Wait for Me

Six

Lambing season was officially upon them. The next day, when Lorna got home from school, she headed over to the lambing shed in search of her father, but instead found the German prisoner. He was sitting on the straw with his back against the wall, watching as a ewe nudged her newborn lamb to its feet. From where Lorna stood by the door, she would never have known there was any damage to his face at all, and in that light and at that angle, she was reminded of her dream where she’d seen his face as it might have been. Handsome.

Remembering how upset he’d been the last time they’d talked, and suddenly embarrassed that he might catch her staring, Lorna backed out of the shed before he could even realize she was there.

Over the next few days, more than a dozen lambs were born with no danger to either lamb or ewe. But there were a couple that needed help with the birth, and both those ewes had pushed their lambs away, which meant they’d need to be fed by hand.

Mrs. Mack told Lorna that Paul had barely left the lambing shed each day. She was determined not to appear over-interested in him, but Lorna went to the lambing shed to offer help anyway. But Paul refused, saying he was fine. His manner was curt and efficient. Though Lorna knew she had said the wrong thing to him, she didn’t feel she needed to give an actual apology. It wasn’t like his feelings should matter to her or anything.

It was a relief just to know that the flock was well cared for during the daytime. The nights, however, were taking their toll on Lorna’s father. Lorna hadn’t seen him look so tired since he had been juggling days working on the farm with regular night patrols with the East Lothian Home Guard. Thankfully, those duties had ended before Christmas when the Home Guard had been stood down, but still, Lorna hated seeing her dad looking so weary.

One evening after tea, he announced that he’d written to the camp commander at Gosford, and Paul had been given permission to stay overnight at the farm, at least during the lambing season. Hearing this news, Nellie widened her eyes at Lorna in the mirror as she applied another layer of bright red lipstick in preparation for her evening off down in the village.

“So now shall we start locking our bedroom doors then, duckie?” she asked. “But then again, perhaps not!”

She gave Lorna a sly wink and danced out of the door before Lorna could respond.

Not that she knew how to respond. Would it make any difference at all to her if Paul was on the farm overnight? No, of course not, no difference at all. None.

The following morning, Lorna helped her father bring the old canvas camp bed down from the attic. They put it, with a pile of sheets and blankets, into the hayloft above the barn, where Paul would be sleeping until lambing was over.

It then fell to Lorna to take Paul’s evening meals to him. That first night she found him sweeping the floor of one of the pens in the lambing shed with the big hard-bristled yard broom. He greeted Lorna politely, and she felt another pang of … not guilt exactly, but … well, she knew she ought to clear the air.

Lorna set the dishes down on the barrel by the door and watched Paul work. After a few seconds, he looked up.

“About what I said”—Lorna’s throat caught on the words and she had to cough to clear it—“when you first arrived …”

Paul didn’t reply, and she could read nothing in his face.

“I didn’t mean to … at least, I didn’t think …” Lorna couldn’t find the right path at all. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

“But you don’t want me here, me or the other Germans.”

“Well, no, I mean, yes, oh …”

Paul stood up straight and sighed.

“Fräulein Anderson, do you think that we like being here?”

It hadn’t occurred to Lorna that these men might be as angry about being in Scotland as the people they met there. He must have seen the confusion on her face, and he softened. “But thank you for”—Paul seemed to be searching for the right English—“your words.”

He went back to his sweeping.

Not sure what else to say or do, Lorna returned to the house. The conversation hadn’t solved anything, but she was glad she’d said something.

Later, when she went back out to pick up his dishes, she found Paul sitting on the straw in one of the pens with his back against the wall, feeding a lamb with a bottle. Another lamb was curled up asleep beside him.

As Lorna pulled the door closed quickly behind her so no light escaped, he looked up at her, and this time he smiled.

“Forgive me, I cannot stand up,” he said, lifting the lamb slightly as if to show he had his hands full. “But thank you for dinner. It was very delicious.”

“Tea,” Lorna corrected. “We have dinner at midday, in Scotland anyway, so we call this your tea.”

“I will try to remember that, thank you.”

As she cleared the plate, bowl, and empty milk bottle into her basket, Lorna became aware that Paul was still watching her.

“Sometimes,” he said, “you make me think of Lilli.”

Against her better judgment, Lorna asked, “Lilli?”

“My sister,” he replied. “She will become sixteen in May, and she is not shy to say what she thinks. Like you, Fräulein.”

Lorna wasn’t sure how to react. It unnerved her to be compared to someone he loved. But she was also intrigued that he too had left a little sister at home, as her brothers had.

So would it hurt just to ask one question?

“Is Lilli your only sister?” she asked.

Now his expression did change, she could see that even in spite of the burns. But did he look pleased that she had responded? Or relieved? She wasn’t sure.

“Yes, we are two,” he replied, “with our father and mother. Or we were. Before. Now it is only Lilli and Mother and me.”

“So your father …?”

Paul looked down at his hands and picked at a dirty hangnail on his thumb, and Lorna wished she’d kept her mouth shut. He took a deep breath.

“My father was ein Uhrmacher, a clockmaker, before the war. In Dresden.” He suddenly looked up at Lorna. “You know of Dresden, Fräulein Anderson?”

Lorna shook her head no, but then, perhaps she had heard something about Dresden quite recently. But where? At school? No, she didn’t think so. Perhaps a news report on the BBC?

“Dresden is very beautiful, very old,” Paul continued. “The River Elbe goes through the city, and there are many churches and art galleries. And parks, many parks. But you know, life in Germany has been difficult for some time, even before the war began. We had little to eat, and what food my mother could find was expensive to buy. And there was much to fear. But before that, I can remember a time when life was better. When my life was good.”

He was smiling now. Lorna could see it in his eyes, as well as on his mouth. How could she ever have thought it was a sneer?

“When we were little children, our parents took us on a Sunday afternoon to the Zwinger museum sometimes. And after, if we were good, they took Lilli and me to a coffeehouse for chocolate cake. Lilli loves chocolate cake, but I know she has not had chocolate cake for a long time.”

Lorna rested her hip against the pen gate. His tone was wistful. It must have been a long time since he’d last talked to anyone about his home and his family, she realized.

“In the summer, we all went to ein Biergarten, a beer garden, to hear the music, and our parents drank big glasses of beer, with lots of … Schaum.”

Paul looked at Lorna questioningly and waved his fingers over the top of an imaginary beer glass held in his other hand.

“I am sorry, I do not know the word in English. The white on the top of the beer?” He mimed again. “Schaum?”

“Oh, um.” Lorna was caught off guard. “Do you mean froth? Or foam?”

“Froth?” Paul repeated. “Beer with much froth, yes.”

Lorna smiled back at him before she could stop herself.

“Of course, we were too young for beer with froth,” he continued, “so we ate Bratwurst instead.”

“Bratvoo …?” Lorna’s attempt to repeat the word made Paul laugh. It was the first time she had heard it, a deep rumble in his throat, and it was unnervingly infectious.

“Bratwurst,” Paul repeated. “German sausage. They are very delicious. I think you would like them as we did, Fräulein Anderson. But that was before the war, before my father went away.”

He was quiet now, the laughter gone.

“Your father went away?” Lorna prompted.

“Yes. In 1939, he was called to the Wehrmacht, to the army. He left us on Christmas Eve. In April, he was already dead.”

“Oh!” Lorna gasped. What could she say to that?

For a while, the silence was broken only by the soft suckling of the lamb in Paul’s arms.

“After, life was hard for my mother, so when I became sixteen, I left school to work. A friend of my father said I would learn to be a clockmaker too.”

“You were an apprentice?” offered Lorna.

“Apprentice?” Paul tried the word. “Is that a young man who learns when he works?”

Lorna nodded, and she could almost see Paul filing that new word into his mental dictionary as he had done earlier with froth.

“It was difficult work, very … small.” Paul squeezed his fingers together as if to demonstrate. “But I liked it. For two years I learned about clocks and about watches, how to carve faces, grind cogs, cut jewels, and how to mend other makers’ pieces. Sometimes I felt my father sitting at the table beside me, holding my hand as I worked.

“But then it was January of 1944, my eighteenth birthday, and I was taken away from my work and away from Dresden, and I too entered the army of the Third Reich.”

As Paul lapsed into a thoughtful silence, stroking the lamb’s neck with his thumb, Lorna realized that she wanted to hear more. She opened her mouth, only to close it again. And it felt strange, standing over him, so she sat down on a small wooden stool just inside the pen.

Paul looked up as she sat, and it seemed to bring him back from another place and time.

“You must miss your father,” Lorna said simply. “I can’t imagine what I would do if my dad …”

Paul was very still and Lorna regretted saying anything. But now that she had, she needed to keep going.

“And you must worry about your mother and sister too. I know I do. I mean I worry. About my brothers.”

“Yes,” he said quietly, “I miss my father and yes, I worry.”

There was silence again, and Lorna determined that she would not break it this time with another silly …

“And your mother?” He was studying her now. “Do you miss her?”

Lorna’s throat contracted. She hadn’t expected this. “My mother died a long time ago.”

“I know,” he replied. What had Mrs. Mack told him? “But still you can miss her?”

Lorna shrugged. She didn’t have any memories of her own, only those borrowed from the stories her brothers told about their mother. How much could she think about missing her mother when her brothers were so far away and in such danger?

“I miss my brothers more,” she replied.

Spoken on a breath held tight, her words were barely audible, even to herself.

Paul waited, but when she said no more, he prompted her again.

“And will you tell me of them? Have they been at the war for a long time?”

Could she tell him? Should she tell him? Wouldn’t this be “careless talk”? But suddenly her desire, her need, to talk about them became overwhelming and she wanted desperately to talk about John Jo and Sandy, and how much she missed them. And who else was there who would listen?

“John Jo’s the oldest of us, and has been away the longest,” Lorna said, and the release of her breath came as a relief. “He could hardly wait to be part of it. He volunteered for service on the morning he turned eighteen, in ’forty-one. Of course, he’d tried to sign up the summer before, lying about his age, but by chance, the sergeant at the recruitment office had been at school with Dad. Can you believe it? So he knew John Jo wasn’t old enough to join up. John Jo was so furious, we didn’t dare go near him for days after.”

Lorna found herself smiling at the memory, and Paul smiled too.

“John Jo was a ruffian.” She noticed Paul frowning at the word. “I mean, he was wild, always wrestling someone or something—a school friend, a dog, or Sandy. But he was fun—he is fun. When I was much littler, he would build forts in the woods for us to play in, or we’d run down to paddle in the sea.”

She pointed in that direction, and Paul nodded.

“John Jo loves this farm so much. He’s only ever wanted to be a farmer, like Dad, though he seems to be doing all right as a soldier. He writes sometimes, but he doesn’t say very much, except to complain about the food and the weather.”

“I think every soldier writes to home about those things. The food and the weather.”

Lorna noticed then that when Paul smiled, and the raw skin was pulled even tighter across the cheekbone, it lost its pink color, becoming almost as white as the skin on his other cheek. It made the darker pink of his full, undamaged lips even more noticeable.

Lorna suddenly realized she was staring, at his burns and at his lips, instead of listening to what Paul had been saying.

“Sorry?” she stammered.

“I ask you about your other brother? Is it Sandy?”

“That’s right. Alexander really. Mrs. Mack says he would have been called Alex, but he was Sandy soon as they saw that his hair was red like our mum’s. He got Mum’s blue eyes and freckles too.”

“Freckles?” Paul asked.

“Oh, em, the brown dots, across your nose and face.” Lorna prodded her face in explanation. “You know, freckles.”

Paul nodded in understanding.

“Freckles,” he repeated.

“Yes, Mum had freckles and blue eyes. And red hair. I don’t really remember her because I was only three when she died, from the influenza. We have photographs of her, but you can’t see that her hair was red.”

Strangely, Lorna found it easy to talk about her mother, like this, in the abstraction of someone else’s memory.

“But no red hair or freckles for you?” Paul asked.

“No, not for me, or for John Jo either. We are both true Andersons, like my dad—dark eyes, dark hair and dark souls, that’s what my grandpa used to say.”

“Dark souls?” Paul said, shaking his head doubtfully. “I do not think—”

“It’s true,” Lorna said, “Sandy’s quite the opposite of John Jo and me. He’s incredibly clever, and also kind and sweet. We’re just selfish and bad-tempered. You just wait till you meet my brothers, then you’ll see I’m right.”

Something in Paul’s expression made Lorna think about the words she’d just uttered. Wait until you meet them … Why would Paul ever meet them? John Jo and Sandy might not be back until the war was over, by which time the prisoners would be gone from Gosford. And then it struck her, how would either of her brothers feel if they found her cozily chatting with an enemy soldier like this? She knew exactly how they’d feel, and she knew what they’d do about it too.

Lorna suddenly felt panicked, as if there were army boots outside the door, and jumped to her feet. What had she been thinking, trusting this stranger, this enemy, with her precious memories?

“Sorry, I need to get back to the house,” she said, grabbing Paul’s dishes and dashing for the door.

Just as she pulled the door closed behind her, she heard Paul sigh and she hesitated. It was such a sad sound, from a boy far from home. They’d only been talking, but she’d been rude to him yet again. He didn’t deserve that, but how could she make it right now?

“Good night,” she said, trying to make her voice sound more friendly.

Just before she clicked the door into place, he replied.

“Gute Nacht, Fräulein. Schlafen Sie gut!”

Seven

Lorna stood at the scullery sink on Wednesday morning, washing the breakfast dishes and stacking them to drain in the wooden rack. As she worked, she gazed out the window. One of the cats sat on the wall, haughtily overseeing the activity of some sparrows pecking around nearby. Lorna was not on the lookout for the truck arriving, now that Paul was sleeping in the barn, but she was looking out all the same. Only to check that Paul was all right, of course, and that he didn’t need any more blankets.

She was almost finished with her dishes when the side door of the barn opened. Paul came out looking tired and rumpled, yawning and stretching out his arms and his back, as if he had only just woken up. Perhaps he had. He’d been up most of every other night this week with the ewes, so he’d probably had very little sleep.

Lorna watched as he walked to the water pump over the horse trough and stripped his shirt over his head without unbuttoning it. He hung it on a lantern bracket on the wall, then lifted off his undershirt and hung that up too. Bending over, he pumped the handle up and down, muscles straining.

As the water flowed from the wide spout, Paul thrust his head and shoulders under the stream. Lorna knew for certain that the water must be icy, for the temperature outside was barely above freezing. Sure enough, as Paul stood upright again, his skin glistening in the soft morning light, a shiver ran through him.

Physically Paul had changed so much since he’d arrived a month ago, so skinny and gray-faced. Now his face had lost its skeletal look, the sharp edge of his jawline had softened, and his cheeks, even under the tight scarring, had become plump and full. His chest and shoulder muscles had filled out and were now rounded and smooth. His stomach was flat and strong, no longer concave with hunger.

Lorna had only seen a man with muscles as well defined as that once before, on a school trip to the National Gallery in Edinburgh, but it had been on the carved body of a marble statue, a Greek god with curly hair, playing a lute and wearing nothing but a large and serendipitously placed leaf. She and Iris had giggled for hours about his bare bottom and strapping thighs.

They had been much younger then, and Lorna was certainly not giggling now. She was barely even breathing.

Even his skin looked healthy and pink, almost rosy in reaction to the icy water. What might he look like once the summer sun had tanned his skin?

Summer.

Would this Greek god still be here by summer, washing at the pump in the warm sun? Or would the war be over by then and her brothers home?

Paul shook his head back and forth, sending water drops flying. His hair was growing out and was now sticking up in wet spikes.

He looked like Caddy when she’d been swimming in the Peffer Burn.

Almost as if Lorna had called her name, Caddy appeared at a run around the corner of the barn, her claws skidding on the wet cobbles. She bounded up to Paul and jumped to put her front paws onto the side of the water trough, attempting to get closer to him. Paul pulled on the handle again and a stream of water belched from the pump onto the dog’s head. Caddy jumped back and then shook herself, just as Paul had done, sending water all over Paul. He laughed, and Caddy yelped in excitement, jumping up at him, and he rubbed vigorously at the wet patches in her fur.

Paul picked up a stick from under the trough. As he threw it, Lorna noticed there was another scar, this one under his left arm and around the side of his rib cage. Like the scars on his face, it was an angry pink against the white of his skin, but it didn’t look like a burn. This one was a sharp gash, perhaps two inches wide, a deep groove, as if the flat of a knife had been dragged across a pat of butter.

Lorna was awoken from her daydream of Paul as a Greek god by the reality of his desperate scars. What pain must this boy have endured?

Just then, Nellie clumped down the stairs and into the kitchen. Lorna grabbed an already-clean plate from the draining rack and plunged it into the warm soapy water again.

“What you doing that for?” Nellie asked, sitting down at the kitchen table. “Isn’t that Mrs. Mack’s job?”

Nellie pulled heavy socks over her petite feet and up to her knees, first one pair and then another on top. She tied them with a cord over the hem of her breeches and folded them down again into a cuff.

“Just helping out,” Lorna choked, glad that her back was to Nellie. “Heading off to school right now.”

Lorna lifted her coat from the hook just as Mrs. Mack came bustling into the house. Before she closed the door, she glanced back out into the yard again.

“That young lad needs to put some more clothes on,” Mrs. Mack said as she removed the first of the many layers of scarves, coats, and cardigans in which she had wrapped herself for the walk from the village. “I just told him he’ll catch pneumonia bathing in that icy water. I feel like I’m catching a chill just looking at him!”

She looked up at Lorna. “Won’t you be late, dear?”

“Going now,” said Lorna, trying not to blush as she grabbed her bag and gave Mrs. Mack a quick hug. Her father banged his boots against the wall outside to loosen the mud and came through the door as Lorna made to leave.

“If it’s not one thing, it’s another,” he said, unbuckling the leather strap of his old watch and laying it across his palm.

He studied the watch for a moment, shook it, and held it to his ear.

“What’s wrong with Grandpa’s watch?” Lorna asked. Even though her father had worn the watch ever since his father had died, she still thought of it as her grandpa’s.

“After forty-odd years or more of keeping this farm on time, the damn thing has finally given up.”

Dad carefully hung the gold buckle on a cup hook hammered into the wood of the kitchen dresser, leaving it dangling.

“I’ll have to send it up to Christie’s in Edinburgh to see if they can get it going again. In the meantime, I’ll make do with my farmer’s instinct, and my grumbling belly, to know when it’s dinnertime.”

He winked at Lorna.

“You mean the same farmer’s instinct that can hear the sound of the pub opening at two o’clock every Saturday afternoon?” teased Lorna. “You and John Jo can hear the Gowff doors being unlocked all the way up here, can’t you, Dad?”

Lorna’s father laughed too, but then looked at the circlet of white skin contrasting with the deep tan of his wrist as if his watch was still there.

“And it’s the father’s instinct that knows that someone is going to be late for school again if she doesn’t get a move on.”