The Gathering Storm

by Bodie Thoene

  Eben said, “If only the world had listened to Churchill eight years ago, this could have been stopped.”

  Eva raised a finger. “Poor fellow. He has been beating his head against a dead horse, I fear.”

  Mac interjected, “Something like that…oh well.” He pushed back an overflowing ashtray. “The Brits will have to give up American cigarettes.”

  Eben agreed. “There will be rationing of everything in England. Not just luxuries.”

  I asked, “Do you think Hitler will invade soon?”

  Eben scanned the blue tobacco-smoke haze. “I believe our future is recorded in history. A siege will come now—an ancient military tactic. Isolate, blockade, and starve your enemy. Unless America enters the war, England will be broken by siege.”

  Mac ordered cider all round. “Churchill made a clear call to President Roosevelt today. The isolationists are still in control back home. England is the last fortress against Hitler in Europe. Got a letter from my mother from the States yesterday. She says U.S. sentiment to keep out of this is strong.”

  As the men discussed the collapse of France and the desperate plight of our island fortress, Eva rested her chin on her hand, smiled strangely at me, and addressed me in French. “You? And Eben?”

  I protested, even as I felt my face redden. Had the electric charge I felt at his embrace been so obvious? I feigned insult and replied in English, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Time. That is what I am speaking of. Time to love. If this is the end of the world, then I want to have lived my last moments loving and being loved. Only one time, and that is now.” She smiled sweetly, batting her long black lashes over wide, bright blue eyes.

  “I had my time.”

  “So brief. You can count it in only a few months.”

  “I loved, and I cannot love again.”

  “Cannot? The vow was: till death part you.” Eva stroked my arm and lapsed into French again. “Lora? Don’t you see the way Eben looks at you?”

  Mac raised his head in protest. “Eva! Speak English please. Translate.…”

  She shrugged. “Sorry. Yes, English. I was saying, the English are between a rock and a fireplace now. No more ladies’ stockings. No French perfume.”

  Eben lowered his chin as he considered Eva’s interpretation. “Is that so?”

  Eva raised her eyebrows comically, defending herself as she leaned close to Mac. “Stockings. Perfume. All feminine luxuries must be rationed. But love will survive, eh?”

  Mac sipped his cider and winked at Eva. “There’ll always be an England. I’ll drink to that. Yes, indeed.” Desire glinted in Mac’s eyes. Eva returned the look.

  Eben and I glanced away, both of us embarrassed by the unconcealed eagerness of our friends.

  We knew without being told more details what trauma the young woman had suffered at the hands of the Nazi soldiers. Her battered face and haunted eyes spoke more eloquently than words.

  Hermione leaned close to me. “I rang Women’s Hospital. They are swamped. Not room for even one more. A doctor, I told them. Poor thing. Something. What’s to be done?”

  I somehow knew that I must be the one to help her. Perhaps I hoped that ministering to her would also help my grief.

  “She has not spoken,” Hermione whispered. “Nor has she eaten.”

  “Do you know her name?” I asked, reticent to approach the young woman as she lay curled up on the pew.

  “Inga. That is the only name she gave when she arrived. Everyone in her traveling party was killed. She is the only survivor.” Hermione looked upward at the dark rafters. “If you can call this survival.” Hermione took my arm. “Lora, she is near your age. Perhaps a year or two younger. Surely you can find a way. Break through to her.”

  Was she French? Belgian? Dutch? I did not know if I spoke her language.

  Something inside nudged me gently. I prayed as I went to the girl and sat down at her head. She seemed oblivious to my nearness. It was as though her soul had died somewhere along the road. What vision was playing out again and again in her mind? Her gaze was fixed on the red hymnal in the rack on the pew in front of her.

  “Inga?” I spoke her name quietly, hoping she would acknowledge me in her mother tongue. But she did not reply.

  I plucked the hymnal from its holder and pretended to study its pages. Inga’s eyes did not shift or follow my movement.

  I silently asked God what I could do. How could I help this pitiful young woman who would rather be dead than alive? The answer came clearly that she and I were alike.

  Retrieving the crumpled telegram I always carried in my pocket, I smoothed the yellow paper on my thigh. Slowly I read aloud the message. “My husband,” I said.

  Glancing down, I saw a single tear trickle from the corner of her eye and roll down her cheek.

  Her gaze turned toward my face then. She said in the clear, sweet Flemish of her native Belgium: “My mother. My brothers. All dead. Brussels. The first shellings. Papa went to fight. The Ardennes. I do not know what became of him.”

  I replied in French, “My father. A pastor. Killed by the Nazis.”

  Her delicate hand lifted as though she was letting a sparrow free. “What is your name?”

  “Lora. Bittick was my father’s name. My husband was Varrick Kepler.”

  “You are not French.”

  “No. American.”

  “You speak French very well.”

  “English better.”

  “Where are you from?”

  “Mostly Brussels. We lived for a time in Berlin.”

  “Did you ever see Hitler?”

  “Yes.”

  That horrible reality drove her to a moment of thoughtful silence. “I told myself I will always hate everything German.”

  “We too are refugees. My sister and I. Like you.”

  “You were married, then.”

  “Yes. He was a Jew.”

  “You were very young.”

  “Yes. We were. Young.” My answer implied that I was no longer young. Nor was she. We had both lost our innocence. Or rather, innocence had been torn from us by force and ravaged by death.

  She raised her head and rested her cheek upon her hand as she considered me. “So was I. Very young. I will always remember that I was very young on the day war came.”

  “Inga?” I said her name and then forgot what it was I had wanted to say.

  “Where am I?” she asked, as though she had just awakened.

  “Safe,” I replied. “England. London. St. Mark’s Church.”

  “I do not know how I came here.” She eyed me curiously.

  This was a mercy, I thought. Perhaps God had blotted the horror of her experience out of her memory. Perhaps it was like a nightmare only vaguely remembered in the dawn. “We crossed the English Channel in boats. All of us who are here.”

  Her eyes clouded. “Ah, yes. That part of it, I remember now. The planes. The bombs. The water spouts. So many dead men in the water.”

  “You are alive for a purpose, Inga.”

  “You are very young to say such a lofty thing.”

  “How old are you?” I asked.

  “Eighteen. Soon nineteen.”

  “I’m twenty-two.”

  She nodded slowly, then considered me. “Tell me, Lora. Tell me about your husband. What was he like? Tell me how you escaped here to London.”

  21

  The sun had only barely risen. I accompanied Madame Rose and another covey of refugee children to Paddington Station for their journey north to the farm in Bettws-y-Coed, Wales. As they boarded, I saw painted on the side of the train a message from Dunkirk’s returning soldiers: Look out, Hitler; we haven’t started on you yet!

  “A brave sentiment,” Madame Rose said, but we all knew the truth. What led to the rescue at Dunkirk was still a crashing defeat.

  Madame Rose’s bullfrog mouth was turned downward slightly at the corners. In her gravelly voice, she said, “Still no word from my sister, Bet
sy. I have left my address with the Red Cross. Who can say how long it will be before we shall see Paris again?”

  I linked arms with her for a moment. “Perhaps a very long time. It may be that our American countrymen must come again to Europe to fight Hitler.”

  Madame Rose herded her little brood onto the train. “Wales is lovely this summer. Perhaps by autumn we will have beaten back the Hun.”

  “I’ll pray this comes to pass.”

  I embraced her as the final call for boarding sounded. I knew the train was a slow one with many stops and at least one change. I missed Mama. I missed Jessica. Grief for Varrick struck me like a physical blow once again.

  I was trying to be brave.

  Paddington was a whirlpool of emotions. Whether because of the joy of greeting or the grief of farewell, all present looked stunned. It was as if the station swallowed human reactions, leaving the previous owners pale and drawn.

  Determined not to cry, I remained on the crowded platform and watched as the train slowly pulled away. Why had I volunteered to stay behind in the city? What use could I be here? Even before the last car had left the shelter I regretted my decision. What was I doing here? Me, a widow, as clearly as if I had seen Varrick fall and die before my eyes.

  Just at the moment exhaustion and the events of the last few days seemed overwhelming, I heard a man’s voice behind me.

  “Lora?”

  “Eben.” I knew who it was before I turned to face him.

  He was smiling down into my eyes. His straight, white teeth were so perfect, so friendly and welcoming. “I just saw two professors off. A man and wife. Mathematicians. Refugees from France.”

  “Of course.” I ran my hand through my hair, aware of how exhausted and disheveled I must look.

  “French Jews. From the Sorbonne. They’ll adapt well at Oxford, I think. And you?”

  “Madame Rose and more children. All going to Wales.”

  “Wales.” He said the name like it was a far-off dream.

  “I could have said Camelot.”

  “All the same these days. But we both have work to do in London.” After a moment of awkward silence he asked, “Would you like a cup of tea?” I knew he could see right through my deception.

  “Oh. Tea. It’s been awhile. Yes.”

  “Breakfast?”

  “My stomach has forgotten the meaning of the word.”

  “Well, then. I’ve come at the right moment.”

  I followed him to the station tearoom like a lost puppy, happy to be found and eager to be fed.

  I do not know how many hours Eben sat with me in the Paddington tearoom as I recounted the story of my escape from Brussels, then Tyne Cott, and finally, Dunkirk. His eyes, tender, were fixed on me, drawing me out of myself. I talked more than I had intended. I wept without embarrassment. At the same time his gentle questions drew me into his soul. He wiped my tears like an old familiar friend.

  “I am inside-out now, Eben.”

  “Yes,” he agreed, paying the tab.

  I sipped my tepid tea as an announcement came over the PA system that blackout would begin in fifteen minutes.

  “Well?” My tone meant to intimate that our time together was at an end.

  “Would you like dinner? My hotel serves full-course meals. As if there is no war on. No rationing.”

  “I’m not dressed for it.” I stared down at my drab brown skirt, wrinkled blouse, and low-heeled shoes.

  “If you’d like to go home and change? I’ll wait.”

  We rode the Bakerloo Line as far as Baker Street station. On every corner workmen were taking down the street signs in anticipation of the coming German invasion. Everywhere across the English countryside road signs had been decapitated, and travelers were left to a medieval form of navigation by landmarks and memory. It seemed surreal and desperate to me, however. In the heart of London could anyone in government believe the Nazis would find themselves unable to locate the Houses of Parliament because a road sign was missing?

  Eben and I walked across Regent’s Park to my flat at the foot of Primrose Hill. In the long twilight of early summer, slit trenches marred the gardens. Anti-aircraft guns pointed skyward to sunbright clouds, where the great flocks of enemy bombers would surely fly. The boys and girls who manned the guns perched on sandbags and shared sandwiches.

  I asked, “England is still not ready, is it?”

  “Let’s hope the German High Command does not realize how unready we are.”

  When we reached my flat, the blackout curtains were already drawn. Eva was home. Mac McGrath sat beside the radio listening to a BBC broadcast. He glanced up as we entered. His strong jaw was clenched at the news that no part of France would any longer resist the Nazis.

  “Evening.” Mac’s hands were clasped. “England’s all alone, now.”

  Eben nodded. “But three hundred thousand rescued, Mac. That’s the number I heard.”

  “Yes. A miracle, I guess.”

  I heard the bathwater running upstairs. “Where’s Eva?”

  “We’re getting married tonight.” Mac brightened a bit. “She’ll be glad to see you. We’ve been looking over half of London for you. St. Mark’s. No one knew where to locate you.”

  “Married?”

  “I found a fellow, a Methodist preacher, who’ll do it. Lives in Hampstead. You two will come along, won’t you? Stand up with us?”

  “Sudden, isn’t it?” I gaped at Mac and then looked up to the landing as I heard a door shut. Eva appeared at the top of the stairs. Her face was gloriously happy.

  “Lora! Come up! You must help me. We’re getting married, Mac and I. Tonight. A Protestant fellow. An American friend of Mac’s, I think. He’ll marry us, and we’ll sort out the details later.”

  I ran up the stairs and embraced her. She clung to me tightly and laughed. “Where were you? I’ve looked all over. No one but you could be the witness. Where have you been? They said you left this morning, and now, here it is, dark already. We’ll have the devil of a time getting a cab to Hampstead. Maybe a bus?”

  Eva’s delirious happiness could not be dampened. I helped her choose a pale blue dress. She eyed it and slipped it on, admiring herself in the mirror. “Not white as for a proper bride, but I suppose I’ll be married all the same.”

  “Deliciously beautiful,” I said brightly, though my heart was heavy, remembering my wedding night with Varrick.

  I had so few dresses suitable for attending even a very small wedding. I chose a little suit of navy blue background with white roses on the collar and stitched around each button. My dress was several years old. I had found it in the used clothing barrel at the church. I had washed it and mended a tear, replaced missing buttons, and embroidered roses. It looked brand new.

  Our shoes were also out of style, but as we descended the steps, Mac stood slowly to his feet and whistled.

  I told Eva this was the greatest of compliments from an American male.

  Eben stood and switched off the radio. He busied himself by examining the cover of an open book. He did not look at Eva or at me.

  Mac kissed Eva at the foot of the stairs. It was clear they were deeply in love.

  I thought to myself as the bus labored up the road to the top of Hampstead Heath: What does it matter if the bombs fall tomorrow? Tonight they will be happy. Tonight they will love one another as though it is the last night of the world.

  As Eben and I stood witness, Eva and Mac were married. I felt Eva’s breathlessness as Mac gazed down into her face. Her cheeks, as smooth and white as porcelain, blushed a little when the pastor said Mac could kiss his bride. Mac’s lips hovered above hers. There was a delicious moment of hesitation. It was the sort of pause that comes when a thing of beauty is first embraced by the eye, or the scent of a rose is inhaled, or wind like the hand of an angel bends the tree tops. All this was in Mac’s faint smile as he touched his lips to Eva’s mouth. Her head back and eyes closed, she savored his kiss. I watched them seal their covenant of love
as though I was seeing my memory play out before me.

  Only this was their life, not mine. My life seemed finished before it had begun. Was my expression wistful? I felt tears burn my eyes.

  The kiss lingered. I turned my gaze away from them, knowing what was to come beyond their kiss. A dance. The tango, slow and smooth. The man leading each step and the woman yielding, following, reaching, moving to his will and to his rhythm.

  I knew the dance. I heard the music far away. My body longed for the music and the dance.

  When I looked up, Eben was staring at me in the same way I stared at them.

  I smiled back at him and raised my eyebrows as if their lingering kiss amused me.

  Eva and Mac surfaced and looked around dreamily. I embraced Eva. Her heart was racing. Her happy tears dampened my shoulder.

  “Well,” Mac said, “I guess I’m hooked for good.”

  Eben shook his hand heartily. I kissed Mac’s cheek. Congratulations were spread all around as we witnessed and signed the document declaring the marriage was official.

  And then we were all out in the cool night air of wartime London.

  Mac said awkwardly, “Thanks so much. Very much. We’ll be heading back to the flat now.”

  Eva took my arm. “Oh, Lora! If it’s all right. I mean, you weren’t around to ask, and I…we…I mean, I knew you were staying at the church. Helping out with the—”

  I had not seen it coming, but I wished I had thought of their honeymoon and offered them the use of the flat. “Of course. Not a problem. I’ll swing by and pick up a few things.”

  We rode together on the bus back to Primrose Hill. Eben sat stiffly beside me as Mac and Eva kissed in the seat at the very back.

  I heard Mac say, “I have a surprise for you, my darling Eva. Have you ever heard of Rudy Vallee?”

  Neither Eben nor I commented on Mac’s choice of music as we walked from the bus stop to the door of our flat.

  Mac lifted Eva into his arms and carried her across the threshold.

  Eben waited for me outside on the steps as I dashed in and threw a few things into a satchel. I spoke to Eva and Mac as I passed them in the foyer, but they did not seem to notice me.