The Discovery, A Novel (17 page)

Claire put on her sweater and stepped outside. She wanted to finish her coffee on the porch. The sun was shining again. The temperature had warmed up to a pleasant sixty-two degrees. Standing at the wood rail, she gazed up and down the street. She loved the way things looked after a big storm. Tree limbs and palm fronds meshed together in dark piles beside every driveway. But everything else looked bright and green and alive. Especially the palms. She remembered something her father had said when she was a little girl and frightened by the thunder. “You know how Daddy prunes the hedges? Well, storms are God’s way of pruning the trees.”

Something else excited her this morning. Ben had just called her from the News Journal, asking if he could see her after she got off work this afternoon. He sounded excited, saying he had something “very important to talk about.” She was pretty sure she knew what it was.

“Mind if I join you?”

Claire turned to see her mom come through the screened door. “Not at all. I was just admiring the scene.”

“That was quite a storm,” her mother said. “But not as bad as they expected, I guess. I read in the paper there was a little flooding in Holly Hill, but nothing major.”

“Ben called me last night when he got home. No problems on his street or any of the streets nearby.”

“Did his house leak?”

“Nope, everything was fine.”

“You seem pretty chipper.” Her mother sat in a rocking chair.

“Ben called me again this morning,” she said, suppressing a smile.

“What? Is something going on?”

Claire told her about the call, about meeting him after work and her suspicions. She was almost giggling.

Her mother smiled. “From what your father said the other night before bed . . . you might be right.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “That’s why I wanted to talk with you, find out what you’re thinking.”

“You mean if he asked me to marry him, would I say yes?”

“That’s pretty much it.”

“Of course I would!” Her hand knocked her coffee cup over. It spilled all over the porch. “I’m so sorry.”

Her mother laughed. “I guess you’re a little excited.”

“I’ll get something to clean it up.” She ran into the house and came back with a wet washcloth. As she rubbed it back and forth, she stopped and looked up. “Mom, I love Ben, more than anything else in the world. I’ve been so happy these past few months.”

“No lingering thoughts about Jim Burton?”

“Not a single one. I don’t know what I felt for Jim, but it was nothing like this.”

“Has Ben said anything to you, maybe hinted at wanting to be married yet?”

“He tells me he loves me every time we see each other. He’s talked about wanting to spend the rest of our lives together, even talked about wanting to grow old together.”

“That’s pretty strong marriage language.”

“And you’ll love this,” Claire said. “I asked him where he’d like to live. If he ever wanted to go back to Pennsylvania where he grew up, or move someplace else.”

“And . . . ?”

“He said he loves it here. He’d like to stay right here and raise a family someday.”

“With you?”

“He was looking right at me and smiling when he said it.”

“So you’ve been thinking about marrying him for a little while, then.”

“Lately, it’s all I think about.”

Father Flanagan hurried, as quietly as he could, down the side aisle of St. Paul’s Church, hoping not to disturb the handful of women praying in the first few rows. Ben wasn’t anywhere near the confessional. Aidan was running a little late; maybe Ben had already gone inside. He looked up and saw the little red light was on above one of the penitent’s doors.

Someone was in there.

He slipped into the center compartment and said a little prayer. It sounded like someone was crying on the other side. Clearly, a man. He slid the little door over. The crying stopped.

“Ben, is that you?”

“Father Flanagan, my life is over.”

It was Ben. When he’d called an hour ago, he sounded very upset, but he didn’t want to explain anything over the telephone. “What do you mean? What’s happened?”

“Things were going so good, wonderful even. I thought God had finally made a way for me to start over. I was just about to ask Claire to marry me. She loves me. I know she does. But now . . . it’s over. It’s hopeless.” He began to cry again.

“It’s never hopeless, son. Tell me what’s wrong. What’s happened?”

“The storm, Father. And now the explosion, near Savannah. It’s all falling apart.”

“Slow down, Ben. Catch your breath. What about the storm? The one that just passed?”

“Yes, some reporters were talking about it at the News Journal. They said the FBI is involved, just north of town. And then there’s this story, just came in over the wire, about an explosion in a shipyard just outside Savannah.”

“What do they have to do with each other? With you, Ben? I don’t understand.” He heard Ben inhale and exhale slowly.

“I’m sorry, Father. My head is spinning. I don’t know what to do. I’m sure the FBI is going to come here, maybe today. Certainly by tomorrow. It’s Jurgen’s body. They’ve found it.”

“Jurgen?”

“My partner, remember? The German agent I was with the night I came ashore. The one who drowned in the surf.”

He remembered. “They found his body?”

“The storm eroded the sand dunes where I’d buried him. Someone from the Coast Guard Beach Patrol found his body.”

“Oh my.” This was terrible. “What makes you think the FBI is involved? It’s a terrible thing, but bodies from ships have washed up on the beach—”

“That’s what they told our reporters,” Ben said. “But nobody’s buying it. I mean, that’s what they’ll report in the paper, but they know this body couldn’t be a sailor. They found him half buried in a sand dune. And the reporters said there were five times as many FBI agents crawling around the scene, compared to other times when a sailor’s body did wash up on the beach.”

“I see.”

“That means I have to leave. Now. I can’t stay here. It’s just a matter of time before they come here and start asking a lot of questions. If I get caught, they’ll kill me. And they might even come after Claire and her parents.”

“Where will you go?”

“I don’t know. Oh no . . . Claire.” He began crying again. “I can’t just leave her without saying anything.”

The poor lad. Aidan didn’t know what to say. “What about this explosion? How does that fit in?”

“It’s the other team, Graf and Kittel, I’m sure of it. They’ve started executing their mission.”

That was what Aidan had been afraid of. He’d hoped the men might have given up or been caught by now. So many months had gone by. “Was anyone hurt or killed?”

“I don’t know. It’s too early to say. We’ll probably know more by the evening edition. But . . . how can there not be casualties? That’s the whole point of their mission. Kill Americans. Strike fear into the hearts of the enemy. That’s what we were told, over and over again.”

“Do you know for certain it was them?”

“No, but I know the shipyard in Savannah was one of their targets, and another shipyard south of there . . . in Brunswick.”

“Then you have to report this. You can’t let anything else happen.”

“I can’t report it, Father. They’ll trace it back to me. I know they will, somehow.”

“But Ben—”

“I’m not going to let them hurt anyone else, Father.” He said this with a new tone of voice. Strong, as if he’d found a switch and turned off the tears. “I should have done something, long before this.”

“The authorities, Ben. Let them handle this. I can report it for you, if you’d like.”

“No, Father. Thank you, but no.”

He heard Ben stand up.

“I know what I must do now. It’s crystal clear.”

“Ben, don’t leave, not yet.”

“Pray for me, Father. I will stop them or die trying. But first . . . I need to talk to Claire.”

“Ben . . . wait.”

“Pray for me, Father.”

He opened the door and walked out.

As soon as Claire saw Ben walking toward her on the sidewalk, she knew he hadn’t come to have the conversation she’d been daydreaming about all day. Something was terribly wrong. It looked as if he’d been crying. She had just clocked out at Woolworth’s and met him at the front door.

“Ben, what’s wrong?”

“We have to talk.” He embraced her but pulled away before she could kiss him.

“Are you okay? What’s happened?”

He looked over his shoulder. “Let’s take a walk, in the park.”

Claire wrapped her arm around his. He wore a gray raincoat and black fedora. They stood there waiting at the curb for the traffic light to change. She looked up at him, but he looked straight ahead. This was totally unlike him. It made her tense up.

They stepped over a puddle and hurried across the street. “What is it, Ben? What’s going on?” He looked down at her and seemed like he was about to speak but then shook his head and stared straight ahead. Tears were forming in his eyes. They walked toward the river, turned right where the sidewalk curved, and kept walking. Up ahead was the bench where they first kissed.

“I love you, Claire,” she heard him say as they walked. “Please remember that.”

It frightened more than comforted her.

When they reached the bench, he sat down. She sat beside him. Then he stood up and paced in front of her, a few steps forward then back.

“Ben, come sit beside me. Please, calm down. Just tell me what’s wrong. I love you too. Whatever it is, we’ll get through it together.”

He looked into her eyes for the first time. “I wish that were true. So much.”

She sighed. What could have gone so wrong in such a short amount of time? He stood there looking at her. She could see in his eyes that he was rehearsing what to say next.

“Ben, it’s me.”

“I know, it’s you, Claire. But see . . . it’s not me, Ben.”

“What?”

He walked over and sat next to her, took her hand in his. “Before I say anything else, I want you to know. All the feelings I have for you, everything I have ever said to you about my love for you, my hopes and plans for our future . . . it’s all true. Every last word.”

“Okay . . .”

“Claire, I haven’t been totally honest with you about who I am.”

The look on her face was so hard to read. Ben didn’t know if he should start from the beginning and ease into the hard part or just start off with it.

“Who you are, Ben? I don’t understand. You’re not . . . who you are?”

“I am, Claire. I mean, mostly. But there are some things I haven’t told you. Some big things. Not because I didn’t want to but because I couldn’t.”

“Ben, what are you saying?” Her expression was now alarmed. “What could keep someone from telling the truth to someone they love?”

Those were almost the exact words Father Flanagan had said to Ben. He had been right. But whether Ben had told her the truth then or now, what difference did it make? He was about to lose her. That was the truth.

“Ben, I need you to start talking plainly to me. What are you trying to say? What big things about you aren’t true?”

“Claire, I am going to tell you everything—the whole truth—in this conversation. But I’m afraid if I start with the hardest part, you’ll just get up and run away from me as fast as you can.”
That didn’t come out right
.

“Why, Ben? Have you done something horrible? What’s going on?”

He had frightened her. He put his hand gently on her shoulder. “Claire, I’m going to share some facts about who I am. When you hear them, you’ll immediately know why I didn’t tell them to you up front. But you need to know . . . I am
your
Ben. The man you’ve fallen in love with is who I am. These facts—the ones I’m going to tell you—they don’t change that. Okay?”

“Just tell me, Ben. This is killing me.”

“I will, but promise me, you’ll let me tell you everything before you react.”

Claire sighed.

“If you love me, Claire, promise me you’ll hear me out.”

“Okay, I will.”

He looked out at the river then deep into her eyes. “Remember when I told you my parents died in a bombing raid?” She nodded. “Well, they did. But they weren’t in London. You said that, and I didn’t correct you.”

“Where did they die?”

“In Cologne. A city in Germany.”

“Germany.”

“Yes, Claire. My parents are—I am—German.”

“I don’t understand. How did they get to Germany? We’re at war.”

“They went there before the war, in 1935. I was born in Pennsylvania, that is true. But they weren’t. They came over here from Germany after World War I. I was born here, went to school here,
loved
it here. But they were always homesick and never felt like they fit in. Then in 1933, Hitler came to power in Germany and started turning everything around. Of course, all they knew were the reports they heard about how everything in Germany was wonderful now. Hitler started making appeals to all good Germans to return to the Fatherland.”

“The Fatherland.”

Ben shook his head. “That’s how they think. It’s all this nationalism. It’s crazy.”

“Is it like patriotism?”

“Not really. There’s no freedom. It’s like . . . picture FDR gets elected, and he takes over the military, secretly starts killing off all the Republicans and anyone else who doesn’t agree with him. Then he takes over the press, the newspapers, and the radio. People only hear what he wants them to hear. From now on. He takes over the schools and children are brainwashed to think only one way. All for the glory of the Fatherland and the Fuhrer. The Fatherland, the Fuhrer. Everywhere you look, red banners and swastikas. I hated it there.”

“So how did you escape?”

He could see it in her eyes. So far, she was sympathetic to his tale. “Now we come to the hard part. I didn’t escape.”

“Then how did you get away, how did you get back here?”

“I was sent here. I came in a U-boat.”

“What!” She stood up, looked all around, as if someone might hear them.

“Claire, please, sit down. Let me explain.”

“You came here . . .” She sat down, whispered loudly, “On a U-boat?”

“Yes, back in August.”

“We only met in September.”

“I know, and I loved you from the first moment I laid eyes on you.”

“Ben . . . are you saying . . . you’re a German spy?”

“No . . . well, not in my heart.”

“What does that mean?”

“I came here for only one reason, to get away from the horror my parents put me through in Germany. After they died, I had no reason to stay. When the Nazis offered to train me as a spy, to send me here to the US, I knew it was my chance to get away. To come back to the land I love and start over.”

Tears formed in her eyes, fell down her cheeks. “I’m so frightened. I don’t know what to say.”

“Say . . . you love me.”

She was trembling. “Ben, I do love you, but I don’t know. This is so much . . . too much, I think.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ben, how can we just go on from here? I read about what they did to those German spies they caught over the summer. They killed them.”

“I know, that’s why I’ve had to create a new identity for myself. So I could start over. But I’ve been doing it. It’s been working just fine. The only hard part has been lying to you, keeping all this from you and your parents.”

“My goodness, Ben. My parents!”

“I know . . . I . . . I don’t know what to do about them. What we should tell them.”

“You said you had to create a new identity. Does that mean . . . your name isn’t really Ben?”

He shook his head.

“Your name isn’t Ben Coleman?”

“No.”

She burst into tears. She buried her face in her hands. All he could hear muffled through her sobs was, “I don’t even know your name.”

“But I am Ben, Claire.”

“No, you’re not.” She still hadn’t lifted her head.

“I am. My name doesn’t matter. I’m the same person on the inside. I haven’t lied to you about that.”

He waited there for several moments, rubbing her back gently as she cried. Finally, she looked up. He handed her a handkerchief. “What is your real name?”

But it was her eyes. Ben could see; it was as if the light had gone out of them. “It’s Gerhard Kuhlmann. Well, in Pennsylvania, it was Gerard Kuhlmann.”

“Oh my gosh.” She looked at him as if he was suddenly a total stranger.

He felt sick inside.

“Well, tell me . . .
Gerhard Kuhlmann
, what else? I want to know everything you haven’t told me. No more lies.”

“Claire, I haven’t been lying to you.”

“No? What do you call it, then?”

“I haven’t . . . I haven’t volunteered things about me, things about my past, but I’ve worked very hard to be as honest with you as I can, especially about my heart, my feelings for you, my hopes for our future together. I even bought a diamond ring. Right over there at Duvall’s Jewelry Store.” Ben pointed toward Beach Street.

“It’s not supposed to be hard, Ben. You’re not supposed to have to work hard at being honest with someone you love.”

“Claire, when could I have told you this? What would have been a better time? Can you imagine this ever being something that would be easy to hear?”

She looked away, toward the river. “I don’t know. But I do know I need to hear everything else. I don’t want any more lies.”

Ben sighed. Then he told her. About the night he came ashore. About Jurgen drowning in the surf. About how he’d buried his body in the dunes. About the suitcase full of money and ration coupons.

With each new piece of information, her face grew more alarmed, her eyes more distant from him. “So what made you decide to tell me the truth now? Why now?”

Ben told her about Jurgen’s body being discovered because of the storm. About the FBI agents who were probably on their way here now. About the other two German agents, Graf and Kittel. About their plans to kill Americans. About his fears that they may have already begun to do just that, about the explosion in the shipyard near Savannah.

Her expression changed. It now included fear.

He stood up.

“Where are you going?”

“It’s obvious. I knew this would happen. In telling you the truth, I’ve lost you forever. I wanted a new life. That’s all I wanted. A new life, an American life, with you. With your family. Here. But I can’t have that anymore, can I?”

“What are you going to do?”

“The only thing I can do. I have to try and stop Graf and Kittel, before they hurt anyone else.”

“But Ben, you’ll be killed.”

“If I stay here, the FBI will catch me, and then the American government will kill me. But they won’t just kill me, they’ll destroy you and your family. They’ll humiliate you all. I won’t let that happen.”

He started to walk away.

“Ben, don’t go.”

He heard a tenderness in her voice.

“I do love you.”

He turned and ran to her, stroked her cheek with his finger. “I’ll probably never see you again. But I want you to have this.” He pulled the ring box out of his pocket and opened it. The diamond sparkled in the sun. “This ring, and all that it stands for, are true. I love you with all my heart, and I’ll love you till my last breath.” He handed it to her, leaned over, and kissed her forehead.

“Good-bye, Claire.”

He walked away.

“Ben, wait! Don’t go.”

He picked up his pace and dared not look back. Tears falling down his face.