The Soldier's Wife (29 page)

Chapter 69

I
T HAPPENS IN
high summer.

One evening, when the girls are in bed, an hour before Gunther will come, I'm sitting alone in my living room with a load of darning to do. I hear a soft dull thud on the door at the back of the house. I jump up. My first thought is that some large animal has bumped against the door—maybe a horse or a cow has broken into my garden. I go to the door, my pulse skittering, open it cautiously.

I can only move it a little way: something is pushing it shut. I peer through the crack. For a brief, muddled moment, unable to make sense of what I see, I think that a heap of filthy gray rags has been flung down on my doorstep. I stare
. Oh God
. The bundle of rags is a man. He's on his front, his face hidden. As I look, he raises his head.

“Oh God. Kirill.”

His eyes flicker open.

Please God,
I think.
Please God, let nobody have seen
. . .

“Vivienne. I came back.” His voice is a rasping whisper.

The change in him appalls me. He was wretched, ragged, starved, before, but now there's such fragility to him, almost a translucence. His face is hollow, the skeleton looms through the skin—you can see how he will look in death. There are shadows like bruising around his mouth, his eyes. He coughs, and the cough is a predatory creature, scrabbling at him, almost destroying him.

He moves, just enough to let me open the door. I slip out.

“Can you get up?” I ask him.

I put out my hand. He grasps it, struggles to his feet. I bring him into my house.

I give him what food I have, cold potatoes and soup. He eats slowly; he has to struggle to swallow, the action takes all his will. I remember how eagerly, hungrily, he used to eat my food. I'm glad that Millie is sleeping, that she doesn't have to see him like this.

“You stopped coming to the barn,” I say.

“There were different guards,” he tells me.

But perhaps that's not the real reason. Perhaps it was because I'd said that a German visits my house.

I light our cigarettes, hand him his. He sits at my table, resting his head in his hand. I look at him, at the shadows, blue as ash, in his face. I remember my mother on her sickbed, the imminence of death in her. I know he has only a few days left. Yet he came here to find me. Something in him still clings to life, something will not let go—not yet. He came here.

In that instant, thinking this, I know just what I must do. I see this with perfect clarity, the absolute necessity of it, the weight of the moment falling on me, sudden, drenching as rain. But I flinch from it. Everything's happening so quickly: I'm not prepared, not ready. This isn't the way I do things—so instantly, impulsively. I would like to think it through; I would like to weigh everything up. But there's no time for any of that.

I swallow hard. My throat is thick with fear. It's the moment I can't go back from.

“Kirill.” My voice sounds almost normal, just a little too high. “If there was a way to get out—if I could find someone to help you escape—would you want that?”

I see a brief light in his eyes.

“Yes,” he says. “Yes, Vivienne.”

Panic grips me, now that I've said it—fear for him, and for me.

“Think about it,” I tell him. “You've got to think about it carefully. If you try to escape and they find you they will shoot you in a heartbeat. You know that.”

He starts to reply, but his cough drowns out his words. It masters him, has its claws in him. He struggles to speak, as though this has to be said, as though he is running out of time, but he has no breath.

At last the coughing subsides.

“Vivienne. If I stay in the camp, I will not live,” he tells me.

“I can't keep you with me now,” I say. “I'll have to work out how to do this. There's someone I need to talk to.”

He nods.

“Come to the barn tomorrow,” I tell him. “I'll meet you there. I'll see what I can do.”

I take him over the lane. The food—or my promise to him—has given him a little strength: he can walk now. He shivers, yet a thin heat comes off his body. His hand is light as the brush of a falling feather on my arm.

Chapter 70

G
WEN'S KITCHEN DOOR
is open: she's at her sink, peeling potatoes. She turns, takes one look at my face. Her own face darkens. She puts down her scraper and lifts up her apron, wiping her hands.

“Viv, what is it? What's happened?”

“Gwen, I need to see Johnnie,” I say.

A frown comes to her forehead.

“He's trying to fix the tractor,” she says. “Up past the hayfield. Viv, can I do anything?”

“I just need to have a word with him,” I tell her.

She reaches out to me, puts her damp, urgent hand on my arm.

“Don't get him involved in anything, Vivienne.” She knows me so well: perhaps she can read something of my purpose in my face. Her voice has a high note of pleading.

“There's something I have to ask him,” I tell her.

She doesn't try to stop me. She leans against her sink and watches me as I go, her arms wrapped tight around her body.

I walk around the back of the farmhouse, past the greenhouses that have a warm scent of tomatoes, past a field of grass grown for hay that ruffles and parts in the wind, as though a hand is stroking it.

I see the tractor on the track by the hedge. Johnnie has his head in the engine. He looks up, startled to see me.

“Auntie Viv?”

He straightens. His fingers are blackly stained with oil; he rubs his hands on a rag, distracted, his face a question.

“There's something I wanted to ask . . .” My voice is creaky, thin. “I've got a problem, Johnnie.”

I'm speaking very softly, though there's no one to hear. The wind whispers at the ragged edge of the hayfield. Johnnie takes a step closer, waits for me.

“There's a man from the work camp. Kirill—his name is Kirill.” I think how I don't know his surname, and had never thought to ask. “He comes from Belorussia. We're friends. Last year he would come to my house for a while, and I would give him a meal.”

Johnnie's eyes widen. He says nothing.

“Then for a long time I didn't see him,” I say. “I worried what might have happened. I mean, you know what those places are like. . . .” My voice is serrated with panic: the words spill out, tumbling over one another. “He came back yesterday evening. He's ill, he's terribly ill. I'm so frightened for him. If he stays in the camp, he'll die. I know that. You can just tell that . . . Johnnie, I can't let him die. . . .”

I realize my face is wet.

Johnnie is embarrassed.

“Don't cry, Auntie,” he says, helplessly.

He pulls a handkerchief out of his pocket, hands it to me. I scrub at my face, but the tears still fall.

“Johnnie. Can you help us?”

For a moment he says nothing. There is utter silence between us and in the land around us, all still and empty, the fields, the lanes, the woods: depth on depth of quiet. I hear the shushing sound the wind makes in the field of tall grass.

Johnnie's face works.

“I might be able to.” He looks wary.

I'd hoped for something definite, something practical and clear.

“You said you had plans to help some slave workers escape.” My voice is shrill, and rather accusing. “You said you might have safe houses.”

“We're getting there,” he says. “But we're not very organized yet. On Jersey they've got a whole network. . . .”

“So could you help us?” I say again. Still wanting a different answer.

“Maybe.”

“The thing is, Kirill speaks very good English. A man in his village taught him. Someone who'd worked in a university . . .”

Something new comes into Johnnie's face when I say that, as though this changes everything.

“Good enough that he could pass for an islander?” he says.

“Yes.”

“That makes all the difference,” he tells me, his face brightening. “If he could live as one of us . . .”

“He could. I'm sure he could. I mean, islanders would know, of course. They'd hear his accent—he has a bit of an accent. But I think the Germans wouldn't be able to tell.”

“It's what they do on Jersey,” says Johnnie. “There's a handful there who've escaped. They don't try to hide them, they live in plain sight, as farm laborers. . . . It's the only way.”

He's tracing random crescents in the mud with the toe of his boot: planning, puzzling, working it out.

“It would be best to keep him hidden for a while,” he tells me. “He'll need an identity card, of course, and that takes time to make. There's a man in town who does them. And there's somebody up in St. Sampson who I think would take him in. Better really if you don't know the exact details . . .”

“He's coming back to my house tonight. You could come and take him then,” I say.

But Johnnie shakes his head. Seeing that, I feel the world lurch around me.

“No, not tonight, Auntie. We'll have to move him in the daytime,” he says.

“Why? Why in the daytime?” My heart cantering off.

“For a start, we can't risk being out after curfew. And it'll take a while to get him where he needs to be.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, like I said, it's best to do these things in plain sight. Bang in the middle of the working day. Jerry's much more likely to stop you in the evening. He'll reckon you're up to something.”

I clasp my hands tight together, so Johnnie won't see the trembling that passes through me.

“Auntie. Could you keep him with you for just one night?” he says.

Oh God.

“There are the Germans next door,” I tell him. But I can scarcely speak above the hard dull thumps of my heart.

“That shouldn't be a problem,” he says. “I mean, it's not as though they're going to actually come in your house. . . .”

I don't say anything.

“In a funny way it helps that they're there,” he tells me. “It works to our advantage. No one would think you would take the risk. They'd never suspect you of harboring someone—not with the Germans that close.”

I can't tell him how close they really are; can't tell him about Gunther and just how perilous this is. I know this is unfair to Johnnie—if he's going to help me, he needs to fully understand the risk. But I can't do it.

“Do you have anywhere you could hide him?” he asks me. “Some kind of nook in the house?”

I think of the attic, where Millie and Simon sometimes play.

“We have a little back attic—it has a different staircase. It's not properly secret, but it's not immediately obvious.” I try to remember whether he used to play there with Blanche, but those times are a far country, an image glimpsed through a prism—tiny, rainbow-colored, remote. “I don't know if you've ever been up there. . . .”

“And do you have clothes he could wear?”

His eyes are ardent and gleaming now. This thrills him—putting the jigsaw together, fitting in all the pieces. I see, with a jolt of misgiving, that this is still a game to him.

“He could have some old clothes of Eugene's. They'll be too baggy on him, but they'd be about the right height,” I tell him.

He nods.

“Nobody must know,” he says. “Not Blanche. Not Millie. Nobody. That's the safest way for everyone.”

“Yes. Of course.”

His eager gaze on me.

“So can you do that, Auntie?”

I think of all the danger—to my family, to Johnnie—edging out, like ripples where a stone is dropped into a pool, stealthily, secretly. But then I think of Kirill: how he came to find me.

“Yes, I can do that.”

“Keep him tonight, and I'll be with you first thing in the morning. I'll have to bring the horse and cart—this tractor's on its last legs. I'll find something to hide him under. I'll be there as soon as I can. I promise.”

It's real, suddenly. All the panic I've been pushing away from me presses into my chest, so hard I can't breathe.

“I'll go and see my contact right away.” A sudden grin unfurls across Johnnie's face. “You're a bit of a dark horse, aren't you, Auntie? I'd never have thought it of you. Well, good for you,” he says.

Walking home, I have a constant urge to look behind me. Like on those summer days before the Occupation, walking along the causeway from Lihou Island with the girls: always that fear at your back, that the water might overtake you.

Chapter 71

F
ROM THE WARDROBE
in my bedroom, I sort out some clothes of Eugene's—trousers, a couple of linen shirts, some strong leather shoes. With my arms full of the clothes, I go to the stairway by Blanche's door that leads to the back attic.

I hear a door open behind me. Evelyn comes out of her room. Everything slumps inside me. I don't want to have to explain to her.

She stares at the clothes in my arms, at the shoes.

“What are you doing, Vivienne?”

“It's nothing—don't worry,” I say.

“Vivienne, why do you have his clothes? Is he coming back?” she asks me.

“No, not today. I'm just doing a bit of sorting,” I say. “Tidying up the wardrobe. Making a bit more space.”

She doesn't seem to hear me.

“He's coming home, isn't he, Vivienne?”

Her face is suddenly vivid with a desperate hopefulness. Sadness snares me, as so often, because of the way she constantly rediscovers the harshness of things, and the terrible fact of her son's absence.

“No. Eugene's not coming back yet. Eugene's still away, Evelyn,” I say.

“Are you telling me the truth?” she says.

“Yes, of course.” Feeling guilty about so many things, as I say this. “I'm so sorry, Evelyn.”

I WAIT AT
the barn, my pulse racing. He's late, and I wonder if he has died already—and there's a tiny, shameful part of me, hunched up like a mouse in a secret corner of my mind, that is almost relieved when I think this. Because if he didn't come, I wouldn't have to do this thing.

I hear a shuffle behind me. I turn; Kirill is there. He's so weak he can scarcely walk, and I take his arm and help him. It's a beautiful summer evening and there's still some warmth in the sun, but he's shivering. We walk through the fields and over the lane, moving from shadow to shadow. He moves so slowly, it seems to take forever. I only let myself breathe out once I have him through my back door.

I seat him at my kitchen table. There's a dulled, remote look in his eyes. I wonder how real all this is to him—my room, the plans we have made. Whether it's all receding from him, the world becoming insubstantial—a place of mist and memory, fading. Whether all this seems a dream to him.

“Kirill. Do you still feel the same—that you want to escape? That you'll take that risk? I have to be certain,” I say.

He tries to speak, but coughing shakes him, racks him.

“Yes,” he mouths through the coughing, forcing out the words—as if he has to seize the moment, daren't let it pass. “Yes.”

The coughing is over; he rests his head on his folded arms on the table, as though his head is too heavy for him and cannot be held up.

“Then here's what we'll do. You can stay here tonight. You can sleep in my attic,” I tell him.

“Thank you, Vivienne.”

“Someone will come in the morning and take you to a safe house. Until they get papers for you. After that you'll live as an islander. We'll find a place for you to live,” I say.

He reaches out, clings to my hand.

“Thank you,” he says. “Thank you.”

When he has washed and eaten, I take him up to the back attic. My heart beats in my throat, but the whole house is quiet, the girls both in their rooms, Evelyn safely sleeping.

The attic is ready for him. I have put up an old camp bed and piled it with warm blankets, and there are the clothes of Eugene's, a candle, and water to drink in the night.

He sighs a little when he sees this, as though at last he can breathe freely.

“Thank you for all your kindness,” he says.

I close the attic door behind me. Triumph surges through me—that we have got this far. That I can look after him here tonight, that he doesn't have to return to the hell of the camp. I feel all the glowing righteousness of having him here in my house: the feeling moves through me, warm as fever.

I go down to my bedroom to make myself ready for Gunther—to brush my hair, put on a little of the scent he gave me. Around me I hear the familiar rustles and creaks of my house, as it cools and settles for the night. Then all at once the tenuous sense of triumph leaves me. My palms are suddenly clammy with sweat, the hairbrush slides from my grasp. Down here in my bedroom, I can still hear Kirill's coughing.

IT
'
S TEN O
'
CLOCK,
and Gunther knocks at the door.

“Vivienne.” That way he has of saying my name, as though it is the answer to a question.

I take him up to my room.

He kisses me, then pulls back, frowns slightly, looking into my face.

“What is it?” he says.

“It's nothing.”

He won't accept this.

“You seem rather nervous, darling. Tell me what the matter is.”

“It's nothing. Really,” I say. “Well, just the usual things.” I grab at the first explanation I can think of. “You know, feeding everyone. We're very short at the moment. . . .”

“I'll see what I can do.” He starts to kiss me again.

I try to lose myself in him, but it's impossible. I feel as though I am balancing in a difficult, treacherous place—on a high narrow ledge, the wind whistling perilously about me.

“That was as good for you as usual?” he asks me afterward, concerned.

“Yes, it was lovely. It always is.”

As I lie with my head on his shoulder, I hear Kirill starting to cough. I will him to stop, but the coughing goes on and on endlessly. It's hard not to flinch when I hear it: this takes all the strength that I have.

Gunther frowns, listening.

“Your mother-in-law has a terrible cough,” he says.

“Yes, it is quite bad.”

I hate lying to him.

“I can tell how it worries you,” he says. “You become very tense when she coughs.”

“Well, she's quite frail now. . . .”

“Would you like Max to come and examine her?” he asks me.

“It's better not,” I tell him.

The cold wind whistling around me: trying not to look down.

“Max really wouldn't mind,” he says.

“No, I know he wouldn't. He was so kind to Millie when she was hurt. . . . It's just—I don't think she'd accept his help. Evelyn is very correct. She'd see it as fraternizing, and she wouldn't approve.”

“Well, if you're sure. But the offer is there. I know he'd be happy to help her.”

We both listen to the coughing for a moment. Gunther makes a slight clicking noise in his throat, disapproving.

“It sounds very bad,” he says. “You shouldn't let her continue like that. You need to get some help for her.”

“Yes, I will.”

For the first time since we've been lovers, I'm desperate for him to go.

It's still dark when he stirs and wakes. I take him downstairs and stand on my doorstep, watching him as he leaves. There's a silver spill of moonlight over the yard, but at the foot of the hedgebank the darkness is dense and complete. Gunther's body is black against the gravel, so he and his shadow make one indivisible whole. I watch as he moves through the silver and black of my yard, moving through darkness and light, away from me. A story comes to my mind, a story I read to Millie from Angie's folktale book, about the fairy invaders who came from far-off countries and married island women. How, in spite of their marrying, they were bound by a contract written in blood, so the women never knew when the men they loved would leave them, and sail toward the thin blue line at the edge of the world, in their boats that could shrink as small as a pebble or the delicate bone of a bird.

WHEN GUNTHER IS
gone, I go up to the attic.

Kirill is asleep now. White moonlight through the uncurtained windows falls across him, and his skin seems pellucid, translucent. His hands are clutching at the blanket even in sleep, as though it is a precious thing that might be torn away from him. I can hear a high-pitched, dangerous note in his breath. But there's a stillness—a peacefulness, even—about his face as he sleeps. I wonder if he is dreaming of his homeland, of the place where his heart is—of the birch forest, the quiet rivers.

I stand there for a long time, watching him sleep. I feel a sudden, precarious happiness. I know I am doing the right thing, in keeping him here.

I sleep deeply, and my dreams are sweet and untroubled. I have a dream of flight—I am flying toward the morning over the sea, the dark sky above me, the dark sea below, and before me all the golden glory and flaming splendor of light.