The Death of the Fronsac_A Novel

by Neal Ascherson

  The battleships still came and went with their convoys. The great Firth would be crowded for a few days, then suddenly empty. The troop trains still cantered slowly through Fort Matilda, but the children no longer ran to beg from them. Some trains now carried lorries as well as men, Dodges and Studebakers and jeeps painted with the white star of the Invasion. Soon, it’ll be soon now. ‘Aye, right,’ said the men in the Auchmar Vaults as they settled to their pints. They had heard that before.

  *

  Jackie was in trouble that autumn, and causing trouble. It began one afternoon at Union Street, when she made a big mistake.

  Françoise had come to tea. It wasn’t the first time; if they travelled back together on the train from St Columba’s, it was an easy walk from the station. Granny would sometimes make pancakes for them on the girdle, if she had eggs. Françoise didn’t drink tea, and didn’t much like milk either. So Granny kept a bottle of orangeade for her.

  Then the girls would take a plate of biscuits up to Jackie’s bedroom. Since the summer trips to Tarbert and Arrochar, Jackie had been reading books about ‘the wonders of the deep’. She wanted to talk about sharks, whales, giant squids, but Françoise found this boring. She preferred to talk in her funny accent about film stars, lisle stockings and the blouse she had worn when she gave General de Gaulle a bouquet.

  Her chest was already making bulges under her jersey. Sometimes, when weddings or babies came up in their talk, she would screw up her eyes and nod at Jackie with a special fat-lipped smile which Jackie found quite provoking. What was so secret or special? Husbands and wives kissed after the wedding, then a baby came out of the wife’s tummy. But that didn’t seem to be the exciting thing Françoise knew and she did not.

  Two could play at that secrets game. ‘C’mon, I’ll show you something,’ said Jackie, and led the way to the spare room upstairs. It was almost a year since she had grown bored with STRENG GEHEIM, but now she pulled up the floorboard and pointed to the stack of drawing books. Françoise picked one up, turned over its pages and shrugged. ‘What is this? Who wrote it – you?’

  Jackie hesitated. Then she said: ‘No, it was a German spy. He stayed here once and left them behind. See, it’s all the battleships in the river, the convoys, lists he was going to send to Germany by wireless. But nobody else knows about this. Nobody but me. And you.’

  She took the book, dropped it into the hole and replaced the floorboard. Françoise said nothing at all, which was unlike her. Her black eyes were unreadable, and she didn’t smile. Jackie’s feeling of triumph began to drain away, and she felt uneasy. Why had she told that daft lie?

  A French staff car came to pick up Françoise and take her home. This time, for some reason, she didn’t thank Granny for the tea.

  Next day was a Saturday: no school. At breakfast-time the bell rang, at once followed by banging on the front door. ‘Whatever...?’ Mrs Melville opened the door and found three men standing in the rain: two with bristly foreign haircuts and a Greenock police sergeant. They pushed her and Jackie back into the kitchen, as the policeman began to recite a formula about a search warrant. ‘Ach, for heaven’s sake. Not again?’

  The bristly hair of one of the French agents was grey; he seemed to be in charge. The other, younger man spoke English. They ran upstairs, and within five minutes were down again holding the five drawing books. They spread them out on the kitchen table. Mrs Melville put on her glasses and began to turn some pages. Slowly, she shook her head. ‘For pity’s sake...’

  The younger Frenchman asked: ‘Who was living in that room? Who hid all this under the floor? Who wrote this?’

  ‘I did,’ said Jackie. ‘It was... just a game.’

  Mrs M said: ‘It’s in her handwriting right enough. Anyone can see it’s a child’s handwriting.’

  ‘I ask again. You must say: who lived in that room?’

  ‘Well, there was a bombed-out family from Clydebank. And before that, my son and his wife – they stayed there.’

  The greying en brosse man jerked his companion’s sleeve and whispered something.

  ‘Your son? Named Johnston Melville? Officer of English marine?’

  ‘A British naval officer, yes.’

  ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘My son was killed when the Fronsac blew up. It’s more than three years back now. But you’ll know that very well.’ Jackie began to cry loudly. Mrs Melville gave her a sharp glance.

  More French whispering. ‘Nobody will leave this house. Telephone: not allowed. Do you understand? You are detained. The police watches the door. Later we return for full search, full interrogation. And I advise you to pack a bag for several weeks.’ They left, with the drawing books in a briefcase. The policeman sat down on a chair in the hall. He sighed and slowly put his big hands on his knees.

  Mrs Melville closed the kitchen door.

  ‘You stupid, stupid girl! Did you not think what a wicked, stupid thing you were doing – and in wartime? Whatever will happen to us now?’

  Jackie abruptly stopped crying. ‘I know about my dad. How did you not tell me all that time? I know he’s alive.’

  ‘Do you indeed! And who the devil told you? I can guess: that daft Pole. Well, there it’s out between us at last. Your father was in bad enough trouble already, but he’s in a worse mess now. Thanks to you.’

  They sat in silence, grandmother and granddaughter, avoiding each other’s eyes.

  ‘Why are they after him? What did he do?’

  ‘Oh, so there’s something Miss kens-it-all doesn’t know. Nothing. He did nothing. Well, they think he had something to do with the explosion on the ship. Which he never did. That wee horror Eric, he that’s dead now, got it into his head that your father was some sort of enemy agent. My God, it’s you that was the enemy agent, playing the spy and hiding it all away. Suppose a real German had walked in and found it?’

  Jackie went off into the chilly front room, stood at the window and pretended to study the ships. Hadn’t she nearly killed her father once? Now she was sending another torpedo after him.

  Her wickedness! She hated Granny for saying that she was just stupid, stupid, when it was dead wicked that she was. Destroyer of ships, father murderer, spy. Not stupid but evil. It was Françoise who was stupid – feared of a game she didn’t understand and then clyping to her father. Some friend, and her with her fat chest too.

  In books, people who knew they were evil wished they were dead. Maybe she should be wishing that. Jackie thought of how sorry Granny would be when she found her hanging up with her feet shoogling in the air, or lying pale on the floor with a disinfectant bottle beside her. Granny would be greeting and telephoning for the doctor and wishing she’d never said those things about stupid. Too late!

  She lingered over that scene. But then she admitted to herself that she didn’t really want to be dead. What she wanted was to escape from everyone and live in a deep, clear elsewhere with her real friends: the mackerel and the porbeagles, the ugly angler fish and the thresher sharks, the halibut wafting after their own wide shadows on the sand. She would get a diving suit with a big helmet and walk on the sea floor. She would gather queenie-scallops and brittle-stars and explore the dark corridors of wrecks. Nobody would find her there.

  In the afternoon, the bell rang again. The policeman struggled off his chair and opened the door to a heavily built officer in blue uniform.

  Jackie had met Françoise’s father before. Commandant le Gallois gave her a sharp, twinkly look as he folded his umbrella. ‘Who is this other lady? Good; your grandmother. We have to talk – quickly, quickly.’

  He tossed his cap to the policeman, who muttered but hung it on a hook. Then they went into the front room. Le Gallois walked to the window and glanced at the fleets below. He rubbed his hands together: ‘Ah, bon Dieu, it’s cold in here!’ He seemed ill at ease.

  ‘Listen, you have nothing to worry about. You say in English: a misunderstanding? Yes, exactly. You see, my daughter is very loyal, patriotic. Fra
nçoise has a sense of duty – very developed sense, one can say. Normally, one admires. But this time, well – I am sorry. My people had to investigate the report, you must understand that. But as soon as I saw the notes, the drawings, the handwriting, I thought: ouf, no dangerous spy, but a child. Maybe a little girl, lonely, who wants to have secrets.’

  He advanced on Jackie, smiling, and reached out a broad brown hand. She backed away, but found her way blocked by a sofa. Le Gallois ruffled her hair and then ran his hand gently up and down her neck.

  ‘Why did you tell Françoise that a German spy had been living in that room? Instead of saying that it was you who wrote it all? You know, that could have had very, very bad consequences for several people. Maybe even for somebody you know.’

  He looked at his watch. ‘I have to go. I bring an apology for the shock you suffered today, but also an invitation. In a few months, it will be four years since the Fronsac... accident. So I am arranging a small ceremony. A boat will go to the wreck, an official party with wreaths, but also with some families of those who died. Alas! most of the families are in France, occupied France, so naturally they cannot come. But for example you, who lost a father, a son... Free France would be honoured if you wished to be present.’

  The Commandant bowed to Mrs Melville. He turned suddenly to Jackie. ‘Do you miss your father very much?’

  Eyebrows raised, he waited for an answer. Jackie returned his direct stare, but said nothing. She could still feel his fingers on her neck, a confusing feeling.

  ‘Well, then perhaps I will see you both again. Next April.’

  He nodded again to Mrs Melville, and went to look for his uniform cap in the hall. The policeman stood to attention. ‘My friend,’ said le Gallois, ‘you are not required any more. No crime here, after all: no suspects. You and I, we can go and win the war somewhere else.’ The front door thumped behind them.

  17

  I went to see Wisia a few weeks later. The hospital was out in the countryside near Glasgow; a long wait for a bus, then a long tramp down a wintry road. Early snow had turned to slush. I was in civilian clothes, and my flimsy shoes let in water. By the time I arrived, I was wishing I had never come.

  I had expected a big old building, but this hospital turned out to be a fleet of barrack huts parked in a field, connected by a ‘spider’ maze of covered walkways. Finding Wisia’s ward – ‘Kaczmarek, Wisława’ – ‘Eh? Is that somebody foreign you’re wanting?’ – took another half-hour.

  ‘What’s the matter? You don’t look happy.’

  ‘My feet are wet.’

  ‘What a tragedy! When the nurses here jag a needle in me and I flinch, they say: “Worse things happened at Culloden.” A bad Scottish battle, apparently. Shameless – we have so many more bad battles than they do.’

  ‘Worse things happened in our September. And our January. And our November. And...’

  ‘Exactly. So take off your socks and dry them on the stove.’

  At least it was blissfully hot in Wisia’s hut. It had a rich smell of coal-flame, floor polish, medical gauze. When I had arranged my shoes and socks by the stove, I padded barefooted to the bed and opened the damp paper bag in which I had brought a chocolate bar, a tiny scent bottle, an English novel (Captain Hornblower), a sealed tin of cigarettes.

  ‘Not allowed,’ she said sadly. I laid it on her table anyway, and she hid it in the drawer. There was a rosary looped round the knob of the bedstead, and she had pinned a postcard of the Black Madonna to the wall above her head. A small red and white flag, made of paper coloured in crayon, peeped out from behind the postcard.

  I pointed to this display. ‘Making yourself at home?’

  I had half expected to find Wisia coughing dramatically, ‘unnaturally flushed’. Nothing like that. Her hair had grown longer, so that she looked younger. Otherwise, she seemed unchanged. But I saw how weak she had become when she struggled to lift herself up on her pillows.

  ‘What are you smiling at? That’s what I have left, that’s who I am.’ She was angry, but in a tired, dry way I had never seen in her. ‘You know, when I was a girl at home, I sometimes felt how fine it would be to become a gypsy, to be a voyaging bird which owns nothing but its wings! But now – it’s so strange – the dream has come true, and I really do own nothing.

  ‘Listen, this is the list of everything I possess. One fountain pen. One notebook. An American ten-dollar note, a wristwatch I bought in Ispahan. One white cotton blouse. A hairbrush, a comb and, yes, a wicked red lipstick – I got that in Haifa. A penknife. One book, a tiny one: it’s a miniature Mickiewicz, Wiersze, the short poems. An old Jew in Haifa who liked talking Polish gave it to me. And from my old life, I still have a gold earring. I told you what happened to the other one.’

  She took a drink of water, and shrugged her shoulders. ‘That’s it. What else? A rucksack, but the rest of my things don’t even fill it. Uniform, cap, two shirts, underwear, shoes, even toothbrush – those all belong to the army. Family? None: lost. House and property? None: lost.’

  ‘Country? None: lost.’

  ‘Don’t dare to say that!’ Wisia was suddenly shouting. Other patients in the ward looked up. The strange language seemed to startle them as much as her passion. ‘Don’t you understand anything? Do you laugh at everything?’

  She was thumping her fist on her thin chest. ‘Poland is here. As long as I am alive. And in you, too. Listen, you will sneer at this. But I have three more possessions I didn’t tell you about, three jewels which I found in Bolshevik Asia and brought out wrapped in a silly slogan. God, Honour, Fatherland!’

  I must have looked astounded. Wisia went on: ‘God’s mother, Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, also lost those she loved, but she promises that she will never lose me – whatever happens, wherever I am when I meet my end.’ Tears began to run down her cheeks. ‘Honour: whatever I do now must be pure, because I offer it up to the memory of all those men, women and children I saw die. And our poor country, our ojczyzna... don’t you remember the poem you learned at school? “I and my country are one / My name is Million / because I love and suffer torture for those millions...”’

  She was crying quietly now. I went to sit on the side of the bed, and she moved her legs under the blanket to make room for me. A nurse came up to see what was wrong; I waved her away.

  ‘Wisia! Listen, I have lost almost as much as you, and many of the same things. Maybe my list of possessions is a bit longer. More books, and I paid for my own sword. We are both orphans now, but we don’t need that old three-word slogan. Let’s leave it to bishops and headmasters and generals on parade. After the war, I’ll see if I can find God hiding with false papers in some refugee camp, and ask him what he meant by it. As for honour, it means to me simply fighting the Germans, anywhere on earth, and not letting down my comrades. And my country? Maybe it’s not a Poland-place any more, but any place in the world where I am still behaving with honour.’

  ‘Maurycy, stop it, you’re raving!’

  ‘It’s hard to explain. Look: soon, in the middle of some night, I will be dropped out of an aircraft and fall towards what they say is my country. Yes, I have memories of a familiar land in my head. But what’s down there now? Maybe nothing.’

  ‘How nothing? Don’t modern parachutists carry secret maps printed on silk?’

  ‘I don’t mean landing in the wrong place. No, of course you jump with every sort of baggage: the radio is heaviest, but pistol, compass, torch... And yet I have this feeling; there’s fear in it, but more a sort of longing: physical, sensual. How would it be if there were no meadows and trees down there in the darkness, no anything, and I just went on quietly falling for ever, deeper and deeper, into a hole where once there was Poland? And as I fell, and as I realised the fall would be endless, I might become free and happy.’

  ‘Happy, Maurycy?’

  ‘Do you remember one day in summer – your name-day, I think – when we went with some friends and a bottle of wine into the meadow by the un
iversity? We lay on the grass on our backs. And you said: “Suppose we could switch gravity into reverse. Suppose we began to fall upwards, faster and faster, into that beautiful blue sky until nobody could see us, until the world was just a little globe. Wouldn’t that be lovely?” Well, that’s what I mean.’

  Wisia began to smile. ‘You haven’t grown up much, have you? Anyone who didn’t know you and listened to your nonsense would say: this man has a death wish. But to me you are really saying: There’s no darkness I wouldn’t jump into to escape being tied to other people.’

  She lay back in the pillows and patted me on the leg. ‘Yes, I do remember that day. And I also remember one of the boys saying: “Wisia, can I hold your hand while we fall? And then I can steer us to land on the moon and have you all to myself.” But that boy wasn’t you.’

  The nurse, who had been hovering, came up to me and said in a carefully loud voice: ‘Your friend is wanting her temperature taken. She’s no a well lady, ken? And that’s visiting hours over now.’ She thrust a thermometer into Wisia’s mouth. Then she picked up the bar of chocolate I had brought and began to crack it into squares, which she dropped into the front pocket of her apron. I put a hand out to stop her. But the nurse said: ‘In ma ward, all sweeties and cookies and biscuits get shared out. That goes for foreigners tae. There’s a war on, did ye know?’

  Her mouth full of thermometer, Wisia nodded earnestly. I could see she was trying not to laugh. My socks and shoes were fairly dry now, so I put them on again. The nurse whipped the thermometer out of Wisia’s lips, glanced at it, shook it, and went off muttering to herself.

  ‘Come and see me again, before you go. If you can’t, I’ll ask some saints to take care of you where you are going. Someone I talk to a lot these days is St Thérèse of Lisieux. Very quiet little person, not your type at all. Dear Maurycy, I know what you are doing is dangerous. But when you hit our Polish earth and feel it under your feet, you’ll become normal again. No more death wishes, no diving into space. After the war, you can put all that into the book you must write.’