A Feather on the Water(3)

Arnie’s face suddenly superimposed itself on the blur of green below. It occurred to her that he would have seen this same view, just over a year ago, when he went with the army to prepare for the D-Day landings. But he’d never made it to France. He’d gotten into trouble days after he arrived in England—arrested for wounding a man in a drunken fight—and had been shipped back to New York with a dishonorable discharge before the invasion of France had even begun.

Martha wondered what he would do when he realized that she was gone for good. She glanced at her watch, still on East Coast time. Probably he was asleep. Probably there would be an empty bottle on the bedside table. Would he have been smoking in bed? The number of times she’d taken a lit cigarette from his fingers when he was out cold . . . She took in a sharp breath. She mustn’t think of him. Mustn’t torture herself over what she’d tried—and failed—to change.

The plane started its descent. She caught a sudden glimpse of the dome of Saint Paul’s Cathedral, looking like an island in a sea of crumbling, bombed-out houses. The realization that London lay beneath her had hardly registered before the pilot veered away from the city, bringing them down to land in what looked like a farmer’s field.

When they juddered to a halt, the woman in the next seat blinked awake and bent to the floor, rummaging for something in her handbag. Martha saw her pull out a set of false teeth and pop them into her mouth. Perhaps that explained her reluctance to smile, Martha thought. But there was no time to find out. They were ushered off the plane and straight into a military truck.

Martha was the only one of the group small enough to fit into the front seat, between the driver and one of the UNRRA men. As the truck bounced along potholed country lanes, Martha tried unsuccessfully to stop her left knee from bumping against the right thigh of her fellow passenger. She turned to apologize, but before she could open her mouth, he asked her where she was from.

“Brooklyn.” She gave something near a smile. It felt awkward, being this close, even if he was old enough to be her father. “How about you?”

“New Jersey.” He braced himself against the dash as the truck lurched around a bend. “Know where you’re headed?” He had the brisk tone of a sergeant major.

“Not exactly. Someplace in the south of Germany: Bavaria.” She’d gone to the library to look it up, not sure if it was a town or a city. She’d sat staring at the map for a few minutes before she realized that it was a whole region, like an American state, with rivers and forests and mountains.

The man beside her nodded. “Pretty place—leastways it used to be. Went there in the twenties. Good skiing.” A shaft of sunlight caught the white stubble on his jaw. “Hope to make it there for a few days come winter.”

“Where will you be working?”

“Up north, near Hanover. The Belsen camp.”

She searched his face, wondering if she’d heard right. Images from newsreels flashed into her head. Harrowing scenes of skeletal figures, barely alive, clinging to barbed-wire fences. “Belsen? Wasn’t that . . .”

“It’s a Displaced Persons Center now,” he cut in. “Awful for them, but there’s no choice. Too many people with no place to go—and these camps lying empty. Just gotta make the best of it.”

Martha stared through the windshield, the trees and fields a blur of green. It was beyond awful. Like a sick joke. People punched senseless by war, forced to live in a place where thousands had been put to death. Please, God, don’t let me be going to a place like that. Even as the thought entered her mind, she realized how cowardly it sounded.

“Plenty of other places being used as well.” His voice was gentler now, as if he was trying to reassure her. “The army’s commandeered all kinds of joints—factories, Boy Scout camps—even a zoo up in Hamburg. Guess you’ll be . . .” He broke off, shading his eyes with his hand. “Ah! There’s the English Channel!”

She craned her neck to catch the glimmer of water on the horizon. The fields gave way to houses as the truck rattled downhill. Soon they were driving past yachts and fishing boats. Farther along the quayside, the bigger boats were anchored. She saw a man standing by a gangway holding up a sign with “UNRRA” handwritten in black letters.

The man beside her had the door open before the driver had cut the engine. He held it for her as they scrambled out. As they waited in line for their papers to be checked, Martha studied the people climbing the gangway. Only one was female. Martha was struck by how young she looked. Her glossy black hair, worn in a long braid, blew out behind her in the breeze. She was wearing bobby socks, and she took the steps two at a time, as if she couldn’t wait to get aboard. Could she be the daughter of one of the men boarding the boat? But the recruitment ad had said no dependents.

Half an hour later, Martha was up on deck. She covered her ears as the foghorn signaled their imminent departure, and gazed back toward the land they were leaving, at the town of Newhaven with its jumble of quaint houses, so very different from the skyscrapers and apartment blocks surrounding New York Harbor. She wished she’d had more time in England. Time to explore the countryside they’d sped through—and to see London. Maybe she’d have the chance to visit sometime in the future. The man in the truck had talked about traveling when he had time off, of going skiing in the mountains. But it was hard to square that idea with the images of Europe in the newsreels and the papers. Impossible to imagine taking any kind of vacation on a continent ravaged by war.