Famished Lover (16 page)

Lillian was waiting for me on the stoop, Michael in her arms. She held a telegram and looked as if one more thing would break her. I thought to say to her:
You are stronger than you think
.

I propped my portfolio against the door and held the two of them in silence. I kissed Lillian as tenderly as I could, and I fought back a cough that was building in my chest.

“Is it my father?” I said finally.

You wait to receive the news, and you wait, and you expect you to know exactly how you will feel.

I pulled Lillian inside then and closed the door and brought her over to the bed, and she laid the baby beside us and looked at me with those eyes, which for some reason in the darkest corner of that sorry flat suddenly looked as blue as endless sky over a placid midday ocean.

“We will not be in this trap forever.” I loosened the buttons on her dress. She pulled at my shirt. The telegram was on the floor.

“I've been waiting all day to tell you,” she said sadly.

I kicked my clothes off and kissed up and down her face and neck, then her beautiful swollen nipples.

“Careful. That's for Michael.”

The boy was sleeping like an angel. We all rocked together
on the same bed. “I dreamed about doing this,” I murmured. “For years. For most of my life.”

It felt as if we were huddled in a lifeboat in the gentle rocking seas, in the high sun and the soft breeze of an innocent-looking world after some disaster has capsized and swallowed our ship.

“Ramsay. Ramsay, dear.”

As if we probably would not make it to shore but were safe now in this particular hour.

“Please, dear. Pull out! We can't have —” I stopped, still inside her. She was pushing against my hips as if I'd forced my way in.

“I can't have another child right now.”

I slid off her and stared up at the naked bulb above us. When I looked across the room Margaret had seated herself as she sometimes did. She looked completely sympathetic to Lillian's cause.

“I'm sorry,” Lillian said. “I knew you'd understand.” There was a long, awkward silence while I held Margaret's gaze. She seemed ready to laugh at some story she couldn't tell me while Lillian was in the room.

I blinked and blinked. But she wouldn't go away.

“I'm so sorry about your father,” Lillian said, holding me because she did not want me to go. And when I did not answer — Margaret was just sitting and watching us, waiting — she said, “What did the gallery owner say?”

The door was large but smooth to open, well oiled. I walked into a plain-looking meeting room with a square of tables, a stenographer, some assistants, and a lumpy man sitting in a wooden chair surrounded by papers. I suppose I had expected something on a grander scale, more judicial perhaps, with oak panelling and the weight and feel of old leather.

“Ramsay Crome? Private, Seventh Pioneers Battalion? 403776?” The commissioner stared at my submission through reading glasses.

“Yes,” I replied, and took a seat opposite him, though at a fair distance, the hollow space at the centre of the square of tables between us.

“Mr. Crome, as you are aware, this is a hearing to determine the possibility and extent of reparations due to you as a result of alleged maltreatment during your incarceration as a prisoner of war in Germany. I have here your statement of fact. I also have your service record, including your medical statement upon leaving military service March twenty-second, 1919. We will get to a full review of your claim. But first, do
you have any further documentary evidence to submit at this juncture?”

He spoke like a clattering typewriter.

“No, sir.”

“You have no recent medical records, doctors' certificates? Nothing to substantiate your claim to disability?”

“No, sir.”

He sighed, a marginal movement that told me all I needed to know about my chances. But in a moment he was back to business.

“All right, Mr. Crome. Let's review your background material. You enlisted in Victoria, March twenty-fifth, 1915, were captured at Mont Sorrel June twenty-second, 1916. Is that correct?”

“I was captured June third, after some time separated from my unit,” I said. “At first I was reported dead and my pay was stopped. The twenty-second of June is the day my pay started again, when the Germans reported me captured. I was taken to the camp at Raumen, later transferred to Münster.”

“Released at Dover, November fourteenth, 1918,” he read.

“Yes, sir.”

“Prior to enlistment you were a machinist? What was your rate of pay?”

“Seventeen dollars and sixty cents per week.”

“And now you are an artist? What is your present rate of pay?”

“I am unemployed at the moment.”

“When you
are
employed, Mr. Crome, what sort of wage do you usually command, as an artist?”

His pen was poised to write down whatever I said.

“I have earned as much as two thousand dollars a year. I'm an illustrator, a graphic designer. I've worked for a few different companies. You just tell me what you want the picture to look like and I can —”

“Yes,” he said abruptly, cutting me off. “Are you married, Mr. Crome? You've left this section blank.”

“Did I?” I said and half-rose as if about to head over and see if it was indeed blank.

“Sit down,” he said. “Just answer the questions. Are you married?”

“Yes, sir. I was married in 1929.”

“Children?”

“One boy.”

“Right. Now, Mr. Crome, what is the nature of your claim of maltreatment?”

I hesitated. By then it seemed to me complete foolishness to be there at all, so many years after the fact, explaining such miseries to a man who'd probably never missed a meal in his life.

“My complaint is of nothing more brutal than what I'm sure you've already heard from hundreds of others, Mr. Commissioner,” I said. It had somehow stuck in my head that he liked being addressed that way. “During my time in the camps I was near-starved. Most days we received only a slice or two of the most worm-eaten, disgusting bread —”

“Yes,” he said impatiently. “Were you beaten in any way?”

“Sometimes.”

“Can you recall a specific occurrence? You've mentioned something here . . .” And he looked at my statement again.

“I was involved in an altercation in camp that included a beating by guards — two of them. That was followed by three days of solitary confinement.”

“Three days, yes,” he said dismissively. “What caused the altercation?”

“It was a fight involving gambling.”

“With other prisoners?”

I nodded.

“Were you punished for gambling or for fighting?” he asked, as if there might be some important distinction to be drawn between the two.

“We were starved men,” I said. “And we were made to work long hours at labour that would have been exhausting even if we had been fed beef and roast potatoes. And they stood us in the rain and the wind and snow for ages until men collapsed and then they stood us longer. They beat men for failing to salute their non-commissioned officers. They beat men for not working hard enough. They beat us when our tools broke and withheld our food parcels even though we were starving. Sometimes they broke the parcels apart and trod on them right in front of us. The three days I was in solitary I stood in a hole in the ground. It was February, and snow fell on top of my head. They lowered a pail of cold, soapy soup once every afternoon.”

He was listening. But his pen had stopped moving, and the words halted in my throat. I felt nearly angry enough to pitch the table across the room and stalk out.

“What
lasting
injuries, if any, did you sustain from this ill-treatment, Mr. Crome?”

“I have weak lungs, sir, and get sick most years with bronchitis.”

“How long does it last?”

“Several weeks, sometimes.”

“Have you lost wages as a result of this illness?”

“I do my best to work through it, sir. When I have work.”

“And what is this you've mentioned in your form about your left arm?”

In the episode of the fight, sir, I was smashed on the elbow with a rifle butt, and the arm has been weaker than normal since then.”

“Are you left-handed, Mr. Crome?”

“Right-handed, sir.”

“So has the elbow injury restricted at all your ability to earn wages as an artist?”

“No, sir. I suppose not.”

“Many of the men have complained of neurasthenia. But you haven't mentioned anything,” he said, hunting again through my papers.

“I have weak nerves sometimes, Mr. Commissioner, and sleep poorly. And I get agitated.”

In silence he made notes and read through parts of my file again.

“Could you give me more detail, Mr. Crome, about the circumstances of the fight that led to your being placed in solitary confinement? I need to ascertain whether the guards' actions were justified. You've stated that you were gambling. What was it, poker or pontoon or some other —”

“It was a local . . . contest, sir.”

“Of what nature was the contest?” he pressed. When I failed to answer right away he said, “I take into account the frankness of your replies, Mr. Crome, and your willingness to be open and truthful with this commission.”

“We bet about almost anything,” I said at last. “What was the name of the man with whom you quarrelled, Mr. Crome?”

“I can't remember, sir.”

“It might help me immeasurably to cross-reference cases before this commission and find corroboration.”

“I'm afraid I can't remember, sir,” I repeated, and stared him down. He looked away.

“Are there any other injuries or disabilities resulting from your time as a prisoner of war, Mr. Crome?” He looked at his watch discretely, a flick of the eyes downward as his fingers pulled the timepiece out of his vest.

“No, sir.”

“As to the malnourishment and degraded living circumstances of your confinement, Mr. Crome, I have heard ample testimony from over two hundred former prisoners now and am quite familiar with the extent and nature of the situation. I am finding that all the prisoners suffered similar difficulties and treatment, at least those not from the officer ranks. As you know, Germany itself was desperately short of food, especially in the waning years of the war, and it would be too much to expect a nation to feed its prisoners of war better than, or even, perhaps, equal to its own general population. In my findings, then, I'm afraid I must focus on the question of extraordinary maltreatment beyond the issue of nourishment. I can tell you now that your case would be more compelling to this commission if you had supplied a statement of medical health from your doctor. I note that upon leaving service the military physician who examined you found you ‘completely fit and sound.' That's your signature below, is it not?” He
leaned forward to show me the damned form I had signed in a rush to free myself from military clutches years ago.

Then he began writing intensely, barely pausing to look at me. “As in all cases, I am reserving my recommendations at this time. I will be reporting later in the year, I hope, or next year at the latest, and you can wait to hear our final judgement from the commission. But I can tell you, Mr. Crome, that in the absence of medical proof of disability and maltreatment beyond that which was generalized for nearly all prisoners of war in Germany, it will be difficult to find in your favour. But thank you for your candour and for bringing your case forward to my attention.”

“Thank you, sir,” I managed to say before leaving.

“
Drei Tage
,” the German duty officer says: three days. He seems to take it personally, this trouble we have caused, although it is my elbow that has been smashed, and Witherspoon and I will have to serve the time in solitary, not him.

Perhaps the Germans have their own method of accounting and punish their officers whenever prisoners fall out of line.

One last time the duty officer eyes us like criminally insane children. Then he stamps out, and the guard shouts us down the hall and outside into winter's darkness.

“Three days isn't bad,” I mutter to Witherspoon. “A little peace and quiet, eh?”

But we don't take the usual route to the holding cells. We go right, then left again, and the spotlights of three watch-towers blind us as we walk. Why didn't I find a way to bring my greatcoat against the cold?

“Where the fuck are we going?” Witherspoon asks.

To a different compound beyond a bleak stretch of barbed wire fencing. I get turned around in my fatigue and the disorienting lights. And our guard detachment grows — from
one scared guard to perhaps five, now surrounding us, their boots kicking up clouds of dusty snow.

We enter an open courtyard. Beyond the bright lights the darkness is impenetrable — anything might be out there.

Two of the guards pull up from the ground an iron grate lightly covered in snow.

“Oh, Jesus,” Witherspoon says weakly.

Suddenly a guard butts him across the shoulders with the stock of his rifle. Witherspoon stumbles to his knees. As he is rising they hit him again and he disappears down the hole.

They shove me in a different direction and someone buckles my knees from behind. My legs fold. I reach out and hold on until they kick my fingers off the frozen edge. My injured elbow smashes something on the way down — everything spins and thrashes in pain.

The earth grabs me and I collapse onto the wet mud that stops my descent. I shriek like a half-slaughtered animal. When the panic subsides I look up at the tiny square of blackness with four pinholes of light — unimaginably distant stars.

Then I shake until it seems my limbs are intent on battering themselves against the rock and frozen muck that surrounds me.