Leeway Cottage (17 page)

L
aurus is sometimes sorry he didn't let Sydney
come to London with him when she offered. London is full of girls doing useful work: nursing, driving ambulances, and crowding into Quaglino's and the Café de Paris at the end of the workday. But it is chilling to pick up the papers day after day and read the obituaries. All those civilians who “died very suddenly,” which means killed by a bomb. If she'd come and had the baby here, he'd be going mad trying to get her out and home, frightened if he succeeded, since Allied ships and passenger planes are all targets now, and terrified if he failed or she wouldn't go. And knowing her, he believed she wouldn't have. She had taken on a new aspect in his mind, as he imagined and reimagined her, so gradually that he didn't see her changing; she became strong, wise, unselfish, loving, and steady, everything he missed. And the more he missed her, the more he felt farther from her than three thousand miles. Since the summer of 1940, when Londoners grew accustomed to a certain manic community, as night after night the tube stations became giant bomb shelters with no place for reserve or privacy, there were and are many, especially the young, who are in some way thriving on the shared danger, the altered sense of time, living intensely for the present in case there is no future. There will be no way to describe this later, and none of them knows yet that when it is over, they will miss it.

In the spring of 1943, Laurus is restless and frustrated at SOE. They have finally dropped into Denmark a group trained to sabotage the ferries, which are so important to a nation of islands, but the group's equipment was lost. They have gotten some radios and operators in, but German trucks with better and better tracking equipment roam the Danish streets like ironclad dinosaurs, and last September, a man Laurus particularly liked was killed in the middle of transmitting from Copenhagen. Three weeks later the Copenhagen safe house of Michael Rottbøll, whom they trained for months to replace Carl Bruhn, was betrayed, and Rottbøll was killed by Danish police. Mogens Hammer was compromised, escaped to Sweden by kayak, and made his way back to London. With almost senseless heroism he agreed to be dropped back into the country to take Rottbøll's place as temporary leader of Operation Tabletop, never mind that there is almost nothing organized enough to lead. Laurus is deeply stung by the contempt the English rarely hide for Denmark's showing in this war, even while he sometimes shares it. He feels starved for something other than failure: for fresh fruit, for strong coffee, for that moment when you sit poised, hardly breathing, with other musicians, before the flash of joy as five of you hit your opening notes at the same instant.

One night Laurus goes with some other Danes to Rainbow Corner, where the GIs drink and dance. It's friendly and loud, and visiting American movie stars stop in, as they go to and from entertaining the troops. Laurus's friend Kjeld is convinced that if they go there enough they'll get to meet Rita Hayworth.

They don't, but there are cheerful Dutch and English girls who like to dance and can hold their beer, and there's an American nurse called Libby who talks to Laurus about Copenhagen, where she'd been enchanted by the Tivoli Gardens. She isn't truly pretty; her head is too long, her face too narrow, but she's beautiful when she smiles. Those full lips, those perfect American teeth. She is from Oklahoma. The only thing Laurus knows about Oklahoma is
The Wizard of Oz,
but Libby points out he's thinking of Kansas. She has a brother in the navy, and she's seen things in the wards that she'll never talk about when she goes home, but here, for as long as it lasts, nobody has to be told, and they're all in it together. One night, when her girlfriends are already dancing, she turns to Laurus and says, “Shall we?”

“He can't dance,” says Kjeld.

“He can't dance, don't ask him,” sings an American second lieutenant, as Laurus blushes.

“Why not?” Libby looks under the table. “He's got two feet, I counted them.”

“Married,” says Laurus, exhibiting his wedding band.

“Oh,” says Libby sadly.

“Not everyone thinks it matters,” says the lieutenant.

“But you do?” says Libby to Laurus.

Laurus nods.

“Lucky wife,” says Libby.

When the music stops, and the other girls come back to the table, Libby says to Laurus, “Well, if you can't dance, I don't suppose you can play the piano,” and Kjeld guffaws.

“Does that mean he can?”

“It does,” says Laurus. “Why did you ask?”

“Because I can sing,” says Libby.

“Can you really?”

“Sing ‘White Christmas'!” demands the lieutenant. He calls for more beer.

“Jimmy, it's April.”

“I know, but I love that song. ‘I'mmm dreeeeaming…'”

To stop him, Laurus goes to the piano and plays the first chords, looking over his shoulder at Libby. Come on, I dare you. A great clamor breaks out at their table and soon Libby is on her feet beside the piano, wiggling as she pulls her slip down under her skirt. She is deliciously unself-conscious.

“Can you really sing?” Laurus asks.

“No,” says Libby, “but there's a war on.”

“This key all right?”

She drapes herself against the piano, lights a cigarette, and nods to him to begin. She really can't sing, but her imitation of a chanteuse is so amusing that she gets wild applause.

“Miss Peggy Lee, eat your heart out!” calls the lieutenant.

On the evenings Laurus and Libby meet at Rainbow Corner, they get into the habit of walking together through the blacked-out streets, back to the nurses' residence hall, sometimes with the other girls, sometimes alone.

One night, taking a deep breath of the soft London darkness, Libby asks him, “What do you miss most about springtime at home?”

“The first strawberries,” he says, and is surprised to find that in answering he has thought of home as Denmark, not New York. “What do you?”

“American birds. There were always nests in the trees outside my window. I could watch the babies hatch out and the parents feeding them. And the first asparagus, my mother grows it. And then the tree peepers on summer nights.”

“Are tree peepers birds?”

“No, they're little frogs.”

“That live in trees?”

“Of course.”

“What a strange country. What kind of trees do you have out your window?”

“Enormous maples that my grandfather planted. He was a Sooner. And in the spring you could take the pods that fell and split the seed end, and inside there was stickum so you could stick the pod on your little nose. We all went around with little green Pinocchio noses. Oh, and the smell of the grass the first time it's cut in the spring! That smell, coming through the classroom window while you waited for recess! And jumping rope! Do Danish girls jump-rope?”

She is enchanting. Guileless, warmhearted, like somebody's sister. Like
his
sister. She has four brothers, whom she obviously adores. He makes her tell him about the Sooners, and she makes him tell her about
smørrebrød,
and makes him laugh, trying to pronounce
“rødgrød med fløde,”
and he invites her to lunch the next day at a café serving Scandinavian food around the corner from the Danish Freedom Council.

At lunch, when their plates arrive, featuring dense bread and several kinds of toppings, she points at them one at a time and makes him tell what they are called in Danish and English.

“These pink ones?”

“They are made with fish roe, but we don't call it that.”

“What do you call it?”

“Squished elevator man.”

She laughs, a wonderful deep rippling sound.

“We don't have many elevator men, but when we have them, they wear red jackets.”

“What's this one called?” She points to a grayish liver paste.

“That one is very bad. That one is called ‘squished Negro.'”

“That
is
bad. I didn't think you had Negroes in Denmark.”

“We have a few, mostly artists and musicians. Danes are mad for American jazz.”

“I love jazz.”

“Do you? Have you heard Art Tatum?”

“Nope. Is he the greatest?”

“Yep. Well, skÃ¥l.”

“SkÃ¥l,” she says, and takes a sip of beer, while studying the plate, to decide what to eat first.

“No, no,” says Laurus. “You must look at me as we raise our glasses to each other, and keep looking as we drink. Then we raise our glasses to each other again. Then you can look away.”

She does as instructed, and as he looks into her night-brown eyes, he feels something go through him to the pit of his stomach. Suddenly he is surprised that people do this intensely intimate thing so constantly and casually at home. Libby's cheeks are about eight shades pinker, and she seems not to know where to look. They begin eating, and talking with false gaiety about the food.

She goes every night after that to the Rainbow Corner but it's more than a week before Laurus turns up with Kjeld and a couple of others. He looks around the room, telling himself he's making sure she isn't there. When he sees that she
is,
he feels a hot wash of happiness.

Libby is dancing with a GI who appears to be seven feet tall, with the biggest hands and feet Laurus ever saw. She waves from behind the giant's back, and Laurus, while pretending to attend to the conversation at their table, orders a beer and then is surprised when one arrives, drinks it without tasting it, and waits for the music to stop or the giant to relinquish Libby. Not that it's anything to him, but just to see if she will or will not then come to his table.

The music does not stop, and the giant turns out to do a mean Lindy Hop. Laurus can't take his eyes off them.

When the music shifts to a fox-trot, Laurus, with no memory of crossing the floor, finds himself tapping the giant on the shoulder.

He is a pleasant giant, with a wide face and an easy smile. He lets Libby go with a bow, and she turns to Laurus the same smile of welcome she has just given in farewell. And Laurus finds himself absolutely tongue-tied. When they have chattered with ease for hours all spring.

He remembers that he doesn't dance except with his wife. He prays she won't mention it. He wonders if the giant is someone special to her. He has no idea how to ask. She holds him and follows effortlessly. Finally he frames a sentence.

“You're a wonderful dancer.”

“Thank you. That's why I offered to dance before I offered to sing.”

He chuckles appreciatively. He feels as if his bowels might let go, he is so flooded with emotion.

They dance until the end of the song, and then another, and then the music breaks off at last. As he leads her to their table, he sees Kjeld looking at him quizzically.

He orders two beers, and when they come, looks anywhere but at her. If she offers to skÃ¥l, he doesn't know what he may do afterward. When the music starts again, he gets up and holds his hand to her. She takes it and rises to follow him. The song is “I'll Be Seeing You.” Her skin smells lemony.

“No moon tonight,” Libby says at last.

“I know.”

“I used to love the full moon at home. Now I wonder if I'll ever feel safe again when there's a moon.”

The full moon brings the bombers. He wonders the same thing.

In the dark of that night he walks her home. The air is warm and smells of fruit trees in bloom. What cars are in the streets have their headlights taped down to slits and they creep along, picking their way with blades of light in the thick spring dark.

At the corner of her block, Libby stops and turns to him. She knows their relationship is about to change, and she wants to be away from the coming and going of others at the door of her building.

They look at each other in silence. Then he says her name softly, and she stands immobile, waiting. He kisses her. First with his lips, then somehow their arms, their bodies, their tongues, are all part of it.

He steps away a little and then comes right back into her arms and they kiss again. Finally, he puts his hands on her elbows and holds her gently away from him. A large car with curtained windows makes its way down the street and past them, like a huge animal tiptoeing.

“And now?” she says finally.

“And now…we say goodbye.”

A long pause. She had expected this, though hoped for something else.

“A clean cut,” he says.

They stand on the edge of tears for more ticking seconds. Then he kisses his fingertips and touches them to her forehead. He says, “Always.”

“Always,” she whispers.

She turns and walks away from him. She has a long strong neck and perfect posture. She is wearing a light-colored dress—he wishes he noticed such things, he wishes he'd committed everything about this moment to memory, there were sprigs of some little purple flower printed on the dress, he thinks. Her dark hair swings loose at her shoulders. Feminine, capable, gentle, brave, his brain says to him. Are you mad to let that walk out of your life?

As she reaches the door of the nurses' house, she stops and turns. There is just enough light from the edge of the blackout curtain at the adjacent window for him to see her face. She kisses one finger and turns it to him, sending the kiss to him. Then she tries to smile and fails; and then she is gone. Although she goes back to the Rainbow Corner often for the remainder of the war, she never sees him there again.