by Alan Cumyn
“Of course!” she said. “And having a garden, and decorating all the rooms, and getting some decent furniture. I know we can’t afford it all right away —” She saw the warning look in my eye. She stopped and put her warm hand on the back of my neck. “But this has been good too.”
There is great comfort when things are getting better, when you can see the structures rising around you and the materials smell of new hope, and your efforts seem to stand plumb and straight against the rains and winds of the world, the drunken, reeling decisions of the gods.
“He has deigned to appear!” Dorothy said, as I stepped through the office door. She had moved the coat stand for some reason, and I stood in dumb silence looking for it as the rainwater drained from my coat and umbrella.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “Yesterday I was working on the wiring. I just couldn’t get away. I should have sent a message that I wouldn’t be in.”
I spotted the coat stand then — behind her desk, hidden under clothing, of course.
“I’ll stay late tonight,” I said. “I’m sorry if it’s extra for the models, but I really couldn’t —”
“Mr. Crome,” she said, looking down now at her papers. Her face was white and hard. “I’m not sure I can afford an artist as preoccupied as you’ve become with this country house of yours. You’ve missed days and been late on other occasions.”
“It won’t happen again,” I said quickly.
“You’re looking unnaturally happy as well,” she said then, and without tilting her head she let her clear grey eyes roam upwards to catch my gaze. “The country air seems to be good for you.” The slightest edge of a grin was beginning to appear.
“Yes.”
“And the wife and child, are they well planted?”
“I’ve put them in the back meadow between the old cornstalks. They get full morning sun and shade in the afternoon. They should come up like blazes in the warm weather.”
David wandered into the office then. His coat was hanging open and the buttons of his cardigan were done up in the wrong order. He had his hat in his hand and his grey mess of hair was flattened on one side, as if he’d been sleeping against it on a soaked park bench until three minutes ago.
“My Lord. It’s an apparition!” David said, looking at me.
“Ramsay has left his family with the chickens,” Dorothy said. “And he promises we’re going to see more of him.”
“Thank God for that. I’m getting tired of holding up this business single-handedly. Perhaps I should just go home and let Ramsay do my work for several weeks while I recuperate?”
I wedged myself behind Dorothy’s chair and set to hanging up my coat and umbrella. She scooted her chair back so that my legs were jammed against the file cabinet. “There now! You’re trapped. No more escaping to Arcadia. You will stay here and do my bidding, do you understand?”
Featherweight though she was, she was pushing with some force against me, and it would have taken an effort to move her. She was grinning at me too, like a girl racing around the playground.
David shuffled his feet, his own soaked coat in his hand.
“If I didn’t know better,” he said, “I’d swear you two were married.”
“How have you been, Ramsay?” Margaret asks. It is late at night and the cold wind is seething through the barracks walls. I’m shivering in my clothes beneath a single hard, threadbare blanket, straining to make her out in the gloom.
“I didn’t expect to see you,” I say.
Her neck is so white. She has wrapped herself in a shawl but her throat is exposed. Her eyes are dark and thoughtful.
“I haven’t forgotten you.”
“But you’ve married Boulton!”
“Would you shut up?” someone says in the darkness, and several others groan. A few men smoke in the corner, the dull light of their cigarettes poking the gloom. But I’m not the only one making noise. There are the usual assorted sobs and snores and angry whispered conversations with the devils in men’s own head.
She kneels close to me and puts a hand on my cheek. “I had to see how you were.”
“A bloody mess,” I whisper back. Her fingers are cold, as if she’s been walking miles in the frigid wind to get here.
“I don’t want you to forget me,” she says.
Someone laughs out loud, a harsh, breathless, lunatic noise.
I stare at her. I can’t move, can’t take her face in my hands or kiss her lips or push her away. Her hair is coming undone at the back. One good pull from me and it will cascade all over.
“Margaret, you are a dark poison in my brain. I couldn’t root you out if I wanted to. Why in God’s name did you marry him?”
She is quiet for the longest time, and her glistening eyes hold mine no matter where I turn. I feel myself slowly crumbling into just another sobbing wretch.
“You come back to London,” she says gently. “I need to see you safe.”
A thousand blasphemies rise and die in my throat.
“You come back to London,” she says.
Now the paint was dry. We’d been moving furniture most of the day. We’d even somehow managed a Christmas tree with homemade ornaments and a few trifling gifts for ourselves. But we were in our castle and the boy was asleep in his own room and the walls smelled of paint, not wet canvas tenting. We had running water, wooden doors, glass windows and a new electric icebox that vibrated the whole house when it hummed.
Here was my new studio surrounded by windows that, in the light of day, would look out on blue mountains and rolling fields. And here was the storage room where I could keep my paintings under proper conditions, safe and private and free from dusty, crowded corners. And here was my tired but blossoming wife, and here was our bed, and everything was new and built and in order.
“I can’t believe it,” she said, and let herself fall backwards onto the mattress. Her body bounced once and again, then she lay giggling. “It’s ours.”
“Mainly the bank’s.” I followed her onto the bed. Our beautiful new coal furnace was heating the house prodigiously against the cold of Christmas Eve.
“But we own this bedroom.”
“Yes. This part is ours.” I rolled on top of her and we kissed and she settled herself beneath my weight.
“I hope we never have to move.”
“Never. They’ll bury us out back!” I said, and I kissed her again. She smelled of the sweet bread she’d been baking all afternoon. I was waiting for her to tell me she was exhausted or to remember one more thing to do for Christmas. But she stayed where she was.
“It will be better here,” she whispered.
We left the lights blazing. I’d done all the wiring myself, all the plumbing, had raised the walls and seen it through, and we deserved this night of love. I yearned to lie in the soft, strong luxury of her flesh and feel her waters rise. I wanted to keep my eyes open and have it last eternally. She was gaining a taste for it. It had been a long time coming, but the exit from Montreal was what started it, the months under canvas added to the momentum, and now she moved to my touch and bound herself to me, and our bed jumped and clanged on the new, unfinished floor.
I fell asleep against her as she stroked my hair and held my head.
That night I dreamt I was walking in the woods, although the mountains in the distance were not English, and Margaret was wearing a long gown I’d never seen her in. I was looking for a spot in the bushes, some dry clearing out of sight where I could take her hand and pull her next to me. But nothing seemed to be quite right.
She said, “You really do deserve this, Ramsay.”
I kept looking.
“After everything.”
She didn’t seem jealous at all. I could picture myself peeling off her dress. But we would need to get into the shadows, away from the sun. It was hot, not wintertime at all. Even the leaves on the trees were warm, and her skin was so fair she’d redden easily, even blister.
“It’s silly to think of a man loving ju
st one woman for all his life,” she said. “You could love two quite easily. Or more, perhaps. If only society weren’t so stuck.”
She was inviting me — clearly she was. I hadn’t known before, but now I did. All I needed was the right spot. I looked and looked, but the wall of the forest grew thicker.
I looked.
And Lillian said, “Ramsay!”
I bolted upright. The room was filling with smoke.
“Michael!” Lillian screamed and left me in a moment. Most of the bedding either followed her onto the floor or, wrapped round her, went down the stairs, where I could see licks of flame in the blackness. “Michael!” she screamed again and again. A moment later I heard her cry, “There you are!”
I still hadn’t moved from the bed.
The heat of the fire sprang through the walls. I ran to the closet that still had no door and pulled something off the rack and around my body. Then I stumbled into my studio and opened the storeroom and began to throw the paintings out the window in pairs, in threes, in singles. I could see first Michael on the ground — he was tiny, in bare feet, scrambling on the snow — then Lillian in her nightdress gathering him up.
“Ramsay! Come down!” she screamed to me.
“I’ve got time!” I yelled back and continued tossing. I tried to send them flat into the night so that they would land as softly as possible.
“Ramsay!”
Even in the shadows and the smoke I could see the paint on the walls bubbling and blackening. But this is not it, I thought. I am not going to die tonight.
I got the last of the paintings out. Lillian was screaming at me from below, but at least she had sense enough to stay a good distance away with the child. I flung myself into mid-air and fell flat upon landing, the thin snow barely cushioning my fall.
But nothing broken.
“Get away! Away from the damn thing!” I yelled. We sprinted down to the meadow. I was in sock feet but somehow didn’t feel the cold, not immediately. We hadn’t struck the tent yet and thankfully some blankets had been left out. I was sick at the sight of the house — a crackling burst of light in the cold darkness. Then we heard alarms in the distance, and neighbours ran to help now, voices shouted for us. Even down in the meadow the heat of the blaze drew sweat to my face.
I saw in Lillian’s face a register of the shock of it, and baby Michael looked on in wonder as timbers started to fall.
“Your paintings!” Lillian said suddenly.
The south wall folded like a man suddenly driven to his knees, and a burst of flame and chaos spread over the ground where most of the canvasses had fallen.
“Let them burn,” I said quietly.
“But you saved them!”
“I was stupid to even waste a thought.” And then, when I saw the look on her face, I said, “We’re all safe.”
“But what are we going to do?” Lillian wailed. “Everything’s gone!”
“Do?” I said as lightly as I could. I felt oddly happy, as if my sails were unexpectedly full of wind. “In the morning we’ll have breakfast and then start again from scratch.”
Soon the neighbours found us with their flashlights. Their voices were full of excitement and concern. “We’re over here!” I called. “We’re all right!” and I stepped forward. I had Michael in my arms now, and young as he was, I wanted him to see it. I wanted him to know what to do when the world has come crashing down.
“I need your help.” The words slip out almost carelessly, although I’ve been rehearsing them for days. I am pushing my broom with feigned industry while Henrike stands behind me, apparently watching a pair of birds that have slipped inside the factory.
“Yes?”
“I need clothes.”
“For winter?”
“To leave.”
She turns around as the birds swoop low past long, whirring machinery belts and then wheel higher into the rafters of the old place. We are all watching them. Her face betrays nothing.
The cracked windows and leaky walls of the factory keep out none of the gathering winter. We are defenceless against it — all of us, Germans, British, Belgians, Russians. For months it seems we’ve been hearing the news of the great Fatherland’s victories, but the German faces on the street are as pale and gaunt and joyless as ever, and the soup in camp has not thickened. But the packages from home have stopped coming. Either the Germans are stealing them outright, or the war is grinding out its victories by devouring both sides.
I wait for a sign from Henrike. She is preoccupied the rest of the day, then absent the next, which is not unusual — the leather shortages are so acute that our production some days falls to nothing. The next day is idle too, and I spend much of it sitting in a spot of sun behind the shelter of the least grimy window in the place. I allow myself three cigarettes and smoke them as slowly as possible.
When she comes back at last she pays me no mind until near the end of the day. Then she gives me a slight nod, a signal that usually means for us to meet later in the storeroom. But the door is locked, and I cannot contrive to wander by it more than twice without arousing suspicions.
I begin to wonder if I spoke to her in the first place or have imagined it all.
Finally, about a half-hour before the end of the day I see her talking with some of the men who work the machines. Once she points directly at me, and they all look. They continue their discussion. I die slowly on my feet, my heart breaking. If they come for me I will seize the first and shove his body into one of the leather cutters. I’ll grab the next and fling him into a whirring belt, and then I’ll run like a rat until they catch and kill me.
She leaves the men. She is walking towards the storage area, and it seems the workmen are still staring at me, but when I look at them they appear preoccupied with other things.
It’s a trap, but I have no choice. I leave my broom standing up against an old locker and walk directly to the storeroom even before Henrike is out of sight. No sense hiding it anymore. She is betraying me. It’s not her fault. It’s the fault of the war, which is stronger than nations, than empires, than history itself. The war is calling me, and I have no choice.
I leave the door to the storeroom open so the men can come in and catch me. When Henrike enters her eyes are wild with alarm. She stands shaking, feverish in the face despite the awful chill.
“Change quickly,” she says, and thrusts a bundle of clothing into my hands. “Then out through there.” She barely indicates the broken window high up the wall behind her.
She lowers her head and leaves, closing the door behind her.
The clothes are a fit for a German giant, not for me. Yet there seems nothing else to do but to carry on with the charade. In a moment men will burst through the door and beat me to death right here.
But they don’t come. I have time to bundle my prisoner rags in the corner, to take the rope belt from my old trousers and bind it round the new ones to keep them from falling, then to climb on an old table and up some shelves. The door does not open. I reach the window and hear some men coming. I imagine them with heavy spanners and huge iron wrenches, clubbing me senseless in just a few minutes.
But the door stays shut and all becomes quiet.
I struggle out the window and peer down from a dizzying height at an empty, filthy cobblestoned back alley I’ve never seen before. On the way down I have almost nothing to cling to — a bit of ledging, some faults in the brickwork where the mortar has fallen out. I jump the last several feet and land with the grace of a bag of rocks falling to the ground.
When I regain my feet and look at the opened window perhaps fifteen feet above me, it seems impossible that I was up there myself just moments before.
What to do? I have no extra food. I can’t even think of what side of the factory I’m on or how I might best hide myself until dark. The alley is walled on three sides and leads, apparently, out to the large street that fronts the building. The doors on the left will only bring me back into the factory. I don’t know
what’s on the right.
I stand in shock and indecision until a wagon comes clop-ping up the alley towards me. The horse is tired and slack, her ribs standing out and her head drooping almost to the cobblestones. An old man is driving. He nods just the once as if we were introduced long ago and he knows all about me.
When he gestures towards the back I stand rooted for a moment, stupidly uncomprehending, until I force myself to move. The bed of the cart is made of wood so old and worn I think it must have been fashioned in medieval times. I burrow under a pile of canvas sacking that smells of earth and rotten potatoes, and then the wagon starts backing up. All the way down the alley we ride. Between the sacking I can just see a strip of sky, segments of the grim and crumbling walls of the factory. I can hear the horse’s hooves slipping on the cobblestones as she awkwardly manoeuvres backwards. Then we must be emerging onto the street, wagon first, with me cowering, trying to stay still.
At last we change direction and I watch the roofs of the buildings scrape the edge of the sky and hear other vehicles — many horse-drawn, but some with engines. I stay as still as possible. Gradually the old town of Münster gives way, and I can smell the countryside and feel the difference in the ride and noise of the wheels from paved road to dirt and rocky lanes.
Finally the wagon stops. I smell mud and manure and hear the honking of a goose. Cautiously I look up. The farmer is standing on the ground now, motioning to me. I crawl down stiffly and he hurries me into a low rock barn, which is packed with hay in one corner. He doesn’t say a word but points, and so I climb into the damp, smelly mess and cover myself. Then he leaves. The wooden door bangs shut and I wait. When it gets dark i’ll head west. Münster is close to the Dutch border. But I didn’t get a good look around and will be lost if I can’t glimpse the sun before it goes down.
Cautiously I stand up and approach the door. Silence. I creep out and survey the area quickly: a shabby old farmhouse, a series of low walls, pastures down a hillside, trees in the distance where the sun appears to be heading. I steal past the edge of the barn, trying to seal the sight into my mind. Then I am seized by an overwhelming need to pee. I fumble with the new trousers.
