The Soldier's Wife

by Margaret Leroy

  Immediately I imagine that she saw me and Captain Lehmann in the orchard. Guilt washes through me.

  “Someone came in late. I heard the car in the lane. . . . I’m not surprised you look worried, Vivienne.”

  I feel a rush of relief. Evelyn’s room looks out over the lane; perhaps the car would have woken her.

  “Blanche went out,” I tell her. “There was a party. She’s young, she needs to get out.”

  “I hope she wasn’t doing what she shouldn’t,” she says.

  I smile at the old-fashioned phrase.

  “I’m sure she wasn’t,” I say. “She went with Celeste, her friend. You know how Blanche loves dancing.”

  Evelyn is quiet for a moment. Then her eyes seem to glaze over. The thread of the conversation has slipped from her grasp.

  “Someone came in late,” she says, looping back.

  “Yes. But everything’s fine,” I tell her.

  “It’s all such a muddle. It’s so confusing, Vivienne. I don’t like it being confusing.”

  “Try not to worry,” I tell her.

  She picks up her teacup. Her hand is unsteady: the tea in the teacup trembles.

  “What are we coming to, Vivienne? Where will it end?”

  To that I have no answer.

  Chapter 19

  LATER, WHEN I’M out in my yard, I glance across to my orchard. There’s something lying on the tree stump that dazzles in the morning light. I cross the lane to investigate. It’s Captain Lehmann’s cigarette lighter, lying there, catching the sun.

  Immediately, I worry that someone will see it—one of my daughters, or Evelyn, or someone walking past in the lane. That they will find it and know it is his, and that they will work the whole thing out, the conversation, everything. I can’t just leave it lying here, and wait for him to come back for it.

  I pick it up. The metal has been warmed by the light of the sun—it’s almost burning on my skin. When I look at it shining in the palm of my hand, I have a sudden memory of his presence, vivid and immediate. I see his right hand holding the lighter, his left hand cupping my cigarette, sheltering it from the night air that might threaten to put out the flame. I half imagine I can smell the faint scent of his closeness. I can see the grace in his gesture, the veins that show through his skin.

  I put the lighter in my apron pocket. I tell myself I will take it round to Les Vinaires, and give it to one of the men there so they can return it to him. That sometime soon I will do that.

  But I don’t.

  Chapter 20

  THERE’S THE CHEERFUL jangle of a bicycle bell in my yard. It’s Johnnie.

  “Morning, Auntie Viv.”

  He always calls me auntie, because our families are close.

  He’s whippet-thin, with unruly hair and his mother’s vivid eyes, brown as conkers. Every time I see him he seems a bit more of a man—a shading of stubble on his chin, his shoulders a little more square—yet his face is still the trusting, curious face of a child.

  He has a bag of potatoes for us. He dumps them on the kitchen table and pushes his hair from his eyes. There’s a breezy energy about him.

  “Present from my mum,” he says.

  “Your mum’s an angel,” I say.

  I offer him coffee, though there’s only a scraping left in the tin.

  “Water will be fine,” he says.

  I bring him a glass. He gulps it gratefully down.

  “So how are things at the farm?” I ask him.

  “We’re breeding rabbits—that’s the latest. You should try it, Auntie. My mum isn’t all that keen on bumping them off, though,” he says.

  “Just don’t ever tell Millie,” I say. “She doesn’t approve of eating things that have fur. She’d be appalled by the lot of you.”

  He grins, his nose wrinkling. I love how he looks when he smiles.

  “My mum told me Blanche has a job,” he says.

  “Yes, at Mrs. Sebire’s.”

  “She’s like a cat, that Blanche,” he says. “She always lands on her feet.”

  There’s a sliver of admiration in his voice.

  “I hope so.”

  There’s a splash of September sun on us. Happiness opens out in me, with my kitchen full of sunlight and warmth, and Johnnie here at my table—his vividness, his wide white smile, his hair falling over his face.

  “So, Jerry been giving you any trouble, Auntie Viv?” he asks.

  I nearly tell him about the Germans next door, but something stops me.

  “No, we’re fine here,” I tell him, vaguely. “It’s so secluded. You’re not very aware of it all.”

  His fingers are moving in restless jazz rhythms across the top of the table, as though he’s at a keyboard; Johnnie can never keep still.

  “I’ll tell you one thing for free, Auntie. We won’t take it lying down, me and my mates. We won’t let them walk all over us. That’s something you can count on, I promise,” he says.

  The thing that Gwen said enters my mind—how the young men have been left without any way to be men. A chill moves over my skin.

  “But what can you do?” I ask him. “There are so many of them. What on earth can anyone do?”

  “There’s always something,” he tells me. “Maybe just a small thing. You’ve got to do what you can. That’s what me and Piers think.”

  I remember what Gwen said about Piers. He’s a funny lad. He’s too intense. He seems too old for his years.

  “I don’t really know Piers,” I tell him.

  Johnnie lowers his voice: there’s a thrill of conspiracy in it. “Piers is clever. . . . Piers has a lot of ideas. He’s got this scheme for painting V signs, like they’re doing on Jersey. V for Victory. We’re sneaking out after curfew, putting V signs all over the place.”

  “But what good will that do?”

  “It’s all about morale, Auntie.”

  “Well, just you be careful,” I tell him. “You know how your mother worries about you.”

  He shrugs. A frown slides into his eyes. I sense that I’ve let him down in some way, that he’s disappointed in me, because I don’t share his excitement. I’m just another disapproving adult—not quite his friend anymore.

  “Another thing, Johnnie. I hope you’ve got that shotgun of Brian’s well hidden,” I say.

  There’s a fragility about his face at the mention of Brian, a translucence.

  “There’s no way I’m going to part with that. But I won’t let them find it,” he says. A little stubbornly—not quite answering directly.

  I have said something I shouldn’t have said.

  “Johnnie, I mean it—about being careful,” I tell him.

  He makes a slight gesture, flicking something away.

  “We’re going to do our bit. Make some trouble for them. You do what you have to do, Auntie Viv,” he tells me.

  “But you could end up in prison. Or worse.”

  He ignores this. I can tell it isn’t real to him. He leans toward me across the table, his clear, eager eyes on my face.

  “Tell you what, though, Auntie. I’m pretty disappointed in some of the islanders,” he says.

  I find myself looking away from him, just not quite meeting his gaze.

  “They’re pretty spineless,” he goes on, “some of the folks who live here. Giving Jerry a bit too warm a greeting, if you ask me. Putting out the welcome mat.”

  I feel a hot surge of guilt. In the pocket of my apron, pressing against my leg, I can feel Captain Lehmann’s cigarette lighter, which somehow I haven’t managed to take back to Les Vinaires.

  “Still, there are plenty of us who’ve got the right idea,” says Johnnie. “We need to give them a bit of bother. Until we win the war.”

  The words hang in the air between us, glittery, rainbow-colored: but weightless, ephemeral as soap bubbles blown around on the wind. Until we win the war. I think of all those newsreels we’ve seen, of Hitler’s army surging through Paris, like some unconquerable flood. I imagine them marching into Lon
don, up the Mall to Buckingham Palace, on to Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch. I can see it so clearly. They’ve come here to our islands, they’ve come the first step of the way and have walked in so effortlessly. This is Britain’s future—a future of Occupation. This is what we will all have to learn to accept.

  “Johnnie.” I hear the catch in my voice. “Do you truly think we can win? In your heart of hearts? In spite of everything that’s happened?”

  He fixes me with his warm dark eyes—so trusting, a child’s eyes.

  “Of course I do, Auntie. You’d better believe it. The British are never defeated. And till we win—well, me and Piers, we’re going to do what we can.”

  I look at him as he sits at my table, the syrupy sunlight falling on him. He’s still just a boy, urgent, reckless. I remember him at six or seven, playing with Blanche in the woods: how he’d climb the tallest trees, showing off, so desperate to impress her. And mostly that’s how I understand this fighting talk of his—that it’s just a boy’s bravado—and especially since his brother died. He’s seeking to live for Brian, to be bold as his brother was bold. It’s how he shoulders the burden of being the one who’s left alive.

  But just occasionally I wonder if Johnnie has something that I don’t have. Sometimes when he’s with me I could almost believe we could win.

  “Well, I’d better be going then, Auntie.”

  “Lovely to see you, Johnnie.”

  I follow him out to my yard, which is full of wind and sunlight, a few yellow leaves from my pear tree cartwheeling over the ground. Summer is sifting down into autumn. Soon, everything will be falling apart in a last brave flurry of brightness.

  “You know what annoys me, Auntie?” says Johnnie, getting onto his bike. “The way you hear folks saying that they’re glad it isn’t any worse—that Jerry’s so polite to us—that it isn’t as bad as they thought. Some folks are almost grateful. . . . But you know what I think, Auntie Viv? They haven’t even started yet. Folks think this is it, that this is how it’s going to be. But what I think is, it’s only just beginning.”

  Chapter 21

  THE NEXT DAY I make my final cup of coffee, scraping the last trace of powder from the bottom of the tin. The coffee is very dilute: it’s really just hot water with a faint brown color. I take it to the table outside my door. I’m going to pretend it’s the real thing.

  It’s another lovely September morning. There’s a haze of cloud softening the sky, and all around me the slow dance of autumn—the weaving flight of lazy insects, leaves spiraling down from the trees. Through the open door, I can hear Millie playing. I have put her dollhouse out on the kitchen table for her; it’s a rather lovely old toy that used to belong to Iris and me, with glittery candelabra and scraps of watered silk on the walls. She’s singing a breathy, tuneless song as she rearranges the little dolls in the rooms. I let the peace of the moment settle on me like a blanket. For a moment, it’s as though the Occupation hadn’t happened.

  There are footsteps in the lane. A pigeon breaks out of the pear tree, with a sound like something torn. I look up. Captain Lehmann is at the gate to my yard; he has his hand on it, to push it open.

  “May I?” he says.

  My heart pounds. I know I have to say no. I shall tell him I want nothing at all to do with him, that our talk in the dark of my orchard was just an aberration. I wasn’t myself. I was frightened for Blanche. It should never have happened at all. . . .

  “Yes, all right,” I tell him.

  He comes in, closes the gate quietly behind him. He stands in front of me, looking down at me thoughtfully. There are three other chairs, but I don’t invite him to sit—though this makes me feel uncomfortable, it seems so impolite. Sitting, I’m very aware of how big he is—aware of his rather heavy body, and how he’s so much taller than me. But he looks different in daylight, less imposing than in my moonlit orchard. His head is close-cropped, so you can see the strong shape of his skull; his hair is pale gray in the sunlight. I wonder how old he is.

  Anxiety seizes me, not knowing why he’s here. I remember yesterday morning, with Johnnie, how openly we were speaking. Was the door closed when we were talking? I was careless, I didn’t think to check that the door was properly shut. My heart skitters off.

  Captain Lehmann clears his throat.

  “I came to tell you that we have coffee,” he says.

  “Oh.”

  He smiles at my startled expression, a slight crooked smile.

  “Max brought some back from France—too much. It is very good coffee—coffee beans. Perhaps you would like some for your family?”

  I think of the coffee, imagine how good it would taste. Made from beans, the French way. I used to make coffee in that way sometimes, back before the war. I love good coffee. I imagine the rich roasted smell, and the way the world around you becomes more vivid, more sharply defined.

  I shake my head.

  “It’s kind of you to offer, but no, I can’t take it,” I tell him.

  I hope I’ve got the balance right—that I’m courteous, but clear. From now on I will do everything correctly. Johnnie has reminded me how to behave.

  Captain Lehmann doesn’t say anything. The silence stretches out between us and panics me. I have to say something, anything.

  “I mean it. I can’t take it. It wouldn’t be right,” I say again. But perhaps I’m protesting too much.

  He looks at me with a little quizzical frown. The light shines searchingly on him, on all the details of his face—the lines in his forehead, the jagged scar on his cheek. His eyes are the dense, rather melancholy gray of wood smoke.

  “But I think you like coffee,” he says.

  I’m intrigued, in spite of everything.

  “What makes you think that?” I say. Then know I shouldn’t have asked—I shouldn’t have given him anything, shouldn’t prolong this conversation.

  “I have seen how you bring it out here to your table in the sunshine,” he says. “How you wrap your hands around the cup. This is a special moment for you. A peaceful moment.”

  I try to shrug, dismissing this. Though it’s true.

  “And that, I think, is not good coffee,” he says, pointing to my cup. His expression makes me smile, I can’t help it. He has such a disapproving look, as though my coffee is an affront to him. “That is just colored water.”

  “I’m used to it,” I tell him.

  He shakes his head, almost sadly.

  “But you could do so much better than that. Why not?”

  “No. Really. I don’t want it. But thank you . . .”

  I’m willing him to go, but he just stands there, looking at me.

  I shouldn’t have smiled.

  “Captain Lehmann. I mean it. I don’t think we should talk like this. I really don’t think it’s right.”

  But I can’t finish my careful speech. He moves rapidly toward me, and the words dry up in my mouth. For a brief, alarmed moment, I think he is going to hit me. Then I see that he is swatting a wasp from my sleeve.

  I half stand, dodging the wasp, knocking against the table. My apron snags on a nail, and the things in my pocket tip out: a couple of clothes pegs, one of the dolls from Millie’s dollhouse; his silver cigarette lighter. We watch as the lighter falls and lands with a small, clear crunch on the gravel. In the sudden stillness between us, the sound is shockingly loud.

  My face is burning.

  “Well, Mrs. de la Mare,” he says, with a kind of mock gravity. “That is mine, I think.”

  “You left it in the orchard.” My voice sounds high and naïve. “I was going to return it. I was going to bring it back to Les Vinaires. . . .” The words spill out of me.

  I pick up the lighter and place it on the table. I can’t quite hand it to him. In the silence all around us, I can hear the tiniest things—Millie’s breathless song from the kitchen, a sparrow light as a leaf that lands on a branch of the tree. I can still feel the place where he touched my sleeve, the thin flame running over my skin. />
  He is about to say something, but then thinks better of it. He reaches out and takes the lighter. He isn’t smiling, but there is something pleased about him.

  “Good morning then, Mrs. de la Mare,” he says, and leaves me.

  I realize that the coffee I have made tastes horrible. I take it into the kitchen and tip it away down the sink.

  Chapter 22

  IT’S DARKER IN the evenings now. I draw the curtains earlier, turn on the lamp. Shadow reaches out its fingers from the corners of the room.

  I read a new story to Millie. We sit on the sofa together, and Blanche sprawls on the floor with her magazines, and the lamp spills its light across us, bright as petals that fall from a flower.

  The story tells of a soldier who is returning home from the wars. I think of the tale of the dancing princesses that I read to Millie the evening before we nearly went on the boat: in that story too there was a soldier coming back from a war. In fairy tales, there are always wars, and men who go off to the battlefield, and then some of them—the lucky ones—who make their way back home. In these stories, war is a given, a part of the condition of life, like the aging and eroding of the body, like stormy weather. War is what men do—and the reasons are never explained. And to return from a war is a protracted, testing journey. The soldiers have epiphanies and encounters with the uncanny as they return from the battlefield, as though the things they have suffered open them up to the unseen.

  Millie is pressed against me. I hear the slight wet sound as she sucks her thumb. She’s looking at a picture; it shows a soldier walking up a simple storybook road that winds with perfect symmetry toward blue distant hills. You can’t see the soldier’s face, yet you can see how weary he is, so profoundly weary of war. You can read all his longing for a quiet life. It’s written there in his hunched worn body, the way he trudges along.

  Millie has the hypnotized look she always has when I read to her, scarcely blinking.

  “The soldier’s like Daddy, isn’t he? Daddy’s a soldier,” she says.