Fireshadow (19 page)

20 December 1946

The car is a Ford, an old Model T, and Frannie is driving. It bumps and jolts across the Subiaco tram lines and Alice has to cling to the leather handle attached to the door to steady herself. The rear seat is heavily sprung and cushioned, so it isn't too uncomfortable. She laughs.

Günter refuses to tell her where he borrowed the car from. Whenever she asks, he just winks and taps the side of his nose.

People are watching them from the sidewalks.

How does she know how to drive?

Günter explains that Francesca drove a munitions truck during the war.
So this is . . . how do you say it? Easy driving for her. No chance of you exploding
. He grins at her over the back of his seat and Alice can't help but laugh.

Not for a few months yet, anyway.

Cottesloe beach shimmers in the heat, the sun gleaming off white sand. The sea breeze is not yet in so the water is calm and the beach busy with children enjoying their summer holiday, looking forward to Christmas and playing in the shallows under the watchful eyes of mothers. Beach umbrellas dot the shoreline, their bright colours splashing vibrantly against the sand.

Her bathing suit is far too tight. She gathers the clasp together behind her neck and has to breathe in to make it fasten. She feels like one of those barrage balloons they used to show on the war documentaries, or perhaps a whale.

With a towel gathered around her waist, she and Frannie step out from the change room and meet Günter at the bottom of the steps. The sand burns underfoot and the three of them hop across laughing until they are close enough to throw their towels down and stand on them. Günter has to plonk himself down and unstrap the leather bindings which hold his leg in place.
Now we swim, yes?
Without waiting for an answer, he leaps down the sand in giant hops and plunges into the water.

Frannie is more hesitant. With Claire clutched protectively to her chest, she follows her husband down into the shallows and stops when she is only ankle deep.

Come on!
He splashes her and teases in German, and she giggles and steps in a little deeper.

Alice is aware of people's eyes on her as she drops her own towel and walks to the water's edge. She can feel the judgment in their gazes. She can feel the other mothers sitting under their umbrellas and radiating disapproval at her. She knows she doesn't look respectable, swimming at a family beach in her condition. Especially with Germans.

Once she is in the water, she stops caring.

The Indian Ocean is cold, icy after the baking, radiated heat of the beach. It wraps itself around her body and lifts the weight from her belly and the ache from her back. She slowly flops forward, gasping as the cold water rushes over her breasts and head. She passes through the mirror-surface of the ocean and into the world underneath.

Underwater, the sounds of the day vanish and Alice allows herself to float there, suspended, enjoying the coldness and the muted half-light and the lack of gravity pulling on her. She holds her breath until it bursts out of her and she has to push herself up from the sandy bottom into the daylight.

Slowly, luxuriantly, Alice breaststrokes out towards the shark net pylon a little way off shore. Behind her, Günter has splashed Francesca again, and she is squealing at him. Neither of them are strong swimmers, but Günter is determined that Claire will grow up used to the water.
A real Australian water-baby
, he says.

Halfway to the pylon, Alice stops, rolls onto her back and floats there, looking up into the blue vault of the sky. Like the beach, it seems to shimmer and sparkle in the summer heat. The moment stretches on and on and she lets herself imagine Erich here with her, instead of Günter and Frannie. They would swim out together and touch the concrete shark net pylon.

She treads water again and looks in towards the beach. Günter has finally persuaded Francesca to come deeper and the two of them are standing together, water up to their chests now, holding their little girl between them and playing with her. Alice can hear Claire's baby giggles as the water splashes around her.

Then Günter hands the baby back to Frannie and swims out towards her. His dog paddle is laboured, awkward and inefficient, but he presses on until Alice, fearing he won't make the distance and that she'll have to rescue him, strokes back and meets him halfway.

Water is good, yes?

Lovely, Günter. Thank you so much for organising this.

Is no problem
. He offers a wink.
Good for me, too. One leg not important in the ocean.
At that, he tries to tread water and discovers that having one leg can make a difference. He slips under and then splutters frantically to the surface.
Perhaps . . .

Yes. Let's go in.

Soon there is sand underfoot and they wade up into the shallows. Alice allows herself to stop for a last moment in the deep channel that runs along the beach, savouring the delicious lack of weight before climbing out, back into the hot, public glare of the beach.

24 December 1946

In the afternoon a massive bushfire in the hills blankets Perth with smoke. Sitting with Anne in the park, Alice can smell the familiar scent of distant, burning eucalypt. She remembers the smell from two years earlier and if she closes her eyes it takes her back to the camp, the day Kaiser died, the afternoon they led Erich into the hospital, blackened and burned. Now she remembers his scars, the new, wrinkled pinkness that grew onto his hands and arms. Strangely, though, even when concentrating hard she can't picture the rest of him. Only the scars.

Are you all right?
Anne is concerned. Her friend is too quiet.

I'm fine. Just remembering.

The other woman nods and they watch the children in silence for a while.

What are your family doing tomorrow?

Mum is having everyone around for a traditional Christmas dinner.

Does she know it's going to be a hundred degrees in the shade?

Alice answers with a smile and a shrug.
You know my mother
, the gesture says.

25 December 1946

Günter and Francesca arrive in the afternoon, bringing with them a basket of delicate, sweet, iced Italian biscuits. Francesca spent most of yesterday making them, Günter announces proudly.

You shouldn't have
. Her mother's concern is genuine. Günter hasn't found work yet, and the little money they made from the sale of Günter's farm in Germany is nearly gone.

Happy Christmas
, Günter answers, and everyone takes a biscuit.

Alice nibbles at hers. It is too sweet and she already feels sluggish and bloated from the Christmas lunch their mother made them all eat. Turkey and ham and even pudding and custard. Her feet have swollen and the marzipan sweetness of the biscuit stirs nausea inside her.

Outside, in the backyard, it is little better. The air is hot and listless and seems to sit in the yard. On days like this the sea breeze is usually late and weak and Alice collapses into her easy chair. She wonders what it is like where Erich is at the moment. On the radio news the other night they said that parts of Europe are experiencing record snowfalls, and that with all the post-war homelessness people were dying every day. She tries to imagine what it must be like, the cold whiteness of it, but in the heat of an Australian summer afternoon it seems an impossible dream.

The back door opens and Anne comes out, Elizabeth and Harry in tow.

Happy Christmas.

Thanks. You too.

She has brought a present. A little wooden cot, freshly painted.

It was originally Harry's, and Lizzie is too big for it now
. Alice doesn't know what to say. She hasn't got anything in return.

Don't worry about it.
Anne smiles and gives her arm a squeeze.
How're the puffy feet?

Terrible
. Alice manages a grimace.

Anne has to leave. She is taking the kids to her parent's place for Christmas tea. They decide that if tomorrow is as hot they'll catch a tram into the city and go for a swim in the river, out at the Nedlands baths.

Günter and her father come out into the yard to share a cigarette. Her mother won't allow them to smoke in the house. In the hot still evening the scent of the tobacco drifts languidly as the two men watch the sunset, standing side by side in silent companionship. They have been doing this a lot lately, Günter and her father. Building a strange sort of friendship. Alice suspects that part of the attraction is the fact that Günter doesn't speak much English. Her father likes silence.

Night brings little relief from the oppressive heat. The air is still warm, scented with the smells of summer – dust and smoke and sweat. Insects hum around the porch light, and Alice's dress clings to her.

At half past nine she goes inside, bids everyone goodnight, writes a Christmas message to Erich in her journal and goes to bed.

With the light out, there is at least the impression of coolness.

In her sleep, Alice dreams that the camp is burning. Around the perimeter fence the trees are exploding in eucalyptus-fuelled frenzy and ash thickens the air. She is in the hospital and the door is locked. Heat radiates onto her from the walls and roof. Erich is outside. She knows it, she can feel him there, but the door handle is too hot to touch and she can't open it. He calls to her,
Alice
, and his voice seems much more distant than it should be. Outside the fire is roaring now, and finally, ignoring the searing pain in her hand, Alice grabs the handle and flings the door open.

Filling the doorway are roaring flames. A curtain of fire. Alice gasps and steps back. Erich is out there, but the heat rips into her. Through her.

Alice
. . . The curtain flickers briefly and she can see him there. Standing, calling to her. Hands outstretched. Burning.

Again she tries to escape, running at the door, but as soon as she draws close the flames rise up again and he vanishes behind them.

Finally she closes her eyes, breathes in and throws herself into the red-orange maw of the door. The flames lick across her skin and the burning starts inside her womb . . .

Alice wakes up crying, gasping. Inside her the baby is kicking, hard.

1 January 1947

This time last year the two of them had sat together on the steps out in front of the hospital and talked about the future. Erich had spoken of his plans to return to Australia. To her. Now Alice sits alone on the back steps of her home in Perth trying to read. Her grandfather has given her
Wuthering Heights
for Christmas, but the story of Heathcliffe and Catherine somehow doesn't ring true for her at the moment.

There hasn't been a letter for weeks now.
No news is good news
, she tells herself. The old cliché. Somehow it gives little comfort.

In just over three months her baby will be born. A little version of herself and Erich. She wonders if that will make her feel closer to him.

Last night, at midnight, she sat out the front on her own. Her parents had gone to bed hours earlier. It was another hot night, still seventy or eighty degrees even that late in the evening, and somewhere nearby a group of people were singing.

Auld Lang Syne.

Should old acquaintance be forgot? Alice asks herself.

It's hard to remember what he looks like now, even when she closes her eyes and struggles to recall his face. Occasionally she'll get a glimpse of him, veiled by the passage of time and memory, but usually nothing. She is left with odd impressions, the memory of a touch, or a smell. She can remember the sound of his breathing on that last afternoon and the gentleness in his voice when she woke up.

But not his face.

She remembers that he had blonde hair. Blue eyes. A square, clefted chin. But not his smile. She has the pieces there, but as the summer draws on and the days elongate, it is harder and harder to put them all together.

In a little over three months her baby will be born and she can't remember what its father looked like.

14 January 1947

They walk to the shops early in the day, before the heat really sets in. Francesca pushes Claire in an old stroller that Günter found somewhere, and the two of them walk slowly. As they stroll, Alice points out things to the other woman, teaching her the words in English.

Gate. Gumtree. Dog.

Frannie repeats them back, struggling to get her tongue around the unfamiliar phonetics.

Fence. Garden. Wheelbarrow.

Already the butcher's is crowded and the conversation lulls momentarily when they enter, as it does every time. The pregnant girl and the German woman. While they wait to be served, though, the other women return to their gossiping, pointedly ignoring them.

Mr Johnstone, the butcher, winks at them.
What'll it be, girls?
Francesca points at the clustered sausages hanging from a hook behind the counter.
How many pounds, love?
Puzzled, she looks desperately to Alice.
Ein . . . this is . . .

Just one, thanks, Mr Johnstone.

No worries.

In the grocer's, there is a new boy behind the till. A teenager. Pimples dot his cheeks and his fingernails have dirt clinging to them.

Yes?

I would like please . . . are you having . . .
Again Francesca loses the words, and this time lapses into German or Italian, just a few words, too quick for Alice to make out. She tries to mime what she is looking for, a round fruit of some kind, either an apple or an orange, Alice thinks, but before she can ask, the boy snorts,
Bloody hell! A kraut. Who let you into the country, eh?

Frannie looks confused. She doesn't understand the words. The meaning is clear though. She tries again in English.
I am sorry, I would like to buy . . .

But the boy interrupts again.
Whatever it is you want I haven't got time to stand here listening to you babble on all day.

Now it is Alice's turn to jump in.
Then why don't you just be quiet for a moment and let her explain?

'Cause she's got no right bein' in this country in the first place. She's the reason me old man got shot in the leg. Now piss off, both of you.

Francesca is getting upset now and says something in Italian, louder than before. A woman in the line behind them taps Alice on the shoulder, not gently.
Would you mind getting this woman out of our way? Some of us have things to do, you know.

When we've done our shopping
, Alice replies.

Really! If she can't be bothered learning English . . .

Mr Chesterfield comes over. He's owned the shop for years.
Is there a problem, Michael?

This kraut here won't speak English, sir. Haven't got a bloody clue what she's after.

Nobody speaks while the older man looks the boy straight in the eye.
Michael
, he says finally,
I'd hate to have to give you your notice on your first day
. Michael is sent to sweep the floors while Mr Chesterfield serves Alice and Francesca himself.
I'm sorry about that, Alice.

It's fine.

But it isn't fine and on the walk home both women are quiet. There are no more English lessons that morning.