A Parachute in the Lime Tree (3 page)

By the time he reached his billet at the Hotel Moderne, the idea of jumping seemed ridiculous. Even if he managed to bail out before his comrades stopped him, how could he hope to reach Ireland from a burning English city? He was trapped in the C-station of a Heinkel just as surely as he’d been in Zweibrückenstrasse.

Madame Pouliquen was sitting at the little reception desk in the foyer. A new gold tooth glinted at him as he approached. ‘All gone,’ she said. ‘Forecast’s so bad they’ve cancelled everything tonight. They’re down at the Deux Pigeons. Perish the thought they’d hang around here.’

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Delphine watching him from behind the beaded curtain that cut off the reception desk from the Pouliquen quarters. He turned to face her as he walked back across the foyer. Her reddened mouth was like a wound on her pale face, and he felt a sudden rage at himself for living on dreams when real life was there for the taking. He smiled at her and she returned it. He nodded and she returned that too. And sure enough, when he left the hotel on the way to the Deux Pigeons, there she was in the alleyway, waiting for him.

He’d made love to so many girls since Elsa went, desperate to find her in a mouth, a strand of hair. These encounters always followed the same sequence: hope, desire, relief, disgust. But it never seemed to stop him. He closed his eyes tight as she fumbled at his buttons. He felt himself harden as she guided him inside her. Elsa was there, as she always was, running ahead of him all the way to the top of the hill. He had almost reached her when she dipped over the other side and the sun caught him and he was blinded a moment. He opened his eyes and Elsa disappeared. He bashed his hand against the rough wall behind Delphine’s head. When he pulled away from her, her mouth was still open, her eyes blurred. She rearranged herself, clutching at her blouse, pulling down her skirt. She said nothing when he pressed the money into her hand, turned away when he reached out to smooth down her hair. His anger frightened him, the desolation when he opened his eyes and she was still not Elsa. He tried to say something to make amends but she was already gone.

As he opened the door of the Deux Pigeons there was the familiar waft of hair oil and cigarette smoke. The crew were sitting together, as they always did. Joachim called out to him and by now the idea of jumping seemed like treachery. The others told tales of the idiots they’d had to put up with while Oskar and Joachim were away. Everyone laughed, even Werner, who was never known for merriment. Oskar rocked back on the frail café chair and let the men’s voices wash over him. Next thing, Joachim was in his face, clicking his fingers to demand his attention. ‘Come on, Oskar, stay with us.’ He turned back to the others, and continued his story. ‘She was a peach, and her sister was even lovelier. Next thing I knew, I was walking through the centre of Dresden with one on each arm. I tell you, back home, this uniform works like a charm. What do you say, Oskar?’

‘Oh, I’d give Herr Göring the credit, Joachim, wouldn’t you?’

‘You know they say he can’t get it up any more,’ Joachim said, ‘It takes three at a time to blow that whistle.’

Werner’s face reddened. He muttered something about morale.

‘Who cares, Werner,’ said Joachim, ‘Relax, will you?’

Werner was looking nervously over his shoulder, but Joachim wasn’t fazed. ‘He let the English get their breath back when he could have finished them off. He’s a disaster. Besides–’ Joachim gulped back his schnapps, ‘all he really cares is feathering his own nest. And what a nest!’

‘So he’s got somewhere he likes to go to wind down,’ said Werner. ‘What’s wrong with that?’

‘A dozen Old Masters on the bathroom wall, Werner. Just to watch him piss.’

Oskar’s attention began to wander. There was a new girl behind the bar. She looked like she had sealed herself off from her surroundings. Now and then, her eyes darted to the table where Joachim and the others were sitting. When Joachim flashed his brilliant smile at her she ignored him.

Oskar walked over to the bar on the pretext of examining the bottles ranged behind it. He could see Joachim in the mirror, making drunken gestures at him while the others laughed into their beers.

‘The seats at the bar are reserved for regulars,’ the barmaid said, looking over his shoulder at the crew, ‘but I suppose you lot will do as you wish.’ The expression of loathing on her face fascinated him. Most people pretended to find them tolerable, whatever they really thought.

‘They might be a bit loud, but they don’t mean any harm. They’re just trying to let off a bit of steam.’

‘My heart bleeds. And who might you be? Their nursemaid? You sound like you think you’re in a different league.’

For a moment, he considered sharing his dilemma with her. He hadn’t felt proud of anything he’d done for a very
long time. He’d let himself be thwarted when it came to Elsa. Always caving in, letting them win. Jumping would be brave, he was sure of that. But was it honourable, or just insane? If the barmaid respected him for it – someone like her, who hated Germans no matter what they did – then maybe it was worthwhile. He ordered a small cognac and drank it down in one. He realised then that he’d made his decision without her. When he went back to the others, they had long since lost interest in his progress with the girl behind the bar. Joachim and Willy had just begun dancing a tango when Oskar left.

The smell of planes seemed to linger at the Hotel Moderne. Perhaps that was why nobody seemed to want to drink there. The bar was a staging post between one sortie and the next; a place that never seemed to warm up. Even the crews only frequented it when they were back too late to find anywhere else. On those nights, anywhere would do: follow the beam, light the targets and leave.

The others arrived back at the billet soon enough, with some of the girls from the Deux Pigeons. Joachim spread himself over three rickety chairs, smoking luxuriously, his yellow scarf knotted at his throat. When he spotted Madame, still at her accounts, he sprang to his feet and dragged Oskar with him into the foyer. He gave a little bow. When she continued to ignore him, he rang the brass bell on her desk.

‘One moment, please.’ She continued writing, licking the end of her pencil as she finished a fresh column of numbers. ‘Yes?’

‘The mural, Madame. That German paradise we’re going to paint for you.’

Madame shrugged and went back to her sums.

‘Every airman this side of Quiberon will come here for a glimpse of home: mountains, pretty forests, houses from fairytales.’ He lent towards her in a stage whisper. ‘And not a swastika in sight.’

She shook her head, still engrossed in the numbers on the page.

‘Oh come on, Madame. Oskar here will do the hard bits. I’ll stick to the sky. Consider it a fraternal gesture to the Hotel Moderne.’

Madame Pouliquen waved her hand in the air. ‘Go ahead, if you must. But no mess.’

He reached out to take her hand but she snatched it away.

They began the mural the next day. Joachim knew someone in ordnance and had managed to get hold of some surplus paint: military green (dark green and black green), two shades of grey (ash and cinder), black, white, maroon and a little dribble of bright red.

They were usually too exhausted after a mission to do anything much. Joachim used to sit at the window of their room with his feet up on the metal balcony, playing his clarinet until Madame Pouliquen arrived in her hairnet to hammer at their door. Now, Oskar and Joachim would go straight to work on the mural. By that time, dawn would be upon them and its thin light seemed to suit the colours they had at their disposal. No matter how tired, they got a second wind, daubing at the uneven surface of the wall. Joachim used to say it made him feel a little better, to have made something for a change.

When they started, they didn’t have a plan for this paradise of theirs. Oskar wanted a lake and with a lake went mountains. Joachim described the hotel by the Bodensee where he had met Gisela, his girl back home, and Oskar painted that too. Then, he added his grandmother’s house in Schwetzingen and a small church on a hill. One night they came back to find that someone had painted a little party flag onto the filigree balcony that Oskar had spent the previous night perfecting. The red paint was still tacky. Joachim smeared it off with his thumb and wiped it on the leg of his flying suit, before using some
cinder grey to cancel it out completely. Normally, they’d enjoy a bit of banter and wear themselves out enough to be able to sleep. The flag made them both despondent. It reminded them that, whatever they might like to pretend, there was no longer any Germany without it: that even the fairytale they painted was rotten now. The next night, Oskar used the last drops of red paint for a row of geraniums in the window of his grandmother’s house and threw away the can.

Joachim had been right about the mural’s popularity. Once it was finished, the bar was full of German airmen. Madame was suddenly excessively friendly, and keen to offer them a reward. ‘I know what will cheer you up,’ she said. The tooth glinted. ‘You’ve not been out in the bay yet, have you? There’s an island for each day of the year out there. I’ll arrange for someone to take you out on a little fishing trip when the weather improves. Out to the Ile aux Moines, perhaps. The Île d’Arz? Catch some sardines, oysters.’

Madame Pouliquen kept her promise about the fishing. A week or so later, her nephew took a group on weekend leave out to the Golfe du Morbihan. Fish, camp, drink. Joachim said he didn’t need another break so soon. He’d stay behind. He agreed to do a training flight instead, a favour for someone.

The nephew was surly, and Oskar felt they were no more than tolerated. They went out under sail on the outgoing tide, the boy navigating in silence. They hit a school of mackerel after a couple of hours and pulled in at one of the islands to light a fire to cook lunch. When the time came to return, they were warmed by spring sunshine and a bellyful of fish, and the nephew was almost friendly.

It wasn’t until they got back to the billet that they realised anything was wrong. For once, Delphine came out from behind her curtain. She rushed towards Oskar, hesitated a moment, then reached out to touch his arm. Madame Pouliquen stood at her desk, a black scarf at her throat.

It had been raining heavily in Vannes that day, though it seemed the rain had nothing to do with it. Oskar tried to visualise Joachim’s plane as it set off, shortly before dawn: rolling in driving rain from the paddock to the take-off point, taking its position on the starting grid, with the faint illumination of the kerosene lamps, then roaring down the track. Something went wrong shortly after take off. Everyone had his theory. The trimming wheel, perhaps. Some freak obstruction. Maybe they’d jammed the sprocket, rolled over a border lamp when taxiing. With only the instruments for a guide, how soon would Joachim have noticed that the rate of climb was excessive? They’d have struggled with all their might to keep the nose down.

Oskar found it impossible to sleep. He kept imagining he could hear Joachim’s clarinet, those jazz tunes he used to belt out to annoy the Prussians. They hadn’t yet reallocated Joachim’s bed, so he turned on the light and, for the first time since arriving back in Vannes, he took out the journal he kept outside on the windowsill, tucked behind the flower box. One by one, he read through Elsa’s letters. He tried to visualise the grey city she described, where it rained all the time. He tried to imagine the torment it would be for her to be so far from home without anyone to speak to in German, unless somehow her parents had made it to Ireland after all. Now that Joachim was gone, it became Oskar’s habit to write in the journal most nights after returning from a mission. It gave him hope that there was something beyond the war, and gradually his thoughts began to turn again to escape.