A Parachute in the Lime Tree (19 page)

He found himself distracted by her hands, which seemed constantly to make precise, barely discernible movements. For all her courtesy, he could see that she was wary of him. He decided it was best to be direct. ‘I am looking for Elsa Frankel.’

She raised her eyebrows. Her hands were placed lightly together now and she was watching him intently. ‘A friend, Mr Miller?’

He nodded. A nurse came rushing through the door, then mumbled her apologies before backing out again.

‘And why have you come here to look for your friend?’ She sounded as though she had no real interest in his reply, and that angered him, though he tried not to show it.

‘Your name was mentioned on the visa application. I came across it at the Irish Legation, back in Berlin.’

‘They let you look through their files? Why would they do that?’ She didn’t sound like she believed him. He started to explain about the bribe, how the woman had assumed that he was a fellow Nazi, but she looked incredulous and he decided he was over-complicating things. He tried to start again but she shook her head. ‘I didn’t have a single visa granted from that Legation. Not one.’ An expression rippled across the calm surface of her face for a moment and disappeared before he could name it. ‘You’re from Berlin, Mr Miller?’

‘I’m sorry, my name is Müller.’

‘You can’t help your name.’ She smiled, then so did he. But Miss Alexander’s smiles didn’t seem to last very long. ‘I’m trying to understand,’ she went on. ‘Most Germans here have been in Ireland for years, but you’re very young. Tell me more about yourself and about Berlin.’

He found himself following the little waves she made with her hand.

‘I haven’t been there for some time,’ he said quickly.

‘No, not since before the war, surely,’ she said. ‘Otherwise,’ her hands spread.

He agreed. ‘Not since then.’

‘And your family?’

‘Dead,’ he said, feeling a combination of shame and superstitious anxiety that his lie would damn them all.

‘All of them?’ she asked. ‘Your family are all dead?’

He nodded, trapped now.

‘They died before the war? Or since?’

He could no longer look at her.

‘Which?’

‘They died a long time ago.’

Miss Alexander said nothing for a moment. He swept his feet back under the chair and it rocked him forward with a sudden jolt.

‘Why do you want to see Miss Frankel? You can’t have seen her for many years, surely. Not since she was a child. Yet you were in Berlin recently enough to check a visa application. Forgive me if I fail to follow.’

He should have told her the truth. He knew that, and so he began again. ‘I jumped,’ he said, his face hot now. ‘I was a member of a crew of lamplighters over Belfast. Kampfgruppe 100. We were pathfinders, for the bombers that followed. But I jumped. Over a month ago, now. I jumped for her.’

When he looked at Miss Alexander, she was shaking her head. She looked insulted, then angry, then weary. The emotions flickered into life one by one.

‘Please excuse me,’ she said finally, standing up to indicate that the meeting was over.

He moved towards her and immediately she took a step back from him. When she spoke again, her voice was firm. ‘You must go now,’ she said. ‘We are very busy at present.’ She looked at him with at strange expression. He wondered whether it was pity or disgust.

‘I jumped from a plane,’ he blurted out. ‘I deserted.’

She shook her head so fast it must have made her dizzy. ‘Come now,’ she said and took his arm, leading him towards the door.

‘I came to find her. If you knew how I’ve tried to find her.’

‘And before, when you were in Berlin, what did you do then?’

Oskar didn’t stop walking until he reached the sea. He spent the night in an overgrown garden near the railway station, huddled for shelter against a wall. For hours, it seemed, he lay awake there as the sea crashed over the rocks. The air was sharp and his throat felt like it had been grated raw. At first light, he stood on the deserted station platform and waited for a train to stop. He felt hollow, defeated. Again and again he ran over things in his mind. He should have told her everything from the start instead of changing his story halfway through. He’d already decided to go back. Next time, he’d start at the beginning, with Zweibrückenstrasse. He’d bring Kitty with him too, to vouch for the parachute.

‘They really want you to come,’ said Elsa. ‘Will you?’

She looked pale. Charlie wondered again if she was getting enough iron. If he brought her home to Foynes, Ma would have her fattened up in no time. He decided that when the exams were over, he would invite Elsa down to meet them all. She and Retta would have great gas together and the whole lot of them could go dancing to the Ceili in the parish hall.

He’d gone to some trouble to smarten himself up for the Shabbat eve dinner, and now he hoped he hadn’t gone too far. He’d never worn a cravat before. Elsa giggled when she saw it and said that Bethel would have no peace from Hilde until he agreed to get one too.

The Kernoffs had been invited, and a little bent woman he hadn’t seen before. They all sat around a large table laid with a stiff white cloth, which just about fitted into the front parlour. When no one was looking, Elsa flicked up the cloth to reveal that it was actually a door, salvaged from somewhere or other and placed on top of the dining table when there were extra guests. There was a book and candles, and two loaves of bread covered by a fringed cloth that was embroidered with symbols he’d never seen before. He became aware of a scent, dusky and sweet. The perfume had him on the edge of a sneeze but he managed to hold it back while Hilde lit the candles, slowly and with great care. Elsa was seated opposite him. He’d never sat opposite a girl by candlelight before and he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

As Bethel grappled with the incantation, his complicated Dublin vowels slipped away from him. The bread was uncovered and shared, and once the meal had begun the room was alive with chatter. The conversation fell to either side of Charlie
and Elsa, and nobody seemed to expect them to join in. It was as though there were only the two of them there, in the centre of the table, with the candles flickering between them.

Now that he had the opportunity of spending a whole meal with her, he couldn’t help trying to squeeze in question after question. He learned that she liked the colour blue, that she adored ice-skating (though not skiing). She hated fish, but seafood was even worse. She did not approve of smoking. As for astronomy, she said she couldn’t care less which star was which, but she agreed that there would one day be a colony on the moon.

‘Maybe that’s where we’ll all end up. Maybe they’ll let us have the moon if they can keep their precious world for themselves.’ She looked into the candle flame and seemed lost a moment.

‘Would you fancy a bit of Nelson Eddy?’ he asked, keen to keep her spirits up. He had
New Moon
in mind, at the Metropole.

He was astonished to discover that she’d never even heard of him. She didn’t know Charlie Chaplin either. There was so much they would have to teach each other, and the thought thrilled him. Lottie and Minnie were squealing about a spider they’d discovered that morning in the kitchen sink, and when he asked Elsa what she was afraid of, that’s the kind of thing he had in mind. As soon as it was out, though, he knew it was a stupid question and wished he could bite it back.’ She didn’t answer at first. Then, she looked him straight in the eye. ‘Can’t you guess?’ she said.

Now and then, he caught sight of Bethel sitting back in his chair, smiling like an indulgent father. Hilde’s eyes darted anxiously between Elsa and Charlie, her eyes returning always to rest on Elsa. After the meal, they played Chinese whispers, and Elsa laughed and laughed. It was hard to believe she was the same person who’d cried such bitter tears that night by the canal. Later, when the dinner was cleared away, the table dismantled, and Lottie and Minnie sent up to bed, they all squeezed around the piano in the back parlour. Mrs Kernoff had a decent voice, and she sang a couple of light opera tunes
while Elsa accompanied her. Then Elsa gave them a little medley of her own. He remembered hearing a lad from the R&R singing one of the tunes she played. He could remember some of the words, too. ‘
You make my darkness bright when like a star you shine on me
.’ He felt too awkward to sing along because the words were too painfully precise.

That afternoon he’d been on his way to O’Neill’s with some of the medical set. He walked a little apart from them, just keeping up with the conversation, as he thought of Elsa and the dinner and what little thing he might bring her. Eventually, he let the others go on, said he would catch them up. He stopped off at McCullough Pigot and asked the man in there, a reedy little fellow with a red nose, if there was anything he might bring a girl who liked Chopin.

When the Kernoffs had left and the little bent woman had been helped down the street to her own house, Charlie retrieved the sheet music from his briefcase and sat next to Elsa on the duet stool. ‘Did you know it was an Irishman gave your friend Chopin the idea to write night music?’

‘It’s that blind harper again, isn’t it?’ she said, and kissed him lightly on the cheek so that his skin burned. He gave her the book, and she propped it up on the music stand and began to read aloud. ‘John Field. Inventor of the Nocturne. Born Dublin, 1782. Died Moscow. After leaving Dublin at the age of eleven he never once again lived in Ireland.’

He hadn’t read that bit. Hilde looked alarmed. But once Elsa began to pick out the melody, the music took over. As he watched her play, he memorised the lie of her hair, the roll of her shoulders as she used her body to give power to the music. He knew that he would be able to mark this as the moment of his falling in love and he wanted to be able to remember every detail of it. He guessed that the feeling she put into the music signalled some other love that was lost now. He wondered if she would ever feel that way for him.

After Bethel went to bed, Hilde sat nodding in her chair until Charlie realised with a start that she’d probably been acting as a sort of chaperone. He muttered his apologies and the three of them stood cluttering up the hallway while he said his goodbyes. On the other side of the street, a cherry tree strained against a garden wall. As he crossed the road, his leather soles slid slightly on the deep carpet of blossom. He looked back at the house and there she was on the first floor, waving and blowing comic kisses at him.

The moon was waiting for him at the end of the street, hung low in the sky like a lantern. He was not in the habit of noticing the moon and he smiled to himself at this confirmation that he had indeed fallen in love. As for the moon, there was something not altogether normal about it. It looked bloated, jaundiced. As he moved down towards Camden Street, he felt it bear down on him.

He looked at his watch. He’d be lucky to be home before one at this rate, and there was no way Mrs Curran would tolerate that. He decided that discretion was the better part of valour and resolved to head for Des’s flat instead. He walked down to College Green, then turned the corner into D’Olier Street and over towards the Liffey. He was amazed how many people were still about at this late hour: sweethearts canoodling by the O’Connell monument, shawlies and aul’ fellas all over the place. He’d been walking on air when he left Elsa, but now the moon seemed to give the night a yellowish tinge. Everything looked off-colour, unwholesome. As soon as he heard the drone of the engines high above his head he knew exactly what it was.

Kitty couldn’t sleep. The moon shone straight in at her through the skylight. Desmond had been to see her that morning. He stood in the gloom of the Receiving Room and delivered his lecture. ‘I’d no idea you weren’t in Dunkerin,’ he said, ‘and Mother not well at all.’

She felt like saying to him that she was nobody’s nursemaid but not knowing how ill Mother actually was, she held her tongue.

‘Dr Russell wrote to say her nerves are in an awful state. He’s told her that with bed rest and good nursing she’ll be right as rain, but Kitty, you should be down home at a time like this. What has you in Dublin anyway? Bobby said you were fierce cloak-and-dagger when he ran into you.’

That’s when Effie cut in. ‘You can be very hard, Desmond. That sister of yours is an angel of mercy to the afflicted. She brought me back from death’s door.’

‘But you’ve that Ranjit fellow to look after you, Effie. Anyway, you look in brave shape, thank God. Angel or not, it’s time Kitty went home.’

With the departure of Oskar and the prospect of returning to Dunkerin, Kitty was mired in gloom. She should never have taken him in in the first place. What was she thinking? He’d just used her as a way of getting up to Dublin and then as soon as he got here he was off. She was mortified at the thought of what Con Redmond would say if he ever heard tell of it all. Maybe she should have just handed the diary over to the Guards. Maybe she still should.

After Desmond left, she went to Bewley’s to meet up with some of the girls from school. Rita was there, and Mary Crosbie and her sister, and Eily Roche, who brought along a couple of the Dalkey girls. They sat under one of the great stained-glass windows, eating almond buns and drinking tea.

‘But what are you doing with yourself, Kitty?’ Mary kept asking. ‘Have you plans?’

She felt like a right gom, saying she was just after buying her ticket home to Dunkerin.

‘Aren’t you great to be looking after your mother?’ Eily said, a face on her like Mother Fabius. ‘I suppose you’ll just have to offer it up.’

After that, they got onto the subject of the Zoo Dance and what a grand job Rita had done, getting a partner for Kitty and her the other side of the country altogether.

‘I couldn’t be bothered with the Zoo Dance,’ she said finally. There was a stunned silence.

‘Ah, you must.’

‘… great gas.’

‘Not bothered?’

‘… sure your mother wouldn’t mind.’

They were all talking at once and she felt like just getting up out of her chair and leaving them to it.