The Major's Daughter (24 page)

“You don't look well. Stay a moment. Sit by the window.”

“I should go.”

“The tea is ready . . . a short, hasty cup and a cookie. Have you eaten recently? Your face suddenly looks white.”

“I feel rather strange, I admit . . .”

He came around the counter and led her to the chair in the window. It was where they always sat, a circular fountain table nestled among a forest of green hanging plants. The fragrance of the flowers filled her senses. She felt his hand on her elbow as she lowered herself onto the seat. He held up a finger to say he would be a moment, then he disappeared around the counter once more. Before she could think what had happened, he returned with two cups of tea balanced on a tray, and a small plate of gingersnaps between the cups.

“I promise not to detain you longer than you like,” he said, taking his place across from her, “but you appeared faint. Drink a cup of tea and have a cookie or two. They won't hurt you. You'll be the better for it. Then you can go and meet your friend.”

“Collie Brennan. The one with the German beau.”

“Ah, the one who felt a strong attraction to a German soldier? Yes, I remember. Now sip again.”

She tried to imagine George exhibiting such tenderness, but she could not push her mind to it.

“Yes, my friend is coming into town for the wedding,” Estelle said, prattling on, she felt, to avoid greater subjects. “She'll be here inside of an hour. It's madness, I know, to be married in December. Somehow Christmas and the wedding have joined together. But it can be entertaining, I suppose.”

“Anytime a wedding takes place is the correct time.”

“And my friend . . . yes, she still writes about the German soldier. August is his name. She is worried her German soldier will return to see his earlier life and he will disappear.”

“That is a legitimate concern, isn't it? The world is in upheaval. You couldn't blame him for wanting to see his homeland.”

“No, of course not,” Estelle said, sipping the tea again. She felt its warmth spilling into her body. She reached forward and took a gingersnap.

“I forgot to eat today,” she said. “It simply didn't occur to me.”

“That's not healthy. You must eat in the morning.”

“I've been so busy. . . .”

He nodded. She bit into the gingersnap. It tasted wonderfully fresh.

“They're delicious,” she said. “Thank you.”

“You may always take shelter here,” he said, and smiled. “May I ask you a question?”

“Yes, of course.”

“Were my flowers . . . did you find fault with my shop?”

“Your flowers?”

“My services, I should say. You had always used me as your florist, so when your engagement was announced, I naturally thought that perhaps I would be of service.”

She looked up carefully from the last portion of gingersnap. Could he possibly have taken offense at that? At the failing of a business transaction? Wasn't it clear why she couldn't engage him to handle the floral arrangements? She felt confused and more dazed than ever. She took a last sip of the tea—yes, it had revived her—and carefully answered.

“I've always admired your shop, Mr. Kamal. I hope you understand.”

He looked at her carefully. She could not read his expression.

“I should go,” Estelle said. “It will be a race to get to the station on time. She has come a long way.”

“I've offended you,” he said.

“No, not at all. You've been nothing but kind.”

“Yes, I talked of business matters when it was something else that brought you here to my door. Forgive me. It was insensitive.”

“I'm just so busy these days. . . .”

“I understand. You came because we have had many moments together. Isn't that the case? And leaving one friend for another is always painful. I was a fool to talk about business. What are some flowers, more or less?”

“Your flowers are always lovely, Mr. Kamal.”

“You have made the correct choice, Estelle.”

His eyes went to hers. She felt herself tremble. Did he mean her choice of a florist or her choice of George? Then she berated herself for being a ninny. She knew very well what he meant. He was saying good-bye as she had said good-bye. It was not about the flowers at all.

“In another world,” she said, her eyes directly on his.

“But we live in only one world at a time.”

She stood slowly. He stood as well. She smiled a tight smile, then left. The jingle of the doorbell was quickly lost in the traffic sounds.

 • • • 

The house, Collie thought at first glance, resembled a great wedding cake itself. Perhaps it was the snow that covered it in a frosted white—like a rich cream icing—but the house rose up at least three stories tall, blazing and brilliant, as if it could hardly contain its happiness at the approaching wedding. It was six o'clock and already the sky was dark and covered in clouds, but that hardly mattered given the steady lights that pushed rectangular cutouts onto the street from the house.

“The place is a bustle,” Estelle said as the cabdriver pulled under the porte cochere. “It isn't usually such a madhouse, but the wedding has taken over everything from morning until night. Father stays at his office until the last possible moment to escape from it. It's quite comical if you give in to it.”

“It's beautiful,” Collie said, her voice barely able to contain her pleasure at the sight.

“It was built by a railroad baron at the turn of the century,” Estelle said. “It's a solid old place, I'll give it that. Mother says the house has been smiling at the prospect of hosting a wedding, and I half believe she's on to something. Now come along. You must be completely worn-out.”

Collie noted that the front stairs had been built in the time of horse carriages, because the first step was higher than any she had ever encountered. In former times, one might have stepped directly from the carriage onto the first step, but the cab rode significantly lower than even the smallest carriage. The driver came around to help with the bags, and Collie watched as Estelle discreetly paid him, slipping a folded bill into his hand as he set the bags on the steps. It was one of many observations Collie had already made about her friend's naturalness in her native surroundings. For the first time, Collie caught a glimpse of the forces that had formed her friend, and she felt the satisfaction of someone receiving an important clue toward solving a difficult puzzle. This was not Smith College, nor a backwater town in New Hampshire. That much was clear already.

A butler or footman—what was the difference, Collie tried to remember—appeared on the top stairs and promised to take over the bags. His name was Charles, and he looked old and tall, as if some of his branches had been knocked away by time, but the center tree had continued to grow. A silly thought, Collie knew. Estelle, meanwhile, grabbed her by the elbows and whispered that it was time to take her medicine. By that she meant meeting her mother, Collie knew, and she let herself be scooted up the steps. Pine swags hung everywhere; an enormous wreath, the biggest Collie had ever seen outside of Macy's or Gimbels, took an entire wall beside the door. It looked like a great green moon, Collie decided, with a Scotch plaid ribbon at its bottom.

“Oh, you've made it!” Mrs. Emhoff said as they came through the door, her hands carrying a folded tablecloth. “We were about to send out the Mounties to look for you. George has been here a half hour at least. He's in the library with your father. Collie, how nice to see you again. It's been years since you were classmates. Estelle told me how you took such good care of her in New Hampshire. How glad we are that you could join us in these happy days.”

“Thank you for having me,” Collie said.

“Now you really must rescue poor George,” Mrs. Emhoff continued. “He's likely climbing the walls by now. They have a fire going, and I've asked for sandwiches. . . . You don't mind if we are less formal, do you? We've got so much to do and the kitchen staff is flat out. Now run upstairs and get Collie settled in the lavender room. Isn't that what we thought? Then come down and join us. I'll just put this away.”

She smiled, touched Collie's arm in welcome, then sped off, her voice calling to someone deeper in the house. Collie fell in behind Estelle as they climbed the steps to the second floor. The stairway was large and ornate; carved pinecones served as accents along the balustrades. Estelle called over her shoulder that the stairway had been designed by an architect named Ovid Hobbs, a person of some fame when it came to such things. She said she always hated the banisters because as a child she had wanted to slide down them, but the pinecones made that impossible.

They continued down a long hallway, stopping finally near the end. Collie saw immediately why the room had been called lavender. A pale blue paint, with perhaps a touch of mauve, covered the walls. The bedcover matched, as did the small settee placed near a tiny coal stove. An enormous armoire took up one wall at the south end. It was a solid, capable room, Collie decided, composed of castaways from the rest of the house.

“You'll be comfortable here, I hope,” Estelle said, dropping onto the bed. “Please, let's not stand on ceremony. I need you to be my New Hampshire friend, happy and gay. Collie, you are in charge of everything . . . absolutely everything. Whatever you tell me to do, I'll do.”

“Your house is beautiful,” Collie said. “Did we pass by the library?”

“Downstairs, off where we came in,” Estelle said.

“I can't wait to meet George,” Collie said, slipping out of her coat. “I feel as though I already know him.”

“He's looking forward to meeting you, too. He has a terrible head for names and this wedding, all the fuss . . . it's as if his head were a pitcher and it's nearly filled up. Men really don't enjoy these occasions. I've always heard that was the case, but I never
believed
it until I watched my fiancé go through it. Nevertheless the finish line is in sight. The rest of the wedding party is arriving tomorrow. Then it will have all the inevitability of an avalanche.”

Collie caught the last phrase and glanced quickly at Estelle. What was wrong? That deprecatory note, that tone, had been lingering like a ghost in everything she said or wrote concerning the wedding and her marriage to George. Collie had thought that she might have imagined it, but here it was again, rising to light in the first minutes of their visit. She opened her mouth to say something, but then realized it was not the time. Nevertheless, she determined to get to the bottom of it one way or the other. But that would have to wait for later, because Estelle rose to herd her downstairs.

“Into the valley rode the five hundred,” she said, “isn't that how it goes? Was it five hundred? I can't recall. Half a league, half league . . . that's all I remember. Now remember, George is the young one! My father is the older man. Lead away. These are my last nights as a maiden, you see. Lead on. Just down past the pinecones here. . . .”

Chapter Eighteen

“A
letter for you,” Gerhard said, tossing a blue envelope onto August's cot. “I nearly missed it. You should come to mail call, you know? They place these letters into a dead file as undeliverable if they aren't taken.”

August sat up, his heart a quick flame. The letter had been sent in a blue service envelope and readdressed by the Red Cross, so that whatever had been written had probably been circulating in a tide of other letters for months at least. How could it have found him? He had returned from Vermont only the day before, and the letter's arrival seemed miraculous. Nevertheless, the sight of the letter made him recoil. His mind hurried ahead and imagined too quickly what news the letter might bring. To live in ignorance was nearly preferable, he realized, than to read the news of his homeland. Letters could be a mixed blessing, as he well knew from watching others gorge, then choke on the information the missives brought, and this letter, trapped in a pale blue envelope, appeared menacing in its deceiving blandness.

He thanked Gerhard, then slipped the letter under his mattress.

“You're not going to read it?” Gerhard asked, obviously surprised.

“Not now.”

“I don't know how you can resist. How long has it been?”

“Six months.”

“I would tear it open and devour it.”

“I need to pick my time. It's been too long. Thank you, though.”

Gerhard stared at him, then shrugged and walked away. August lay back on his bunk. He closed his eyes, trying to rest, but throughout the barracks his fellow prisoners talked and kidded one another; it was the best hour of the day, the time before dinner when the guards turned their eyes away and left the prisoners to their own devices. Everyone was cold from a day of work outside, and the guards needed to get inside as well. A cutting north wind had blown all day, raising powdered ghosts in whirlwinds down in the hollows, and the entire camp, August knew, had gone inside to thaw. He rested against his pillow, glad to have steady heat from the box stove pushing warmly into the room. That, at least, was one consolation from working in a logging operation: they never lacked for wood to heat themselves.

The letter, however, would not let him rest. It burned like a coal underneath him. He swung his legs off the bed and went closer to the stove, where a group of prisoners had built a crèche from cigar boxes. It was an ingenious work, and it had become a dollhouse for them all; instead of a scene from Bethlehem, the crèche had taken on a decidedly Germanic appearance. August sat on a turned-over apple box and held his hands out to the stove, his eyes resting on the details of the crèche scene. His skin felt raw and thin, as if the winter had stripped it of its insulation. Two other men sat on boxes in the same semicircle around the stove. They were short-timers, recently arrived, and they retained the jowly freshness of German recruits. August sat and absorbed the heat. His feet tingled as they began to flow with blood again. His fingers came back as if from a land far away. A strange, riotous emotion made him feel dizzy. He wished he had never seen the letter; he wished Gerhard had never retrieved it. He sincerely doubted it could bring him good news, and he did not know if he could stand one more loss, let alone the death of his brother, or the ransacking of his home.

“. . . sliding days,” one of the new men—a blond young boy not more than eighteen—said from his position on the apple box. “My father made a sled and we had a course. . . .”

“We did as well. We came down through the mountains, and the course ran through the pines,” the other said—another blond, though this one was darker and thinner, a knife to the other's spoon—and August felt utter contempt for them. The fools didn't comprehend the world they remembered with such fondness was gone. He opened his mouth to say something but then put his head in his hands. He was hungry, he realized, and that made him ill-tempered. Better to work, he understood, no matter how cold. Better to have one's hands and mind busy. Then you would not have letters arriving to drive you mad.

“That world you remember is gone,” he said when they failed to shut up about their youthful sliding days back in Germany. He could not help himself. He raised his head and spoke directly to them. “It has vanished. Are you blind to what has happened to you?”

“We understand we're prisoners,” the knife said, his voice betraying bewilderment. “That's perfectly clear.”

“That world . . . it's been blown apart, you understand?” August said.

“That's dark thinking,” the spoon fellow said. “The world is still there, whatever you say.”

“Is it?” August asked, and wanted to throttle them. “Do you think the Allies won't bomb us into submission? They won't leave a brick on a brick. And what do you think they will give us to eat? Cows do not prosper when a war rages on. Chickens and pigs, they'll be killed and roasted by the enemy. Where will the food come from? Have you thought of any of this?”

The men shared a quick look. August put his head back in his hands. Why was he chiding them? They were boys. Why shouldn't they remember their pasts fondly? Yes, it would all be destroyed, all of it, but it was evil to ask them to stop hoping. For a moment he pictured Collie. He hated to admit how much he counted on her, on the mere fact of her existence. If she existed, he reasoned, then other good things might exist; she gave him hope.

“Sorry,” he said, his voice trembling, and stood. “I'm too wrapped up in my own thoughts just now.”

“Understood,” the spoon said.

August went back to his bunk and drew the letter out from its place under the mattress. He lay down and turned his back to the room. He held the letter in front of him; it was a woman's handwriting. He slit the Red Cross envelope with his fingernail and felt his breath quicken when he recognized his mother's handwriting on the enclosed envelope inside the first. Hot tears came into his eyes. He held the letter against his lips. The address had been written by his mother. Her hand had been here, on this paper, he comprehended. She had sat somewhere, probably at her darning table, and had written him these words. He closed his eyes and pictured her, his breath slowly turning into a silent sob. He rolled his head into his pillow and tried to get control of himself.

Oh please
, he thought.
Oh please, no, no please.

He could not bear it. He could not bear to hear more bad news. How much was a man supposed to endure? Slowly, so as not to injure it in any way, he slid the inner envelope out of the larger one. Yes, she had sent it to his brigade. A series of postage stamps and directions covered the envelope, each one directing the letter to a different location. A Red Cross member in France had written
prisoner
across the back corner. His entire war history had been re-created, tracing him to this tiny outpost in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. It was incomprehensible. He might have received a note from outside the known universe so remote did the world the letter represented feel to him at that moment.

He began to sob again. This time the tears came so fast they overpowered him. He kept his face in his pillow for a long time. Eventually the others began leaving for dinner. He heard Red or one of his workers ring the meal bell. The glad chimes went on a long time and seemed to carry up into the bright cold of the mountains. His stomach growled. He did not want to miss mess call, but he could no more replace the letter in its hiding place than he could sprout wings and fly across the sea.

My dearest August, my son,
the letter began.

He read in gulps; like water once tasted by a dying man, he could not control his intake.
Hard times
.
Little food.
Water pipes broken and the rails blown apart by saboteurs
.
Internal resistance. Dangerous days.
His lambs still lived, but his dog, his little Kettle—the inheritor of Chowder's place in his heart—had died. She had died of a broken heart, his mother said, from missing him. She was better off, when it came to it. Everyone was well. Frederick had been conscripted and had been sent to France. She did not know where; they did not inform families of the details. She had not heard from him in at least three months.

At this, August turned the envelope over and looked for dates. The date his mother had written at the top of the letter said 7 February 1944. The letter was nine, no, ten months old. That meant Frederick had been sent to the front in November or December of the year before. His brother had spent at least a year fighting if he was still alive or not captured.

August went back and read the rest. Given the news it might have brought, it was reasonably positive. Food and water and the pleasant features of their life had been eradicated, but at least no one had died. Not as of February, August noted. His mother closed with a prayer for his safety and with a mention of his father's blessing. She said again she was sorry about their little dog, Kettle. She asked him to promise to come home safely. They had not given up hope that one day they would all be reunited. That, she said, gave her reason to go on. Write, she pleaded. Send word. He could not tell if she had received any of the letters he had written; the time lag was too great, the distance impossible to cross.

He slipped the letter back into its hiding place, then wiped his eyes and hurried to join the others for dinner. He must eat, he knew. Day by day, that was the only way to approach it. He pulled his collar close around his neck as he ran across the boardwalk toward the dining hall. A guard braced him and asked what he was doing coming late to dinner, and August answered he had needed the latrine, an excuse, he knew, no one ever challenged.