The Rose Gardener

by Charlotte Link

Starting in the summer of the year 1943, the supply situation on the islands grew increasingly worse. In December 1941, the Americans had entered the war after the Japanese attack on the naval base at Pearl Harbor. Night after night their bombers, together with those of the RAF, flew bombing runs over German cities, laying waste to buildings and streets and bringing death to countless civilians. In Stalingrad, the Sixth Army suffered a devastating defeat; on February 3rd, 1943, the Oberkommando of the Wehrmacht made the surrender known.

  The Reich’s food supply grew scarce; owing to all the destruction, agriculture was increasingly breaking down. Hardly anyone, it seemed, still thought of sending supply ships to the Channel Islands, which lay isolated and exposed off the coast of France and were even still being built up as defensive fortifications with lightning haste — even though no one could have believed anymore that they’d be able to present any real protection from the threat of invasion. Droves of captive laborers were needed; they were driven to inhuman levels of exertion and died from hunger and horrible abuses. The more hopeless the general state of the war became, the more determined the occupation force grew in its commitment to make the island into an unassailable fortress.

  Rationing grew tighter, Marks were distributed more sparsely. It wasn’t easy for the Wyatts to get enough for an extra person — since Julien of course had no ration card and had to be provided for from what the Wyatts received. Earlier the doctor was given foodstuffs as payment from many of the island’s residents, but that belonged to the past now as well. People didn’t have anything to eat themselves anymore. Hardly anyone would still give up an egg or a slab of bacon.

  It seemed to Beatrice that Julien was often too impatient, that he whined too much. Others were risking their lives for him, shared with him their last crust of bread, and he would often do nothing more than to furiously rebel against his fate. She understood that he hated his situation, but in these dark times there were people who were dealing with worse. More and more frequently he would leave the house at night in secret and undertake his mysterious wanderings, even though Beatrice told him, over and over, that she was afraid for him, and that he was putting those who helped him in great danger.

  “Oh God!” he cried, enraged. “Do you think I’d betray them if I got caught? What do you take me for?”

  “They might have all kinds of methods for getting you to talk,” Beatrice countered. She thought of how Pierre looked when they brought him back. “Besides, they might follow you back to where you’re hiding, and that would be a terrible disaster.”

  “Am I supposed to go slowly insane up here, and finally just shoot myself?” Julien shouted. “How can you believe that I’ll survive all of this here for much longer?”

  She took him in her arms, softly stroked his hair, and although he wasn’t crying, she thought she heard him sob. He was sick from missing his home, sick with longing for freedom. His hunger for life, for movement, for air to breathe, had become overwhelming.

  “Sometimes I’m afraid he won’t be able to hold out much longer,” said Mrs. Wyatt to Beatrice one day, concerned. It was a sunny, windy August day; the clouds darted quick as arrows across an unbelievably blue sky, the trees swayed, and on the leaves lay a wonderful, golden light. Beatrice had gone home with Mae after school, in spite of Helene’s explicit prohibition. But she was hoping that she could see Julien, at least for a few short moments. Her feelings for him grew deeper the more time passed; she was spurred on by all the stones Helene and Erich set in her path. By now she was thinking of Julien every second of every day. In class, on walks, before she went to sleep and right when she woke up. She was filled with a feverish restlessness. Her sexuality, which in the beginning had been very innocent and undeveloped, became more knowing, hungrier, and more alert the more nourishment it received. She was about to have her fifteenth birthday, and any experienced observer could have seen from the light in her eyes, from the color in her cheeks and from the way she moved, just what was going on with her.

  “On days like today,” she responded to Mrs. Wyatt’s worried suspicion, “It must be especially hard.”

  “Go up and comfort him,” Mae said pointedly. Beatrice had always kept herself from speaking plainly with her, but nevertheless, Mae was the only one who had any real notion of what was happening between Beatrice and Julien. In this regard she was far less naïve than her mother.

  Beatrice climbed up to the attic, and there she found an angry, restless Julien drinking a cup of the dreadful ersatz coffee that was all anyone received by then — if, that is, you didn’t pay horrendous prices on the black market, and even there real coffee had become a rarity.

  “Can you come to Petit Bôt tonight?” he asked by way of a greeting. “I have to get out. I have to get to the ocean. I have to see you.”

  “It’s too dangerous,” said Beatrice, and thought he must slowly have started hating her for these words, which she said practically every time he came out with suggestions like this. She felt like a hand-wringing governess who denies those around her every bit of fun, but this, for heaven’s sake, was about more than a harmless midnight dip in the ocean.

  “I’ll be by the bay at eleven o’clock,” he said. “One way or another, whether you come or not.”

  He raised his head, looked through the open roof hatch at the stormy sky, which had already taken on the thin, cool blue of autumn.

  “My life is slipping through my fingers,” he said hopelessly. “Do you see how the clouds shoot past? Time passes just as quickly. And I sit here!” He balled his hand into a fist, brought it to the table with a crash. “I sit here!”

  “It can’t last much longer. Everyone is saying …”

  “For years people have been saying everything imaginable. No one stops the German devil, when are you finally going to get it? Maybe it’s been going a bit worse for them, but eventually it’ll be going better for them again. It’ll never stop. Never!”

  It was the usual grievance, the usual speech. Beatrice had been having more and more difficulty finding a response. Always she’d speak of the end of the war, the end of the occupation; always Julien would stick to his gloomy doomsaying, that an end would never come. She tried to understand him, to grasp that his circumstances would necessarily have to lead to a pessimistic attitude, but it made her sad again to realize that she couldn’t help him, couldn’t take away his panic.

  “Will you come?” He asked.

  She sighed. “I’ll try. I can’t promise it.”

  She knew he had no doubts that she would be there.

  Erich came back from France that night, which complicated things. He had meant to stay away longer, and no one knew why he had come back early, the more so since he said nothing about it himself. He was in a brilliant mood and had even brought back gifts: a pearl necklace for Helene, with a clasp fashioned out of a giant, shining green emerald, and a ring for Beatrice. The ring was made of thick gold, very broad and massive, and for a jewel it had a dark golden quartz. It was far too big for Beatrice’s fingers — it even slid off of her thumb — and it was far too prominent on her still childishly delicate hands. Beatrice thought it fitting for a fat old lady, but not in any way for her — and anyway it was inappropriate for Erich to be giving her a ring and not Helene. Naturally, Erich noticed that she wasn’t all too excited.

  “What is it?” he asked, furrowing his brow. “Do you not like the ring?”

  “It’s too big.”

  “We’ll have to have it refitted, of course. You’ve got quite the skinny fingers, I must say. There’ll be a whole lot of gold that you won’t be able to wear. Well, maybe we can have a pendant for a necklace made out of it.”

  “Or a second ring,” Helene remarked pointedly. “One for me.”

  Erich saw that the two women were not welcoming him with the enthusiasm that he had imagined. This was not what he’d been picturing to himself. Smil
ing, he reached in a knapsack that he had somewhat carelessly set in a corner earlier.

  “Maybe this will bring a sparkle to your eyes,” he said, and produced a string of treasures, one after the other, which had not been seen on the island for quite some time.

  “Real coffee!” He touted his spoils. “Chocolate! Silk stockings. Soap. Tea. Delicious cookies. What do you say to that?”

  Helene actually seemed more taken with these gifts than with the pearl necklace. “My goodness,” she said in admiration. “Are people in France still living in such luxury?”

  “Most of them, no. But there are still stockpiles. And devoted as I am, I naturally thought of the two of you.”

  “How are things with the war?” Beatrice asked, not prepared to let herself be corrupted with a bit of coffee and chocolate.

  “Oh, everything with the war is at its best,” Erich answered immediately. “A war like this can’t be decided in a day of course, and things shift around now and again in the meantime, but all in all things are looking marvelous. Simply marvelous.”

  “What you hear is that the Germans are falling back on all fronts,” Beatrice said, provoking him. “And why do we get almost nothing to eat here on the islands if it’s all going so well?”

  Erich’s features darkened. “To hell with your enemy propaganda! Of course they try and weaken our will to fight and our resolve to endure by sending doomsday reports over the radio. But not a word of it is true.” He let out a sigh of exasperation. “If only we could just finally confiscate all the radios on this island! But apparently that doesn’t seem to be possible.”

  He drank a lot that evening, which made Beatrice calmer, because this way he would sleep soundly. Helene, who apparently was not feeling particularly well, likewise partook liberally of the red wine, and when she excused herself to go to bed, she was slurring her words.

  It was already past eleven o’clock when Beatrice felt it was safe enough to sneak out of the house and make her way to Petit Bôt Bay. She knew that two watchmen patrolled the property, but the two of them had never once deviated from their usual rhythm and times, and so it wasn’t a problem to wait for the moment when the front door and the drive weren’t being watched. Nevertheless, she was aware that she was taking far too big of a risk, and that she should have been steadfast enough not to let Julien talk her into these nighttime escapades.

  How stupid of me, she thought, nearly furious as she tiptoed through the darkness, to do something so insane!

  But as always, anger and fury vanished when she stood before Julien and he took her in his arms with the impatience and intensity that his despair gave him. He had waited for her in the bay down below, an unmoving shadow among the cliffs that rose and approached her once it was certain that no one had followed her.

  They stood pressed closely to one another, and Beatrice’s heart was beating thunderously because of how fast she’d run. The night was warm and velvety black, and in the sky the clouds still glided past, only now and then letting the moon become visible or the stars shine through. The rushing of the ocean was peaceful and full of secrets. There seemed to be no other person on earth aside from the two of them.

  Julien said a few tender words to her in French and brushed back the strands of hair that kept fluttering over her forehead. Here, in the open, he was a different man than in the attic. It was as if all at once his blood flowed faster, as if his pulse and his breathing quickened, as if an energy flowed through him that drew from some unknown source. His eyes shone, his laugh sounded deep and warm. He was young and alive, strong and sure of himself.

  He’s free, thought Beatrice. Here in the open he’s just completely free, and it turns him into a different person.

  They made love in the bright sand of the bay, and the awareness of the danger they were in, and the short time they had remaining, made them even more eager, more desirous, more devoted. The romance of their meeting was always the same, because their situation was always the same. They were in constant danger, and their future was forever uncertain.

  They lay next to each other and held hands, and Julien spoke in French of the time after the war. When he felt good, there were moments in which he believed the terror would pass and that it wouldn’t be much longer till it was all over. Now was such a moment. He lay under open skies by the sea, he saw stars and clouds above him, and he had made love to a girl whose hand he still held in his own. He was a young man like thousands of other men.

  “I’ll make a ton of money when this mess is over with,” he said. It was by any measure positive that he spoke of “this mess” and not of “this terror” or “this horror,” or “this apocalypse.” “Mess” was a consciously chosen, harmless name for the havoc that had been wreaked upon them all. “I don’t know exactly how, but you’ll see, I’ll be a rich man.”

  Beatrice sat up and searched in the pocket of her dress. She had secretly taken a piece of the chocolate that Erich had brought. She broke off a chunk and handed it to Julien.

  “Here, would you like some?”

  He sat up as well. Just then the moon appeared once more, and in its light Julien looked ghostly pale. Beatrice knew that this wasn’t only the moonlight: in the daylight, too, Julien had a wax-like pallor. He was no longer the strong, tanned man he’d been when he came to the island. He was now just a shadow of his former self.

  “Chocolate? Where did you get it?” He put the entire chunk in his mouth all at once, relishing it. “I’d almost forgotten what it tastes like.”

  “Erich came back from France today. He brought back a bunch of fancy things.” She looked at him as he chewed and licked his lips. She put the next piece in his mouth.

  “When you think about the time after the war,” she said. “Am I in your plans too?”

  He threw her a stunned look. “Of course. Why not?”

  “You’ve never said anything.”

  “When do we ever speak of the time after? There’s so little sense in getting yourself worked up thinking about it.”

  “You talk about the money you want to make,” said Beatrice carefully. “But not about me.”

  “Don’t pick apart every little word. This time I talked about money. Another time I’ll talk about you.” He stood up, restless all of a sudden. “You know what? I’d like to swim in the ocean. I’d like to taste the salt on my lips and feel the water on my skin.”

  She hated her governess role, but she had to take it up once more. “Don’t do it, Julien. It’s too dangerous. In the water you’ll be visible from miles away. They could see you from a ship, or from up above on the cliffs.”

  “The night is much too dark.” He bounced up and down on his toes, impatient. “Besides, there’s no one here.”

  The moon showed itself again and cast its pale light down to earth like a warning.

  “The night isn’t so dark,” Beatrice said nervously. “The clouds are moving too fast, the moon’s never gone for long. Please, Julien. What we’re doing here is dangerous enough, but we’re protected somewhat by the cliffs. Out there nothing will protect you.”

  “It’s the last night of the summer.” There wasn’t any reason for thinking this, but Julien seemed certain. “And anyway I don’t know when I’ll be able to get out again. I’m going to swim now.”

  She watched him as he ran across the beach towards the water. His tall, naked body glowed silver in the moonlight. His movements were agile and lithe; she could actually sense how much he enjoyed the feel of the air and of the sand, how happy it made him to run, to feel his muscles working.

  How beautiful he is, Beatrice thought, and how reckless. She felt abandoned, sitting in the shadow of the cliffs towering over her and seeing him before the wide expanse of ocean in the light of the moon. She tried not to overdo the symbolism of the situation, but it was as if the two of them had switched roles. He ventured out into
freedom, while she stayed back, trapped. And somehow the image was correct — in those few minutes she had come to understand this. He didn’t really love her. She belonged to the things that lessened the burden of his life in hiding, and so she meant something pivotal to him; but within him he had not bound himself to her. He would forget her as soon as he was free. He would go back to France and throw himself into the life he had regained, and there would be laughing, joyful girls all around him, he would flirt with them, dance with them, drink with them, and he would make love to them — and eventually he would marry one of them.

  What will I become in his memory? Beatrice asked herself. She put her clothes back on, absently smoothed her hair back.

  She would simply be Beatrice, the English girl whom he taught to speak French, whom he had read Victor Hugo with and whose virginity he had taken. He would remember her pale skin and her unruly hair, her bony body. And he would probably remember that she hadn’t been all that pretty.

  But he had no choice and I was better than nothing, Beatrice thought angrily. She dug violently in the sand with her hand, drew deep lines and grooves with her fingers. And I was even dumb enough to meet him on the beach at night and put my life in danger.

  By now Julien already stood up to his waist in the water. He hesitated a moment and then dove into the waves. He swam forward with powerful strokes, turned on his back, waved his arms and kicked his legs, splashed, sloshed, and raised an unholy racket in the night, which up till then had been completely still. To Beatrice’s horror the moonlight flooded down from the sky unhindered once more. The wind had driven the clouds farther and farther apart, and the night was now mercilessly bright.

  This will be a disaster, she thought, her heart pounding.

  She stood up, risked moving a step forward.

  “Julien!” she called, half whispering. “Please come back! You’re making too much noise! Come back!”

  He didn’t hear her of course. He played in the water like a child or a cavorting dolphin. The way he moved, it was like he was putting on a show, but whether it was meant as a challenge or if he’d forgotten himself, Beatrice couldn’t say.