As I laid down my bicycle and approached, I heard Harry chime in, “I’ve got one playing merry hell too.”
Herr Weber scoffed, “Crying like a couple of babies at a little toothache. What fuss would they make having them pulled out?”
I studied Bill and Harry. “That might be the best thing.”
“The quickest way to have them back to work,” said Herr Weber.
“My mother can’t take them. She’s gone to her sister’s, and I haven’t really got time today,” I said crossly, “but I suppose I could fit it in if I leave the pigs till later.” I bent and pulled the bottle of plum brandy from my bicycle basket, saying, “Oh, Mother said I was to bring you this, Herr Weber.”
I held it to my chest as I looked at an imaginary watch. “I’d have to take them now or leave it till another day. The dentist closes at twelve.”
Bill groaned, a bit too dramatically, and Herr Weber looked carefully at me for a second or two. I tried to appear nonchalant and slightly irritated at the same time, which was tricky.
Finally, he held out his hand for the bottle and waved us away. “Go on, then. Soonest there and soonest back.”
“That’s just what I always say.” I beamed at him.
I turned to Bill and Harry. “Come!” I ordered strictly, in English. “I have not the whole of day.”
They exchanged a smirk, out of sight of Herr Weber, who was busy hiding his bottle.
I pushed my bike, and they walked beside me toward the village and the church. As soon as we were out of sight of the guard, we began to laugh.
“Did you see his face?” asked Bill.
I laughed aloud. “You such bad actors.”
“You’ll never be able to believe a word she says,” Harry remarked. “I couldn’t credit the barefaced way she lied to him.”
“And she’s so bossy,” agreed Bill. “Are you going to be like that when you’re my wife?”
At the words “my wife,” my heart jumped in my chest.
Harry asked, “Do they have to promise to obey here?”
“Oh, yes,” I said. “I promise obey!”
“That’ll be the day,” said Bill, raising his eyebrows.
We all laughed again and turned onto the hill toward the church, which towered above us on this approach. Bill looked up at it, and his pace slowed.
“Did you bring the ring?” Harry asked me.
I touched my chest. “Yes. I have.”
Bill stopped, and I thought, Oh, no, he’s changed his mind, but he shifted from foot to foot and said, “Look, Izzy—give us a mo, Harry—are you sure about this? Are you sure you know what you’re getting into?”
Harry turned aside to examine a section of tree bark.
I was nodding furiously, trying to read Bill’s eyes, to understand if he still loved me. “Yes, yes. I know. I want.”
He smiled, that mercurial smile, which lifted his whole face, and I relaxed, but only a fraction.
“And you?” I asked. “You want?”
But now his face was smiling all over. “Oh, yes, I want very much.”
Harry turned. “Well, I’m glad that’s settled. I thought I was out of a job.”
We leaned my bike behind the church and entered its cool darkness. The priest hurried forward to meet us and to lock the door behind us. The organ was playing softly, which meant Mr. Novak was already here.
I unbuttoned my coat and laid it on the back pew.
Harry whistled appreciatively, and Bill said, “You look so beautiful.”
I couldn’t stop grinning. “Excuse,” I said, turning from them to extract the ring from my bra.
We approached the altar steps. The organ stopped, and Mr. Novak appeared.
He looked anxiously at me and asked in Czech, “Are you really sure you are doing the right thing? It may be many years before you can be together.”
“Yes!” I insisted. “Yes, please help us. The prisoners might be taken away at any time.”
“And if you are married, he’ll come back for you one day.” He smiled. “Very well. It’s what your father would have done, so I’ll give you away in his name.”
Mr. Novak stayed close to us on the altar steps, translating every sentence for Bill, who nodded constantly to show he understood. Some of the words were difficult and specialized, but Mr. Novak translated so unhesitatingly that I could tell he’d been practicing. How can I thank him? I thought.
Before I knew it, we were at the point of saying each other’s name and making promises. Bill looked steadily into my eyes as he said, “I do.” And when it was my turn, I made my promises in Czech for myself, and in English for Bill.
“Dělám. I do.”
My grandmother’s ring, now cool from lying on the Bible, was pushed onto my finger by Bill. It was a little loose. I held it on tightly with the neighboring fingers and felt the strangeness of it.
“You are man and wife,” said the priest, and it was done. I was married to Bill! I was Mrs. King!
Bill kissed me, and I had to push him away, laughing. He threw his arms around Harry, who pumped his hand up and down.
The priest congratulated me stiffly and moved away.
“I’m so grateful to you,” I said to Mr. Novak. “We’re so grateful to you. You could never know how much.”
He softened a little. “You’ve always been an adventurer, Izabela, just like your father. I hope your parents will forgive me when they see you together, after the war. I’m sorry your father isn’t here to see how beautiful you look.”
He shook Bill’s hand. “Be good to her,” he said. “If I ever hear you’ve been unkind to her, I will regret my part in this day.”
“Never, sir,” said Bill. “Never in my life, I swear.” And his face shone with such joy that nobody could have failed to believe him.
I turned to Mr. Novak. “Could you get a message—”
But he cut across me, holding up his hand for silence, as if this was something he’d anticipated, and his voice was clear and oddly loud. “Nobody in the village has any contact with them. You must know that.”
“But . . .” I stopped. Did he think someone in the church was listening? If so they’d have heard the whole wedding service and would surely be on their way to pick up Bill.
Mr. Novak waved his hand. “Go on, then. Get him back to work, before someone comes looking for you.”
We thanked him hastily and headed toward the door. I looked for the priest to thank him too, but he was nowhere to be seen.
I pulled my coat back over my dress as Bill said good-bye to Harry. I watched as they shook hands, and then Bill pulled Harry to him in a fierce hug. I hadn’t thought how it would be for Harry without the friend who’d been with him through the worst possible experiences, even facing a firing squad. They hadn’t been separated for five long years.
“Good luck, mate,” said Harry in a strangled voice.
Bill released him, and I could see the tears in his eyes. “I’ll find you when we get home.”
Harry gave him a play punch on his arm. “You’d bloody better.” And he turned away.
The plan was for Harry to go back to the field and say he’d had his tooth removed, but the dentist needed to keep Bill overnight as he had a nasty abscess and had fainted after his tooth was pulled. Later, when they discovered Bill was missing, Harry would say he intended to head north to the resistance, when actually we would be heading due west.
I shook his hand and thanked him, and we parted company, Harry to the field and Bill and I back to my house. Bill turned as we rounded the corner, but Harry was already out of sight.
Bill chattered all the way back, recounting moments from the service as if I hadn’t been there, and I slowly realized he was as nervous as I was about what would happen next.
“And you’ve got it just right,” he said
. “You’re supposed to have something borrowed, something blue, something old and something new!”
“My dress blue,” I agreed. “My grandmother ring old, and borrowed.”
“Two for one!” he laughed.
I tried to think what I had that was new. My newest things were my underclothes, but I was too shy to say that word to him.
“New?” I repeated as if it was a puzzle that must be solved or our whole marriage would be doomed to failure.
“It’s me!” he exclaimed with delight. “I’m new! I’m your new husband!”
We looked at each other as if neither of us could believe our luck.
Back at the house, I pulled the kitchen door shut behind us and locked the bolts top and bottom, and then Bill was kissing me, pressed hard up against me, until I could hardly breathe.
“Wait,” I said, pushing him away. He perched on the edge of the table to catch his breath and watched me opening the larder for the mug of plum brandy.
“You’re so beautiful,” he groaned. “I can’t wait a moment longer.”
But I poured the brandy into two big glasses, and we clicked them together.
“Here’s to us,” said Bill, “the bride and groom.”
“To us.” I said. “Na zdraví!”
“Na zdraví!” he repeated badly, and dashed off his glass in one swig, which made him cough.
“Firewater!” he choked, and I laughed at him, sipping from my glass more slowly and leading him by the hand from the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom.
I pulled the curtains, wishing it was darker, and he began to kiss me again. The plum brandy had gone to my head, and I felt dizzy, and wet between my legs. Bill was trembling so much, I had to help him unbutton my dress. I dropped it down onto the floor and stepped out of it in my underclothes. He held me at arm’s length and looked at me in my underwear and then placed something from his pocket on the bedside table. I knew this must be a Johnny, because he’d told me we must use one so I didn’t get pregnant. I hoped it wasn’t such a sin in wartime.
And then we were kissing and touching everywhere, like in the barn or the woods, but not like, because now we took off each other’s remaining clothes one by one until we were both quite naked and I caught sight of his thing standing up at attention. He seemed to be quite proud of it. I hoped he liked my body more than I liked that. He stood me away from him and looked greedily at me, at my breasts and my triangle of hair, until I wanted to cover myself. I thought how long it had been since he’d seen a naked woman—even a picture of one—and tried not to wonder who the last one was.
“Perfect,” he breathed, and lowered me onto my narrow childhood bed, and lay half beside me and half on me, skin against skin for the whole length of our bodies. The wickedness of this, in my parents’ house, in my girlhood bed, was utterly thrilling. He turned away to do something secret with the Johnny and then lifted me on top of him. There was a pushing sensation, and then a sliding, and we were joined completely, but then he stopped moving, and it all seemed to be over. I wasn’t sure what had happened, if that was how it was meant to be, but he looked humiliated, and I guessed there should be something more.
“I’m so sorry. It’ll be better next time, I promise. You were just too much for me.”
“Everything beautiful,” I said. “You beautiful. I love you.”
He slid a finger between my legs—to make it better, he said—but I stopped him. It was enough that we were properly married.
So he wrapped me in his arms and legs, kissing my forehead, and I lay there, wanting more and more of this closeness, and wanting never to move again, until my skin began to cool, and I felt goose bumps down my flank.
When I went to the bathroom, there was blood down my inner thighs, and I exalted in it because it meant I was truly married; I was Bill’s wife, till death do us part. I wondered if I should take my sanitary belt from its hiding place in my kit bag, but as I cleaned myself, the blood was stopping already.
I came out of the bathroom wrapped in a towel, and Bill kissed me. His thing now bounced limply against his thigh, and I liked it better like this. But now there was time for me to take in his desperate thinness. His arms and legs were muscled, but thin as sticks. I could see all his ribs, and when he turned, he had no bottom. It twisted my insides with fear. What was I doing if his captivity had brought him to this? This was not a game; it was serious. I must have a chance to fight in the war, which had done this to him. And we must never get caught. He grinned at me, and I banished the thought. There was a little blood and wetness on my quilt. I thought I must wash that before we left the house.
* * *
I dressed in my brother’s long underwear and was putting my arm into my great-aunt’s bust-flattening corset when Bill came back into the bedroom with a small towel around his waist. My stomach contracted with lust at his smooth white body. He was looking at me the same way, and I automatically crossed my arms over my breasts. Bill took them down gently and kissed one breast and then the other, and I could feel his thing hardening again. So soon? I thought. There was so much I didn’t know. But he didn’t try to do it again, just helped me wrap the corset around me and lifted my arm to tighten the lacing down the side.
“I’m sorry you have to squash them like this,” he said, placing a hand on my chest.
I had to concentrate, or I would be begging him to make me a wife again.
“Tighter,” I said. He tugged at the laces and the bandeau squashed me flat.
“Whatever is this thing?” He stared at me with his head held on one side like a bird, studying me from the front and then from the side.
“Was old fashion. To look like boy.”
“Yes,” he said slowly, “it works, if someone didn’t know to look. What an odd sort of fashion. Who’d want that?”
“Nineteen twenties,” I told him. “Girls want to look like boy. Want to do things did in war. Drive truck. Work.”
He laughed. “Who’d want to drive a truck?” he asked, and I could see I had so much to teach him about women.
“You dress,” I ordered, and he laughed.
“See, still bossy.”
As I pulled my brother’s clothing on over the corset, I watched Bill. It was odd to see him dressing in clothes that had belonged to my father and brother. Bill would have to be husband, father and brother to me now. I pushed away the thought before it made me cry, and I went to return Grandmother’s wedding ring to its hiding place and wash the blood from my quilt. When the bed was properly made again, we picked up our kit bags, and I gazed around my room carefully and seriously. He knew I was saying good-bye and gave me a moment, but not long enough to get emotional.
“I’m starving,” he said, and I realized I was too. In the kitchen we tucked into bread, cheese and sausage, and packed more into greased paper, filling our kit bags to the top, only leaving room for metal water bottles.
“Hair,” I said.
“Hair,” he agreed.
I draped a towel around my shoulders and handed him a comb and scissors.
“I love your curls,” he said. “I hate to do it.”
“Cut,” I ordered, on the verge of weeping myself.
As each lock fell, the shorter hair curled tighter to my head, and I found I liked the light feel of it. He stood back.
“I think that’ll do,” he said doubtfully. “I’m not much of a barber.”
“I go look.”
There was a mirror over the fireplace in the parlor, so I crossed the hallway and opened the door. In the half-light coming from the kitchen behind me, I saw a boy walking toward the mantelpiece. My hair was short, but not too short. It curled around my face. I looked very different, but not ugly, as I’d feared.
Bill came in and stood behind me, looking at our reflection.
“Boy?” I asked.
“A very gorgeous so
rt of boy,” he said, and twirled me toward him, seeking my lips again. I kissed him back, and then we broke away, knowing that unless we stopped now we’d have to undress again.
“You’re still the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen,” he said.
“Boy!” I said firmly. “Now boy.”
He fingered a few notes on the piano—the wedding march—then swung himself onto the seat and played it, full and glorious, moving as if his body were part of the instrument.
“You play,” I said. “I listen while work.” He didn’t need persuading.
Back in the kitchen, I swept up every strand of my cut hair and burned it on the range, then washed our plates and cutlery. Bill’s music swirled around me, lifting me up. This would be our life together, filled with harmony.
When my chores were finished, Bill wrenched himself away from the piano to accompany me out into the twilit yard, where he watched as I milked the cow, fed the horse and pig and chickens, giving them all double rations. I touched the horse and pig and cow on their noses and whispered, “Good-bye. I’m sorry.” The Oily Captain would look after them.
In my mother’s bedroom, I hid the note I’d written her under the bedcovers, on her pillow.
Dearest Mama,
Bill and I have been married, properly married in church, and have gone north to try to make contact with Father and Jan. Please try to be happy for me. I’m sorry for the extra work I’m leaving you. Please give Marek a big hug from me.
I love you,
Izabela King
It had given me such a rush of joy the previous night to write my name as Izabela King, even though I wondered if I was tempting fate by writing it before the wedding. But now the marriage had taken place, and that was really who I was. I hoped she would be fooled by the lie that we were traveling north.
I’d also written another note, in German, for the Oily Captain, which I was going to push under the door of our nearest neighbor to the north, before we turned back and headed west. This one read,
The Prisoner's Wife Page 8
