The Major's Daughter (13 page)

“I'll tell Collie. Do you think we could visit him?”

“I wouldn't. I feel bad for him, but he's a German soldier after all. It might not be the thing to do, visiting him. It might also put him at greater risk. It's difficult to read these things from their perspective.”

He smiled and pushed himself up from his rocker. He walked to the edge of the porch and looked out at the river.

“Fine morning,” he commented.

 • • • 

Collie felt sick with nerves as she made her way to the infirmary. She had picked her time judiciously; the cutting teams were out in the forests and the camp possessed a quiet emptiness that she had come to count on. She did not want to go against her father's wishes, but she could not imagine what it would be like for the young man, so far from home, beaten by his own compatriots. Everything felt jumbled together. Throughout the day, reports had drifted into the administration building concerning the massive casualties suffered by the landing forces in Europe. Her father said it best: the men had marched on their own blood. But now, as the afternoon grew taut and lazy with heat, she heard the radio report that Allied forces had been established concretely on the French mainland. The beach names made no sense to her—Omaha, Utah, Sword, Juno, Gold, and probably more. The names removed the assault from reality, somehow, as though someone had picked words from a hat and made everyone else play along. The fighting sounded horrible and the attack on August had been horrible and Collie felt sick with anxiety over both events.

“Take him some of the books I brought,” Estelle had recommended. “It's a perfectly good excuse, and no one can hold it against you. Where else will he find German books? He's probably frightened.”

“I may be the cause of the beatings. I could make it worse by going.”

“You can't know that, Collie, and neither can your father,” Estelle said. “I understand your father's concern, but one day the war will end. Today's invasion only proves the point. Even war must one day surrender to common decency.”

“If I go, you will have to entertain Marie by yourself. You better prepare for an onslaught.”

“I'm looking forward to it. Now go. You made me lug these books all the way from Ashtabula, so they should at last be delivered. I'll be fine here. I may even lie down and nap for an hour.”

“I'm so ridiculously nervous about it.”

“That's understandable, but don't dwell on it. Just put yourself on automatic.”

“How do I look?”

“Perfect. You look lovely.”

As Collie followed the path beside the river, her heart hammered in rapid beats. She carried three German novels—Gottfried Keller's
Green Henry
, Leo Perutz's
The Master of the Day of Judgment
, and Theodor Fontane's
Effi Briest
. She hoped a thousand things along the way. Obviously she hoped not to run into her father. For another, she hoped that August recognized her. She could not bear it, she felt, if she came to pay a visit and he failed to recognize her. That would mean everything had been in her head, and that was too humiliating to imagine.

She did not permit herself to look into the administration building but kept going instead to the small white house that served as a camp infirmary. It was a hopeful sign, she knew, that August had remained in the infirmary. More serious injuries went to Berlin, where a full hospital waited. As she went up the front stairs, she straightened her shoulders and drew on her determination. Nothing, she told herself, had to be one way or the other. She was paying a visit to a sick man, that was all. With that resolved, she pushed into the small vestibule where a receiving desk, staffed by a private acting as an orderly, took up the center area.

“May I help you?” the young private asked, rising to his feet.

“I came to bring books to the young German soldier. Augustus Wahrlich, I believe is his name.”

“Yes, right through there, ma'am.”

Could it really be that simple? Collie wondered as she nodded at the private and went in the direction he indicated. The infirmary, she saw, had been set up in what had once been a parlor. Someone had placed a vase full of wildflowers on the box stove in the fireplace. That caught her attention first. Then she saw a man—not August—lift his head at her approach. He lay in bed with a dark bandage on his forearm and hand. She had heard about him: he had ripped open his arm with a saw when it sprang out of its kerf and mauled his skin. The injury had been deep and worrisome, but now he appeared recovered and slightly bored. He nodded, not sure, it seemed, if her visit was meant for him.

In the next moment she saw August Wahrlich resting in the second bed. The sight of him wrenched her throat closed. His face had been beaten mercilessly; his nose had been broken, it seemed, and dried riverbeds of blood still marked where he had bled profusely. His eyelids, too, had been thickened to horrendous proportions. He looked like photos she had seen of boxers, their bodies bloated and swollen to protect whatever remained to be protected. A tube of some sort had been wedged into his mouth, probably to keep air passing into his throat. His right ear had been taped tight against his head, and his lovely hair, blond and full as wheat, held dark rings of dried blood mixed in with his softer locks. An enormous mound of something—she could not let her eyes examine it too closely out of modesty, but it was near his groin—pushed the blankets away from his legs and stomach.

Whatever fear or anxiety she had felt a moment before gave way to a rush of compassion. She walked carefully to his bedside and stood for a moment staring down at him. Then she could not help herself; she reached a hand to his soft hair and pushed it slowly off his forehead.

“August?” she asked. “Can you hear me?”

His eyes fluttered, but he did not wake.

“They gave him something to sleep,” the man in the first bed said. “He should be out for a while.”

“Are his injuries severe?”

The German man shrugged. What did
severe
mean in wartime? Collie wondered. It was a stupid question deserving no better answer.

“Who did this to him?” Collie asked.

The man—he was a dark-stubbled man with a rough face and thick shoulders—made a little pursing face with his lips. It was another naïve question, she realized.

“I brought him some books,” she said. “Some novels. Would you mind making sure he finds them when he wakes?”

“His eyes will be too shut to read for a while.”

“I guess that's true. But just the same. . . .”

“Set them by the bed on the table there. He'll get them soon enough. I'll make sure.”

“Has he been conscious?”

“Oh, sure. He's young. He'll be all right once the swelling goes down.”

The man nodded significantly at the mound near August's groin. She followed the man's direction. They had beaten his testicles, she realized. She had heard that before about other victims, but she had not imagined it in August's case. She felt a desire to strike back at something, at the brutality of such behavior. She wanted to tell this rough German that his side had lost today; that the Allied troops would bring France back to its ancestral governance, but that would be small and vindictive of her. Instead, she turned back and looked at August once more. Beneath the swollen lips and eyes, beneath the gunnels of dried blood beside his nose, she saw his handsome face. She reached a hand out again and ran his hair back away from his forehead.

“Will you tell him I visited when he wakes?” she asked the man in the first bed. “I'm the commandant's daughter.”

“Yes, I know, ma'am.”

“Our men landed in France today,” she said, not to wound him but to let him know that the war might have an end.

“I've heard that,” he said.

“This hideous war.”

The man nodded when she glanced at him. And then she left.

Chapter Nine

T
hey made a good company, Estelle thought as she watched Marie and Amy climb the trail ahead of her. She was third in line; Collie walked behind her. The day could not have been lovelier. The early-morning dew had burned off, and now in midmorning the trail offered secure footholds, and they climbed easily, pushing toward the top of Bald Mountain. On either side of the trail, fragrant pines waved their scent to them, the perfume growing stronger with the increasing strength of the sun. Red squirrels occasionally shot across the trail, and in the mountain thermals Estelle saw hawks gliding effortlessly, only the phalanges of their wings fingering the air as it held them aloft. For most of the morning—during the great heaping breakfast served by Agnes and Mrs. Hammond, and afterward in the noisy clatter about climbing equipment and supplies—she had fenced Mr. Kamal out of her thoughts. But now, climbing close to the tree line, she thought of how she could describe this moment to him, and how he, unlike any man she had ever known before, would understand the transcendence of the natural world. On this mountainside, surrounded by friends and spectacular scenery, she still could not keep him from intruding on her day.

“Not much farther. I can see the top!” Marie called.

“
How
much farther?” Collie called, seeking clarification.

“Not far at all.”

“I've never been to the top of a mountain,” Amy said, not for the first time.

“That's about to change,” Estelle responded.

“Estelle climbed in the Alps!” Marie said, turning back to look and to confirm her statement, though it had been a theme throughout the morning.

“Yes, but never up to the peaks. We went from inn to inn, and it was marvelous. You'd arrive and be so hungry you didn't think you could fill yourself.”

“I'm hungry now,” Marie said.

“Hold off until we get to the top. Then we'll have a wonderful lunch,” Collie said.

The trees faded behind them. A pine ground cover dotted with blueberries edged the trail. With each step the view cracked open to broaden its previous limits. The shoulders of the mountain became a simple fact. The mystery of the mountain had been vanquished, and now it lay exposed, a pile of granite possible to climb as it was possible to climb anything. Estelle told herself to remember that simple notion. One foot in front of the other brought one up a mountain, and that seemed extraordinary to her at the moment.

“Feel the wind!” Collie called from behind. “It could lift us up and take us away.”

“We might want to lunch away from the peak,” Amy said. “It will be cold.”

“Let's get to the top, then we can decide,” Estelle said, because she had more or less become the leader of the expedition.

“Oh, it's beautiful!” Marie said, and dashed up the last reach toward the summit.

Estelle turned and took in the 360-degree view when she reached the top. Her heart felt strong and happy. The wind ripped at them on the top, but she didn't care. This had indeed been what she needed. While the others pulled their jackets from their rucksacks and tucked their sweaters more closely around them, she opened herself to the wind. She wished for a moment that the wind could scrape her clean. She felt like the bow of a ship, plagued with barnacles, slowed in its passage through the water by the tenacious crustaceans. The wind scraped at her cares, and even Mr. Kamal, for the moment, fell silent. She made a small circle around the summit, gazing off into the wind and distance. The beauty stabbed her. She felt close to laughing, or to crying, and she would not have been surprised by either emotion.

“Look!” Collie said, her hand to her brow to block the sun. “Is that the camp?”

“I see the covered bridge,” Amy said. “Follow the train line and you'll get your bearings.”

“We should climb more mountains,” Marie said, her face smiling and excited.

“I think we'll need to eat away from the wind,” Collie said.

“If we get to the tree line again,” Amy said, “we'll have some shelter. We passed a nice picnic spot not too far back.”

Estelle understood they looked to her. She agreed. She made a last circuit of the summit. She held out her arms and let the wind push at them. She envied the hawks. She imagined letting the wind carry her up into the clouds, away from the world entirely, the land a patch of ridges and ribbons of water.

They descended after a few more minutes of gazing at the various landmarks. While the others commented about how good it felt to be out of the wind, Estelle regretted leaving the top of the mountain. Already, in the quieter realm of the forest, thoughts of Mr. Kamal returned. What was it, anyway? she wondered in frustration. What was it about this one particular man, foreign in so many ways, that drew her to him? To summon him, she merely had to shut her eyes and imagine the green shelves of his flower shop, the lacquered fountain table where they had shared tea so many times. She pictured his beautiful brown eyes, his inquisitive stare, his attention—yes, attention, that was much of it—as he nodded at something she had said. His radio played opera in the afternoons, and often their conversation stopped so they could listen to an aria, both of them staring down at their tea, clouds of cream floating in their cups, their desire for each other alive in every movement of their spoons. His company was addictive; she could not stay away. And yet she was not raised, educated at Smith, to throw herself away on a turbaned Indian flower-shop owner. That was not in her cards at all.

Her head still swam with thoughts as Amy finally called a halt at the spot she had mentioned. It was a small hollow in the pines with two large rocks positioned for seats. Estelle craved the wind again, but she forced herself to direct her concentration on the lunch. Marie dug ferociously through the picnic bag, calling out whatever item she came upon. Collie arranged them on the largest rock atop a red-and-white-checked linen. Estelle heard Marie call out cheese and bread, sausage and olives, lemonade and iced tea. Cookies, too, and some of the morning's leftover biscuits soaked in bacon grease and fried.

“I can't believe I'm hungry again after that enormous breakfast,” Collie said.

“I'm famished,” Amy said. “That was a rugged climb.”

“We made it to the top. Wait until I tell father,” Marie exclaimed. “He thought we would get discouraged and turn back, but of course, he hasn't met Estelle. I knew we would make it to the summit if we followed her. I told him so.”

“He doesn't particularly think women should be hiking mountains,” Amy said. “He's very old-fashioned in his thinking, I'm afraid. The war has made him even more wary than he had been before.”

“Wary of what?” Estelle asked, leaning her legs against the rock and picking an olive out of its waxed paper wrapping.

“Oh, he thinks the world has turned upside and down, and I suppose he has a point. With women going to work in the factories, he thinks they've taken too much on themselves. He wonders how it will go back to normal.”

“It won't,” Estelle said, biting into the olive. “I don't think it can. Women aren't going to be content to return to the kitchen and pretend the war never happened.”

“We should pray for the soldiers before we eat,” Marie said. “It's the least we can do.”

She closed her eyes before anyone could say a thing and murmured a short prayer of thanks. Then she took a large chunk of bread and wrapped it around a thumb-size piece of cheese.

“Father says the landing in Normandy was incredibly costly,” Marie said. “He says, think as we might, we can't conceive of how many died there. He listens to every radio report and he takes three newspapers.”

“How are the Germans accepting it?” Amy asked Collie.

“They discount it, mostly, from what I understand. My father says it's posturing. Some of the men refuse to believe it at all. They claim we have made it up to fool them into despair.”

“I don't understand how one small country believed it could defeat the entire world,” Marie said, her cheek filled with bread. “I've never understood that.”

“They are very powerful,” Estelle said, “with great energy and a talent for organization.”

“But the whole world?” Marie said.

Before they could go any further, a low hum suddenly came to them. Estelle cocked her head to listen and glanced at Collie. Collie held out her hand to still them, and then she nodded. By that time the origin of the low hum had become clear: it was the camp siren, calling the guards to report, letting them know someone had escaped. The sound filled the atmosphere and Estelle closed her eyes, wishing it to cease. But it kept going, like the war itself, and they had no more power over it than over the troops marching all over Europe and falling to battle.

 • • • 

Major Brennan felt the irony sharply: now that the war had taken a definitive turn toward termination with the landing on Normandy, the prisoners had been caught digging a tunnel. He felt many emotions at the discovery, chief among them betrayal. Yes, that alone was extraordinary. He performed a mental inventory and did not like what he found. He had treated them fairly, bending over backward at times to be humane, and they had rewarded him with this long conspiracy. It was his own naïveté that most disturbed him, however, and he made himself regard the facts squarely, coldly. The Germans labored as prisoners of war, and it was their duty, as soldiers loyal to the Reich, to attempt escape. He had persuaded himself, and by proxy the men under him, that the Germans could be pacified by decent treatment. Clearly that had been a miscalculation. He stood on the refectory porch now, staring at the prisoners, his anger difficult to control. He had assembled them more than two hours ago and had let them stand in the sun, contemplating their fate, while he had gathered as many facts about the tunnel as he could.

“As many of you know already,” he began when he finally felt sufficient composure to speak, “we have discovered a tunnel leading from Barracks Seven toward the eastern boundary of the camp. The tunnel has been filled in and the prisoners from Barracks Seven have been shackled and sent to Fort Devens on the first available train. At Fort Devens they will be kept from the general prison population. We are in the process of gathering additional information about the tunnel, and any man found guilty of association will also be sent immediately to Fort Devens. We do not take this lightly, rest assured. Any man involved in any plan to escape will be dealt with severely. I hope that is clear.”

Major Brennan waited for the full translation to finish. It was not Collie, unfortunately, with whom he felt his cadence worked, but with a newly arrived private who spoke German with his family. When it concluded, he nodded and continued.

“For the next few days, you will be put on bread and water. You will come off that diet when you have demonstrated by the strength of your labor that you understand your circumstances. The camp canteen will be closed until further notice. Those things that make life tolerable here are given at my discretion. I am under no obligation to provide you with any of those small luxuries you count on, so be advised. Your work in the next few days must persuade me that you warrant the canteen to be reintroduced.”

Again he paused. He studied the German faces, many of them quite familiar by now. He had been glad that at least half of the soldiers from Barracks Seven had been avowed Nazis. He was relieved to be shut of them and their maniacal beliefs about the superiority of the German people.

He went on.

“Let me be clear: the war is coming to a close, and your side will lose. For those among you who believe this is a form of propaganda, that I am deliberately lying to you, let me sincerely urge you to look carefully at the facts. We are too many against you. Your nation cannot hold out much longer. Already it has been reported that you are sending boys to the Normandy front, because you no longer have men to fight. I take no pleasure from informing you of these facts. It is time for the war to end, I think you'll agree. The German people have suffered cruelly, and I am afraid they will suffer more as the war grinds to a conclusion.”