“Why, there’d be soldiers riding guard in the back of potato lorries going to the army’s mess hall—children would follow them, hoping potatoes would fall off into the street. Soldiers would look straight ahead, grim-like, and then flick potatoes off the pile—on purpose.
“They did the same thing with oranges. Same with lumps of coal—my, those were precious when we didn’t have no fuel left. There was many such incidents. Just ask Mrs. Godfray about her boy. He had the pneumonia and she was worried half to death because she couldn’t keep him warm nor give him good food to eat. One day there’s a knock on her door and when she opens up, she sees an orderly from the German hospital on the step. Without a peep, he hands her a vial of that sulfonamide, tips his cap, and walks away. He had stolen it from their dispensary for her. They caught him later, trying to steal some again, and they sent him off to prison in Germany—maybe hung him. We’d not be knowing which.”
He glared at me again suddenly. “And I say that if some toffee-nosed Brit wants to call being human Collaboration, they’ll need to talk to me and Mrs. Godfray first!”
I tried to protest, but Sam turned his back and walked away. I gathered Kit up and we came on home. Between the wilted flowers for Amelia and the coffee beans for Sam Withers, I felt I was beginning to know Kit’s father—and why Elizabeth must have loved him.
Next week will bring Remy to Guernsey. Dawsey leaves for France on Tuesday to fetch her.
Love,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sophie
22nd July, 1946
Dear Sophie,
Burn this letter; I would not care to have it appear among your collected papers.
I’ve told you about Dawsey, of course. You know that he was the first here to write me; that he is fond of Charles Lamb; that he is helping to raise Kit; that she adores him.
What I haven’t told you is that on the very first evening that I arrived on the Island, the moment Dawsey held out both his hands to me at the bottom of the gangplank, I felt an unaccountable jolt of excitement. Dawsey is so quiet and composed that I had no idea if it was only me, so I’ve struggled to be reasonable and casual and usual for the last two months. And I was doing very nicely—until tonight.
Dawsey came over to borrow a suitcase for his trip to Louviers—he is going to collect Remy and bring her here. What kind of man doesn’t even own a suitcase? Kit was sound asleep, so we put my case in his cart and walked up to the headlands.
The moon was coming up and the sky was colored in mother-of-pearl, like the inside of a shell. The sea for once was quiet, with only silvery ripples, barely moving. No wind. I have never heard the world be so silent before, and it dawned on me that Dawsey himself was exactly that silent too, walking beside me. I was as close to him as I’ve ever been, so I began to take particular note of his wrists and hands. I was wanting to touch them, and the thought made me light-headed. There was a knife-edgy feeling—you know the one—in the pit of my stomach.
All at once, Dawsey turned. His face was shadowed, but I could see his eyes—very dark eyes—watching me, waiting. Who knows what might have happened next—a kiss? A pat on the head? Nothing?—because in the next second we heard Wally Beall’s horse-drawn carriage (that’s our local taxi) pull up to my cottage, and Wally’s passenger called out, “Surprise, darling!”
It was Mark—Markham V. Reynolds, Junior, resplendent in his exquisitely tailored suit, with a swath of red roses over his arm.
I truly wished him dead, Sophie.
But what could I do? I went to greet him—and when he kissed me all I could think of was Don’t! Not in front of Dawsey! He deposited the roses on my arm and turned to Dawsey with his steely smile. So I introduced the two of them, wishing all the time I could crawl into a hole—I don’t know why, exactly—and watched dumbly as Dawsey shook his hand, turned to me, shook my hand, said, “Thank you for the suitcase, Juliet. Good-night,” climbed in his cart, and left. Left, without another word, without a backward glance.
I wanted to cry. Instead I invited Mark indoors and tried to seem like a woman who had just received a delightful surprise. The wagon and the introductions had awakened Kit, who looked suspiciously at Mark and wanted to know where Dawsey had gone—he hadn’t kissed her good-night. Me neither, I thought to myself.
I put Kit back to bed and persuaded Mark that my reputation would be in tatters if he didn’t go to the Royal Hotel at once. Which he did, with a very bad grace and many threats to appear on my doorstep this morning at six.
Then I sat down and chewed my fingernails for three hours. Should I take myself over to Dawsey’s house and try to pick up where we left off ? But where did we leave off ? I’m not sure. I don’t want to make a fool of myself. What if he looked at me with polite incomprehension—or worse yet, with pity?
And besides—what am I thinking? Mark is here. Mark, who is rich and debonair and wants to marry me. Mark, whom I was doing very well without. Why can’t I stop thinking about Dawsey, who probably doesn’t give a hoot about me. But maybe he does. Maybe I was about to find out what’s on the other side of that silence.
Damn, damn, and damn.
It’s two in the morning, I have not a fingernail to my name, and I look at least a hundred years old. Maybe Mark will be repulsed by my haggard mien when he sees me. Maybe he will spurn me. I don’t know that I will be disappointed if he does.
Love,
Juliet
From Amelia to Juliet (left under Juliet’s door)
23rd July, 1946
Dear Juliet,
My raspberries have come in with a vengeance. I am picking this morning and making pies this afternoon. Would you and Kit like to come for tea (pie) this afternoon?
Love,
Amelia
From Juliet to Amelia
23rd July, 1946
Dear Amelia—
I’m terribly sorry, I can’t come. I have a guest.
Love,
Juliet
P.S. Kit is delivering this in hopes of getting some pie. Can you keep her for the afternoon?
From Juliet to Sophie
24th July, 1946
Dear Sophie,
You should probably burn this letter as well as the last one. I’ve refused Mark finally and irrevocably, and my elation is indecent. If I were a properly brought-up young lady, I’d draw the curtains and brood, but I can’t. I’m free! Today I bounced out of bed feeling frisky as a lamb, and Kit and I spent the morning running races in the pasture. She won, but that’s because she cheats.
Yesterday was a horror. You know how I felt when Mark appeared, but the next morning was even worse. He turned up at my door at seven, radiating confidence and certain that we’d have a wedding date set by noon. He wasn’t the least bit interested in the Island, or the Occupation, or Elizabeth, or what I’d been doing since I arrived—didn’t ask a single question about any of it. Then Kit came down to breakfast. That surprised him—he hadn’t really registered her the night before. He had a nice way with her—they talked about dogs—but after a few minutes, it was obvious he was waiting for her to clear off. I suppose in his experience, nannies whisk the children away before they can annoy their parents. Of course, I tried to ignore his irritation and made Kit her breakfast as usual, but I could feel his displeasure billowing across the room.
At last Kit went outside to play, and the minute the door closed behind her, Mark said, “Your new friends must be damned smart—they’ve managed to saddle you with their responsibilities in less than two months.” He shook his head—pitying me for being so gullible.
I just stared at him.
“She’s a cute kid, but she’s got no claim on you, Juliet, and you’re going to have to be firm about it. Get her a nice dolly or something and say good-bye, before she starts thinking you’re going to take care of her for the rest of her life.”
Now I was so angry I couldn’t talk. I stood there, gripping Kit’s porridge bowl with white knuckles. I didn’t throw it at him, but I
was close to it. Finally, when I could speak again, I whispered,
“Get out.”
“Sorry?”
“I never want to see you again.”
“Juliet?” He really had no idea what I was talking about. So I explained. Feeling better by the minute, I told him that I would never marry him or anyone else who didn’t love Kit and Guernsey and Charles Lamb.
“What the hell does Charles Lamb have to do with anything?” he yelped (as well he might).
I declined to elucidate. He tried to argue with me, then to coax me, then to kiss me, then to argue with me again, but—it was over, and even Mark knew it. For the first time in ages—since February, when I met him—I was completely sure that I had done the right thing. How could I ever have considered marrying him? One year as his wife, and I’d have become one of those abject, quaking women who look at their husbands when someone asks them a question. I’ve always despised that type, but I see how it happens now.
Two hours later, Mark was on his way to the airfield, never (I hope) to return. And I, disgracefully un-heartbroken, was gobbling raspberry pie at Amelia’s. Last night, I slept the sleep of the innocent for ten blissful hours, and this morning I feel thirty-two again, instead of a hundred.
Kit and I are going to spend this afternoon at the beach, hunting for agates. What a beautiful, beautiful day.
Love,
Juliet
P.S. None of this means anything with regard to Dawsey. Charles Lamb just popped out of my mouth by coincidence. Dawsey didn’t even come to say good-bye before he left. The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that he turned on the cliff to ask if he could borrow my umbrella.
From Juliet to Sidney
27th July, 1946
Dear Sidney,
I knew that Elizabeth had been arrested for sheltering a Todt worker, but I hadn’t known she had an accomplice until a few days ago, when Eben happened to mention Peter Sawyer, “who was arrested with Elizabeth.” “WHAT?” I screeched, and Eben said he’d let Peter tell me about it.
Peter is living now in a nursing home near Le Grand Havre in Vale, so I telephoned him, and he said he’d be very glad to see me—especially if I had a tot of brandy about me.
“Always,” I said.
“Lovely. Come tomorrow,” he replied, and rang off.
Peter is in a wheelchair, but what a driver he is! He races it around like a madman, cuts round corners and can turn on a sixpence. We went outside, sat under an arbor, and he tippled while he talked. This one time, Sidney, I took notes—I couldn’t bear to lose a word.
Peter was already in the wheelchair, but still living in his home in St. Sampson’s, when he found the Todt worker, Lud Jaruzki, a sixteen-year-old Polish boy.
Many of the Todt workers were permitted to leave their pens after dark to scrounge for food—as long as they came back. They were to return for work the next morning—and if they didn’t, a hunt went up for them. This “parole” was one way the Germans had to see the workers didn’t starve—without wasting too much of their own foodstuffs on them.
Almost every Islander had a vegetable garden—some had hen houses and rabbit hutches—a rich harvest for foragers. And that is what the Todt slave workers were—foragers. Most Islanders kept watch over their gardens at night—armed with sticks or poles to defend their vegetables.
Peter stayed outside at night too, in the shadows of his hen house. No pole for him, but a big iron skillet and metal spoon to bang it with and sound the alarm for neighbors to come.
One night he heard—then saw—Lud crawl through a gap in his hedgerow. Peter waited; the boy tried to stand but fell down, he tried to get up again, but couldn’t—he just lay there. Peter wheeled over and stared down at the boy.
“He was a child, Juliet. Just a child—lying faceup in the dirt. Thin, my God he was thin, wasted and filthy, in rags. He was covered with vermin; they came out from under his hair, crawled across his face, crawled over his eyelids. That poor boy didn’t even feel them—no flicker, no nothing. All he’d wanted was a goddamned potato—and he didn’t even have the strength to dig it up. To do this to boys!
“I tell you, I hated those Germans with all my heart. I couldn’t bend down to see if he was breathing, but I got my feet off my chair pedals and managed to prod and poke him until I got his shoulders turned near me. Now, my arms are strong, and I pulled the boy halfway onto my lap. Somehow, I got us both up my ramp and into the kitchen—there, I let the boy fall on the floor. I built up my fire, got a blanket, heated water; I wiped his poor face and hands and drowned every louse and maggot I picked off him.”
Peter couldn’t ask his neighbors for help—they might report him to the Germans. The German Commandant had said anyone who sheltered a Todt worker would be sent to a concentration camp or shot where they stood.
Elizabeth was coming to Peter’s house the next day—she was his Nursing Aid and she visited once a week, sometimes more. He knew Elizabeth well enough to be pretty certain that she’d help him keep the boy alive and she’d keep quiet about it.
“She arrived around mid-morning next day. I met her by the door and said I had trouble waiting inside and if she didn’t want trouble she shouldn’t come in. She knew what I was trying to say, and she nodded and stepped right in. Her jaw clenched when she knelt by Lud on the floor—he smelled something fierce—but she got down to business. She cut off his clothes and burned them. She bathed him, shampooed his hair with tar soap—that was a jolly mess, we did laugh, if you can believe it. Either that or the cold water woke him up some. He was startled—scared till he saw who we were. Elizabeth, she kept speaking softly, not that he could understand a word she said, but he was soothed. We hauled him into my bedroom—we couldn’t keep him in my kitchen, neighbors might come in and see him. Well, Elizabeth nursed him. There wasn’t any medicine she could get—but she got soup bones for broth and real bread, on the Black Market. I had eggs, and bit by bit, day by day, he got his strength back. He slept a lot. Sometimes Elizabeth had to come after dark, but before curfew. It wouldn’t do for anyone to see her coming to my house too often. People told on their neighbors, you know—trying to curry favor, or food, from the Germans.
“But someone did notice, and someone did tell—I don’t know who it was. They told the Feldpolizei, and they came on that Tuesday night. Elizabeth had bought some chicken meat, stewed it, and was feeding Lud. I sat by his bedstead.
“They surrounded the house, all quiet until they busted in. Well—we was caught, fair and square. Taken that night, all of us, and God knows what they did to that boy. There wasn’t any trial, and we was put on a boat to St. Malo the next day. That’s the last I saw of Elizabeth, led into the boat by one of the guards from the prison. She looked so cold. I didn’t see her after, when we got to France, and I didn’t know where they sent her. They sent me to the federal prison in Coutances, but they didn’t know what to do with a prisoner in a wheelchair, so they sent me home again after a week. They told me to be grateful for their leniency.”
Peter said he knew Elizabeth had left Kit with Amelia whenever she came to his house. Nobody knew Elizabeth was helping with the Todt worker. He believes she let everyone think she had hospital duty.
Those are the bare bones, Sidney, but Peter asked if I would come back again. I said, yes, I’d love to—and he told me not to bring brandy—just myself. He did say he would like to see some picture magazines if I had any to hand. He wants to know who Rita Hayworth is.
Love,
Juliet
From Dawsey to Juliet
27th July, 1946
Dear Juliet,
It will soon be time for me to gather Remy from the hospice, but as I have a few minutes, I will use them to write to you.
Remy seems stronger now than she was last month, but she is very frail yet. Sister Touvier drew me aside to caution me—I must see to it that she gets enough to eat, that she stays warm, that she’s not upset. She must be around people—cheerful people, if poss
ible.
I’ve no doubt that Remy will get nourishing food, and Amelia will see to it that she’s warm enough, but how am I to serve up good cheer? Joking and such is not natural to me. I didn’t know what to say to the Sister, so I just nodded and tried to look jolly.
I think I was not a success, for Sister glanced at me sharply. Well, I will do my best, but you, blessed as you are with a sunny nature and light heart, would make a better companion for Remy than I. I don’t doubt she will take to you as we all have, these last months, and you will do her good.
Give Kit a hug and kiss for me. I will see you both on Tuesday.
Dawsey
From Juliet to Sophie
29th July, 1946
Dear Sophie,
Please ignore everything I have ever said about Dawsey Adams.
I am an idiot.
I have just received a letter from Dawsey praising the medicinal qualities of my “sunny nature and light heart.”
A sunny nature? A light heart? I have never been so insulted. Light-hearted is a short step from witless in my book. A cackling buffoon—that’s what I am to Dawsey.
I am also humiliated—while I was feeling the knife-edge of attraction as we strolled through the moonlight, he was thinking about Remy and how my light-minded prattle would amuse her.
No, it’s clear that I was deluded and Dawsey doesn’t give two straws for me.
I am too irritated to write more now.
Love always,
Juliet
From Juliet to Sidney
1st August, 1946
Dear Sidney,
Remy is here at last. She is petite and terribly thin, with short black hair and eyes that are nearly black too. I had imagined that she would look wounded, but she doesn’t, except for a little limp, which shows itself as a mere hesitancy in her walk, and a rather stiff way of moving her neck.
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society Page 17