Because of You I Think I Can Smile
Chapter 9
During the next few weeks Natasha was away, traveling with a troupe of musicians, singers, and dancers, performing for soldiers any place but here. I was lonely, but stopped short of complaining. My longing for her choked me like a lump of unshed tears, but being a marine, I held it in. How she might have felt about the separation between us I did not know, nor did I have a chance to ask.
Up to her arrival in London I accepted the distance, accepted her being out of my reach. After all, she was a star. Now she was in my arms, almost. I could nearly taste her sweet lips, which drove me crazy with desire. It made me discover that half-a-presence was worse than complete absence.
It was, at best, a tease.
I often wondered if her schedule was controlled solely by those who managed the tour. Did Natasha have a say in it? Was there no option for her to spend some time in London, not even a few days? Did she choose to stay away from me, for some reason? Perhaps she had learned, somehow, that I was writing letters and sending them to another girl. I thought I sensed some anger in her—but of course, I could not ask her directly about it, could I?
Hoping for her return, I visited Mrs. Babcock every evening. With her motherly instinct, she must have noted the downcast look in my eyes.
Letting me inside, she asked, “What’s going on?”
In place of an answer I just shrugged.
“What have we here?” she demanded. “Talk to me, lad! What’s the matter?”
At first I thought I could smile—but no, the muscles of my jaw felt too rigid. The only thing they could do was tighten even more.
She repeated, “What is it with you?”
“Oh, nothing,” I said, because there was no use moping.
I was reluctant to confide in her not only because of the rift between my sweetheart and me but also because of the secrecy, I mean, the covert nature of my job.
Every day I studied tourist guides to England, train timetables, and magazine advertisements, to glean various details from them. These details, carefully composed, imparted a ring of truth to my bogus reports, which were meant to fall into the hands of the enemy, in the guise of love letters.
To seem credible in the eyes of the Germans I decided to let them bite, from time to time, on some real information, which I intended to send too late for them to take effective action. So in addition to reporting false troop movements I started to study various documents, given to me by my officer, which included the first draft of the real Order of Battle for the Normandy invasion.
No one was to know a thing about all this. And so, what started as an amusing spy game ended up isolating me from everyone I knew.
“Nothing,” I echoed, gloomily. “Nothing at all is the matter with me.”
I followed that with complete silence, but Mrs. Babcock saw right through it.
“Ah! I know. You miss her,” she said, simply.
To which I admitted, “I do.”
“Here, let me give you something that might help you.”
“Advice is the last thing I need.”
“If you insist, I can give you that, too. But first, how about some much-needed insight, for your eyes only? Here, take a look at this.”
“What’s that?”
“Natasha left it here.”
“Oh,” said I. “It’s her diary!”
“Yes,” she said. “I would treat it as a private thing, normally.”
“I don’t think I should read it.”
“I don’t think I should give it to you.”
For a long while, we stared at each other.
Then I asked, “Should I?”
With a devilish glint in her eye, she said, “You asking me for permission?”
“I suppose I am.”
“You’re not one to pry, are you?”
“Who, me?”
“It’s a sin! Are you easily tempted?”
“In this case,” I confessed, “I am.”
Mrs. Babcock slid the diary across the kitchen table, right into my hands. “If you won’t tell her,” she said, “neither will I.”
Then, sensing my unease, she left the kitchen, closing the door behind her.
❋
I opened the leather cover, stealing a look around the place as if I were an intruder, or as if a shadow of Natasha were still here, hovering around me even in her absence, watching in dismay as I touched her writing.
There were a lot of entries in the diary, written in her usual calligraphic style. If not for the bookmark, which was a narrow parchment strip attached to the edge of the folio, I would not have known where to start.
Right there, in the most recent entry, Natasha wrote,
I woke up in confusion, not remembering how I got here. Perplexed, I moved my hand through the air, right in front of me, but could not see it, because it was pitch dark. Was this my cabin? Were there walls around me? How close were they to my fingertips?
And where was the round cabin window, which used to hang overhead, letting in a hint of moonshine? Oddly, it seemed to have evaporated, scattering various fragments of darkness in its place. How could I get a glimpse of the swell, when everything here was so deeply sunk in shadows?
I just lay there, utterly motionless, imagining the turbulent sea outside, the music of it. This, to me, was beyond anything that could be composed in notes. It was the symphony of the unknown.
At first I expected to feel the sway of the waves, the sigh of the ship as it swung about this way and that, dodging the enemy so as not to be torpedoed. But to my surprise nothing moved, nothing shook. All was quiet, strangely so.
After a while I caught sound of someone breathing. Oh, I was not alone! I turned over and there was Lenny, right here by my side.
He stirred in his sleep and then, in a heartbeat, gathered me into his arms. Only then did I know I was in a safe place.
In a rush, the memory of meeting him at the Port of London came back to me. Oh how strong he looked, as if melded, somehow, into a new creature with his Harley!
I recalled getting into the sidecar, but after that—nothing, not a thing. My mind was blank. I must have passed out. The only sound that I thought I had heard was a voice with a slight German accent, but perhaps that had been merely a dream.
I cuddled up to Lenny. His hands wrapped me with warmth, but his feet were cold, as if he had just walked barefoot across the floor. He must have just come to bed, a short while ago.
I kissed his chiseled chin, brushed my fingers across his high brow. At once, a pleat formed in it, as if he was trying to figure out—even in his sleep—who it was, touching him.
Then I got up and peeked out through the blackout curtains. Light! Lovely morning light slanted into the room. His room. His things. Oh boy, I thought, there was so much to learn about him, so much to discover!
Next to the sink I detected the smell of Ice Blue Aqua Velva. It was such fun for me to sniff it. On the desk there was an inkwell, a pen, and a pad of lined paper, in which I spotted some marks: the pressing of characters by the tip of a pen, through a page that was no longer there. For now I was not curious enough, or perhaps not focused enough to decipher them.
Maybe later.
In the corner of the room there was a radio. I turned it on, hoping that the sound, faint as it was, would wake Lenny up, but it didn’t. A song started to play:
I dreamt so long to be near you like this
Wrapped in your arms, close to you, your kiss
Because of you I think I can smile
It’s real, not a trial
Because of you
It was getting late. I scribbled a note for Lenny, to let him know where to meet me this evening. And then—then, just as I headed out the door, to go to my first rehearsal—I saw something that made me gasp.
It was my picture, the one I had given him back in New York, the one he had promised to keep close to his heart.
It was torn.
Th
ere was my face, ripped in half, right through the skull, down across my eye, my lips.
At reading her words I found myself ashamed. Natasha was disappointed in me, rightly so.
Her photograph had been snatched from my hands by that girl, the one with a Cockney accent, the night I arrived to London. And when I had tried to snatch it back, that was when the tear happened, quite by accident. Even so I should have told my sweetheart about it, or else I should have hidden the picture from view, as there was no way to make her whole again.
Now I imagined her voice, coming to me in a tremulous whisper as I read the last few paragraphs in her diary:
This, of course, is nothing but paper. I shouldn’t be so startled to find out that it had ripped.
Silly, silly me! I’m surprised at myself, at this reaction I’m having, which I know is way too strong.
After all, mishaps can happen. It takes effort to keep things intact, and perhaps Lenny failed to do so, but I know that I shouldn’t blame him for that.
Why, then, is the sight of myself in two parts so devastating to me, so harsh, to the point of missing a beat in my heart?
Perhaps in this tear I see something that must be denied, a warning, a sign of what might happen to me one day: the loss of part of myself while still being alive, the way it happened to Pa. What I see before me is a symbolic death, one that happens on paper.
Oh, Lenny, what have you done? I don’t want to die. Not even symbolically.
Closing the diary I recalled how hard I had been trying, time and again, to piece together the two parts of her photograph. In vain had I hoped to find a perfect alignment, so the tear would seem like nothing more than a faint hairline. But as soon as I had managed to match them, somehow, in one area, they would separate in another.
I trusted that some time soon, Natasha would get over it. For a mishap I might be absolved. Not so for a deliberate act of betrayal.
How much more would my sweetie be hurt if she ever learned of my letters to Lana? After all, I had been sending them over a period of weeks, on schedule, every three days, in the most calculated, intentional manner. I could never explain this away, and if I were bold enough to try, or else foolish enough, Natasha would never believe me. There was no conceivable excuse for it, no chance for forgiveness.
Will It Start All Over Again
Chapter 10
By now I knew that given our separation, of which we had never spoken, there was no way forward with Natasha—unless I could, somehow, draw her out of staying away from me.
“You know,” said Mrs. Babcock, as I left her place. “You need to do something about that girl, and fast.”
And I said, “If only I could figure out what—”
“Enough talk,” she said. “Why waste so much time?”
I shrugged. “It’s infinite.”
“Really?” She raised an eyebrow. “Not where I’m standing!”
I had no comeback for that, so she pressed on. “If time is infinite,” she said, “why isn’t there enough of it?”
That night I came, in a snap, to a decision that had been long overdue. It made me feel good, to the point that I even laughed. I would be brave. I would be bold. My sweetheart might try to resist me, but even so, I would make her listen to me. And then, then—without a doubt—love would start all over again.
Let me propose to her.
But where? My room was the last place where I could take her, because Natasha was far too curious to find out what I was up to, and given her eye for detail, she might find some evidence of things that were not for her to know.
I needed a place, somewhere out there, in the backcountry, far removed from all this.
A place just for us, with no interruptions from Mrs. Babcock, from my officer, or anyone else. A place away from the watchful eyes of the German double agent, that post office clerk who must have been careful, so careful not to leave his fingerprints on my letters and whose watery-blue eyes seemed to follow me everywhere I went. A place where nothing and no one else would matter.
I aimed at making memories. That—more so than an engagement ring, which was beyond my means at present—was the best way to create a lasting bond between Natasha and me, a bond that in time, she would find impossible to break, even against her own judgement.
While I studied the map, a faint voice came on the radio, singing. It trembled so:
Will it start all over again
The moment I ask for your hand?
Or will I whisper in vain
Please come back, please understand
The day that you left, I was bereft
Of love, of hoping anew
For a smile on your face, for your embrace
I reach for you, my heart so blue
❋
My plan, I must admit, was somewhat vague. More precisely, I did not have one. Despite all the research I had done in support of reporting fake military exercises in the countryside, I knew just enough about Britain to confuse me. Here was an island no larger than the state of Idaho, but with the dubious reputation of being more congested than any place on earth. It was a sardine can. Now it fell to me to find a secluded corner in it for my girl and me.
When I notified Captain Smith that I was planning to leave town, he grumbled, “What?”
“Sir,” I said. “Hear me out! Imagination can be stretched only so far. To come up with more material for those letters, the best thing for me is to go visit the Strait of Dover.”
“Why go there?” he asked, in a reluctant tone. “Instead, you can simply study the map—”
“Sir, I’ve already done that.”
“And?”
“And I know, of course, that it’s the narrowest part of the English Channel, bordering North Sea. But sir, that’s not enough for me. I hear that on a clear day, you can see the coastline of France from the white cliffs of Dover.”
“So?”
“So,” I stressed, “I need to be there, sir.”
“And why is that?”
“Well, I hear that the high ground on either side of the Port of Dover was fortified on the personal order of the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill. It’ll be a good thing to offer the enemy some clues, about which they can do little, because real clues may validate the rest of them. Besides, sir, I need the inspiration.”
“Bah,” said the officer. “Inspiration is not something I understand. It’s overrated.”
“It’ll help me write more crisply about what our battle planners might have seen, if they were to find themselves standing there, opposite Pas de Calais, studying the view, planning an attack.”
“My God,” muttered the officer, throwing his hands in the air. “Here’s what I have to deal with! Writers!”
With that, to my relief, he gave me permission to go, along with the necessary papers to let me through, if needed, into the high ground to either side of the Port of Dover.
❋
All that remained was this: persuade my sweetheart to join me. Oh, and one more thing: prepare a little gift for her.
For that purpose I asked Ryan to let me use his folding roll-film camera, the Kodak Super Six-20. It was his prize possession, which meant that he would not be easily persuaded to let me borrow it for a day.
“I’m not all that particular about girlfriends,” he admitted. “But when it comes to my camera, I want it back in the exact same condition.”
I promised, “You won’t even know I touched it.”
According to him, its lens could focus down to four feet, so that was how I set things up. Having laid the two parts of Natasha’s torn picture side by side, I adjusted the lighting conditions, so the rip would be less noticeable.
Then I snapped eight images of it—the entire roll of film—and had them developed in a lab, a darkroom lab that served the military. The result for one of them was sharp and much better than expected. In accordance with my specifications, it came out in miniature size, which reduced the impression of the tear and made her port
rait seem whole again.
I placed it opposite a small portrait of mine, inside a heart-shaped gold locket that my father had given to me, years ago. It was the only thing left to remind me of my mom.
For now, Natasha was still out of town, but her tour was about to end in a week from now on its high note, with a performance in the best known concert hall in London, the Royal Albert Hall. I would be there, waiting for her.
❋
Having passed Hyde Park, I felt the wind slashing left and right of me. Because of the engine roaring I could barely hear it, but imagined it singing of danger, and of love.
Next to Kensington Gardens I brought the Harley to a stop, readying myself to wait there until the end of the show. I brought to mind the roadmap to Dover, seeing myself already on the way there, with Natasha on the saddle behind me.
Opposite me was the round building, which in my eyes looked like a giant wedding cake. Crowning it was a mosaic design made of terra-cotta tiles, depicting the advancement of the Arts and Sciences of all nations—a poignant reminder of ideals celebrated in peacetime—with figures arranged in allegorical groups in the style of Greek pottery, outlined against a chocolate background.
But how could I miss the marks of wartime? Up there, at the iron metal dome high above, the glazing was painted black, so as not to emit light in the evening, during performances. Also, it was coated with an anti-splintering varnish.
I dismounted my motorcycle and started walking towards the Royal Albert Hall. It was a special place. Events were held here ever since the previous venue, the Queen’s Hall in Langham Place, had been destroyed at the beginning of the war in an air bombing attack. The BBC Sir Henry Wood Promenade Concerts, or Proms for short, featured acclaimed artists such as John Gielgud, Vera Lynn, and Laurence Olivier. Performers rallied to do their bit, to help fund the care of injured soldiers and support their families. I was proud of Natasha for giving herself here, giving her music, for such a high cause.
Dancing with Air (Still Life with Memories Book 4) Page 8