Six
We harvested the potatoes and sugar beets in September, my mother working without rest. To my joy, the Oily Captain brought the working party almost every day. Bill and I met for snatched moments in the buildings where the crops were being laid up for the winter. I told Bill that some farmers buried their potatoes surrounded by straw, to ensure they didn’t get damp. My mother and I would probably find a place to do the same, to keep some the local inspector wouldn’t know about.
Harry was careful to go outside for a smoke from time to time, and then in the earthy-smelling dark of the barn, Bill and I whispered and kissed, kissed and whispered.
One day Harry said, “I’m just off to stretch my legs for a bit,” and sauntered, wreathed in smoke, back toward the potato field.
I took hold of Bill’s head and pulled it to me, hungrily. I let him touch me wherever he liked, knowing now that it was where I liked too, pushing against his fingers.
“You know I’ll come back for you, when it’s all over,” he said. “You know that, don’t you?”
I studied his face, the three thin lines etched across his brow when he was deeply earnest.
I picked my words carefully. “But everything is different then.”
He was almost angry. “I won’t be different. I won’t feel any different. I love you. I love you.”
The words were small and clear but also like a great wind rushing in my ears. I couldn’t stop myself grinning as I said the words I had been practicing in front of my mirror for weeks. “I love you also.”
“Then you must know I’ll come back?” He was urgent.
“I will be wait for you. Even if long, long time.”
He pulled me tight into him again and kissed my eyelids.
Now that we’d said we loved each other, it felt as if everything had shifted so that we were the still eye of a storm with all the madness of the world whirling around us. The hours we didn’t see each other were almost unendurable, and the snatched moments when we were alone were more tantalizing than satisfying. In the evenings, I cycled down to the sawmill as fast as if all the hounds of hell were on my tail. And as the swallows returned to their nests and I reluctantly rode away, the pedals seemed almost too heavy to turn. Bill always watched me until I was out of sight. I lifted myself round in the saddle on the last bend, and he raised his hand.
Every evening Bill and I sat on the ground, or stood if it had rained and the ground was damp, on either side of the wire, and talked and talked. He told me about his job as a railway clerk. “Paddington ain’t the prettiest station,” he said. “That’s St. Pancras.” Nostalgia swept over his face, and he went silent for a moment, then continued. “It’s the smell of it, the trains, the coal dust, the smoke, a kind of metallic…I don’t know how to describe it, but it smells like home.” He struggled to find the words. “It’s like when Mole is following Ratty and gets a scent of his old home, and it floods over him.…”
I shook my head in bewilderment. “Mole?”
Bill laughed. “Of course, you ain’t got Wind in the Willows here. Mole and Ratty and Badger and Toad.”
I had no idea what he was talking about.
“And I bet you don’t know Winnie-the-Pooh or Piglet either? Never mind. They’re kids’ books. You can read them to our children.”
A great rush of love came over me. “Our children,” I repeated. “Yes, our children!”
We looked at each other without speaking for a long time; then he promised that after the war, we would marry and have children together. And the world would be peaceful and so beautiful. It would be all wind through willows and a house at Pooh Corner.
• • •
Once I knew that Bill loved me and we would be married one day, I became desperate in my desire to be with him. I waited until the next time he said, “I wish you didn’t have to go,” as he did every night, and then, flushing deeply, I said, “I come back when my mother is asleep? Are you locked?”
“Would you do that?” he asked, sounding a little breathless at the prospect. “If I left the laundry room window ajar perhaps I could squeeze through. They hardly ever check it. I’ll try it tonight and tell you tomorrow.” He laughed aloud at the prospect.
By now it was mid-September, and darkness was falling earlier and earlier. Before the war we’d have seen lamps lit in windows, families going about their business, making their dinner, darning their socks. But now the shutters were firmly shut before the lamps were lit, as if everyone was closed in their small worlds, unable to contemplate the enormity of what went on beyond their walls.
For two nights running, Bill had left the laundry room window slightly ajar when the guard came round to lock them into the factory, and it had gone unnoticed. Tonight he would use it to sneak out. He’d told me that every night the prisoners had to leave their trousers and boots in the washroom, as it was assumed that nobody would try to escape in their socks and underwear. But most of the men had spare trousers and boots. I was glad Bill had spare trousers. I didn’t think it would be romantic to see him in his underwear and socks.
I pretended to go to bed as usual and lay down in the dark, but didn’t undress. When my mother came upstairs, I pulled the bedclothes up to my chin and pretended to be asleep. I could hear her breathing as she stood and looked at me for a long time. Eventually she sighed softly and went out of the room, closing the door behind her. I lay completely still and focused all my attention on listening. I heard her moving about her room. One floorboard creaked and creaked and creaked again. And then, finally, it was quiet. She was quiet. The thin sliver of light under my door vanished as she blew out her lamp. I’d decided I must now wait for an hour, unless I heard her snoring. I practiced irregular past participles to keep my mind occupied, although excitement and anticipation effervesced in my tummy. “To be: I am, I was; I bring, I brought; I come, I came; I do, I did…” What would I do tonight? And would it change who I was?
When I was sure my mother must be asleep, I sat up and gathered my shoes in one hand. I turned the doorknob slowly and silently and pulled open my bedroom door. It scraped slightly, and I stood in the doorway, waiting and listening. Nothing but the sounds of the night outside: a dog barking far off, which set off the honking of some geese miles away. I took one step at a time across the landing and onto the stairs, hugging close to the wall to reduce the creaking to a minimum. At the foot of the stairs, I stood and listened again. Nothing. I crept through the dark kitchen, slid the bolts and opened the back door. It was still impossible to do in complete silence. I waited again, but there were no noises from upstairs. The door clicked shut behind me, and I knew my mother and Marek were in an unlocked house, but I dismissed the thought. I wouldn’t be gone long, and she’d never know I’d been away.
I’d left my bicycle outside the house, leaning against the wall, so I was able to wheel it quietly onto the road. There was half a moon, and it was brighter than I had expected, so I was glad I’d worn dark clothes. I’d been afraid I might not be able to see the road, but it was picked out in the moonlight like a ribbon of water. I thought of all the people sleeping behind the shuttered windows of their houses, not knowing I was on my way to meet my love! I pushed the bike until I was out of sight of the house, and then I mounted, letting the thrill of the night rush through me as I flew away through the darkness.