moment, and then uncrumpled the note, and spread it flat.
REAL MEN FIGHT. THEY DON’T HIDE BEHIND BARS. HOW CAN YOU HOLD YOUR HEAD UP, MRS. PANSY?
He frowned.
“Mrs. Pansy? That is your mother’s name?”
“No, no, of course not,” said Ernest. “Pansy! Pansy? Pansy is a horrible word. Well, it’s not really. It’s a flower. But pansy means …” He couldn’t finish. Henryk put a hand on Ernest’s shoulder and nodded. The boy didn’t need to explain. He’d heard the word in the Mess. Pansies and pacifists. Both words spat out, like something disgusting. No right to eat. That’s what those men said. Why should pacifists eat food that reached them at other people’s risk? They had no right to anything. Henryk supposed that applied to him now too.
Not everyone joined in. A few kept silent. But they didn’t argue. As good as fascists, pacifists were, the squadron leader said. As bad as. After hearing talk like that, Henryk had never believed that pacifists lacked courage. He glanced at Ernest, at his skinny arms and flushed face, his trembling lip and broken spectacles and his serious gaze. Without asking, he knew that boys at school must have called Ernest pansy too.
“Peggy,” he said quietly. “You are quite certain that your father is in prison?”
“It’s not true,” Ernest muttered. “It can’t be true.”
Peggy lowered her eyes.
“Yes, I’m sure. Mum told me in the end, just before we came to the farm. When he went away, it was just to Eastbourne … just for a few days at first, to do his war work … that’s what he called it. She could bear it, what he was doing, just as long as nobody round here knew about it. That’s what she cared about. She said he had to go and do it somewhere else.”
“And what was he doing?” asked Henryk.
“Mostly helping the conchies get ready for their hearings. Conscientious objectors, that is. People who don’t believe in war. You have to make a statement, you see, explain why you won’t fight when you get called up. But then Dad was arrested, with his leaflets and newsletter, outside the conscription office. He didn’t believe in military conscription. He said the state had no right to force people to take up arms.”
“He was arrested just for giving out leaflets?” Ernest asked, in disbelief.
“Yes. Arrested and charged and eventually convicted.” Peggy shut her eyes to get the words right. “They said he was ‘spreading disaffection among the troops.’”
“Disaffection?” Henryk was no clearer than Ernest.
“It means making the soldiers not want to fight. Or trying to. Spoiling the war effort. It means you’re not a loyal subject.”
Henryk looked at Ernest, as if to encourage Peggy.
“And Mum wouldn’t let him tell you, and she wouldn’t let me either. Mum … Mum …” She could hardly say it. Her voice had dropped to a whisper. “She didn’t want anyone to know. Mum couldn’t bear the shame of it. Of Dad being a pacifist. She thought … she said … if everybody knew, well, if everybody round here knew … if they knew what he believed … that she couldn’t hold her head up. She said it was his choice. If he didn’t believe in fighting Hitler, that was up to him. But she didn’t see why the rest of us should suffer for it. Especially you.”
“But I just wish …” Ernest’s face clouded, and Henryk knew tears were close.
“I’m sorry, Ernie. I really am. I didn’t have much choice. It’s not my fault.”
“Will your father get his call-up papers soon?” asked Henryk, trying to think of practical things.
“It can’t be long now, though I don’t know where they’ll send them. The law’s changed again, you see. They keep raisin
g the age. Now it’s thirty-six. And then he’ll have to go through the whole thing himself, the tribunal and everything, when he comes out of prison. But I know he won’t do anything to help the war. He says he won’t be a cog in their war machine. He simply refuses.”
“I hate this war,” Ernest suddenly burst out. “I hate him, and I hate Mum, and I hate you most of all, because you could have told me.”
He ran to the door, struggled with the latch, and vanished. Henryk was on the point of following, but Peggy pulled him back.
“Leave him. He’s got to work it out on his own. He’ll calm down. I just hope he doesn’t do anything stupid, like talk to Mum.”
“Yes.”
She looked at him, and all the hardness that had frightened Henryk had gone. Her lower lip was quivering, and she could do nothing to stop it. Finally Henryk let himself put his arms around her. Immediately, she shuddered and gasped, her whole body wrestling with the effort not to cry. It was like a dam beginning to crumble, a huge weight of water pushing so hard at its structure that eventually it had to give way.
“He will be good and he will love you again. Do not be sad,” he whispered into her hair, and she nodded, shakily, and buried her hot face against him to block the flow.
Henryk began to hum. It was the waltz he had played earlier, but slower and more sedate now. They began to move, slowly circling, wrapped in each other, and she sank against him, all resistance gone. Round and round they went, her arms trapped before her chest, crossing and protective, until slowly they crept around his neck and he felt her tears burning his skin.
53
Ernest stumbled across the grass, running as fast as he could. He turned his face to the wind. He wanted to run out of his body and out of his mind. He wanted his heart to thump and his head to thunder, until it was so hard to draw breath that the effort would wipe out everything and leave him empty.
One knee jarred as his foot hit a dip. A few steps later, his ankle turned, but he kept on going until he found himself trapped by water. He’d run so blindly he had forgotten he would have to cross it. By then his legs were shaky and weak and he felt heavy and earthbound. Breathless too. He slumped down by the reeds, curled up in a ball and let himself sob.
