Clash by Night (17 page)

He regarded her thoughtfully, considering. Then he answered, half laughing, “Yeah. I would really like a bath.”

“A bath?”

He nodded, rubbing the growth of beard on his chin ruefully. “I’ve been hanging out in this barn for almost a month with nothing but a lick and a promise in Langtot’s wash basin. Have you got a tub at your house?”

“Yes, there’s a tub, but the idea is too dangerous. You have to cross the field between the barn and the door and someone might see you.”

Harris tapped ashes onto the barn floor and ground them out with his heel. “Come on,” he said, waving his hand. “You guys have been sprinting in and out of here practically every night. You know how to avoid the patrols by now. Just go out and watch, signal me when it’s safe.”

Laura hesitated.

“I can make it across the open area in a few seconds,” he added. “What do you say?”

Laura was tempted. She knew that Alain would be gone with Curel for most of the night, and Henri was down at the auberge in Bar-le-Duc with the Germans at an officers’ party.

“Curel wouldn’t like it,” she offered weakly.

“He won’t know.”

“All right,” Laura said, making up her mind. “Wait inside here and watch me. When I wave run for the kitchen door. Okay?”

He grinned. “Okay.”

Laura went out into the night and Harris remained behind, smoking thoughtfully. He was surprised that she had agreed to take him home, and tried not to read anything into it. She was probably just being kind. He shouldn’t misinterpret the spontaneous gesture of a generous nature. He dropped his cigarette to the earthen floor of the barn and crushed it out, pushing back his hair, acutely conscious of how he must seem to her after three weeks in his self-ordained prison: bearded, disheveled and smelling of sweat and stable animals. He sighed with resignation and moved to the door, opening it a crack so he could see her signal.

Laura went to the outhouse at the edge of Henri’s property, keeping her eyes on the road, waiting for the scheduled patrol car to pass. If it spotted her she would have an excuse for being outside after curfew. In a few minutes the German staff car glided down the lane, the soldier in the rear seat training a flashlight into the bushes alongside the road. Laura shrank back until it passed, not moving until the sound of its motor faded entirely from the night air. Then she stepped out and signaled to Harris, who sprinted from the barn on a dead run. His long legs covered the field rapidly as he traveled low to the ground, almost crouching, as if under fire. She joined him for the last few feet and they reached the kitchen door together, tumbling inside, exhilarated.

Gasping for breath, Laura slammed the screen behind them, latching it and the inner door quickly and securely. She didn’t turn to look at Harris until both were locked.

He was gazing around the kitchen, intrigued. He’d never been in a French home before and it showed.

“Where’s the Kelvinator?” he said jokingly, and she smiled.

“No refrigerator here, Captain,” she replied.

“I guess not.” He studied the massive open fireplace that took up almost one whole wall. “Is that the furnace?”
 

“That’s it. No central heat.”

He looked at the black iron stove, the water pump above the sink.

“No hot water either?”

Laura shook her head. “And we passed the outhouse on the way in,” she added.
 

“This must have been quite a change for you,” he observed dryly.

“You’d be surprised how fast you get used to it,” she said. She pointed out the portable zinc tub in a corner of the kitchen, covered by a board and doubling as a table when not in use. “There it is.”

Harris followed the direction of her finger and said, “Looks like it weighs a ton. Do you mean to tell me you’re lugging that around all the time?”
 

“Don’t worry. I’ll help you if you need it,” she said reassuringly.

He shot her a look, and then dragged it across the room, closer to the stove. He watched Laura work the pump to draw a large pot of water and then light the coal burner under it.
 

“There, that’s started,” she said, stepping back. She turned and faced him where he lounged against the fireplace wall, his hands in the pockets of his borrowed pants.

“Tell me about home,” she said eagerly.

“Home?”

“Yes, you know, the States.”

A teasing glint came into his blue eyes. “Hmm, let’s see. The Yankees will be in the pennant race again this year.”
 

She stared at him, exasperated.

“Oh, not a baseball fan, huh?” he said, feigning surprise.

“I was hoping for something a little more substantial,” she said tartly.

“I see. Well, I left in July, football hadn’t started yet.”

In spite of herself she smiled. “I can see why you were chosen for this job,” she observed. “No one would mistake you for a fountain of information.”

He straightened and his expression became serious. “People are getting ready,” he said simply. “They know what’s coming, that we can’t live in isolation and ignore what’s happening in Europe, in the rest of the world.” He took a step closer and gazed down into her face. “You should think some more about leaving here.”

Laura shrugged. “I do think about it. All the time. I just can’t do it.”
 

He didn’t reply, merely watched her expression.

“I have to fight,” she explained. “I have to stay here and do what I can. I’m helping you now, and after you someone else will come. What could I do in my father’s living room in Brookline? Am I supposed to desert Alain, his family, because I have a way out of this mess and they don’t?”

“There will come a time when you won’t be able to get out either,” he said evenly.

“I understand that,” she replied quietly.
 

“Don’t you miss your family, Massachusetts?” he asked.

“I miss them when I look at you,” Laura replied softly, before she thought about it. “When I hear you talk. When you say my name the way my father used to, two syllables, like the song.”

His eyes were locked on hers and he didn’t move. “Laura,” he whispered.

Neither wanted to look away.

Laura finally did, turning for the hall with a little more bustle than necessary. “I’ll get you Alain’s shaving things,” she said faintly, and hurried from the room.

Harris strolled over to the stove, where the water wasn’t even rippling yet. He now appreciated the old custom of the once weekly, Saturday night bath. Under these conditions it took the other six days to get it ready.

Laura returned with a razor, soap and brush in a porcelain basin, as well as a tripod mirror and a small styptic pencil. She deposited these articles on the kitchen table and pulled out a chair for him.

“You might as well sit while you wait,” she said. “It may be the last rest you get for some time, where you’re going.”

The mention of his mission and impending departure caused them both to fall into reverie. Harris broke the silence by saying, “Your husband’s name was Terry, wasn’t it?”

Laura looked up, startled, from gathering a stack of towels from the chest by the door. “Thierry.”

“An unusual name for a Frenchman?”

“Yes, but it fit him. He was an unusual man.”
 

“You must miss him very much.”

Laura put the towels on the table next to the shaving basin. “I think I always will. You know, people say that time heals all wounds, but I feel like the hole he left in my life will never close.”

Harris waved his hand dismissively. “Oh, people say a lot of stupid things. Nobody really understands what a loss like that means until it happens to them.”

She examined him, impressed with his perception. “That’s very true. But how do you know?”

He looked down, away from her probing gaze.

“I can imagine,” he murmured.

“My parents didn’t want me to marry Thierry,” she said lightly, to change the subject. “My father in particular was really adamant about it.”

Harris glanced up. “Why?”

Laura sighed. “I’m afraid I was very much daddy’s little girl before I arrived here. He thought that I would get France out of my system, come back to my senses and marry one of the young interns he was always bringing home from the hospital. My sister Ellen did.”

“Your father’s a doctor?”

She nodded. “He didn’t realize, and I guess I didn’t either, how much I would change.”

Harris gazed at her, listening.
 

“He and my mother still write me all the time, sending passage money, begging me to return home,” Laura went on.

“They must be very worried about you.”

 
She extended her hands, palms up. “They want me to live with them again, play tennis and go to charity luncheons with my mother.” She watched him for his reaction.
 

“I’m sure they mean well,” he said lamely.

“They’re in another world, Dan,” Laura said. She went to the stove and dipped her elbow in the water. “I think this is hot enough now.” She poured the contents of the pot into the tub and added some cold water from the pump to temper it.

Harris stood and began to unbutton his shirt.
 

“There are still some things of Thierry’s left in the cellar,” Laura said quickly. “I’ll see if I can find another pair of pants for you. Those are really too hot for this weather.”
 

She left him alone in the kitchen to bathe. He climbed into the tub, lowering himself into the steaming water, folding his long legs and sinking in the bath up to his chin. He closed his eyes and rested the back of his head against the metal rim.

He didn’t know how to say goodbye. He wanted to say something lasting, something that would make her remember him, but his mind was as blank as a sponged chalkboard. The heat from the tub rose around him, misting his hair and softening his beard. Finally, with resignation, he picked up the bar of hard milled brown soap and began to lather his arms.

In the damp cellar below, surrounded by Brigitte’s glass jars of fruit preserves and silver corn and tomato puree, Laura dawdled at her task, giving Harris plenty of time. She unfolded and refolded Thierry’s garments, at length selecting a pair of gabardine pants and a cotton lisle shirt with lightweight socks. She put the bundle of clothing under her arm and ascended the stairs slowly, pausing silently in the doorway of the kitchen.

Harris was shaving, wearing the bath sheet she had left for him around his waist and nothing else. His back was to her as he bent and peered into the mirror, scraping at his dense beard with Alain’s inadequate razor. His hair, darkened with water, clung wetly to the nape of his neck, where the silver chain of his dog tags glittered against his skin. His wide shoulders, lightly freckled, tapered to a narrow waist, barely creased by the draping of the towel. A thin white scar began under his left shoulder blade and traversed his back like a tram track, disappearing into the snowy folds of cloth.

Laura put the clothing on the table and left, going into the parlor to wait.

After a few minutes he appeared in the hall, wearing the dark blue trousers but still naked to the waist. He looked very different clean shaven, and clean; even the first night she’d met him he was already wearing a growth of beard and a layer of dirt. Droplets of water glistened on his freshly combed hair, and his unobscured features were strong, more arresting than handsome. He was holding the shirt she’d found for him in his hand.

“This is too small,” he announced, extending it to her. “Can’t button it.”

Laura got up to look. She had given him one of Alain’s shirts instead of one of Thierry’s.

“I’ll get you another,” she said. When she came back he was still standing where she’d left him, as if awaiting instructions. She gave him the new shirt and his hand closed over hers as she did so.

“Is everything all right?” she asked him, reacting to the gesture, the intense expression in his eyes.

He removed his hand and turned away. “Everything’s fine, everything’s jake,” he said briefly. “I feel like a new man.” He donned the second shirt and finished dressing, putting on the clean socks with his battered shoes and thumbing his damp hair back from his ears. Laura watched him dump the bath water out the back door into the garden and then return. He shifted restlessly in his adopted clothes, like a scrubbed, gowned acolyte waiting for the service to begin.

“You look much better,” she said warmly.
 

“Yeah, well, there was a lot of room for improvement,” he replied, pulling down the corners of his mouth.

They looked at one another.
 

“You shouldn’t go without something to eat, “Laura said, aware that she was trying to delay his departure.

“Oh, uh, thanks,” Harris replied, hating himself for sounding the way he felt, awkward and tongue-tied.

He sat again as she put food on the table for him, making coffee the European way, mixing the grounds with the water and then straining it afterward. He began to eat the sandwich she’d produced and finally, when there was nothing left for her to do, she sat across from him and watched him finish off the snack.