Women at War

by Jan Casey

  ‘But does he not have a British passport in addition?’ asked the Frenchman.

  ‘Yes,’ Viola said. ‘He’s a dual national.’

  ‘But he left it too late to get back,’ said George. ‘Isn’t that right, Vi?’

  ‘That’s exactly it, George,’ Viola said. ‘He left it too late. Or rather, family circumstances dictated that he could not return earlier, although he wanted to. And now he’s well and truly stuck in Germany. Of all the dreadful bad luck.’

  The group was silent again. Then Lillian said, ‘Let’s raise a glass to absent friends.’

  ‘And,’ George added, ‘their swift return to our fold.’

  ‘Hear, hear.’ Her friends clinked their glasses to Fred, and Viola was grateful that the discussion reverted to the war as a whole and was no longer centred on her situation in particular.

  *

  They were amongst the last to leave the consoling confines of the pub, tipsy and holding on to each other. George guided them in the direction of their flat, but Viola put her hand up to stop him. ‘No. Thank you, George,’ she said. ‘We’re going this way.’ She pointed with a wavering finger in the opposite direction.

  ‘Are we?’ Lillian asked.

  ‘Yes,’ Viola slurred, her head nodding in an exaggerated movement.

  ‘Oh, alright,’ Lillian said. ‘George. We’re going that way.’

  ‘Then I,’ George said, equally squiffy, ‘will accompany you.’

  Viola drew her shoulders back, looked at both of George’s faces, one more blurry than the other and said, ‘We are intrepid adventurers, George, and as such we’re going to strike out on our own.’

  ‘Indeed. We are,’ said Lillian.

  George sighed and blinked several times, as if to clear his eyesight. ‘And I, like the Germans soon will be, am defeated.’ He waved a hand in front of their faces. ‘Goodnight, ladies. You know where I am if you need me.’

  Viola looked down to find her footing on the cobbles and began to walk as gingerly as if she was skirting unexploded bombs.

  Lillian stumbled, giggled and tried to match Viola’s hesitant stride. ‘Where, Vi, are we going?’

  ‘Emmanuel.’

  Lillian shook her head. ‘He won’t be there. You’re just, I don’t know the word… torturing yourself, that’s it.’

  ‘I am already a tortured soul,’ Viola said, hand on heart.

  ‘I know.’

  ‘I just want to see what’s going on there, so I can tell Fred when I write to him.’

  ‘Yes, Vi,’ Lillian said in a sing-song voice, as if she was talking to a child. ‘Whatever you say, Vi.’

  Anyone out and about like them walked with their heads down and their collars up, making themselves as inconspicuous as possible as if to practise tucking themselves away from searching spotlights. Downing Street was quiet and dark; all streetlights Stygian, no flicker of a desk lamp or candle could be seen through windows. What an awful way to live, Viola thought, in the dark like scuttling rats. But this is how it is going to be; how it is. And we must get used to it.

  Pearson came out of his post, tipping his bowler to greet them. ‘Good evening, Miss Viola,’ he said. ‘What brings you out so late?’

  With great effort, Viola controlled her speech and said, ‘I. Well, we—’ she nodded at Lillian ‘—would like to have a look around.’

  ‘May I ask why, Miss? I’m afraid I can’t allow you in at this hour.’

  ‘Just the grounds. Please? So I can write and let Fred know that all is well.’

  Pearson raked his thick moustache into place, turned to the door in the gate and opened it with a key from the ring on his belt that was otherwise hidden underneath his long porter’s coat. ‘It’s not possible for you to enter,’ he said. ‘But peer through and you can observe the firefighters valiantly guarding the Westmorland Building.’

  Across the Front Court Viola could see two figures sauntering backwards and forwards in front of the portico and entrance gateway. Sandbags lay at intervals along the base of the brickwork, buckets positioned in between. Viola followed the progress of one of the men as he made his way towards the East Range and Chapel, then turned and promenaded back; he looked as if he didn’t have a care in the world or if he did, it was how to word his thesis, nothing more.

  ‘So,’ Pearson said, pulling the gate closed and locking it. ‘You can tell Fred that his college is in good hands. Now, safe home with you, ladies.’ He tipped his hat again. ‘Goodnight.’

  Viola began to feel less addled, although her head was beginning to pound and she watched her feet carefully; Lillian clung to her arm and didn’t say a word. The night smelled of late summer – the end of blossom hanging heavy on the trees; a whiff of vegetation drifting from the Fens; smoke from smouldering fires; wet wool from coats drenched by the earlier rain.

  When Lillian opened the door to their flat, she turned to Viola and laid a hand on her arm. ‘Vi,’ she said in a soft voice. ‘I don’t want to be cruel, but anything you write to Fred along the lines of security will be censored. At least I think it will be. And perhaps it will be much more than security issues that are a no-go.’

  Viola told herself she knew that; of course she did. But still it came as a shock. ‘So soon?’ she said.

  ‘I’m afraid so.’ Lillian’s voice was heavy with sympathy. ‘Do you want me to bunk in with you tonight?’

  ‘No, thank you, Lil,’ she said, making her way straight to her bedroom. ‘See you in the morning.’

  Her postage stamp of a room was cold and when she climbed in between the sheets in her petticoat, they felt chilly and unforgiving against her bare arms and legs. She fumbled for the warm comfort of the ring, cupped it in her hand and shivered. The alcohol caused the room to spin slowly and rhythmically; her thoughts spun, too, with images of Fred, letters he wouldn’t receive, sandbags, college architecture, detainees watching from behind barbed wire fencing. An owl hooted and she knew that if she could see it, its eyes would be the brightest entity in the void of night. There was not the tiniest chink of light to be seen; the world indoors and out was as dark and foreboding as the very essence of her being.

  4

  4 September 1939

  Oxblood leather. The smell was fierce and overwhelming, the colour earthy and warm. Annie opened the packaging and peeked in at her new notebook. She could have chosen blue, but that seemed too ethereal; or green, too lush and verdant. And she could have picked out a more refined grain of material, one in which the animal skin had been beaten, stretched and treated until the cover was as thin and elegant as a lady’s glove. But the oxblood leather spoke to her as raw and down to earth – a reminder of how she wanted to write in her journal – with truth and straightforward honesty. Taking a quick look around at the other passengers to make sure no one was watching, Annie stuck her nose into the brown paper bag and breathed in the pungent smell.

  Satisfied with her purchase, she lifted her face and re-tucked the ends of the bag around the book until it was hidden from view then, to be on the safe side, she wrapped her scarf around it twice and put it right at the bottom of her bag, under the apples and bread and beetroot. All of these precautions were necessary because if Fred saw the notebook he would be most upset. He would huff and puff and berate her for going into Munich against his wishes. Then probably, like any sensible person, he would dash the book into the fire if he thought for a minute she was going to use it to write about her thoughts and feelings now that Britain had declared war against Germany and their passage home was blocked.

  Picking up the bag, she inspected it from every angle to make sure the outline of the large, red rectangle would not be a giveaway. If discovered, it would give Fred more upset and anxiety than he was already experiencing and she couldn’t bear that thought.

  ‘Why?’ he would demand. ‘Why did you defy me and take the train to Munich when I said you must – we must – stay as close to home as possible until we have decided and agreed upon our plan?’

&
nbsp; Her stomach dipped and she felt a surge of nausea when she pictured how he would nurse his head in his hands and claw through his hair until he looked quite mad. Then he’d turn away from her and once again become immersed in the other problems that occupied so much of his thoughts. He hadn’t mentioned it once, but Annie felt sure he blamed her for both of them being stranded here when she had gone against his wishes that time, too and travelled to be with Oma when she had taken a turn for the worse.

  Poor devoted Fred, he did everything he possibly could to protect and care for her, Oma and Viola and it must seem to him that she threw that loyalty and devotion back in his face. That was why she had to get the journal into the house and hidden before he discovered it. If they were well and truly stuck, and it did appear that every avenue to return home had been closed, then after this she vowed she would make it up to him with kindness and food and washing and tending the garden and reading aloud to him, which used to give him so much pleasure.

  One woman, hunched in a corner seat, gave her a quizzical look, the deep lines on her forehead furrowing when she frowned at Annie’s endless fussing with the notebook and the shopping. In return, Annie flashed one of her best broad smiles and the woman deigned to turn up the corners of her mouth before being distracted by a barn swallow, gliding at a pace with the train window.

  A small child sitting on the edge of his seat next to an older man, who was probably his Opa, shrieked out loud at the sight and watched as the bird turned its head to the left as if it was taking in the forest and then to the right, observing the passengers in their maudlin attitudes. Despite being shushed repeatedly, the child continued to loudly enjoy the flight of the bird until it flapped its wings frantically and dropped behind. The dear little boy rambled on, trying to tell anyone who might listen about the miracle he had observed, pointing towards the window and looking from one to other of the passengers as if they were insane not to celebrate such a sight with him.

  His Opa grabbed his wrist and told him in a quick, sharp voice to be quiet. The boy’s eyes filled with tears, but he set his trembling mouth and stared down at his hands like the adults around him.

  None of the other passengers looked haughty or self-righteous as they might in thinking the start of war was not the doing of their beloved Fatherland. Instead, a sense of foreboding pervaded the atmosphere like a huge, thick cloud bearing down on all of them and Annie felt the dread, too. She had expected that everyone would look defiant, their chins in the air, swastikas on their lapels, shoulders back. But, and she might put this in writing later if she dared, people looked defeated before any shots had been fired. Necks were rounded down into upturned collars and mouths followed suit.

  Munich had been the same, but the emotions, or lack of them, were intensified by the swelling of the crowds. No one was wearing anything bright and cheerful; everyone was awash with grey, black, brown, the occasional splash of a white shirt. Trees drooped with rain and the first shedding of leaves. Clouds scuttled across a drab sky. She had no way of knowing, but Annie guessed people in England would mirror them here. None of them, here or there or, she presumed, anywhere in the world, were happy. How awful, she thought, a world full of wonderful things, like birds in flight and not a living soul able to appreciate them. They were too burdened and distracted by another hideous war and would have to put their lives on hold before they could view the world as it deserved to be appreciated.

  Whilst the woman next the window was busy tutting at the little boy’s every fidget, Annie checked her bag from the corner of her eye and decided that no one would discern a notebook hidden in its depths. When she arrived home she would take out the vegetables then run upstairs to her room with the bag, telling Fred if he asked that she had personal things to put in her drawers. Being such a gentleman, he would not enquire further. She congratulated herself on her plan and was determined to make it work as she had no intention of telling her brother that she meant to write with great candour about everything she observed and heard and experienced from today on. The announcement yesterday warranted her defiance as she wanted to give credence to the terrible magnitude of the news. It felt unreal and completely unbelievable. The two countries that were in her blood and that she loved and respected were at war – again.

  How could this be? she wondered. The sun still rose and set, as it did before the announcement; the grass was patched with autumnal brown as it always was at this time of year; the kettle had not changed its position on the range; Oma was as bedridden as she had been these last seven months. Dogs barked, trains hooted and slid along the tracks, the aroma of fresh bread remained intoxicating. And yet Annie’s head told her that despite what she saw, heard, smelled, touched, everything had changed irreversibly and irredeemably.

  After the announcement, Fred had gone to church as it was Annie’s turn to stay with Oma. But she wished it had been the other around as Fred stormed back into the house livid with anger. ‘Fred,’ Annie had said, ‘please calm yourself. Think of Oma.’

  Fred had reached for the schnapps, even though it was before noon, and poured himself a large glass. Then he’d steadied himself. ‘How dare they, Annie. How dare they,’ he’d said time and again.

  Annie had waited patiently, although her palms were clammy and she fiddled with the hem of her skirt.

  ‘You will not believe what Pastor Otto said, in church, where everyone could hear and where everyone, or so it seemed by the subtle nodding of their heads, agreed.’

  Annie had waited another few minutes during which Fred became quieter then carried on, saying that now he’d had time to think, it was not so much what the pastor had said but what he hadn’t said.

  Very interested to hear what was coming next, Annie could not contain herself any longer. ‘Well what did he say?’ she’d blurted out. ‘Or not say?’

  ‘He said that Britain had declared war on Germany.’

  ‘Yes, that is a fact,’ Annie had commented.

  ‘I know,’ Fred had continued, agitated again. ‘But what he failed to iterate was that Britain had no choice and had given Germany so many chances to divert this crisis by leaving Poland alone. But no, Hitler decided to invade and Britain and France were left with no other option open to them.’

  Annie had agreed with Fred but was surprised that he thought the pastor would say any different. After all, no newspaper article or radio announcement would tell them that Germany was to blame. That was not what the people were meant to believe, although they must have known, in their hearts, what the truth of the matter was. Or perhaps they didn’t; they might know, or only want to know, what they were fed by the regime.

  ‘Also,’ Annie had reminded Fred, ‘the German Christian Group is aligned to the Nazi party.’

  ‘Along with many other organisations.’

  They had read about a number of them over quite a few years, but had never worried, as they were known in the town for being as German as they were British, even though their visits to Oma and their cousins were confined to school holidays. Fred must have read Annie’s thoughts as he’d turned away and muttered, ‘Only during the school holidays. Until now.’ He’d then shaken his head from side to side like a poor lost puppy. ‘At this most dangerous juncture in time to be stranded on German soil,’ he said. ‘I cannot believe our terrible luck.’

  All her life until now, Annie had felt comfortable and rather proud of her dual nationality, being equally enchanted with both German and British languages, culture and history. Perhaps she had also been a bit guilty of arrogance or pomposity in her knowledge of both countries. But she had always thought of herself as absolutely accepted by both sets of relatives, friends and authorities, as had Fred. A chill spread through her when she predicted that they would become abhorrent and suspicious to both countries, if they were not so already. That was indeed very worrying.

  To change the subject, Annie had told Fred they should come up with a plan of action that covered their behaviour, their movements, the story that they would f
eed others about their presence in Germany. Fred had agreed that they would sit down together the following day and do that in great detail, but until then, he instructed her to stay close to home and try not to engage in conversation with too many people. But she had ignored him and could now, as the train pulled into Ulm, picture him watching the clock for her return so they could get on with that task. As soon as she was out of the station, she ran all the way home.

  Out of breath and nursing a stitch in her side, Annie opened the front door and waited for a chastising call from her brother. Nothing reached her ears. He wouldn’t have gone out and left Oma, but he might be sitting with her upstairs. She kicked off her shoes and tiptoed towards the kitchen. Pushing open the door, she saw him on his knees, turning the dial on the wireless at the pace of a snail, listening as it crept from crackle to crackle, hoping to find a British transmission.

  ‘Ah, Annie,’ he said, not looking up from his task. ‘I gave Oma her soup, but she has been asking for you.’

  Annie put the vegetables on the scrubbing board, ‘I will go up to her now,’ she said.

  ‘This blasted wireless,’ Fred said, giving the radio a good slam with his hand. He stood up and glanced at the clock on the sideboard. ‘Where have you been?’ he asked, looking at her at last.

  Not telling Fred she had defied him, yet again, was one thing. But lying to his direct questions was something she could not bring herself to do. So she evaded the question. ‘Tonight, I am going to recreate a roast dinner for us with your favourite Yorkshire puddings,’ she said.

  His eyes grew wide, then he wiped at them with his fist and Annie supposed his tears were for the idea of Englishness encompassed in the dish. She laid a hand on his arm and said, ‘Save your tears for the impending disaster when I try to cook them using the wrong flour and powdered egg.’