Transgression (31 page)

She had always known this moment would arrive, the moment to tell Alex the truth. She had waited for it for over a year and now it was here. If she found just the right words, he would be sure to understand. Alex understood war. He understood desperation. He might even help Manfred. He might help him get a place to stay. And a job.

Adele left the rutted trail and waded back through the field of weeds. When she reached the street, she began to run.

“A
French woman?” Jack asked.

Joe nodded.

“How does she fit in?”

“She visited the German. They talked in French. We knew this much but could not understand.”

“What did she look like?”

“Like she would bring us trouble.”

“How old was she?”

“Young. I don’t know. Twenty. The German was carrying a sack of food she must have given. She stayed some hours. The next day the German was gone. That is all we know.” Joe looked out the window. “You will give back our landing papers.”

Jack looked out the window, too. He thought he saw a shifting in the swirling dark. “Sure.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“And my good job?”

“There’s only one more thing you have to do.” Jack moved his face close enough for Joe to see it. “Keep your mouth shut.”

“I know who you mean,” Joe replied.

Jack drove back down the rough trail grinning to himself as he bounced along. The German had come a long way just to get killed.

Jack walked down the stairs and into the police station with the Luger
tucked jauntily inside his belt. Harold Miles was nowhere in sight. He slipped the gun back in his desk drawer and locked it up. All he had to do now was find a woman who could speak French and looked like trouble. It was strange, though, that if she was actually from France and was living in town he hadn’t heard about her. Where the hell had he been these last weeks? Months?

For four years.

Jack forced that thought out of his mind.

Of course, the woman could have driven in from some other town. She could have come from almost anywhere. The German had been a minor clerk during the war, Joe had said. And he’d also said, Look to yourselves. That part was still unclear. Did he mean the woman? Or someone else? Maybe someone from town had taken exception to that woman bringing him food, spending the time she did out there, doing whatever she was doing. In fact, so great an exception that he blew the German’s brains out.

There were enough crazies around town to do the job, God only knew. Soldiers who’d returned home alcoholic. Or half wild. Or broken. Or all three.

Some hadn’t made it home at all.

Jack looked at the wall clock. Almost ten. He had the whole goddamn night to get through.

He looked at the two filing cabinets across the room. He walked over to the one that held police reports. It was somewhere to start, anyway, something to do.

Jack pulled open a drawer and thumbed through the files.
Drunk and Disorderly.
Mainly fist fights. And the infamous night when two carloads of air force vets decided to blast every mailbox in the township off the top of their posts. And the explosions at the gravel pit. Live grenades. That was a good one. And a fine for dangerous use of a firearm within town limits. Todd Westland had written that one up. He didn’t describe the weapon, though. Just wrote
hand gun.

Fucking idiot.

Jack stopped. He looked back at the gravel pit report. One of the grenade boys and the dangerous firearm fellow had the same name. Jack continued on. He pulled out a report by Jock White. Jack remembered this one. Someone
had been shooting beer bottles off a fence in a backyard. Kids were coming home from school. His landlady had complained and the man had received a five-dollar ticket. According to the report, the gun had sentimental value to the accused and so had not been confiscated.

German Luger,
Jock had written down. And the man’s name and address. The name was the same as in the two previous reports.

One of the crazy ones, Jack thought.

The town’s cruiser pulled up in front of a rambling one-storey house in an area of the town called The Flats. Jack could see a light glowing faintly through the front window. He got out, strode up on the veranda and pressed the buzzer.

After a while an outside light went on and a heavy-set woman opened the door.

“Mrs. Taylor?”

“Oh, hello Jack,” she said.

He didn’t recognize her but it was always a small and constant source of pleasure to know for certain that everyone in town knew him. Jack took off his cap. “Sorry to bother you this late.”

“That’s quite all right. You come on in.”

Jack stepped in to the carpeted hallway, ducking his head a little to avoid banging it on the door frame.

“Is there some trouble?”

“Just looking after some unpaid fines.”

“Oh well, I wouldn’t know.” She looked a little startled.

“Not you, Mrs. Taylor. A boarder of yours by the name of John Watson. He lives here, doesn’t he?”

“Well, I’m not surprised,” she said. “And no. Johnny Watson does not live here. Not any longer.”

“There was a shooting incident in your backyard.”

“Yes, there certainly was, and you can believe me when I say that Mr. Watson left shortly thereafter.”

“You wouldn’t happen to know where he moved?”

“You bet I do. Just out of pure spite he didn’t pay his last month’s board and I had to send my husband chasing after him.” She pulled out a small drawer in a telephone stand and shuffled through some papers. “Here it is.” She handed Jack a torn envelope with an address written on the back.

Jack pulled out his notebook to jot it down. His pencil suspended itself in mid-air. It was his daughter-in-law’s address.

J
ohnny Watson’s car was already pulled up on Dorothy’s lawn when Adele reached home. It wasn’t quite five o’clock.

He must have gotten off work early, Adele thought. She turned into the path that led to her own back door. She looked up. Alex was watching her from the front window.

Adele slowed down. Her breath caught in her throat.

Why was he home? She waved her hand a little, tried to smile, and hurried around to the back of the house.

The kitchen was empty. The house was silent. She expected Alex to come in from the front room but he didn’t. A letter and an envelope were lying on the kitchen table beside Alex’s famous blue book. The envelope was addressed to Adele, in care of Alex Wells. Lucille Rocque had written her return address on the top left corner.

“It took me all day to translate,” Alex said.

Adele looked up.

Alex was leaning in the front room’s doorway now. His eyes were reddened and bruised-looking. His face looked blotched.

“It was addressed to me,” Adele said. Her voice sounded thin and faraway. It sounded lost.

“Your friend is worried about you,” Alex said.

“Why did you open it?” She knew this was wildly beside the point but she didn’t know what else to say. She just needed some time to think. Maybe this was best, that Lucille should write. It was the final push she needed to
tell Alex everything.

“She gave the name of our town to the Squarehead,” he said. His mouth was moving thickly like he’d been drinking. “Your German. After a while she began to worry. She thought he might try to come over here.”

“Alex,” Adele said. That’s all she could think to say. “Alex.”

“I know. You thought he was dead. He’s not. So I hear.”

Johnny Watson came out of the front room. “Hello, Adele,” he said.

“Johnny saw you with someone on the road last night.” Alex crossed the kitchen unsteadily and looked out the window. “Down on the road, actually. In the rain.”

Adele looked at Johnny. He shrugged.

“Jesus Christ!” Alex bellowed. He was holding on to the sink with both hands.

Adele went up to him but she didn’t dare touch him. “I was sixteen. Just sixteen. He was a clerk. That’s all. He worked in an office.”

“You saw him again today. Johnny followed you out there. Lucille’s letter came.” Alex’s face was pale as death. “My lucky day.”

“We were children, Alex! We didn’t know what we were doing, the world was mad, we only had each other! Dear Alex!”

“We fought sixteen-year-olds, Adele. Trained by the SS.”

“They were the worst,” Johnny said.

“Manfred didn’t fight!” Adele cried out.

“Oh yeah? Well, that’s news,” Johnny said. “Never saw one of those. Too bad we couldn’t tell that to the boys swimming around in their own guts. ‘Don’t worry! There’s a pacifist Kraut out there somewhere, boys!’” Johnny’s face broke into a crooked grin. He strode across the kitchen. “Let’s go,” he said to Alex and banged out the door.

Alex’s head was still lowered. Adele could hear him gasping for breath. She could see he was beginning to shake. She wrapped her arms around him and held him with all her might. “No, Alex, no.” She pressed her head against his head until it hurt. “I love you, I love you! Please Alex! Manfred needs our help. That’s all it is. He’s a good person. He just needs our help!”

Alex’s head came up. “Help,” he said, as if it were the strangest word in the world. “Help?” He had his hand on the back of her neck, he had it in
her hair. “I’ll help.” Alex swept his arm around and sent Adele spinning across the room. She slammed into the table. It caught her in the ribs. She fell against a chair.

Alex lurched down the steps and out the door.

“Alex,” Adele screamed.

Dorothy appeared at the open door, her eyes wide, her hands to her face. “Oh God, Adele. I’m sorry.”

Adele pushed by her, ran along the side of the house. She could hear Johnny’s car roaring. He pulled up in front. Alex got in.

“Don’t,” Adele screamed, “don’t!”

The car pulled away.

Adele began to run. She headed for the shortcut through the weedy field again, splashing through puddles down the dead-end street, her breath coming in little cries.

She was only halfway across the field when she saw Johnny’s car speeding by the factory. She turned and began to run toward a fence and the countryside beyond. She climbed up on the rusty wires and jumped down on the other side. She ran toward the horizon. There was nothing in front of her but sky. Her throat felt scraped and bloody, her lungs flayed. She ran and ran.

She saw a long line of trees and a wooden fence. She climbed the fence and fell on the other side. She stumbled on for a few more steps and sank down to the ground.

Below she could see the circle of huts, and closer to her the awning spread out on the side of the hill. Johnny’s car had already reached the camp. He was already walking up the path. Alex got out of the car and leaned against the fender as if he were going to be sick. His blond hair was blowing around in the wind. Some of the men came out to intercept Johnny. They seemed to be arguing with him.

Adele got up and started to run down the hill. She didn’t look at the camp, she concentrated on the awning. “Manfred!” She fell on the cardboard in front of the entrance. “Manfred!” There was no answer. She looked back down the slope.

Johnny was pushing his way through the men. He was waving something around in his hand. Alex was walking up to the men now, too.

“Adele!” Manfred had come around the other side of the camp and he was angling up the slope through the wild grass. Adele could tell by his smiling face that, though he’d seen her, he hadn’t seen the car pull up.

“Stay there!” she screamed out.

Johnny looked up at the sound of her voice. He stared straight up the hill toward her. Adele could see now that it was a gun he was carrying, glinting a warning in the weak light. Adele ran toward Manfred. “He’s going to kill you!”

Manfred grabbed her hand and they turned back the way he’d come, running down into a ravine and up the other side.

“I can’t go any further,” Adele cried out.

Manfred wouldn’t let her go.

They started to run along the railway tracks, heading away from town. Adele was gasping, stumbling, she couldn’t breathe. “He won’t hurt me. You go. Go!”

“You don’t know that,” Manfred said.

She was slowing him down. She yanked to get free. He held on. She couldn’t go much further. She couldn’t feel her legs.

Adele looked back.

Johnny’s car was coming along the side of the tracks. Adele yanked furiously at his hand. “Run!”

He still wouldn’t let go. She could hear the roar of the car’s motor. They stumbled on. A path opened up through some thickets.

“Down here,” Manfred said.

They were running under a long canopy of leaves. It felt cool and dark. Adele could hear the car braking behind them and a door slamming closed. They stopped and stood there panting. A second door slammed closed. They ran on until the path branched off in opposite directions.

“You go on. Go on,” Adele said, “I’ll wait for Alex.”

Manfred didn’t look convinced.

“Alex won’t let him hurt me.”

“How do you know?”

“I know. Run. Go!”

Manfred reluctantly let go of her hand, took a last look and disappeared. Adele turned to face the way they’d come. There was no sound of
running footsteps. No sound of anything. She stepped off the path and hid herself deeper in the thickets. She told herself that if Alex was with Johnny, she’d step out of her hiding place. And if he wasn’t, she didn’t know what she’d do.

She peered through the leaves and tried to control the sound of her breathing. She should have seen them by now. Heard them. Heard something. Where were they?

She crouched lower and tried to see behind and to the sides but she was surrounded by a thick wall of leaves. She went back to watching the path. It was cool and felt damp on her knees where she knelt. She listened. There were no sounds.

No bird sounds, Adele thought. Or squirrels. Insects. Nothing. It was as if the world had died. And then she did hear a sound. Before she could turn, Johnny had clamped his hand over her face.

“If you yell, I’ll kill you,” he said. He braced his knee against her back. “Want to try?”

He began to draw her farther into the bush. She tried to get to her feet. He began to climb up a steep hill. Adele fell to her knees. He caught her by the collar of her blouse and dragged her up over rotting logs and through dead branches, sliding her through wet leaves and pools of water.

“Get up, bitch. Filthy fucking bitch. Get up!”

And bombs had fallen somewhere, acrid smoke, terrible faces, words. “The Kraut fucked you last night, didn’t he? Fucked you again today.”

Adele could hear a drum. The shake of a tambourine. The fierce young widow. “Buttercup,” the button-eyed woman said.

“You filthy fucking bitch!”

She became a dead weight, her blouse half ripped off, her clothes black with muck. She could hear Johnny moaning and panting somewhere above her. She could feel him let her go. He was moving through some trees, clinging to a branch, leaning out into space.

“Oh Jesus,” he said. He sounded excited. “Jesus Christ, yes,” he said. He swung his gun up and aimed.

The noise was deafening. It reverberated through the trees, the sky, Adele’s head. She crawled up the rest of the way. She was on the top of a cliff.
Far below she could see Alex standing knee deep in the river. He seemed to be looking up at her. He looked amazed. She could see Manfred sliding and scrambling across the face of the cliff.

“Don’t shoot, goddamn it!” Alex bellowed.

Johnny raised the gun again.

“No,” Adele screamed.

The gun roared and jumped in his hand.

Manfred fell and rolled down the muddy cliff and into the river. He got up on his knees. Alex waded over to him and stood in front of him, protecting him.

“You goddamn idiot,” Alex was screaming up the cliff face. He started to climb up.

Johnny stared down at him as if he couldn’t quite figure out what Alex was doing.

Alex took two steps up and slid back into the river again. He struggled up three steps, digging his boots in, and slid back down.

Johnny began to laugh. He turned to Adele. “He wants you to get fucked again.”

Adele ran back down the hill. Over logs. Through dead branches. Sliding. Falling. Tumbling down.

Johnny crashed on top of her.

They slid down hill, Adele screaming and kicking. His weight was pressing her down, he had his free hand around her throat. “Look what I’ve got,” he said. His eyes were opening impossibly wide. Saliva was hanging out of his mouth. His hand was tightening. “This is our break-out day, boys! This is the day we get out of here! Give them hell!”

Adele could feel the cold steel of the gun scraping up between her legs.

“Don’t,” Adele tried to scream. “Don’t.”

“Give them hell!” The gun jammed up against her, pushed inside.

Adele did scream.

Alex loomed over both of them, picked Johnny up, and threw him through the air. The gun went flying but Johnny was up in a blur. He kicked Alex between the legs. He held his shirt with both his hands and kicked him again. Alex fell. Johnny kicked him in the face.

“Retreat,” he was screaming at the top of his lungs, “get the hell out of here!”

Adele picked up the gun, brought it to within an inch of Johnny’s head and squeezed the trigger. A bullet tore through the back and out the front. Blood followed, blossoming out of his forehead, opening up like a slow red fan. Pieces of brain pattered against the nearby leaves. Adele could hear the sound of each piece. She hadn’t heard the sound of the gun at all.

Johnny spun away from her and, gentle as a sleepy child, sank down to the ground.

“Oh Jesus God,” Alex moaned. He knelt down and picked Johnny up in his arms. Johnny’s head lolled to the side. Red foam hung down.

“Oh Jesus,” Alex said. He started to walk, then run through the trees. “Oh Jesus!”

Adele and Manfred followed Alex upriver. They walked along the dry riverbed when there was some, and waded through the shallows when there wasn’t, waiting for him to slow down, waiting for him to stop.

After a long time Alex climbed up on a bank and sat down. Only his head was showing above the tall silvery grass. They climbed up toward him. He was still cradling Johnny in his lap.

Adele collapsed on the ground facing the other way. Manfred went back to the river and sat down on a boulder. After a while she could hear Manfred’s voice. “Tell your husband I didn’t mean this. Tell your husband I would never have come here if I had known this.”

Adele looked at Alex. “Manfred is saying he wouldn’t have come here. Not if he had a chance to do it again. He never would.”

Alex stared across the river.

“Don’t hate me,” she said.

Alex continued to stare across the river.

“I just want to go to sleep,” Adele moaned, “please God.”

A mist was beginning to rise off the river. The invisible sun was setting behind the clouds. Adele put her head down on her knees. She couldn’t believe what she’d done. She thought of her father. She wished she could see him again. She wished he was sitting in his office and she was pushing the door open and she was five years old again and instead of being annoyed, his
face would light up. If only she could begin her life again.

“It’s not your fault.”

Alex’s choked voice came from somewhere. Her body felt like it weighed an infinity of days and nights, an infinity of red-headed soldiers, an infinity of running and lying.

“Knew something like this would happen. All along,” Alex said.

And the blood fanned out. And his brains pattered against the leaves. Who was she really, deep inside? She thought of Monsieur Ducharme. She thought of René. She had no idea.

“I didn’t know what to do,” Alex was saying. “We were the only ones left from thirty men. The only ones alive. But I didn’t know how to help him. His mother had died. He had no one here.”

“I killed him,” Adele said.