Come from Away Page 16

  He made it so easy. So she did.

  “All is good now,” he said, satisfied. “We can go.”

  Nerves skittered along Grace’s neck as she stepped down the path with Rudi beside her. Was he as nervous as she was?

  Harry and Eugene stood when they approached, questions written all over their faces.

  “Ah, here he is,” their father said, rising as well. “Boys, this is the man I’ve been talking about. Rudi Weiss, these are my three sons: Harry, Eugene, and Norman. I’m sure Grace has talked your ear off about them.”

  Grace knew Rudi wouldn’t understand that her father was joking, and she was tempted to translate, but Rudi stepped forwards and held out his hand.

  “Is very good meeting you,” he said, clasping Eugene’s hand.

  “Same,” Eugene said, watching him closely.

  “I hear you’re good with a hammer.” Harry was always the gentler of the two, and Grace was so thankful for that.

  Rudi relaxed a bit. “I like to work.”

  Norman followed the activity, but he did not offer a smile or a hand, so Rudi went to him and gave a small bow.

  “I am happy you are home, Norman. Grace is very happy.”

  The Norman she knew would be the first to greet someone; he was the charmer, the instigator. But not now. She practically heard the scream trapped within him.

  “Come and sit down,” her mother said. “Cocoa or tea?”

  “Thank you, Mrs. Baker. Tea, please.”

  “Rudi’s English has really improved since he first came here,” Audrey said, pouring for him.

  “He reads too,” Grace interjected. “A lot. He likes—”

  Her father eyed her.

  “Sorry. Rudi, tell them yourself.”

  Haltingly, Rudi admitted he’d been reluctant to learn English from his mother as a boy. “I am always busy with my father and other boys.” He told them how she’d won him over by introducing English newspapers, comics, even books to his studies. Ever since then he’d pushed himself to learn, using whatever he could find. “I do not understand most, but I learn a little every day.”

  Eugene’s expression hadn’t softened throughout Rudi’s explanation. “I hear you like Canada.”

  “Very much.”

  “Except you were going to attack us.”

  Grace’s heart sank. She had hoped this would go smoothly, but perhaps that had been too much to expect.

  “You’ve never had to do that, Eugene?” her father asked, surprising her. “Attack on command? I’d say we’ve all had to do that at one point or another, wouldn’t you?”

  “True enough,” Eugene allowed. “I apologize.”

  Rudi shook his head. “I am not need apologize. I understand. I am enemy.” He looked at Danny, then at Grace. “But I am lucky. Your family is good to me.”

  “You understand we are curious,” Harry said.

  “Curious?”

  “They have a lot of questions,” Grace explained.

  “Of course.”

  The same questions were asked, the same answers given, and Grace watched helplessly as Rudi was accused and judged. Norman hadn’t moved a muscle but seemed to be following the conversation. If only he could speak.

  When Eugene had finished the interrogation, he faced their father. “What’s your plan, Dad? He’s a likable fellow, and I imagine he’s been a help around here—but you can’t keep him a secret forever.”

  “He sticks out like a sore thumb,” Harry agreed, stating the obvious.

  Everyone stared at Rudi.

  “It doesn’t matter what you think,” Grace heard herself say. “We’re not going to turn Rudi in. He’s our friend now, whether you like it or not.”

  Eugene held up his hands. “Hey, little sister, I’m not trying to upset the apple cart. It’s just the truth.”

  Her father opened his mouth to say something, but her mother spoke first. “Rudi is welcome to stay with us as long as he wants.” She gave them the sweet but resolute smile they’d all seen so many times as children, and everyone understood this was simply how it was going to be. “We’ll figure it out along the way. We always have.”

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  March had come in like a lion, and Grace bowed her head to plow through the miserable wet wind. Against her chest she clutched a heavy sack. The items within were not the sort of things she’d normally think to buy, but Rudi was clearly excited about surprising her father with the generator, and she loved being in on his secret. She’d paid for everything herself.

  As far as secrets were concerned, keeping Rudi from Linda was becoming increasingly difficult. Now that she was engaged to Harry, Linda phoned Grace frequently to discuss wedding plans and gush about how excited she was. Grace longed to reciprocate, to tell her friend how happy she was lately, how she felt truly attracted to a man for the first time, but that was out of the question.

  Meanwhile, news about the war worsened by the day. Since Rudi had come along, Grace had begun to track its progress more diligently, but what she read in the papers seemed more fiction than fact. Under their leader’s command, the Nazis, she learned, were rounding up Jewish families and sending thousands of them to camps of some kind, where they were forced to work. Some of these poor, innocent people were even being killed. Everyone knew Hitler was evil, but this kind of thing made no sense. Could no one put a stop to it?

  She’d asked Rudi about it. At first he was reluctant to discuss it, but she told him what she’d said to Harry at Christmas: she just wanted to understand.

  “It is war, Grace,” he said. “No one is doing good thing in war. You know this.”

  “But what about these camps, Rudi? What are they? Is it true?”

  As soon as she asked she knew it was true.

  “I am not seeing these camps, but I know them. Yes. Is true.”

  “They’re killing people because they’re Jewish?” Her voice rose with outrage. “But why? Why would—”

  “Because he is madman,” Rudi said calmly.

  “Can’t someone stop him?”

  “Is not only him anymore. Nazi machine is unerbittlich. It is not stopping.” He swallowed hard, and she wondered what he was thinking, what he might be remembering. “If some person tries to stop this, they go away.”

  “Go away?”

  “Killed. Or they take to camps.” His grief was unmistakable now. “No one ever sees those people again.”

  Alarmed by his pain, she didn’t ask him again. And he didn’t say anything more about it. But the long-ago Christmas conversation with the family came back to her, and she remembered how she couldn’t bear to imagine the enemy as regular men, just the same as her brothers. She’d been right. It hurt too much to think that way.

  Closer to home, everyone was on edge. The St. Lawrence was teeming with wolf packs, groups of German U-boats hunting along the coastline. The radio reported that U-boats had sunk almost two dozen Allied merchant ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence in just four days, killing hundreds of merchant sailors and destroying 150,000 tonnes of war supplies. Her only consolation was that she knew her brothers had not been involved in the fighting. They had both completed recent journeys and were in port somewhere relatively safe.

  It was impossible for Grace not to associate Rudi with U-boats. The very idea that he’d both lived and worked on one of those lethal machines made her feel sick. She could picture him, tall and efficient, following orders without argument, firing torpedoes . . . and yet she was starting to think she knew him well enough now to see another side to that view. Rudi wasn’t a machine. He wasn’t a killer, either. How might it have been for him, existing in a metal tube with no assignment but to seek out and destroy? What did that do to a man? He’d helped her understand Norman’s pain, and by doing so he’d shed light on his own. Whenever her mind went to the U-boats she thought how Rudi’s heart—his Herz—must constantly ache with guilt.

  At least he was here now. Like Norman, he was safe, and he was surrounded by people who
cared about him. He was right where he was supposed to be.

  Not wanting her family to notice the parcel she carried, Grace took the path past the house, went directly to the barn, and slipped inside. Rudi helped her out of her coat, then unpacked the items one by one. The look on his face was like that of a child at Christmas.

  “This is everything,” he said. “Thank you.”

  “I got you something else as well. To help with your English.” She pulled a small, blank book and a pencil from her pocket. “Keep this with you and write down new words.”

  His happiness was contagious. “This is wunderbar! Very, very good.”

  “I’m glad you like it.”

  “It is excellent.” He bit his lip. “It is right way to say this?”

  “How about, ‘Thanks, Grace. It’s perfect.’ ”

  He repeated what she’d said, then added, “So are you. Perfect.”

  She squatted beside him, pretending to inspect the wire brush. “And you are a flatterer.”

  “What is ‘flatterer’?”

  “A man who says nice things to girls.”

  He pulled out his book and she watched him sound out flatterer, then print the German equivalent. Feeling a bit silly, she made her first attempt at his language.

  “Schmeichler?”

  “You speak good German, Grace.” He tapped the book with his pencil. “Tell me, this flatterer. Saying nice things is bad to do in Canada?”

  “Of course not, but a lot of the time men say them just for fun. Words don’t mean anything unless they’re the truth.”

  He watched her with a sort of bemusement. “These words are truth. You not believe I say truth?”

  “Nobody is perfect,” she replied, rising.

  “Maybe not perfect,” he allowed. “But you are . . . besonders.”

  “Beyzonders?”

  “Not like anyone.”

  He stole her heart when he said things like that. For someone with limited English, he sure knew how to use the words he did know.

  “I see Tommy brought you the gasoline,” she said, resisting the temptation to return the compliment.

  He didn’t look away from her. He was so intense. Sometimes it made her slightly uncomfortable. Most of the time it thrilled her.

  “Wait,” he said, and he opened his book. “ ‘Besonders’ is?”

  “I guess you mean special.”

  He held out the book. “Please, you can write?”

  His eyes were on the tip of the pencil as she wrote what he asked. “That ‘c’ sounds like ‘sh,’ ” she told him. “ ‘Special.’ ”

  His lips formed the word. “Yes. You are special.”

  She slipped past him and stopped by the generator. “Show me what you’re doing.”

  Following her lead, he showed how he’d removed the carburetor and explained that he would soak the pieces in a bath of gasoline for a couple of days, then use the brush to clean it entirely.

  “This is going to make my father real happy.” She peered out the window. The rain wasn’t letting up, but she was out of time. Every time she was with Rudi she wanted to stay longer. “I’d better go to supper. I’m working tomorrow, but maybe I’ll see you after?”

  He helped her into her coat, then leaned forwards and spoke softly into her ear. “I hope so, Grace. I am not going anywhere.”

  TWENTY-NINE

  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.