The Collaborator (26 page)

‘V
ivienne.’ Ruthie Duquemin smiles warmly at me. ‘How lovely to see you,’ she says. But I can tell she’s anxious, wondering what’s brought me. Her eyes, gentle, full of inquiry, green as hart’s tongue fern, rest on me. She pushes her hand through her mass of pale disorderly hair.

She ushers me into her kitchen, which is cluttered and busy and cheerful, with lots of children’s drawings pinned to the walls—sketches of Hurricanes and Spitfires. It must be very different, having boys: Millie only ever draws cats and beribboned princesses. I think briefly, as I sometimes do, how I’d love to have a son. The room has a scent of laundry soap; dishcloths are boiling on the stove, and a slippery froth is slithering down the side of the pan. Ruthie stirs the pan with a wooden spoon.

‘I haven’t got anything to offer you. Well, only water,’ she says. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘Water will be fine,’ I say.

I sit at her well-scrubbed table. She fills two glasses at the tap. I don’t know how to begin.

‘I’ve come about Simon—well, Millie and Simon, really,’ I say.

‘I thought it might be something like that.’ She smiles a rueful smile. ‘The thing is, with Simon, I never know what he’ll do next. You know, I love my boys to bits. But girls aren’t so much trouble. Sometimes I really envy mothers like you who only have girls …’

‘It’s nothing bad at all,’ I say quickly, wanting to reassure her. ‘It’s just this thing I found out … Then, seeing how anxious she looks, ‘Simon’s such a good friend to Millie. They’re so sweet together …’

‘Simon loves Millie,’ she tells me.

Her voice is tentative, uncertain. Standing there, she’s caught in the sunlight that streams through the window behind her: she’s a dishevelled, harassed angel with a golden halo of hair.

‘Has he told you what they’ve been doing?’ I ask.

‘He never tells me anything.’ She smiles. ‘Just that he’s going to marry Millie …’

‘Did he tell you about the ghost?’ I say.

She goes very still. The smile is wiped from her face.

‘No, he didn’t,’ she says.

‘Millie was talking about a ghost, in Peter Mahy’s barn,’ I say. ‘That they had met a ghost there.’

Ruthie’s eyes widen. I know she understands at once. She sits down abruptly at the table.

‘And you went to look, and he wasn’t a ghost? He was one of those poor, poor men?’ she says.

I nod.

I see all the warring feelings that pass rapidly over her face—curiosity, fear: perhaps a kind of wonder.

‘They’ve been befriending him—giving him food,’ I tell her.

‘Oh, my God. I had no idea … Oh, my God. I did have to tell Simon off, though, because some bread went missing. But I thought he was eating it himself …’ She looks remorseful. ‘I wouldn’t have scolded him if I’d known. That makes me feel so awful—that he was trying to do something good, and all he got was a smack …’

‘I’ve told Millie they mustn’t do it again,’ I say. ‘And I’ve told her to tell Simon that. I’m feeding the man myself now. It isn’t safe for children.’

A shadow moves over her face.

‘Or for you, come to that,’ she says. She reaches across the table, touches my arm with one warm finger. ‘Be careful, Vivienne. I mean, don’t you have Germans next door? Simon told me.’

‘Yes.’

‘Watch your back. For goodness’ sake …’

It enters my mind that her warning is just like the warnings I give to Johnnie. Thinking this, I feel a little creep of cold on my skin.

‘I’ll do my best,’ I say lightly.

‘Well, thanks so much for coming to see me,’ says Ruthie. ‘I’ll speak to him about it. To be honest, I was ever so worried when I saw you here. I thought you’d say you didn’t want them playing any more.’ She moves her hand abstractedly through her bright aureole of hair. ‘Simon would have been heartbroken.’

‘Well—he doesn’t need to be …’

‘I never know what he’ll get up to next,’ she tells me. ‘He used to be friends with little Jenny Le Page. She was always really nicely turned out, and she managed to fall in the soot
pile wearing her Sunday-best frock.’ A slight grin sneaks into her face. ‘He tried to clean up her frock by washing it under the tap … Well, that was that, of course. Her mother wouldn’t let them ever play together again.’

‘I love them playing together,’ I say.

‘You know,’ she says, thoughtfully, ‘I feel a little proud of them, don’t you? For trying to help like that. Their hearts must be in the right place … We’ve tried to teach Simon to be kind. That’s the best you can do really, don’t you think? The world is so full of terrible things. All you can do is be kind … Now, just you be careful, Vivienne.’

H
e is waiting for me: he stands up as he sees me. ‘Vivienne. You came.’ ‘Yes.’ I put my hand on his arm. ‘Of course I did,’ I say. We walk silently through the fields to Le Colombier. There’s an operatic sunset, the backdrop of the sky painted over with scarlet and gilt, but darkness is gathering in the wood, and in the hidden places under the hedge.

He washes his face and hands at my sink, and eats the soup I have made, while Millie and I sit with him.

When he’s almost finished his second serving, he picks up the bowl and puts his head back and tips it into his mouth, so as not to waste a single drop. He puts the bowl down, sighing deeply.

‘Thank you. Thank you, Vivienne.’

I light two cigarettes, give him one. There’s still a little time to talk, before he has to go back.

‘Where do you come from, Kirill? Where is your home?’ I ask him.

‘I come from far away,’ he says. ‘My country is called Belorussia. It has a border with Russia. Perhaps you have heard of it?’

I haven’t, but it wouldn’t be polite to say so. I nod.

‘I lived in a village there. I dream of it always,’ he says.

We sit for a while in silence, the sunset light falling over us. Little sounds brush at the edge of the stillness—a gauzy-winged fly at the window, the insistent tick of the clock.

‘What is your country like? Tell us about it,’ I say.

‘There is a forest with many birch trees.’ He speaks slowly, searching for the words, in that strange, high, hungry voice he has. ‘There are birch trees and little rivers. It is very quiet there. Our houses are all made of wood and storks nest on the roofs of the houses … There is a distant look in his eyes, as though he can see these things as he talks. ‘There my heart is always,’ he says.

‘It sounds a lovely place,’ I say. He nods.

‘But, I can say, this was not a perfect life,’ he tells us. ‘When I was a child, we were often hungry.’ He blows out smoke, remembering. ‘February was a difficult month. Sometimes we only had old potatoes to eat for a week at a time. The first sign of spring was the coming up of the sorrel. My mother would send me and my brother to gather the sorrel for soup. The next sign was the new potatoes, and only then did you start living again …’

He is silent for a moment.

‘Leaving that place was like darkness to me,’ he says. ‘Yes,’ I say.

‘Sometimes the pictures fade for me. But talking to you I can see it so clearly,’ he says.

The thought comes to me that he is talking only about his childhood—rather like Gunther and me, when Gunther first
came to my bed. And perhaps for the very same reason: the past, whatever its rigours, is a safer place than today.

‘Tell us about your mother and brother,’ I say. ‘Tell us about your family.’

‘My family all play music,’ he tells us. ‘I was a violin-maker, in the life that I had. By day I would work on the farm, but at night I would make my violins. My father also did this. He taught me.’

This startles me. I didn’t expect him to have such a rich life, such a skill. Perhaps I’d believed that his rags, his hunger, said something that mattered about him—that his wretchedness could tell me about the person he was. But I was wrong: his wretchedness tells me nothing.

‘When I was a child, the party encouraged all music,’ he says. ‘The music for weddings and festivals, the costumes and the dancing. All those good things that were always part of our life … In these last few years, under Stalin, these things were not encouraged. But I went on making my violins in a little workshop I had, in a room at the back of my house.’

I’m trying to understand. What does he mean by the party? Is Belorussia ruled by Stalin, by Russia? Was it part of the Bolshevik republic before the Germans marched in? I think of so often how little I understand about the world. And I’m curious about this music they played. Wondering whether it has that wildness of much East European folk music—rather like the melancholic Chopin mazurkas I love.

I glance at Millie. She’s listening intently, scarcely blinking: it’s the look she has when I read from her fairytale books.

‘I loved my violins,’ Kirill tells us. Pride briefly fattens his voice. ‘I loved them too much, perhaps. My wife would say that
I was married to them … My wife would complain about it. Other women might say that their husbands drink too much vodka. But my wife would complain that I spent too long at that work …’

‘You’re
married?’
I’m surprised. He seems too young to have a wife.

There’s just a sliver of quiet. His face darkens. ‘Her name was Danya,’ he says.

I hear the past tense: a little current of fear moves through me. I’m scared to ask more about her. Later, perhaps. Not today.

‘I had a friend here on Guernsey who played the violin,’ I say. ‘We used to play duets. He went on the boat to England. I’ve always loved the violin …’

There’s a gleam in his face, when I say that.

‘To make a violin is a beautiful thing,’ he tells us.

‘Yes. It must be.’

‘So much care goes into the making of it. It is such a small thing, so fragile, so easy to break. But it sings out so clearly,’ he says.

I think of Nathan Isaacs and the music we played—Beethoven’s Spring Sonata, the clear high notes, like a human voice, but truer.

‘It must be wonderful—to have such a skill,’ I say.

The shadows are black in the hollows under his eyes.

‘Even if I return to my home, I will never make my violins again. That life is over for me.’

He holds out his injured, shaking hands. I see again that part of his right index finger is missing, see the stump of mutilated flesh. A thrill of loss goes through me. I don’t say anything.

I
make some soup from leeks and peas, and boil a joint of ham. When the soup is thoroughly cooked, I will add some meat from the joint, cutting it wafer-thin so it will be easy to eat.

While the soup is simmering, I take an old globe from the kitchen cupboard. I bought it for Blanche, to try and help her with geography lessons at school; she always hated geography. I peer at the globe, at the tangle of countries with unpronounceable names that all seem to be part of Russia now.

Millie comes up with her ragdoll, dragging the doll by the hair.

‘Mummy, are you looking for Kirill’s country?’ she says. ‘Yes. I’ve found it. Look …’

It’s much bigger than I thought, at least as big as the British Isles. This surprises me. It has no coast, and looks empty, with hardly any cities or towns.

Millie peers at the globe.

‘Where’s St Peter Port?’ she asks me.

I show her.

‘England is here—and Guernsey is here, but it’s far too small to see clearly …’

I put my finger over the place. She frowns.

‘You’re wrong, Mummy. It can’t be. Guernsey is really big,’ she tells me, very definitely.

I remember those moments from childhood—the moments when you begin to get the measure of the world, to have some fleeting sense of its vastness. How that vastness takes your breath away.

‘If you look really close you can see it,’ I tell her. ‘It’s just that tiny pink speck.’

She lets the ragdoll fall to the floor. She touches Guernsey—her finger also covering half of France. She stretches out her hand, encompassing the distance from here to Belorussia in a handspan.

‘Kirill’s country isn’t really very far away,’ she says. ‘It is though, Millie. It’s a very long way. His home must seem as remote now as the moon and stars to him.’ ‘Will he ever get back there?’ ‘I don’t know, sweetheart.’

She cups the globe in her hands, then sends it spinning. The colours bleed together, the whole world a dizzying whirl of colour, a vivid, giddy kaleidoscope of greens and browns and pinks. It moves so fast you feel all the lands of the world might spin right off it—flying up high in the air, then settling again as it slows, all shaken about and landing each in a different place. A wrong place.

The door is flung open: Blanche is home from Mrs Sebire’s. She walks crisply into the house. She pulls off her chiffony headscarf, runs her hand through her toffee-blonde hair.

Mmm.’

She sniffs the air with relish, goes to peer in the pot on the stove.

‘That’s a really nice soup,’ she says. ‘I’m looking forward to that.’

I see how she swallows as her mouth waters. I feel a flicker of guilt.

‘Blanche—I’m sorry, but I’m keeping the soup for someone else,’ I tell her.

‘But I’m really hungry, Mum.’ Her voice is tight with protest.

‘I know you must be. I’m sorry, sweetheart. There’s macaroni for tea.’

‘You
know
I don’t like macaroni … So who is this special someone who gets the nicest soup?’ ‘A visitor,’ I say.

‘And why is this someone else more important than Millie and me?’ she says, aggrieved.

‘It’s not someone more important than you—it’s just someone who needs it more than you … Look—you can have some if there’s any left, when you come back from Celeste’s.’

‘But why all the mystery?’ she says.

‘It’s just someone who’s coming by. You don’t know the person,’ I tell her.

She studies my face for a moment, trying to read me. There’s a small, awkward silence between us. Her blue eyes narrow, harden. I feel my mouth turn to blotting-paper. I wonder
if she thinks this person is my lover: I wonder if she suspects about Gunther and me, and this soup kept for someone special serves to confirm all her suspicions. I’ve always protected her from knowing how unhappy we were, her father and me—from her father’s long love affair, from Monica Charles. I think how she must hate me, if she suspects me. Yet it’s safer for her to think this soup is for my lover, than to know the truth—that I am feeding Kirill.

Then she turns away from me, shrugging slightly. I let myself breathe out. The moment has passed, and I wonder if I misread her.

‘Honestly, Mum, you’re starting to sound like Millie,’ she says. ‘You’re always clamming up, both of you …’

She puts her handbag down on the table: her gaze falls on the globe.

‘And why on earth have you got that thing out? Millie doesn’t need to bother with all that yet,’ she says. There’s an edge of outrage in her voice. ‘Miss Delaney can’t be teaching her geography
already.
She can’t be that
cruel.’

‘We’re looking for a country,’ says Millie, very solemn and important.

‘It’s awful being a child,’ says Blanche. ‘One day you’re having a nice time catching sticklebacks, and the next you’re having to learn all about tornados and things.’

‘It’s a secret,’ says Millie. ‘It’s nothing to do with school.’ She presses her lips tight together.

‘You and your secrets,’ says Blanche.

She turns to me, raising her eyebrows, as though to say,
She’s off again.

Millie puts the globe away in the cupboard. She shuts the cupboard door with a small significant crack, like the sound ice makes splintering.