A Place of Hiding

  “You don't like him, do you?” Deborah asked.

  “It's not a matter of liking or disliking. It's a matter of looking at the facts, seeing them for what they are, and spelling them out.”

  Deborah saw the truth in this. She understood that Simon's dispassionate assessment of Cherokee River came from two sources: his background in a science that was drawn upon regularly during criminal investigations and the brief time in which he'd known China's brother. Simon, in short, had nothing whatsoever invested in Cherokee's innocence or his guilt. But that was not the case for her. She said, “No, I can't believe he's done this. I just can't believe it.”

  Simon nodded. Deborah thought his face looked unaccountably bleak, but she told herself it could have been the light. He said, “Yes. That's what I'm worried about,” and he preceded her farther into the inn.

  You know what this means, don't you, Frank? You do know what this means.

  Frank couldn't recall if Guy Brouard had said those exact words or if they'd merely appeared on his face. He knew, in either case, that they had definitely existed in some manner between them. They were as real as the name G. H. Ouseley and the address Moulin des Niaux that an arrogant Aryan hand had written on the top of the receipt for food: sausages, flour, eggs, potatoes, and beans. And tobacco so that the Judas among them would no longer have to smoke whatever leaves could be culled from roadside bushes, dried, and rolled within flimsy tissue.

  Without asking, Frank knew the price that had been paid for these goods. He knew because three of those foolhardy men who'd typed up G.I.F.T. in the dim and dangerous candlelight of the vestry of St. Pierre du Bois had gone to labour camps for their efforts while a fourth had been merely shipped to a gaol in France. The three had died in or because of those labour camps. The fourth had served only a year. When he had spoken of that year at all, he'd spoken of that time in French gaol as cruel, as disease-ridden and grossly inhuman, but that, Frank realised, was how he needed that time to be seen. He probably even remembered it that way because remembering it as a logical and necessary removal from Guernsey for his own protection once his colleagues stood betrayed . . . remembering it as a way to safeguard himself as a spy owing much to the Nazis upon his return . . . remembering it as recompense for an act committed because he was hungry, for the love of God, and not because he particularly believed in anything at all . . . How could a man face having brought about the deaths of his associates in order to fill his belly with decent food?

  Over time the lie that Graham Ouseley had been one of those betrayed by a quisling had become his reality. He could not afford it to be otherwise, and the fact that he himself was the quisling—with the deaths of three good men on his conscience—would no doubt spin his troubled mind into utter confusion were it laid in front of him. Yet laying it in front of him was exactly what would happen once the press started leafing through the documents they would ask for in support of his naming of names.

  Frank could only imagine what life would be like when the story first broke. The press would play it out over days, and the island's television and radio stations would pick up the tale forthwith. To the howls of protests from the descendants of the collaborators—as well as those collaborators who, like Graham, were still alive—the press would then supply the relevant proof. The story wouldn't run without that proof being offered in advance, so among those quislings named by the paper, Graham Ouseley's name would appear. And what a delicious irony for the various media to dwell upon: that the man determined to name the scoundrels who'd caused detentions, deportations, and deaths was himself a villain of the highest order, a leper needing to be driven from their midst.

  Guy had asked Frank what he intended to do with this knowledge of his father's perfidy, and Frank had not known. As Graham Ouseley could not face the truth of his actions during the Occupation, Frank had found he could not face the responsibility for setting the record straight. Instead, he'd cursed the evening he'd first met Guy Brouard at the lecture in town, and he bitterly regretted the moment when he'd seen in the other man an interest in the war that matched his own. Had he not seen that and acted impulsively upon it, everything would be different. That receipt, long kept among others by the Nazis to identify those who aided and abetted, would have remained buried among the vast accumulation of documents that were part of a collection amassed but not thoughtfully sorted, labeled, or identified in any way.

  Guy Brouard's advent into their lives had changed all that. Guy's enthusiastic suggestion that a proper storage facility be arranged for the collection—coupled with his love for the island that had become his home—had mated to produce a monster. That monster was knowledge, and that knowledge demanded recognition and action. This was the quagmire across which Frank had been fruitlessly attempting to find a way.

  Time was short. With Guy's death, Frank had thought they'd bought silence. But this day had shown him otherwise. Graham was determined to set off on the course of his own destruction. Although he'd managed to hide himself away for more than fifty years, his refuge was gone, and there was no sanctuary now from what would befall him.

  Frank's legs felt as if he were dragging irons as he approached the chest of drawers in his bedroom. He picked up the list from where he'd placed it and as he descended the stairs he carried it in front of him like a sacrificial offering.

  In the sitting room, the television was showing two doctors in scrubs, hovering over a patient in an operating theatre. Frank switched this off and turned to his father. He was still asleep, with his jaw agape, a dribble of saliva pooling in the cavity of his lower lip.

  Frank bent to him and put his hand on Graham's shoulder. He said, “Dad, wake up. We've got to talk,” and he gave him a gentle shake.

  Graham's eyes opened behind the thick glass of his spectacles. He blinked in confusion, then said, “Must've dropped off, Frankie. Wha's the time?”

  “Late,” Frank said. “Time to go to sleep properly.”

  Graham said, “Oh. Righ', lad,” and he made a move to rise.

  Frank said, “Not yet, though. Look at this first, Dad,” and he held the food receipt out before him, level with his father's failing vision.

  Graham knitted his brows as his gaze swept over the piece of paper. He said, “Wha's this, then?”

  “You tell me. It's got your name on it. See? Right here. There's a date as well. Eighteenth of August, nineteen forty-three. It's mostly written in German. What d'you make of it, Dad?”

  His father shook his head. “Nothing. Don't know a thing about it.” His assertion seemed genuine, as it no doubt was to him.

  “D'you know what it says? The German, I mean. Can you translate it?”

  “Don't speak Kraut, do I? Never did. Never will.” Graham rustled round in his chair, moved forward, and put his hands on its arms.

  “Not yet, Dad,” Frank said to stop him. “Let me read this to you.”

  “Time for bed, you said.” Graham's voice sounded wary.

  “Time for this first. It says six sausages. One dozen eggs. Two kilos flour. Six kilos potatoes. One kilo beans. And tobacco, Dad. Real tobacco. Two hundred grams of it. This is what the Germans gave to you.”

  “The Krauts?” Graham said. “Rubbish. Where'd you get . . . Lemme see.” He made a weak grab for it.

  Frank moved it out of his reach and said, “Here's what happened, Dad. You were sick of it, I think. The scrabbling just to stay alive. Thin rations. Then no rations at all. Brambles for tea. Potato peels for cake. You were hungry and tired and sick to death of eating roots and weeds. So you gave them names—”

  “I never—”

  “You gave them the ones they wanted because what you wanted was a decent smoke. And meat. God, how you wanted meat. And you knew the way to get it. That's what happened. Three lives in exchange for six sausages. A fair bargain when you've been reduced to eating the household cat.”

  “Tha's not true!” Graham protested. “You gone mad, or what?”

  “This is your name,
isn't it? This is the signature of the Feldkommandant on the bottom of the page. Heine. Right there. Look at it, Dad. You were approved from on high for special treatment. Slipped a little sustenance now and then to see you through the war. If I have a look through the rest of the documents, how many more of these am I going to find?”

  “I don' know what you're talking about.”

  “No. You don't. You've made yourself forget. What else could you do when the lot of them died? You didn't expect that, did you? You thought they'd just do time and come home. I'll give you that much.”

  “You've gone mad, boy. Let me out of this chair. Back away with you. Back away, I say, or I'll know the reason why.”

  That paternal threat he'd heard as a child, so infrequently as to be nearly forgotten, worked on Frank now. He took a step back. He watched his father struggle out of the chair.

  “I'm going to bed, I am,” Graham said to his son. “'Nough of this twaddle. Things to do tomorrow and I mean to be rested 'n order to do 'em. And mind you, Frank”—with a trembling finger pointed at Frank's chest—“don't you plan to stand in my way. You hear me? There's tales to be told and I mean to tell 'em.”

  “Aren't you listening to me?” Frank asked in anguish. “You were one of them. You turned in your mates. You went to the Nazis. You struck a deal. And you've spent the last sixty years denying it.”

  “I never . . . !” Graham took a step towards him, his hands balled into determined fists. “People died, you bastard. Good men—better than you could ever be—went to their deaths 'cause they wouldn't submit. Oh, they were told to, weren't they? Cooperate, keep the upper lip stiff, soldier through it somehow. King's deserted you but he cares, he does, and someday when this's all over, you'll get to see him doff his hat your way. Meantime, act like you're doing what Jerry says to do.”

  “Is that what you told yourself? You were just acting like a bloke who's cooperating? Turning in your friends, watching their arrests, going through the charade of your own deportation when you knew all along it was just a sham? Where did they actually send you, Dad? Where did they hide you for your ‘prison term'? Didn't anyone notice when you got back that you looked just a little too well for a gent who's spent a year in gaol during wartime?”

  “I had TB! I had to take the cure.”

  “Who diagnosed it? Not a Guernsey doctor, I expect. And if we ask for tests now—the sort of tests that show you once had TB—how will they turn out? Positive? I doubt it.”

  “That's rubbish, that is,” Graham shrieked. “It's rubbish, rubbish, rubbish. You give me that paper. You hear me, Frank? You hand it over.”

  “I'll not,” Frank said. “And you'll not speak to the press. Because if you do . . . Dad, if you do . . .” He finally felt the full horror of it all descend upon him: the life that was a lie and the part that he'd inadvertently but nonetheless enthusiastically played in creating it. He'd worshipped at the shrine of his father's bravery for all of his fifty-three years, only to learn that his religion of one knelt before even less than a golden calf. The grief of this piece of unwanted wisdom was unbearable. The rage that went with it was enough to engulf and fracture his mind. He said brokenly, “I was a little boy. I believed . . .” and his voice cracked on the declaration.

  Graham hitched up his trousers. “Wha's this, then? Tears? Tha's all you got inside you? We had plenty to cry about, we did, back then. Five long years of hell on earth, Frankie. Five years, boy. Did you hear us crying? Did you see us wringing our hands and wondering what to do? Did you watch us waiting like patient saints for someone to drive the Jerrys from this island? It wasn't like that. We resisted, we did. We painted the V. We hid our radio receivers in the muck. We clipped telephone lines and took down our street signs and hid slave labourers when they escaped. We took in British soldiers when they landed as spies and we could've been shot at a moment's notice for doing it. But cry like babies? Did we ever cry? Did we snivel and pule? No such thing. We took it like men. 'Cause that's what we were.” He headed for the stairs.

  Frank watched him in wonder. He saw that Graham's version of history was so firmly rooted in his mind that there was going to be no simple way to extirpate it. The proof Frank held in his hands did not exist for his father. Indeed, he could not afford to let it exist. Admitting he had betrayed good men would be tantamount to admitting he was a homicide. And he would not do that. He would never do that. Why, Frank thought, had he ever believed Graham would?

  On the stairs, his father grasped on to the handrail. Frank very nearly moved forward to assist Graham as he always did, but he found that he couldn't bring himself to touch the old man in his usual manner. He would have had to place his right hand on Graham's arm and to wind his left arm round Graham's waist, and he couldn't bear the thought of that contact. So he stood immobile and watched the old man struggle with seven of the steps.

  “They're coming,” Graham said, more to himself than to his son this time. “I rang 'em, I did. It's time the truth was told right and proper and I mean to tell it. Names're being named round here. There's going to be punishment meted out.”

  Frank's was the voice of powerless childhood as he said, “But, Dad, you can't—”

  “Don't you tell me what I can and I can't!” his father roared from the stairs. “Don't you bloody dare ever tell your dad what his business is. We suffered, we did. Some of us died. And there's them that're going to pay for it, Frank. That's the end of it. You hear me? That is the end.”

  He turned. He gripped the rail more firmly. He wobbled as he lifted his foot to climb another step. He began to cough.

  Frank moved then, because the answer was simple, at the heart of things. His father spoke the only truth he knew. But the truth they shared—father and son—was the truth that said someone had to pay.

  He reached the stairs and sprinted up them. He stopped when Graham was within his reach. He said, “Dad. Oh, Dad,” as he grasped his father by the turn-ups of his trousers. He jerked on them once, swiftly and hard. He stepped out of the way as Graham crashed forward.

  The crack of his head against the top step was loud. Graham gave a startled cry as he fell. But after that he was completely soundless as his body slid quickly down the stairs.

  Chapter 21

  ST. JAMES AND DEBORAH had their breakfast the next morning by a window that overlooked the small hotel garden, where undisciplined knots of pansies formed a colourful border round a patch of lawn. They were in the midst of laying out their plans for the day when China joined them, the black she wore from head to toe heightening her spectral appearance.

  She gave them a quick smile that telegraphed her apology for descending on them so early. She said, “I need to do something. I can't just sit around. I had to before, but I don't have to now, and my nerves are shot. There's got to be something . . .” She seemed to notice the tumbling quality of what she was saying because she stopped herself and then said wryly, “Sorry. I'm operating on something like fifty cups of coffee. I've been awake since three.”

  “Have some orange juice,” St. James offered. “Have you had breakfast?”

  “Can't eat,” she answered. “But thanks. I didn't say that yesterday. I meant to. Without you two here . . . Just thanks.” She sat on a chair at an adjoining table, scooting it over to join St. James and his wife. She looked round at the other occupants of the dining room: men in business suits with mobile phones next to their cutlery, briefcases on the floor by their chairs, and newspapers unfolded. The atmosphere was as hushed as a gentleman's club in London. She said in a low voice, “Like a library in here.”

  St. James said, “Bankers. A lot on their minds.”

  Deborah said, “Stuffy.” She offered China an affectionate smile.

  China took the juice that St. James poured for her. “My mind won't stop the stream of if-onlys. I didn't want to come to Europe and if only I'd stayed firm . . . If only I'd refused to talk about it again . . . If only I'd had enough work going on to keep me at home . . . He might not ha
ve come either. None of this would have happened.”

  “It doesn't do any good, thinking that,” Deborah said. “Things happen because they happen. That's all. Our job isn't to un-happen them”—she smiled at her neologism—“but just to move forward.”

  China returned her smile. “I think I've heard that before.”

  “You gave good advice.”

  “You didn't like it at the time.”

  “No. I suppose it seemed . . . well, heartless, really. Which is how things always seem when you want your friends to join you in a long-term wallow.”

  China wrinkled her nose. “Don't be so rough on yourself.”

  “You do the same, then.”

  “Okay. A deal.”

  The two women gazed fondly at each other. St. James looked from one to the other and recognised that a feminine communication was going on, one that he couldn't comprehend. It concluded with Deborah saying to China River, “I've missed you,” and China returning with a soft laugh, a cock of her head, and a “Boy, that'll teach you.” At which point, their conversation closed.

  The exchange served as a reminder to St. James that Deborah had more of a life than was expressed by the stretch of years he had known her. Coming into his conscious world when she was seven years old, his wife had always seemed a permanent part of the map of his particular universe. While the fact that she had a universe of her own did not come as a shock to him, he found it disconcerting to be forced to accept that she'd had a wealth of experiences in which he was not a participant. That he could have been a participant was a thought for another morning when far less was at stake.

  He said, “Have you spoken to the advocate yet?”

  China shook her head. “He's not in. He would've stayed at the station as long as they were questioning him, though. Since he didn't call me . . .” She fingered a piece of toast from the rack as if she meant to eat it, but she pushed it away instead. “I figured it went on into the night. That's how it was when they talked to me.”