A Feather on the Water(5)

He waved the offer away. “You hold on to your money—you’re gonna need it. The pay’s not much to write home about, is it?”

“Well, thank you.” It was true. They were getting food and accommodations plus four dollars a week. But she hadn’t taken the job for the money.

He sat down, smiling at Martha. “Now,” he said, “I know a little about you—but what about this young lady?” He turned appraising eyes on Kitty. “Why did you join this outfit?”

“I could ask you the same question.” She looked defensive.

“Oh?” He grunted. “Well, I guess I was frustrated at being stuck across the pond. Too old to fight the Nazis. But not too ancient to help clear up the mess they’ve left behind.”

Kitty’s expression softened a little. “I’ve been working in a factory, sewing uniforms. I tried joining the Wrens, but they only wanted typists. They wouldn’t let women go to fight.”

“Well, you’ll be in the thick of it soon,” he said. “You won’t be fighting, but you’d better be ready for some grim sights.” He bit into a sandwich and swallowed it down. “Do you know where you’re headed?”

“The south.” Kitty looked at her plate. “Somewhere near Dachau.”

Martha frowned. This was news to her. She hadn’t picked it up when she’d pored over the map of Bavaria in Williamsburgh Library.

Their companion nodded at Kitty. “You know about that place?”

“Yes.” She peeled back a corner of bread, examining the pink, mottled slice of processed meat underneath.

Martha couldn’t see her face. But the girl’s discomfort radiated from her like the smell of the Spam in her sandwich. Kitty had thrown out the name of the German concentration camp like a baited hook. Martha had seen kids at the Henry Street Settlement do a similar thing: let out some morsel of insight into things they shouldn’t know about, to make you probe deeper, to make you dig up the story they wouldn’t tell you. She wondered what had happened to Kitty in those years of sewing uniforms and dodging bombs to make her want to name such a place.





CHAPTER 2


Cherbourg, France: Later the Same Day

The army tent was in the middle of a field, within sight of the sea. Delphine glanced at the sparkling water as she stood in line, waiting for her new clothes. Hard to believe it was only a year ago that these Normandy beaches were battlegrounds. It felt like a lifetime, so much had changed. A year ago, she had still allowed herself to hope, still believed that life could be normal again. But here she was, surrounded by strangers, in a part of France she had never visited before, her Paris apartment and its contents sold.

It was a kind of freedom, but not what she would ever have wished for. Thinking about the future made her tremble inside. She told herself she mustn’t think of it: must focus only on what was happening today, at this moment. But the faces of Claude and Philippe were never far away. She wondered what they would think of her going to Germany—the feared, hated land.

“Espèce de pisseuse!”

Heads turned at the shouted insult, delivered by a man ahead of her in line. The woman handing out the uniforms was glaring at him through narrowed eyes. He had called her a bedwetter. He was pulling at the buttons of a jacket that was clearly too tight for his ample frame. The woman’s reply was delivered in an icy American accent.

“How lucky you are, monsieur. You must have been eating foie gras while everyone else in France was subsisting on cabbage soup. I’m so sorry we don’t have anything in extra-large.”

He frowned and pursed his lips. Delphine suspected his English wasn’t good enough to get the sarcasm. He took off the jacket and flung it over his arm, muttering more curses under his breath as he walked away.

Soon it was Delphine’s turn. She had the opposite problem. Her waist was smaller now than it had been on her wedding day. The trousers and jacket—in two different shades of gray wool—looked as if they would drown her. Two white cotton shirts, a peaked cap, and a plain black tie were added to the pile, along with a worn-looking leather belt and two patches pierced with a threaded needle. Holding the bundle in outstretched arms to avoid stabbing herself, Delphine was directed to an improvised cubicle on one side of the tent.

She was glad there was no mirror. She could hardly stand to look at her reflection. The loss of weight had done her face no favors. The deep furrows in her forehead and dark circles under her eyes made her look like a ghost of the person she’d once been.

But you’re alive.

That was what she had to keep repeating. Even if she wished that she weren’t.

As she put on the clothes, her mind slipped back to the day, just a few weeks ago, when she’d been standing in another line. It was at the Lutetia—the vast Paris hotel on the Left Bank that had been commandeered as a resettlement center for returning prisoners of war. She’d gone there day after day, waiting for each new list of survivors to be posted. Desperate by the end of the first week, she’d pinned photographs of her husband and son on the wall, with a plea for information. Two days later a man had come up to her. He’d been in Dachau with Claude and Philippe. Claude had been his doctor. Despite being offered a transfer to a softer billet to sit out the war, her husband had refused to leave the fellow prisoners he was caring for. And Philippe . . .