The Major's Daughter (29 page)

“What compounded the difficulty of escaping,” Harry said to Estelle, “was that I happened to be good at this sort of thing. This banking . . . not everyone is. And when you are good at it, they throw enough money at you to make you forget your former ideals. In an odd way, if I had been a disaster at this position I might be a dinosaur hunter today. So a success is always a failing on its flip side.”

“I never thought of it like that,” Estelle replied, seeing this Harry Palconowski in a more charitable light.

“But of course here I am interrupting your honeymoon. Your
lune de miel
,” Harry said, his gaze resting on Estelle's. “I hope you'll forgive me. I tried to tell George we could meet another time, but he insisted that you wouldn't mind. He said that was the remarkable thing about you.”

“I don't know how remarkable that is. I hardly had a choice in the matter. Did I, George? But you know, that's the second time someone has referred to my
lune de miel
.”

“It's meant more broadly by the French than we understand it in the United States. We use it to talk about the brief vacation after a wedding, but to the French it connotes the entire month . . . that the first month of marriage is a month of honey. One moon-full, as it were.”

Estelle gave the man credit and took a third look at him. He was not entirely pleasant to look at, but she could see why he was successful in business. He had a sharp, magpie mind that picked up glittering pieces of glass and held them up to see if they contained value. At least, she mused, that was the initial impression he gave. She was pleased to be interrupted in her train of thought by the waiter, who took their orders in an efficient manner without writing them down.

Then for a short while the men discussed business. She realized almost immediately that she could follow the issues, though she found them tiresome. She wondered why anyone would devote his life to such a practice. It was illuminating, however, to watch George in action against a worthy adversary. Mr. Palconowski would not be intimidated by George's usual brusqueness. George himself, in deference to Mr. Palconowski's lofty position as vice president of the Midwest—whatever that meant precisely—did not drive as she was used to seeing him drive. This was her husband, she reflected, and here was the start of their future together.

She was still watching when Mr. Kamal walked into the dining room.

Her heart stopped. To have something to do, she reached for her coffee, and it was only by looking away and then returning her eyes to Mr. Kamal's retreating figure that she realized she had been mistaken. It was not Mr. Kamal after all, only another Indian man, probably a Sikh from his appearance, and she had supplied the necessary details to bring him to life as Mr. Kamal. Her hand shook as she brought the coffee cup to her lips.

“You look as though you've seen a ghost,” Mr. Palconowski suddenly said in a momentary pause from his fencing with George. “Are you feeling all right?”

“I'm fine,” she managed to say, “I choked a little on something.”

“Crust of bread always works for me,” Mr. Palconowski said. “All things advance before a crust of bread.”

She did as he suggested. The men returned to discussing business, though Mr. Palconowski—Harry, she told herself—promised it would take only a moment longer
. Dull stuff,
he'd said. She ate two bites of the crusty French bread on the table and only when she was certain she could contain herself did she turn and pretend to take in the dining room. There was the Mr. Kamal look-alike, sitting with a woman Estelle imagined to be his wife, two small children wedged between them. She felt her heart regain its rhythm and her breathing came back under control. She tried her best to keep her attention fixed on the two men at her table, but her mind roamed back to the flower shop and to the scent of spiced tea and lilies, the charming fountain table bathed by early sunlight.

 • • • 

“I am going to kiss you,” August said, and he did.

As simple as that,
Collie thought. At the same time she kept a hand up against his chest, his heavy coat making a flapping sound in the wind, and she tried ineffectually to prevent him from claiming too much by the kiss. His cheek scratched hers; his lips tasted of coffee and powdered milk and something else she could not identify.

“August, stop,” she whispered after a moment. “Please. That's too much.”

“I've dreamed about kissing you,” he said, his voice tight, his arms pulling her into him.

“Yes, yes,” she said. “Yes, I know. I have feelings, too. . . . But this isn't the time or place. . . .”

He released her slowly. A part of her wished he would never unclasp his hands. He finally took a step back and kissed her hand. A mitten covered it, but he kissed it anyway. He kept his eyes averted.

“Forgive me,” he said.

“There's nothing to forgive.”

She smiled. He was devastatingly handsome, she saw once again, but now it was a more mature beauty. His kiss continued to vibrate through her body. She could hardly believe what it felt like to be kissed by him. She reached out and put a hand on the horse nearest to where they stood in order to steady herself. The horse took a half step sideways and nickered a little in its throat. She had come out to the horses on her lunch break, to her usual spot, and here was August harnessing one of the animals. He had not delayed or equivocated; he had stepped toward her as soon as he had seen her and kissed her. It was the first she had seen him since their last moment together as he departed.

“You surprised me,” she said, still trying to regain her balance. “I didn't expect to see you here.”

“I'm sorry. I have thought of you over and over . . . and then suddenly you were here as if I had conjured you. And I thought perhaps you wanted to kiss me, too.”

“Yes, I did. . . . I mean, yes, I'm not angry. It's just . . . ,” she said, having difficulty forming her words.

“There is a great gulf between us, I understand,” he said. “A world apart. Our countries are at war.”

“Something . . . yes, I suppose. But we are suited in other ways, I think. I don't know what I'm saying. You confuse me. Our situation . . . but I am glad you kissed me. Very glad.”

“Yes, I understand.”

He smiled. She reached out a hand and squeezed his. She wanted to reassure him. He had lost weight, she realized, during his time in Vermont. He did not look entirely healthy. Rations, she knew, had been difficult to procure, yet the logging work continued. Her father felt himself in a bind; it was always a bind, and he spent hours on the telephone haggling with supply officers for more food. She could see the effect the limited rations had on August. His skin had become somewhat sallow and his hair, always luxuriant, had taken a dull sheen. His teeth appeared slightly too prominent.

He met her eyes, then stepped back and finished harnessing the horse. After the night of bitter cold, it felt glorious in the sunlight. The horses stood in the makeshift pole barn, their bodies warm and comfortable, only their shadows cooling the air when one passed through them. August ducked under the large Percheron to buckle a belly cinch. He straightened the halter straps along the horse's cheeks, then spent a moment making sure the horse's right ear was not pinched. Collie watched everything he did.

“How was your trip?” August asked when he had the horse ready.

His voice had changed a little, reverting to a more formal tone.

“It was a lovely wedding.”

“I'm glad. That was your friend Estelle, wasn't it?”

She nodded.

“That's a good thing to think about,” he said. “You traveling and happy. I search for happy things to occupy me. I have a storehouse of memories that I pick up like stones and examine them.”

“And how have you been?” she asked, conscious of the absurdity of such a question to a prisoner of war. “You've been gone a long time it feels like.”

He shrugged and put his hand on the horse's forehead to pet it.

“A letter from home arrived,” he said, “but it was out of date.”

“From whom?”

“My mother. She wrote with news, but the letter is too old to say much. It was good to see her handwriting, though. She reports that it is bad in Germany and Austria. The Russians are advancing from the east. The Russians are animals, you know. They will kill everything in their path. They will not leave a stone on a stone.”

He said all of this in careful English, his words pieced together slowly.

“Do you fear them?” she asked.

He nodded and continued.

“If they reach the Rhine, then all is lost.”

“I can't say I'm sorry. I am sorry for you but not for your country.”

“I understand. Do you see why it is difficult for you and me? We are dreamers. The world doesn't cooperate. Is that the word?
Cooperate?
”

“Yes, I take your meaning.”

“The Allies will try to attack the Ruhr Valley. That is our manufacturing center. The Rhine is the last line of defense. Hitler is calling on the young and old to defend the Fatherland. Boys are now fighting. Young boys without whiskers. The old men have left their firesides, and they are fighting for their lives.”

“I'm sorry.”

He bent back and rubbed the horse's neck. He appeared exhausted and haggard now that he was fully in the sun. She wondered if her father saw the prisoners' conditions clearly. It was easy to overlook such things in their gradualness.

“We brought it on ourselves,” August said simply, petting the horse's neck. “You cannot forget that. We would like to forget that fact, but we can't. The Russians have a tank . . . it's known by a letter and a number . . . a T something . . . and it cannot be stopped. It can shoot our tanks from a mile away and decimate us. That's what we hear. We send out old men to fight with grenades strapped to sticks. We cannot hold out.”

Collie studied him. How had she never quite understood this before? One country's victory meant the obliteration of another. A country was an abstraction; war meant the death and annihilation of hundreds of thousands of human beings. It meant the eradication of entire families, of sons and daughters and loved ones, irrevocable loss that could not adequately be represented by a newspaper account or a radio report. The war was progressing; even in the Pacific the Allied forces had gained ground. Reports of troops advancing on Berlin came every day now. The German and Austrian people would suffer. That was the price they paid, but that did not make it any more conscionable.

“Maybe if hostilities cease,” August said, his eyes on hers again, “we can sit and talk like any young man and woman. That is my hope. They will send us home eventually, but what will we find? It will all be gone. We are fighting for a dream of what we were.”

“I'm sorry.”

“May I kiss you again?”

She nodded.

He kissed her. This time the kiss expressed longing and sadness. He did not put his arms around her as he had done before. He kept his hand on the horse's halter. His lips lingered lightly on hers. The kiss still vibrated through her body.

“Does this horse have a name?” she asked when he lifted his lips from hers.

“He is known as Crackerjack. What is Crackerjack? The guards could not explain it to me.”

“A caramel popcorn. Sometimes with peanuts.”

She thought of the phrase in German. She pronounced it to the best of her ability.

“Yes, I see. We have such a thing. It's a funny name for a horse. Now I must go. They will want the horse for the dragging. Crackerjack. We are bringing out logs nearby today. So many trees!”

She could not help herself. She stood on her toes and kissed him. She was uncertain what she meant the kiss to convey, but she could not imagine letting him walk away without once more feeling his lips on hers. He put his hand against her cheek when she drew back. His hand, she noted, had been roughened by the labor of the last half year. He was no longer the lithe young boy who must have sat at a piano and practiced scales in his Austrian homeland.

“You are the only good thing to come out of the war,” he said. “My only hope.”

“And you are mine.”

“And my friend Crackerjack,” he said, petting the horse a last time and starting away. But she called him back. He walked Crackerjack in a circle and came to a stop in front of her.

“I nearly forgot,” she said, and she dug in her purse and produced the clover necklace she had weaved. She handed it to him.

“I ran out of flowers on mine. But this is to make you think of me each day,” she said. “It's a forget-me-not.”

“I don't need it, but I will treasure it. You are in my thoughts always, Collie,” he said, his eyes directly on hers. “I wake to you and I go to sleep to you. It may be unfair to say that I love you, but I do. I don't know if the world will let us be together, but it can't change my feelings for you.”

Crackerjack made a push to get his mouth on the flowers, and August pushed him away just in time. He laughed and petted the horse, then tucked the flowers in the breast of his jacket. He made a clicking sound with his tongue and led the horse in a second loop to get him moving. Sunlight caught the buckles of the harness and reflected back like bright sparks. Collie held her hand up to her eyes to shade them, her back cold from the shade of the pole barn.