by Maisie Mosco
Good for them! Marianne thought hotly. Why should men always take things into their own hands and women let themselves be told what was best for them, as if they were incapable of judging for themselves? She glanced at her aunt, who was trying to swallow down the salt herring, hard-boiled eggs and bagels that next-of-kin mourners were obliged to eat, though they had no appetite for food. Auntie Miriam had been misled into thinking the tradition was a law, just as Marianne had, or she wouldn’t have bidden Martin goodbye a moment before she had to.
What she had just learned caused her to question the Jewish way of life even more than she had already begun doing. How many more misconceptions were dictating people’s behaviour? Even if this was the only one, it was hard to relate some of the archaic laws and customs to the life of today. And only possible to observe them without question if you remained within a closed community. The family considered themselves anglicized, but this was just an illusion. They had no desire to be integrated and how could they ever be when they put up barriers against it and taught their children these must never be torn down?
Uncle David, whom she considered highly intelligent, had once told her how he had battled his way out of the Strangeways ghetto and at the time she had admired him for it. Now, she felt sorry for him because the word “ghetto” didn’t just apply to a district. It could apply to your mentality, too.
She and Martin had talked about this the last time they were home on leave together, when they’d felt themselves stifled by the narrowness of the family ethos. And, oh, how she missed not having him here, she thought that evening. The house was packed with people who had flocked to offer condolence; women trying to comfort Auntie Miriam and men gripping Uncle Sammy’s hand unable to find words to console a man who had just said the Kaddish prayer for his only son.
But Marianne could relate none of the religious ritual to Martin, who had stopped believing there was a God or an afterlife. If there was, which she wanted to believe, by now he would have found out; and also whether there were two separate Heavens for Jews and Gentiles as they’d supposed when they were kids, she recalled poignantly.
“Your Marianne never grows an inch,” she heard Paula Frankl – whom she always associated with weddings, Bar Mitzvahs and funerals because those were the only occasions on which she ever saw her – say to her grandmother and escaped to the upstairs landing where she and Martin had sat sharing their secrets as small children.
“I don’t blame you,” Hannah whispered following her. “I’ve told Carl that when I die, there’s to be none of what’s going on downstairs. Mourning’s a luxury for the mourners and apart from one’s nearest and dearest, what have they done to deserve it?”
Marianne smiled for the first time in two days. Hannah was like a breath of fresh air.
“When are you going back to camp, Marianne?”
“On the midnight train.”
“We’ve got time for a little chat, then. What’s been going on in your life since you were last home?”
“Things that’d make a lot of people’s hair stand on end,” Marianne said dryly.
“But not mine.”
How good it was to have this trusted friend. Someone to whom she could confide the traumatic events of the past few weeks.
After she had done so, Hannah was silent for a moment, then took her hand and stroked it, the way she had years ago when she’d told Marianne to let her handicaps be a spur.
“Let’s talk about Michael first, shall we?” she said gently. “Or what he represents.”
Marianne eyed her uncertainly.
“Most girls go through a stage when they’re in love with love, Marianne.”
“I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean with the state itself, the fantasy that’s woven around it. And it’s easy to attach that to any nice boy who happens to be around. I did it myself when I was your age. Over and over again. Then one day, when I’d grown disenchanted with my current sweetheart, I became aware I was actively looking for another. Surveying the field is one way to put it and I thought what the heck am I doing?”
This more or less summed up Marianne’s experience at the British airborne unit dance. She felt her cheeks grow hot at the recollection.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of,” Hannah declared, noticing. “In a way, it’s tied up with the feminine expectations we’re conditioned to from our cradle. The concept that being some man’s darling, cooking his meals and bearing his kids in a cottage with roses round the door is what we’re born for. The roses are the romantic sugar on the pill, of course. That’s how we get lured into the trap!”
“But you didn’t, did you? Well, not in the way most women are trapped. You’ve got a life outside your home, your career.”
“I might not have had, if I’d married one of the lads I thought I was in love with, instead of Carl.” Hannah smiled reminiscently. “There was one called Colin who wanted to get engaged to me, but I couldn’t face spending my life with someone who bit his nails. And another called Pete, who was always saying how nice it’d be to come home and find me and his pipe and slippers waiting for him by the hearth.”
“I don’t see you fitting into that picture!”
“But it sounded lovely at the time. I wasn’t the me I am now. Not marrying young allowed me to become her and I’ve got a husband who hasn’t tried to grind her under his heel. That’s the sort of man you need, Marianne, and there aren’t many around.”
“I’ll bear it in mind.”
“And when he comes along, you won’t give him up whatever the reason if you really love him. That, my dear, is the acid test.”
Hannah went to peer over the stair rail at the people standing chatting in the lobby because there was not room for them in the parlour. “Miriam and Sammy’re going to have to put up with this for the rest of the week,” she said, sounding distressed. “People are kind and come because it’s expected, but personally I think the Reform Shul’s way is more sensible. Just one day of Shivah for everyone to pay their respects, then allow the bereaved to grieve in privacy and peace.”
She turned around and saw Marianne’s desolate expression, which referring to the Shivah had caused. “As for you feeling responsible for Martin’s death,” she declared firmly. “You always did dramatize everything, but this time you’ve gone too far. If your grandmother knew, she’d say the same.”
“Why?”
“She’s a fatalist and so am I. My own experiences and other people’s have made me one. Do you really believe it was a coincidence that you got up to go to the bathroom just before that bomb shot your bed through the floor? And to carry it further, why was it a time bomb, that allowed you and your parents to escape being blown up?”
“Because God didn’t want us to die that night,” Marianne said thoughtfully.
Hannah smiled. “That’s what your grandmother said. She attributes the good things to God and the bad ones to Fate. To me, they’re one and the same. I eschew the religious trappings but acknowledge the hand of destiny. When your time’s up, it’s up, and Martin reached the end of his that afternoon. Perhaps he was also fated to die without knowing you couldn’t return his feelings,” Hannah added quietly.
“And that was why I was out when he came? Both times?”
“Exactly.”
What Hannah had said eased Marianne’s feeling of personal responsibility for her cousin’s untimely death. But nothing could lessen her sense of irreparable loss.
There would never be another Martin in her life, she thought on the train carrying her south that night. Relative and friend, mentor and ally, champion and critic, all rolled into one. She had not realized quite what he meant to her when he was alive. But losing him was like saying farewell to her alter ego, to the twin soul who’d been born into the family the same year as herself.
These were her thoughts when exhaustion overtook her, and she fell asleep. She was still slumbering when the train pulled into Euston and she had to be prodded awake by t
he lady seated beside her.
People were queueing for the early edition of the morning papers when she left the platform. Others were standing around reading them, with broad smiles on their faces.
“What’s everyone so pleased about?” she asked a porter who was also grinning from ear to ear.
“It’s D-Day, love.”
Marianne stood stock still.
“Old ’itler’ll get ’is come-uppance now all right! The Allies ’as invaded Normandy.”
She hurried to the tube, her mind awhirl. There had probably been a pre-invasion flap on at the Ordnance Depot, with the colonel demanding she be brought from her bed, head-cold or not. The girls wouldn’t have been able to cover up for her, even with the medical orderly’s complicity. But she must carry on with her part of the plan. Get back into uniform and try to sneak into Quarters the back way, just in case.
At Andover station there were no military policewomen about. They were waiting for her in the ladies’ room, or so she felt when she opened the door and saw them there.
“Great news, isn’t it?” one of the pair beamed to her.
Even the redcaps had got D-Day euphoria. She’d have it herself in different circumstances. “It’s the day we’ve all been waiting for,” she smiled and went to wash her hands, because it would seem odd if she just did an about-turn and left.
“You comin’ or goin’?” the other MP inquired conversationally whilst powdering her bumpy nose.
“Going,” Marianne replied, making her exit and trying to decide where. There was no point in loitering at the station. If she went back to the ladies’ room to change, after they came out, they’d recognize her when she re-emerged in uniform.
Klein on the run! she thought melodramatically, eyeing her reflection in a shop window on the main street. She had to find somewhere to shed her disguise. What would Bogart do? Head for the nearest bar. English bars weren’t open this early. But residential hotels were, she smiled spotting one.
A trio of businessmen watched the tarty-looking girl in red teeter across the foyer on her borrowed stilts and enter the cloakroom. But didn’t even glance at the prim little “At” when she marched out, Marianne noted disgustedly. Then she tripped over someone’s foot and every head in the vicinity turned to stare at her.
The soldier responsible lifted her from the doormat, where she had landed.
“I seem to’ve done something to my ankle,” Marianne winced.
“It’s my fault,” he answered contritely. “My feet are too big.”
She managed to smile. “They go with the rest of you.”
He was built like a rugby player and she had to crane her neck to look at his face, which was anything but handsome. But he had the most magnetic eyes she had ever seen. Hazel, flecked with green and sharply defined against the whites as if they had been ringed with a black pencil.
“Thank you for hoisting me up,” she said dragging her gaze away from them and hobbling through the doorway.
“I’ll drive you wherever you’re going,” he offered, following and taking her arm. He supported her to where his vehicle was parked. “But I hope it isn’t Land’s End or John o’ Groats! I’m due in Salisbury this afternoon.”
“You’re in luck. Where I’m stationed is on your way.”
After they had set off, he glanced at her painful ankle, which was now twice the size of her other one. “You’d better go to the sick-bay and have that strapped up when you get back.”
“Yes, Sergeant,” Marianne replied facetiously.
“My name’s Ralph Dean.”
“Mine’s Marianne Klein.”
“That’s not English, is it?”
“Nor is your twang.”
“Is it that noticeable?”
“Yes. But I can’t place it.”
“It’s got a bit watered-down with the years. I’m Australian, but I’ve lived here since I was a kid. People always retain something of their roots, don’t they?”
Some more than others, Marianne thought. Herself for instance. “I’m English in spite of my name,” she said
“But you don’t look it.”
“I’m Jewish, too.”
He gave her a sidelong glance. “There’s no need to sound so defensive about it, love.”
“I wasn’t aware I had,” Marianne answered stiffly. Probably because it’s second nature with me, she thought, staring through the windscreen at the convoy of army trucks ahead of them. Born of the subtle something she felt in Gentile company, that kept her subconsciously on her guard.
“I thought you might be French,” Ralph smiled. “With that hairstyle and those big, dark eyes.”
“What does it matter what people are?” she said, wishing it didn’t and changing the subject. “You’re not having a very busy D-Day are you?”
“My usefulness will begin when the war’s over, or so they tell me. Meanwhile I’m deskbound, preparing for then.”
He did not elaborate, and Marianne did not question him.
“Or I might not have been there to trip you up this morning,” he added with a grin. The grin faded. “I was waiting for my wife, but she didn’t show up.”
Again he did not elaborate, but Marianne sensed a deep hurt within him. He had not struck her as the vulnerable kind, his appearance belied it, she thought, eyeing his strong hands on the steering wheel and the ruggedness of his profile. There was a worldliness about him, too, that made the other soldiers she’d met seem callow youths by comparison.
They fell into a pensive silence that lasted for most of the journey and Marianne guessed he was thinking about his wife.
“Where now?” he said, emerging from his thoughts as they reached the place where she was stationed.
There were very few GIs around and hardly any traffic. Instead, an unprecedented hush seemed to have enveloped the whole barracks complex, giving it the air of a deserted city.
“Up the hill if you don’t mind,” Marianne requested.
“Are you sure you don’t want me to drive you to your quarters?” Ralph asked when he set her down by the roadside and saw her bite her lip as her foot touched the ground.
“And involve yourself in my misdemeanour?” she answered dryly. “I’ve been AWL, Sergeant.”
“I wondered if you might be when I noticed your quick-change act at the hotel.”
He was more perceptive than she’d given him credit for. Straightforward, too, or he wouldn’t have remarked on her defensiveness about being Jewish. It was his direct manner that had impelled her to be honest with him.
Ralph held her gaze for a moment. “With you, there’d have to be a good reason for it. Take care, Marianne.”
She watched him turn his vehicle and speed away down the hill. She would have liked to get to know him better, but he hadn’t suggested seeing her again. And she’d have had to refuse if he had. The easiest way to keep her solemn promise to her parents was not to make dates with Christian men. And also Ralph was married.
She made her way gingerly to the back of the ATS quarters, conscious of her ankle throbbing and of a sadness that had nothing to do with Martin’s death. Perhaps it was because she had been in the company of someone she felt instinctively was a good person and had sensed he was unhappy.
The sight that met her eyes, when she reached the top of the rise she had been painfully climbing, wiped everything but the war from her mind. All the US army vehicles had gone. It was as if someone had taken a paintbrush and transformed the military scene into the peaceful, country landscape it had once been.
By now, the rows of tanks and jeeps that had blotted the view from her window would be rumbling across Normandy, with boys she had probably passed on the barracks street, or sat next to in a canteen, inside them. And many would not return. D-Day wasn’t just a term, the way it had seemed until now. It was the end of the beginning and for some, the beginning of the end.
The sickening realization diminished her personal trepidation. Being punished for going AWL seemed tri
vial by comparison and how small she suddenly felt: a tiny cog in the wheel of war whose absence from duty for a couple of days mattered not one jot.
She eased herself through the gap in the hedge the “Ats” used when they returned after lights-out. It was 12.30 p.m. and there was nobody about. The girls were always eating dinner in the cookhouse at this time. She collected her mug and cutlery from her room and went to join them. If her absence had gone undetected it would look as if she had risen from her sick bed because she felt well enough. If it hadn’t, she would soon find out.
“Yer supposed ter be bleedin’ sneezin’, not limpin’,” Birdie mouthed caustically when Marianne hobbled in and sat down beside her.
“’N I wouldn’t like ter tell yer wot capers we ’ad ter get up ter, ter cover fer you,” Joyce whispered from across the table.
Marianne smiled her thanks. There would be no repercussions, but she couldn’t tell them it suddenly didn’t matter.
“I ’ope yer didn’t leave my civvies on the traip, Marianne,” Birdie said to her. “Knowin’ wot yer like, I’ve been worried stiff abart ’em’n where I’d git the coupons from ter replace ’em.”
Marianne was trying to summon the appetite to eat the mess of minced beef and soggy cabbage on her plate. She put down her fork with a clatter.
“Yer flamin’ did, didn’t yer? I knew it!” Birdie exclaimed.
“Not on the train, Birdie.” She had left the holdall in Ralph Dean’s vehicle. But why did she feel pleased as well as contrite? Because she knew he would return it. She would see him again.
Chapter 13
“What a place to spend Chanukah,” Nathan joked to the Jewish soldier he was examining.
The boy gave him a wan smile. “It doesn’t seem long since someone mentioned it was Rosh Hashanah. But at the time I was too busy being frightened for my life to care.”
They were in a military hospital in Belgium and Nathan had no idea if today was Chanukah or not. But it was December, which meant it could be and he wanted to cheer up the boy.