“Do they jot down everything you say?”
“No, not immediately.”
“Do they bring their notes with them?”
“Oh yes,” he said. “They bring those moon phase calendars, they do. And they mark dates in them, especially those dates when the nights are darker than usual, when the moon is down to a sliver—”
“And you, you provide them with all this information?”
“Sure. No harm in it, is there?”
“No, no harm.”
“An invasion is coming, that’s for sure.”
“The only question,” I said, “is where and when.”
And Natasha said, “That’s two questions.”
The fisherman smiled, grimly. “Like I said, who knows how much more blood is yet to be spilled.”
He leaned, with some effort, into his feet, and drew himself up.
“Time for me to go, or the fish will spoil,” he said, gathering his things, lifting his pail.
“Wait, wait a moment,” I said, opening the tin of biscuits, which Mrs. Babcock had baked for us. I passed it first to Natasha, then to him. The old man put some into the pocket of his windbreaker, for later.
“This place, it’s about erosion,” he said. “But you, you stay true to each other, do stay true.”
He gave me a pat on my back, pecked her on the cheek, and left. Before long, his figure shrank away into the distance. We could still hear his voice, even though it was beginning to fade.
Twinka doodle dum, twinka doddle dum
T’was the sound of water, the sound that began
Twinka doodle dum, twinka doddle dum
Sang the bold fisherman
When the tide is full and the moon is fair
The madwoman trembles, steps away from the window
His ghost looks in, there’s his glare
He’s singing of love for his poor, old widow
The White Cliffs of Dover
Chapter 12
Despite the fact that it was wartime, we could not help the temptation to swim in the English Channel, because we were young and bold, or else because we were foolish.
We managed, somehow, to find an opening in the coils of wire, which were meant to keep people away from the beaches, for fear that the Germans would invade or send spies by boat.
I was told, by a fellow soldier who crossed our path along the shoreline, that the water here was too cold for sharks. With that in mind we took a dip, only to spot a jellyfish swirling in the water some distance off. I splashed a big wave at it, which made it recede and disappear into the fluid sparkle. Swimming just ahead of Natasha I watched the beautiful, smooth motion of her arms and legs, and noticed her looking at me, as I matched my stroke to hers.
At last we turned ashore. From time to time I pushed off a plank of wood, covered in a bit of seaweed, which came floating our way. That, for me, was just part of the adventure. Crossing the line of spray, where the breakers came to meet the shore, I felt sorry that it was almost over, that it was time to say goodbye to this place, where we found ourselves steeped in this strange, magical feeling.
Happiness.
On our way up, Natasha asked, “What gave you the idea to come here?”
And I said, “A song.”
“A song?”
“Yes,” I said. “I heard it just one time, on the radio, but the feel of it stuck with me.”
Over my humming it, she said, “Oh! I think I know it!”
She pressed her hands to her temples, perhaps trying to recall the words, and when they would not come, she improvised, coming up with words of her own, which truly amazed me:
There’ll be seagulls over
The White Cliffs of Dover
When war’s just a memory of the past
I stopped her right there, simply to suggest the right word. “Bluebirds,” I said, holding out my hand for Natasha, because the climb was becoming hard.
Refusing my hand, she said, “What?”
“Bluebirds,” I said. “Not seagulls.”
“I like seagulls better,” she said, a bit stubbornly. “So please, don’t correct me.”
“But sweetie, there are none of them, as I recall, in the lyrics of this song, only bluebirds—”
“Then it’s the song that’s wrong,” she said, “not me! And d’you know why?”
“No, why?”
“For one good reason: there are no bluebirds anywhere in Europe, let alone here in Dover. So there!”
“But,” I said, reluctant to give up the fight, “they’re a symbol not of what is, but of what could be.”
She shrugged.
Quite foolishly, I pressed on. “They represent hope, hope for the future—”
A heated blush rose up her cheeks.
“D’you mind?” she said. “I prefer seagulls, especially for this song. It’s just my way of making it mine.”
With that, Natasha repeated the verse, and she did it with the confidence of a star, which was quite pronounced, but which turned her error, somehow, into a highly vibrating, heartfelt note.
I decided not to correct her again, but could not help thinking how odd it was for her to be so sensitive over being caught in a mistake, and how odd it was, in the first place, to forget about the most poignant part of that line: the blue birds of happiness.
She charged ahead, singing,
There’ll be seagulls over
The White Cliffs of Dover
When war’s just a memory of the past
There’ll be joy and laughing
And hope everlasting
With no bombs, not a single blast
Ships will sail through the strait
Sailors will be singing of grace
And for you I shall wait
For your loving embrace
I hummed the song along with her, till at last, we reached the top of the cliffs. By now, the quarrel was behind us. Evening rolled in, spreading gradually over the vast turf all around.
The same two Royal Marines were still sitting at the gate of the castle, playing the same game of cards. When they noticed us, they asked if we had a place for the night.
“No,” I said. “It’s time for us to go.”
“You’re welcome to spend the night here, at the barracks,” said one.
And Natasha demanded, “Where’s here, exactly?”
“Underground,” he said, “in the tunnels beneath the seaward side of the castle.”
And the other one added, “They’re brick-lined chambers. The first four of them are for us, and the other three further east are for officers.”
“Thanks,” said Natasha. “But I’d rather start going back to London. We’ll look for a place to spend the night somewhere along the way.”
“Keep safe,” they said, in unison.
And just before turning the corner, on our way to the bike, we caught their voices in the distance, once again.
“Playing cards is just like sex,” said one.
And the other asked, “It is?”
“Yes! You think you’re the best, but really, you don’t have a clue what you’re doing.”
❋
At the back of the castle, Natasha removed her long-sleeve shirt, saying she was burning hot, even though the air had already started to cool down. Upon reaching the bike, she hopped onto the saddle, pretending to be the rider, but fumbling about, because of knowing next to nothing about the controls.
“So tell me,” she said, “how long will it take me to learn to ride the bike?”
“Two minutes to understand,” I said. “A lifetime to master.”
I showed her how to do it, how to kick the bike two or three times with the fuel and ignition switch off, so as to get the engine primed with oil, and then how to turn on the fuel valve, the choke, and the ignition switch.
“If the engine spits out the exhaust pipes while you’re kicking,” I said, “then you must be getting closer!”
She tried it. At first the beast sputtered
, but then, by degrees, its sound grew steadily stronger.
I took the seat behind Natasha, and together we rode the bike some distance away.
The grass around us was swaying in the breeze. It had a lovely sheen and a variety of hues, some of them purplish, which were revealed every now and again, with one gust and another, as if a painter had dipped her brush and on a whim, stroked it here and there.
I hugged Natasha and took in the smell of her hair. It was blowing in the wind, one strand over another. Through the red fuzz of them I spotted the last ray of sun, gleaming upon the French coast. Then it was gone.
The road sloped into a gentle dip in the earth, which took us out of sight of anyone who might happen upon these pastures. But no, there was no one here. Amidst the gloaming, we were alone.
I brought the Harley to a stop, and as soon as she felt me leaning in closer, Natasha said, “Close your eyes.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because,” she said.
“Because what?”
“My swimsuit is wet. I want to take it off.”
In place of obeying her, I said, “Let me watch you.”
She slipped off the bike, and with a slow, deliberate motion, she loosened the straps off her shoulders. Then, instead of removing the swimsuit, Natasha lay her fingers on me, tugging playfully at the buttons of my shirt. I stood up, flung it off and then, in a heartbeat, felt her arms around my waist. They closed into an embrace, which stirred something deep inside me.
Rising to the tips of her toes, she tipped her head back and kissed me, a lingering touch of her lips on mine.
I savored the sweet taste of her, which was salty at the same time. The thin, damp material of her swimsuit was barely a barrier between us. Her nipples were hardening against me as I wrapped my fingers, ever so tenderly, around the back of her neck, holding her, keeping her close.
Meanwhile I caught her earlobe between my teeth and teased it, repeatedly, with my tongue.
“Oh,” she murmured, “don’t stop.”
“Don’t you ever leave me,” I said, in a voice that was becoming husky.
Aroused, I pressed her tightly to my breast. Natasha sighed, for both pleasure and pain, and suddenly pushed me off, releasing herself from my hold—only to rise back into my kiss, as if she couldn’t get enough of it.
I fell to my knees, bringing her down with me. By now, her hair had come completely undone. It was twisting around her head, in and out of the blades of grass, dabbing them with crimson.
I brushed my fingers across her toes, stripping off the grains of sand that clung to the moist skin. Then I went on traveling smoothly along her ankles, over her knees, around her hips, into her inner thighs, all the while listening to her sucking in a startled breath.
All of a sudden, Natasha whispered, “I love you, Lenny. Love the smell of your skin, of your sweat, even. Love the way you groan when I come, when I go, when I touch you.”
I saw that this time, she was going to be anything but timid. Soon it became impossible to pull myself away.
First I was on top, then she, then I, she and I rolled into one, heat surging. I took her and was conquered in return.
❋
Clinging to each other under the woolen blanket and cradled by the earth, we must have been sleeping for hours. When I opened my eyes, the only thing that stood between me and the sun was a shadow, a long morning shadow that slanted in my direction from some unseen object. Something big stood up there, just beyond my field of vision, some distance away from the lip of the dip in the ground, where we had made love last night.
At first I thought the shadow was cast by my Harley, but no. That wasn’t it. I leapt to my feet and then, then I spotted a silhouette. Even as I squinted, it seemed familiar to me, because of the placement of the gun turret on top, which gave it a very high profile, and because of the unusual side-mounted gun.
Fumbling about I buckled myself hastily and told Natasha to get dressed. Then I scrambled over a few rocks. And what I saw, having clambered halfway up the slope, left me in awe.
It was a tank.
Summer Turning to Fall
Chapter 13
The tank we were facing, my girl and I, did not belong to the German army, that much was clear to me. It looked like the M4 Sherman, which was the most numerous piece of equipment used by the US and by its allies. Still, this thing looked huge and incredibly formidable, especially from where I stood. What’s more, it was only the first one in a column of tanks that appeared overnight, between the far end of the meadow and here, breaking the gently rolling line of the horizon.
Above all I feared that the soldier in the nearest tank might mistake us, somehow, for a foe and start turning upon us.
“Move out of the way, Natasha,” I told her. “And keep low. I’ve been hit by friendly fire before, and trust me, there was nothing particularly friendly about it.”
To my surprise, she burst into laughter. For a moment I thought she must have gone crazy.
“Look,” she said, pointing at the side of it. “This thing is starting to deflate! Can’t you hear that slow, lazy hiss of air?”
With great caution I got closer to check it out. At the side of the tank there was a puncture hole, the size of a bullhorn. Through it I took a peek, to inspect the inner working of this thing. Indeed, it was a fake. Covered in an olive-drab rubber sheeting and supported by a network of tubes, pressurized rubber tubes that formed a pneumatic skeleton, the dummy tank was quite flimsy and in danger of total collapse.
Meanwhile, out there, far behind at the edge of the field, there came another vehicle, traveling towards the column of the other tanks.
“Wait for me here,” I said to Natasha, and kickstarted the motorcycle.
Flying across the meadow I got closer to the vehicle and realized what it was doing. The thing was pressing tracks into the dirt, stamping them with full force, on purpose, so that to an enemy pilot flying overhead, these muddy impressions might look as if they were left by an advancing M4 Sherman.
The driver called out to me.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hello,” said I.
At the sound of my accent and the sight of my uniform, he said, “It’s not often that I meet American GIs in these parts, unless, of course, they operate vans and travel about in them, transmitting chatter.”
“Chatter?” I echoed.
“Yes,” he said, “radio chatter, meant for the enemy to hear. You know about that, right?”
“Of course,” I said, even though the knowledge I had, in its entirety, had been gleaned just now, from his lips.
“Now where d’you come from?” he asked.
“Spent a day near the castle, in Dover.”
“And? Any rumors about Patton?”
“Patton? You mean, General Patton? The one who’s been leading a brilliant campaign to invade Sicily?”
“Yeah, that’s the one!”
“No,” I said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”
Then my curiosity awakened. “Why,” I asked, “is there anything I should know? I mean, would he be leading the attack on Normandy?”
The driver fell silent for a second, perhaps weighing more carefully what he knew and what he should admit to knowing. At last he said, “I don’t know about Normandy. But rumors are, he’s coming here.”
“Things are heating up, then,” I said.
“Yes,” he said. “They sure are.”
When I got back to Natasha, she did not ask what I had learned, and I told her nothing about it.
Now wearing the parachute-silk dress again, she rolled her swimsuit into the bundle and folded the military blanket, both of which went into the sidecar. I wrapped her in my leather jacket, and even though it looked quite rugged over the soft, flowing fabric of the dress, she accepted it, because the morning air was chilly. I felt her hugging me from behind, and off we went, the wind shrieking, trying to catch up with us.
Along the way I kept thinking about this puz
zle called war. I would have to make sure that my part in it, small as it was, would fit seamlessly. Yes, I would have to write convincingly about these dummy tanks, about how many of them I had spotted and where they must have been heading, as if I had managed to read some clues from the muddy tracks that were not even theirs. In my head I was already composing one sentence and another in my next letter to Lana.
Meanwhile, instead of taking a direct route to London, I chose a roundabout way, stopping first at several places along the shore such as Folkestone, Hythe, Romney Marsh, and Dungeness, where I noted the locations of dummy landing craft. They were stationed out in the open, so they might be observed by the Germans. These armaments suggested an upcoming invasion at the wrong place. They were full of air, and in its own way, so would my writing be.
I thought that Natasha might wonder why the trip was taking so much longer than expected, but if she did, she never asked me about it. Instead she seemed to savor the scenic, sandy beaches and the artistic enclaves. From time to time she was looking for a telephone booth, where she could place a call to her Mama. She wanted to let her know about our plans, even though they were still a bit vague and even though we had yet to set a date for a wedding.
But the only telephone booths we found were either occupied and had a long queue in front of them, or else they were not in working order.
I envied her the privilege of being able to reach her Ma, and could only imagine how happy my father would have been, had he been alive to hear the news. All of a sudden I missed him so.
❋
By the time we arrived back to London it was late afternoon. Having passed Hyde Park into Mayfair, I brought the Harley to a stop. At the far corner of Berkeley Square I spotted a telephone booth. There were a few people in line, so we waited.
Finally, we got into the booth. Natasha dialed the operator. The connection was far from immediate, but time passed swiftly between one kiss and another.
Dancing with Air (Still Life with Memories Book 4) Page 10