“It’s a book. There’s a terrible storm”—he hurled the last forkful of hay into the wagon—“and a beautiful girl.”
That part I understood. I promised myself I would learn to read English well enough to find a copy and know the whole story. Harry looked at him and at me, and said, “I’m off,” running back toward the house and barn. I clicked to the horse, and she began to walk quickly toward the house. Bill fell in step beside me.
“I’ll read it to you one day,” he said as the first fat raindrop fell on my nose.
Before I could stop him, he leaped up onto the moving wagon and pulled a tarpaulin over the hay he’d worked so hard to cut. Lightning flashed again, and he was illuminated against the sky. I struggled to hold the mare’s head, with no time to count before deafening thunder shook our whole village. I glanced round quickly to check if lightning had struck a tree, but no flames shot into the sky. Bill jumped down again beside me, and the rain came on, sudden and heavy, as if we’d stepped under a fireman’s hose.
The rain was soaking us, running down our faces and into the neck of my dress. Half walking and half running beside the horse, I held my hand out to him. He grasped it very firmly and lolloped alongside me, gazing at me through the rain. In that look was a question, a recognition, a hunger. I pulled him toward me, and we were kissing, stumbling, out of step, teeth bruising our lips. I wanted to let go of the horse and kiss him properly, but Bill pulled away.
“You have to go. It’s too dangerous,” he said.
He dropped back and ran around the wagon and into the main barn. My mother rushed out into the rain to make sure the hay on the wagon was covered.
“Bill did it,” I told her. We unbuckled the mare from the shafts, and I led her into the stable adjoining the barn.
Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bill bent with his hands on his knees, puffing at the exertion of the day and the run, laughing and saying something to Harry. I hoped he wasn’t telling him that he’d kissed me. The rain thundered down on the roof of the barn.
The guard caught me looking at Bill, and I turned to mother. “We did it!”
She took the horse’s bridle from me. “You’re soaking! Go into the house and get dry and then get some food for everyone.”
I forced myself not to glance at Bill and pelted from the barn to the house, splashing water up my legs from the muddy puddles forming among the cobbles.
I tore up the stairs and yanked off my wet clothes, dropping them where they fell on my bedroom floor. In my looking glass, I could see I looked flushed and pretty, despite my straggly wet hair. My pupils were so enormous that my eyes looked no longer green, but as dark as mother’s. I couldn’t take the grin off my face as I rubbed my hair, quickly pulled on dry clothes, loaded a basket with food and swung my mother’s waxed cloak over my head and the basket to run back to the barn.
The Oily Captain arrived as I was handing out the food, and my mother greeted him as if he was an old friend, holding her hand out to shake his. “We did it! Thank you so much.”
He clicked his heels and saluted, with his fingers to his cap, rather than a full-armed Nazi salute. “I’m very glad.” He looked like Marek when he’s licking the cake mix from the bowl. “Is it all covered?” he asked.
She was flushed with eagerness. “Yes, the wagon has a tarpaulin, and the hay barn’s full. I couldn’t have done it without the work party. Would you like to see the barn?”
He looked even more pleased and pulled his coat around his shoulders. My mother took the oilskin I’d hung on a nail to dry and they half-ran across the muddy yard. She could have run faster, but I thought she was hanging back in deference to his bad leg.
I didn’t like to see her being nice to him and wished my father were hiding somewhere to take a shot at him. From where I stood, I could have got him clean between the shoulders. The guard was watching me again when I turned round, and I reminded myself I had to be much, much more careful. I took him a piece of cake and tried to arrange my face into a semblance of kindness.
“They did good work,” I said in German. He seemed pleased I’d spoken to him. He was old, with gray skin blending into gray hair, and lips so thin below his gray mustache that they added no color to his face. When he spoke, his teeth were stained yellow.
“Yes, good enough workers when they want to be. Though not as good as German workers.”
“No, of course not,” I said, slipping away to take bread to the prisoners, who were flopped around the barn. They were much more tired than my father and brother would have been and far more tired than I felt. I was zinging with adrenaline and could have gone out and done the whole day’s labor again. For a moment I was scornful of their weakness, and then I realized how hard it must be to exert yourself after months or even years of relative inactivity and poor food. It made me feel like a stupid little girl.
I went to Bill last. I could feel the guard’s gaze on my back, and I signaled to Bill with my eyes. He understood immediately and yawned a big fake yawn as I came close to him. He didn’t look me in the face or speak, but our hands brushed as he took the food from me, and it felt as if lightning sparked between us in the dark of the barn.
I turned as carelessly as I could and sauntered back to the barn entrance, swinging my hips slightly, feeling Bill’s eyes on my back, to see the rain easing and my mother and the Oily Captain returning, deep in conversation about the repairs our outbuildings needed.
Yes, I thought. Yes, yes, yes, find him work and keep them coming here forever.
• • •
The Oily Captain was as good as his word, letting us know every few days when the prisoners would next be coming and what the jobs would be. We would hear his knock at the kitchen door, and he would politely inquire what needed to be done. My mother would invite him in and offer him mint tea or coffee. Sometimes she would leave her hair uncovered, loose to her shoulders, as curly as mine, though shot through with silvery streaks since my father and Jan left. She talked to the Oily Captain about the farm and the weather and the town where he came from, and he showed her photographs of his children. I hated to see them chatting easily together and made sure never to leave them alone in case he tried something with her. I never trusted him, but I needed him to keep bringing the working party.
Some days he said the prisoners couldn’t be spared from some other task, on another farm or on the road they were improving, and I was first furious and then plunged into a pit of gloom. I was sharp with my mother on those days and refused to play with Marek. I turned to my English primer with furious determination, learning ten or twenty words a day, repeating the difficult irregular verbs over and over to myself as I walked or sewed or washed up. “I am, you are, he is; I am, you are, he is…”
Four
Two long, slow weeks inched past after the day of the thunderstorm before there was any chance for me and Bill to steal a moment on our own, though we’d exchanged frequent smiles and glances across the potato field. I listened for his whistling tunes to know exactly where he was working. Only when he was tired toward evening did he stop whistling, and then I worried about him and kept looking to check if he was all right.
We were always under the watchful eyes of the guard, the other prisoners and, most vigilant of all, my mother. Our hands touched as I passed him water or bread, and the same sparks flew between us. The desire to be alone with him, to kiss him properly, became an ache in my stomach.