“No excuse,” Duprez declared hotly, “for stealing a cannon and bringing it with him when he defected.”
I could see they enjoyed these mock battles so much, I was sorry to see the sailor go. His infection was cured and he was discharged, gleefully promising to visit von Kerll and keep him up to date on the number of U-boat coffins sunk.
I continued to keep my eye on the Quebec heater, which definitely needed surgery, and received further accounts of von Kerll’s magical childhood. That bygone era was so glamorous, so far removed from anything I’d ever known. He had been at the Olympic Games in ’33, heard Hitler officially declare them open, watched in amazement as the black American, Jesse Owens, sprinted to victory leaving the champions of the master race to eat his dust. “Only my father’s warning glance kept me from exploding in laughter.”
He talked of skiing in Cortina. Remembering the hot spiced mulled wine drunk afterward by a blazing fire was his way of dealing with skin grafts. I sat and listened because I knew the pain he was in. He told of climbs he’d made. “Class five-nine,” he said with a touch of pride. “And at night, in one of those isolated mountain huts, sometimes I’d practice my English on a Brit, American, or Aussie. There’s a special camaraderie among climbers. The nationality doesn’t matter, just the mountain. The same goes for sailors.”
With Erich it always got back to the sea.
“The sea runs in my veins like blood in other people’s. In fact I am amazed to hear the way U-boats are referred to, as though they are inherently evil—We don’t stand to, we lurk. We don’t cruise the waters, we infest them like some sort of vermin. We don’t pursue, we stalk.”
His grin invited me to smile back. But I couldn’t. U-boats did infest, they did lurk and stalk—and kill.
“Even aboard a sub, things aren’t what people imagine. It can actually be enjoyable. I remember one occasion, patroling in the St. Lawrence.” I gave a start. That was right here, home base.
He went on; perhaps he hadn’t noticed. “I’ve been on it when we took a pounding from aircraft. But this particular day it was so quiet and peaceful that we cruised on the surface with the hatch open. To breathe fresh air was marvelous. And there was a tranquility over the scene.
“It was a crisp autumn morning, very early—about five or five-thirty. I remember a little cabin among pines, smoke curling already from its chimney. The captain called to me from the bridge, ‘Looks like home, eh?’ At which the engineer pipes up, ‘In my hometown the baker lived in a little house just like that. He used to make Brötchen.’”
Erich looked over at me. “You’ve got to taste Brötchen sometime, it’s a roll, very crusty. Freshly baked, it’s part of the traditional German breakfast. . . . Slipping along between the banks of the St. Lawrence, that’s what we thought of, not of war, not of pursuing or being pursued—but of those warm morning rolls and a mug of coffee or hot chocolate.”
“You make it sound so normal,” I said grudgingly. “A Sunday morning outing on the St. Lawrence. And torpedoes at the ready?”
“I’m just trying to say that one side isn’t all white and the other totally black.”
“It is totally black. Look around you at this ward.”
This silenced him.
His dressings needed changing, all three, abdomen, thigh, and hand. No matter how delicately I went about peeling off the saturated gauze, his breathing quickened, and in a flood of words he began speaking of a great winding staircase with marble balustrade, along which slipped that shadow boy peering down at the party below—“I would sit still as a mouse on the stairs, looking into the music room while they put on amateur theatrics or a musical evening.”
The dressing was off now, and he spoke more calmly, telling me that when he was older, he himself played at these concerts. He must play very well because his face softened and took on a distant expression when he spoke of music. “I wonder if I’ll ever get this arm back to where I—” He broke off.
“Of course you will. You’ll be starting physical therapy. If you’re conscientious your arm will be as good as new.”
But there was another skin graft to undergo, and to distract himself from the agony of the aftercare, he said very rapidly, his finger indenting the sheet, “I’ve made a study of boats. Boats of all kinds. But it’s the history of the submarine I find most remarkable. Even the idea of a ship proceeding underwater is remarkable, don’t you agree?”
Before I could answer he raced on. “Da Vinci designed an early prototype. But then, he designed the first of everything. The sub I like best is from the thirteenth century. Someone submerged himself in a huge glass bottle.”
This effort was more than he could sustain. He converted a groan into a laugh, but he had to talk if he wasn’t to disgrace himself and cry. “The first suggestion that came near being practical was when William Bourne, an Englishman, considered completely enclosing a boat and rowing it under water. That was never built. It was another forty years before a craft was actually constructed that could be rowed fifteen feet under water.”
“What was that like?” I stepped back to let him know I was finished.
He drew a deep breath. “What was it like? Greased leather was stretched over the ship’s frame with close-fitting flaps for the oars.”
“Those early inventors must have asked themselves what-if a million times.”
“What did you say?” he asked, puzzled.
“Nothing.” I was suddenly embarrassed. For I had been thinking how extraordinary it was that an Indian girl from Alberta should come to know the history of early submarines. Too bad that fantastic ideas such as glass bottles had to end in worldwide war and destruction.
Seven
WHEN I GOT back to my room Mandy was sitting on the edge of her bed waiting for me. “You’re late again tonight, Kathy.”
“You’re a fine one to talk. I haven’t seen you back here this early in weeks.”
“What have you been doing?” It was not said casually, but in an accusatory manner.
“Nothing. Writing a few letters for the men.”
“For a particular one, don’t you mean? An officer off a U-BOAT. Kathy, you’re spending too much time with him. People are beginning to talk.”
“That’s nonsense, you’re imagining it.”
“I’m not. It was brought to my attention and not in a nice way either.”
I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. “Mandy, if you’re talking about Erich von Kerll, he’s a patient. He can’t use his right hand, so I’m writing home for him. I don’t think I’m breaking any international laws or codes of conduct.”
“Still, you must consider how it looks.”
“I don’t care how it looks. I consider it part of my duties as a nurse. Besides, what I do on my own time is my business.”
“People are talking, Kathy.”
“Let them.”
“Have it your way. Knowing you, I know there’s nothing wrong with it. Still, it does seem funny, spending so much time with a German.”
“He’s not German, he’s Austrian.”
“Big difference,” she said with a shrug. “Besides, why be mad at me? I’m just trying to be a friend, letting you know what the scuttlebutt is.”
“I’m not mad at you. I’m just telling you not to pay any attention to that kind of petty gossip.”
Was it the reflection in Mandy’s glasses that gave her a speculative look? “He’s the third bed on ward B, isn’t he?”
“Yes,” I said shortly.
“I thought so. The good-looking one. No wonder they’re talking.”
Was he? Was he good-looking? I’d been afraid to make such an assessment myself.
“Don’t pretend you hadn’t noticed.” Then a note of real concern stole into her voice. She was no longer passing along other people’s opinion but focused on her own. “You’ve got to remember, Kathy, he’s European. Austrian, German, it doesn’t matter. They’re a lot more traditional than we are.”
�
��What do you mean, traditional?”
“I guess I mean bigoted. I don’t want you to be hurt, Kathy.”
“Because I’m Indian? Is that what this is about? Mandy, you are so wrong. Things aren’t on a personal basis.”
“Are you sure?” She peered at me intently and there was no way I could any longer misinterpret the anxiety of her glance.
“Mandy, you think I don’t realize the difference between Erich and me? His grandparents have an estate on the Bodensee. It goes right down to the water’s edge. He had his own sailboat when he was nine.” I stopped abruptly. “I’m not crazy, Mandy.”
“But you are. You’re reckless, like me, when you love. So I had to make sure you weren’t edging that way.”
Her glasses looked a little misty to me. I diverted her with Erich’s stories of early submarines. “Did you know they once sent someone down in a bottle? Then they tried rowing along the bottom.”
She started laughing when I told her about the model they built with wheels to roll along the ocean floor. “There’s an American version too, the Turtle, in the shape of a walnut standing on end.”
I had succeeded in distracting Mandy and making her laugh. But I took seriously the fact that I was the subject of criticism. Did they think that while U-boats were sinking our ships, drowning our men, I had been discussing submarine warfare with an enemy?
I was horrified that such an interpretation had been put on our talks, and I searched my mind. Had I been guilty of indiscretion? I felt confused. At the same time, angry. I was not doing my country any harm. Who did I hurt by absorbing the life of an Austria that didn’t exist anymore? I had only been listening to an outdated chapter of history.
As for Mandy’s fear that I was becoming interested in him—of course that was nonsense.
I WENT AGAIN after chapel Sunday to visit Erich, but I didn’t offer to write letters and I didn’t stay long. Just long enough to let whoever was concerned know I wasn’t intimidated by gossip.
And long enough to settle the question of his appearance for myself. His features were finely drawn, yet there was strength in them. His light brown hair fell forward over his forehead in a boyish manner. But his mouth was set in too hard a line as though he was watchful and on guard. I suppose he was. After all, he was a prisoner and an enemy. And yes . . . he was good-looking.
Why hadn’t I noticed that immediately? Or had I, and not wanted to complicate things by thinking it? It took a world war for my kind and his to meet and talk. And I mustn’t forget it.
I began to doubt that it had all been as innocent as I pretended. Had I been attracted to him from the beginning, in spite of professional ethics? In spite of a chasm of differences between us?
Mandy had been a friend after all, and quite right to point out the danger I’d been headed for. I would keep this and every other visit short and impersonal and never speak of submarines again, even if they were thirteenth-century glass bottles.
He watched as I straightened the things on his night table, gave him medication, and turned to go. “Must you leave so soon?” He hurried on, I think to prevent my leaving. “I received a Red Cross package today. Amazing when you think of all the frontiers on both sides it had to pass through.”
“Was it from home?”
“My parents received the customary letter from submarine command: ‘missing in action.’”
“What a shock that must have been. I’m so sorry.”
He regarded me levelly; his gray eyes held a question, but he didn’t ask it. Instead he said, “I’ve been awarded the Iron Cross.”
“Oh.” I could hardly congratulate him. The pause was awkward. “It must be a relief to your family to know you’re alive.”
He nodded. “I wonder if they’ll get the letter you wrote for me before the war ends?”
“I’m sure they will.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t seen a newspaper or heard the radio since I’ve been here. We were supposed to be winning the war. It was supposed to be over by now. Is it possible that we will lose? I never considered that might happen. What would it mean for Austria? Would my father’s party, the old Social Democrats, regain its position, I wonder?”
His talk of war and politics made me nervous. “Is there anything I can do for you before I go?”
He pulled himself from revery to the present.
“Are you meeting someone? A young man? Is that why you’re dressed up and look so pretty?”
“Goodbye, Erich.”
“Kathy, I’m sorry. Please forgive me. I haven’t much to do except lie here and think. I think about you a lot. I wonder what it’s like to be an Indian in Canada.”
“Not now, Erich.”
“Is your young man white or Indian?”
“I don’t have a young man. He’s Indian,” I said over my shoulder as I left the room. I was so flustered that I ran into Sister Magdalena. “Sorry,” I muttered.
IT WAS UNSETTLING to have claimed Crazy Dancer as my young man.
Was that how I thought of him? But I hardly knew him. In fact I very much doubted that anyone could know him. And my mind rocketed between two worlds. The only thing they had in common was that both were insubstantial. The pictures in my mind were of an idealized courtly life on the shores of the Bodensee, where Erich played American jazz records till morning. Which didn’t stop him clicking his heels and bowing over the hands of ladies. These fragments broke and distorted as pounding moccasined feet trampled them into shards.
But it isn’t possible to have a meaningful relationship with someone you see only intermittently. And it had been almost four months. Spring was trying to burst out of its frozen straightjacket, buds were thrusting tentatively but the coldness of the air nipped them back.
It was grand walking weather, and I returned to my room for a sweater. A walk would help clear my mind. I had to sort out my feelings, put things in order. But when I returned to my room it was to find a crisis. Mandy didn’t know it was a crisis, but looking at her I knew instantly.
Mandy was dabbing hydrogen peroxide on her hair.
“What are you doing?” I asked, taking the bottle from her and checking the label.
“I thought I’d put some blond highlights in my hair.”
“Mandy, this isn’t that kind of peroxide. It’s medicinal.”
“I guess you’re right. It hasn’t made any difference.”
“Just wait,” I said.
In half an hour bleached white streaks appeared. Mandy flew about the room tearing at it as if she could tear it out.
“What will I do?” she wept.
“Sit down,” I said, and began to brush her hair from underneath where the peroxide hadn’t penetrated. The strands blended and, to finish the job, I set her nurse’s cap on her head.
“Oh, Kathy,” she exclaimed, surveying herself in the mirror, “you saved my life.”
I smiled at her extravagance.
“At least you saved me from a tongue-lashing by Sister Ursula.”
I agreed that was quite likely.
I took my sweater from the hook on the back of the door and went for the walk I’d decided on earlier. I got as far as the parking lot, when there was a cacophony of sound as a car horn was depressed again and again. I looked over at the distraction and saw it was aimed at me. I stood still, my mind not registering what I saw.
Crazy Dancer leaped from a decrepit car, leaving the door ajar.
“Is it you? I can’t believe it.”
“I came for our date.”
“What date?”
“The one we made last June, the Moon When the Ponies Shed—” He burst out laughing. “I put in for a transfer, and it finally came through.”
He looked so jaunty standing there that I joined in the laugh. “I was just thinking about you, and you turn up.”
“Were you thinking that Christmas was a long time ago?”
“Something like that.”
“I was thinking the same thing.”
&nb
sp; I walked over to the car. “What happened to the motorcycle?”
“You said you wanted four wheels. So I made a trade.”
I surveyed his acquisition somewhat dubiously.
“It’s in good running condition,” he assured me.
“What about gas?”
His face lit up—he’d been waiting for me to ask. “It doesn’t run on gas. Well, just to get it started. Look at this.”
I walked around to the driver’s side with him. He opened the hood and pointed out a nest of metal tubing and what looked like a second carburetor. “It runs on a mixture of kerosine and gasoline. Mostly kerosine. There’s a separate throttle that feeds the kerosine into the engine.”
“It won’t explode, will it?”
His smile was teasing. “Do you still have the gray and white feather?”
I nodded. “Well, as you say,” I conceded, “it has four wheels.”
He came around with me while I got in, then walked back to the driver’s side. He fiddled with the controls and the engine started up. It sounded just as an engine should and I hoped it would behave like one.
Crazy Dancer shifted his feet. “Here we go!”
As we pulled out of the parking lot I asked, “And it’s running on kerosine?”
“You bet.”
“Why doesn’t everyone use such a device?”
“It’s not legal.”
I absorbed this a moment, then said, “You’re very good at adapting the white man’s inventions.”
“Pretty good,” he admitted.
“You should meet Georges. He likes to fool around with motors, but he isn’t as good as you are.”
“Georges is your brother?”
“Yes, he’s Connie’s twin.”
“You didn’t tell me they were twins.”
“I didn’t?”
“Twins. Did you know that everything of importance in the world is a twin? Rain is the twin of sun. Mountains the twin of valleys. Hot is the twin of cold. Good the twin of bad. Which is he?”
“What do you mean, which is he?”
“The good or the bad, the left-handed or the right-handed?”
“They’re both right-handed.”
The Search for Joyful Page 11
