The Collaborator (33 page)

O
ne Friday morning, once I’m back from Millie’s school, I take Evelyn’s toast and cup of tea up to her room. I open her door; and see at once that something is wrong. I usually find her sitting up, wearing her tea-rose silk bed-jacket; but today she still seems to be sleeping. Her body is sprawled across her bed, as though she tried to get up and fell back. Her breathing is noisy, her mouth gaping open; the bones in her face seem too clear.

‘Evelyn,’ I say. Then louder, frightened:
‘Evelyn.’
She doesn’t stir.

I put my hand on hers. I shake her slightly. I can’t wake her. There’s something troubling about the look of her wide-open mouth.

It could take hours to get the doctor to come. I’d have to cycle up to his house on the main road, or I could ring him from the nearest phone box, but that would take almost as long. I remember what Gunther said to me, when he thought it was Evelyn coughing—that Max would come and examine her if ever she was ill. I remember how kind Max was to Millie.

I go out into the chilly brightness of the morning. I run round
to Les Vinaires, rush up the path between the flower borders. Michaelmas daisies are growing there, tatty and straggly as weeds; they snatch at my legs as I pass them.

Hans Schmidt answers the door. He must have been eating breakfast: his lips are glossy with grease. He speaks before I can open my mouth.

‘You wish to see Captain Lehmann?’ he says.

I realise they must all know about our affair. Well, of course they would. It’s not important.

‘No. Captain Richter,’ I say.

Hans goes to fetch him. I’m aware that I am listening out for Gunther’s voice. There’s a burst of loud male laughter from the back of the house: I think one of the voices could be Gunther’s but I can’t be certain—he never laughed in that noisy, raucous way when he was with me. I remember what I once said to him:
What are you like when you’re not with me?
How he smiled and said that of course I couldn’t know that.

Max comes into the hall. He’s in his shirtsleeves.

‘Mrs de la Mare.’ Reading my face: solicitous, concerned.

I’m so glad to see him. I remember when he first came to my door, how I refused to shake his hand. How that seemed a matter of principle, seemed the right thing to do—the
good
thing. It’s all so long ago now.

‘I’m sorry to bother you,’ I say. ‘It’s my mother-in-law. I think … I hear the catch in my voice. ‘I think she may be dying. I wondered if …?’

‘I’ll come at once,’ he says. He doesn’t bother to fetch his jacket, but comes as he is, in his shirtsleeves.

He moves very softly in Evelyn’s room, speaking with a hushed voice. I can tell how he eases back into being a doctor again,
how the part suits him. He takes her pulse, tests her reflexes, pulls back an eyelid and looks into her eye.

‘I think you are right,’ he tells me, speaking very quietly. ‘I think it won’t be long. She has had a stroke. There is no treatment. I’m very sorry.’

I nod.

‘I thought it was something like that. Well, thank you so much for coming.’

‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ he asks me. ‘It’s kind of you to offer, but I think I’ll be all right,’ I say. ‘I’ll see myself out,’ he tells me. ‘You must call again if you need me.’

‘Yes, I will. Thank you …’

I sit with Evelyn and hold her hand. Her skin is dry and cold against me; her body moves very slightly with her noisy, laboured breath. I stay like that for a long time. I listen to the tick of the clock, to the tiny settlings of my house. Slow brown leaves drift past the window, and woodpigeons huddle on the sill, their small eyes pink and vacant—untroubled by our presence, as though there were no one here at all. The morning is very long. Evelyn’s face is expressionless, and white as the pillow she lies on.

Towards noon she stirs and opens her eyes. She looks straight at me, as though she sees me clear, and that at least I am grateful for—that for this moment she is herself, not blurred and diminished by age.

She’s trying to speak. I bend down to her, desperate to hear. She murmurs something, but her mouth won’t move properly. I think she says ‘Eugene’, but I can’t be sure. A shudder passes through her, into my hand; and then nothing.

I close her eyelids, and fold her hands on her chest. I think
how I can’t reach Eugene, to tell him his mother is gone—how one day he will come home from fighting and find his mother buried. How sad he will be that he wasn’t here to grieve for her when she died.

I cry for her, yet I’m glad that she could slip away so gently. This at least was a quiet death, a death in the fullness of time.

Later that afternoon, Max comes back to my door. Perhaps he’s noticed the other people who’ve called at my house through the day—the local doctor confirming the death, and Mr Ozanne with his horse-drawn cart, to take the body away.

‘Mrs de la Mare.’ He has a look like a question.

I nod slightly.

‘My mother-in-law has died,’ I say. His face is serious.

‘Then may I offer you my condolences,’ he says.

‘Thank you for coming to see her,’ I say.

He shrugs slightly, as though to say this was nothing.

He hesitates for a moment, his eyes on me, trying to read me.

As though I’m some wild, timid creature he doesn’t want to scare off.

‘There’s something I need to tell you,’ he says, rather quietly. ‘We are leaving your island—Gunther and I.’

My heart judders. Somehow I never expected this: it’s as though I’d believed that Gunther would always be here. Maybe I’d thought, deep inside, that I could always change my decision. That there was time. That there would always be time.

‘Leaving?’ I say stupidly.

‘Yes.’

‘Where are they sending you?’

He has a slight rueful smile.

‘The Eastern Front, unfortunately. This is not good news for us. Also, winter is coming.’

I remember what Gunther had said—about the carnage there, about the immensity of Russia and her armies: about Stalingrad that they called the mass grave of the Wehrmacht: about the cold, everything turned to ice—the lubricant in the tanks and guns; the lifeblood of men.

I swallow hard.

‘Oh. When are you going?’

We’re both very cautious, very formal.

‘We leave on Monday,’ he says.

‘So soon?’ I say.

‘Yes, so soon. But whenever it was, it would be too soon for us.’

‘Thank you for telling me,’ I say.

I expect him to go then, but he doesn’t. I see his throat move as he swallows.

‘There is something else that I think I should tell you.’ He is speaking so carefully. I know he has thought deeply about whether to say this to me. ‘Gunther has heard that his son has been killed. His son Hermann.’

The world tilts. The words hang in the air, like sharpened blades. If I put out my hand they will cut me.

He watches me. He nods slightly.

‘I thought as much,’ he says. ‘I thought he hadn’t told you. Gunther is a private person. He keeps many things inside himself …’

Neither of us says anything for a moment. In the silence
between us, I hear a far-off torrent, the rush of water that comes with the turn of the tide. Soon it will overwhelm me.

‘When?’ My voice is distant, muffled. ‘When did he hear this?’

But even as I ask the question, I know what Max will say.

‘It was six weeks ago. It was about the same time that there was that unfortunate incident in your orchard—the shooting of the escaped prisoner … I thought you should know,’ he tells me.

‘Yes. Thank you,’ I say.

O
n Monday morning, after I’ve taken Millie up to school, I set about cleaning the house for the funeral tea. It’s strange to be alone here. This hasn’t happened for an age—not since Evelyn stopped going out. There’s a different quality of stillness to a house that’s empty—a sense of release, a flat calm quiet, almost as though the house itself is letting out its breath. There’s no sound but the rasp of Alphonse’s tongue on his fur, as he sits on the windowsill in a circle of thin gilded sun. The weekend has been busy—with Blanche and Millie distraught about their grandmother’s death, with the funeral to organise. But now, in the silent house, I feel an unexpected clarity: as if a sound in my head, a constant insect-buzzing like static on a wireless, has been suddenly switched off.

In the unfamiliar stillness, there’s one thought at the front of my mind.
It’s Monday and Gunther is leaving.
And, thinking that, I return again to the terrible thing Max told me—how Gunther’s son had been killed. The shiny ribbon of the past, that had seemed so neatly tied up, unknots and spools out in front of me. My mind is full of questions. Did I read everything wrong? Was that why he seemed so remote, so withdrawn—when I
saw him that evening after Kirill had been shot? What if it wasn’t Gunther who betrayed us? What if he had nothing at all to do with the death of Kirill? What if I pushed him away for nothing?

There are no answers to these questions.

There’s a grey bloom of dust on the books in the bookcase, where I rarely clean. I pull out a handful of books to dust them, and something drifts to the floor, a piece of thick folded paper. I pick it up, open it, smooth out the creases. It’s the drawing Gunther made of me that first evening we spent together: I’d tucked it in between the books where nobody could see.

I stare at it, the way it’s so accurate, not very flattering really— yet revealing something, showing me as I am. I remember how we looked at the drawing together—how, as we looked, he ran his finger down the curve of my cheek. My body is suddenly weak. I sit down abruptly on the sofa: my hand goes limp and the paper falls to the floor. Everything seems illuminated—so simple, so dazzlingly clear. I have to say goodbye to him: I have to hold him once more. Why didn’t I see that? Why has it taken so long to understand? Suddenly, this is the only thing in my entire world that matters.

I pull off my apron, rush out of the door, race round to Les Vinaires. I notice that the black Bentley that Gunther uses has gone. I knock at the door. It hurts to breathe.

A thickset man with hooded eyes answers the door. I don’t recognise him.

‘I’m looking for Captain Lehmann,’ I say.

He shakes his head.

‘They have gone already,’ he says.

‘To St Peter Port?’

It’s as though a heavy boulder is pressing into my chest. I could never get to town in time—it takes an age to cycle there. He shakes his head. ‘Not to the port. To the airfield.’

I feel a surge of joy. With this news, he has handed me a gift: the airfield is easy to get to, just up the hill and along the main road.

‘Thank you,’ I say. ‘Thank you so much.’

He frowns slightly, perplexed by my excessive gratitude.

I run to get my bicycle. I’m full of a frenzied energy. I seem to ride so effortlessly up the hill—though I have to hold tight, my hands are damp and slippery and slide around on the handlebars as though they aren’t really mine.

The airport is full of commotion and shouting and purpose, German soldiers everywhere, and lorries, motorbikes, Jeeps—all the teeming, solemn, elaborate apparatus of war that I am so ignorant of. A plane takes off as I approach, the roar of it filling the world, making my ears thrum. Some great movement of troops is happening. Something shrivels inside me. I was so intent on getting here, I hadn’t thought through what I’d do— just had this hope, this certainty, that I’d somehow find him, that this was meant to happen.

As I cycle up the approach road, I notice the black Bentley, parked with some other civilian cars on the kerb. My heart lifts. But there is nobody in it.

I jump off my bicycle, leave it lying at the side of the road. Out of nowhere, a wave of nausea breaks over me. My body convulses; I retch up a little clear bile. It must be because of all
the stress of the day, the exertion of the ride here. I wipe my face. I’m embarrassed, I hope that nobody saw. But I feel lighter, clearer, now.

Three soldiers are standing near me, smoking; they’re casual, talking, laughing. They quiet as I approach.

‘Excuse me. I’m looking for someone, I wonder if you could help,’ I say.

They shake their heads, make small helpless gestures, shrugging—that universal language that says that you don’t understand.

‘I’m looking for Captain Lehmann. It’s important,’ I say.

Perhaps they will at least recognise his name. But they glance briefly at one another, then shake their heads again. As I turn away, one of them murmurs something in German, staring at me: the other men laugh loudly. I feel my face go hot.

I walk boldly up to the barrier that controls traffic into the airport. A soldier standing there stops me.

‘You should not be here,’ he tells me. ‘You cannot come through.’

At least this man speaks English. I’m so grateful for this, so warmly, deeply grateful.

‘Perhaps you could help me,’ I say. ‘I’m looking for Captain Lehmann.’

‘Could you repeat the name?’ he says.

I tell him again.

A sliver of recognition comes in his face. ‘Captain Gunther Lehmann?’

‘Yes.’

‘I know Captain Lehmann,’ he says.

I feel a hot rush of gratitude. This is all playing out as it was intended to do, everything happening as it was meant to happen. I could fling my arms around the man.

‘I’m so glad,’ I say. ‘Could you tell me where to find him? I’d be so grateful.’

‘The Captain has gone. You cannot see him,’ he says.

I shake my head. I’m almost laughing, that he is so wrong about everything.

‘You’re not serious, are you? You’re having me on,’ I say, smiling, sharing the joke: sustained by my absolute certainty that this is meant to be.

The phrase makes no sense to him. He frowns.

‘I don’t understand you,’ he says.

‘You’re joking, aren’t you? You don’t mean it.’ I’m so confident, so certain. Though my voice is a little too shrill. ‘You don’t mean that he’s gone. He
cant
have gone …’

The man says nothing, points upwards.

I look up there, where he is pointing. I see the black fleck of a climbing plane that as I watch is lost and gone in the empty shine of the sky.