Transgression (17 page)

Jack crossed the hill. As he got closer he could see that the tarpaulin was actually someone’s old awning, no doubt hauled there from the town dump, the alternating green and white stripes long since faded into a general mildew grey. The boards nearby were dark and still wet from the rain. Soaked newspapers, empty tin cans, and a soggy shirt were scattered around the opening into the hill.

Jack got down on his knees on clumps of grass the colour of old straw and looked into the entrance to the cave. He glanced back down toward the camp. The head man had disappeared. He stuck his head inside the hole. The passageway was just large enough to accommodate his shoulders. Curiosity, as it usually did, got the better of him. Lying down on his belly and with some effort, he managed to wiggle forward. He could feel the walls widening out, the floor sloping down a little.

He crawled in a little farther until he could make out a hollowed-out space in deep shadows. It looked just large enough to accommodate all of him. Jack wiggled in, rolled on to his hip and sat up.

The raw red earth above his head and to all sides of him was within easy reach. He looked back out the tunnel. All he could see was a piece of sky as grey and mottled as the awning.

A groundhog’s view of the world, Jack thought to himself. He leaned back against the wall. This is the way it ends, the way it must look going down into the earth.

He closed his eyes. It wasn’t a half-bad place to be, hidden away from everyone. And from all the things you ever did and all the things you ever thought. All the unnecessary pain. Caused and received. Forgotten by everyone. Far, far away.

Jack felt a tiredness deeper than his bones, deeper than his soul. He stopped breathing. He strained his ears. He couldn’t hear a thing.

He opened his eyes. The grey sky was still there.

Jack backed out of the hole and immediately cracked his knee on something hard under the piled-up clumps of grass. He scrabbled about and pulled out a can of beans. There was a can of something else, too. When he pushed the grass aside, he could see the label had come off. A large Mason jar was nestled beside it. Jack picked it up and screwed off the top. A pungent smell he couldn’t identify assaulted his nose. He tipped it over and a thick blue mould riding on an amber liquid poured out on the ground.

He tipped it a little more. Something dark slipped out of the jar’s mouth the size of a child’s liver. Jack poked at it. Now he recognized the smell. It was unmistakable. Plums.

“They were already here.”

Jack looked up. Joe was standing a few feet away.

“Who were?”

“Those other police. They looked here, too.”

“What did they find?”

“They found nothing.”

“Is that so?” Jack struggled up on his feet and became aware by degrees that his sore leg was still killing him. He nudged the jar with the toe of his shoe. More plums oozed out. He looked toward the entrance to the dugout cave. “What do you use this for? Storage? Is it a root cellar? This your refrigerator, Joe?”

“That’s right,” Joe said.

A
dele boarded a train heading for Strasbourg. Manfred had told her that when he’d first been sent to France he’d been stationed there. It was on the doorstep to Germany. It seemed the logical place to go.

Through the window, Adele watched the city streets turn into muddy laneways and muddy laneways turn into green countryside. And Manfred was alive. He was alive.

Adele closed her eyes. She listened to the tracks clattering beneath her. Sunlight streamed in through the window, it warmed her face. Manfred was alive.

To Strasbourg, to Dresden, to Ringstrasse. That was Manfred’s street. He’d told her about it and about his family’s drafty apartment in an ancient stone building. The rooms had immensely high ceilings and deep casement windows where he’d curled up on cushions to read and to dream. He’d been happy growing up there, he’d said.

I’ll learn some German phrases, Adele thought to herself, I’ll walk through the streets of Dresden, I’ll find Ringstrasse. And in every shop along the way, I’ll ask, “Do you know where the Halder family lives?”

And what if he isn’t there? What if his German father, his Polish mother open the door with tears in their eyes? “Manfred is dead.”

Adele kept her eyes closed and willed that thought away. Manfred had escaped from Paris, and the war would be over soon. People hardly bothered to watch the lazy lines of bombers that continued to fill the sky. Everyone was feeling safe. She’d find work in Strasbourg. She’d wait the war out.

She concentrated on the sound of the train, the warmth of the sun. She dozed off and on.

“Do you know that we have changed the spelling?” Manfred’s voice was soft and close to her ear. “It is Strassburg now.” He spelled it out and shook his head and laughed, as if to say, Why is the world so mad?

Yes, the world was mad. And where were they? Lying in the long grass close together where no one could see them.

“It is illegal to wear a beret there. Too French. Francs have been outlawed, marks are the legal currency. It is forbidden to speak French in shops and schools and churches in Strassburg. You do not know this?”

“Nien,” Adele said, watching the play of light and shadow on his lovely face.

“We are re-Germanizing it. We have deported two hundred thousand mongrels into Vichy France. Only people with German ancestors, German blood, can stay. You see how clever we are?”

They were so close that Adele could feel his warm breath on her lips. His eyes overwhelmed her.

The train lurched, the wheels began to squeal. Adele woke up.

She was passing a factory that seemed to stretch out forever. All the windows were thrown open and for some inexplicable reason people were leaning out waving at her. She began to hear sustained blasts from factory horns and from shrill steam whistles. The town’s market square slowly appeared. People were running this way and that. They were hugging each other. Children raced toward the slowing train waving tiny flags.

The train shuddered and stopped. Billows of steam passed by Adele’s window. Passengers were pushing down the aisle, climbing down off the carriage, flooding across the tracks.

“It’s over, it’s over,” a red-faced man cried out as he passed Adele’s seat, “the war is over!”

Adele looked out the window again. Passengers were walking around, staring up at the sky. They were hugging and laughing and crying. Townspeople came running up to greet them.

Adele climbed off the train holding on to her suitcase for safe-keeping. It couldn’t be true. Not so soon. Not like this. She was in a dream.

Some stranger grabbed her and kissed her. “The war is over!” he cried. Tears were streaming down his face.

Adele kissed him back.

Everyone was kissing everyone. Everyone was crying. Adele reached up for the next face, and the next one. The celebration lasted for two hours, and at the next town people were all over the tracks again and factory whistles were blasting and the train stopped and the passengers crowded off. It went on like that into the evening and all the next day.

Adele continued to carry her suitcase around at every stop, her blouse stained with celebratory wine, her mouth bruised with kisses. She laughed and cried with all the rest. She felt both free and a fraud. No one knew who she really was.

The train pulled into Strasbourg on the second day just as the light was beginning to fade from the sky. Adele walked away from the station and along a boisterous street. People were still celebrating. She wondered how long the party would last. She needed to find a room and get out of the clothes she’d been wearing for the last two days. She needed to sleep. She decided to turn into the first affordable-looking hotel she passed. This took several more blocks.

In her hotel room, Adele put her suitcase down and looked out the window. Below her shabby room people were still milling about in the street but in a kind of dreamy euphoria now. Strangers drifted into each other’s arms and danced slowly to phantom music under the glowing lamps. All along the street a forest of blue and white flags hung from every window and every lamppost.

Adele was about to turn away and crawl into the bed when she noticed three trucks lined up in a courtyard across the way. Large red crosses had been painted on their doors and roofs. Some young people were busy carrying cardboard boxes toward them.

Adele flew down the hotel stairs. She ran across the street and approached a young woman who was struggling with a large cardboard box stamped
MEDICAL SUPPLIES-FRAGILE
. She’d had a wild hunch. She’d seen the endless lines of bombers flying into Germany.

“Can I help?” she asked.

“This one’s heavier than it looked.” The woman smiled. Her pleasant face was flushed. A few strands of light brown hair had escaped from under her Red Cross cap and were sticking to her gleaming cheeks.

Adele grabbed one end of the box and studied the woman more closely. Perhaps she was a year or two older than herself, but no more. “What’s in it?”

“A ton of vaccine. Please be careful.”

They lifted the box up into the back of the first truck in line. A young man came out from under the canvas top. Even in the gathering dark Adele could tell that he was strikingly handsome. “Nicely done, Char,” he said, “only nineteen more to go.”

“Who’s counting, the devil?” Char brushed her hair away from her face.

“No, Maurice is.” The young man picked up the carton and disappeared under the canvas again.

“I can help you-I don’t mind,” Adele said.

The woman offered her hand. “Charmaine Blanchot, Char for short.”

When Adele shook Charmaine Blanchot’s hand, it felt strong and sure of itself.

“Adele Georges,” Adele replied and immediately regretted having used her family name. She had no right.

Adele followed Char toward the open doors of a narrow building. Other workers were going in and coming out.

“Do you live near here?” Char asked.

“I have a room across the street.”

And the war was over now, and her father had been freed and was walking in Rouen under the plane trees…he was opening the front door. “Where is Adele?” he’d say.

“You’ve been having a good time.” Char was smiling at her, glancing at the wine splatters on her blouse, her bedraggled look. “Everyone has been celebrating. It’s wonderful, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” Adele said. They climbed up the stairs. “All these preparations, you must be going somewhere?”

“To Weimar. Well, a work camp near Weimar. Maurice was there last week. This is his second convoy.”

Adele tried to make a mask of her face, she tried to hide her leap of joy.

In the brightly lit interior of the building, cartons marked with red crosses were stacked against one wall. A thin man in an ill-fitting thread-bare uniform, stoop-shouldered and lantern-jawed, paced up and down in the crowd of workers.

“Be alert. Follow instructions as indicated,” he called out, his deep funereal voice easily overpowering the shuffle and chatter. “Medical supplies, stack number one to truck number one. Food supplies, stack number two to truck number two. Clothing and other personals, stack number three to truck number three.”

Adele looked around at the faces. Most were as young as Char or herself but a few were middle-aged or older. Three women in grey caps, immaculate blue blouses and starched grey skirts were sitting at a long table checking over voluminous lists.

“Our nurses,” Char said with a note of pride, picking up a lighter carton in the medical stack. Adele picked up one, too, and they walked back outside. Char seemed determined to continue to help load truck number one. Adele thought she knew why.

The same young man reached down and took the two cartons. Char smiled up at him and once again brushed the stray strands of hair away from her face.

They walked back to the building. “There seems a lot of people for three trucks,” Adele said.

“Not everyone’s going. Most aren’t. They have families so they can’t leave their jobs. I’m sure they all would if they could manage it. Anyway, we have two personnel carriers with benches in the back.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow morning at six o’clock.”

“I’ve come to Strasbourg to look for work.”

“From where?”

“From Paris.”

“You’ve come a long way. Isn’t there work there?”

“I couldn’t find any. I would like to work here. I mean, with you. Go to this camp near Weimar. Do you think that’s possible?”

“But this isn’t work. I’m a volunteer. Most of us are volunteers.”

“I would like to volunteer.”

“Do you have any training?” Char looked at Adele more closely.

“In what way?”

“Well, for example, I’m a nursing assistant.”

“I can work hard. I’ve worked long shifts in factories. I’m much stronger than I look.”

Char smiled. “Well, the truth is most of our work is just basic kindness, anyway.”

Kindness. Adele had a vision of André standing out in the snow. “I’m willing to do anything, the dirtiest jobs, whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.”

“You don’t have to convince me. I’ll introduce you to Madame Sarraute.”

Madame Sarraute, the oldest of the nurses, hardly bothered to look up at Adele. When she did, she stared at the wine stains. “Are you drunk?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I can’t afford to take on an untried person. You have never worked with us before and the place to start is not inside Germany. I don’t need a hysteric on my hands.”

“I’m not a hysteric, Madame Sarraute,” Adele said.

“How do I know? How do you know? That’s the point. I’m delighted you want to help. Join the organization, by all means. Charmaine will give you some material to read. You must learn basic first aid, and you can work here on rolling bandages and sorting out goods and putting relief packages together. If that all works out well, then we can take you out into the field at a later date.” Madame Sarraute went back to her lists. The interview was over.

Adele couldn’t think of anything more to say in her own defence, so she turned away. The man with the lantern jaw was standing right behind her.

“Hello,” he said.

Char took Adele’s arm. “Adele Georges, Maurice Caillaux, director of the Red Cross, Strasbourg chapter.”

Director Caillaux bowed a little. “And how old are you, Adele?”

“Nineteen.”

“Do you like children?”

“Yes.”

“How do you know? You don’t have any of your own?”

“No,” Adele felt herself blush a little, “but I have three brothers and I’ve looked after the two younger ones all my life.”

“Have you worked with other people’s children at all? Groups of children?”

“Yes,” Adele lied, “at church and at a school near our home where I helped the teachers. I read stories and played games and things like that.”

“Do you have any other skills to offer?”

Nurse Sarraute had come around the table to join them. She didn’t look pleased.

“I’m a seamstress.” Adele had no idea why she’d said that but she was instantly glad she had. Director Caillaux’s cavernous eyes brightened.

“We could use a seamstress.”

“Surely, Monsieur le directeur,” Nurse Sarraute interjected, “it’s not wise to take an untried person to such a place. I’m quite certain there are people in Weimar who can sew.”

“I understand. However, I think Adele may bring something to the children only such a young and may I say unthreateningly diminutive person can supply. A freshness of spirit that tells them that they must go on living. They must try. They must.”

A shadow of deep feeling passed over Director Caillaux’s homely face. For a moment Adele wasn’t sure that it wouldn’t overcome him.

“I will do my very best. I promise you, Monsieur Caillaux,” Adele said.

He took her small hand and held it firmly. “Six o’clock tomorrow morning, Adele.” Nurse Sarraute was giving him a terrible look. He turned to her. “You know as well as I, Elaine, we need all the help we can get.” He released Adele’s hand and bowed again, this time to all three ladies, and went back to calling out orders.

Nurse Sarraute turned her cold gaze on Adele. “We’ll see. You must read all the material Charmaine will give you. You must stay up all night until you understand it.”

“Yes, Madame.”

“Bring practical clothes and as few items of toiletry as you can manage. Be prepared to eat sparingly and sleep rough.”

“Thank you, Madame.”

Nurse Sarraute moved back around the table shaking her head.

“Congratulations,” Char whispered.

Henri Paul-Louis was sitting on the edge of Adele’s empty bed. René was holding up a lighted candle. “How can I forgive her?” her father said.

Char touched Adele’s arm. “Are you all right?”

“I’m all right,” Adele said.

After the trucks were loaded, Adele and Char walked a long way to a small cellar café close by the building where Char and her family lived. It was late in the evening, and they were both half-starved.

There was something faintly boyish about her new friend’s face and her whole person that Adele found attractive. Char walked with a little swagger for one thing, her grey eyes perfectly candid, her nose generous, her mouth quick to smile. Most of all, she seemed completely at peace with herself.