Chapter 32: And I Saw the Holy City

POPERINGHE, FLANDERS, BELGIUM

April 1918

Day was descending toward evening when Laura left Whiting and went out to Mary’s motorcycle. She ought to get on, kick the thing into gear, and return to Couthove for the night. But she hesitated. Mary would be cross if she was late. But she had a last errand in view. Not for herself, or for Freddie. For Pim.

Laura left the motorcycle and the main square and stopped about midway down Priesterstraat, at a house with a long queue of men leading up to it. A lamp burned scarlet beside the door. Heads turned among the men in the queue, but Laura didn’t look at them.

Madame Maertens was the best-known businesswoman in the sector, and her business was prostitution, fueled by the twin influxes of Edwardian virgins in uniform and Belgian women without recourse. She had grown into affluence, over the course of the war. Madame wouldn’t know anything about a dead soldier named Wilfred Iven. Battlefield deaths, in her world, weren’t interesting. But she traded in rumors and scandals. Her girls collected them diligently in their little booths. Madame might know the stories of a man nicknamed the fiddler. She might have heard stories of a hotel, and a person called Faland. She might know enough to ease Pim’s mind. Madame’s grown son was at the door, keeping order. Laura said, “I’m here to see her, Gerald.”

Gerald knew Laura. She’d dosed half the girls for syphilis, and delivered more than one infant for them. “Heard you’d gone home. Some were saying you’d died.”

“Not yet,” said Laura.

Gerald nodded and Laura slipped inside.

Madame’s office had been a pantry before the war. She was muttering over her books when Laura knocked. Her eyes flew up. “Mademoiselle Iven!” she cried, with surprised pleasure. “We heard you’d lost your leg.”

“A bit the worse for wear, is all,” said Laura.

“Sit down then, shut the door.” She fixed Laura with a very shrewd eye. “What brought you here? Something particular, I don’t doubt.”

Niceties didn’t interest Madame. Laura said, “I am looking for a man called the fiddler.”

Something hardened behind her eyes. “Ah,” she said. “Everyone is asking, aren’t they? Never mind that men come back like ghosts. They’re all still looking.”

“Why?” said Laura.

Madame shrugged expressively. “Who knows? They say he takes their souls and pays in wine.” Laura couldn’t tell if she was joking. “But,” Madame added, “the ones who have been out long enough, they’ve lost their souls anyway. So who knows?”

Superstition was unlike Madame. Impatient, Laura said, “But who is he? My friend met him, and she’s desperate to meet him again. She has uncovered—strange stories about this man. For her sake, I want to know. Where does he come from? What is he doing here?”

Madame crossed herself. “No one knows. If I were you, I’d—”

Then she hesitated, eyes on Laura’s face. “You’re in earnest, petite?”

“If I was trying to joke, I am certain I could come up with something better.”

Madame watched her a moment more. Then she bent to her desk, rummaged. Emerged with, of all things, a copy of The Wipers Times. The joke paper printed by soldiers on their crumbling press. “This is all the answer I have,” she said. Madame folded the issue back, pointed to a page.

The Times was the printed equivalent of whistling past a graveyard, and every issue was a frantic mishmash of pitch-black humor. There were fake letters to the editor. There were fake answers to correspondents. But Madame had pointed at a page of false advertisements. DANCING!!!! one of them said.

Prof. Porky’s weekly classes

The professor will give a pas seul exposition of the

TRENCH TANGO

ADMISSION: THE USUAL PRICES WILL BE CHARGED INCLUDING WAR TAX

It was absurd. Laura found herself smiling. But beside the first advertisement was another. MUSIC!!!!!!! it said.

M. FALAND

The CELEBRATED VIOLINIST, Purveyor of LIQUID COURAGE, ILLUSIONIST

COME FOR THE INIMITABLE BACCHANALIAN REVEL

STAY FOR THE SELF-KNOWLEDGE, SOUL-RENDING TUNES

COULD BE ANYWHERE

SEEK AND YE SHALL FIND

MONEY NOT ACCEPTED

Laura looked from the text to Madame. It was just the kind of satire the Times trafficked in, just the kind of joke that would make the men laugh and make the staff officers puff up in indignation. Carefully, she said, “I don’t understand.”

Madame said, “You asked who he was. I think that’s his answer, or all the answer you’ll get.”

“What can he possibly gain by—” Laura began.

Madame said sharply, “I am a woman of business, and so my answer is a businesswoman’s: He is getting a good return for his trouble, jokes and all. If you want a better answer, perhaps you should ask a priest.”

Laura hardly knew what to reply. Madame’s big-boned face was utterly serious. Laura thought of herself as rational. But the mirror over his bar was in her mind, Pim’s face and peeling gilt, the dust of that morning’s awakening. Seek and ye shall find. Well, they had.

“I also think,” added Madame carefully, “that this is a good place and a good year for monsters. And that you should go back and tell your friend that if she values her life, she will forget this man.”

Laura found herself whispering, “And if she won’t?”

“Then I am sorry for her.”

---

· · ·It was dusk. Laura’s inquiries had left her with more questions than answers, a sense of bewilderment and a creeping dread. She tried to think what to do next. Speak to Young about his escaped German prisoner? Try to find Pim, warn her again off Faland? Find a way to get her sent home? But what right did Laura have to interfere? Pim wasn’t a child.

Laura turned her feet to where she’d left the motorcycle. The wind hurried, catching at her skirt and coat and the scarf over her hair. The light was strange, and the boarded-up houses had an aura of malevolence, empty windows glaring down. She stumbled over a piece of fallen masonry. The war had left its mark here too.

When she looked up again, a figure barred her way. She lurched backward, a choked-off sound surging in her throat. A familiar figure. Transposed from its place in her nightmares. Ten feet away, clear as daylight. Bloody housecoat, bloody eyes. The hand raised, a finger pointing in condemnation. “You’re not real,” Laura whispered. “You’re not real—stop. Stop!”

She was backing away, she found herself at a corner, and hurried down a different street, thinking of nothing now but of returning to the lights of the main square. But where was it? She’d walked the streets of Poperinghe a hundred times. But now she turned and turned again, found herself in a warren of turnings, of empty windows and shattered glass, with the main square nowhere in sight.

Then the figure was standing before her again, just the same, eyeless, pointing, and Laura spun again, a knifing pain in her lungs. She was almost running when the figure loomed a third time and Laura could bear it no more. She halted, cried out, “What do you want? I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to let you die.”

Did she think the dead figure would vanish, apology accepted? Did she think the dead figure was there at all? She pointed again, not at Laura but somewhere beyond. Laura turned her head, thought she saw furtive movement in the shadows just as she fell sprawling over another piece of lumber and struck her head a glancing blow.

When she got to her feet, head ringing, the figure was gone. There were voices in the street. The lights seemed brighter. A soldier turned the corner; there were ordinary passersby too. Belgians, staring. Then more soldiers turned into the street: military police. Their voices fell overloud on her ears: “He came this way. Who’s that?”

A familiar voice said, “I know her.”

Next moment, men were clustered round her and a pocket torch dazzled her eyes. A face half-seen, half-familiar hovered behind the light. “Why,” said the voice, “Miss Iven, are you all right? What are you doing here? Did you see him?”

“See whom?” said Laura, trying to collect herself.

“Oh,” said Young—for it was he, flushed and eager, his ears as big as ever—“the escaped German. They say he’s gone to ground in…But no, you don’t know. Sorry to distress you.” Young was being chivalrous and soothing. It came to Laura that he was rather a nice boy, certainly a sincere one. He kept talking, and she was grateful for the inconsequential, well-bred flow; it gave her time to settle her breathing: “Such a coincidence to see you here! Mrs. Shaw is coming to us this evening, as I’m sure you know. Should you like to see her? Perhaps you’d like a bite of supper yourself?”

Laura wouldn’t have turned him down even if she’d had the presence of mind to say anything at all; she wanted to see Pim. Young gave his men orders and offered Laura his arm. He was far better suited to escorting women than hunting fugitives; Laura read as much on his men’s wooden faces. They started off together and the last ten minutes began to feel very much a dream.

The whole main square was alive with men and lorries and lights and cafés with doors hospitably open to the softening spring air. Laura expected Young would be meeting Pim in a café. But he led her to Fifth Army headquarters instead.

It had been built into Poperinghe’s town hall: a sensible building repurposed for war. Telephone wires looped the outside in swags, and endless messengers, on motorcycles and bicycles and horseback, hurried to and fro.

“My uncle insisted on hosting dinner,” explained Young. “He was so impressed, you know, by Mrs. Shaw, her courage, you know.” Was he babbling? He must be properly in love, to sound so nervous. Then she thought, Is that love? He sounded so—apprehensive.

She said carefully, “Any success in your search for the German? He is in Pop, you believe?”

“I—” Young seemed distracted. “No, we haven’t caught him yet, no. But we heard—there was a report—we suspected he was here—it’s only a matter of time.” He sounded as if his mind was elsewhere. “I am so glad you are here, truly, Miss Iven, I think you will be a great comfort to your friend.”

Laura was puzzled. She knew of Pim’s distress, but wasn’t it strange that Pim would have confided in the hapless Young?

They went into HQ and up a flight of stairs and it turned out that dinner was not an intimate affair, at all; there were other officers present and a few volunteer nurses of better birth than Laura. Three of the nurses knew her; there were exclamations, a flurry of reminiscences. Laura tried not to look distracted. Pim was already seated, talking to Gage. Young’s eye went straight to her as they walked in; he looked at Pim as though she were a mermaid fished up from the deep.

Pim glanced at Laura. For a second she wondered whether Pim was displeased to see her. Her expression went strange. But then she smiled, got up, and hurried over, a hand outstretched. “Laura! I thought you went back to Couthove hours ago, my dear; I am so glad to see you.”

Gage was looking at Pim with an intent expression. Was he in love with her too? But she thought she detected some disquiet there as well. Laura didn’t understand. Young said, “Here’s a surprise for you, Mrs. Shaw. I found your friend coming up the street—such a coincidence—I knew you’d be glad to see her.”

“Indeed I am,” said Pim, smiling.

A glass of wine appeared and Laura sipped gratefully. It was a solid step above the one-franc variety sold in the estaminets.

“I had such a lovely day,” Pim was saying. “We went riding, and then the lieutenant showed me how to use a pistol— Oh, I was so frightened, but it was quite easy, really. And there’s other news—General Gage is going to pay Mary a high compliment.”

Laura wasn’t particularly interested in Gage’s compliment. Did you go try to find Faland’s hotel? Laura could not ask in company. Are you going to?

She couldn’t ask right then, so between sips Laura gathered that the compliment was a high one: Elizabeth, none other than the queen of Belgium, was hoping to visit a hospital, wearing a nurse’s uniform, accompanied by photographers. Pim had suggested Couthove. Probably, Laura thought cynically, because the fine atmospherics of a ward in a ruined ballroom made an appealing backdrop for photographs. Certainly there was nothing picturesque about the sheds and tents of nearby Mendinghem.

Gage was smiling. He was going to accompany the queen, if he could get away. He would be delighted. Enchanted. He proceeded to pay Pim, and Laura and Couthove, a dazzling run of well-phrased compliments. Why did he look so ill at ease?

Laura did not think the queen’s visit a fine idea. A royal visit would mean the routine of the hospital thrown into disarray. It meant scrubbing and laundry, and tucking men into sheets without a wrinkle and ordering them not to move, not to groan, and if possible, not to bleed or look ghastly or smell. “I am sure Mary will be delighted,” Laura said. She got her glass refilled. Mary would be delighted. She’d invite a pet newspaperman and use the whole event to winkle more donations out of people.

Pim touched Laura’s arm comfortingly, as though she understood.

Dinner was served. It wasn’t luxurious, but there was chicken, there was butter, there were eggs. Laura’s wine quivered with the impact of some distant explosion. She tried not to imagine what was happening further up, while they ate and drank and talked. Tension in Pim’s spine, in her face, in her hand on the glass. But still she charmed both Gage and Young, smiling, listening. The evening was warm; the long front window was open. There was a lull in the conversation. In the brief silence, Laura heard the sounds of men and raucous laughter on the street below.

The melody of a single violin filtered, lonely and insistent, through the night.

Laura almost spilled her wine; without hesitation, Pim pushed back her chair, right in the middle of one of Gage’s well-turned anecdotes. She hurried to the window, leaving him sputtering. Laura collected herself with vague excuses and hastened to follow.

There was no violinist out in the street, but there was a great number of men. More than usual? The music wound between them, a shining thread of sound.

Pim stood perfectly still.

The music shifted. A high terrible sound shot from the strings, and somewhere beyond the reach of the lights, Laura heard glass breaking. Beside her, Pim stood rigid.

A man sprinted across the square as a voice shouted “Halt!”There was another crash of glass. A crowd, shoving, had formed in the square. Laughing, breaking things. Laura thought she saw the shine of tears on one man’s face. Whistles, bellowing, came from those trying to reestablish order, but to no avail. The whole scene had dissolved into chaos. Laura couldn’t hear the violin anymore, but it didn’t matter, somehow the melody echoed still in the sounds of riot. As though the violin had breathed madness into their minds or perhaps simply reminded them that some men ate roast chicken while others died, that the burdens of the war were unequal, and always had been. Someone was trying to lead Laura and Pim away from the window.

And then Laura saw—or thought she saw—a head of ash-colored hair, thin shoulders in a civilian suit, caught in a gleam, then gone in the gloom.

Suddenly Pim was gone from her side, breaking free of the solicitous officers, running down the stairs. Laura was turning to follow, when she faltered. Outside, on the square, stood her eyeless ghost, face turned up, the scarlet pits fastened on Laura.

Laura swore. At herself, or her ghost, or at Pim, she didn’t know. Then she ran. Someone below was calling her name.

It was Young. Laura joined him at the bottom of the stairs. He said, “Miss Iven, you must stay here, I’ll go get her—you must calm yourself.”

Pim had gone outside, then. Laura turned toward the door. Young, behind her, protested, but Madame’s warning was clear in Laura’s mind. She pushed her way out into the chaos. Did Young follow? She didn’t see. Three steps and she knew she’d made a mistake, underestimated the crowd, overestimated her own strength. The mob was like a riptide now, its noise like water on rock. Somewhere in its clamor, still, she seemed to hear the echo of Faland’s music. Laura’s eyes struggled to adjust. Pools of light, violently bright, gave way to thick shadows. A man knocked her sideways, but she hardly felt the jar, her mind alight with adrenaline.

And then her mother’s bleeding ghost was right in front of her. She bit off a scream, afraid for her sanity. Or was she hoping for absolution? There was nothing, again, but that pointing finger. Following the line of it, Laura saw neither Pim nor Faland nor Freddie but a man, a stranger, crouching in a doorway, watching the madness with startlingly blue eyes.

Then her leg betrayed her. It folded, cramping, and Laura fell, and for a second she was pummeled under a hundred heedless boots, rolled in oily dust.

And then a shoulder was there, a body, creating space. An unfamiliar hand reached and seized her, yanked her, gasping, to her feet, hauled her back into the shallow shelter of a doorway. A voice said, “Are you all right?”

Her lip was split and bleeding. Her body was bruised everywhere. The light was behind her savior. “Thank you,” she said, panting, and then stilled. He had a big-boned face, stubbled with beard like sand, hair a shade darker, as though the sand had got wet. He was a big-framed man, wasted thin. His face was stoic, his expression watchful.

The sleeve of his coat was empty.

Kate’s words and Young’s jostled for room in her mind: A German spy, escaped. He brought news of your brother. He didn’t think that Freddie was dead. I believed him. I believed him.

He couldn’t possibly be here, brazenly walking the streets of Poperinghe, with half the British Army running mad through the street. And yet…Laura had not time to think of what that pointing finger had meant. He was saying “Better stay here, miss,” and turning to go. She caught his empty sleeve.

“Are you called Winter?”

Alarm filled the blue eyes. He wrenched free. She spoke hastily, “My name is Laura Iven. I am a nurse at Château Couthove.”

He stilled. His eyes fastened on hers.

She said, “I am looking for my brother.”

A stout detachment of military police was coming across the square, swinging clubs, shouting. Had they seen him? They might have. He’d gone out into their line of sight, into the crush, to save her life. Did she dare ask? Could she stop herself from asking? “Winter,” she said. “Did you know my brother?” And then, the dangerous question: “Is my brother alive?”

The military police were coming closer. He opened his mouth as though to speak, cut his eyes right, pulled himself free, and disappeared into the crowd.