The Golden Hour

by Beatriz Williams

“Christ, what do you think?”

  “Was I making noise?”

  “Yes,” she says. “Who’s Tommy?”

  I fix my arm behind my head. “Just an old beau.”

  “All that for an old beau?”

  Another gust strikes the window. The room is as black as outer space, not a hint of light. I widen my eyes into this nothingness and consider telling Margaret about the time I found Tommy paying the rent on the landlady’s parlor sofa at two o’clock in the morning, and how he got so mad at being discovered he delivered me a knockout punch to the gut, saving himself the money for the abortion we’d been arguing about, though we did have to skip town directly from the hospital bed. I actually catch my breath on the first words of the story, There was this winter we spent in Amarillo, Texas. But she doesn’t need to hear about this, and I don’t require her pity. I don’t even know why Thomas Randolph visits me now, in this hotel room in Switzerland, when I’ve been free of him for years. It’s just my dream, that’s all. The one that comes to me in the dark of night.

  “This woman,” I say instead. “Ursula Kassmeyer.”

  “What about her?”

  “Well, what do you think of her? Can we trust her?”

  “Haven’t the foggiest. I’ve never met her. I do know she’s regarded as something of a saint by the chieftains at SOE.”

  “And you never knew you were related to her?”

  “No.” She pauses. “I knew about them, of course. Mummy didn’t talk about them often, but I knew I had sisters, German half sisters, Johann’s sisters, and they were taken away by their nurse before I was born. And that Mummy missed them. She missed them terribly.”

  “But I don’t understand. How could the nurse have taken away the children like that?”

  There is a long silence from the other bed, until I begin to think she’s fallen asleep. Then, in a sharp voice, higher than her usual pitch: “I don’t think they were hers, exactly. I think the baron had them with someone else.”

  “What? What makes you think that?”

  “I don’t know. Just a feeling. I was a child, you know, just a little girl when she told me these things. I don’t know how I know. Until a few weeks ago, I’d forgotten all about it. The missing girls. It was like a story one’s told at bedtime.”

  “But your mother loved them.”

  “Yes. I know she loved them. Even though they weren’t hers.”

  From one of the windows comes a loud noise, like an object crashing against the glass, a stick or something. My nerves startle, but my head, as if detached from all this commotion, revolves around this idea of Margaret’s mother, Thorpe’s mother, taking in her husband’s strays as if they were her own. I consider my own mother, who went about the mechanical duties of motherhood so thoroughly, the cooking of dinners and the enforcing of bedtime, all the while creating the impression of wanting to be elsewhere, wanting something else, someone else.

  “Sounds as if your mother had a big heart,” I say.

  “She did. She loved us passionately. That was her trouble, I think. She loved too much. She staked everything on people she loved. When they were gone, it destroyed her.”

  “And she never knew your father had found the girls again.”

  “Apparently not.” From the darkness beside me, Margaret made a noise of mirth. “Just imagine if that lawyer in Paris had sent his letter to Papa a week earlier. Or if the generals hadn’t sent them into battle on the first of July.”

  “Then Ursula Kassmeyer wouldn’t exist. I mean she wouldn’t exist where she is now, helping Benedict escape.”

  “Yes. That’s irony, I suppose. Or is it coincidence? Sometimes I can’t properly tell the difference.”

  “Maybe it’s the hand of God,” I say. “Maybe it’s hope.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Lulu. You can’t possibly think there’s a God anymore. That he gives a damn about the world, even if he exists.”

  The last few words are buried beneath the noise of another gust striking the windows, the rattle and shriek, and in its wake there doesn’t seem to be any point in talking. Why talk when the weather just eats up everything you say? But after this gust comes silence, a full minute or two in which the wind goes flat and the windows lie still, and you can hear yourself think, and you forget the possibility of annihilation.

  “Tell me a story,” I say. “A fairy tale.”

  “I don’t know any of those.”

  “Yes, you do. Somebody read them to you when you were little.”

  “Oh, Mummy read stories, all right, and they were all frightful, gory tales, in High German. They didn’t end well.”

  I listen to the thud of my heart inside my chest. “My mama used to read from the Arabian Nights. I used to imagine I had a djinn of my own, hiding in a lamp somewhere, and all I had to do was to find him. I used to rub every lamp I saw, hoping he would turn up and grant me my wishes.”

  “Well, there’s the difference between you and me, I suppose. You’ve got hope left in you.”

  I roll heavily onto my side to face her, although of course she’s no more than a suggestion of a shadow in that black room. “So do you. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t.”

  “You’re wrong, Lulu. I’m only here because of you. If Benedict turns up tomorrow with our German friend, I’ll die of shock.”

  I close my eyes, and for some reason, some optical trick, the world seems lighter when I do. A few feet away, Margaret’s bed creaks. The sound is swallowed by the window, rattling again in the grip of another gust of Alpine wind.

  The soft hiss of a match, as Margaret lights a cigarette.

  “But you keep hoping, Lulu,” she says. “You can hope for both of us.”

  There’s no more sleep. The clock ticks toward six. The sun rises in an hour. I swing my legs to the floor and start to dress.

  Our instructions are to take a stroll at sunrise along the esplanade, and somewhere between the two piers we will encounter Ursula and Benedict, another couple out for a stroll with the papers to prove it. The trouble is, who takes a stroll on a morning like this? The wind tunnels between the buildings, shrieks around the corners. I can smell the lake, the ozone, the churning water, from three streets away. The sky’s lightening by the minute. A violet stain appears behind the peaks to the east. Margaret’s cigarette goes out. She swears softly and drops it in a pile of slush.

  By the time we reach the esplanade, the violet’s turned to pink, and the sky is taking on texture, taking on movement, as an array of clouds hurtles over us. An enormous wave crashes against the wall and sends up a spray like a waterspout.

  “My God,” whispers Margaret. “How can they survive it?”

  “They will. Stefan assured me. He’s used to these storms, he waits for them because the patrols don’t go out.”

  “He’s an idiot.”

  “Well, you can ride out the waves, can’t you? But you can’t ride out a German patrol boat.”

  “Christ. I need a fag.”

  “Listen to me. If a patrol comes along, we’re just here to see the storm. We adore storms, do you hear me? We find them thrilling.”

  “Oh, jolly thrilling.”

  I put my arm through the crook of her elbow. “Come along. Let’s go south first, away from town.”

  We tuck our heads into our collars and hold down our hats with our hands. Every so often I make a screech of delight and point to some wave or another, toppling over its mates, just exactly like one of those idiots who gets his kicks from Nature’s wrath, the ones who line up on the beaches to witness a hurricane. We’ve only gone about a quarter mile when a pair of figures resolves from the shadows. My heart stops. Then I see the gleam of rifles, the curve of caps.

  “Patrol,” I mutter.

  “What’s that?” she says, because the wind is so noisy, and then she sees them too. She turns to the railing and squeals. I join her and pretend to laugh. The Swiss guards approach us.

  “Damen! You shouldn’t be out, it’s too danger
ous.”

  “Oh, but we love storms. Don’t we, Lenore?”

  “Ja,” I say, which is about all the German I can safely utter without raising suspicion.

  “But she’s expecting! You must go home.”

  “Now, my dear fellows. This is nonsense. We’ll be careful, of course.”

  “Frau, you’re very foolish.”

  “Please.”

  The two guards look at each other and shrug. “It’s on your own head, then,” says the one on the right, or something like that, and they continue past us, shaking their heads. I release my breath. When I glance down, I see my hand is laid over my belly like a bandage, and I wonder what the devil good that’s going to do, should a Swiss guard decide I’m a suspicious character, should some rifle discharge some bullet on this wind-whipped esplanade, where only the foolhardy and the desperate tread.

  We linger another moment, gazing at the water as if in rapture. The sky behind the mountains is now bright and angry, a bundle of nerves, shedding light on the lake which is now more akin to an ocean. The waves hurtle along the surface and fling themselves on the shore. Our coats are wet with spray, our hats dripping. “It’s impossible,” Margaret gasps.

  I can’t stand here like this, doing nothing. I take her elbow and drag her down the esplanade. A half mile away, the second pier juts out into the lake, surrounded by churning water. I march toward it, searching the path, searching the rocks beneath the esplanade for any sign of human movement. Another figure becomes visible, walking toward us, but it’s only a man with a large, shaggy dog of some mountain breed, I don’t know what. The dog takes a lunge at us as we pass each other, and the man hauls on the leash and doesn’t say a word. There’s the pier, just beyond, empty except for the spray kicking up on all sides. The pretty gazebo at the end, painted in green and white stripes, looks like it might blow away like an umbrella. I am swallowing back panic, clenching my teeth with the effort of keeping myself from shaking to pieces. Over and over, I think, It can’t end like this, he can’t have gone this far and then drowned almost within sight of us.

  “Maybe we missed them,” Margaret says.

  “Not if they were here, we didn’t.”

  “Let’s double back and make another pass.”

  I stare another second or two at the pier and start to turn. Margaret tugs on my arm. “Wait a moment,” she whispers.

  She squints at the pier, or rather beneath the pier, near the place where the stairs disappear into the rocky base of the esplanade. I follow her gaze. Hold myself still, or so near to still as you can hold yourself when you’re trembling as I’m trembling, when you’re as godawful frightened as I am in that moment.

  And then. Something moves.

  I make a little cry and dart forward. Margaret’s behind me. We trip down the steps to find a hollow cut into the stone, beneath the wooden pier, in which a man and a woman huddle together, and the man is inspecting the woman’s leg, her ankle. He hears us and looks up, and my heart slams in my throat when I see it’s the wrong man, his hair is dark and wet, his features all wrong.

  “Stefan?”

  “She came down hard when we landed,” he says, in French. “The ankle’s twisted. She can’t get up the stairs.”

  I look down into the face of a woman I’ve never seen, blond, irritated, built like a draft horse. “Ursula?”

  “Shh! Get me up.”

  Margaret calls down. “Patrol!”

  “What about Benedict? What about Benedict?” I cry.

  Stefan says, “There was nobody else. Just her.”

  I put my arm around Ursula’s ribs and haul her upright, not without effort. Thick bones, thick muscle. She grunts in pain.

  “All right?” says Stefan.

  “Stay there!” I hiss. “I’ll lead them away!”

  And I don’t know how the devil I do it. I guess that kind of necessary strength just arrives in your sinews when you need it. I lift Ursula up those steps somehow, lift her to the esplanade where the guards now run toward us.

  “Hilfe!” I scream, in German.

  Margaret swoops in to take the weight of Ursula’s limp body. “Help!” she screams. “She’s fallen into the lake!”

  In the hotel, we take Ursula upstairs in the elevator. The attendant looks at us strangely, wet and seething as we are, almost bursting. “Fifth floor,” he says dully. He stops the elevator, opens the grille and then the door. We step out, supporting Ursula on each side. At the door, I fumble with the key, drop it, attempt to bend. My mind has gone numb, my fingers and my heart have gone numb.

  “I’ll get it,” snaps Margaret. She leans down and snatches up the key, opens the door. We stagger through and ease Ursula on the bed. She’s shivering, nearly blue. I pull the blanket from my bed and wrap it around her.

  “He’s dead, isn’t he?” I say, in French.

  “Yes. I’m sorry.”

  “When?”

  “At Colditz, a month ago.”

  I sink to the rug.

  Margaret takes Ursula by the shoulders and screams—first in English, then in French. “Then why are you here? You might have just sent a message. Look at her, my God. How could you get her hopes up?”

  “Quiet!” Ursula says. “Listen to me!”

  “How did he die?” Margaret yells.

  “A fever, that’s what they told me. Listen to me! And then a woman—a woman—”

  “My God, what’s the matter?” says Margaret.

  I stare at the iron bedpost, the indentation in the rug. Ursula’s brown, wet shoe before my face. She’s sobbing a little in her chest, this woman who’s a hardened operative, for God’s sake, running an escape line through Germany, and I think, I’m the one who’s supposed to be crying. He’s my goddamned husband.

  Somewhere above me, Ursula’s speaking. “A woman—a woman came to take possession of the body.”

  “What? Who? Who took him?”

  Ursula chokes back another sob and says, Sa mère.

  “His mother? My mother? That’s impossible! She’s dead, don’t you know that? She’s been dead for years! Dead!”

  “She’s not dead,” whispers Ursula. “She’s in Switzerland.”

  Elfriede

  March 1944

  (Switzerland)

  In the afternoons, Elfriede still plays the piano. She likes to think it keeps her fingers from getting stiff, but the truth is more sentimental than that. She follows the same chronology as always, all the way up through Chopin and no further, because really what comes after Chopin? Nothing anybody cares about. There was a young woman ten years ago who asked her if she knew any Gershwin. Elfriede said she’d never heard of him. The woman said she would find the music, she would order it from this shop in Paris she knew, but she never did. Just packed her suitcase and left one day. Oh, well. Never mind Gershwin, then.

  Outside the window, the sun’s come out. They’ve had a warm spell over the past few days, and much of the snow has melted. Some of the infirmary patients were outside this afternoon, soaking up the sunshine, and one still remains, bundled in a woolen coat, reading a book. Elfriede smiles and turns back to her music. From the refectory comes the clink and clatter of tables being set. The children do this, it’s their job. Elfriede believes firmly in the importance of children having jobs, and so the children set the tables while the adults make dinner, and everybody’s mind is relieved of its troubles for a short time. Because she’s an early riser, Elfriede takes her turn at breakfast. Never ask your troops to do anything you wouldn’t do yourself, that’s what Wilfred used to say.

  When she comes to the last note, she pauses for a moment, eyes closed, fingers resting on the keys. In that space of time, while the music still exists in her head but not in the air, she feels Wilfred’s spirit in an especially pungent way, as if she’s absorbed him inside her body, as if she’s become Wilfred. Then the notes fade, and so does Wilfred, but not entirely. He’s still there, only less immediate, which allows her to rise from the piano bench and ta
ke her cardigan sweater from the top of the piano, where she’s left it. She shrugs her arms into the sleeves, belts the waist together, and heads down the hallway to the garden door.

  Now that Elfriede owns the clinic, now that the clinic runs not as a mountain retreat for wealthy invalids but as a refuge for the uprooted, the unwanted—Jews, mostly, but also some Resistance, some downed pilots—that daily hour of music is sometimes her only interlude. Still, she tries to spend some time outdoors each day, even in the middle of winter, clearing snow from the pathways and so on. Exercise is absolutely vital for one’s psychological health, she feels. During the spring and summer, there’s the garden to plant and tend, the livestock to care for. In autumn, it’s the harvest. She requires all the able-bodied guests to pitch in. Thus there’s always food to eat, even when they’re snowed in for weeks, and everybody feels as if they’ve contributed, even those who arrived here with only their clothes. Friendships are made, sometimes love affairs. One couple married last October. Shortly after, the American embassy in Zurich approved their visas. (In special cases like that, Elfriede sometimes asks Johann—who seems to have some trusted friends inside the American government—to pull a string or two.)

  In fact, she’s holding a telegram from Johann in her hand right now. It was delayed a bit because the melting snow caused some flooding in the valley, blocking the roads, so perhaps the news inside is old. Still, she wants to share it with the man in the garden, soaking up the sunshine on the bench next to the wall. He’s reading a book, and he looks up when he notices her approach. His hat hides his hair, but she knows the color, she knows every note of him. She asks if she can sit with him. He nods yes.

  “There’s a telegram from your brother,” she says.

  “What does it say?”

  “I don’t know. I thought we might read it together.”

  She hands him the yellow envelope, and he opens it with his bone-thin fingers. She remembers Gerhard, recovering from typhoid, and she reminds herself that this frailty will pass, that he’s over the sickness, his strength will build rapidly in this good, clean mountain springtime, her abundant homegrown food.