A Parachute in the Lime Tree (18 page)

She looked out of the window and there was Bobby Coyle on the front step, carrying a bunch of flowers that was just the right side of mean. He had on a pair of two-tone brogues and was constantly shifting his weight from one foot to the other, as though he was trying to cool them off. It looked very odd, until Kitty realised he was just trying to sneak a look past the door Ranjit had left ajar. When she got downstairs, she swept the door open so suddenly that Bobby almost fell forward into the hallway. Once he’d composed himself, he didn’t waste any time. ‘Have you an invite to the Zoo Dance?’ he said, straight out.

‘I have, Bobby.’

He looked put out. ‘How did you swing that? There can’t be too many dancing partners in Dunkerin, unless you count the fellows dropping in from above.’ He laughed at his own wit.

She tried to laugh too but he was making her nervous.

‘Ah come on, Kitty. We’ll have a bit of a turn around the dance floor; play a few hands of whatever’s going. I won’t let on to Des, I promise.’

She wished he would shove off. ‘I haven’t a clue what you’re on about, Bobby. Like I said, I already have a partner.’ She made to close the door but he slid his shoe into the gap. ‘And who’s the lucky man?’

‘His name is Michael Rosney. A friend’s brother, if you must know.’

‘That’s very enterprising of you, Kitty, arranging that at long distance, what with the German coming down and all.’

‘Would you ever stop calling him the German?’

‘Well, we’ve no other name for him, do we?’ He was watching her closely now. She felt herself get all hot and bothered, and the more she felt it, the worse it got.

‘Look, it’ll be a bit of gas. Tell that Rosney fellow you’ve had a better offer. Sure have a think about it, anyway.’ He seemed happy enough as he set off down the steps but he took his flowers away with him.

The train jerked its way along the coast, and Oskar searched every inch of it for the girl who might have been Elsa. He tramped up and down the length of the train but she wasn’t there. When the train stopped, Oskar waited for it to empty, then vaulted over the station barrier. On the wall there were advertisements for things he’d never even heard of: something called Bird’s, that no child could resist, and something else called Bovril. He passed a house, smelt bacon and thought of Kitty. He felt guilty, suddenly, that he hadn’t said thank you, or even goodbye. He’d been so keen to get moving that he’d simply forgotten about her. Blue dress or not, he should have stuck to his plan; sold the watch, bought the map, stocked up on provisions, planned his route. Now, he was back to having no idea where he was.

He imagined Mutti and Emmi, how they would laugh if they could see him now. Typical Oskar, they’d say, haring off like that. The thought made him determined to keep going. He started to walk up the single nondescript street, though he couldn’t imagine Elsa in a place like this. She hated dull things. As he walked, he peered at names on gates, at script swirling across fanlights, for something that looked like Whitecrest. He wished he’d asked the nursemaid in the park what it was about him that marked him out as a German. His own adjustments seemed to have worked but he’d have liked some confirmation that he was on the right track.

It was only when he looked for signposts that he remembered the blacked-out signs at the railway station and realised it made sense to have removed the signposts too. Unless he was to wander round in circles, he’d have to take the risk of asking for directions.
He’d noticed how the Irish seemed to lisp the Ds and Ts at the ends of words, and as he walked along he tried this out quietly.

Outside one of the houses, a couple of men, middle-aged and strangely idle for the time of day, sat smoking. He’d prepared a little speech about losing his way and was just about to deliver it, when one of them asked what he was looking for.

‘Miss Alexander of Wicklow.’

The men turned to one another, as if the answer was written on the other man’s forehead. Then one of them answered, ‘There used to be Alexanders out Lough Reddan way.’

‘And now?’ Oskar asked. ‘Are they still at Whitecrest?’

‘I’m not even sure that’s what they call the place,’ he said. ‘Couldn’t put a name on it.’

‘You’ll need the boots,’ said the other. ‘It’s a fair old tramp.’

When he asked to see a map, they disappeared together into the house, as though neither wanted the burden of making conversation with him. They came back together too, carrying a large framed map they must have taken off the wall for him. One of the men propped it up on the windowsill and ran his finger ten or so centimetres from the coast, past a lake and a little further in. ‘Whitecrest,’ he announced, matter-of-fact, as though this was not the miracle it seemed to Oskar. ‘That’s the place over beyond Lough Reddan, right enough. Once you reach the lake, head on through the village and the big house is out the other side.’

Oskar followed the main street out of town and up towards the hills. When he glanced back, the two men were still standing there watching him. Now that he’d drawn attention to himself, it made no sense to take the main road, and he turned off it as soon as he was out of sight. The road had begun to rise towards the hills and once he’d left it he found himself on little more than a track, a wide band of lush grass running down the centre. The evening drew in quickly enough, and though he passed a couple of small cottages that breathed out thin
spirals of smoke, he didn’t meet another soul. As darkness fell, he came across a tin-roofed shack with rough boards nailed across the windows. He drank water from a nearby stream but there was nothing to eat. Grenade throwing, trench digging, use of dugouts; the Hitler Jugend had taught him all that but he still didn’t know which mushroom was which. In his imagination, there were sardines and fresh bread, and peaches straight from the tin. He inhabited the fantasy and ate hungrily, wiping his oily fingers on the lush grass. He used his knife to puncture the peach tin. He sucked the syrup through the hole, saving the fruit for later. Once the imaginary meal was eaten, though, he was left with the damp and the dark and a stomach that felt even emptier than before. His heart was on the brink; he couldn’t really believe he would see Elsa tomorrow, and yet he hadn’t been able to believe that he could lose her either.

It had snowed all day long and Mutti was knitting by the fire when he got home; something grey, he remembered, something she probably intended for him. Plain one, purl one, clickety-clickety-click.

‘I see the Frankels have gone,’ she said, without looking up from her knitting.

‘They can’t have done.’

‘I think you’ll find they have.’

When he dashed to look out the window, the tracks they’d made were still visible, but it was snowing so hard that very soon there would be no trace of them at all. Mutti laid her knitting to one side and placed another log on the fire.

‘How will they manage?’ He pictured Frankel, begging on Tiergartenstrasse, with his shoelaces undone.

Plain one, purl one. ‘Those Jews always manage.’

The next morning was sunny, though the countryside was still drenched from the night before. Oskar tramped on through
impossibly green fields edged with harsh yellow bushes, over the reddish stalks of last year’s bracken, around tufts of rough grass. Here and there, sheets of corrugated metal, weathered to rust, filled gaps in fields dotted with sheep. He passed by a stream gushing with brown water and stopped to splash his face with it. Hynotised by the tramp of his own feet, he had almost ceased to notice his surroundings when he saw the beginnings of a lake. He knew then that he must be close.

The sun had retreated and the lake looked black, bottomless. He couldn’t imagine picnics here or diving platforms. He couldn’t imagine Elsa here either. Perhaps she would refuse to see him. When he was called up by the labour people he hadn’t been home for six whole months, right when things had finally become impossible. When he returned, he’d gone round there right away, even though they all warned him not to. He marched straight up the path, still wearing his uniform. The house was shuttered from top to bottom but he could hear the faint sound of music inside. When he got to the door, he battered and battered and battered. The music stopped. He called her name. Nothing. Then the creak of a shutter from overhead. Frankel looked as if he’d just woken up. He seemed to barely recognise Oskar; just shook his head and closed the shutters again. A couple of days later, they were gone.

The sun didn’t return, and soon there was a mighty downpour. As the rain eased off, he came to the edge of a village. There was no one about except for a woman in a faded housecoat who was washing down the doorstep of one of the taverns. Inside, the place was small and dark, with a cubbyhole sectioned off next to the bar. The embers still glowed orange under a layer of fine grey dust, and the ashtrays were unemptied. Using as few words as possible and lisping his Ts as he’d practised, he asked if they served breakfast.

‘Seeing as you look half starved I might be able to stretch to an egg or two,’ the woman said.

He sat where he was told and heard her on the other side of the door, busy with pots and pans. He walked over to the half-curtained window and looked out into the street. A youngster was driving two sturdy cows down the middle of the street but that was the only activity. Inside the bar was covered in photographs with an identical caption: Easter Rebellion, 1916. They must have succeeded in their rebellion, he thought; losers don’t go on walls. He looked from face to face but he couldn’t find the one they might have chosen for a Chancellor. The men looked like shopkeepers or clerks but there was one woman in white with a beautiful face. It was puzzling.

He was just wondering whether breakfast would ever arrive when the woman reappeared with two eggs, fried in brownish grease, and a slice of that terrible bread. She laid the plate in front of him but supplied no cutlery. He was ravenous, and had already started to dab at the yolks with a chunk of bread when two men entered from the direction of the kitchen. They had the air of people accustomed to receiving attention. The woman seemed flattered to have them there and stood back to let them pass.

The older man was peering at Desmond Hennessy’s tweed coat. He came closer and felt the cloth between fingers and thumb. ‘Did they do this for you back home?’ he asked. ‘Not bad.’ He took a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket and flung them onto the table, as though they were credentials of some sort.

‘You’ve done better already than the last fella,’ said the younger man. ‘He landed up on the Military Road in the noses of a convoy of LDF. Part-timers, alright, but not that thick they’d miss a great big lump of a German with a parachute hanging off the back of him.’

Oskar continued mopping at the congealing yolk with the bread. He tried to remember what Kitty had told him about
the men who wanted to help Germany against England. He got the impression she was more frightened of them than she’d ever been of him.

‘Where are you headed?’

Oskar tried to drag up a destination from one of Kitty’s long monologues. When he didn’t give an immediate reply, the man just asked another question. ‘Do you have a transmitter?’

‘Yes.’ Oskar tried, watching to see if that was the right answer. ‘Not with me, of course.’

‘We need to get going, then. Is there a receiver as well?’

Oskar shook his head, and that answer seemed acceptable too. It wouldn’t take long for them to discover there was no transmitter. They’d work out soon enough that he wasn’t who they wanted him to be. For all he knew, they might shoot him then and there. He couldn’t believe this was how it would end.

Then, without another word, all three disappeared behind the bar and into the back room. He could hear voices, low at first then louder, more aggressive. He thought one of them might be speaking on the telephone. He took his chance quickly, slipping silently through the front door, then darting into an alleyway that led off the main street. They would expect him to try to get clear of the village, so he hid in behind an old charabanc that looked as if it hadn’t moved in decades. Minutes later, he watched them pass along the main street on a horse and cart. They were scanning right and left, and heading back in the direction of the lake. When he was sure they were gone, Oskar turned his back on the village and kept on going until he reached a point where the road began to dip. It wound its way down the mountain like a skein of dark wool around a bobbin. When he saw the house in the distance, he no longer felt the slightest bit hungry; he could go for days if he had to.

Whitecrest was a big white block of a house that resembled one of Mutti’s plain iced slab cakes. The painted wooden sign was flayed and blistered by the wind and rain but he could still make out the words, ‘Whitecrest Convalescent Home and Refuge for the Distressed’. The girl who answered the door looked doubtfully at him. He explained that he was looking for Elsa Frankel but the name didn’t appear to mean anything to her. She looked him up and down. It was only then that he realised his boots and the legs of his trousers were caked in mud. He probably smelt dreadful. The girl bit her lip. ‘Who will I say?’

She couldn’t get his surname right, even though he said it for her twice. He smiled, ‘Miller will do.’

She didn’t smile back but told him to wait a moment. She closed the frosted glass doors behind her, capturing him in a damp space that housed an umbrella stand and some outdoor boots.

When the girl returned, she nodded and ushered him inside. She walked ahead of him down the hallway, glancing over her shoulder now and then to make sure he was following her. She led him into a drawing room of sorts, empty but for a couch with a worn brocade cover and a bony rocking chair. Miss Alexander was already occupying the couch, so he sat in the rocker opposite. The rocking made him feel foolish, so he sat forward to steady the chair, his feet planted on the floor.

She began by commenting on the weather, gesturing vaguely in the direction of the long windows behind her. Then, when the weather had been got out of the way, she focused on him. ‘So, Mr Miller, how may I help?’