by Tim Binding
“He gets the texture of her skin so very well,” she ventured. “The fullness of her young flesh, almost aching to be touched. It is difficult, to get that feeling.”
The Major shifted in his shoes, determined not to be embarrassed.
“The breasts are a little too stylized, don’t you think? A little too perfect, a little too…”
“Pert?”
“Exactly.”
“Young girls tend to be like that, though, especially the models he used. I knew her, you know. Quite a heartbreaker in her day. Lovers by the score. Of course, in those days, that was what Paris was for.”
“Paris?”
“It’s where I learnt about life, Major, where I learnt how to live it. You know it?”
“Certainly I know it. After Berlin, Paris is my favourite city.”
Mrs Hallivand clasped her hands. “It’s so long since… You must tell me all about it,” she determined. “And in return I shall tell you all about…all about the House!”
Lentsch did not understand.
“Hauteville,” Mrs Hallivand explained. “Victor Hugo’s old house. I am a trustee.”
She had taken him there straight away. The interior had been maintained exactly as it had been left it in ‘78—dark and heavy like a museum, with an echoing silence embedded in the walls that only long-stilled buildings can maintain. Threading their way through, Lentsch felt as if he had landed upon a treasure island and been led to a hidden chest which, when opened, revealed jewel upon jewel. She showed him the Gobelin tapestries, the table belonging to Charles II, the fire screen made by Madame de Pompadour. She led him before the great bed built for Garibaldi, but never used, and invited him to lie on its untouched length. Together they climbed up to the small glass house at the top where in each of the two corners facing the sea stood a little table where the author had written, always standing. Lentsch could hardly bring himself to speak.
“This is wonderrul,” he exclaimed.
“Isn’t it.”
“Wonderful. You could do anything here. Write books, paint, rule the world.”
“Oh, we don’t want any rulers of the world here,” Mrs Hallivand had chided him. “We’ve got enough of those already, haven’t we?” She caught her breath, startled by her own indiscretion. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have said that.”
“No, no,” he assured her. “You can say anything you like to me. But there are others, though, to whom you should be more circumspect.”
“Circumspect.” She repeated the word. “Are you as good with your own language as you are with ours?”
Lentsch would not let the compliment deflect him from his warning.
“My fellow officers, Captain Zepernick for instance.”
“But he seems such a charming fellow,” she said. “So polite.”
Lentsch shook his head.
“He is not?” she questioned.
“Oh, yes, he is,” Lentsch assured her. “But don’t let that deceive you. The Captain is from the new ruling class. He belongs to a different party than you or I. He is good company, but everything that takes place must do so on his own terms. If you are in his circle you are safe. If not…”
“I never ask to be admitted into circles,” Mrs Hallivand told him, regaining the dignity of her class. “I accept or I do not. Now,” she said, waving her hand around the room, “what are we going to do about all this?”
The Major had hesitated. There were favours to be gained here to be sure, ones that could carry him far beyond these waters. He could have the place stripped within the hour, packed and crated and shipped offto Karinhall with his compliments. He would finish the war under the protection of the crown prince, drinking and hunting, taking his pleasure while others died. He closed his mind to the suggestion almost in the instant it was made. There would be no collection made from this plate. No visitors either. He would keep it hidden, locked away for as long as it proved possible. Only Mrs Hallivand would be allowed in, once a week, to clean and dust and to ensure that the building stood in good repair. Otherwise an imposition of quarantine. It would become a symbol of the Occupation’s benign intent.
A week later he had presented her with an inventory of the whole place and invited her to the first of their Sunday lunches, where they would sit opposite each other, in a strange parody of host and guest, both amused by Albert’s uncertainty which to serve first, and talk of the worlds they had left behind; she, of life as an embassy child, her wild years in Paris, the world war death of her first husband: he of his father’s estate outside the old town of Geile, the cold turret high up in one corner, where he would stand motionless, waiting for the calling geese to fly past, and later, of his life as a German officer. Books, music, tales of adventure and indiscretions, she revelled both in the telling and the listening. As a diplomat’s daughter she understood the laws by which he was governed, the nature of the oaths he had taken, the unforgiving principle of duty. She moved in the same knowing circles, had witnessed the same peccadilloes, the same falls from grace. She could outmatch him in tales of ambassadors and heads of state. And when the brandy had taken hold and Albert had retired, he could confide in her, talk of his home in Hamburg and the fear he held for his mother and sister, the fear he held for Germany.
At the end of each evening he would escort her back to the lodge and stand in the porch while they wound down the last conversation of the night, their spirits freshened by the night air. She was drawn to him, he knew it, and these occasions, as she hovered by the studded door, turning back for one last word, or stretching up for that final quick peck on his cheek, he sensed that it only needed one stay of his hand, one murmur from his lips, for her to fall into his arms. He found the idea both absurd and disquieting. She was attractive, there was no doubt about that; bright, vivacious, determined never to be shocked or outwitted, slim and fit, slightly given to bone, with those quick bright movements that are the hallmark of the petite, but as far as he was concerned she was attractive only as a youngish aunt might be untouchable—bearing scars of a sexual history fashioned in a different age, and her insistence on this coquettish intimacy he found increasingly discomforting. To embrace Mrs Hallivand, feel her lonely lips seeking his, to undress her, to be present when that repressed passion had died back once more, would only cause them both intense embarrassment and regret later on, even though there were times, at the end of a particularly enjoyable evening, when he half desired it himself. So he flirted with her politely, always perfectly groomed, always exaggeratedly correct, and she, sitting at the end of the table, matching him drink for drink, tale for tale, argument for argument, followed his movements, his eyes, the corner of his mouth, the dance of his hands, with undisguised pleasure.
“I am so glad about the war!” she had once confided. “It’s the best thing that has happened to me on this island, and I don’t mind who knows it.”
“Marjorie, this is treasonable talk,” he warned her, amused and flattered by her outburst. “You mustn’t let Bohde hear you. He’ll make you put it in writing, splash it all over the Evening News.”
Mrs Hallivand waved him away. “I wouldn’t mind! You’ve no idea what it was like beforehand, the company I had to keep. Men who wouldn’t know Stendhal from Stalin, wives whose idea of a social gathering was some dreadrul little drinks do with cheap punch, meat-paste sandwiches and pineapple chunks stuck on cocktail sticks.”
“But surely your husband…”
“A seducer in a stuffed shirt.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. It took him off my hands. It wasn’t the seductions that really grated, rather his choice. If I’d done the same at least it would have been for someone worthwhile. Not that there was much chance of that happening here. More life in one of our tomatoes. God, I was half asleep before you came. You’ve woken me up, Gerhard. I’ll not be able to go back to sleep again.”
That first Christmas pantomime, Mrs Hallivand’s face had been lit up with barely contained excitement, her
lips following every line, her hands clasped together whenever a joke or special effect hit its target. She held on to his arm, laughed behind her handkerchief, patted herself under her breasts, as if the thrill of it all were enough to make her faint. She stuck another chocolate into her mouth and without looking, reached over and popped one into his mouth. He was astonished at her boldness. Was that why he had been invited? Outside he could hear the sound of soldiers marching past and boats hooting in the harbour, but for the audience it was as if that world had ceased to exist. Yet Lentsch was not slow to see that for this production Neverland had taken on a very Guernsey-like aspect, with its pretty painted backdrop of an old castle overlooking a tree-lined coast. The pirates, clearly the villains of the piece, judging by the boos and hisses that greeted their every appearance, were of an uncharacteristically military bent. There was something peculiarly British about the crocodile too, not simply in the bowler hat it had tied on its head, but in the manner in which it managed to devour large numbers of these unwanted brigands at regular and increasingly popular intervals. Trust Marjorie to use her self-assured arrogance to orchestrate this display of theatrical defiance. He was glad he had seen it before Bohde, though. Bohde would have closed the show and slapped her down with a hefty fine.
It was only after the play had been going for a half-hour, as Peter Pan swung out across a paper lagoon, that he realized who the young woman was. Lentsch leant over to Marjorie and whispered: “That girl. Who is she?”
“That?” She turned and faced him full on. “Just my niece Isobel. Quite the silliest girl in the island. Doesn’t know one end of a book from the other.”
“Your niece? I am sure I met her, last winter, while on leave. In Switzerland.”
He had been jumping off a ski lift and had slipped badly, swearing loudly as he fell. Sprawled on the ground, he had looked up to see a hand reaching out.
“Keep your knees bent,” she had told him slowly, shaking her head, taking him for the novice he was not. “Glide,” and with that she had turned and pushed off down the slope. He would have liked to have followed her, but he was with a party of his own. It didn’t matter. That night, in the hotel, he had walked into the lounge bar and spotted her sitting in the corner with a group of other young women, gazing out of the huge window which looked out upon the Jungfrau. He had gone over and introduced himself and asked, by way of thanks, if he might be allowed to buy her dinner. Though her eyes told him that she would have liked to accept, her face travelled in disappointed explanation to where an older woman sat, watching her every move.
“I would probably get expelled,” she said.
“In that case I shall have to kidnap you,” he said, determined to offer his charm for capture. “It would be a good to be courtmartialled for such a crime.”
She began to blush, the glow stealing over her as soft a pink as the setting sun sweeping across the distant mountain.
“Perhaps we might meet on the slopes tomorrow?” he offered. “I promise only to fall in your arms,” but again she denied him, saying that this night was their last. For a brief instant, as she lowered her eyes on those words, he had hopes, but then he heard her companions giggle and, with the older woman sitting in the corner, he knew that it would not happen, and that perhaps he did not wish it either.
“I am sorry,” he said, “to meet you at the end of your holiday,” and she, safe in the knowledge that she was immune to his advances but quite prepared to flirt, replied, “I am not on holiday. I am at school.”
He took the bait readily enough.
“I thought all schoolgirls wore uniforms,” he mocked in a deliberate tone of seduction.
“Uniforms are for children and grown men playing silly games. Not grown women. We have better things to do.”
“In our country,” he said, “women have only three things. Kinder, Kirche und Küche. Children, Church and kitchen.”
She gave a little shudder.
“I don’t think I would like to be a German woman,” she said, “if that’s all they do. Must be terrible for them, poor things.”
He shook his head.
“It is a good time for us now. There was too much bad things in the world. Too much…” he rubbed his thumb against his fingers, “greed from the bosses, too little work for the ordinary man. Too much uncertainty. Capitalism. Communism. That is all finished now. We work as one. The women too.”
She glanced back at the chaperone. “You sound like our Miss Gatting. She’s taking us there next term.”
“To Germany?”
“Yes.”
“May I ask where?”
“Munich.”
“Munich! It is where I atn stationed.”
He had given her his address, but by the time he returned to his barracks he had forgotten all about her. And here she was again, swinging across the stage in black stockings and bells, with a purple cap upon her head.
“You met Isobel?” Mrs Hallivand sounded slightly put out.
“I know. It is so strange. I am sure it is her. Perhaps you could invite her to one of our lunches.”
Mrs Hallivand looked doubtful. “Her father is very protective. Before the war I would have said too protective. But now?”
Lentsch waved away her objection. “No, no. I would like to meet her. Introduce me after the performance.” His voice was drowned out by another burst of applause. Another pirate had been eaten. He lifted his programme in the air. “And Mrs Hallivand.”
“Yes?”
“After today no more riding boots on the pirates. No more arms in the air as they go under.”
But that night, behind the stage, Peter Pan had led him to Neverland too, and like the lost boys whose hands he shook so solemnly at the curtain’s call, he never wanted it to change. Standing at the foot of the garden, looking down on the wheel of gulls calling over the swollen sea, at times he could feel himself wishing that the war might never end. Yes, he missed his homeland and the beat of his birthright, yet every journey he took home was made in fear, not simply because of the danger, or the irrevocable signs of destruction taking hold in Germany’s soul, but fear for what might happen here in his absence. For unhappily Guernsey was not isolated from the world’s misfortune. It lay upon this turbulent sea, soaking up the waters of war as quickly as a sponge. Three weeks he had been away. Three weeks. A lot could happen in Neverland over three weeks. Parties, chance meetings, a crocodile’s jaw quickly snapping.
He shook Veronica’s hand. The bangles on her arm clanked discordantly.
“I am delighted to meet you,” he told her. She dropped her eyes and gave a little curtsy, which embarrassed him. Her embonpoint was certainly getting a good airing tonight. Zep, unable to ignore his natural inclination, clicked his heels and bowed low in order to take a closer look. Lentsch could see his nostrils flare as they approached the landing zone. Molly stared ahead, furious. Poor Molly, for all her sculptured poise nothing could disguise the fact that she was helplessly in love. When her guard was up, the hard quality of her character surfaced and split her haughty composure like fissures on a rock. Lentsch had told Isobel to warn her that Zep was here to have a good time and didn’t give a jot for the lot of them, but if she had said anything Molly hadn’t taken any notice, or couldn’t help herself. And why not? Zep would be kind and genereus for as long as it suited him. As Molly had once said, when they had been arguing over the dangers of fraternization: “Well, what else are we supposed to do? Stay in purdah until it’s all over? What’s the point of that? All the good ones will have been snapped up by then.”
“Yes, Molly, but what if we lose?” he had asked.
She looked at him as if he had blasphemed.
“Then I’d have to pack my bags and skedaddle,” she said. “But you’re not going to. Not if you play your cards right.”
“Not if He plays our cards right,” Lentsch had corrected.
Molly stood on her heels and kissed him a little too near his mouth. At that moment the huge boom of a g
un sounded, very near, momentarily silencing the crowd. Someone drew back the curtains. Another made a nervous joke. Molly had clutched at Lentsch’s arm.
“What in Heaven’s name was that?” she said, staying close. She wasn’t frightened but she made use of it.
“Battery practice,” Lentsch told her. “Miles away.” Molly made no attempt to move away.
“I thought Isobel might be with you,” Lentsch said, unlocking himself from her grasp. Molly took the hint and backed off.
“You’ll have to wait, Gerhard,” she warned, tapping him on the lips. “Trouble at home.”
Molly grabbed hold of Veronica’s hand and pulled her across the room. Dr Mueller arrived, armed with a fresh batch of nurses from Bremen, their noses red with cold. Their first time abroad and loving every minute.
“I hope you have brought your pyjamas,” Zepernick told them as he handed out the steaming glass cups. “Otherwise no admittance to the party later on.”
Mueller ushered his flock over to where a group of officers sat. The English girls watched with guarded interest. While they regarded German men as their equals and allies, they looked upon the women as the enemy, inferior, untrustworthy and a threat, though usually there was little cause for alarm. There was a definite pecking order here, based on rank and class, that applied to both sexes and both nationalities. As a rule the German officers preferred English girls. German women, here as nurses, translators and administrators, were strictly temporary; ‘cannon fodder’, the soldiers called them. It was not unusual for a man with strong appetites to use a whore for immediate gratification, a madchen for weekends in France or an evening at the Regal watching a German film and a long-standing Guernsey girl who could give him hope and stability and a sense that somehow the war had already achieved a purpose.
Bohde stood up and shook hands with each of the nurses in turn. Lentsch couldn’t hear what was being said, but Bohde appeared to be explaining something, quickly and earnestly. Some expressed surprise, others giggled; one simply walked away. Most of the them turned to Mueller for confirmation. Bohde starled writing their names down in a little notebook he produced from his pocket.