When It's Over

by Barbara Ridley

  “I feel a bit more useful. We’ve been setting up anti-aircraft bunkers, a whole network of underground rooms. The big guns arrive next week. Of course, I’m not supposed to say anything. Sworn to secrecy and all that.” He grinned.

  “I won’t say a word.”

  They climbed over a gate and headed into a small wood, dark and shady after the bright sun. Lancelot scooted under the lowest bar and scampered ahead. Moisture dripped from the trees. Milton led them down a steep, narrow path.

  “Watch your step here,” he said. “I heard that your father and brother were arriving soon with the Free Czech Army. Have you heard any more from them?”

  “Yes, they’re in Chess-heer, is that how you say it? Near Chester.”

  “Cheshire?”

  “Yes, that’s it,” Lena said. “At least, my brother is, and my father will arrive any day now. My brother has invited me to go visit them.”

  “You must go, of course,” Milton replied. He motioned for her to go ahead now that the terrain was flatter.

  “I’m not sure. It depends on what happens with Otto.”

  “But you must go to see them, hear news of your mother and Sasha. It’s been so long since you’ve heard from them. You will learn something at least about what life is like in Prague now.”

  Lena stopped and looked at him in amazement. He understood. He even remembered her sister’s name.

  “Yes,” she said. “That’s it. I will go, of course.”

  They extended their walk to the village of Elminghurst, returning on a narrow, winding lane past several farmhouses and the quarry. Alistair was already there when they reached The Hollow.

  “Lena, my dear.” He beamed at her. “I’m so glad to see you. I think we’re making some progress. Eleanor Rathbone has been creating a stink in the House about this whole internment business, and the Home Secretary is clearly on the defensive.”

  “But did you find out anything specific about Otto?” Milton asked.

  “I’m getting to that,” Alistair replied. He gestured for Lena to take a seat. “I met with a senior official at the Home Office. I explained all the extenuating circumstances.” He stole a sideways glance at her. “I hope I didn’t overstep the bounds of my mission, my dear.”

  “I’m sorry?” Lena was perplexed.

  “I took the liberty of going into some detail about your situation,” Alistair said. “I said Otto’s girlfriend . . . ahem”—he paused, gave a little cough—“or, rather, his fiancée, was a Czech Jew with a father and brother in the Free Czech Army. That seemed to impress him. You know how one has only to mention Czechoslovakia and Munich in Whitehall these days to have them falling over themselves to make amends.”

  He looked from Lena to Milton and back to Lena again, then looked at his long fingers splayed out on his lap. “Anyway, ahem, the Home Office chap implied that Otto’s release could be arranged. That is, ahem, providing he were to marry you immediately.”

  CHAPTER 23

  SUSSEX, JULY 1940

  We must remember to buy fuel for the primus stove,” Lotti said. She stood at the mirror at the foot of the stairs, rearranging her curls for the third time, pivoting to inspect her profile. Lena came down, wearing a simple white blouse and a gray skirt, together with a pale blue jacket borrowed from Muriel.

  “Are you sure you don’t want to wear the hat?” Lotti said. “It would bring out the blue in your eyes.”

  “No, I don’t want the hat.” Lena laughed. “I wish you’d stop fussing about what I’m wearing.”

  Actually, she wished that she and Otto could go off and do this on their own, but they were obliged to bring two witnesses. Peter and Lotti had seemed like the obvious choice, but now Lena wished they’d asked Tomas and Emil instead. Lotti was being entirely too exuberant about the whole thing.

  “It’s early-closing day,” Peter called out from the kitchen, where he was working on the breakfast dishes. “We’ll have to do any shopping beforehand. Everything will be closed after lunch.”

  “Where’s Otto?” Lena said.

  “I sent him off to borrow a tie from Alistair,” Lotti said.

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake,” Lena said, looking at her watch. “We need to go.”

  “We can meet him at the bus stop,” Lotti said, checking her reflection one more time. Lena averted her eyes from the glass. Earlier, Lotti had tried to put some life into Lena’s thin, straight hair. This had involved a lot of pulling and twisting and dozens of hairpins, and it was now very uncomfortable. Lena feared that if she caught another glimpse of it, she might be tempted to pull it all apart.

  Peter steered them toward the front door. “Let’s hope Otto doesn’t get cold feet,” he said, winking at Lena.

  Tomas, reading on the sofa, lowered The Times onto his lap. “He doesn’t have much choice in the matter, does he?” he said. “It’s either this or off to camp on the Isle of Man.”

  “Come on. Let’s go,” Lotti said. She glared at Tomas. “There’s a party tonight at Muriel’s, but you don’t deserve an invitation. Though, of course, knowing you, you’d never miss a chance for a free drink.”

  Tomas laughed. “Fuel bottle!” he called out after them. Peter grabbed the large glass jar from the table.

  They caught up with Otto at the bus stop. He sauntered toward them wearing not only a navy-blue tie but also a crisp linen jacket he must have borrowed from either Alistair or Milton. It was a bit short in the sleeves, but he looked quite dashing. Lotti must have done something with his hair, too, because it was more compliant than usual, neatly parted and lightly oiled into place. Just behind him came Milton; he carried a small bouquet of flowers, a delicate lilac bloom surrounded by Queen Anne’s lace, which he presented to Lena.

  “Flowers for the blushing bride,” he said, with a small bow.

  And indeed she was blushing. Darn it, she could feel the color rising to her cheeks. “Thank you,” she murmured.

  “A small gesture,” Milton said. He turned to Otto. “I hope all goes well. I’m frightfully sorry—I can’t join you for the party tonight. I’m due back on base this afternoon.”

  He gave a cheery wave. Lena watched him retreat across the green, sorry that he wouldn’t be there this evening. He always added a spark of fun.

  Otto leaned over to kiss Lena on the cheek, and she smiled. He had been more outwardly affectionate since his release the previous week. He didn’t talk much about his experiences at the racetrack. He had once mentioned a young boy he had befriended, but he’d been vague when Lena had pressed for more details. Yet something in Otto had shifted.

  He turned to Peter now and said, “Did you bring the newspaper? I haven’t had a chance to read it yet.”

  “Tomas has it. He always takes forever. He reads every word.”

  “I saw a headline about internees being shipped off to Canada and Australia. I wanted to read that.”

  “Yes,” Peter said. “They’re saying it’s only the confirmed Nazis who are being deported overseas.”

  “That’s not true,” Otto said. His mouth was set in a hard line. They all waited, expecting more, but he looked at his watch and said, “What time is the bus due?”

  The register office was across from the town hall. They had to get the fuel for the stove first, and Lena was afraid they might be late; there was a queue in the hardware shop. They hurried up the High Street, Peter carrying the refilled bottle and Lena still holding the flowers. Another party emerged as the group from Upper Wolmingham arrived: a very young bride, surely no more than sixteen, in a white cotton dress, wobbling on high-heeled shoes and clutching the arm of a soldier in army uniform. A group of middle-aged women dabbed at moist eyes and threw pink rose petals over the newlyweds, who posed for photographs. Lena and the others waited politely to the side.

  “Rose petals!” Lotti said, stooping to pick up a handful. “That’s a nice idea.”

  The office was narrow but bright and airy, with sunlight streaming in from two large windows. In front of
the windows, a long table faced several rows of plain wooden seats, evidently intended for family and friends. Their little group made the room conspicuously empty. Lena felt a flash of nostalgia for fantasies she’d held years ago for a very different type of wedding day. Máma didn’t even know she was getting married. And this didn’t feel like happily ever after. What was it going to mean, really, for her and Otto? They hadn’t talked about it at all until last night, and then only briefly.

  “Thank you for doing this, Lena,” he’d said as they lay together in the darkness. By tacit agreement, she and Otto had taken the upstairs bedroom every night since his release. She would have preferred to talk with the light on, but he turned it off before rolling on top of her for lovemaking.

  “It’s the least I can do,” she said. She wouldn’t be here were it not for Otto. She wrapped her legs around him the way he liked, stroking the backs of his calves with her feet.

  “You know, I don’t expect a traditional marriage or anything,” he said.

  Of course not. She knew that. Marriage was nothing—a bourgeois institution, they always said. In all their political discussions. A bourgeois institution.

  “I’m just happy there was a way to get you out of that place,” she said.

  She held him in the darkness. Otto would get the piece of paper he needed to keep him free. This wedding was purely an expedient procedure.

  Now, the registrar appeared through a side door. He was a diminutive, soft-spoken man of about fifty, with a receding hair-line and thin-rimmed spectacles. He introduced himself, shaking hands and gesturing for them to advance to the table. He nodded and beamed at Lena and Otto as they signed in, presented their identity cards, and completed the necessary paperwork. His right eye twitched as he supervised the process. Lena dutifully wrote her name as Kulkova, and then her father’s name, Jakob Kulka. She hesitated at the next box: father’s occupation. What should she put? He was no longer in the carbon-paper business, obviously. He was in the army, but she didn’t know his rank. She wrote simply: soldier.

  The registrar adjusted his spectacles and reviewed their entries. “Ahem. There must be some mistake,” he said, with a little cough. “Your name and your father’s, they do not match.”

  “Yes,” Lena said. “Kulka, Kulkova, it’s the same. Kulkova is the female.”

  “But they have to be the same name.” The right eye twitched rapidly.

  “But it is the same,” Lena replied.

  He shook his head and looked again at the names in front of him. He reexamined Lena’s identity card. “I think we’ll have to change his name to Kulkova in order for this to be valid,” he said, rubbing his hand through what was left of his hair. “I can’t have a discrepancy in the official records.”

  “That’s absurd!” Peter protested. “That’s like calling him Mrs. Kulka. His name isn’t Kulkova; it’s Kulka. This is the Czech custom. The woman takes her father’s name with -ova added to it.”

  “This is most irregular,” the registrar muttered, ignoring Peter. “I don’t know if I can do this.” For a moment, Lena thought the whole thing might get derailed on this technicality, but then he turned to Otto to ask, “Are you in agreement with this, sir?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “Well, this is a new one, I have to say. Kulka, Kulkova,” he repeated. He shook his head again, adjusted his spectacles, and stared at the form. “I suppose I can let it go this once.” Then he looked up and added, “But I can’t make a habit of it.”

  A habit of it? Was this meant as a warning that he wasn’t going to marry any more Czechs? Lena’s mouth jerked as a spasm of giggles prepared to erupt. She bit the inside of her cheek in an effort to keep a straight face and forced herself not to catch Peter’s eye. They stood in silence as the registrar completed the ledger.

  “And these are your witnesses, sir?” he asked Otto.

  “Yes.”

  The registrar turned to Peter for the first time, and his eyes fell on the bottle of purple methylated spirits cradled carefully in his hands.

  “What, may I ask, is that?” he said.

  “It’s fuel,” Peter said.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “Another Czech custom,” Peter said, holding up the bottle, as if to offer a toast.

  This time there could be no holding back. The laughter burst out of Lena, propelling a glob of spittle onto the registrar’s shiny black jacket. It rested there on his lapel throughout the proceedings, like a third witness.

  She didn’t tell Otto about the telegram until after they returned home, piece of paper duly in hand: Mr. and Mrs. Eisenberg. She joined him outside on the wooden bench under the kitchen window.

  “My father’s arrived in England,” she said. He seemed to be having difficulty getting his pipe to stay lit; he was poking and puffing away and didn’t look at her. “I’m going to go to Cheshire to visit him and Ernst.”

  “I thought you were never going to speak to your father again.”

  “That was before . . .”

  “Before what?” He removed the pipe from his mouth.

  “What do you mean, ‘before what’?” She spread her arms wide in front of her, palms up. “Before Blitzkrieg, the fall of Paris, an imminent invasion, the Free Czech Army—all that.”

  “Have you forgotten how he wouldn’t let you out for days at a time? How he beat you? Gave you a huge black eye and bruises all over your arms? His behavior was disgusting. He’s a reactionary capitalist, isn’t he? That’s what you always said.”

  Why were they arguing? It wasn’t what she wanted, especially not right before tonight’s party, where she knew they would be the center of attention, in spite of all her efforts to downplay things.

  She put her hand on his thigh and gently flicked away a few stray strands of tobacco. “Yes, he beat me, and yes, I said I would never speak to him again, but things have changed. He’s my father, and he’s done a brave thing, escaping to join the army. I want to go see him. I want to hear from him how my mother and sister are coping, or at least how they were when he left. I’m sure there’re things he cannot put into letters.” Her thoughts fell into place as she spoke, like pieces of a puzzle assembling before her eyes.

  Otto looked as though he were about to offer another counterargument, but instead he gave a quick shrug and said, “All right. I’m sorry. You go. But I hope you don’t expect me to go with you.”

  “No, I want to go by myself.” Lena added, “When I get back, perhaps we could go away together for a couple of days. Just the two of us.”

  “Perhaps.”

  But, realistically, where could they go? How could they afford it? She’d had to borrow money from Muriel for the train ticket to Cheshire.

  They sat in silence, until Lena said, “Don’t you ever wonder about your brother, where he is and what he’s doing? You never talk about him.”

  “What’s there to say? He’s a Nazi.” He fiddled with the pipe again, lit another match. “I have no interest in hearing from him. For all I know, he’s in northern France, preparing to invade. I’m sure he would shoot me if he had the chance.”

  “You can’t really believe that.”

  “Lena, Hans and I are nothing to each other—nothing. We haven’t spoken in years. He’s a fascist. It was probably he who denounced me to the Gestapo in Berlin the night Rudolf and Max were arrested.” He looked over toward the privet hedge, but his focus was obviously far away. “Family isn’t always the most important thing, you know.”

  CHAPTER 24

  CHESHIRE, JULY 1940

  The train took Lena from London to Crewe and then on to the little market town of Nantwich. What was it about a train journey that was so alluring? The endless track, with its open possibilities; the fleeting views of different slices of life captured in a single moment; the billowing, sooty-smelling clouds of steam; the clickety-clack of the wheels; the mingling of diverse passengers and voices and accents—it all excited her. Traversing the backbone of the country was
like exploring the body of a new lover. She saw green fields, rolling hills, and small, redbrick towns. And the not so picturesque: grimy, crowded, terraced slums blackened with soot, and tall factory chimneys belching out smoke. The stations were crowded with young men in military uniform, heaving large duffel bags and smoking cigarettes, going to or from leave, she supposed.

  She read a little but mostly stared out the window or exchanged brief glances with her compartment companions as they came and left. No one engaged her in conversation until Birmingham, when a young woman her own age joined the train. She was a redhead with pale, freckled skin and an unusual outfit: dark corduroy breeches, long wool socks, and sturdy brown shoes, together with a beige shirt, a green tie, and a hat with some sort of badge. As she took her seat opposite Lena, she removed the hat and shook her hair free from its bun. She offered a friendly smile.

  “Phew! It’s hot,” she said. “I love this uniform, but it’s a bit warm for this weather.” She fanned herself with the hat and smiled at Lena, who could not stop staring at her. “Where are you traveling to?”

  “Cheshire.”

  Lena had been practicing the pronunciation and thought she had perfected it. But that one word produced the response “Oh, where’re you from?”

  “Czechoslovakia,” Lena said.

  “My goodness, you’re so brave,” her companion replied. “You know all about invasion, don’t you? You must know what to expect, unlike us.”

  “Not really.” The idea surprised Lena. “I left before the Nazis arrived. But my family was there. My father and brother escaped, and they’re in the army now, in this country. I’m going to see them.”

  “I just admire you people so much. I’m Jane, by the way. Jane Gaskell.” She extended her hand and took Lena’s in a surprisingly firm shake. “Would you like a sandwich?” She rummaged in her large handbag and produced a wax-paper bundle containing four neatly stacked cheese sandwiches oozing some kind of brown sauce. “My mum seems to think I’ll starve unless she sends me off with enough food for a week.”