He made it back up the hill, glancing back frequently, making sure he wasn’t being followed. He made it to the fork with the fallen tree, his mind whirling as he tried to imagine what had happened there. Did Kafka shoot them all? He had, after all, served in the war as a sniper. But surely, Kafka wouldn’t have shot Dubois? And what happened to the major? Had his father been there? A dreadful thought struck him. Once the corporal had reported back to the colonel, then Claire’s situation, perilous enough already, would be made worse. He had to find that lake.
He headed north for another twenty minutes, then, following the map, veered east. Tired, his calf muscles aching, he stopped for a rest and ate his cheese. The apple, he decided, would be best kept for later. His water was already half gone. As he swung his bag over his shoulder, he spied a kingfisher swooping low at great speed. He thought of his mother’s brooch. With a lurch, he realised that meant only one thing – the lake was nearby. Eagerly, despite the surging apprehension, he pushed on. And yes, the trees thinned out and behind them lay the lake. He halted, allowing his bag to slide off his shoulder. So this was it, the lake. Slowly, he stepped forward, mesmerized, dragging his bag by its strap. He reached a stretch of sand, a small beach. How blue the water; the gentle ripples, the sun reflecting on its surface, the freshness of the air, the utter quiet of it all, a silence broken only by the sounds of the woods – insects humming, birds singing. This was it; this was the lake he remembered; the place that had haunted him through the years. Yet, there was no island. He could see the far side; the lake was not that big. He let go of the strap. But it could not be Kafka’s lake. Consulting his map again, there were no other lakes in the vicinity, this was the only one. Unfolding the map, there was another, much bigger lake, much further north; some fifty kilometres or more. No, this had to be it.
He so wished now he’d brought his father’s binoculars. He could see them hanging up on the back of the living room door. He wondered whether his mother had seen his note. She’d be beside herself by now. So be it, he thought; he had a job to do and he wasn’t turning back now.
* * *
If Michel and I had hoped to be cheered up by wandering through the woods, we were soon disappointed. Still, we carry on, picking our way along a little zigzag path. At least it’s stopped raining now but we still get caught by big raindrops falling off the leaves. I spy with my little eye something beginning with ‘t’.
Tree.
Yes. Well, that’s that game done with.
That was too easy.
I know.
He picks up a stick and smacks it against the trunk of a tree, bringing down a little shower of rain. He squeals and throws away his stick. I wish we were still playing with our kite. We could have it flying by now. Can we try again later?
Maybe tomorrow, eh? Hopefully it won’t be raining. Listen, if tomorrow Papa says “would you boys like to go fishing?”, what do we say?
He giggles at my impersonation of Papa’s voice. We say no!
No! Never again.
We laugh together. Have you remembered to bring Munchie?
Yes, he’s in my bag. Where’s your satchel?
I left it with Papa. Have you got any lunch left?
No, I ate it all.
Yes, so did I. Oh, look, Mickey, another place for fishing. Maybe Papa would have better luck here. It’s almost the same – a stone wall, more like a platform really. This one’s smaller, lots of puddles on it. To one side, hanging from a branch just beyond the platform, I see something red. Look, Michel, what’s that?
We run over. It’s a scarf; a child’s scarf, all wet.
What’s it doing here?
I don’t know. Maybe some kid dropped it. Someone’s tied it round the branch in case they ever come back, I guess.
We leave it where it is and return to the wall. Creeping up to the edge, I look to the right to see if I can see Papa. I can. I wave but he doesn’t see me.
Who are you waving at?
Look, it’s Papa.
Considering we’d only left him four or five minutes ago, Michel is excited to see him from here. He calls out but Papa doesn’t hear.
He’s probably singing to himself, I say.
I wish we could catch a fish for him.
I laugh. Yes, that would surprise him. I don’t know whether they swim up so close to the wall. Step back, Michel. I yank him back, perhaps a little too hard because he looks shocked, upset even. Sorry, Mickey, but you had me worried there. Not so close, OK? You could slip.
I won’t slip.
Still. Don’t go so near.
A thought occurs to me. Stay here a minute, I tell him. If it’s a kid’s scarf, it might have a nametape stitched into it. I wander over to have a look. And that’s what I’m doing when my life changes forever – twisting a wet scarf round in my hands, looking for a nametape.
There was no sound from him. Just a mighty splash. I know at once, I can feel it as if someone’s punched me in the stomach. I run across faster than I’ve ever run before. I can hear him screaming my name. I stop at the edge and see him in the lake; his arms thumping the water, making huge waves, his satchel round his neck. Mickey, no. Quickly, I lie on my front and reach my arm out, stretching out my fingers. It’s too far, just too far. He’s fighting the water, choking. The water – it’s like a beast, an evil thing. I realise I’m frightened of it.
On my feet again, I look round, desperate to find something to throw to him. There is nothing, nothing at all. My satchel? No, I haven’t got it. I think about running back into the woods to find a long stick but that’ll take too long. I know he can’t swim but then – neither can I. He screams my name, screams help again and again. I feel sick. Hold on, Mickey, hold on, I shout. I scream for Papa louder than I’ve ever shouted before, jumping up and down, waving both my arms. This time he hears. We waves at me, grinning, holding up a fish he’s caught. But then he realises something’s wrong. He stands up slowly, looking over at me. He looks worried. Then, suddenly, he throws down the fish and his fishing rod and runs into the woods. Michel, Michel, Papa’s coming. Try to swim, try to... But there’s no answer; why doesn’t he answer me? His arms are still flapping, his body bobbing up and down; he’s gagging. Why did he have to wear those heavy shoes?
The scarf; I remember the scarf. I run over to the branch and untie it.
Mickey, take this, I scream. But I can’t see him any more. Still, I throw the scarf into the water. It flops just a metre or so out; it’s useless.
Michel, just swim, can’t you? I’m crying; I don’t know what to do. Oh, God, please help me.
I pull off my coat, struggling to get my arms out, and then my shoes, yanking them off. Michel’s head comes out again; he tries to scream but there’s too much water spewing from his mouth. I have to do this, I have to try and save him; even if it means I drown, I have to do this.
I stand on the precipice of the wall, willing myself to jump. Michel is gurgling, choking. He disappears again, the water claiming him. I can’t do it; I’m too frightened. The nausea rises up my throat. He’s drowning, I know this for sure; my brother is drowning, and there’s nothing I can do. I don’t know what that noise is. I look for Papa. Where is he? Please let him come. That noise – it’s me; I’m crying; no, more than that; I’m wailing.
Michel, screams Papa, breathlessly arriving next to me, terror written all over his face.
He’s there, I yell, pointing vaguely to where I last saw Michel just a few moments before.
He looks at me a second, shooting me a look I don’t understand, throws off his coat, before jumping into the water with a huge splash. He swims out, his arms thrashing through that water, but I know it’s already too late. Papa swims round frantically in circles. I can’t see him, I can’t see him, I hear him shout.
I can’t stand up any more; I feel faint. Find him, Papa; please find him.
He does! He’s got him. He’s pulling him back. One arm round Michel’s neck; the other splashing through the wate
r. I pace up and down the wall, crying, begging God to let him be alive.
Help me, Pierre, Papa shouts up at me as he approaches the wall. I lean down but I don’t know what he wants me to do. Papa pushes Michel up. I grab him from under the armpits but I can’t move him; he’s too heavy for me. Papa climbs out of the water, then, pushing me off, pulls Michel up. He lays him on his back. Michel looks like a ghost, his face horribly white, his lips blue. Papa pinches open his mouth and breathes into him. He thumps him on his chest. He repeats it, over and over again. I don’t know what do with myself. I grab fistfuls of my hair. And still Papa carries on, sobbing, getting more frantic. Michel doesn’t move. I will his chest to go up and down but nothing moves.
Michel, Michel, screams Papa so loud I think the forest will fall round our ears. Michel, my son, my son...
He staggers to his feet, his knees bent like an old man in a nursery rhyme. Next to him, like a rag doll, Michel lies still, utterly, utterly still.
Why didn’t you save him? Papa cries. Why couldn’t you have... His words trail off into great, giant sobs.
I tried, I weep. But Papa, collapsed next to Mickey, doesn’t hear me. I tried.
I see something yellow and green nearby. It’s Munchie. I pick him up and hug him as tightly as I can while, all around me, darkness descends.
Chapter 22
‘I’m sorry, Michel; I’m sorry.’ Retrieving his bag, now covered in dry dust, Pierre walked along the sand. It soon came to an end, and he was faced with a bank teaming with vegetation. Pulling himself up by a root, he realised what a task laid ahead of him. Each step now involved concentration, pushing back bushes, stepping over roots, ducking under low-lying branches. The sound of the lapping water, to his left, never far away, made him more anxious by the minute. He thought back to the stories he read as a child, of famous French explorers battling through the unknown jungles of the Dark Continent. He tried to remember them, tried to keep his mind busy.
He slipped. Trying to retain his balance on the wet bank, he only slewed further. Skidding down the bank, he grabbed clusters of grass and managed to stop himself slipping into the lake. Regaining his balance he stood and eyed the water lapping at his feet.
They buried him three days later – on the southern side of the church. Father de Beaufort had led the service. Pierre had never seen a coffin before but he was surprised by how small it was. He tried not to think of his brother within. Pierre had only a vague memory of the day; his mother convulsed in sobs, his father speechless with grief. People shook their hands, offered their condolences, but not to him, not to Pierre. No one spoke to him; no one looked at him. It was as if he wasn’t there. His father blamed him; he never said it again, he didn’t have to, once was enough – Why didn’t you save him? Pierre knew that how ever long he lived, he’d never be able to erase those words from his memory. It took weeks before Lucienne stopped laying a place for Michel at the kitchen table. She would sit for hours at a time in Michel’s bedroom, burying her face into his clothes, breathing in his aroma. Each day she’d go to church but she never came back any happier. Pierre had given her Munchie. She washed it under the tap, then, to remove the dirt from her fingers, she washed her hands – again and again. And ever since, she’d been obsessed about washing her hands, and whenever she felt under strain, it was to the sink she’d go. His father spent his time in the yard building a second shed though they had no need for another. Pierre went to school everyday and returned in the afternoons with no recollection of anything the teachers had said. They never upbraided him for failing to do his homework, for failing to listen. His friends avoided him, not wanting to be contaminated by his grief. His parents never asked him how he was, how his day had been. They lived in silence, unable to speak to one another. All the time, he longed for his mother to hug him, to reassure him that everything was OK. But, more than anything, he longed for his father to say that it wasn’t his fault. He never did.
Once he heard children playing outside the house. His heart caved in, thinking for a moment he’d heard Michel’s shrill voice.
Weeks later, they erected a little cross at Michel’s grave with his name. Pierre and his father never visited it except once a year, the anniversary of his death, when Lucienne took Georges and Pierre there to stand and remember. Lucienne still went almost every day.
He gazed across the water. How calm it looked now. He wondered whether Michel’s spirit was still out there. Could he have done more; could he have saved him? He felt lightheaded, dizzy almost. He placed one foot into the water, then the other, the water seeping through his shoes. He never did learn to swim. He’d swim now though; he’d find Michel. Removing his jacket, he threw it behind him onto the bank. The icy shards of water bit into his ankles, into his calves, but still he placed one foot in front of the other. He had to save him; he couldn’t fail him a second time; not this time. He realised he was crying, his tears clouding his vision. ‘Michel?’ he screamed. ‘Michel, where are you?’ The water now reached the belt of his trousers, lapping around him. His hands skimmed the surface, causing ripples. Wiping away the tears, he scanned the lake, looking for movement. ‘Mickey,’ he yelled. ‘I’m sorry.’
A voice, faraway, it seemed, echoed his screams. ‘Michel, Michel, is that you?’
Someone was behind him, splashing. Turning, he saw his father wading through the water. He stopped. ‘Oh my dear Lord, I thought...’ Throwing his head back, his eyes clenched shut, his mouth opened but there was no sound.
‘It wasn’t my fault, Papa; I didn’t mean to...’
Another voice filtered through. ‘Georges, no. Who is Michel?’ That voice – it was the major, Major H. ‘It’s Pierre,’ said the voice, the major. ‘Your son, Pierre, not Michel.’
What was that sound, that clawing, frightening sound? He wished it would stop; that screaming; he didn’t like it. ‘Nooo, no, it’s Michel; it’s my son; the Lord has delivered him back. My son...’
*
Pierre opened his eyes. He found himself inside a shack of some sort, walls made up of wooden planks. To his right, lying on the wooden floor, the major, soaked through, shivering. On his left, hunched up on a child’s wooden chair, also wet, his father. Opposite, perched up on a stool with a rifle on his lap was Kafka.
‘He’s awake,’ he heard Kafka say.
‘Pierre, are you OK, son? How are you feeling?’
Someone, presumably his father, had covered him with a blanket. ‘Fine, I guess.’
‘Here, Foucault, give him some water,’ said the major.
‘Monsieur Foucault to you,’ said Kafka. ‘Georges, give him that bottle.’
Pierre took the water while taking in his surroundings. Against one wall was a stove with its black flue rising half way up the wall, a bucket of coal beside it; in the corner a bed, next to it, an upturned crate for a bedside table, a paraffin lamp on top. A simple table showed remnants of a meal, metal plates piled on top of each other, a couple of tin mugs, an empty beer bottle. Next to the table, a couple of sturdy-looking chairs. A coil of rope, along with a number of coats and jackets, hung from a large brass hook on the back of the door. On the wall, above a low-lying sink, a portrait of Joan of Arc and a calendar displaying the month of April 1939. Next to them, a crucifix. Somehow, Pierre knew it was the one Kafka had taken from the dead German on New Year’s Day in 1918. He looked round for his bag but it was nowhere to be seen.
‘What happened?’ asked Pierre.
‘You fainted in the water,’ said Georges, his voice distant. ‘We’d heard your screams from here, calling out his name. I’m sorry if...’
‘It’s OK,’ he said, knowing it was far from OK. ‘I don’t understand, what are you all doing here?’
‘Ask him,’ said the major.
‘And I will tell you,’ said Kafka. ‘It’s simple – your father and I have taken your major as hostage.’
‘I’m not part of this,’ said Georges.
Kafka laughed again. ‘Think the Krauts will beli
eve that? Come on, Georges. All for one, one for all.’
‘Trust me with the gun then.’
‘Yeah, like I did in 1918. I think not. The Krauts sent your major and a couple of lackeys to find me. That traitor, Dubois, was their guide. I shot the fucking lot of them.’
‘As well as the soldier in the square,’ added the major. ‘You’ll never get away with this.’
‘Shut up. Your, not totally unexpected, appearance is fortuitous, boy.’
‘How did you get away from the town hall?’
‘They killed Bouchette; shot him in the back, the murderers. I got away thanks to that truck getting in the way, and got to my getaway car.’ He said the words in an ironic tone. ‘OK, it was the slowest thing on Earth but it brought me enough distance.’
‘Hector and Albert’s truck.’
‘I was going to send your father, but it’d be better if you act as our messenger.’ He spoke quickly. ‘Go to Colonel Eisler and tell him – release the prisoners from his jail and he can have his major back.’
Kafka’s words and the hopelessness of his situation galvanised Pierre. Throwing off the blanket, he leapt to his feet.
‘But that’s just stupid – as soon as you hand the major back, he’ll re-arrest them and have them shot.’
The White Venus Page 25