Half in shadow a novel, p.24
Half in Shadow: A Novel, page 24
“Anja used to translate some of the English articles, which I’m afraid I’m not very good at.”
“Perhaps I can help you when you get more of them.”
“Have you ever used a French typewriter?”
“I can learn, but perhaps it will be quicker initially if I read the English news aloud while you type.”
“Yes, I like that idea,” she says. “I could use some help elsewhere, too.”
She gives him the task of tying up the newspapers into bundles of certain numbers she has on a list and writing a name, a code, on the front of them.
“And what of your German friend?” he says.
“You have heard much about him, I presume,” she says, looking down at the keys on the machine that might rescue her from further questions.
“Yes, I did hear something in passing. Nothing of much substance, only that you have a friend.” He omits the coarseness of Eugène’s past conversations with Anja.
“I know it upsets Gène,” she says. “You don’t have to cover for him. He would have said a lot more than that.”
She is too perceptive. He shouldn’t have expected less.
“We grew quite close, or so I thought,” she says, leaning forward to check something on the page, a mark that she frowns at. “I haven’t heard from him since he left weeks ago. It is nothing.” Though the last sentence is something she is telling herself, he thinks.
“Letters sometimes take a while to get through,” he says.
She types the last sentence on the page, then winds the paper out. She moves to stand beside him at the worktable.
“I know about your son. Xavier told me,” she says directly, and he can see something of her brother Xavier in the shape of her mouth, in the soft, round eyes that search for truth.
He nods. She probably knows about Harriet, too, then.
“Jack is his name,” he says.
“Can you tell me a bit about him?”
Arthur stops what he is doing, too, arms crossed and leaning against the table.
He can hear Jack’s laugh somewhere in his mind. He can see into his own broken heart for just a second, to see that there are good memories in there also, that he had willfully forgotten, the question opening the door wider to a place where Jack is more alive. Arthur thinks of all the marvelous things his son did, the paintings, the cheer, the desire to haphazardly make the world his own.
Even the small church service he arranged following the telegram was impersonal, a platitude about loss and salvation, a word of kindness from the vicar followed by hand holding and pats on the shoulder for courage. It was more about Arthur’s loss and Harriet’s than about Jack and the years he gave them. He should have said something; thrown away his bitterness about the loss for more than a brief moment, been more resilient, told stories, relived the years.
Josephine is gazing at him, searchingly, innocently. She is too young for so much tragedy. Like Jack, too young. But her yearning to understand a world that he had almost given up on gives him new life. Is it selfish to want that?
“He was quite the character,” he says. “He was always in trouble. Always looking to do the wrong thing, but not in a truly awful way.”
She laughs then, looks away to the floor, pondering, as if she can sense him, too; as if she can see what Arthur does.
“I didn’t know about parenting a son who wants to do his own thing, who wants to challenge the order of whatever came before them, of authority. No one prepares you for parenthood, certainly not the fact there is a fair chance they will be nothing like you. He was bright and always had lots of friends. He loved sports, life, girls. I only had one girl, and that was Harriet,” he says, watching to see what she makes of it, her curious expression encouraging.
He is sinking deeper now, lost in his own memories, staring at the nib of a pen that he realises he is still holding, something physical to affix his thoughts to.
“Fun wasn’t something I wanted for Jack. I wanted more for him. I wanted, no, I expected him to take over the accountancy practice, but he didn’t want that. He didn’t know what he wanted. When he was expelled from the same boarding school I had been to, I thought military was the best. He loved it, too, it seems. He excelled, like he was born to it. I supposed I’d got it right in one way. Just my timing was bad it seems. War came, and he was gone. Didn’t even tell us he had left the country. And there you have it, nineteen years old, a bright, young spark gone, and the war barely started.
“I’m rambling . . . ,” says Arthur, looking up to see that she has tears in her eyes.
She reaches out to squeeze his hand tight and hold it there. He is first surprised then momentarily spellbound by the gesture.
She draws her hand away again, wipes her eyes, and turns back to her work.
The moment is gone, though the effects are still there. A friendship sealed.
27. WORD OF FRANZ
Lady Vivienne has invited them for morning tea. She examines the sample that Gisela has brought her, then is shocked by the sound of the older woman’s cough. Gisela insisted she come, which Vivienne has now asserted wasn’t a good idea.
“You should be home in bed . . . Maud!” she says, the girl standing nearby. “Bring Madame Descharmes some lemon water with a spoonful of honey.”
Maud glances at Gisela peevishly before exiting the room, without the sense of urgency that Josephine is expecting from someone in her position, leaving the group to discuss the war, the usual things, the length of it, the cost of food. Vivienne talks about the deprivations, though Josephine can’t see any evidence of it here.
“My housemaid managed to get some butter and eggs, but I had to pay three times the price.”
On the coffee table in front of them are small cakes with icing, and a heavy sponge rolled with jam. Vivienne’s daughter enters, following the scent of sugar.
“Grace,” she says. “Only one, darling.”
Grace struggles to decide which one to take before settling back on the seat closest to Josephine.
“It is terrible about the recent arrests,” says Gisela. “Why they would even think to imprison a nurse who treats their soldiers.”
Did Vivienne flinch?
“I am sure it is just a misunderstanding,” says Vivienne brusquely, “and they will release the women and others they have taken in for questioning.”
Vivienne appears lost for a moment, eyes searching for distraction, before she reaches for her teacup. Gisela is poised to speak again.
“Has the general been in this week?” says Vivienne, before Gisela can comment further.
“No,” says Josephine. “I’ve not seen him for at least a fortnight.” Prior to that Josephine had seen him there with several different women.
“Hmm,” she says, pretending she is not interested. Josephine can see that she is bothered by something, perhaps the fact that she has not received an invitation recently.
She taps Josephine on the knee with one narrow white hand.
“I have received a letter from our friend Franz.”
Josephine is not expecting to hear his name, and her eyes dart to Gisela, whose teacup touches her saucer with slightly more force than is necessary.
“He is bearing up, but he is in amongst it, poor dearest. Have you heard from him?”
I will write to you twice a week. He had said that to Josephine, though it may have been just words in the moment. Perhaps she is not the only one he has said that to.
“No,” says Josephine. She keeps her gaze steady, tries not to appear curious or shocked to hear his name.
It makes Josephine sad to think of Franz injured, if he is even still alive. But if she is honest with herself, she has not thought of him in the loving way she’d hoped.
Gisela clears her throat, then sips the lemon water that is thrust into her hands, Maud not born to serve. From somewhere else originally, from better circumstances by the attitude, thinks Josephine. Such talk is making her mother nervous. She had a slight change of heart about Vivienne when she learned from elsewhere about the officers she entertains, when she saw one leave her house.
She runs with the hounds and hides with the hares, said Gisela.
Though Vivienne’s illicit activities are still not bad enough for Gisela to turn down her business.
“Now, Grace, do play us some of the piano you’ve been learning recently,” Vivienne says, and turns to the ladies proudly. “I’ve been teaching her myself. Her piano teacher was caught stealing from another residence recently. He has been taken to prison.”
Both Vivienne’s guests feign a degree of surprise at the news, since it is commonplace now, the arrests.
Elated by the request, Grace springs to position herself on the piano stool and commences to play. She hits several wrong notes of a tune that is barely recognisable, the sound jarring like the sharpening of a knife against stone, and Gisela grits her teeth. Josephine crosses one arm in front of her with which to lean her other elbow, biting hard on the tip of her thumb.
Josephine can tell that Vivienne is not listening, her head tilted in thought to look out the window with an air of despair. She closes her eyes, frowning a moment. Josephine has not considered that Vivienne’s troubles might be worse than her own in some ways. She has presented an illusion of a gilded life, of one that is free. But she isn’t. Josephine can see that clearer every time she visits. She is altered. Her hair isn’t perfect today; Maud has made a mess of it. And Vivienne doesn’t seem to care.
Then they move to sit on the back terrace to catch a ray of warmth, and Grace plucks the last of the sweet-scented lilies before they fade.
Halfway through a conversation Vivienne appears to think of something, excuses herself, and enters the back door.
“I’ll be back,” says Josephine to her mother as she commences to follow furtively. She pads down the hallway softly, listens to the murmurs of a conversation between Grace and Gisela behind her, sees the trail of Vivienne’s skirt creep around the corner and into the drawing room.
Josephine stands back from the doorway to spy on Vivienne near the piano. She peers through the gap in the door to watch their host lift the lid of the instrument, place something inside it, then walk to the window, her face in both her hands.
28. NEWS OF ANJA
Xavier looks solemn as he takes off his hat. He has brought with him a boy, Arthur speculates a few years younger than Jack. Eugène and Arthur stand up to greet them.
“Gène,” he says. “This boy is part of the underground. He is the one who helped bring two Allied soldiers for Anja to collect from the safe house that day. He was there the same day as Anja. He lives in the village nearby. He saw what happened—”
“You saw Anja?” says Eugène, interrupting him and addressing only the boy.
“Gène . . . ,” says Xavier, trying to finish.
“They came, several men, and we saw them from the windows,” says the boy. “We had to hide, my parents and grandparents. We watched from the windows.”
“Who’s they?”
“Soldiers.”
“This was at the house for the injured, no?” says Eugène to clarify, leaning intimidatingly close to the boy.
“They shot the soldiers and some others from the village; then they took her, the girl, they tried to—”
“She was arrested?” says Eugène. “She was taken to prison?”
The boy has grown nervous, looking at Xavier and back to Eugène.
“Gène,” says Xavier, stepping forward to take his arm. “Anja was shot.”
Eugène yanks away his arm and steps closer to the boy, who moves his head slightly backward.
“What did you see exactly?”
Arthur can see the answer even if Eugène can’t. He is fighting the truth like Arthur did once. They have rounded up so many this past month. They had seized an underground newspaper. Edith Cavell, it is said, had helped many of the Allied soldiers she was treating escape across the border. That much they had learned so far. She will likely be charged with aiding them.
“Gène,” says Xavier, “I will go and check the house.”
“Where is she now?”
“They buried her beside the house with two others.”
Eugène grits his teeth and turns to punch a wall several times, blood on his knuckles, and emits a cry that is more like a howl, deep and guttural.
Arthur and Xavier have moved to stop him from harming himself, Xavier taking him in his arms, Eugène’s head now on his shoulder, sobbing, his body shaking. Arthur turns away from this private moment between brothers.
“I have to see for myself,” says Eugène, finally pulling away.
“Let me go instead,” says Xavier.
“I won’t be dropping the vehicle back until tomorrow. I’m going there now. Please, Xav, don’t try and stop me.”
The two men face each other.
“Then I’m going with you,” says Xavier.
Arthur knows it is dangerous. Even worse for everyone if they are both caught, but it seems that Eugène will not back down.
“I will come with you, too,” says Arthur. “We are safer in numbers. I am good with a gun if need be.”
Arthur is finally walking without a stick, spending time stepping up and down the stairs to exercise.
Arthur, Xavier, and the boy are in the back of the truck. Arthur carries a gun, given by Eugène, which the brothers believe won’t be necessary. Eugène has been this way before. There are no sentries along the route. But being stopped is a secondary concern, Eugène’s mind on Anja, on seeing the truth for himself.
As they enter the village, Eugène lets the boy out to run home, then drives down a rise and up again. He turns into a track to a small farmhouse, a sad, sagging silhouette against the starlit blue. The boy reported that Germans have been back here several times, interviewed people in the village. He had waited until there was no more sign of them before he made the trip to Xavier’s house.
The house sits once more abandoned, according to the boy. Illuminated under the light of a small torch, there is a raised mound of earth beside the house just as the boy described. Eugène gently pushes his brother out of the way. There is no anger this time, just a determination to get it over with. To know. His pain contained for now.
They have no shovels, and the three men dig out the cool, damp earth with their hands.
“Here,” says Eugène, finding something. Though it is not Anja, it is the body of a soldier, then another one found quickly after that.
Lastly, another face emerges from the soil, grey and green, and smoothed of dirt, her mouth stretched into a hideous caricature of the girl she was before: long, shiny dark hair, eyes of liquid brown. Xavier’s arm slips around his younger brother’s shoulders, with little hesitation, like he has done this many times before, to whisper words of comfort that Arthur knows will not be remembered. Not for days. It’s how grief works to begin with. It suspends all rational thought. It waits insidiously behind the pretence of normalcy, then ambushes its prey when they least expect it, often at their weakest.
Arthur steps away to allow them some privacy and to wait for the sounds of a broken heart. Instead Eugène is silent. Xavier, too.
“It isn’t her,” says Eugène flatly, his voice steady, his grief on hold.
Xavier steps besides Arthur, breathing out a sigh. He shakes his head.
“No, it isn’t Anja.”
29. AN END
Franz has been gone over two months, and Anja just as long. It is over a year since the Descharmes family first arrived in Brussels. Leaves of gold that have caught the wind from the north swirl around Josephine as she hurries toward work. The air in the restaurant recently seems stale and starved of joie de vivre. Not that any of the staff ever felt it, since that privilege is only for the elite. Instead, it is more sombre, meetings are serious, quiet voices low in the cigar room, armchairs pushed together so conversations can’t be overheard. Fewer Belgians are coming to socialise, and officers, back from their planning in the field, march through with boots now crusted with sludge, their jackets seasoned with old sweat and French dust, and shirt cuffs edged with grime.
Benôit has had to change the menu again to suit whatever raw goods are available. If not for the imported goods, there would not be enough for their fancy plates, though people back in Germany are also feeling the restriction of food from the naval blockade. Chef’s big hands and grunts of perseverance continue to conjure up splendid dishes, according to the diners, but with servings smaller.
Benôit keeps a share of food for all staff now, aware that the cost of living is higher than the pay. He is altered, more on edge, spending time fussing through papers he seems to have lost control of on his desk, looking up suddenly when Josephine walks in, as if he has been caught doing something he shouldn’t. He never once questioned her about the day she ran from Franz’s hotel room, as if he had already learned about it elsewhere.
You must stop daydreaming, said Benôit one time when she was looking from the window, thinking about Anja, wishing she were there. There is still so much work to do! Though even he seemed somewhere else in his thoughts when he spoke.
It is raining heavily and loudly, awnings filling up with water and threatening to spill over onto passersby. The autumn nights are growing colder, and Josephine is worn and tired and hungry. She has nothing to take home again today, and without Franz, they may not have enough coal to get them through the winter. Lady Vivienne is very generous with her payments, and they can sometimes afford items that others cannot, but it does not always keep Gisela from the soup queue.
Several people stand huddled under a shelter, faces deep inside an open newspaper that one man holds up, words of horror, of disgust uttered at something they have read. She moves a little quicker to get home. Eugène will surely know what it is.
“Where is Gène?” Josephine asks. “I thought he was coming.”
Gisela puts the plates down on the table heavily.
“He will be here soon,” she says, flour on her apron and across her face.
