Orphans of War (25 page)

Maddy prayed he’d not be shown up when the Beamerley team sussed out his background. They would show him no mercy. She felt mean now betting Plum’s present away.

Gloria did her usual harum-scarum dash and got run out. Beryl was caught. Derek Brigg from the garage got a rounder but they were three behind and in for a thrashing. Then it was Dieter’s turn. He carefully took off his spectacles and put them in his pocket, stood four square and, after the first miss, he whacked everything they threw at him.

Gloria whistled in amazement.

‘Run, you daft bugger!’ the lads screamed from the
sidelines. He tore round at breakneck speed and scored another rounder. Then he missed and was nearly out. The next ball he whacked into the trees.

‘Bloody hell! Where did he learn to hit like that?’ Another rounder, and another. The last one he pitched too high and was caught out–but they had drawn the match.

‘Not bad for a Kraut!’ was the verdict, and Maddy nudged Gloria with relief. Her new lipstick was safe.

‘Here, you,’ yelled Gloria. ‘How come you can play rounders so well?’

‘I play baseball with Americans. It’s the same,
ja
?’ Gloria was looking up at him, flashing her green eyes. He was the enemy no more.

‘Thank you, Miss Madeleine. It is good to stretch legs. I enjoy very much,’ he turned to give her a warm smile and her heart took a funny leap, a fluttery jump when she looked up. A boy who towered over her was a novelty, especially a boy with periwinkle-blue eyes and streaked brown hair. He handed her the bat and bowed again; this boy had nice manners too. There weren’t many of them in Sowerthwaite.

When they went into the church hall for tea and biscuits, she sensed his eyes burning into her back. He was watching her and she felt hot iron tongues snaking up her cardigan. For the first time in her young life she knew she was being stared at not for being an oddity but with admiration, interest and gratitude.

Suddenly the room went fuzzy round the edges and she wished she could walk right up to him and find out more about his life. An inner voice told her not
to be so public, not in front of Gloria and the girls. They wouldn’t understand. They would tease her and take it the wrong way, make fun of them both and she couldn’t bear that to happen.

Somehow she had rescued him, made him a hero and saved the match. That was enough for now, but her gesture had not gone unnoticed and Vera Murray was quick to seize the moment, bringing the boy round to the Brooklyn to meet the Belfields.

That was when Maddy found out he was going to be a student at Thubingen University on a special scholarship. His father was a Lutheran minister, a friend of the martyred pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who had been hanged in Flossenbürg Concentration Camp for preaching against Hitler’s regime.

The Russians were in Dresden now, and it was not easy for Dieter to return to the East to see what remained of his family. Vera was fishing for him to be included in some of the summer activities. ‘We want him to meet lots of young folk while he is here.’

There was already talk of exchange visits between English churches and German youth groups.

Pleasance looked him up and down, knowing there were rules about non-fraternisation, but said nothing. Dieter endured this scrutiny, sitting, observing the drawing room, the furniture, the pictures, putting a brave face on his circumstances.

Somehow they were equals now, thought Maddy, having suffered the same injustices, woundings and sadnesses, both survivors and victims. When she heard his story she felt no animosity or anger, just
sadness that his family, like hers, had been devastated by war.

She met him again in St Peter’s the following Sunday, where he endured yet more sideways glances. Dieter was not film-star handsome but there was something about him that took her eye. She sensed he was serious about his studies and a gentle giant. They were used to prisoners of war in their ugly uniforms, digging roads, hay timing in the fields, marching or lounging on the backs of lorries. They were defeated men but cheerful. Some were crude and common, like any rough soldiers, but Dieter was different, his body taut from farm work, his long limbs tanned in borrowed shorts. She’d never really studied a man’s body before and it made her go all hot.

When he entered a room her heart did a secret dance.

She took extra care to pin up her hair into soft curls, stopped putting it in bunches with ribbons. She scrubbed herself down, splashed on eau-de-Cologne and tried on her new lipstick. Going to church was now an appearance, not a chore. There was the annual harvest homecoming soon and Maddy prayed Dieter would still be around to enjoy the fun.

Gloria was too wrapped up in her new job as mother’s help to Dr Gunn and his raucous family to notice this change of mood. They’d sent a letter to Greg but Maddy made no mention of the new visitor. Greg might think them silly to be entertaining the enemy in the Brooklyn. She couldn’t share the feelings that bubbled inside her like fizzy pop with anyone.

Sometimes she sat in the window box of the study
with a copy of John Donne’s poems. He was her favourite of the moment and so romantic.

Shakespeare, in the Sonnets, and Emily Brontë knew what she was feeling. All that boring school stuff was coming alive.

Any excuse and she found herself calling in at The Vicarage to catch a glimpse of him, and once on the way back from riding Monty they met by chance–or was it?

They both halted, smiling, blushing and trying to act normal; as if nothing stupendous was happening to both of them.

Maddy dismounted and they sat on the stone wall looking over the fields.

‘It is so beautiful here, very peaceful, no smoke, no bomb-bings. You had no war here, I think?’ he sighed.

Maddy shook her head. It was important he didn’t think it was all easy. ‘My family was bombed,’ she attempted to explain in her schoolgirl German. ‘Grandmother and uncle killed. My mother and father drowned in a ship. I have no family. The war brought me here to safety.’

Dieter turned to her. ‘It is terrible. Why did it happen for us?’

She shook her head. What was there to say? ‘It happened, but it mustn’t happen again, Mr Schulte.’

‘You are very kind to me, Madeleine. Please, call me
Dieter.’ She loved the way he pronounced her name. It sounded so exotic.

‘Call me Maddy. You would have done the same for me.’

‘I’m not sure. Things are bad when you lose a war–no hope, no food, no money. People are angry and do not understand why it comes this way for us again.’

‘You got too big for your boots,’ she replied, and he looked at her puzzled for a second and then laughed.

‘Ah, yes, I understand. We wanted everyone else’s boots but they wouldn’t let us have them so we tried to grab them and now they push us away and take our boots and now there are no boots for anyone.’

That wasn’t quite what she’d meant. ‘Let’s not think about that. It’s over. It will get better.’

‘Memories are long, Maddy. It will take many years for our people to be friends again, many years,’ he said, taking off his glasses and polishing the lenses with care. ‘Are you going to the dance tonight? I have nothing to wear for a ball.’

‘Oh, it’s not that sort of dancing,’ she smiled. ‘It’s a barn dance–country dances in circles and groups. You have to walk around and follow the caller,’ she explained.

‘The caller?’ Dieter pushed up his glasses. ‘How do I call?’

‘No, he calls out what to do and you do it to music. I’ll show you how. Take your partners and bow.’ She mimicked doing a gentleman’s bow. ‘Take my hand…’ She marched him up and down the grass but he had two left feet.

‘Ah, follow my leader! I don’t think I am good at that,’ he said.

‘Wait and see. It’s fun, and you can dance with all the girls, one by one.’

‘There is only one girl I am dancing with,’ he whispered.

‘Who’s that?’ She crinkled her face, knowing full well who he meant. Her heart was pounding as they drew closer and then drew back. ‘You must see how the natives play. All the girls will want to dance with you.’

‘Not your friend. She does not like when I talk to you,’ he said.

‘Who? Gloria? Take no notice of her. She can be very pig-headed.’

‘Why pig’s head?’

‘Stupid, no brains…like a pig.’

‘But pigs are very intelligent animals. I like pigs,’ he argued.

‘Dieter, you are too serious. It’s a joke, just a saying…Gloria and I are always calling each other funny names. I’ll see you tomorrow then?’

‘If you think I will be welcome, yes, tomorrow. I shall be looking forward to dancing with you.’ He helped her onto the horse and stood watching her, waving as she trotted down the lane.

Maddy rode upright, flushed with his words and hoping she looked good from the back on a horse. Tomorrow she had a date with Dieter and she didn’t care who was watching.

It was the usual Sowerthwaite harvest hop: bare wooden floors, tables stacked with paste sandwiches, scones and fancy buns. The fiddler, pianist and drummer were at one end of the hall, and the caller, Fred Potts–in his checked shirtsleeves with fag in his mouth–was gathering sets together for the first dance. They had put straw bales for benches and strung paper lanterns across the beams, flowers on the windowsills softening the smoky fug in the church hall.

There were the usual suspects standing outside smoking, eyeing the girls as they went inside: lads in flannels and open shirts. The girls were in ankle socks and best dirndl skirts with faded lines in the creases where the hems had been let down.

The vicar and his wife put in an appearance for form’s sake, and Aunt Plum. Gloria was swanking in a pretty cotton gingham dress made from curtain material, lent to her by Mrs Gunn.

Maddy had agonised what to wear. She’d got so used to wearing slacks, but there was a pleated skirt and fresh blouse that would have to do since she had no coupons for anything frivolous. She put a petticoat under her skirt so that her modesty was intact when they swirled about on the dancefloor. She wanted to look her best.

She’d arrived too early and helped Plum set out the room, watching the door in case Dieter came, but as the dancing began to hot up there was no sign of him and she felt first dismay and then anger at being let down. She sat with Gloria and the girls, feeling fed up, knowing the evening was going to be a flop.

She was trying not to feel bothered. He was only a German student, a stranger. What future was there in that? He had made the decision for them and copped out of this appearance. Perhaps it was for the best. Better to stick to her own kind, the sort of public schoolboys who were sons of Plum’s friends, who came and went each holiday–but none of them had ever made her tremble like Dieter did when he smiled at her.

There was something in his sadness and quiet presence that touched her. He was strong yet gentle. He had picked her out. Why had he said she was the only one he’d dance with if he’d not intended to come? Why had he stayed away? She felt sick with disappointment. Was she too tall? Was her eye turning again?

Gloria was rattling on by her side but she didn’t listen, her eyes glued to the door just in case…

At suppertime, Maddy could stand it no longer and sidled up to Vera Murray as calmly as she could.

‘I thought your student would want to see us English at our playtime,’ she offered.

Vera turned from the tea urn with concern. ‘Oh, I should have said earlier, our student has had bad news in a letter from home. His sister, Mechtilde, is sick and now he wants to go home but his aunt says he must stay in the West. He didn’t feel like dancing or mixing tonight.’

‘I’m sorry. Would it help if I go and visit him?’ Maddy offered, ashamed that relief was her first thought, relief that it was nothing to do with her.

‘Would you? We had to come over tonight but Archie
will keep him company later. His sister has never been strong. She lives near Dresden. Things are not easy there. I think he feels guilty that he was singled out for this visit.’

‘I’ll go at once, Mrs Murray.’ Maddy plonked her supper down and made for the door.

It was Gloria who came after her. ‘Where are you off to now? You’ve not had a dance all night.’

‘Won’t be long, gone to see a man about a dog,’ she blurted, and darted out of the door on her errand of mercy.

She felt nervous but grown up as she walked up to The Vicarage drive on this mission of mercy. It was an old farmhouse with a stone porch and the drive was lined with purple asters and Michaelmas daisies bobbing in the breeze. They had escaped the first frosts of autumn. There was a nip to the night air–which the locals called ‘backendish’–but it was still light enough to go for a walk It had been a rotten summer for weather and the lambing had gone badly but the thought that this summer was coming to an end startled her. Dieter would soon be gone and they hardly knew each other yet.

He was sitting at the piano, fingering notes and looked up with a half-smile when she tapped on the window.

‘Mrs Murray told me you’d had a letter…Would you like some company? We could go for a walk and you can tell me if you like,’ she said. He nodded, grabbed his pullover and made for the door.