Transgression (12 page)

“Why are you doing this?” Lucille had followed her in.

“So no one will know who I am.”

“But why, sweetheart?” Maddy insisted.

“I’m going to Paris.”

Lucille rolled her eyes at the other women. “That must be quite the head wound,” she said.

Maddy handed the baby to Bridget and began to help Adele. She wrapped the cloth more tightly and secured it with safety pins.

“There’s no chance that Manfred is in Paris.” Bridget was looking red-eyed and very cross. “He’s either with the regiment or he’s dead.”

“No,” Adele replied blithely.

“I think we should all stay here a littler longer, Adele,” Maddy said, “but it’s true, you know. Soon we’ll all have to do something. I can’t keep the baby hidden up here forever.”

“They’ll kill us!” Bridget cried out.

Lucille was looking exasperated. “The longer we wait, the better it will be. I thought we’d all agreed to this. We said we’d at least wait until our hair grew out.”

Adele went back to the front room and began to cut off another strip. The women followed her and watched in silence. She began to wrap her left arm in a make-shift sling. Maddy relented and helped her tie it around her neck.

“Stop helping her,” Lucille said.

Maddy shrugged. “She’s going to go.”

“Are you going?” Lucille asked Adele.

“Yes.”

“Why don’t you wait until your hair grows out? Then you won’t have to wear those stupid bandages.”

“I can’t.”

“All right then…Jesus!”

Lucille stomped off into her bedroom. A few moments later she came back with a raincoat. She thrust it at Adele. “Take it.”

“Thank you,” Adele said.

“You’ve gone crazy. You know that, don’t you? You’re off your head.” Lucille went in to the kitchen and began to rummage through the cupboards, making a great deal of noise.

“I’ll tie this again,” Maddy offered, undoing the sling.

Adele pulled on the raincoat, not caring that it was at least two sizes too big, just wanting to breathe fresh air, just wanting to leave. She was weeks late. Poor Manfred, waiting all this time. Weeks and weeks.

Maddy stuffed a pair of extra socks into a pocket of the raincoat. Adele added her own extra pair of underwear and a sweater she’d bought using Lucille’s brother as a go-between. Bridget wrapped the paisley bandanna around her bandaged head.

“It will look more natural,” Bridget said.

Lucille came out of the kitchen with some bread and a piece of cheese wrapped in a bit of newspaper. Her eyes were shiny.

Adele kissed her cheek. “After I find Manfred, and when it’s safe, I’ll write.”

“Sure, okay,” Lucille said, and whispered in her ear, “You’re sick, Adele. You’ve become sick.”

“No,” Adele said.

The women hugged her and Adele hugged each one back. They knew she was taking the last bit of money she had left from her job, the last bit of money any of them had.

Adele went out the door and down the stairs. She couldn’t remember having climbed them the last time because she didn’t want to remember the last time. She remembered instead climbing them with Manfred after the dance, holding up his weight, glancing at his sweet ravished face.

Adele pushed open the outside door and walked down the street. By the time she’d reached the first corner, she was limping.

A
dele decided she’d follow the main railway line out of the city. That way she wouldn’t be seen by anyone but tramps and drifters. A crew of workmen was repairing the tracks. Adele circled around them. Soon there were bomb craters everywhere and shattered boxcars and wild tangles of rusting steel. Everything towered over her. The water in the craters looked dangerously deep. It was impossible to pick a clear way through.

When she saw a sandy path leading up a steep railway embankment, she struggled up it and found herself at the foot of a narrow street. The back gardens were strung with lines of laundry. She was still far from the outskirts, in a district of factories and workers’ row houses. Adele limped along, hot now under Lucille’s over-sized raincoat. Children began to appear at the doors. Two dogs ran toward her to investigate.

A woman with wild-looking hair, bushy and grey, asked her who she was looking for. A massive crater that must have obliterated at least two homes gaped behind her.

“I’m trying to find the road to Paris.”

“It’s a long walk from here.”

“I’m fine.” Adele smiled bravely, limping along. Some of the older children fell in step with her.

“When you reach Lucerne Boulevard, turn right,” the woman called. “The Paris road is two miles from there. Ask someone to give you a ride.”

“I will.”

An older girl pulled at Adele’s sleeve. “What happened to you?”

“A bomb,” Adele replied.

She found Lucerne Boulevard and limped the two miles to the Paris road. She was still inside the city. No one spit at her. No one called her names. Men doffed their caps. Women smiled sympathetically. Adele smiled back at everyone but she didn’t know how she should feel.

Ahead of her, a large green army truck was sitting beside the road that led from Rouen to Paris. She could see the legs of a soldier sticking out from under the motor. Another soldier was sitting high up in the cab, the door open, eating something out of a can.

“Hello, Mademoiselle,” he called out in very bad French as Adele limped by.

Though it was September, the day was as hot as the middle of summer. Sweat was running under her bandages and under the raincoat. She walked up to the truck.

The soldier’s pale blue eyes lit up.

“Hello,” Adele said.

“Do you speak the English?” he asked in his broken French. His face was lean, his eyes small. He had red hair.

“No,” Adele said, trying to recall her school’s conversational English class. “Thank you very much,” she added in English.

The soldier smiled. “You’re speaking English now.”

The man under the truck scrambled out, oil gleaming on his face and hands. He wiped his face on his sleeve and grinned. He looked younger than the soldier in the cab. “Hello,” he said.

“Hello,” Adele replied.

“She’s real friendly,” the redhead said.

Adele saw the men exchange glances. “Canadian?” she asked.

The man in the cab laughed. “Hell no, honey. I’m from Philadelphia. This potato-head here’s from Idaho. The United States of America. Americans. You’ve heard of us, haven’t you?”

Adele could see a line of sweat trickling down his face.

“Americans, yes.” Adele smiled what she hoped was a winning smile.

“Jesus,” the young one murmured, scratching his thatch of blond hair with an oily hand. “She’s half all right, isn’t she?”

The soldier in the cab put his can of food aside and stepped down on to the road. “What happened to you? Did you hurt yourself?” Everything was in English now, aided by sign language. He patted his forehead and bent his left arm like it was in a sling.

“Yes.” Adele smiled again. “Paris?”

“Paris?” The older soldier looked down the road as if he expected to see it. “You want to go to Paris?”

“Paris. Yes.” Adele turned to the younger one. He was just standing there grinning stupidly at her.

“Hell, you’re in luck then,” the older one said. He picked up Adele’s free hand and led her toward the back of the truck. “That’s where we’re going. We’re going to Paris.”

The younger one followed behind. “I don’t know, Kelly, we’re not allowed. We’ll get skinned alive.”

The older soldier turned back with a broad and friendly smile. “Don’t use my name and shut your trap.” He squeezed Adele’s hand. “Let’s go to Paris.”

Adele looked into the soldier’s face, into his eyes, she tried to read his mind, his soul. The soldier reached up and yanked on a steel lever. The tailgate crashed down.

“Sorry,” he said. He gestured toward the opening under the canvas top and eased himself up on to the gate.

“We’re going to get skinned alive,” the younger soldier repeated.

The older one ignored him. “Get my coat out of the cab,” he said.

The redheaded soldier reached down for Adele. She put her good arm around his neck and felt herself being lifted up with almost no effort at all. He set her down carefully inside the truck so as not to hurt her bad leg. This gesture reassured her. The truck was full of stacked wooden crates.

“Chow. Rations,” he said, gesturing toward his mouth, “You know…eat?”

Adele nodded, though she wasn’t exactly sure what he was talking about. It was even hotter under the canvas than on the road; everything was bathed in a bright yellow glow.

The man began to shove the crates around, hurrying to make a narrow alleyway. He cleared out a little room at the front, just behind the cab. “Snug as a bug in a rug,” he said.

The other soldier loomed up behind carrying an army coat and looking concerned. “What if some brass stops us? Jesus, I don’t know. We’re late as it is.”

The redhead took the coat, spread it down on the bed of the truck and smoothed it out. He motioned for Adele to sit down. The coat reminded her of Manfred’s coat. She smiled and shook her head.

“We’ll be in Paris in no time,” the soldier said.

The road to Paris wasn’t there. Once upon a time it had been gently rolling and paved, graced with avenues of trees and quaint stone bridges. Adele had travelled it several times before with her father and René in their shiny blue touring car.

Looking out the back of the truck, all she could see was a muddy trail receding behind her like a gash in the earth’s crust, and a line of flayed trees. Bomb craters were scattered everywhere, so were abandoned tanks and upside-down trucks and the blasted remnants of artillery pieces. Rough plank bridges spanned gullies and streams.

The truck wound its way through the debris, gears grinding against each other, creaking and bouncing and shuddering. Adele held on to the crates and swayed about in the narrow passageway. Eventually she sat down on the soldier’s coat. That was worse-every bump lifted her up and smacked her down again. She squeezed through the crates to the side of the truck and hung on, swaying there and looking out a tear in the canvas.

The villages along the road were unrecognizable. In some places only a single wall remained standing for the length of the main street. In others, blackened shells of gutted buildings seemed to crowd forward, towering over the truck. Groups of ragged children tried to keep up, running alongside and holding out their hands for candy or food. Some of the rubble was still smouldering. The stench in the air made Adele’s eyes stream.

On the edge of one village, the truck creaked to a stop and the engine died. Adele could see the younger soldier climb down from the cab holding on to what looked like an oily watering can. He disappeared from sight.
She could hear the scrape of metal, some cursing or what sounded like cursing, more bangs on metal, a crash. The soldier got back into the cab, the engine turned over and everything began to vibrate again.

Adele made her way back to the little room the redheaded soldier had made. She felt half-roasted in the bright yellow light. She took off her raincoat and laid it down over the army coat. Her dress was sticking to her skin. She curled up on the coats, closed her eyes and tried to get used to rocking back and forth. Her arm was slick with sweat, and she could feel sweat trickling down her neck. The road seemed smoother, though, and the truck seemed to be moving faster.

She tried to imagine what Manfred would look like when he first saw her walking down St. Augustine Street. Would he be angry that she’d taken so long? No, not Manfred. His eyes would go red with emotion like they always did. He’d smile his smile, his arms would hold her so tightly she could almost feel them.

“What happened, Adele? What happened to you?”

She couldn’t form a reply. She couldn’t imagine one. It was beyond being late. It was beyond the public beating in the square. It was beyond anything she knew.

She was flying over Rouen. She could see the park. The river. Everything shimmered below her as if she were flying over a sea and looking down at the ground through water. The air began to turn misty. It began to fill with snow. She lost the horizon.

Adele woke up.

The truck had stopped again. The redheaded soldier was standing in the passageway. Before Adele could lift her head, before she could say a word, he was on top of her.

Adele kicked and tried to crawl away. She could feel his hand digging between her legs. She screamed. He battered her head against the side of a crate. She twisted away and bit his face.

“Jesus Christ Almighty!” he cried out. Adele could taste blood, it was streaming out of his cheek. His hand flew up to stem it. Adele scrambled away, forgetting her bad leg, her wounded arm, and crawled down the passageway.

She could hear him scrabbling after her. She could feel his hand grip her ankle.

“Let her go or I’ll brain you, Kelly, I swear to God I will!”

Adele looked up to see the blond soldier straddling the tailgate and swinging an oily wrench in the air.

“She fucking bit me!” the redheaded soldier screamed.

Adele rolled over the gate and landed hard on the road. She got up and began to run, running back toward Rouen, running until she couldn’t run any more, until she couldn’t breathe.

J
ack stumbled into the river, regained his balance and gazed up at the cliff face. It towered above him, mud-brown and foreboding. In years gone by and perhaps as recently as yesterday’s storm, sections along the topmost edge had given way, sending trees cascading down toward the water. Some of them had hung up halfway to the river, jammed into small ravines, suspended in tangled, dead heaps.

The water swirled around Jack’s knees, tugged at his legs. He stood there motionless, waiting until his breathing calmed down, until his heart stopped racing.

This was a good place to fish when the river was lower and calmer, at least that’s what Jack had been told. Bass and pike. Use a minnow and a bobber.

Jack wasn’t much of a fisherman, never had the time for it, and his father hadn’t been one, either. Just a hard-rock miner. Just a drinker. A fierce and dangerous man in his cups, a tirelessly sarcastic one when he was sober.

Jack waded to the edge of the cliff and put his hand on a scale of caked mud the size of a dinner plate. He tried to get a foothold, managed it, and hauled himself out of the water. This was what he and his son had done over twenty years before. Or at least, had attempted to do.

He’d taken Kyle fishing because Ruth had complained that he didn’t take enough interest in his son, that they never did anything together. Jack had ignored her for some time, but one day he saw a man and a small boy fishing along the river and it woke up something painful inside himself.
He’d asked Dickson Smiley, who was still working with the police force at the time and who was supposed to be a good fisherman, where a likely spot might be.

“For what?”

“For fishing.”

Dickson looked a little surprised. “What kind?”

“Any kind.”

“Well,” Dickson said, looking as much amused now as surprised-just the thought of Jack Cullen fishing was funny, “if you’re interested in bass or pike, Jack, you could try the Devil’s Elbow.”

Jack knew the spot, a sharp bend in the river a mile or so upstream from the town, but he thought it was more a swimming hole than a place to fish.

“Both,” Dickson assured him.

Early the next Saturday morning Jack borrowed two poles from Dickson, who’d rigged them up and even supplied Jack with a pail of minnows, and he and Kyle struck out for the river.

Kyle hadn’t seemed that thrilled when Jack had first mentioned going fishing, and now he was lagging behind as Jack strode along beside the railway tracks. It was the shortest way to get to the Devil’s Elbow, hike along the tracks and then take a left turn. A path, worn smooth by countless kids, young lovers and tramps, wound through thick scrub willows to the base of a hill and around both sides to the river’s edge. In the summer, at normal water levels, there was a sandbar at the centre of the cliff, a good place to get a suntan and go swimming or, apparently, to fish.

Kyle was fifty yards behind by the time Jack reached the opening to the path, though the boy was only carrying a fishing pole. Jack stood there waiting, an incoherent and unreasonable rage boiling up inside him. Kyle didn’t want to go fishing, he didn’t want to go anywhere with his father-he couldn’t have made it more obvious.

“Step on it!” Jack barked back down the tracks.

Kyle looked a little startled, shaken out of some day-dream.

Jack didn’t want to be there either. He felt ridiculous walking along with a slopping pail of water in one hand and a fishing pole in the other. There was something phony about it, as if he were pretending to be someone he wasn’t.

Jack hurried down the path and into the scrub willows, finally waiting at the base of the hill where the path split left and right so that Kyle could see which way he turned. Birds flitted about in the thickets. The sun was lifting over the hill and the morning was turning hot. No sign of Kyle. “Jesus Christ.”

After a while Jack retraced his steps along the path. He heard a thrashing in the bush. Kyle had got his pole stuck in some branches, the line wound hopelessly around, the bobber bobbing ridiculously a few feet over his head.

“What the hell happened?”

“I don’t know.” Kyle was looking at the pole as if he’d never seen one before.

Jack grabbed the heavy braided line and whipped and yanked but it wouldn’t come free so he took it in both his huge hands and snapped it. Kyle was watching closely now. Jack did the same thing to the line at the bobber and hook.

“I’ll tie it back on when we get to the river,” Jack said and tried a smile. Kyle didn’t say anything. Jack turned and walked away.

As they stood beside the river, Jack could see that he’d taken the wrong path. The sandbar, smooth as the back of a fish, breached the river about fifty feet away but they were standing downstream. There was no chance of floating a minnow past it and Jack had never cast a bait in his life. Dickson had said to fish off the sandbar.

Jack peered into the water. The river was always a thick muddy colour. “We could take our boots off and wade. It’s not deep here.”

Kyle looked dubious.

“We have to fish off that sandbar.”

“We could fish here,” Kyle replied.

“What’s the matter, don’t you want to get your feet wet?”

Kyle looked up the cliff face to the over-hanging clumps of trees that looked poised to crash down.

“Kids go swimming off that sandbar all the time,” Jack said, meaning, What the hell’s wrong with you?

Kyle looked listless, his shoulders slumped forward, his chest hollow.

“Stand up straight.”

Kyle remained Kyle-he didn’t even seem to notice what Jack had just said.

“Look,” Jack tried to soften his voice a little, “if you want to keep your feet dry we can just climb over there.”

The muddy wall of the cliff was cracked and baked and it wasn’t exactly straight up and down. There seemed plenty of ledges and footholds. Kyle continued to stare up at the tangle of trees.

“Give me your pole,” Jack said, “I’ll show you.”

Kyle handed over the pole more quickly than he’d needed to, Jack thought, the fastest thing he’d done all day. With the minnow pail in one hand and the two poles in the other, Jack began to traverse the face of the cliff. He was about ten feet above the water and for such a big man was picking his way along quite easily. “Watch what I’m doing and step where I step,” he called back to Kyle.

The mud began to break away from under the edge of his heavy police boots. He could feel himself beginning to slide a little. He put his uphill hand on the cliff for balance, the one holding the poles. He crouched there, stuck, unable to proceed forward or retreat backwards. A trickle of water from a spring meandered past his face. The cakes of mud gleamed wetly in front of him.

He decided to try one more step. He took it and began to slide down toward the water. He let go of the bucket but kept hold of the poles. A ribbon of blue clay appeared, grooved out by his boots, moving fast past his startled face. Jack landed in the river, falling hard among some submerged stones. When he stood up the water was hardly covering his boot tops.

Like something out of the funny papers, Jack thought to himself, like a goddamn cartoon.

Dickson’s pail was upside down. One of his poles had snapped in two. Jack looked toward Kyle. He hadn’t moved an inch. He was pretending not to have noticed. He was standing there like a frozen deer looking off across the river.

Jack had felt a blind and wild rage coming on; something painful had come loose in his chest. He’d picked up Dickson’s pail, waded back, climbed up the bank and walked past Kyle without a word or a look. The fishing trip was over.

Twenty years ago. Jack could still remember every detail of that day, the flitting birds, the look of the sun in the trees, the silver threads of water trickling down the cliff. Kyle’s ten-year-old face. He’d only been ten years old.

Jack lowered his head, closed his eyes, until Kyle’s face disappeared.

He took another cautious step across the mud flakes. He dug his heel in, chipping the mud away. Underneath Jack could see the blue clay again.

The cliff was a wall of blue clay.