Grace sat by the fireplace after supper, trying to focus on her book, but it was a lost cause. Her mind kept skipping back to Rudi, recalling his delight with the book she’d given him, hearing again the word he’d used to describe her. Besonders. She’d never forget that. Norman sat in the armchair across from her, watching the fire. His fingers picked relentlessly at themselves, cleaning the long-gone dirt from his nails. Everything in the room was quiet except for the snapping of the fire and the soft pattering of rain falling outside, and the tranquillity was hypnotic. She sighed and flipped back to the beginning of the chapter, determined to follow the story this time.
“Does it make you a coward if you hide under a dead body?”
Grace nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of Norman’s voice. “What did you say?”
“Does it make you a coward if you hide under a dead body?” he repeated calmly.
She tried to make sense of what she’d heard, then realized with a slow, dawning horror that he wasn’t asking for an answer. His simple words had been spoken matter-of-factly, like he was wondering if it might rain tomorrow. But anyone could hear they veiled a complicated world of misery. Bracing herself, Grace sat back and willed herself to be strong. If he was brave enough to say it out loud, she must summon the courage to listen.
“Because I remember my friend Bob—Lieutenant Clarkson—I remember running behind him in the pouring rain.” Norman spoke softly, as if he were telling a bedtime story. He was staring at her, but she didn’t think he was seeing anything at all. At least nothing in the room. “And bullets were coming down around us like hail. The mud kept slipping under my feet, and we were trying to run uphill, but we kept stumbling, then getting back up. It was like we were stuck in place. All the time the Germans kept shooting.”
Grace didn’t move. She barely breathed.
“Don’t know how I didn’t get hit,” he continued, “but Bob did. He didn’t yell or anything—or maybe he did, but I couldn’t hear a thing. All those bullets kind of made me deaf. Then he fell backwards and knocked me down with him. I must have hit my head on something because I know I blacked out for a couple of seconds. When I woke up I couldn’t move. I thought I was drowning, then I realized it was just Bob on top of me. He was a big guy, and his pack was about seventy pounds, so I wasn’t going nowhere. The Germans were still bearing down on us—I was so scared I couldn’t tell you if that mud under us was ice or fire. I kept yelling, ‘Bob! Bob! Get the hell off me!’ ”
He closed his eyes. “But he never got off. Not until a German rolled him off.”
“Oh, Norman,” Grace whispered. “What did you do?”
He held his hands up as if to surrender, and they shook with effort. “Then, well, there I was, lying on the ground, staring up at the soldier. I had thought about playing dead, you know? But I didn’t because I knew he’d check with his bayonet, and I sure as hell didn’t want to die that way. So I just stared at him. He was about my age and I think he was just as confused as me, but, well, he was on the winning side. I’d been there before. I knew how easy it would have been for him to put that blade through me. But he didn’t. He kind of jerked his head to the side and said ‘Komm, komm, mein Freund.’ ”
Mein Freund. Rudi had called Tommy that, Grace recalled.
“ ‘Come, come, my friend.’ ” For the first time Norman really looked at her, really saw her there. He curled his fingers over the arms of his chair and leaned to one side. “Can you imagine him saying that? Like it was a game of tag or something. Maybe hide and seek.” He shook his head and lost his focus again. “I didn’t fight him at all. I gave up my gun and started walking in front of him, hands up. The firing had pretty much stopped by then, other than the occasional pop! pop! but then someone shot from behind, I guess, because this time I fell forward—stuck under the German’s body.” He let out a snort. “Craziest thing, landing under guys like that, twice in a row. Some might call that lucky, I guess. I’m . . . I’m still . . .”
He rubbed his eyes violently, pressing hard against them, and when he lowered his hands again his skin was blotched with red. “I landed in the muck,” he went on, “face to face with another dead guy. Looked right into his wide open, dead eyes. I couldn’t make out his uniform, didn’t know if he was a good guy or a bad guy, but he was surely dead. And so was the German on my back.”
One of the logs in the fireplace cracked, shooting bright orange sparks into the dark cavity of the chimney, but Grace barely noticed. She was in the mud with her brother, paralyzed with fear.
“And that, well . . .” He took a deep breath. “That’s where it got real confusing for me. I just lay there. I could feel the cold mud on my face, and after a bit the last of the man’s warmth seeped through both our uniforms. I could have gotten up. I wasn’t hurt or nothing. I wasn’t screaming. Not on the outside. But on the inside, sweet Jesus . . .” He swallowed, then whispered, “I couldn’t stop. My heart was in my head, and it was roaring at me to get the hell out, to go home. But I couldn’t move. I thought if I could hide under that dead German forever I’d be okay.
“And I kind of wonder if that’s when my heart decided to leave without me, because the rest of me just lay there, not even knowing if I was breathing. I stopped caring.” His gaze went to the fireplace again. “Someone came to get me at some point. It was one of us, but I don’t remember who. I don’t remember what they said; I was numb from the inside out. Took me days to feel anything again. And still I . . .”
He swallowed again. “I don’t know who the hell I am anymore, Gracie. Gail’s right. I’m not the same. So who the hell am I?”
Now she understood how he’d lost himself, and the agony of it tore her apart. She could see the vivid, awful truth, the open, dead eyes, and she wondered how he could ever escape the abyss. Was this what war was like? Did Harry and Eugene see the same unspeakable horrors? Had Rudi? She’d said she wanted to know, but now, oh, now she wished she’d never heard any of it. How could she not break into a million pieces for all of them?
“You’re you, Norman,” she said quietly. “You’re my dearest brother, my best friend, and the person I missed more than anything on earth.”
“I . . . I don’t know,” he whispered.
“Grace is right. You’re you.” Their mother had appeared in the doorway, their father at her side. From the compassion on their faces, they’d been listening.
Audrey’s voice was gentle but determined. “You’ve survived things that threatened to tear you apart, and you’ve got scars.” She paused, and Danny took her hand. “But no matter what happened, no matter what you did, you are loved.”
Her father cleared his throat. How difficult this must be for him, Grace thought. All her life he had battled his own torturous memories. Even two decades later he lost himself on occasion.
“Son, I know what it’s like when the memories and nightmares pull you under. Sometimes you can’t fight them. They get so strong—” Danny’s voice caught, but he kept on. “Over time it’ll get easier. It will; I promise.”
Brushing tears from her cheeks, Grace got up and knelt by Norman’s side. His hand was cool despite the warmth of the room, so she pressed it between both of hers. “You’re a good brother and a good man, Norman. And we’re proud of you. And we will always, always love you.”
He stared at her, his eyes shining, and she wondered if she might lose her own mind while trying to save his. The source of his pain was invisible, but it was so impossibly real she could feel it with him. He sat close, but she knew he was still thousands of miles away. How could she keep him safe if he couldn’t get home?
Then Norman smiled. It wasn’t the smile of old, flashing with challenge, seeing humour in everything, but it was a beginning. Grace held in a sob, but it rose from her heart, swelled in her throat. At last, at last she could see him: her brave, stubborn brother, fighting his way back to them.