But Max doesn’t reply and doesn’t take the proffered hand. He won’t even look at Bill but turns to Izzy. “I’ll still do everything I can to keep you safe, but I just can’t be in here for now.”
Izzy nods in sorrow as Scotty bursts in to see Max removing his belongings from his bunk. “Och, come on, man!” he says. “We all have our rows. It’s to be expected shut up in a place like this. Cabin fever. But…”
Max is near the door now. “No, this is best. It’s not as if I won’t see you all again tonight and tomorrow and all the rest of our shit lives in this dump. Let me through.”
Scotty stands aside and Max leaves.
“I’m so sorry,” says Bill to Izzy and Scotty. And he is. Sorry to be the reason for losing one of the men who’ve taken such care of his beloved Izzy. Sorry for things he did in his youth, which he can’t go back and change. Sorry that Izzy is obviously so upset to lose Max. He feels a hundred years old.
“Och, there’s something been eatin’ him for months,” says Scotty.
Ralph returns to the room with Frank, who’s agreed to swap beds with Max.
“Evening’, all,” says Frank. “I gather there’s been a rumpus. I was ready for a change. Can’t stand Blake’s snoring. Hope none of you snore. Where am I?”
Ralph points out Max’s bunk, and they all look at one another. Bill decides that one more man must be let in on the secret.
“There’s something we need to tell you,” he says quietly, shutting the door.
Frank’s reaction is more oddly mixed than the original bunkhouse in Lamsdorf.
“God all fucking almighty! That is. Sorry. Can he speak English?”
Izzy nods, slightly amused, and Frank stares hard at her. “Of course. Of course she’s a…” Bill holds up a warning hand, nodding toward the door, and Frank swallows the word as he continues. “Of course she…he understands. Sorry about the language.” He seems excited and buoyed up, pacing up and down and looking closely into Izzy’s face, as if she is a waxwork at an exhibition. “God almighty. It’s true. So he’s not mute?”
Izzy grins widely, and he holds out his hand to her, pumping hers up and down, saying, “I never thought a wom…Sorry. I don’t know how you keep so quiet, if you don’t mind me saying,” then leaves off and begins to shake Bill’s hand. It looks as if he wants to kiss them both. “You did it,” he exalts. “You bloody did it.”
“Nobody must know,” cautions Ralph.
“Nobody. No, of course not.” He makes the sign of a cross on his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to bloody die. Well, well, you only bloody did it. Right under their noses! One in the eye for the Nazis. I won’t breathe a word. I swear. I bloody swear!”
He laughs aloud, and Bill knows he’s thinking of Rosa and of all the things that might be possible if he’s just patient.
“Nobody. Not even Rosa,” says Bill.
Frank looks around the room and sees everyone knows about his feelings for Rosa. “Not even Rosa,” he repeats solemnly. “But if it can happen for you…”
They all nod, and it’s like the men at Lamsdorf said: What’s happened for Bill and Izzy gives hope to others. Hope spreading like a virus.
• • •
The wind changes. It’s coming from the east, and it tastes of ice and snow. In the house, Izzy starts to seem withdrawn, as though she’s turned in on her own worrying thoughts. Bill asks her if it’s Kurt, or if she’s ill, or if she’s homesick, and she simply shakes her head. So he’s relieved when they’re in the bedroom with Ralph, and he asks Izzy, “Shouldn’t you have had your period by now?”
Bill’s ashamed that he has no idea when this is due. Perhaps married men are supposed to know stuff like this. Izzy nods miserably, and she looks really scared. For one moment Bill wonders if she’s pregnant, despite the fact that they haven’t had sex since they were arrested.
“It’s just because you’ve lost so much weight,” Ralph reassures her. “You must be below six-and-a-half stone now. Don’t worry. You’ll be able to have babies in the future. It’s not a permanent thing.”
When tears of gratitude well up in Izzy’s eyes, Bill knows Ralph has guessed correctly.
“Thank God,” she mutters inaudibly.
Bill doesn’t know if she’s thanking God because she doesn’t have to cope with the bleeding again or because one day she will be a woman again. Both, he suspects.
• • •
At night now they can hear the Soviet guns, like a constant drumroll. Herr Rauchbach tells everyone, through Ralph, that they’re only twenty-five kilometers away, and he’s had notice that the prisoners will be moved back to Lamsdorf as soon as a truck can come for them.
“You’ve been good workers,” he says, “and I wish I could have done more for you.”
Kurt scowls, his eyebrows meeting in a line above the broken nose that Scotty kicked when he sneaked into their room.
Bill talks to Ralph about how much Herr Rauchbach must fear the Russians, who would shoot him for a collaborator, and wonders how he’ll hide Rosa from them. He remembers Izzy’s mother making plans to disguise her as a boy, and his own eagerness to get her out of the path of the Red Army. There’s a rumor circulating in the house that Herr Rauchbach has bought Rosa a ticket to Prague, but she’s refusing to go because of a prisoner. Bill hopes it’s Frank, but fears it must be the man who was here before.
The prisoners begin to make preparations for their journey, though some of the men are whispering about trying to escape instead.
Bill ask Izzy, “Should we try to escape, d’you think? Tell Berta who you are and see if she can get us away?” He’s used now to answering himself. “But then you might fall into the hands of the Soviets. Better maybe to try to reach the Americans. That’d be safer for you. Shall we go back to Lamsdorf and see what’s planned? Maybe the guards’ll hand us to the Yanks. They won’t want to come up against the Russians either. Not after the way the Nazis have treated the Russian prisoners.”
Izzy nods, though Bill’s not sure what she’s agreeing with. He continues thinking aloud. “If Berta could help us escape, we might make it to the partisans, but it would be so dangerous and either of us could get shot as escapees. Or we might meet the Russians first. No, our best chance of getting out of this alive and together is to remain prisoners, even if it means going back to Lamsdorf.”
• • •
Everyone is trading with the local women for anything useful. Bill and Izzy make a list.
“Your boots are still good,” he says to her, inspecting them closely, “but mine are in rags. What d’you think? Hobnailed if possible.”
She writes down thick socks and wool underneaths and paraffin wax or other wax, even candles. Bill is puzzled by the last item, but doesn’t question it.
His new boots and additional underwear cost Bill his watch, plus all their pooled cigarettes and all but half a bar of soap, but he knows they’ll be worth it. The watch didn’t keep good time anyway. They now have three sets of long johns and long-sleeved vests each, and now they’re so skinny, they’ll all fit inside their army uniforms.