A Sorrowful Sanctuary
Page 15
June 1939
“This is outrageous,” Hans said to Klaus. The small room at the RCMP office was crowded and noisy, the settlers all talking with each other, frightened, trying to understand what was happening. “You have to tell them, we are here because we were enemies of the Nazis. How can we now suddenly become enemies of Canada with a piece of paper?”
“I’ve tried. The man won’t listen. We will have to get outside help.”
“Quiet! Quiet, please.” The loud voice of the RCMP officer startled the settlers, and they stopped talking and looked at him. “Mr. Lazek, you tell them that when they have been issued with papers declaring them enemy aliens, they will not be able to travel about, or take any work. Is that clear?”
“But sir, the ground we have been given produces barely enough. We have many people who work on other farms, or for the railway companies building the routes. If you take this away our families will lose the ability to survive.”
“I don’t make the rules. I enforce them. When I get an order from above to clear you, then that’s what will happen. Till then, you do as you’re told.”
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
“Divine!” exclaimed Angela. She was leaning back, her face held toward the sun, her dark hair billowing gently, the ends of her fingers trailing in the cool blue-green water. “I don’t know why we haven’t got a motor for our little boat yet. If I’d known it was this lovely, I would have done it the first summer we were here.”
Behind her Lane held tiller and steered the boat along the edge of the lake. She had fumbled initially, getting the motor attached, gassed up, and started. They had bobbed about ten feet from the shore while she made several failed attempts to start the motor, but finally there had been a gratifying roar as the engine sprang to life. Now, tooling along in the sun, she was considering the purchase of a small boat herself. She could go fishing with Darling . . . perhaps he didn’t fish . . . picnics in a cove?
“I’ve driven up and down that beastly road to Adderly, and now I’m wondering why we don’t putt along in a boat to get there,” Angela called back.
“Because by the time you’ve wrestled the boat onto your car, messed about with the motor, and wrapped the boys up against the icy cold in the winter, you’ll have wished you’d got into your nicely heated car to get there.”
“They have boat trailers, you know. I could get one of those. But I see your point.”
They travelled in companionable silence for some time, and then Lane pointed to a creek pouring noisily into the lake. “Look, that hairpin turn at the bottom of the road over that wooden bridge. We’ll be at the bottom of that horrible great cliff in a moment.”
The land gradually rose beside them, the sun seeming to cascade like a waterfall along the stony surface of the cliff. Rocks lay tumbled along the edge, and one or two brave trees clung tenaciously to ledges high above the lake. Lane pressed her lips grimly together. This was the place she might have died. She knew that the car had been pulled free, but she could still hear the sound of it going over, of the explosion. A man had died horribly right here, just this last winter.
“Look,” Angela said, “isn’t this where—”
But Lane interrupted her. “Yes. We should see Adderly along here soon.” She looked firmly forward, turning the throttle on the motor to speed up.
Adderly showed itself with a docking wharf and the hotel standing partway down the treed and pleasant but dilapidated street that descended toward the water’s edge.
“I thought you said there were coves all along the lake? What exactly are we looking for?” Angela asked, as they moved on past Adderly.
“I didn’t say it. Gladys did. We’ve passed a couple of creeks, but most of them have been very small. I don’t know what I’m looking for, really. At this point just a nice place to have lunch, I think.”
Angela glanced at her watch in response to this and retied her hair, much of which had come loose and was blowing in her face.
“Ah!” cried Lane. “That’s the sort of thing!” She slowed the boat. They were about twenty minutes past the hot springs and were approaching a wide fan of sand and pebble beach, and as she throttled down, they could hear the burble of a sizeable creek flowing along its stony banks and spreading into the lake. She raced the motor to push the boat toward the beach and pulled it up when the lake bottom looked too near. She heard the prow crunch onto the gravel. “Can you jump out and pull us in?”
Angela stood up, holding the sides of the boat, and climbed out onto the beach. “Well, that’s one foot wet.” She pulled until the rowboat was halfway onto the beach and then stood up and surveyed their landing spot. A curved line of cottonwoods hugged the edge of the creek a little higher on the beach.
Lane was beside her, holding the haversack with their lunch and a blanket. “Let’s find a cool, shady place for this, and then have a bit of an explore.”
“This is absolutely lovely!” exclaimed Angela. “So quiet!”
“Well, yes, except for that creek and the birds and whatever that distant roary sound is.”
“You know what I mean—nobody here but us kind of quiet. Previously unexplored, undiscovered beauty kind of quiet,” Angela said. “And what a lovely smell! It’s the cottonwoods I think. It reminds me of a childhood holiday in South Carolina.”
“We’re not the only people,” Lane said, her voice suddenly cautious. She was walking ahead of Angela along the creek. The cottonwoods had given way to a denser cover of mixed evergreen and birch. The shadows seemed deeper against the morning sun. “Look at this.”
A circle of stones made a fire pit, and a rusted and burned grate was propped along the edge of the pit. A chipped blue enamelled saucepan lay upended in the pebbles, and there were several discarded empty bean and soup cans.
They walked deeper into the shadow. The land rose in a high canyon, and the roaring sound became more pronounced.
“There’s obviously a waterfall up here somewhere,” Lane said. “Look, someone’s put a rough bridge over the creek here. There seems to be a path—oh!” She stopped. On the other side of the path, tucked behind a fold of land above the creek, was something resembling a shed.
“That looks relatively new. Do you think someone lives here?” Angela asked. “I mean, perhaps we ought to scurry on back to the beach and find somewhere else to lunch.”
But Lane was already across the bridge and knocking on the rough door of the shed. “Hello? Hello! Anyone home?” Receiving no answer, she pulled at the door, and it swung out easily on its leather hinges. A quick look inside told her someone had been living there. Running along the edge of the back wall was a pallet on the floor with a rumpled sleeping bag, looking like someone had just got out of it. A small leather suitcase served as a side table, and on it were two books that looked like they’d travelled a fair bit. A kerosene lamp hung on a hook to the right of the door. An overturned box held a cup with shaving equipment, toothbrush, toothpowder, and a hairbrush.
“Well?” called Angela, outside and reluctant to advance any farther.
“The books are in German,” Lane said.
“What books? There are books?” Angela retreated a few more feet. “Really, Lane. I mean, German books. After that swastika pin Phil found. I think we ought to scram.”
“Whoever it is hasn’t been here for a little while,” Lane observed.
“Oh. And how do you know that?”
“The smell, I suppose. Let’s go farther up the creek. I bet that sound is a waterfall.”
“The smell? I’m not even going to ask. We go look at the waterfall and then we go back to the beach,” Angela said, as if she were making a deal with recalcitrant children.
The path became damp in front of them. Rounding a curve, they were hit with a nearly deafening wall of sound and white water crashing and cascading down twenty feet of cliff, sendin
g a fine spray into the air like a halo. Dark green moss clung to the rocks and small ferns grew on the ledges, their fine lacy leaves bobbing with the wind sent up by the cannoning water.
Both women stood silent, mesmerized by the power and beauty of water in this violent form.
“Nice place to live if you’re a German spy,” Angela said at last.
“We don’t know he’s a German spy, and it may be nice, but it’s not terribly convenient. And in any case, what employment would there be for a German spy? The war is long over. Come, let’s see if we can see any other way to get here other than by boat.”
“I would just like to sit in the sun and dry off,” Angela protested.
They walked out of the dark canyon and back toward the bridge. Their hair was bedewed from the mist of the waterfall. Back in the warmth and quiet, they crossed the bridge and walked in the opposite direction from the shed.
“Look, here!” Angela cried. “This is a path, and it winds along the top of the beach here, and then heads up the hill. Do you think it goes as far as the road?” She was pointing at a dusty path, narrow and rocky in spots and overgrown with yellowing grass in others.
“You know, I should have looked at those books more closely. They might have a name. If I’m right that whoever set up camp here hasn’t been back for a while, why? If he had found a better place to live, he’d have come for his things. I’m popping back to have a look.” Lane made determinedly toward the bridge.
“I’m ‘popping’ down to the beach to set up lunch, and then I think we ought to ‘pop’ back up the lake to the safety of King’s Cove.”
“I’ll be right there,” Lane called back, pulling the door of the shed open. She knelt down and took up the books. “Well, well, well,” she said softly. “You’re not a Nazi then.” She flipped open the cover of the first book and saw a name inscribed. “K. Lazek.” She saw the same name in the second book and was about to put it down when she realized a page was marked with a bookmark. When she opened the book to the mark, she saw that it was a photograph of a young family taken in the summer in a sunny garden—a lovely young woman holding a baby, a little boy leaning on the arm of her chair and looking shyly at the camera, and a man in another chair, one leg swung casually over the arm. He was raising a glass toward the photographer and laughing. By their clothes the photo looked to be from the early 1930s. She turned the picture over, hoping for some names, but there was only the photographer’s stamp. She was about to put the photo back and then she frowned. It wasn’t a German name on the stamp. “Foto Novak, 39 U Svoboda, Asch.” Novak? Svoboda? Polish, maybe?
She stood up, still holding the book. She realized her temptation to take the books and photo was completely irrational. Whoever owned them was likely to come back and be very upset that so precious a family memory was gone. She put them back on the suitcase, resisting the urge to open that as well, and went outside, just in time to hear Angela calling her.
“Are you coming, or what?”
“On my way!” Lane called.
“He’s not a Nazi,” Lane said, accepting her wax-paper-wrapped sandwich and plunking down next to Angela on the blanket. “The two books were by German communists. Rosa Luxemburg—she’s very famous, and completely illegal in Nazi Germany, of course, and another one I’ve never read, but it’s about a man I know of, Hermann Broch. I expect he was illegal as well.”
“Well, that’s a relief. He’s only a communist then,” Angela remarked. “Wine?”
“Wine? You clever girl! I thought we’d be drinking lemonade! Yes, please. Then I think we ought to follow that path up to see if it goes to the road.”
“And what if we meet him coming down the road?”
“Then we’ll offer him a glass of wine. I don’t see that he’s been enjoying a lot of creature comforts here.”
Angela picked up a pebble and threw it into the lake. “You’re incorrigible. Are you forgetting you got locked into our barn for your troubles last time you got too nosey? Not that I mind. The children were thrilled to learn you’d been trapped in there by a bad guy. Though I note that they haven’t ventured in there to play much. Anyway, is any of this our business?”
Lane was thoughtful. “You’re right. It’s none of our business. But in the back of my mind I’m wondering if whoever lived here was our poor man in the boat.”
“That’s what you had up your sleeve the whole time! I am not in the least bit reassured. What if it was him, and whoever killed him comes here looking for . . . I don’t know . . . the gold this guy stole from him?”
“That’s exactly what Mabel said. But no one has been down till now. Look. I know I’ll be kicking myself if I don’t at least go see. You enjoy the sun and the lapping waves, and I’ll be back in a jiff.”
Lane ran back to the path. Trees kept it shady, a boon, as there was a long steep climb toward the edge of the canyon, and then the path covered the sharp rise in switchbacks. She could hear the falls on her right. Finally she could see ahead to where the trees cleared and the path opened onto a narrow strip of grass, dried and yellowed from the sun, and just beyond, behind a thick growth of salal, the road, as she’d suspected. She pushed her way through the bushes and walked to the edge of the road, and tried to figure out where it was in relation to Kaslo. She’d only made the trip once, and that was in heavy winter snow. The terrain looked completely different in the dry late summer. Just around the corner from where the path came onto the road, she saw the wooden bridge over the creek. Kaslo is probably less than six miles up the road, she thought.
Really, all this is in aid of nothing in particular. We don’t know who was camped down the hill, and it truly is none of our business. A harmless prospector, who, being German, was perhaps unable to get a job during the war? Or Carl Castle? He’s disappeared. But no, there is no indication he’d be reading communist literature in the original German. So caught up was she in thinking as she made her way back down the path that she was nearing the bottom before she heard Angela calling her.
“Yup! Coming! All done,” she called back, and ran the rest of the way down the path to the beach.
“Finally!” Angela said. “I packed up the boat and went for a walk across the other side of the creek. Perhaps you’d be interested in what I found while you were fooling around doing your imitation of a mountain goat.”
Angela led Lane along the beach, where the creek had spread into a small delta, and continued across on dry stones. On the other side the beach curved slightly west. She stopped abruptly and said, “I left it exactly where I found it and have not touched it. I read detective fiction, you know.”
There, half in and half out of the water, being gently rocked by the quiet lapping of the lake, lay an oar that looked, Lane thought, the absolute twin of the one in the rowboat.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
September 1941
Klaus Lazek stood by the wagon that was piled with part of the wheat harvest, chewing a blade of dried stalk. “It’s not a bad harvest, considering we are a bunch of city people.”
“No, indeed. It’s too bad those idiots won’t give us any place to store it. Have they even been here in the winter with all the snow or in the spring with those floods of rain?”
Lazek shrugged. “They are company men from where? Manitoba? Someplace with no rain. They keep our supply money from us, make us build their railroad for nothing. I think someone has been stealing the money.”
“For God’s sake, Klaus, don’t go shouting that about! We are on thin ice as it is here. I’m sure some of them would love to see us do something wrong. They’d love to throw a German in jail.”
Lazek kicked at the wheel of the wagon. “I’m tired of it, Hans. The minute we’ve built something to store this in, I’m leaving. I’m going to sign up. Now that they’ve lifted those ridiculous enemy alien papers from us, I’m going to fight the Nazis.”
“Precisely, Hansy, precisely. I speak German, and so does the enemy. I could be useful. That has to count for something. Now let’s get this lot out of here before it rains again.”
Ames’s supposition that most of the local miners, loggers, and boatmen frequented the hotel pubs proved to be right. His supposition that it was going to yield information was beginning to look futile, however. The silence in the room that accompanied them showing their police identification to the bartender in each of the hotels they entered made Ames suggest, as they walked to the next establishment, that they were all “up to something guilty.”
“Keep your focus, Ames,” Darling said. Showing the admittedly unattractive picture of a dead man around had so far netted only the shaking of heads. Finally one man had frowned and said, “He does look kinda familiar. He never drank in here though. Try the Nugget up the road.”
“Inspector Darling and Constable Ames,” Darling said to the bartender at the Nugget. “We’re looking for any information you might have about this man.”
The bartender glanced at the picture as if he already knew he’d have nothing to say, and then did a double take. “This guy looks dead.”
“He is dead,” Darling said. “And we’d like to know who he is.”
“May I?” The bartender reached for the picture and held it up to the light provided by the window above his bar.
“I do sort of recognize him. He lives . . . lived out of town somewhere. He didn’t come here often, I can tell you, especially after the ruckus. In fact he stopped coming here.”