Transgression (32 page)

“But I saw what he was doing. I saw it, Adele.”

“I killed him!”

“To protect me. The both of us. He didn’t give you a choice.”

Adele wished that that were true, wished it with all her being but she knew what she had felt. A wild joy, an exaltation, the moment her finger had touched the trigger.

Alex let Johnny go. His limp body slid slowly down Alex’s legs and rolled face down into the grass. The air seemed thick, a gritty darkening grey. Bats flew crazy loops over the river.

“What does he want to do?” It was Manfred again, almost forgotten.

“Manfred wants to know what you want to do.”

Alex turned to look at him. “So this is your friend?”

“Yes.”

“And all you wanted to do was to help him?”

“Yes.”

Alex seemed to study Manfred for a long time. “What happened to the gun?”

“Manfred took it from me. He threw it in the river.”

Alex nodded.

“We have to tell the police,” Adele said.

“Do we? You wouldn’t have a chance, Adele. Not with the police or
anyone else.” Alex stood up. “Tell Manfred I’ll need his help. We have to find something we can use to dig. He’s a soldier, he’ll be used to that.” He looked back toward some trees.

Adele got up. “Oh God, Alex, don’t!”

Alex started walking farther up the slope. “Tell your friend he’ll have to take off his clothes.”

It was dark by the time they drove Johnny’s car back past the camp. Manfred had taken a long time washing the blood off Johnny’s clothes. He was wearing them now and he was driving. Alex was sitting beside him. He’d said that if anyone from the camp were watching it would look like the same two men were heading back to town. Besides, Manfred was proving to Alex that he could drive.

Adele was lying in the back, rocking about, feeling numb and sick. She’d watched them dig the grave. Make their plans. Everything. She’d translated for them. And now she was sick.

They bumped across the tracks. Adele could see Alex signal Manfred to drive down a side street toward the edge of the Junction. As soon as they’d cleared the last house Alex motioned for him to slow down. Adele could feel the car pull off the road, slant down and stop. The motor died, the lights went off.

Alex turned to look at her. She could hardly see his face in the dark. “I’ll walk back and tell Dorothy that Johnny lost control. He shot Manfred with that damn Luger of his. We buried Manfred and Johnny’s heading out west. He said for me to tell her he loves her, that he’ll be calling her as soon as he feels its safe.”

Alex turned the ceiling light off and opened the door.

“Give me a few minutes and then sneak back into the house.” He looked over at Manfred. “The gas tank’s almost full. I’ve given your friend all the money Johnny and I had on us. He’s smart. He’ll be all right.”

Adele didn’t answer. Alex was poised in the open doorway. She knew what he was thinking. He was leaving her with Manfred and he wasn’t
absolutely certain what she’d do.

“I’ll see you soon,” he said and closed the door.

Manfred was waiting patiently behind the steering wheel. He and Alex had come to an agreement earlier. It would be Manfred’s responsibility to get rid of Johnny’s car.

Adele sat up. “Manfred? None of this is going to work. You don’t even know where you are. How will you know where to drive? How will you know where to hide a car?”

“It is not so difficult, you know.”

Adele could feel his smile though she couldn’t see it.

“I will drive in the opposite direction. I will drive all night. And in the morning I will find a place with deep water.”

“Will you?”

“Yes. And then I will sink it.”

“And then what? What are you going to do? Where are you going to go?” Adele could feel a stream of tears running down her face. “I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to stay in the car.”

“You think I am weak. Is that it?”

“No!”

“You think I can’t live without you?”

“No!”

“You don’t know me any more.”

“I’m so afraid for you!”

“I found you. Didn’t I? And you still love me. Is this not true?”

“Yes!”

“This is all I needed to know. Wanted to know. Don’t you see?”

“No!”

“Shhh,” Manfred whispered, “shhh. Trust me. Adele, I am ready to find a new life here.”

“Swear it to me!”

She could feel his hand touch her hair, her wet cheek.

“Wasn’t I in Paris waiting? Didn’t I come looking for you in Rouen? What have I done that makes you think differently about what I say?”

“Swear it to me!”

“I swear it.”

Adele found his lips. She kissed them hard. She fumbled for the door and got out.

They were parked in a field. Adele found the roadway again. She could see the lights of the Junction in front of her.

She walked toward them.

J
ack could tell Dorothy had had too much to drink before she opened the door. It was an instinct first developed as a child by living with his father and then honed to a fine edge by forty years of police work. It had to do with the sound of her uncertain footsteps on the two steps down to the door, the sound of her hand brushing against the wall.

“Holy smoke,” she said, “if it isn’t Jack. Two visits in less than a week. This must be some kind of record.”

“I know it’s late. I won’t keep you long.”

“Keep me as long as you want. I don’t care.”

Dorothy went back into the kitchen. Jack followed her. A bottle and glass were sitting on the table alongside a green ashtray holding one of her constant, smouldering cigarettes.

“I was working late. Set a record for boxes today. Thought I’d celebrate before I went to bed.” Dorothy sat down heavily on a chair. “Have a drink, Jack. Grab a glass out of the cupboard.”

Jack opened up a cupboard door.

“The next one over.”

Jack found a glass, sat down at the table and poured himself a healthy shot. She was watching him more closely now. Jack had the distinct impression that she knew what he was going to ask before he asked it. He turned his glass around in his hand. Let her stew for a moment, he thought. He took a drink.

“Well, what brings you here?”

Jack looked at her, not unpleasantly, but not pleasantly, either.

“In the middle of the night,” she said. “What’s the goddamn time, anyway? Excuse my English.”

Jack looked at his watch. “It isn’t that late, Dorothy. It’s not past eleven.”

“I go to bed early these days.” She picked up her cigarette. She flicked the ash off.

“Do you know a John Watson?”

She studied her cigarette. She put it between her lips. “John Watson?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s a peculiar question.”

“It’s just a question, Dorothy.”

“I don’t think I’m required to discuss my private life with my father-in-law. Or am I?” Dorothy’s eyes hardened. “My ex-father-in-law.”

“It’s a police matter.”

“Is it? My life is a police matter? That’s good.”

“It doesn’t have to do with your private life. It just has to do with the whereabouts of John Watson.”

“I don’t know where he is.”

“Why not?”

“I just don’t.”

“He doesn’t live here any more?”

Dorothy got up. She turned her back to him and looked out the window. She didn’t seem to be looking at anything in particular. Just smoking. Besides, it was pitch black out.

Jack pulled the Luger out from under his jacket and laid it down on the table with a clatter.

Dorothy turned at the sound. “Jesus Christ,” she said.

“Look familiar?”

“No.”

“It’s John Watson’s gun.”

“How do you know that?”

“Fished it out of the river.”

For just a heartbeat, panic tightened her face and widened her eyes.
It was just long enough for Jack to see it. She went back to the table, butted out her cigarette and lit up another one.

“I have another question for you.”

“I’m tired, Jack. Why don’t you finish up your drink, pick that thing up and go.”

“Did John Watson happen to know a French woman?”

“Is Johnny back?” George was standing in his pyjamas at the end of the hall and staring at the Luger.

“Get back to bed,” Dorothy said.

“That’s his gun.” George came up to the table. “He showed it to me.”

“Do you know a French woman, George?” Jack asked.

“She lives next door.”

“Go to bed!” Dorothy spun him around and aimed him back the way he came.

Jack got up. “No. That’s all right. Come here, George.”

“Go to bed!” Dorothy gave the boy another shove and turned on Jack. “Leave us alone!”

“I would, Dorothy, but I can’t.” He watched George, looking frightened, disappear into his bedroom. “The woman next door and the gun on your table connect up with that body. You know, that body you were asking me about the other day?”

Dorothy leaned up against the hall. She looked suddenly stricken by something.

“Where’s John Watson?”

“Looking for work. Somewhere. I don’t know where.”

“Is he coming back?”

Dorothy stared at her cigarette as if it might have an answer. She brushed her thick hair away from her face. “We may be leaving here. George and I may be going away somewhere else to live.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know yet.”

Jack nodded. “Well, Watson won’t be doing anything until he answers some questions. Same with that woman.” Jack started for the door.

“She isn’t there.”

“Where is she?”

“Look, Jack, I don’t know anything. I really don’t. And I don’t believe that’s Johnny’s gun. He’s just looking for work.”

He could tell she was lying. He could always tell when people were lying. He stood in the middle of the room and waited.

Dorothy came back into the kitchen. She sat down. “She’s Alex Wells’s wife. You know, the Wells who own the hardware store.”

“Yeah?”

“Ask Alex. He’s Johnny’s best friend. He’ll tell you Johnny didn’t do anything. He’ll set you straight.”

“He’s next door. Is he?”

“No. They’re somewhere else. It’s vacation time for some people, Jack. They’re on a holiday.”

“Where?”

Dorothy hesitated. “He’ll set you straight.” She seemed to be convincing herself.

“I’d appreciate that,” Jack said. He picked up the Luger and tucked it back in his belt. “Where is he?”

“I think his family has a cottage. I think its near Port Ryerse.”

Dorothy looked like she was about to cry. “It’s somewhere down there. He’ll set you straight.”

“All right, Dorothy.”

Jack headed for the door. He turned back.

“By the way, you won’t be taking my grandson anywhere.”

A
lex had been walking through a nightmare for three weeks. He didn’t have any other way to think about it. Adele had told him it would be like that. A nightmare. He’d thought they could get through it. He’d even called Melmac and made an appointment, but when the time came to get on the train he couldn’t make himself climb up the steps. He was at the train station, he was all dressed up, but he couldn’t move. He couldn’t sleep, either. He couldn’t concentrate on his factory work. He began to get the shakes again despite the pills.

One night Adele found him crouched in the corner of the kitchen. He was calling out co-ordinates and degrees, he was orientating the heavy guns. It was the same night that the news had travelled around town that a body had been found by the river.

Adele had gone over that moment in the woods a thousand times. The gun landing at her feet, picking it up, taking a step toward Johnny, feeling the sudden searing pain from where he’d brutalized her. And fear. And a rage so deep, so powerful, it had taken over her whole body and mind. And finally, release. That’s as close as she could come to describing the feeling. A release from everything and everyone.

Of course it hadn’t been any kind of a release and the feeling had lasted less than a second. And now? She didn’t even know what now was. She only knew that the life they were trying to live couldn’t last. It was her refuge from complete despair, the knowledge that it couldn’t last.

Dorothy had stayed closeted in her house, too, thinking whatever thoughts she was thinking.

And the days dragged by.

Alex came home from work early one afternoon, put on a painful show of cheerfulness and said he thought they should go to a cottage his parents owned. It was empty at the moment and Ray would give them a lift down.

“Anyway, I have to get away,” he said.

“For how long?” Adele asked.

“I don’t know. Until things get better.”

Adele nodded.

“You’ll like it down there,” he said.

Alex was on one of his early morning walks when he saw the chief of police coming along the beach. He’d been sitting in the sand dunes looking over the lake. He recognized Jack right away. Everyone in the town of Paris knew Jack Cullen. He was striding along the edge of the water in full uniform and a long way from where he was supposed to be.

Alex wondered if Jack would notice him or if he’d just walk by. It didn’t matter, he’d find the Wellses’ cottage soon enough. There was no question in Alex’s mind who Jack was looking for.

The chief saw him and walked up to the foot of the dunes. “Morning.”

“Good morning,” Alex replied.

“You wouldn’t know where the Wells’ cottage is, would you? Gordon Wells?”

“Hello, Jack,” Alex said.

“Well, hell,” Jack grinned, “I’ve seen you in the store. Alex, right?”

“Right.”

“I must be getting old.”

“That’s all right. I’ve been away.”

“Yes. I knew you’d been away. Army, wasn’t it?”

Alex nodded.

“Alex, I’ve got a few questions for you. And I’ve got a couple for your wife.”

“Do you, Jack?”

“Yes, I do.”

The two men stared at each other. Alex got to his feet. “The cottage is just down here. I think Adele will be up by now.”

They walked through the sand. The sun was dancing in front of them, a fiery red ball balancing on the very edge of the lake. “It’s been hot,” Jack said.

“Yeah.”

“It’s going to be hot again today. Have you ever seen it so hot?”

“No.”

Alex wasn’t going to ask the chief of police just what kind of questions he was planning to ask. He was going to stay calm and he was going to wait. He had his story ready. He wasn’t sure about Adele, though.

“I understand John Watson’s a friend of yours.”

“An army buddy. Right. He worked in town for a while but he got bored, I guess. You know how it is. It’s hard to settle down. I mean, as a civilian.”

“I know,” Jack said.

“He went off somewhere. He said he’d write. And away he went.”

“Think of that,” Jack said.

They stepped from the sand up onto a wooden platform in front of a small cottage. “Just let me check first to make sure my wife’s dressed. All right?” Alex opened the screen door.

“Fine,” Jack said.

The cottage was on top of a sand ridge in a line of about ten similar cottages. Jack stepped down off the platform as casually as he could and went for a little stroll. He glanced behind the building. He didn’t want anyone making an exit out the back. He looked across the lake. Water as far as he could see. The sun had cleared the horizon. It was brighter now, too. Jack could feel the heat of it on his face.

“Come on in, Jack.” Alex was holding the screen door open.

Adele had been asleep.

“It’s the police chief from home,” Alex had whispered to her, waking her up. “This is what we’re going to do.”

She’d pulled her housecoat on and forced a brush through her hair, and now she was running some water into her mother-in-law’s coffee pot. She
wasn’t sure what she was feeling. As if she were sleepwalking. And frightened, too, but her fear seemed a long way away, it seemed like it was standing outside the cottage somewhere.

Adele turned at the sound of his boots on the floor. She saw a giant of a man, much taller than Alex. He was in a dark blue uniform and despite the heat, he had a cap and a wool tie on. He took off his cap. His hair was silver.

“This is Adele, my wife,” Alex said, “Jack Cullen, chief of police.”

“Sorry to bother you so early, Mrs. Wells,” the policeman said.

“I’ll make you a coffee.”

“That would be nice. You speak English.”

“Yes.”

“You’re French, though.”

“Yes.”

“I knew that Alex had come home with a war bride. Heard that from somewhere. But I’d forgotten you were French. Or maybe nobody told me that part.”

His eyes had almost no colour. Adele turned away and busied herself making the coffee.

“Sit down, Jack,” Alex said.

Adele could hear the chairs scraping.

“Here’s my problem.” The policeman’s rough voice again. “You know the body of that DP that was found up the river?”

“I heard about it,” Alex said.

Adele was trying to measure out the coffee. Her hands were beginning to shake.

“I have reason to believe he was a German.”

“Is that right?”

“In fact I know he was.”

Adele could feel his eyes burning into her back.

“I found the gun he was shot with. I fished it out of the river.”

Adele had to turn to face him. She couldn’t bear the sound of his voice. When she did, she wasn’t surprised to see that his colourless eyes were staring straight at her.

“It belonged to John Watson. And the thing is, the same day the German was killed I have witnesses that saw your wife out at the camp talking to him. She’d taken him food. They’d spent the day together.”

There was disdain in his voice and on his face now. It crossed the room, it pressed up against her.

“John Watson was a close friend of yours. He disappears. The German turns up dead. And John Watson’s gun is found at the murder site.”

“The German was a soldier,” Alex said, “and he’d been my wife’s lover in Europe some time ago.”

Adele could see the old man’s face slowly light up. That’s what he’d been thinking all along and now he’d been proved right.

“He’d followed her over here,” Alex went on-nothing could stop him now. “The thing you have to know, though, Jack. Johnny Watson had fought his way all through France. All through Germany, too. Seen his friends die. Most of them. We’d been together through most of it and he loved me in his own way, do you understand, and he went mad. That’s the only way I can explain it. There was this German soldier here, and he went mad.”

The policeman wasn’t looking at her any more, he was staring at Alex.

“I couldn’t stop him. I couldn’t do anything about it,” Alex said.

Jack continued to stare at Alex. He nodded. “Where is he now?”

“I don’t know.”

The policeman turned to look at Adele. “You were a French girl. And he was a German soldier. I think there’s a name for that.”

Adele turned away. She closed her eyes.

“Who buried him?” she heard the big man say.

“Johnny did. I helped.” Alex paused. “What are you going to do, Jack?”

“You’re still living with this whore? You’re still in the same room?”

“Yes,” she heard Alex say.

“John Watson is in trouble. You’re in trouble, too.”

“We were in bigger trouble all during the war, Jack.”

A silence fell in the room. It fell across the world.

“Tell her to turn around.”

“Turn around, Adele,” Alex said.

Adele opened her eyes and turned around.

“The food you took out. What did you feed him?”

“Sandwiches.”

“And?”

“Some dessert.”

“What?”

“Plums.”

The policeman turned from her and looked out the window. “You did, did you?”

He got up from the table. He crossed the room. His massive chest was in front of her. His wool tie. She heard the sound deep in his throat. She’d heard that same sound before.

He spit in her face. Adele didn’t bother to close her eyes. It ran hot down her cheek and across her mouth.

Alex didn’t get up.

The screen door slammed against the side of the cottage like the sound of a gunshot. The chief of police had disappeared.

Jack roared back out the dirt road. It was narrow and he was going too fast. Tree branches flew past his open window, they whipped the side of the Studebaker. He’d taken his own car because he wasn’t sure that the town cruiser would make it all the way to the lake and back. Normally he’d have cared about his own car, but he didn’t care right now. He pressed the gas pedal down. The car shot out of the grove of trees and screeched on to a paved road. Jack rocked against the door. He aimed for the next hill and for the sky beyond.

He couldn’t outrun it, a feeling of wild hatred and hopelessness beyond all reasoning, beyond all thinking away. He raced along beside the lake. Finally he slowed down and tried to think about the German soldier’s little whore.

He could hardly make out her face but he could see as plain as day Alex Wells sitting there at the table. Just a young man, a kid almost. Shadows under his eyes. Shadows buried deep in his face.

What had he been through overseas? What had he seen?

Jack couldn’t imagine.

The problem would be Harold Miles.

Jack didn’t know what to do.

A bridge loomed up. It spanned the same river that ran through his own town but the river was much bigger here. It seemed as wide as a small lake. A stretch of white beach fanned out from its mouth into deeper water. And then nothing but lake. Miles and miles of open water all the way to the United States of America.

Jack reached the middle of the bridge and stopped. He got out of the car. Seagulls cried and wheeled over his head. The sun reflected off the water, bounced off the sky. Light leaped and shimmered and surrounded him.

Jack leaned against the railing. The water looked deep and cold straight down. This would be a good place to go fishing, Jack thought to himself. If only his son were standing beside him trying to sort out his line and his fishing pole. Kyle could take all day. He wouldn’t mind.

Jack watched some seagulls land on the sand spit. They strutted about.

Looking for my son, Jack thought.

He didn’t give a fuck about Harold Miles. A fuck about the mayor. Or the town.

Two Canadian soldiers. Two of our boys.

It felt right. For the first time in years, it felt just right.

Jack opened the door, opened the glove compartment and took out the Luger. There were no other cars in sight. No boats. Nothing but air and light. He began to run beside the railing, his heart felt like it was going to burst, he could hardly see where he was going. He flung the Luger out as far as he could throw. It sailed through the air, glinted back at him and disappeared with hardly a splash.

Jack stared at the spot for a long time. Until he couldn’t see it any longer. He slumped his head down on the railing. He slumped down to the pavement below.

“Where’s my son?” he said.

Alex wiped Adele’s face off. He kissed her and held her and apologized over and over again. Adele just shook her head. It didn’t matter. It had been Alex’s plan and who knew, it might even work. It had to do with the chief of police having lost a son in the war.

“I didn’t think he’d do that,” Alex said.

“It’s all right,” Adele said. But she didn’t feel all right.

They waited for the chief to come back all day, but he didn’t come back.

They sat in the sand dunes that night. Alex held her in his arms. The stars seemed particularly close and especially bright.

“Someone somewhere probably knows all the names of those stars,” Alex said, “but then again, I don’t know. There must be millions.”

Alex had hardly let her out of his sight. He’d held her in his arms almost as many times as there were stars, Adele had thought, trying to make up for what wasn’t his fault or his doing. Even God couldn’t undo what she’d done.

“Does that make us small?” Adele said.

“What?”

“Those millions of stars?”

“I don’t know.”

“My father used to say it didn’t. It made us bigger. That’s what he used to say.”

The sand still felt warm from the sun. Adele let it run through her fingers. “Why do you think he asked about the food?”

“Let’s not talk about it.”

“Those plums came from your mother.”

“I know.”

“She gave me four jars. I gave two to Dorothy.”

Alex looked at her. “Oh?” he said.

“Alex, this isn’t going to last.”

Alex looked out across the lake. “You keep saying that. It’s lasted so far.”

“I mean, for you and me. We won’t be able to do it.”

“You know what the alternative is.”

“We’ll find Manfred.”

“No one will believe Manfred.”

“It’s not so difficult to understand what happened. And the police will listen to you.”