Chapter Fourteen

Ellenor sat at an outdoor table made from the repurposed lumber of an old ox cart. A glazed ceramic pot occupied the table’s center, roses spilling out of it like fire. Across from her sat a sixty-year-old hay merchant named Rickert and his wife Magnild, the village seamstress and quilt-maker. Alec sat beside her. They drank beer from steins that Magnild stored in the icebox to keep the metal cool.

“…and we left so quickly that we didn’t bother to consider our destination,” Ellenor continued, making it up as she went along. She’d never considered herself much of a storyteller, but she’d gotten practice with Father’s children, who’d grown bored of their books and looked forward to whatever tales Ellenor created from the shadows on their wall. “I can’t tell you how much we appreciate your kindness.”

“You’re in the country,” Rickert said. “We remember our manners in the country. Now, try finding an honest man in the city…”

“Oh, hush,” his wife admonished him. “Fine people inhabit the cities, and you know it.”

“Yes, fine people who would just as soon fleece you for your last coin as give you the time of day. I’ve done my time in town. I prefer sky over smoke.”

“I concur,” Ellenor said, hoping to come across as whatever kind of person that Rickert thought was salt of the earth. “We didn’t have much at our home, but all the same, it’s a shame to leave it all behind.” She realized as she lied to this honest man that she was playing a game. For the first time in her adult life, she was actively deceiving someone, a spy in a foreign land, hoodwinking the locals. The idea was so farfetched that she stuttered a few times while talking of the fake property she and her brother Mika had been forced to flee, with its pretty tiled walk and green shutters.

“And you, Mika?” Rickert asked. “What do you do for work?”

Ellenor put on the longsuffering face she’d been practicing in her mind. “My brother doesn’t speak, at least not to those he’s just met. Please don’t be offended.”

Rickert seemed at a loss, unsure of how to process this, but Magnild swooped in with that kind of grace acquired only by women of a certain age. “No need to worry about that, dear,” she said. “If he’s fond of dumplings and Strauss, he’ll find himself at home here.”

“You have a gramophone?” Ellenor asked.

Rickert grinned like a rogue. “We may be provincial, but we’re not barbarians. We have a lovely Berliner I’d be happy to show you.”

“And we’d be happy to see it!”

The next hour went like that, with Ellenor weaving threads of gentle lies across a loom until she wondered if she’d be smothered by them before she was through. Johann Strauss’ “The Blue Danube” spun on a hand-cranked gramophone. Inevitably the talk went to what everyone called the Great War, though there was nothing great about it but the size of the egos of the men who’d started it. Rickert and Magnild had two daughters in Göttingen, thankfully well removed from the fighting, but the country’s economy was so focused on outputting war materiel that both young women had been forced to take up jobs in a machine shop.

“They spend all day making rivets,” Magnild explained. “It can’t be very rewarding for them.”

“They’re safe and they’re paid for their labor,” Rickert said. “A father cares a lot less for rewarding, believe me.”

Magnild showed them the small studio she used in her work as a seamstress, and it was then that Ellenor discarded the notion of locating a coat. She’d come here intending to acquire an insulated garment to protect her from the temperatures at high altitudes, but now inspiration moved her in a different direction—one that didn’t require her to steal what she needed.

She pointed across the room. “That quilt is incredible.”

Magnild smiled. “Oh, that old thing is nothing special. I’ve done far better work.”

“It looks heavy and warm.”

“I’m afraid the stitching isn’t up to my current standards. I made it years ago. It just sits around and waits for winter, when it can finally serve a purpose.”

“May I see it?”

“Of course, dear!”

In Ellenor’s arms, the quilt lay like a bag of sand, its weight just the kind that one would need to rest comfortably on a frigid night, come November. Ellenor unfolded it carefully, revealing squares of pale yellow and red, connected by interlocking black checks. The squares were made of variegated fabrics: thick flannel, smooth batik, rough homespun.

“The batting is wool,” Magnild said. “It’s not pretty, but it’s warm.”

“Would you consider trading for it?”

“Trading?”

Ellenor folded the bulky blanket and put it aside. Then she reached into the rolled neck of her sweater and revealed the honey bee pendant that Father had given her. She unclasped it. The thought of parting with it made her sad, as it was the one real piece of jewelry that she owned. “It’s made of pewter and feldspar,” she explained. “Those aren’t rare materials, but neither are they commonplace. This should be worth a bit if you choose to sell it.” She held it out.

Alec and Rickert looked on as Magnild accepted the necklace. The metal flashed in her palm. “If you need the quilt, dear, just take it. You shouldn’t give away your last possession.”

“I insist. It’s only fair.”

“You won’t accept a gift?”

“I won’t. You’ve been very gracious. And these days, that’s hard to find. We’re all so worried that the world is ending that we forget who we are. You’ve not forgotten.”

“And neither have you, apparently.”

“Well…that remains to be seen.”

Rickert slowly raised his hand, like a schoolboy waiting his turn. “May I ask a question, lass?”

“Of course.”

“I’m very thankful for the bauble there. I’m sure it will come in handy at the market. But, um…might I ask why you’d be needing a blanket like that in the middle of summer?”

It was a reasonable question, and one that Ellenor hadn’t prepared herself to answer. So instead of staining her already soiled soul with another inaccuracy, she defaulted to the truth. “As hard as it is for me to believe, I’m about to take a trip, a journey to somewhere I’ve never been before. Quite honestly, I’m a little bit afraid. I’ve left everything meaningful behind, and all I can do is hope that I’ll be all right. It’s happening so suddenly that I’ve not yet had time to sit and cry about it. I’m sure I’ll get to that. But until then, I just want to stay warm.”

Rickert seemed satisfied by this. He might have still been curious about the need for a heavy cover, as summer temperatures were such that you could sleep comfortably at night with only a single cotton sheet, but he was savvy enough to keep his mouth shut. Something wasn’t right with these two; they tried to hide it, but it was there, like an animal growling just beyond the limit of your campfire light.

“Where are the two of you headed from here?” Magnild wondered.

“East, I think.”

“Away from the violence, then.”

“I hope so.” For some reason, she doubted that were true.

****

Alec walked toward the setting sun, carrying a bartered quilt under one arm and a sack of food under the other.

By dusk they’d made their way back to where Hildegard, their lady-in-waiting, rested patiently in the low pasture grass. Alec admired her as they approached. Her blunt nose was upswept, as if seeking the sky. She was painted in an alternating three-color scheme of gray, green, and rusty brown. Her struts and wheel covers were a pale, unblemished blue. If not for the black crosses outlined in white, she would have been beautiful. But it was that cross that would permit Alec to fly freely in German skies. It was his passport to an unmolested landing on the outskirts of Metz.

Or so he hoped.

When he’d originally departed the aerodrome in the Avro, which was clearly marked with British cockades, he’d intended to fly at maximum altitude to avoid all conflict and set down at night a good distance from Metz. Then he’d conceal the plane in the brush and head into the city on foot, counting on luck. Now, thanks to Hildegard, he could soar with impunity.

He carefully settled his load in the plane’s shadow and stretched. Then he walked around the wings and inspected her. Everything was pristine. A Hebel flare gun was clipped within reach of the observer’s seat, along with multicolored flares for signaling ground forces and artillery crews. A hooded compass was mounted into the lower right wing, visible from the cockpit. All the wires were tight. He finished his circuit, his admiration deepening for the Rumpler. “With bellies full of good German meat,” he said, “we shall settle down and watch the stars appear. Sounds grand, eh?”

Ellenor had slung off the burlap bag of supplies they’d given her and was rubbing her neck. “We were fortunate to have found the right people.”

“Fortune had nothing to do with it, old girl. Haven’t you heard? God is on the side of the Allies.”

“I’m not much of a churchgoer, but I think God is on the side of not killing each other.”

“The way I see it”—he plopped down on the ground and grabbed the canteen—“the Germans and Italians think they’ve got God in their trenches, and the French think they’re the chosen ones—”

“And the British?”

“Well, we’re just here for the Cognac.” He tipped the canteen at her, eliciting a smile. “My point is that God can’t be on everyone’s side, because someone has to be good and someone else has to be evil. We’ve just not yet sorted out which one is which. It’s troubling, really.”

“You don’t seem particularly troubled.”

“I am a flyer. My stick and my flask comfort me, and I shall not want.”

“Are all airmen so flippant? Bombers will soon be on their way to demolish part of the city that we’re visiting tomorrow, and you’re making light of God and talking about drinking.”

“It’s either that or go mad.” He wiped his mouth on his sleeve. “Do you know that one-third of all British pilots who’ve died since 1914 have been killed while training? It’s true. They never saw the enemy at all. Their crates broke apart. Or they landed poorly. Or they veered the bloody thing into a walnut tree. Every time I go up, I cheat the devil by coming down safely again. Jesting about it all is the way to avoid the asylum.” A thought occurred to him, and he leaned toward her. “Do you want to hear a rhyme?”

“A rhyme?”

He didn’t wait for an invitation: “The flyer he lay bleeding and in minutes he’d be dead. We listened to his fading words and this is what he said: ‘Take the cylinder out of my kidney and the connecting rod out of my brain. From my arse remove the crankshaft and assemble the bloody damn engine again!’”

Ellenor laughed, which pleased Alec, and he considered rolling out a second, equally ribald verse, when she said, “How will you get all three of us to France if there are only two seats in this plane?”

Alec bit his lip. So much for harmless banter. He’d been turning the conundrum over in his mind during the walk back from Rickert’s cottage. Three people, two seats. No other way across the border. Germany’s entire western edge was a fishnet of razor wire, shell holes, sniper zones, and marshes floating with bodies. Every square mile of ground along the Hindenburg Line was either watched by machine-gun nests or already pounded into broken rock. The water was polluted with chemical runoff from nerve agents and leaking corpses. The forests were blackened stumps. The opposite border led to Russia. That left only the north, where the North Sea might provide a willing ship to England, but Metz was over three hundred miles from the shore.

“I knew there wasn’t a way,” Ellenor said, reading his thoughts.

“Bugger that. There’s always a way.”

“Is that a military motto?”

“It’s my motto, goddammit.” He screwed the cap onto the canteen and got to his feet. The sun melted into the horizon; stars opened their eyes. “Tomorrow morning we’ll climb into Hildegard here. You’ll wrap yourself in your new blanket. We’ll get to Metz and find Sarah. Then the three of us, together, we’ll figure this out.”

“And if we don’t?”

“Then we’ll leave the city, wait for the bombs to fall, and then reassess the situation. Perhaps Sarah will know of some safe place to go. Perhaps she has friends who can help. I don’t know. I haven’t received a letter from her in…in a long time.” That was the worst part, not knowing if his twin and best friend was getting along all right when all the rest of the world was crumbling. “But we’ll figure it out.”

That seemed to satisfy her. Then again, she was an accomplished actress, as evidenced by her performance for Rickert and Magnild, so odds were that she was hiding a whole horse cart full of fear, anger, and regret. Alec was not the first man to be vexed by a woman’s unspoken thoughts.

“We leave at dawn?” she asked after a while.

“At first light, yes. Thanks to our new friends, we’ll have a fine breakfast.”

“Where are we sleeping tonight?”

“Mother Earth, I suppose.” He’d make a pillow of his flight jacket. He wondered about finding petrol to refuel in Metz. “It’s a warm night. Sleeping under a sky free of artillery bursts will be a welcome change.”

“The last time I slept outside was in New Mexico.”

“Where’s that?”

“Just around the corner.”

“I thought as much. Nice place?”

“If you like deserts and no government telling you what to do.”

“Sounds splendid. I’ll holiday there the first chance I get.”

“Alec?”

He could barely see her in the dark. “Hmmm?”

“Would you sit beside me?”

He hung there for a moment, then two, unsure of himself in a way he hadn’t been since spiraling downward in the Avro, anticipating the impact. Her request was simple. He had asked her to tug down on a propeller, and now—twelve hours later—she was asking him to take a seat next to her.

Silently he went to her in the dark and sat down, cross-legged. Ellenor’s knees were near her chest, her arms wrapped around them. Alec could chat endlessly in a mess hall full of men, and he could sing with natural musical ability whenever he was asked to accompany the piano player in a pub on Rue Whatever-The-Hell while carousing in Paris. But now he searched around for words, perhaps something to make her laugh again, and he found only a vacancy where all the proper apologies and proverbs should have been.

They shared that space without speaking, the plane with its guns and bombs only a few feet behind them, biding its time. If Alec expected Ellenor to criticize his lack of a plan or to quietly question what tomorrow would bring, she surprised him by letting the sky darken and the starlight form patterns overhead. The answers might be up there somewhere, so together they stared upward, searching.