The Soldier's Wife

by Margaret Leroy

  “There was this gun that belonged to his brother,” says Piers. “They’re having a clampdown on wirelesses. Some two-faced rat must have tipped them off. Someone must have told them there was a wireless at Elm Tree Farm. So the bastards came to his house, and they ransacked his room.”

  “I thought he’d buried the gun,” I say. “Gwen talked about it. She said she’d make sure he buried it.”

  Piers shakes his head, despairing.

  “He’d hidden it under his bed. He kept all Brian’s things with him. Johnnie can be such a bloody idiot at times.”

  His voice is striped with scars. I can hear just how much he loves Johnnie.

  “What happened?” I say. “Did they hurt him?” Not meaning that exactly; meaning more than that. My heart thudding, hurting my chest.

  “He’s in the prison at St. Peter Port,” Piers tells me.

  I feel a rush of relief, that at least he’s still alive.

  “But—what will they do?” My throat seals shut. I can scarcely form the words. “Piers, will they shoot him?”

  “Depends,” says Piers curtly.

  “It depends on what?”

  He makes a slight gesture that would be a shrug, if it weren’t for all the pain behind it.

  “And Gwen? Is Gwen all right?” I ask.

  He gives me a small cold look. I can tell he despises me, that I am asking all these stupid questions.

  “Well, what do you think?” he asks me.

  I’m desperate to see her, but I can’t go, I can’t leave the house.

  I reach my hand a little way across the space between us, as a drowning person might reach, in a scrabbling, desperate gesture.

  “Piers.” I lower my voice to a whisper. “I’ve got Kirill here. Kirill from the work camp. I’ve got him in my attic.”

  “That’s what I’ve come about. You’ll have to keep him,” he says.

  There’s an edge of steel in his voice. Behind him, I hear the insects around the fruit on my pear tree, buzzing and crackling like sugar overheating in a pan. Everything sounds dangerous to me.

  “Johnnie said—just for one night.” I hear the tremor in my voice. “He said you’d need to move him on, to your safe house in St. Sampson.”

  He shakes his head briefly.

  “We can’t possibly move him now,” he says. “Not when they’ve got their eye on us.”

  In the glimmery silence between us, I hear Millie from the garden around the back of the house:

  In came the doctor, in came the nurse,

  In came the lady with the alligator purse . . .

  Her voice rises up like a bright balloon.

  A chill passes through me, in spite of all the lavish warmth of the sun.

  “Piers—I’ve got children,” I say.

  “You wanted to help Kirill.” His mouth is set in a thin line, unrelenting.

  “Of course I did. Of course I do.”

  “Well then.”

  This lad is all I have, the only one who can help me: this harsh boy, with the face of a kestrel, who scarcely knows me but guessed the truth about me. This boy who would have painted a swastika on the wall of my house.

  “But I don’t do things like this. I’m not a hero,” I say.

  My voice seems to echo in the hollow rooms of my memory. I think how Gunther once spoke the very same words.

  “Well, maybe you’re going to have to be one,” says Piers, dryly. “Just keep him. Someone will come.”

  “When? When will someone come?”

  “It could be a week,” he tells me.

  “I’m frightened,” I say. And immediately regret that I said that. Whatever this boy is, he isn’t weak. I don’t think he understands weakness.

  “Live with it, Mrs. de la Mare.” His voice is rough as sandpaper, scraping my skin. “All across the world now, people are bleeding and dying. You can put up with being a little bit frightened.”

  I don’t say anything.

  “You know what to do,” he tells me.

  Then, as though he’s ashamed of his outburst, he reaches toward me and puts a hand on my arm. I feel all his warmth through the flimsy sleeve of my blouse.

  “You’re stronger than you think,” he says. “Just keep him. Someone will come.”

  He turns and leaves me.

  KIRILL IS IN the bed, half-asleep, the blankets pressed to his face.

  I kneel on the floor beside him.

  “Kirill.”

  He opens his eyes, sees me.

  “There’s something you need to know. There’s been a change of plan,” I tell him. “That boy who was coming—the boy I knew—he isn’t coming today.”

  I notice how I’ve used the past tense—the boy I knew.

  “Has something gone wrong, Vivienne?” he asks me.

  “It’s nothing to worry about,” I say. “They’ll just have to send someone else.”

  “When, Vivienne? When will it be?”

  “We don’t know exactly,” I tell him. “It might take a few days. You’ll be safe here.”

  I see something surprising in his face—not the fear I was expecting, but a letting-go, an overwhelming relief. Yet at once I understand why he feels this—knowing he won’t have to stir from this bed, that he can just stay here, dozing in the slanting beams of sunlight. That he is at peace for the first time since the Germans broke into his house—long, long ago, in another world, in the early-morning dark of Belorussia. That he doesn’t have to fight each moment just to stay alive: that he can lie here and listen to the murmur of the pigeons on the rooftop, and dream of his forests, his rivers, of the wooden houses where the storks make their nests.

  “Thank you, Vivienne.”

  He sighs, leans back on the pillows. Sleep comes to him abruptly, like the closing of a door.

  Chapter 75

  SUNDAY. I MAKE breakfast for Evelyn and the girls; I take some food to Kirill.

  After breakfast, Blanche goes off to Matins at St. Peter’s, elegant in the velvet jacket she made. Evelyn is reading her Bible, Millie has her cardboard dolls with the sets of cutout clothes. I open my kitchen window. It’s a perfect summer morning, with a slight silver haze above us, as though all the blue of the sky is covered over with gauze. Through my open window, a polleny green air floats in, and a ripple of song from a blackbird in my pear tree. I listen for a moment.

  Another sound comes—an engine. It must be the person that Piers is sending, sooner than he said. Johnnie had said they’d bring a horse and cart, but it sounds like they’ve got a tractor. Thank God, I think. Thank God for that.

  The engine noise comes nearer. It’s moving too fast for a tractor. It stops with a scream of brakes in the lane by the gate to my yard. I hear footsteps crunching in the gravel, coming up to my house. Many footsteps.

  There’s a noisy banging at the door, which echoes in the silent house. My heart sucks at my ribs. I go to open the door.

  The man who stands there is wearing the brown OT uniform. He’s short, fleshy, intense; he has little wire-rimmed glasses and stony, light-colored eyes. There are three other OT men behind him. They all have red swastika armbands.

  “Mrs. de la Mare?”

  “Yes.”

  I feel unreal, as though I am floating high above my body. As though it’s someone else’s heart that is thudding in my chest.

  “I am going to search your house,” he says. He has a heavy accent. But I understand him perfectly. “You must come out of your house. You, and anyone else who lives here.”

  I rush into the living room.

  “Millie, go out to the yard.”

  She obeys at once, hearing my voice. She still has one of the cardboard dolls in her hand.

  Evelyn doesn’t move.

  “We have to sit out in the yard for a while,” I tell her.

  She looks up at me, puzzled.

  “I don’t see why, Vivienne. I’m perfectly comfortable here.”

  “We’ve been told to. We have to. Now,” I say.

/>   She frowns.

  “Well, whoever it was should wait awhile. They should know I don’t like to be rushed. They should show a little consideration,” she says.

  I pull her abruptly to her feet. She comes with me, but reluctantly; she’s heavy on my arm. I seat her at the table in the shadow of the pear tree. She stares at the soldiers.

  “What are these men doing, Vivienne?”

  “They’ve just come to have a look around,” I tell her. “There’s nothing to be frightened of.” Lying to her.

  She sits on the edge of her chair, her back straight and thin as a flower stalk. Her blouse has come open in front, from when I pulled her up from her chair: you can see the lace trim of her slip, and I feel embarrassed for her. But I have to leave it: I know I’d mortify her if I went to button it up.

  I stand behind her, reach for Millie. I’m no longer afraid. I feel nothing. I’m quite cold and calm and controlled; but I have Millie’s hand clutched very tightly in mine.

  Millie hisses at me.

  “My doll. You’ve creased it.” She pulls her hand away from mine, tries to smooth out the doll she was holding. “It’s ruined. And you were pinching, Mummy,” she says.

  The captain stands there watching us. He has his gun out of its holster—not exactly pointed at us, but ready in his hand. The other soldiers go into the house.

  All the time there’s a voice in my head, an icy, sensible, terrible voice: logical, rational, spelling everything out. Gunther heard someone coughing. He saw me with the tray of food I was going to take up to somebody, he knew it wasn’t for Evelyn, he could see her in her chair. Gunther knew I had a secret . . .

  I can hear them slamming around in my house, drawers thrown open, doors flung back. I still feel unreal, as though I am watching all this from a height; but my body is utterly fragile, like Millie’s cardboard cutout doll—the slightest breath of wind could blow me away. They’re beginning their search in the downstairs rooms. I hear them in the kitchen, then moving into the passageway, hear how the noise they make changes when it comes from different rooms, how their booted feet bang and clatter, going up the wooden stairs. It’s just a matter of time now.

  The captain is still watching us. He has his back to the house. I can see out over his shoulders; I can see the wall of my house, the wicket gate to my garden, the leaf-shadowed lane. Behind him, I see a shadowy shape that creeps around the corner of my house, then through the little wicket gate and out into the lane. Kirill. My heart seems to stop. All the pent-up fear rushes through me. He must have slipped down the staircase from the attic and out through Blanche’s window and onto the roof of the shed. He steps softly into the lane, crosses to the farther hedge and into the shade of my orchard, a shadow among shadows.

  A sudden wild hopefulness seizes me, hot and thrilling as fever. Perhaps we will all be saved from disaster. Perhaps Kirill will escape.

  I drag my eyes away from him, not wanting to let the captain read anything in my face. But he must have heard something—a footfall, the slightest wheezy breath.

  He turns. He curses in German, runs out into the lane.

  I wrench Millie against me, press my hand over her eyes.

  “Stop it, you’re hurting,” she says.

  She tries to struggle free, but I keep my hand sealed to her face.

  Kirill moves forward under the apple trees—walking on, not looking back.

  The captain raises his gun. One shot. The shock of it goes through me. Kirill falls: there’s no shudder, no struggle, nothing—he drops like a fruit from a tree. The speed of it, the lack of struggle, are an obscenity to me. I can see where his body lies in my orchard, so still in the long straggling grass, like a heap of clothes thrown down there.

  The captain lowers his gun, walks back to us. He has a casual air, as though this is nothing to him. I think of something Gunther once said: After a while it is very easy to kill. I suddenly hear the blackbird in my pear tree: it must have gone on singing all this time. Yet everything seems to have taken place in an absolute empty silence.

  Evelyn is sobbing, tears spilling over her face.

  “Oh God oh God oh God . . .”

  She tries to get up. I put my hands on her shoulders.

  “Evelyn, you’ve got to stay here.”

  “But it’s Eugene. They shot Eugene.” She reaches out, claws at my arm. “You’ve got to let me go to him, you’ve got to . . .”

  I try to push her back down into her chair.

  “It’s nothing to do with Eugene,” I tell her. “Eugene isn’t here.”

  “My boy. My darling boy.” Her tears fall, make glimmery tracks on her face. She hits out at me weakly. “You should have let me go to him, Vivienne.”

  “It isn’t Eugene.”

  “Of course it’s Eugene, I’d know that nice shirt of his anywhere.”

  I put my arm around her. I pray the captain didn’t hear.

  The captain slips his gun back in its holster. He takes off his glasses and wipes his face on his sleeve: he’s a fleshy man and all the action has made the sweat pour off him. His eyes seem too small without his glasses, like little pale stones.

  I hear the clock chime in my kitchen. It’s time for the service. Up at St. Peter’s, the latecomers will be shuffling into their seats. Blanche will be sitting ready, her prayerbook open at the Confession: Almighty and most merciful Father, we have erred and strayed from Thy ways like lost sheep . . . Soon the choir and the rector will start to process up the nave. I think about these things, cling to them.

  The man puts his glasses back on. He takes out a cigarette, lights it, his pale eyes fixed on my face. He has an eccentric way of smoking, cradling the cigarette in the hollow of his hand. He inhales deeply, thoughtfully. He is taking his time.

  “When the scum ran across the road behind us,” he says, “I think he came out of the back door of your house, Mrs. de la Mare.”

  “He can’t have,” I say. “He can’t have. Why would he do that?”

  “Perhaps you can tell me that,” he says.

  “It’s nothing to do with me,” I say. “I’ve never seen him before.”

  The captain goes to the door of my house, shouts a name. One of the other men comes out. The captain speaks to him briefly in German. The man crosses the lane to my orchard. I keep Millie pressed against me, try to stop her from seeing. But she won’t be held: she rams her fists against me, pushes me away. The soldier takes Kirill’s feet and drags him through the long grass, so lightly, easily, as though there is no substance to his body. I can scarcely bear to watch this, but I make myself look. I feel I owe him that—to look. I think how wet his body will be, from all the dew on the grass, and this troubles me profoundly—as though the damp could harm him. They fling his body into the back of the lorry. I wonder if they will drive to the clifftop and throw him into the sea, like all the poor souls whose bodies rot in Alderney harbor.

  The meaning of what he did presses down on me, floods through me. Thinking this, there’s a hard knot of tears in my throat. He did what he did to save us. He knew he would die—every step he took, he knew he was walking on to his death, that they would see him, that nothing could save him. While he stayed in my house, he had hope: they might not have found him, or, finding him, might have taken him back to the camp. There was still the smallest sliver of hope—they’re capricious, they could do anything. But he knew what would happen to us, to my daughters and me, if he was found in our house. And he wouldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t die to save his wife, but my children and me he could save. He gave his life for us.

  I think of him coming down the staircase, crossing the lane. Knowing. Choosing.

  One of the other OT soldiers comes out of the house. He speaks to the captain; as he speaks, the captain keeps glancing at me. They’re talking softly in German, but I can imagine their words.

  “Mrs. de la Mare.” The captain shakes his head mournfully, as though saddened by human weakness. “We have found a hidden room at the ba
ck of your house, at the top.”

  “Yes,” I say.

  “There are certain things in that room—a bed, the remains of a meal that was recently eaten. Anybody might think that you had been hiding somebody there.”

  His tone is almost regretful.

  “I have a young daughter,” I tell him. I take Millie’s hand in mine. “She likes to play house in that room.”

  I wonder if he will see my heart beating under my blouse—the way it shakes the fabric.

  “And the old woman seemed to know the scum,” he says.

  “My mother-in-law misses her son. Her son is away with the army. Sometimes she thinks she sees him when he isn’t there,” I say.

  He considers this.

  “The scum had new clothes,” he tells me.

  “Perhaps he stole them,” I say. “How would I know where he got them?”

  He is silent for a moment, cradling his cigarette in his hand.

  “Also, I notice that you seem very upset.” His eyes on me, appraising me.

  I try to make myself still. I think of Blanche at the service—make myself think of the prayers, say them over and over inside me. O God, make speed to save us. O Lord, make haste to help us . . . I cling to the words: they are bits of driftwood in a stormy sea, they keep me from going under.

  “You were very upset when we shot the scum,” he says again. “I have to ask myself why.”

  “It was a shock,” I tell him.

  “This is war, Mrs. de la Mare,” he says, wearily. “These things happen.”

  “He was helpless.” My voice is a tiny piping, blown away on the breeze. “He couldn’t defend himself. You shouldn’t have shot him.”

  The man shrugs.

  “The scum was an escaped prisoner,” he says. “He was no use to anyone. These men are all subhuman. They are not like you or me. You don’t need to concern yourself about them.”

  It’s too close to what Gunther once said. You mustn’t think about it. You must try not to dwell on it.

  He smokes his cigarette, his eyes moving over my body: he’s wondering what to do next. I feel my throat close like a fist, as I see where his gaze falls.

  Chapter 76